EL 992 Superintendency/Internship
Fall 2008
Change Process
In March 2008, USD 260, Derby Public Schools began Leadership training provide through Wichita State University under the direction of Peter A. Cohen, Ph.D. This opportunity was initiated by our superintendent Craig Wilford in hopes to become a better leader himself. Mr. Wilford felt he needed to take the district to another level and start working on more adaptive challenges. Leading from Within….Connecting Vision with Action was developed specifically for Derby Public Schools by the Center for Management Development at WSU.
All administrators both district and building level and instructional and testing coordinators were asked to take part in this training. Eight sessions were developed over a six month period for a total of 30 instructional hours. The six sessions dealt with the following topics: Leadership and Authority, Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, Encourage the Heart, The Adapative Work of Leadership I and The Apaptive Work of Leadership II. Along with the sessions each individual was placed on a leadership team that comprised of five different groups. These groups met bi-monthy or monthly and discussed leadership delimmas. These delimmas were to be adaptive in nature and had a structured process to follow.
The first meeting was HORRIBLE! We truly thought Mr. Wilford had lost his mind. The meeting started with Dr. Cohen coming in and saying nothing. He walked around the room, looked at us, and really made our skin crawl. The silenence was deafening. Finally after about five minutes of this some someone made a joke, the ice melted and the tension was released. This started the process.
Many times in leadership, we tend to do what is comfortable. We stay within the perameters of what our community perceives as “the norm”. We as leaders have too much at stake to risk climbing a mountain looking for that perfect view, taking our staff with us, all to find once we reach the top that it was a failure and the view was the same as when we started.
Dealing with technical challenges are much easier then adaptive challenges. Adaptive challenges are slow and take lots of time. In our day to day routines, we want answers, we want them now and can’t and won’t wait. Working adaptively takes effort and it is difficult.
Mr. Wilford said this decision was tough for him as a superintendent. This training was something so out of the ordinary for our district; he spent many sleepless nights wondering if he wasn’t creating career suicide. He knew it would be a struggle for administrators, he knew it would be a struggle for the teachers and knew the community would wonder what happened to the leaders, why aren’t they doing there jobs. Even with this, he decided to move forward and step out of the districts comfort zone and give it a shot.
Our last group training session with Dr. Cohen was September 24, 2008. During this session we reviewed the adaptive challenges we as leaders had determined we would address. We each sent a survey out to individuals that saw us in leadership roles. Those surveys are reviewed one-on-one with Dr. Cohen.
As a district we are still meeting monthly with our Leadership teams. This school year we had a create a mini-experiment and initiate it in our buildings or area. We discuss these adaptive processes each month and give feedback to the person presenting. It has been a great process. Coupled with the leadership initiative the distrct is also launching Cognitive Coaching Training. This process will align itself nicely with the leadership trainig.
Administrators have been receptive of the change, so has staff. The board was supportive as well. This process is slow, as with most adaptive challenges. It will take a couple of years to see the full effect of the initiatives administrators are undertaking. I think Mr. Wilford knew what he was doing. Though a risky one, he knew the district needed this vision and trajectory.