This week’s blog is an “intellectual dump” of things that I have been thinking about that I believe will help you as you navigate your world. From how to have better conversations, to the current framework of the world we live in, the articles will help place your job in the context of today’s world.
The word of the week is “efficiency.” It’s a term that is thrown around a lot in the world today. It’s a word that is hard to argue against. What is the counter point…is someone going to say “I don’t want to be efficient”?
Because “efficient” is hard to argue against, it gets used in nefarious ways all of the time. For example, how many times have you sat at a Board meeting and been told that your school is not “efficient?” In most cases, the person throwing the word at you is talking about fiscal efficiency.
In other words, their definition, and the dominant definition across the spectrum, is that efficiency equates to fiscal responsibility.
So when a superintendent is accused of not caring about “efficiency,” what the person is really claiming is they think the superintendent is not being fiscally responsible.
So, how do you respond to these kinds of efficiency claims? Most of us assume the person’s definition of efficiency as fiscal and start to explain how we are cutting programs over here, consolidating services over there, or partnering to increase “efficiency.”
Responding in this way is a mistake.
We are not making widgets, cars, or smartphones.
We are doing something vastly more important.
We are leading an organization that determines the future of our society…we are in charge of kids’ learning!
When humans are involved and the mission is to help shape society, the definition of efficiency cannot be limited to fiscal assets.
School leaders must redefine “efficiency” and make it applicable to what we do.
Here is a different definition for “efficiency.”
Efficiency for school leaders is the ability to maximize time, energy, and resources to create the greatest impact on student learning and well-being—without unnecessary complexity or wasted effort.
As you can see from my definition, school leaders maximize more than fiscal assets. Equally important to our mission is maximizing time, energy, and other resources. In order to maximize these other resources, we may utilize more fiscal assets, but that does not mean we are less efficient!
Just something to think about… What is your definition of efficiency for your school?