1. Leading Today
Scott Little
Michigan School Business Officials
517-327-2582
slittle@msbo.org

2. “Who Moved My Cheese?”
• ―If you don’t like change, you’re going to
like irrelevance even less.‖
» General Eric Shinseki, U.S. Army Chief of
Staff, 1999-2003
• Distinct versus Extinct
» Re-imagine, Tom Peters, 2003

3. The Flattening of the World
• American Chinese Language Students:
– 50,000
• Chinese English Language Students:
– Same as people who speak English as
1st language in U.S., Canada, U.K. –
combined
• Demonstrates how slowly schools adapt to
important change
• China, Inc, Ted Fishman (2005)

4. –―Certainly anyone who has seen
how deadly serious Chinese
families are about the education
of their children, or who has seen
how rapidly China has
refashioned its best high schools
and universities, would
immediately grasp how nontrivial
education is to the Chinese.‖
China, Inc 2005 pg 314

5. • Many jobs going abroad are high-end
research jobs
– The talent is cheaper and a lot of it is as well
educated, if not more so, than American
workers
• ―The sky is not falling today, but it might be
in 15-20 years if we don’t change our
ways, and all signs are that we are not
changing, especially in our public
schools‖
• The World is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman(2005)

7. New global labor market
• Swiftly integrating world-wide labor
market at ALL skill levels
• Poor countries producing large and
growing numbers of HIGH SKILL, LOW
COST workers
• Internet makes them available to the
world’s employers without moving

8. People doing routine work
most at risk
• If your job is routine, it can be reduced
to an algorithm
• If it can be reduced to an algorithm, it
can be automated
• Cost pressures to automate jobs are
high and increasing
• For every job being offshored, ten are
being automated

9. The Challenge
• Coalescing global labor market pushing
wages down at all skill levels
• Result will be continuous downward
pressure on American standard of living
as smart machines and low-paid, well
educated people compete with
American workers in the global market

10. Profile of Successful
U.S. Firms in the Future
Source Information Here

11. International Attainment
Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,
Education at a Glance, Table A1.2a. (Paris: Author, 2006).

12. Why The Current System
Isn’t Up to the Job
• We’ve tried:
– More money
– Countless programs and initiatives
• Only thing we have not changed — in
over 100 years — is
THE SYSTEM

13. The Report’s Proposals
Building A NEW System
for the 21st Century

14. First Principles
• Recruit teachers from the top third
• Let students go on when ready
• Reprogram funds for higher payoff
• Create lean, performance-oriented
management system
• Create incentives for schools to perform
• Give schools room to innovate

15. First Principles, Cont’d
• Create a fair financing system so all
students have a shot at success, and
those who need the most resources get
them
• Reform our 19th C. governance system
to reflect 21st C. realities
• Use fewer, much higher quality tests
• Create the same opportunities for adults

16. • Reprogram funds for higher payoff
• Create lean, performance-oriented
management system
• How we provide School Facilities
Services will change

17. 360 Degree Leader
John Maxwell
• 99% of all leadership occurs from the
middle of the organization
• Anyone can choose to become a leader
wherever he or she is
• Average tenure of a superintendent?

18. • May not be inventor of the vision – usually
the interpreter
• Interpret Vision - include
– Clarity
– Connection of past, present, and future
– Purpose
– Goals
– Challenge
– Passion
• Vision = Passion

19. “Good is the Enemy of Great”

20. Good To Great
Jim Collins
Copyright 2001
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

21. • If we are not great now, how do we
become great?

22. The Transformation
• Build up followed by Breakthrough
• Three Broad Stages
– Disciplined People
• Level 5 Leadership
• First Who…Then What
– Disciplined Thought
• Confront the Brutal Facts
• Hedgehog Concept
– Disciplined Action
• Culture of Discipline
• Technology Accelerators

23. Flywheel
• Wrapping around the framework
• No single defining action/grand
program/one killer application/solitary
lucky break, etc.
• The idea of relentlessly pushing a giant
heavy flywheel in one direction, building
momentum until breakthrough and
beyond

24. Level 5 Leadership
• Level 1-Highly Capable Individual
– Makes productive contributions through
talent, knowledge, skills, and good work
habits
• Level 2-Contributing Team Member
– Contributes individual capabilities to the
achievement of group objectives and works
effectively with others in a group setting

