Crisis and Leadership: Meeting the Need

Bridgewater State College

September 30, 2005

Excerpts from Janice Jackson

 

Education is big business in this country and education is a major enterprise.  A superintendent is the CEO of an organization with significant financial resources and responsibilities.  I would like to present a scenario that will give you an opportunity to sit in a superintendent’s seat.

 

You have just accepted the position of CEO of a major organization.  You are preparing for the job ahead.  Now that you are named you begin to get behind the marketing and glitz of the recruitment process you recently experienced.  The veil has been lifted and you discover the following surprises:

 

• Your public image is at the lowest it has ever been.  You do not have the resources to do market surveys and image campaigns.
• You cannot create a market niche.  You must serve all who want your product.  Yet you are interacting with more complex clients with greater needs.
• The organization has diversified and the prioritization of issues has multiplied at the demand of the government and the public, to the point that you no longer know the mission of your organization.
• The nature of your business has changed yet you are prohibited from using any significant amount of your resources for retooling or retraining.
• Your employees are not trained to respond to the new needs of your clients.  Your organization conducts its business in such a way that it is extremely difficult to call your employees together during the workday.
• Your Board of Directors does not meet quarterly or monthly, but weekly.
• Anyone can enter the Board room and comment on your work, demanding that you make major changes immediately.  Your Board feels compelled to respond to each demand.
• You test your most fragile product most frequently knowing that each test weakens it.
• Government regulations continue to expand and may change midstream with compliance requirements being retroactive to the beginning of the fiscal year.
• There is an influx of new immigrants in your area.  The government agency responsible for relocation has not informed you of their plans to resettle them near your plant.
• You are forced to take the lowest bid on all goods and services, whether they meet your needs or not.
• You are in a labor intensive industry and have little control over staff selection and dismissal.  You have difficulty attracting and retaining the top in the field because you cannot compete with the incentives offered by other fields.
• Your quality circles and focus groups include people from all walks of life, most of whom have no technical expertise about your industry, but they’ve used your product regularly.
• You recognize that it will take years to see any significant change in the organization.  However, the average tenure of the CEO in your industry is years.
• Resigning is not an option.  You cannot fold.  The organization must remain a going concern because our nation is dependent on your product.

 

This industry could be many.  It is the present situation for most school districts in this country.

 

 

Excerpts from Janice Jackson’s comments to the Visiting Committee of the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Spring 1993.