Setting goals

SETTING GOALS – a great way to start each year

Nothing is more frustrating than a team with no goals. Sports teams have it easy: their goal -- winning the championship -- is built in. Are our goals in schools as easy to identify? The tricky part is that each individual teacher will have goals that sit upon three different hierarchical layers…

• School-wide goals. These should be obvious, but they're not. It takes time to isolate and elucidate an all-systems goal. The questions we ask of the staff during the process should include
--- What is non-negotiable to us?
--- What will we do no matter what?
--- What do we expect to accomplish through our work?
--- What is our "Hedgehog Concept"? (Jim Collins, in Good to Great, defines this as the clarity and drive with which the organization will produce long-term results.)

• A Team and B Team goals. These (preordained and ordained) teams have their own challenges, their own focal points, and their own interests. Their goals, while aligning with the school-wide, hedgehog-concept goal, will likewise have a particular slant. This is good, and this is where the real action is. If the teams have focus and clarity of vision, they can move mountains. (Vesuvius, for example, which, according to dated rocks, is at least 300,000 years old).

• Individual goals. As unique and special human beings, every member of the teaching staff brings different experiences, preferences, training, strengths, weaknesses, and vices to the job. It is our responsibility to work with each individual to connect the dots between the school-wide goal, the team goals, and the needs of that individual to belong, improve, and perform within those frameworks. So individuals have their own, duly related goals.

FLUID GOALS

In reference to goals, we have all heard the acronym SMART -- Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-oriented, and Timebound. We know what the terms mean, but the one that frequently muddles our goal-setting process is the T. Timebound. In the school setting, our mindset is to assign designated lengths of time to goals -- often a full 10-month school year. The problem there is that, though tidy for record-keeping purposes, rarely is there a goal that requires precisely 10 months of development, work, support, tinkering, evaluating, and revamping to be successfully achieved. Effective goals are unique, fluid, flexible, and shifting. If an A Team only needs to drill deeply into problem-solving strategies for six weeks to complement the school-wide "Math Hub" goal, then let them work together for six weeks, analyze their results, and extend or select a new goal. There are more goals buried in the nether-lands of poor time-framing than there are bodies adorned with concrete boots at the bottom of Lake Tahoe (and that is a lot, according to local legends).

The true issue is the development of individuals, teams, and teaching staffs to better meet the needs of our students. We, as school leaders, can demonstrate that we share those goals, and that we have the flexibility and with-it-ness to allow for teams to chart their own course and navigate their own waters, even if they flow like the Sebaskachu River in central Labrador (which meanders like crazy but follows one undeniable hedgehog concept: gravity).