Page 9 - Mini-Module 1

4. Start to be ruthless about idle physical resources.
Some time on Monday, and at other times during the week, walk
around the entire school – its buildings and grounds. Look at every
room, building, physical amenity, and piece of equipment, and ask
whether it is being given both maximum and maximal usage. Are you
getting 100%, 24-hour-a-day value from each amenity? It is doubtful
whether any part of your school could pass this kind of scrutiny. If so,
then you need to ask why there are ‘learning’ dollars tied up
pointlessly, bricks-and-mortar money that could better be spent on
improving learning. A mode now being used in knowledge
organizations is to rent, rather than to own, to have the lesser
configure the premises to suit your purposes, and to build strategic
alliances so that physical premises are shared and, wherever possible,
given multiple usage. And if your school owns the premises, how could
it earn revenue from the physical plant? Who else needs access to it, or
needs that kind of facility? Then rent it out, and use the new revenue
wisely, strategically, and futuristically!

5. Develop their own educational (and personal) mission state-
ment.
During the week, as ideas strike you, jot down notes to yourself, which
could be called ‘Desiderata’ – ‘If I had a choice, this is what I would like
to do with this piece of equipment, with this building, with this teacher,
with the school, and with my career’. Trivial and grandiose, mundane
or idealistic, big-picture-item or intensely practical, write them all down
on scraps of paper or on a sheet of butcher’s paper. By week’s end,
spend an hour sorting the scraps into compatible heaps, combining and
polishing; and you will come up with your new mission statement for
the next five years. (You might invite each experienced member of staff
to do the same, and then combine them all into a school statement.
This is one of the suggestions Senge (1990) makes to build a learning
organization.)

6. The Longevity Factor.
You might like to ponder the longevity factor of the knowledge society.
A chief executive on average holds the position for three- and-a-half
years; so what will you do if your short-term tenure if it is only that
long? Few organizations remain unchanged for more than ten years; so
what do you expect yours to look like ten years from now? Unchanged?
Unlikely! And most careers are subject to the ‘seven year itch’. After
seven years, you are ready for a new post, or a career change, for a
radical review or for a new charter (even if it is in the same job). In
seven years, your natural staff turnover will have substantially altered
the school anyway. Beware thinking that the eighth year will be
anything like now!

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