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The Development Mindset: Four Things to Remember about Your Own Development Journey

Development only occurs when you are motivated to do something differently. Motivation is created when the consequences associated with making a change are perceived as better than the consequences of the status quo. Find your motivation. Ask yourself and others: what’s at risk if I don’t develop this competency? Or differently, “what can be gained if I am stronger in this area?”

Substantive change generally requires six months to a year of focused effort.  It’s relatively easy to modify behavior in a particular way for a short period, but sustainable, substantive change generally requires an underlying shift in attitude or personal values. These shifts happen over the longer term.  

Perception lags reality.  Don’t get discouraged if at first people don’t see or acknowledge the changes you’re making.  Generally, others will need to see new behaviors consistently for a period before their perceptions begin to shift and before they will affirm improvement via feedback. 

Reflecting on key learnings accelerates development.  Use the journaling approach throughout the year. Take time to capture lessons learned and integrate meaning. Forming new personal rules of thumb and do’s and don’ts will help you to more naturally incorporate new behaviors into your repertoire.

The Key to Improving School Performance (and Business, Too!)

Election Day, 2012. Candidates for office at all levels of government have points of view on multitudes of issues and how they will address each issue if elected. Improving our schools is one such issue. In recent years, research has increasingly pointed to teacher quality as a primary driver of top quality schools. A Harvard University study revealed that, on average, having a “top 5% value added teacher for one year raises a child’s cumulative lifetime income by $50,000.” A 2010 McKinsey study reported that top performing nations “recruit 100% of their new teachers from the top third (of college graduates), whereas in the U.S. it is 23% overall and 14% in high poverty schools.”

So we know that teacher quality matters and we know that recruiting top college graduates for teacher positions is important. With this information, we should have a clear path to improving our schools. Yet getting the right teachers in the classroom seems more often the exception than the rule. Enter Scott E. Barron, Chief Reinvention Officer & Managing Partner, School Growth, LLC. (www.schoolgrowth.com). An experienced educator and administrator, Scott has a real passion for reinventing schools, both private and public. Emphatic on the importance of a talent strategy to a successful school, Scott shared several elements of a talent strategy for a school turnaround or improvement: > More…

Blue Key Partners Publishes White Paper on Leadership Coaching