Experience counts.
Admittedly, learning the art of coaching and becoming certified by one of the myriad programs gives a school consultant bona fides. Certification without a record of success in the job, however, doesn’t help clients the way the opposite does – a record of success in the job enriched by certification and by the way we work together.
Lin-Manuel Miranda says, “The fun for me in collaboration is … working with other people just makes your smarter; that’s proven.”
Each of us has individual clients, but a great portion of our work involves two or more of us working with one school – three of us studying a school head’s concerns about faculty morale, two leading a strategic planning exercise for a board of trustees, another two studying a board’s broken governance procedures, another two working with an administration leadership team trying to learn how to work more efficiently together, and two more working with a school to prepare for an emotional school transition. There are eight years of many more examples of our working together for the benefit of school heads, trustees, and leadership teams.
We email, text, and phone each other often, but every two weeks we meet formally to learn from each other and help our clients. Our partners have led impressive independent schools for an average of 20+ years. Each has been certified in a program built around leadership and character. We have experience in boarding, day-boarding, and day schools, and both coeducational and single-sex schools. While as school heads we are versed in all aspects of schools, we have different strengths – finance, admission, strategic planning, helping administrative teams, and more. An array of these strengths and a variety of perspectives create the synergy of good work together. The work makes us smarter. We listen better, we ask better questions, and we find creative ways to help school leaders forward.
If anyone knows the importance of confidentiality, we do. All our discussions are confidential. No client’s name is mentioned without permission. But when you sign up with one of us, you get all.
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller