This interview with Wendy Kopp, founder and chief executive of Teach for America, reveals some interesting parallel thinking with ideas 37signals has also discussed.
Kopp on the pointlessness of planning…
I also had this revelation that we were no longer going to go through all this development of strategic plans. We would go through this massive process of creating these endless strategic plans and reviewing them. And I don’t know how many years we did that until I said: “Forget it. We don’t even need to do this anymore. Let’s figure out our priorities and how we are going to measure our success. And then we’re going to let people run after those goals.” And that just freed up all the energy.
Related: Don’t write a functional specifications document and Eliminate unnecessary paperwork [Getting Real] and The only plan is to learn as you go [SvN].
On the importance of saying no…
There are certain lessons…One of them is the importance of focus, the importance of saying no.
There was so much good momentum and we were asking all sorts of good questions and launching new, good ideas. But ultimately, they took away resources and energy from the fundamental core of what we do, which we came back to believing was the most powerful thing. The obsession with truly staying focused on our core mission, I think, came from that.
Related: Start With No [Getting Real] and The most powerful word is no [SvN]
On test-driving employees before hiring…
I used to hire people and then realize within two days whether someone was going to thrive or not. So I said, “Let’s actually find out what we’re going to know two days in, before someone starts.” We just send them a bunch of stuff that they would get otherwise on their first day and say, “Here are the challenges of the day.” And we ask them to write up their answers, and then actually engage with them deeply so that we understand whether they have the skills that a particular role is going to require.
Related: Work with prospective employees on a test-basis first [Getting Real].
On the importance of hiring people who take ownership of challenges…
We’ve done a lot of research on the characteristics of our teachers who are the most successful…The No. 1 most predictive trait is perseverance, or what we would call internal locus of control. People who in the context of a challenge — you can’t see it unless you’re in the context of a challenge — have the instinct to figure out what they can control, and to own it, rather than to blame everyone else in the system.
Related: Hire managers of one [SvN].
On the power of inexperience…
And also, I just think there’s actually a huge power to inexperience. In the context of deeply entrenched problems that many people have given up on, it helps to not have a traditional framework so you can ask the naïve questions. That can help you set goals that more experienced people wouldn’t think are feasible.
Related: Years of irrelevance [SvN].
Great to see someone applying similar concepts to a different arena and finding success.
Tathagata
on 03 Aug 09Wow. In retrospect it does make sense that teaching and software development have a lot in common, because we are all teaching ourselves software development (and probably writing and rewriting the course book at the same time). On the other hand we haven’t yet managed to manage management yet, so I don’t really know if there is any right way to hire, manage, etc :(
nappisite
on 03 Aug 09The importance of saying no has a lot of resonance with me. Too many times companies lose there way because they think that ideas in of themselves are valuable. Its almost as if we operate with “the company with the most ideas wins” approach. When in fact ideas are the easiest thing to produce and most should be rejected out of hand.
Roger Dupuy
on 03 Aug 09With this post, I was shot in the heart, in both arms and both legs. I am grateful there was not a sixth comment as I do need to hang on to some unclear thinking.
GeeIWonder
on 04 Aug 09I think you’re being very selective on how you read this. You guys didn’t invent this stuff, and it’s ridiculously presumptuous to put a ‘Related’ link every time someone makes an argument that sounds vaguely familiar. Especially when the similarities are largely impoed by your interpretation. Koop is saying more here, and I think you’re very much short-changing her presentation of ideas that are as old as the Romans at least.
Let’s figure out our priorities and how we are going to measure our success.
Some of us call that a plan. Note the importance of ‘strategic’ in this paragraph.
what we would call internal locus of control.
Which has nothing at all to do with a company who hires trendy people that won’t rock the boat, puts troll hats on those that deign to disagree, and interprets new ideas as re-interpetations of their own.
The comments above echo you’re echoing, but I think that’s a strong evidence as to where the ‘locus of control’ actually lies in these circles.
GeeIWonder
on 04 Aug 09(Note that Koop is arguing FOR education and teaching, whereas 37s has typically argued against it.)
David Giard
on 04 Aug 09This week on my show “Technology and Friends”, I sat down with independent software consultant Jamie Wright to discuss the “Getting Real” practices of 37 Signals.
You can see and hear the interview at http://www.davidgiard.com/2009/08/03/JamieWrightOnGettingRealWithConsulting.aspx
-David Giard
ML
on 04 Aug 09GeeIWonder, you’re really on the warpath, eh? I’m not saying we invented this stuff. That’s why I used the term “parallel thinking” — to indicate a similar wavelength without the notion of one side or the other “inventing” these ideas. Also, we’re for education and teaching in many circumstances. We just don’t put much value in formal education when deciding whom to hire.
GeeIWonder
on 04 Aug 09GeeIWonder, you’re really on the warpath, eh?
I guess. It irked me is all.
If all you ever get out of new ideas is what you brought in with you, you’re shortchanging everyone involved, not least of all yourself.
Promotion is not education, and though they do sometimes overlap equating them misses the point entirely. There’s a whole series of posts and comments that are telling of a bias and I don’t just mean about formal education. That’s ok and all, but it’s a very important point here because of course Koop is talking about education, and educators.
So in fact her points of inexperience and successful characteristics may be in stark contrast to your own (take perseverance, or system blaming as two examples), if you’re willing to give her a fair shake.
That’s all. I probably should’ve had a coffee earlier today though so yeah, I’ll step off the warpath now.
Happy
on 04 Aug 09I agree with GeeIWonder. How can you read the interview and conclude that Kopp finds planning pointless? On the contrary, she is a proponent of:
Asking where you want to be in 7 years… We spent the last year asking ourselves, “Where do we want to be in 2015?” And that led to this analysis of our priorities. How are we going to measure our success? What should our goals be? But it wasn’t a plan for exactly what everyone in the organization should do, or what should even be the key strategies. It was this massive, from-the-ground-up inclusive process that just got everyone aligned with our priorities and goals.
Applying rigor to goals and measurement (and a little bit of learning from failure thrown in): But ultimately that near-death experience led us to see the power of really clear, measurable goals. We realized the only way out of this mess was to raise money in the communities where we’re placing teachers. Fund-raising is so measurable, and it’s easy to manage that system. And then once we worked ourselves out of our financial crunch, we stepped back and said, “How do we bring the same kind of rigor to the rest of the organization?”
Continuous reflection on a strategic plan: [I] reflect an hour a week on the overall strategic plan for myself — what do I need to do to move my priorities forward? And then there are the 10 minutes a day that I spend thinking about, “O.K., so based on the priorities for the week, how am I going to prioritize my day tomorrow?” I don’t know how I could do what I do without spending that time. I am obsessive about that system...
(emphasis added)
Igwe
on 05 Aug 09Even though I have no intention of teaching for america, this is a very inspiring and motivational interview. Thank you for linking this one up
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