Alignment, Community, and Leadership in Independent School Transformation

Narrator 00:02
Welcome to Talking Technology with ATLIS, the show that plugs you in to the important topics and trends for technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens. We'll hear stories from technology directors and other special guests from the Independent School community and provide you will focus learning and deep dive topics. And now please welcome your host, Christina Lewellen.

Christina Lewellen 00:25
Hello everyone and welcome to Talking Technology with ATLIS. I'm Christina Lewellen, the executive director of the Association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools. And

Bill Stites 00:34
I am Bill Stites, the Director of Technology at Montclair Kimberley Academy,

Hiram Cuevas 00:39
and I'm Hiram Cuevas, Director of Information Systems and Academic Technology at St. Christopher's school in Richmond, Virginia.

Christina Lewellen 00:46
Now, I need to bring all of our listeners along for the ride this fine day because we started hot today, gents. Like we started fighting about PC versus Mac. And before our guests could even kind of like hop on the line before our producer could even get us to calm down. We had gotten ourselves all riled up. So how are you guys doing? Do we still have some armwrestling that needs to like go down over this PC vs. Mac situation? Are we going to set it aside now that we have company listening? I

Bill Stites 01:17
don't like to air family arguments online. And I say family because I feel like it's family here. But you've got that one relative that just totally annoys the living heck out of you. That's where it was with Hiram earlier. It's good. We have that type of relationship.

Hiram Cuevas 01:32
Absolutely. And I'm just ready to throw down when we get to ATLIS.

Christina Lewellen 01:35
I don't know though, Bill. I mean, we should kind of out Hiram, should we not out him on the pod? The whole issue here is that Bill and I are team blue bubble in the chat. And Hiram. He's green bubble. And that's what this whole argument came from. It

Hiram Cuevas 01:52
is fascinating, because I will take my MAC folks who give me grief about the blue bubble, and I'll turn all their texts green just for fun.

Christina Lewellen 02:01
All right, well, look. So we came in hot with this whole thing. And part of the issue here this morning is that I was actually coming in with a question about when you connect with someone right away, because our guest today, Susan Baldridge from The Association of Boarding Schools. The first time I met her, we were like, Oh, this is a human that I need in my life forever. And she and I connected right away. So before we welcome her to the conversation, my plan was to actually go to a lovely place and say, Bill and Hiram, when you first met, did you have that snap connection? I've had with very few people in my life, my husband being one of them. But like when you guys met, did you have that like connection right away where you knew you'd be like more than just Twitter buddies at the time that you would actually be friends because I know you guys to be friends. So was it like an immediate thing? Was it love at first sight with Bill and Hiram?

Bill Stites 02:55
God? Hiram, go. I feel like

Christina Lewellen 02:57
maybe I need to withdraw the question.

Hiram Cuevas 03:00
It's actually a great story. So we met each other on Twitter. And we were going back and forth with a variety of different ed tech ideas. And then we found out that we were both attending the Lausanne Laptop Institute. And we're keeping in contact with each other on Twitter. And then all of a sudden, Bill says to me via DM, are you wearing a Google shirt? And I said yes, because I'm three people behind you in line. And that was the first time we actually saw each other in person. And yep, suffice to say, We're inseparable at conferences now because we have so much fun learning from each other. Yeah,

Bill Stites 03:42
there was this one place in Memphis called the Flying Saucer that may have contributed to the development of this friendship. But those are stories that like Vegas you just can't discuss outside of Memphis.

Christina Lewellen 03:53
I gotcha. Similarly, my husband has a story about one time Susan and I, we were on the phone, solving the world's problems. And I was on a family trip. And I was at the in the lobby of this hotel. And I was pacing back and forth. As I spoke with her, I was focusing and listening to what she was saying. And I was pacing back and forth. And he later said that I looked like a panther hunting its prey. And I said, that's kind of accurate. Actually, Susan, and I think we could solve the world's problems. Well, I'm not sure if today was the right day to ask about the origin love story between Bill and Hiram because I think that we got all sorts of riled up this morning. But I am very pleased to welcome to the pod Susan Baldridge. Susan, as the leader at TABS – The Association of Boarding Schools, you have come in on a riled up day. So I might need to like apologize or have you sign a waiver or something. So welcome to the podcast.

Susan Baldridge 04:48
Thank you. I'm delighted to be here and I'll just ride the wave with y'all.

Hiram Cuevas 04:53
There you go.

