The Work of Schools is Determined by the Needs of Society

Ian Symmonds is a former admissions and marketing strategist for independent K-12 schools and universities who is now a strategy consultant for independent and international schools. I listened to his interview on the Moonshot podcast entitled, “What 1,600 Schools Can Teach Us About Strategic Readiness“. Symmonds explains that patterns and trends emerge from what works and does not work when your job is to come into a school for a short time for an analysis of their strategy and repeat that over and over again.

My big takeaway from the Symmonds is the quote from the Father of American Progressive Education, Francis Parker, when he said THE WORK OF SCHOOLS IS DETERMINED BY THE NEEDS OF SOCIETY. Schools need to look outward to change their programs while remaining anchored in their core values. School leaders and boards need to ask the question, “What problem do we solve better than anyone else?”

Symmonds developed a framework to classify schools based on how they see the future. Symmonds calls it the Strategy Continuum.

1. Adaptors – best state to be in; sustainable; mix tradition with innovation; slip to Preservationists when healthy
2. Preservationists – look internally, may miss storms brewing outside; (+) remind us if it is a crazy initiative
3. Innovative Disruptors – schools with limited resources need to make radical changes to survive; lots of casualties; wears people out; not sustainable; every school wants to be this, but well-resourced, waiting lists in every grade,
4. Fatalities – with fewer school-age children coming through the system, schools die

I was particularly interested in the advice he gives to new heads of school who need to assess where their school is on the continuum. “Trust your gut”, intuitive people often rise to leadership positions in schools. Heads new to the school need to pay attention closely and “write down anything odd and things that make you scratch your head.” Do this before you are in the job for 6 to 9 months, and you normalize it. If things seem odd, trust your gut before you lose it. Besides this, new heads can use the traditional 1:1 conversations with employees to get the context. Remember that “more is caught than taught” and behaviors say more than what people verbalize.

Heads also need to think deeply about the belief system that drives this culture. Why are certain attitudes prevalent and why do things persist in the culture? Maybe what some schools think is true about their school and culture is actually a myth because they have been doing it for such a long time. New heads need to act like consultants and try to understand the 3Cs, Culture (healthy or dysfunctional) Context (competitive market?) and Change (how much do they need to change). There are probably pockets of the continuum through a school.

Below are some other things I took away from the interview:

• International schools are under a lot of pressure these days. Finding and retaining strong teachers, political polarization, birth rate decline, tuition pressures, and what to do with Artificial Intelligence are some of the challenges we are facing.
• The strategist role is to help see the future and navigate towards it, not school improvement.
• The shiny object is the acquisition of the next head of school; the vision belongs to the school, not the new head; many schools moving to succession planning.
• Example of why no drive through in banks in Southern California – reason – land is too expensive for a drive-through
• The single most important element schools is effective, strategic governance with a great CEO