"They ought to run schools like a business." I have heard this sentiment expressed by people from many states around the country. In my experience, the comment usually elicits an angry, frustrated response from educators along the lines of, "In business they start with the same material every time and get the same result. Don't they know that each piece of material, meaning kids, we work with is different, and comes from different backgrounds with different skills and abilities yet we are supposed to get the same result?"
While reading an article entitled, "35 Great Questions"in the April 2014 edition of INC. magazine, I thought that those sound like great questions for business, and more importantly many of these also translate directly into education. This list provides some opportunities for dialogue and common ground within educational circles as well as between business and schools which just might end the oppositional "run schools like a business" mantra.
I have adapted the original questions for entrepreneurs into questions and have grouped the questions for Educators, Schools/Programs, Districts and All of the Above. You will notice some questions appear in each category with slight changes. Others which I did not change, but apply to education as well as entrepreneurs are in the "All of the Above" category.
Educators
1. What is it like to be in my class? -Robert Sutton, author and management professor at Stanford
2. If someone weren’t in my class, would they want to enroll in it today? If not, what am I going to do about it? -Peter Drucker, management expert and author
3. What prevents me from making the changes I know will make me a more effective educator? -Marshall Goldsmith, leadership coach and author
4. Do I make eye contact 100 percent of the time? -Tom Peters, author and management expert
5. Am I changing my class and the classroom culture as fast as the world around us? -Gary Hamel, author and management consultant
6. Did my students make progress today? “Forward momentum in employees’ (students’) work has the greatest positive impact on their motivation.” -Teresa Amabile, author and Harvard Business School professor
7. What should we stop doing? -Peter Drucker, management expert and author
8.What are the gaps in my knowledge and experience? -Charles Handy, author and management expert
9. If we got kicked out and the administration brought in a new teacher, what would he or she do that would make them a desired employee? -Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel
10. If I had to leave my classroom for a year and the only communication I could have with students was a single paragraph, what would I write? -Pat Lencioni, author and founder of The Table Group
11. Is there any reason to believe the opposite of my current belief? -Chip and Dan Heath, authors who teach at Stanford’s and Duke’s business schools, respectively
12. Am I failing differently each time? -David Kelley, founder, IDEO
13. When information truly is ubiquitous, when reach and connectivity are completely global, when computing resources are infinite, and when a whole new set of impossibilities are not only possible, but happening, what will that do to my classroom? -Jonathan Rosenberg
14. What is our Big Hairy Audacious Goal? -Jim Collins
15. How is the way you as the teacher think and process information affecting your classroom culture? “Describe the culture you'd love to have in your organization (classroom). Then check the desired characteristics of the culture against the way you think and process information. Are they congruent? Do you want collaboration but think in isolation? Do you want a flat organization but think hierarchically? -Ari Weinzweig, co-founder Zingerman’s Community of Businesses
16. What do I need to start doing? -Jack Bergstrand, CEO, Brand Velocity
17. Are you satisfied with your current role? If not, what is missing from it? -Charles Handy
18. Do you keep 50% of your (or student) time unscheduled? -Dov Frohman, engineer and executive, author
19. What is something you believe that nearly no one agrees with you on? -Peter Thiel, partner, Founders Fund
20. Do we have enough freaky students in our classroom pushing us to the limit day in and day out? -Tom Peters
21. What happens in my classroom when people fail (“F” on the report card failure or in something they attempted which didn’t go well)? -Bob Sutton and Jeff Pfeffer, Stanford professors
22. Do my students have the opportunity to do what they do best everyday? -Marcus Buckingham, author
23. Where is my petri dish? -Tim Ogilvie, CEO. Peer Insight
24. Do you see more potential in people than they do in themselves? -Adam Grant
25. What are students challenging, in the sense that Mac challenged the PC? -Mark Barden and Adam Morgan, founders, eatbigfish