Christina Lewellen 04:54
I mean, there's really no fighting it Susan. So it's a good thing that we're friends because I can apologize for years to come for what's about to go down. Alright, so first, why don't you tell us a little bit about your position and your organization, and then we'll kind of go into your background a little bit. For

Susan Baldridge 05:10
almost two years now, I have been the executive director of TABS, The Association of Boarding Schools, we say at TABS that our mission is to counsel and connect and champion boarding schools. We're a member association. So our members, our schools, not just individuals, so really, anybody in one of our member schools can take advantage of the work we do we offer professional learning and data and research insights, opportunities for community and belonging both within and across boarding schools. So it's a big purview. And it's genuinely a privilege to do this work. I love it. So

Christina Lewellen 05:47
before we get into, like, what is kind of unique about the boarding school experience, can you tell us a little bit about how you found yourself leading this organization? What has your journey been like professionally?

Susan Baldridge 05:59
I feel like most of my professional journey has been characterized by moments where people look to me and said, “Wait, how did you end up here?” But frankly, I think that's often the case, if you ask many people, their trajectories are nonlinear, as we say, so I started my professional career at Middlebury College in Vermont. And that's actually where I'm speaking to you from now. As a psychology faculty member, and after I got tenure, started moving into administrative work, I was dean of the faculty. I was vice president for strategy and planning, I was ultimately provost, took a sabbatical, stepped down from the provost position, and really was trying to figure out what next because I was very happy staying here in Vermont, but felt like I'd sort of maxed out the kinds of new opportunities. And frankly, the novelty that is pretty much what drives me a lot of the time, curiosity about new things and how things work together. And all of that. During that sabbatical, I kind of fell into consulting, I had former colleagues who had gone off to other organizations and roles and institutions who said, “Hey, could you come do strategic planning with us? Hey, would you be willing to coach this new provost? We have, hey, you know, could you help us out?” So for about five years, I did that consulting work, and I loved it, it was really satisfying that itch for novelty for me, because now I got to look under the tent at other kinds of institutions and organizations, some of which it turned out, we're boarding schools. And so through that connection, I started to really fall in love with these places. They are very much like Middlebury College, a residential, fully immersive educational experience, right, except for with younger kids. And when the executive director position opened up, they came to me and asked if I was interested, and I said, to be honest, my first comment was, I'd love to, but I'm not leaving Vermont. And they said, that's okay. You don't have to. And so here I am. That's

Christina Lewellen 08:13
really cool. And so you had a little bit of a taste of boarding schools before you took this role. But now you're fully into it. You've made that leap from higher ed into the K 12. space. I think when a lot of people think about boarding schools, it seems maybe like a throwback, right, like being sent off to boarding school, right? Can you give our listeners a sense of what today's boarding schools look like?

Susan Baldridge 08:40
Well, it won't surprise you given all of your own backgrounds. To hear me say there is no one description of what a boarding school today looks like. But you're absolutely right to point to the distinction between people's perhaps historical understandings of what boarding school was like, I brought that same understanding with me. When I started working with boarding schools. My father went to a very prominent boarding school graduated in 1950. And you can imagine the stories he had to tell were just of a very different school environment, frankly, independent day schools and even public schools were probably very, very different environments 50 plus years ago, but what I see now is these incredibly vibrant and surprisingly diverse places. They are united by this commitment to the notion that the residential experience that 24/7 wraparound fully immersive aspect of being at a school has potential for transformational impact. So I think that's the thread that runs through all the TABS member schools, but how They do that can look so, so different. I mean, we have member schools that are big, huge, well known names very well resourced schools, we have itty bitty tiny schools, the names of which you may never have heard of, but are doing amazing work. We have schools that are focused on specific kinds of curricula. You know, they might have a particular environmental emphasis, for example, but others who are just kind of big and broad and fairly liberal arts, if you want to think about it that way, in terms of their approach, we have religious schools, we have military schools, schools, really, throughout North America, often when people think boarding schools, they think New England, and there are plenty of boarding schools in New England, a much higher concentration. But really, there are boarding schools across the US and Canada. And the majority of them are TABS members, and it is a great joy actually to get to go spend time with those folks on those campuses. Susan,

Bill Stites 10:59
I have a very quick question for you. Because I've not so much here at MKA but through consulting work that Hiram and I have done, I've had the opportunity to work with boarding schools, I've had the opportunity to work with schools that have boarding components so that it's not a full time boarding thing. They're, you know, they've got pieces of them that are boarding and is there a certain percentage that you need to have in terms of boarding to be a TABS member? Or do you just need to have a portion of the school that is boarding to be a member of the school? Because I think that combination of DEI and boarding, you know, you mentioned the diversity of the types of schools, I think that really can be a differentiator as well, because it's not like my niece went to Hill, I have friends that have worked at Mercersburg. But then recently, I was out in Hawaii at Iolani. And they have a boarding component there. I've been overseas just last week I was in Australia working with Barker College, they have a very large day and a very small boarding. So is there a line?

