Thinking Strategically About Your Response to COVID-19

Happy Monday to all of the educators trying to make sense of the current health crisis and plan accordingly on behalf of their students. The past two weeks have been a wild ride, leaving many of us with more questions than answers. I spent the weekend communicating with clients across North America, as well as thinking and rethinking our industry responses to COVID-19. I landed on a few tidbits that I am hopful will be helpful to you and your team as you navigate the future.

1. Find Opportunity > Every crisis breeds heartache, challenge, and opportunity. We know there are many uncertainties and ambiguities in this crisis. The news cycle and social media accelerates and amplifies them. However, if we can find the strategic opportunity in crisis it can strengthen our long-term relationship with our clients. That might mean being a voice of reason or safe harbor in the health crisis storm. Or, it might mean being nimble and agile with your communication portals and online learning. This is a great time to seize the opportunity to calm and assure fears in your organizational functions, communication, and agility.

2. Foster Trust > For over a year I have stated that trust is likely the most important asset an organization can foster equity among stakeholders today. We know that there exists a generational erosion in trust among Millennials and Get-Z’s regarding big business, government, and institutions. This health crisis has left people wanting consistent information and congruent solutions. This is an excellent time to build trust and, as a result, strengthen relationships. Consider what you can do that will foster trust and strengthen bonds during this disruption.

3. Remember Your Core Business > Volvo is not really about cars, but instead about safety, FedEx is not about package delivery, but instead in predictability. Starbucks is really not about coffee, but about community. Each of these companies knows their core business. We must remember our core business. If our core business is simply providing education to students transactionally in a physical space, I think we have already lost the battle. If it instead is more about care for the community, nurture of the individual, flexible and learner-centric systems, and behaving as innovative organizations, then we are on the right track. If you are an independent school or college, independence is your greatest asset. Use it.

Many schools and college are concerned about their new enrollment and ongoing retention efforts during this health and growing economic crisis. Please remember that how you respond to those currently under your care is the best way to assure your future. This crisis will accelerate innovation in education delivery for sure. The schools and colleges that find the opportunity, foster trust, and remember their core business will likely emerge from this short-term issue stronger and more resilient as a result.

What We've Learned About Agility

What we pass off as innovative in schools amuses me at times. We tend to think that just because we are doing something different than before then it is innovative or ground-breaking. It’s not. I would argue that, more often than not, most of what we consider innovative is merely different when compared to how education has done things in the past. And, to be honest, education is a glacially-paced, slow-changing context, so that is a very low comparison bar over which to jump.

The future requires organizations to be agile. Organizations must be nimble, flexible, and scalable if they are gong to adapt to moving targets. The future will require any successful organization to be able to pivot and self-organize quickly, yet maintain their long-term strategic direction. Think of the world 2030 - a decade away from now. In order to prepare for some of the things that we know will be true then, we know schools have to start planning for that change now. The famous hockey star Wayne Gretzky always said:

“I don’t skate to where the puck is; I skate to where it is going.”

—Wayne Gretzky

Overt the years, we’ve learned that agility might be the largest missing ingredient in the education sector. Structural barriers to change — faculty culture, governance, parental pressure, capacity and size of facilities, traditional outcomes, costs — all drive schools to make incremental and modest changes. Once we do, we tend to claim that these are indeed truly innovative adaptations, when, in reality, they are modest changes in a static educational environment.

The require of agility gets right down to the very purpose of education. My favorite quote in education is from the progressive educator Francis Parker who birthed the progressive education movement, as well as a few schools which we are grateful to count among our clients.

“The work of the school is determined by the needs of society.”

—Francis Parker

Last month, the movie theatre company AMC announced they were going to move into the video streaming sector. While I don’t know much about the movie industry, I know enough to know that they are really late to the party. If you have been to a movie theatre in recent years, you also know the same. They have really struggled to fill very expensive, empty seats when everything else is moving online. Sound familiar? How did they not see this coming? Every family in America has a Netflix, Prime Video, or Apple+ account. How were they this slow to adjust?

As an industry, we need to move where the puck is going. We have to think more entrepreneurial and have a higher bar of expectation for ourselves. We have learned that we are just not agile. And, I would place agility among the highest organizational attributes needed for sustainability in the future.

If we are not at least agile, we will cease to be.

Marburn Academy Launches Strategic Plan

Armed with a newly completed campus and facilities, Marburn Academy in Columbus, Ohio recently launched their completed strategic plan in October.  A member of the ISA client community, the school has been working on their plan throughout the 2016-17 academic year.  To view a complete version of the plan, click here to download the PDF file.

Marburn Academy is a not-for-profit, independent day school devoted to serving the educational needs of bright students with learning differences such as Dyslexia, Executive Function difficulties and attention issues. Marburn is the only school in Central Ohio with academic and co-curricular programs designed to address the full range of unique learning and personal development needs of students with these learning differences. Opened with 12 students, Marburn now educates over 300 students year-round.

Marburn Academy is one of only 14 schools in the nation to have its language instruction program accredited by the Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators (AOGPE). Marburn Academy is also recognized as an approved provider for the Ohio Jon Peterson and Autism Scholarship Programs.