26. Why should people listen to me? -Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood
27. What was the last experiment I ran? -Scott Berkun, author
28. Are your students Pepsi or Coke drinkers?” -Marcy Massura
29. What's the best design framework for a classroom in a post Industrial-Age if the top-down, command and control model is no longer relevant? -Traci Fenton, CEO, Worldblu
30. Where can we break convention? -Shane Snow, co-founder, Contently
31. Do you, as a leader, bounce back quickly from setbacks? -Bob Rosen
32. What successful thing are we doing today that may be blinding us to new growth opportunities? -Scott D. Anthony, managing partner, Innosight
33. How do I stay inspired? -Paul Bennett, chief creative officer, IDEO
Schools/ Programs
1. How can we become the school we would envy? What would we have to be our beliefs, programs, relationships, goals? -Danny Meyer, CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group
2. Are we the school everyone is talking about? What will we have to do to be that school in 5 years? -Debra Kaye, innovation consultant and author
3. What new trophy do we want in our trophy case? - Marcy Massura, a digital marketer and brand strategist at MSL Group
4. Not every school measures success the same way. Are test scores important to you? Growth? Innovation? Marcy Massura, a digital marketer and brand strategist at MSL Group
5. What counts that we are not counting? -Chip Conley, founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality and head of global hospitality for Airbnb
6. In any school we measure test scores, students receiving free and reduced lunch, drop outs and other key metrics. What are the tangible and intangible strengths of our school that we have no way of measuring, but truly differentiate our school? These may be things like the school’s reputation, student engagement, employee satisfaction, emotional resonance of people in and out of the community. -Chip Conley, founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality and head of global hospitality for Airbnb
7. In the past year, what is the smallest change we have made that has had the largest positive result? What was it about that small change that produced the large return? -Robert Cialdini, author and professor emeritus of marketing and psychology at Arizona State University
8. What are the implications of this decision 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years from now? -Suzy Welch, author
9. Are we changing as fast as the world around us? -Gary Hamel, author and management consultant
10. Who can’t participate in our school the way they would like to because of something they lack (skills, time, money, etc). -Clayton Christensen, author, Harvard Business School professor, and co-founder of Innosight
11. Is this an issue for analysis or intuition? -Tom Davenport, author and professor at Babson College
12. Did my teachers make progress today? “Forward momentum in employees’ work has the greatest positive impact on their motivation.”-Teresa Amabile, author and Harvard Business School professor
13. What one word do we want to own in the minds of our students, employees, parents, and community partners? “This deceptively simple question creates utter clarity inside and outside a company (school). It is incredibly difficult for most people to answer and difficult to get consensus on--even at the highest levels. Apple = different. Toyota = quality. Google = search. It’s taken me three years to get one of my clients, Edmunds.com, to find and agree on their word: trust.”-Matthew May, author and innovation expert
14. What should we stop doing? -Peter Drucker, management expert and author
15. Who have we, as a school, historically been when we’ve been at our best? -Keith Yamashita, author and founder of SYPartners
16. What do we stand for--and what are we against? -Scott Goodson, co-founder of StrawberryFrog
17. Am I failing differently each time? -David Kelley, founder, IDEO
18. When information truly is ubiquitous, when reach and connectivity are completely global, when computing resources are infinite, and when a whole new set of impossibilities are not only possible, but happening, what will that do to our school? -Jonathan Rosenberg
19. What is our Big Hairy Audacious Goal? -Jim Collins
20. How can we become more high-tech but still be high touch? -James Champy
21. What do we need to start doing? -Jack Bergstrand, CEO, Brand Velocity
22. Do you keep 50% of your teacher’s and student’s time unscheduled? (remember, these are based on comments from business leaders) Make sure to maintain sufficient “slop” in their schedules to allow space for reflection and the assimilation of lessons learned from experience.-Dov Frohman, engineer and executive, author
23. Do we have enough freaky teachers in our school pushing us to the limit day in and day out? -Tom Peters