Susan Baldridge 12:01
It's a great question. And all three of those US schools you mentioned are TABS members. So you're right that when I say boarding schools, I'm really being broadly inclusive of schools that have intentional boarding programs. But in terms of number for TABS membership, we require that schools have at least 25 boarders on their campus. But those 25 could be 5% of the total student body 25 would be a pretty small proportion at most schools. But the actual number of schools that are 100% boarding is quite small. So really another piece of that diversity within the TABS membership has to do with what you just said, Well, that is the the ratio of day-to-boarding. And one of the things we are just this year, spending time digging into with schools is how that makes a difference for them. And where we can step in and be helpful, say with the what I would call large days small boarding schools to think about how to develop and be really intentional and thoughtful about your boarding experience for students, when the majority of students on that campus are not, in fact, spending 24/7 at that school. Yeah, the

Bill Stites 13:22
student experience can be really impacted by that, as well as a lot of the things that we relate to in terms of how you develop program, how you support all of those things. So it's good to understand that. Exactly.

Hiram Cuevas 13:32
So Susan, you mentioned North America. So we're our Canadian neighbors up north, do you also have an international component beyond Canada? We do.

Susan Baldridge 13:40
But it's a small number, maybe five to seven schools outside of North America. And I think that makes sense for a couple of reasons. One is that there are good and strong boarding school associations in the UK, in Australia and New Zealand, etc. But also that many of our programs, not all of them have some kind of in person component. So the travel to come to something like the TABS Annual Conference, which is really a kind of flagship piece of what we do that that's obviously just a bigger lift for a school that might be in Europe, for example. But we do have schools that take advantage of that. And we are thinking about what does it look like to really be supportive of schools that want that connection with us as an association, but do it in a way that makes sense for them? Yeah, cuz

Hiram Cuevas 14:35
we belong to the International Boys School Coalition. Right? And that has a huge international component as well. And the annual conference migrates around the globe, which is really interesting, because when you start doing a lot of that research, you can go to the different host schools around the world, but it's fascinating. It is. So

Christina Lewellen 14:53
ATLIS has a similar challenge in that our member schools are very diverse. I always appreciate that the ATLIS board is very considerate of the less resourced schools. And sometimes that means smaller schools, but not always. So we always are very inclusive in our programming or as much as we can be, we think about it a lot, we make sure that the offerings that ATLIS brings to the community is inclusive of lesser resourced schools. And it sounds like that you guys have similar thoughts, because the percentage of boarding can vary pretty significantly. And so in those cases, even if you're dealing with a very large school, the percentage of boarding might make it a probably kind of small boarding school within a larger day school, right? So do you guys think about that either at the strategic board level at TABS or, you know, at the operations level, I guess we're just always kind of in this place where if we're offering a program that is a more expensive or a higher cost of entry type program, we're making sure that we're trying to write articles about it that get into the magazine that everybody gets or something like that, so that we're all still getting that message out to everyone. So how do you guys approach that at TABS?

Susan Baldridge 16:09
No, that's a great question. I mean, one of the things I've been doing, since I came in is working with the staff at TABS to think about where we have opportunities to build in really valuable resources that are complementary with membership, or that is, they're already paid for, by your membership, right. So that ensures that a school that may not have a lot of additional resources to attend additional events at greater cost, especially with travel involved, that they still have access to lots of really good benefits. Our membership dues are based on number of boarders. So schools with fewer boarders are paying less than schools with more boarders, the idea being that if our focus is on a piece of school experiences that are tied to it being a residential experience, that's kind of a key group that we think that we're serving, and those students, some of the people around them who support them. But to your question about at the strategic level, I mean, the question that Bill asked before about the percentage of boarders is a really good example of one way in which we're starting to dig into where our schools differ and where we can provide some more customized support. And this turns out to be an issue around which there is a lot of energy, because there are, in fact, many schools in our membership, who actually have relatively small but intentional, and we hope, high quality boarding programs, but in the context of a much bigger day school. And so how can we support those schools. So strategically, we are absolutely digging into that.

