The Leaders We Need, And What Makes Us Follow

by Michael MacCoby

  Leaders may sometimes need to engage unions as collaborators, as did Dr. David Lawrence, when he was CEO at Kaiser-Permanente, with the help of Pete DiCicco of the AFL-CIO. Lawrence also put a lot of effort into educating his board, and that can be crucial to support change.28 Dr. Stan Pappelbaum, a visionary CEO at Scripps in San Diego, was shot down by his board when he began to threaten the sweet deals enjoyed by some physicians, especially by one doctor the board chairman believed had saved his life. Boards have to recognize that change in healthcare organizations can provoke some nasty resistance, and if they want change, they must support a courageous visionary leader.

  Knowledge work organizations are not alike. They are social systems that differ according to their traditions and missions, and they select and socialize different values in their key actors. Even the best healthcare organizations like Mayo, IHC, and VUMC can’t just copy each other. But they can learn from each other, if they adapt learnings to their own cultures. This also holds true for businesses.

  Policy makers need to understand that solving the problems of healthcare delivery is not just a matter of different incentives, new technology, or government policy, but rather of transforming a craft mode of production to a knowledge mode in a way that incorporates the best craft values in collaborative learning organizations. This means that leaders should be selected not because they are distinguished experts, but because they understand the logic of business, quality, and interactive leadership and have the Personality Intelligence to select complementary partners and gain collaborators.

  Gap survey: The leadership that’s needed

  How important are each of the following elements to the success of your organization? How well are you achieving them?

  CHAPTER 8

  Leaders for Learning

  OUR PROSPERITY AND WELL-BEING depend on our ability to learn. We humans have to learn how to make a living, how to take care of ourselves, how to relate to others. Yes, we are born with embryonic personality traits and talents, but we must learn to make use of these gifts, to adapt them to a particular culture. And now that our culture is in a turmoil of transformation, the learning needed to succeed is more demanding then ever before.

  But while children from advantaged families are being shaped for success in the knowledge world, starting at home, children from disadvantaged families are not. Affluent children are developing the interactive social character that fits them for the knowledge workplace. From an early age, they know what’s at stake. They are pushed by their parents, teachers, and peers to compete, and they’re given the tools they need—books, computers, video games, cell phones, iPods. Disadvantaged children, especially African Americans and Latin American immigrants from the inner cities, are adapting to a different world, where success, such as it is, means dodging violence and gaining respect on the street. They may have dreams of making it big in sports or entertainment, but not in the knowledge workplace.

  Educators argue endlessly about the best way for children to learn. The intellectual descendants of Jean-Jacques Rousseau believe children should be encouraged to follow their own instincts, to make their own decisions about what they want to learn. Variations of this view include learning by doing rather than rote learning or memorization. Others argue for more discipline and rigorous testing for basic skills. But none of the educational theorists has come up with a persuasive theory that serves the needs of all children in our turbulent society, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.1

  However, in this chapter, we’ll see that some schools do prepare at-risk children for success in the knowledge workplace, not only through their curriculum, but even more because their tough-minded leadership and organization are shaping their students’ social character. This kind of leadership is not the same as that which works well with affluent kids. It could be considered transitional leadership, based on a clear understanding of the challenge of developing social character as well as intellect.

  In the past, schooling was less essential for success. The children of traditional farmers could learn most of what they needed to know from their parents. The children of the industrial-bureaucratic age could get by with basic reading, writing, arithmetic, and learning to follow orders. People could get a good job in a factory with little education, and the schooling required for clerical and professional jobs seems simple compared with what is now needed in the age of knowledge work. The kids in this age won’t succeed by copying their parents, and above all, they need to learn to keep learning.

  The challenge to our schools is not limited to low-income minority children. On the national policy level, urgent voices warn us that we’re falling behind China and India in producing the engineers and scientists needed for innovation and business success. As factory jobs migrate abroad and transactional service jobs—telephone operators, bank clerks, sales—are automated or replaced with Internet shopping, those higher-paying jobs that aren’t automated or outsourced usually go to people with college diplomas.2 Statistics show the wage gap between college and high school graduates is growing.3 But increasingly, with the ease of Internet communication, global companies can even place higher-paying technical jobs in other countries.

  However, there are good jobs that don’t require a college degree. These are craft jobs in construction, service, and solutions: electricians, plumbers, mechanics, and carpenters. These vocations can pay very well, and they are not likely to leave the country. Yet, the politicians and policy makers who promote college for everyone seldom mention these jobs and don’t encourage kids to aim for them. Why not?4 Probably because people look down on them compared with white-collar jobs. While teaching executives at Ford, I heard the owner of a large Dearborn dealership complain that when he advertised for a mechanic at a starting salary of $80,000 a year, he didn’t get enough applicants. But when he advertised for an office clerk at $40,000, there was a line of job seekers stretching around the block. Something is wrong with our values and educational alternatives when we don’t give kids the option of learning a vocation that will provide them interesting work and a good income and that is unlikely to be either automated or shipped offshore.