24. What happens at this school when people fail? -Bob Sutton and Jeff Pfeffer, Stanford professors
25. Do your employees have the opportunity to do what they do best everyday? -Marcus Buckingham, author
26. Where is our petri dish? -Tim Ogilvie, CEO. Peer Insight
27. Do we say “no” to customers (students, parents, teachers) for no reason? -Matt Dixon
28. What are we challenging, in the sense that Mac challenged the PC or Dove tackled the Beauty Myth? -Mark Barden and Adam Morgan, founders, eatbigfish
29. How would our PR, marketing, and social media change if we had students in charge of it? -Guy Kawasaki, founder, Garage Technology Ventures and Alltop
30. What was the last experiment we ran? -Scott Berkun, author
31. Are your staff members Pepsi or Coke drinkers?” -Marcy Massura
32. What's the best design framework for a school in a post Industrial-Age if the top-down, command and control model is no longer relevant? -Traci Fenton, CEO, Worldblu
33. Who are four people whose careers we’ve enhanced? -Alex Gorsky, CEO, Johnson & Johnson
34. What successful thing are we doing today that may be blinding us to new growth opportunities? -Scott D. Anthony, managing partner, Innosight
School Districts
1. How likely is it that a customer would recommend our district to a friend or colleague? -Andrew Taylor, executive chairman of Enterprise Holdings
2. Is this an issue for analysis or intuition? -Tom Davenport, author and professor at Babson College
3. “If it’s a decision that’s important, recurring, and amenable to improvement, you should invest in gathering data, doing analysis, and examining failure factors. If it’s a decision you will only make once, or if for some reason you can’t get data or improve the decision-making process, you might as well go with your experience and intuition.” -Tom Davenport, author and professor at Babson College
4. Who, on the executive team or the school board, has (or hasn’t) spoken to a student recently? -James Champy, author and management expert
5. What do we need to start doing? -Jack Bergstrand, CEO, Brand Velocity
6. What happens in this district when people fail? -Bob Sutton and Jeff Pfeffer, Stanford professors
7. Are we the kind of district that cares whether all employees are motivated? How will you motivate the dishwashers? -Bill Keena, independent casino consultant
8. Do your employees have the opportunity to do what they do best everyday? -Marcus Buckingham, author
9. Do we say “no” to customers (students, employees, community partners) for no reason? -Matt Dixon
10. To whom do you add value? -Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood, co-founders, The RBL Group
11. What was the last experiment we ran? -Scott Berkun, author
12. Are your employees Pepsi or Coke drinkers?” -Marcy Massura
13. What's the best design framework for a school district in a post Industrial-Age if the top-down, command and control model is no longer relevant? -Traci Fenton, CEO, Worldblu
14. Who are four people whose careers the district has enhanced? -Alex Gorsky, CEO, Johnson & Johnson
15. Whose voice (student, parent, department, ethnic group, women, etc) might you have missed hearing from in your district, and how might you amplify this voice to create a positive climate ? -Jane Hyun and Audrey Lee, partners, Hyun & Associates
16. What is your theory of human motivation, and how does your compensation plan fit with that view? -Dan Ariely, professor, Duke University
All of the Above
1. Who uses our product in ways we never expected? -Kevin P. Coyne and Shawn T. Coyne, authors and strategy consultants
2. Where can we break convention? -Shane Snow, co-founder, Contently
3. Whose voice (parent, student, department, ethnic group, women, older workers, etc) might you have missed hearing from in your district, and how might you amplify this voice to create a more positive climate? -Jane Hyun and Audrey Lee, partners, Hyun & Associates
4. Who do we think the world wants us to be? -Geoffrey Moore, organizational theorist and management consultant
5. If you could go back in time five years, what decision would you make differently? What is your best guess as to what decision you're making today you might regret five years from now? -Patrick Lencioni
6. What stupid rule would we most like to kill? -Lisa Bodell, CEO, FutureThink
7. What potential megatrends could make our Industrial Revolution school district model obsolete? -Michael A. Cusumano, professor, MIT
8. What information is critical to our organization that our executives are ignoring? -Max Bazerman, professor, Harvard Business School
9. What are the rules and assumptions schools operate under? What if the opposite were true?Phil McKinney, innovation expert
10. How do you encourage people to take control and responsibility? -Dan Ariely
