Mario Marino of Venture Philanthropy Partners recently blogged on the importance of great people for the success of any education reform. Although his audience consists mostly of nonprofits and philanthropies, his reflections are appropriate for anyone working in the education sector. Marino writes:
I’d be the last to discourage innovation, but our problem is not a shortage of ideas, models, knowing what works, or best practices. Instead, it is our failure to execute, deliver what we promise, and convert concepts to sustainable reality. And that failure is squarely rooted in our acute shortage of the kind of leaders that high-performing nonprofit and public agencies require….
Bluntly put, the number-one limiter on our ability to create meaningful, lasting change in our social and public sectors is an acute shortage of the “right people on the bus.” We sometimes give lip service to the need to invest in leadership. We sometimes knit our brows when we think about the impending wave of retirements in our sector. But in spite of the hundreds of leadership development programs in existence, we have not given leadership recruitment, development, and retention anything close to the focus they deserve!
Why? Because “leadership” is much more difficult to define and assess than models and practices… I’ll stay at the organization level and share six Talent Principles that have served me well over the years.
- Acknowledge Your Most Important Resource: People
- Do, Adapt, Achieve—Day in and Day out
- Use Evaluation for Learning and Growth, Not Punishment
- Leverage External Resources for Talent Development
- Use Succession Planning for Talent Development
- Acquire Talent Through Consolidation
In and of themselves, innovative models simply do not drive change. Innovative models and best practices in the hands of mediocre players give you mediocre results, but worse, in the hands of ineffective players are a pure waste of effort and dollars. Yet, innovative models and best practices in the hands of the right people—those with the talent and values the roles require—almost always lead to real change and impressive results.
To read the entire blog post and for more details on the six Talent Principles, see http://www.vppartners.org/learning/chairmans-corner/ill-take-great-people-over-great-models-any-day
