After reading in the The Culture Code about the strategy for creating high-performing teams by establishing a set of simple rules to guide complex decisions (heuristics), I decided to pick up The New School Rules by Anthony Kim and Alexis Gonzales-Black of Ed Elements. The six new rules for helping schools to become more responsive are:
- Plan for change, not perfection.
- Build trust and allow authority to spread.
- Define the work before you define the people.
- Aim for “safe enough to try” rather than consensus.
- Harness the flow and let information go.
- Schools grow when people grow.
These rules are for education leaders in the district office and schools, as well as anyone on teams. They are rules that can help shake off the bureaucratic behaviors, what Sal Khan refers to as “habits,” that make up much of the culture in traditional schools.
The New School Rules is filled with stories, examples, case studies, and experiments such as meeting protocols and new language to open up more productive dialogue. The three sections that I felt had the most value for those in the process of converting to competency education are #2 regarding trust, #5 regarding transparency of information, and #6 regarding investing in adult growth and organizational capacity.
This article originally appeared on the Competency Works website. Access the whole article here.
