Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail
Those who fail to plan, plan to fail, or at least plan not to improve, according to the management literature. Look at school improvement, and there’s similar agreement pretty much across the literature that the schools that improve are the ones that plan.
They establish a clear educational vision and consequent shared mission; identify goals or objectives that enable them to achieve that mission and thereby realise that vision; audit themselves, thereby identifying areas for improvement; and develop and implement educational programs on the basis of leadership 57 that audit that address areas for improvement in ways that help them achieve the mission. That process, much of the literature suggests, is recursive or cyclical.
The key in the school improvement literature seems to be that there’s a first step, identifying your vision and shared mission, that then informs the next step, the planning process of identifying goals or objectives aligned with the vision and mission.
Whether you look at the management literature or the school improvement literature, at its simplest, goal setting is a way of asking what do we want, do we have what we need so that we can develop and implement what we plan, do our various goals relate to one another or are any in conflict, and is there anything we’ve overlooked, including internal and external blockers?
There, in 200 or so words, you have the whole easy-peasy school improvement planning story, and can stop reading and go and get that coffee right now.
Or not.
The problem, if you’re still reading, is that planning and goal setting can sometimes lead to fragmented, uncoordinated programs with conflicting objectives that actually work against one another. Yes, setting specific, challenging goals, and developing and implementing educational programs to meet them can drive school improvement, but as Adam Galinsky, author with Lisa Ordóñez, Maurice Schweitzer and
Max Bazerman of ‘Goals
They establish a clear educational vision and consequent shared mission; identify goals or objectives that enable them to achieve that mission and thereby realise that vision; audit themselves, thereby identifying areas for improvement; and develop and implement educational programs on the basis of leadership 57 that audit that address areas for improvement in ways that help them achieve the mission. That process, much of the literature suggests, is recursive or cyclical.
The key in the school improvement literature seems to be that there’s a first step, identifying your vision and shared mission, that then informs the next step, the planning process of identifying goals or objectives aligned with the vision and mission.
Whether you look at the management literature or the school improvement literature, at its simplest, goal setting is a way of asking what do we want, do we have what we need so that we can develop and implement what we plan, do our various goals relate to one another or are any in conflict, and is there anything we’ve overlooked, including internal and external blockers?
There, in 200 or so words, you have the whole easy-peasy school improvement planning story, and can stop reading and go and get that coffee right now.
Or not.
The problem, if you’re still reading, is that planning and goal setting can sometimes lead to fragmented, uncoordinated programs with conflicting objectives that actually work against one another. Yes, setting specific, challenging goals, and developing and implementing educational programs to meet them can drive school improvement, but as Adam Galinsky, author with Lisa Ordóñez, Maurice Schweitzer and
Max Bazerman of ‘Goals
References: Kayes, D.C. (2006). Destructive Goal Pursuit: The Mount Everest disaster. Locke, E.A., & Latham, G.P. (2002). & Bazerman, M. (2009). Goals gone wild. Staw, B.M., & Boettger, R.D. (1990).