Chris Speyer and Clyde Howell have discussed at length the issue of
'accountability', vision statements, missions statements, and so forth.
This happens to be a fascinating subject to me for reasons which will
become clear.
Almost 6 years ago I took a sabbatical to work at the Dept of Ed in Maine.
I worked on a proposal to the National Science Foundation for money to
support a systemic reformation of math and science education, k-16. Maine
received $10 MM over 5 years, and is now in process to request a renewal.
We had a very clear plan. We have done "ok" -- a C- in my opinion -- in
executing the plan. No one else has done better, so if we grade on a
curve, we get an A. In terms of accomplishing truly accomplishable things
that were in our mission, though, I give us a C-.
The strength of our proposal was that it was decentralized. It allowed
communities to set their own direction, but it put some parameters in
place, and it offered or provided expertise. Centralized efforts in other
states have tended to crash and burn due to the fact that no one can
really control all the stuff they claimed to control in their plan. They
died trying. We, on the other hand, did not try at all to control or
direct. As a consequence we also did not hold anyone accountable. I
think this is right, but at the same time, there are fatal flaws.
For example, we promised to do certain things in our proposal which
because of the lack of centralized coherence, were not attainable. In
addition, various people went off and did things in the name of our
organization that were _not_ in the spirit of what we proposed. As a
consequence of having a pretty decentralized approach, some pretty stupid,
dumb, contra-eduational things were done in our name that we should not
really have stood behind. Since we were not asked to make a decision in
those cases, we did not, and by our silence, we endorsed those actions.
It has taken us 5 years of concentrated effort to come to an awareness of
what the exact nature of the problem is. Basically, it is the problem of
any large organization. People are doing things in the name of the
organization that the organization may or may not wish to stand behind,
but has no direct ability to control. It is fascinating that the
_biggest_ companies have the absolute _least_ control.
Mission statements and vision statements are intended to fill this void,
but as Clyde points out, have failed miserably. Our educational reform
organization had all those things, and people did what they wanted to do
anyway.
So, what fills this void? What makes people all march to the same
drummer? The first answer is NOTHING. But if we can find any semblance
of direction, then how can we demonstrate that direction, how can we
assure ourselves and those who fund us (corporate or otherwise) that there
is a direction that we can approve of, that aligns with our promises, that
actually does something in concedrt with others working on the same
problem at a distant location?
I would love to hear what works for others. We are attempting to build in
quality standards by creating occasions for people to think about what
'authority' they refer to when they follow a particular direction.
Through our strategic planning effort (decentralized as is all else) we
ask functional areas to show us the source documents -- either ours or
other recognized sources -- that support and recommend their particular
strategies or initiatives.
This alone will not solve the problem, but it will force a discussion, and
perhaps a refinement in direction of efforts. Over the long haul, I
believe it will provide positive direction to otherwise undirected but
well-intended work.
What has worked for others?
--Rol Fessenden LL Bean, Inc. 76234.3636@compuserve.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>