  There is no surefire education, even in science and technology, that prepares kids to succeed in a culture that calls for continual innovation in products, marketing, and organization. Consider that both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs dropped out of college because their thinking was ahead of what the professors were teaching. What Jobs got most out of his brief time at Reed College was the importance of product design. What Gates got from Harvard was an eventual partnership with his roommate Steve Ballmer, whose managerial skills complemented Gates’s strategic brilliance. Consider that while Sony was loaded with engineers and programmers, the company fell behind because these experts didn’t collaborate with each other. Howard Stringer, the first non-Japanese Sony CEO, who has an interactive marketing personality, sees himself as a bridge-builder, selecting and connecting the talent. It’s not at all clear how he learned that leadership skill. It’s not part of any school curriculum, but it does require both an interactive social character and high Personality Intelligence.5

  WHAT CAN SCHOOLS DO?

  The founding fathers recognized that an educated public is essential for a society that is both democratic and prosperous. And it follows that the members of the society need excellent education to prosper in this global economy. This means that without good schooling, they’ll have little or no chance of making it; instead, they’ll likely become a problem to society and a reproach to its promise of equal opportunity. But many kids are not being well educated, especially those from the inner cities. Because of this, a concerned policy industry has sprung up, producing theories and proposals about how to improve schools. Rather than trying to report on all the different views and arguments, as with health care, I’ll describe programs I’ve seen up close where kids from disadvantaged backgrounds are learning. These success stories, like those in health care as described in chapter 7, resu
lt from great leadership. It seems obvious to me that policy makers should avoid trying to legislate change before they understand what the most effective educational innovators are doing. Policy should support proven excellence.

  Before visiting these schools, let’s stop and reflect on how many of us have learned what we’ve needed to know to succeed in our work. Some of us got a head start at home. My mother was a schoolteacher who taught me to read before I entered kindergarten, so that learning at school came naturally for me. This may also be the case at schools like the Sudbury Valley School, where kids are free to choose what they want to learn.6 These kids feel liberated, and some who take pleasure in learning have gone on to college and the professions. But other alumni, including a professional skateboarder and a waiter, have not done so well.7 Why not? Could they have done better in a more structured school?

  Many inner city kids get taught as much or more by TV and on the street as they do in school. The discipline of reading and writing, memorizing facts and formulas, does not come easily for them as it did for many of us. And according to African American and Hispanic parents and students, schools often fail because the kids don’t respect teachers, many of whom are unable to keep order in the classroom.8 Possibly, we exaggerate the negatives. No more than 30 percent of African American children surveyed report serious levels of disruption and unrest in their schools. But this number is still much too large. And to succeed, these kids need more than passable, OK schooling. They need to be motivated to work hard, stretch themselves, and to enjoy learning and using what they learn.

  A number of business leaders and their foundations have taken up the challenge of transforming inner city public schools, mostly with limited success. Bill and Melinda Gates have spent $1 billion funding twenty-two public schools, but according to an interview in BusinessWeek, they view their experience so far as research and development to learn what works and what doesn’t, mostly what doesn’t.9

  THE EMOS AND KIPP

  Hundreds of millions have also been invested, mostly by idealistic business leaders, in educational management organizations (EMOs). These are charter schools, started in the 1990s, which have been licensed by public school systems. Some, like Adventure and Edison Schools, promised to give venture capitalists a big return, but didn’t. The most successful charter schools in terms of results have been the not-for-profits. As of January 2007, the top of the list are the forty-eight middle schools, two high schools, and two early childhood schools run by KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program), a foundation that trains school leaders to open up schools and practice the KIPP approach to education.10

  In 2005, I was asked by leaders of the KIPP Foundation to help them craft an effective national organization.11 Besides working with Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, KIPP’s founders, and Scott Hamilton and Richard Greene, who were then running the Foundation, I visited KIPP schools in Houston; New York; Oakland, California; and Washington, D.C.

  At each of these schools I was inspired by the students’ and teachers’ energy and spirit. I sat in classes where the kids were fully focused on their work, moving back and forth between independent and collaborative tasks. I read well-written essays and research reports pinned up on the walls. At KIPP Academy in the Bronx, I watched and heard a middle school orchestra practicing. At KIPP Bridge College Preparatory in Oakland, I saw the sets the kids had painted for the musical The Wiz, and I was given a CD of their spirited performance. At KIPP Academy Middle School in Houston, one of the first KIPP schools (opened in 1994), there are pictures on the wall of the original class. Over 80 percent have gone on to college.

