What do you do to make your shift to your "new gig" successful? This question was posed to me by four different school executives in the past two weeks-two of them making the move from an assistant principalship to their first principalship and two principals, who were very successful in their current role, who were selected to serve a different school.
When I talked with them individually, I gave them what I hope is useful advice, not only from my experience, but also from the experience of others. So, I'm opening this up to readers of Leaders Talk to share any experiences and collective wisdom-who knows-you may find it handy as well!
Here's what I shared (in no particular order)
1-Hold Your Fire: Unless you are clearly placed in a turnaround situation, stifle your instinct to immediately try to change things. Take a look at how things work, how the culture operates, how people interact with each other, and how the core teaching/learning process happens in different classrooms. You want to be known as a person who, while decisive, has an open mind without making changes for change's sake. This is not the time to be known as the Lone Ranger.
2-L2-Listen and learn-ask LOTS of questions-use your new stature to your advantage. Ask why certain processes and procedures are the way they are. Ask why the annual school improvement plan has certain components listed as priorities. Watch to see who talks and who doesn't talk during meetings. Look to see who sits with each other during these meetings. You're in a clear stage of internal data gathering.
2(a)-write down your observations-use either a spiral notebook or 3x5 cards or some way to capture what it is that you are seeing-you want to look at patterns. Take 5 minutes daily to jot down what you have seen and learned.
3- Who are your "go to" people? Give different people different tasks and see how they handle the tasks- you want to start forming some ideas of who your strongest people are.
4-Seek out good and bad news equally-people will be eager to give you one type or the other-be diligent in ferretting out the opposite news, especially from the same people!
5-Expect to spend SIGNIFICANT time in network building-you are trying to build and expand your network within the school, with your peers in the system, and external colleagues who are within the system. This is especially important if you are making the move from assistant principal to principal and if you are moving from one school system to another. This pays tremendous dividends as you seek to make changes-you now have a stronger set of people to bounce ideas off of.
6-You are your calendar- set up appointments early with key central office executives-this list is NOT exhaustive by any means, but you should obviously set up a meeting with your manager (if she has not done so for you), the finance officer, the chief C/I executive, and the HR director. Most people neglect this step at their significant peril.
7-Look for patterns-what patterns do you see in your observations? You'll likely want to start thinking about what you see and getting ideas for making changes as you start your 4th month (this is just a generalization-NOT a recipe!)
8-Secure early wins-nothing succeeds like success and early wins make this happen. In your discussions with your different groups, look to see if there are some easy and quick solutions you can implement that everybody (or almost everybody) agrees needs to happen. This builds momentum for you and your work.
9-Use the research. Understand that there are some terrific resources out there on change management and transition management. I have a bias toward two researchers-John Gabbarro and Michael Watkins.
10-your turn. Now, I've listed some of my suggestions-what suggestions or lessons learned do YOU have in making transitions smoother and easier? Post them below. I look forward to hearing from you.
Chris
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