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September 2016

Leadership At A Turning Point

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Leadership at a Turning Point
By
Chris Hauge, School Facilities Engineer, Certified School Business Administrator

ASBO MD&DC Vice President

Writing this on a sweltering late July morning, a couple of symptoms of my "experience" (and age?) in our industry come to mind. Why is it that the longer we stay in this business, the shorter summers seem and the faster time flies by? Or to put it differently, does it not seem like a fact that the rate of change is endlessly accelerating? If there is one constant in our business, it is that Change is going to happen.

It seems like the Spring Conference and the end of the school year were a year ago and fading rapidly into the past. Summer school, feeding programs, school improvement planning, text book purchases and a milieu of other procurements, technology deployments, filling staffing openings, supporting Rec and Parks programming and a plethora of other activities make the days fly by. The start of the new school year is quite literally at our door step.
In my own world, facility turnaround/cleaning programs, facility repair and improvement projects, portable classroom placements, school security upgrades, athletic field maintenance, a replacement high school procurement and many other typical summer activities are rapidly drawing to a close. And we have not even talked about trying to take some very well earned time off (and the associated "vacation penalty" we pay when we come back!)!
In addition to the typical summer routine, I have been blessed to be able to experience a couple of unique events recently that have gone a long way to help keep the challenges and limitations of needs, expectations, and time in perspective. The first was attendance at ASBO International’s Eagle Institute for Leadership in Williamsburg and Yorktown, Virginia and the second was the ASBO Leadership Retreat.

The Eagle Institute

This world class learning event brought several dozen school business leaders together from across North America for three days to study the concept of identifying "turning points" and the opportunities and risks that they present. The course was presented in the historical context of the dilemma George Washington faced during the Revolution: Do we keep our rapidly depleting army concentrated around the superior main British forces encamped in New York indefinitely, or do we split our forces and take the chance to surround Lord Cornwallis and his army at Yorktown before he can be relieved by the British navy as the Marquis D’Lafayette, Washington’s surrogate son and mentee, anticipated?
Considerable danger was inherent in either option. Washington quietly knew that the Revolution would fail in a matter of months if the stalemate at New York continued. He also knew that deceiving the British in New York, moving his combined Colonial and French forces 450 miles in a hot summer to surround Yorktown and hoping that the French fleet would arrive to the Chesapeake from the Caribbean before the British relief forces could arrive by sea from New York was an almost inconceivable possibility. He also knew that the opportunity Cornwallis presented at Yorktown was our young nation’s last, greatest opportunity, or as historians refer to it, A Turning Point in History.
The major takeaway from this experience for me is that:
•    If Washington had not explored a risky opportunity and trusted that the many coordinating factors would come together, our country would not exist.
The parallel for us in our business is the same:
•    We don’t have an expanding resource base,
•    Our challenges and responsibilities seem to be increasing, and,
•    Time is not on our side.

Just like George Washington, the Marquis D’Lafayette, and Alexander Hamilton at Yorktown, in 2016 we are surrounded by options that present no small amount of risk, but also, maybe, groundbreaking opportunity. Can you identify a "turning point" in your world, now, before it becomes a history lesson in failed Leadership?

ASBO Leadership Retreat
At the recently completed ASBO Leadership Retreat, we also wrestled with the theme of Leadership at a Turning Point. Your President, Jeff LaPorta, built a dynamic, two day event that focused the ASBO Board and Liaisons on the mission and vision of your organization.
Every facet of the current organization was explored in depth by a very diverse leadership cadre with the goal being to develop specific action plans to:
•    Keep your organization relevant,
•    Identify opportunities and risks,
•    And define specific steps to execute and capitalize on opportunities while minimizing risk.
Some of the themes that came out of the retreat were that:
•    ASBO is a member driven and run organization,
•    While our mission remains the same, there are significant opportunities, right now, to improve and expand how we accomplish our mission,
•    As the demographics of our membership change, opportunities exist to engage both veterans in our business, as well as engaging and mentoring the next generation of school business leaders.
In the Chinese language, the word/symbol for "danger" is a combination of the symbols for "risk" and "opportunity". We all know the risks and challenges that our professions face. It is, at times, seemingly impossible to even think about opportunity. I agree with this sentiment, to a point. I encourage you to continue to carefully evaluate the risks you face and to be a good steward of the resources entrusted to your care, but at the same time your industry and organization needs to stay "heads up" for the opportunities.

This is your organization and a great tool for you to further explore risks and opportunities, to leverage your collective relationships to capitalize on change to provide the best possible platforms to deliver world class instruction.

Take a risk. Get involved. Encourage others to get involved, especially new staff. Communicate the value of your organization to your Leadership, they cannot afford to miss it. Change is going to happen. Will you be able to identify the Turning Point before it happens? Opportunity awaits those who can.