  On the walls of all these schools is the simple but powerful KIPP motto: “Work hard, be nice.” Other mottos I saw were: “Team always beats individual,” “Never give up!” and “I believe that success comes from doing the best I can do, not from winning.”

  How does KIPP succeed where other schools fail? Both leadership and organization make the difference. The founders who developed the KIPP approach joined the Teach for America Program founded by another exceptional innovator, Wendy Kopp, right after they graduated from college. Feinberg was then twenty-four years old and had graduated from Penn with a major in international relations; Levin was twenty-three and from Yale, where he had majored in the history of American education. Sent to teach middle school in Houston, Feinberg and Levin discovered they got results, loved teaching, and believed they could build schools where inner city kids would learn and succeed.

  One night in 1993, while listening to U2’s Achtung Baby on repeat play, they brainstormed until dawn and came up with a vision for a fifth grade. They started with the middle school because that’s where they’d been teaching. It’s also the place where so many at-risk kids entering puberty see themselves as failures and become turned off to learning.

  Levin is more the educational philosopher, while Feinberg pushes ahead to create new schools. Feinberg says Levin is like a quarterback deciding on strategy and he’s like a fullback, always charging ahead. Levin cites three factors essential to KIPP’s success. The first is “talented” leadership, based on selection of promising leaders with classroom experience to become principals—called school leaders—who then go through an extensive year of apprenticeship and five weeks of training, starting with a two-week workshop at Stanford University (I’ll come back to the qualities of leadership needed at KIPP schools later in the chapter). This is unlike most public schools, where principals are not academic leaders but rather administrators who have had little leadership training. A pillar of the KIPP edifice is the school leader’s “power to lead”; power in both senses—authority and ability.

  The second factor is more time used well, which allows for more time in classes and lets teachers finish their work before leaving; this also means there is more time for sports, games, music, salsa, and Shakespeare, subjects you don’t need to motivate kids to learn and that spark creative fires. Keep in mind that charter schools like KIPP are public schools. Any child who applies will be admitted first-come, first-served. However, parents and students must sign a Commitment to Excellence form (see “Sample Commitment to Excellence Form” at the end of this chapter) that includes arriving at KIPP by 7:25 a.m. Monday to Friday, staying until 5:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. on Fridays), coming to school some Saturdays from 9:15 a.m. to 1:05 p.m. for sports and the arts, and attending a month of summer school.

  Parents all promise to check their children’s homework and encourage them to call the teacher if there’s a problem. A KIPP principle is: ask for help if you need it. Teachers agree to be available. Students also make a commitment to ask questions if they don’t understand something. There’s no excuse for not completing homework or not seeking help when it’s needed. Furthermore, the kids commit to respecting others. In other words, “Work hard, be nice” is not just a motto; it’s a behavioral norm that shapes a productive personality.

  At KIPP, there are also consequences for not meeting commitments. Each week, the KIPPsters, as Feinberg and Levin call them, are given a few dollars’ worth of KIPP money, or scrip, which they can use to buy KIPP materials, notebooks, shirts, etc. By saving up the scrip, they “pay” for excursions at the end of the year. If the kids fail to produce homework, they lose scrip. If they are disrespectful in class, they have to sit apart from the others and are not allowed to talk, but they still must do the work. There’s also a dress code—not a uniform, but basic chinos and neat white or navy skirts, and blouses, some with KIPP logos, so there is no costly competition for clothes.

  Levin’s third factor is quality of instruction, but principals and teachers have the freedom to innovate on curriculum as long as they get results. Levin claims these three elements are what get KIPP the parental and community support.

  I think there’s more to it than three factors. Levin is a natural systems thinker. When asked which of his factors was most important, he correctly said they were interrelated. I see KIPP as a self-organizing learning organization bringing kids into t
he knowledge workplace and developing the interactive social character they need to succeed. The school leader, teachers, students, and parents accept rules like being on time and doing homework and internalize values like working hard and being nice. Furthermore, incentives like scrip and school excursions reinforce operating principles like availability of help and no shortcuts, no excuses.

  Because of these shared values and KIPP practices, there are few other rules, and teachers can be trusted to innovate curriculum as long as they get results. However, each school has the same organizational culture—no innovation is allowed there—and as we’ll see, these schools need an authoritative leadership to make certain that this culture of social character development is sustained.

  The typical public school is more a bureaucracy and less a learning organization for Interactives in the knowledge age. Most public school principals are administrators, not leaders, and they run schools by enforcing rules—not modeling values or enforcing operating principles. Levin is right that it’s a mistake to focus on any single element of the KIPP social system, because the definition of a system is that each of its parts can’t be evaluated by itself, but only according to how well it furthers the system’s purpose. And in KIPP’s case, as in all public schools, the explicit purpose of the system is the measurable learning success of the students. It’s my view that the implicit purpose is character development.