25. • Level 3-Competent Manager
– Organizes people and resources toward the
effective and efficient pursuit of pre-
determined objectives
• Level 4-Effective Leader
– Catalyzes commitment to and vigorous
pursuit of a clear and compelling
vision, stimulating higher performance
standards

26. Level 5-Executive
• Builds enduring greatness
through a paradoxical blend of
personal humility and
professional will

27. First Who…Then What
• Get the right people on the bus (and the
wrong people off the bus)
• Then decide where to drive the bus
• The key is who before what

28. Confront the Brutal Facts
(yet never lose faith)
• Lead with questions, not answers
• Engage in dialogue and debate, not
coercion
• Conduct autopsies, without blame
• Build ―red flag‖ mechanisms

29. The Hedgehog Concept
• Foxes vs Hedgehogs
– Foxes pursue many ends at the same time
and see the world in its complexity.
However, they are scattered or diffused,
never integrating their thinking into one
overall concept or unifying vision.
– Hedgehogs simplify a complex world into a
single organizing idea, a basic principle or
concept that unifies and guides everything.

30. Hedgehog Concept
• Flows from understanding the
intersection of the following three circles
– What you can be the best in the world at
(and what you can not be the best at)
– What drives your economic engine
– What you are deeply passionate about

31. Culture of Discipline
• Culture full of self-disciplined people
who take disciplined action, consistent
with the three circles
• Diminish need for suffocating
bureaucracy when the right people are
on the bus
• A duality-requires people to adhere to
consistent system; and gives people
freedom and responsibility within the
framework of that system

32. Seven Measures of Success:
What Remarkable Associations
do that Others Don’t
• Commitment to Purpose
– A Customer Service Culture
• Commitment to Analysis and Feedback
– Data-driven Strategies
• Commitment to Action
– Adaptabilty; willing to change, but also know
what not to change

33. Why?
• It’s no harder to build something great
than to build something good
– Not easy, but no more suffering required
than to perpetuate mediocrity
– By definition we can’t all be above average
• If we have passion for what we do; we
love and care about it:
– Why not?

34. A Whole New Mind
Daniel H. Pink
• Pink discusses 6 key ―right brain‖ senses –
Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and
Meaning
– Story - fact-finding has been democratized. Anyone can find
information. What matters more is putting facts in context
and delivering them with emotional impact.
– Symphony – seeing the big picture; how do things work
together in our organizations
– Empathy – seeing things from others point of view;
employees?, customers?, superiors? Forge
relationships, care for others.

35. The Future-Hot Skills for FM
• Be a Change Agent
• Be a Decision Maker
• Be a People Leader
• Be an Entrepreneur
• Set and Follow through on priorities
• Develop and Maintain a Network
• Cotts lists ―Hot Skills‖ for future Facility Managers from a 1997 article in Facilities Design
and Management magazine (no longer published) by Anthony Zulkeski

36. • Get Knocked Around (be visible, be open to
criticism, and manage by walking around)
• Don’t Confuse Truth with Conventional
Wisdom
• Be the Type of Person Who Other People
Trust
• Be Flexible

37. Leadership Thoughts from
John Gardner
• Affirm Values
• Envision/Determine Goals
• Renewing
• Explaining
• Management
• Unity
• Represent the District Externally
• Symbolize

38. Ongoing
• More growth oriented than goal oriented
• Keep learning – you will be better
tomorrow than you are today

39. Think Like a Leader
• Constantly Refresh Ourselves With New
Information
• Great Leaders Tend To Be Great Thinkers
• Make Time To Think
You Don’t Need a Title to be a Leader – Mark Sanborn

40. TTWWADI
• That’s the way we’ve always done it

41. Stretch
• Participate in upper level meetings
• Present to the board
• Plan for transition/succession
– Mentor
• Read to kids

42. 212 Degrees
• Water boils at 212 degrees – generates
enough force to power a machine
• At 211 degrees it is just very hot
• Seemingly small things can make
tremendous differences

43. Finally
It is imperative that FM professionals commit
themselves to asking the appropriate
questions and putting in place the tools
with which to demonstrate the value of
their decisions. Why? Because in the
future, those who don't add value won't
matter; and those who don't matter
won't survive.
―Tough Choices and the Road Less Traveled‖,
Today’s Facility Manager, June 2004, Tim Springer