Hiram Cuevas 17:51
And, Susan, if I may jump into some of the tech issues surrounding boarding schools, I've been on a number of audits at boarding schools. And I've also participated with other consultants that come from boarding schools. And the challenges that a boarding school environment poses to the IT staff in general, are vastly different than the ones for a day school, not to mention the combination of DEI and boarding, which you had alluded to earlier with many of your members schools. So I'd be curious to know how is TABS facilitating or providing the PD to help many of its memberships, to address some of the unique issues surrounding what I call the overlap between the personal and the professional in a 24/7 environment where you want to try and keep them separate, but they often overlap. For example, if I am a teacher, and I'm doing my, my schoolwork here, but then I'm now in my residential apartment, and I'm now doing my taxes online, using the school network using the school computer or what have you. I mean, that comes to mind right away, because right, what Bill and I are constantly working on are mitigating cyber risks. And this is a unique environment, in that you have to tread lightly in terms of what you keep available for both the faculty and staff and also for the boarders to keep them safe. Yes,

Susan Baldridge 19:17
well, let's talk about this because this you're really speaking right to the heart of where the mission of TABS sits. So there are lots of organizations membership associations out there. And ATLIS is one of the best that serve a whole array of schools, independent schools, of which boarding schools or schools that have intentional boarding programs are a subset right. And so there are some aspects say of the work that tech leaders do and the development that they need that are well served by ATLIS whether they are at a boarding school or not. But the piece where we try hard to focus So our attention has to do with the work that is distinctive in a boarding school environment. So you're speaking I am right to that. So, in a day school with no boarders, the faculty go home at the end of the day, and their personal lives, as you say, take place in their personal spaces. Well, on a boarding school campus, many of those people's homes are, in fact, the boarding school campus. So their own personal, say, tech use, and all the implications of that are happening within the systems with the tools and literally in the physical spaces that the school is providing. That is, in many ways at the heart of what boarding schools are about. And it's been historically a strength of boarding schools that it's where the transformational power I think educationally can come from, right, you have professional educators who are there all the time, and they are not just in a classroom, but then they are sitting in a dining hall having dinner with these kids. And they are sitting overseeing study hall between seven and nine at night. And then they are checking in on them in dorm rooms to make sure everybody's where they're supposed to be right. And then they're living in an apartment at the end of the hall in that dorm. So not everybody. But there are lots of examples like that on these boarding school campuses. And those traditions and the strength of that were developed before all of this technology became just a seamless part of everybody's lives. So where we see opportunities, we love to do things like partner with a group like ATLIS, where we're saying, Okay, what specifically does that mean from a tech perspective about how this has to work? Right?

Christina Lewellen 21:48
Because like the whole campus becomes the classroom. Exactly.

Susan Baldridge 21:51
And as I said, that's the power. That's the value proposition, honestly, of a boarding education is everything is a seamless educational opportunity, theoretically. And if a school is doing it, well, it is all aligned in service of those goals. How do you use technology? To really speak to that mission? I think it's a really powerful question.

Bill Stites 22:15
I think one of the things that comes up often you're talking about like the day to day things in terms of the way in which people are interacting with technology at a boarding school, one of the things that I've seen that's been very interesting is again, just going back to some of the work that Hiram and I have done when we go in and we work with schools, a lot of the times we're going in, and we're looking at their information systems, we're looking at the way in which they manage data, the way in which they tracked, and you talked about just secondary, you know, all the touch points, all the things that you need to do and often whether you've got a dedicated system that like all schools are using like a Blackbaud or Veracross, any number of the ones that are out there, but what I often find is there is almost like this secondary piece, like one of the tools that I've seen that in a lot of the boarding schools is a program called Reach for kind of like student life management, and trying to deal with a lot of those things. There is a number of additional pieces that I think those that aren't in boarding schools need to think about, and understand when they come into that just in terms of the way in which all the pieces are going to work. But really one of the questions that I've got for you on this is when you are working with vendors, when you're trying to talk to people, how are the needs? Where do you see the needs being different? Or what are you advocating for when you're speaking to some of these companies that we all use about representing the boarding school process, the environment, the needs? What are you advocating for when you're talking to those companies to make those systems and those services much more meaningful? Because that's why I see there's not one solution for boarding schools when they're dealing with something like Information Systems.

Susan Baldridge 24:00
Right? I think there are lots of potential answers. One thing that I think is critical, and I have talked with companies about this is that the connection back to families is critical. I mean, if you imagine any of you who might be parents thinking about the decision you might make to have your child in a boarding school environment. There is an enormous trust that you are placing in that school to take care of support your child and at the same time you have a whole set of expectations around connectivity to information about your child and his or her experience and to your child him or herself. And so I think that's one of the pieces. Certainly parents at day schools obviously want access to information to but there is a kind of a priority around that in a boarding school environment especially by the way noting that some boarders are international students, some boarders have parents who are literally 1000s of miles away. So what can companies do to ensure that schools through the technology can provide families with the kind of seamless information flow that allows them to feel reassured about what's happening feel connected to their students experience, that's a really important issue for our schools. That's

Christina Lewellen 25:31
really interesting, and probably a piece of tech that our folks don't always think about unless they are operating in a boarding school, which is why there are a lot of different associations serving the independent school community. And we are necessary, like that's a really relevant and necessary piece. I want to pivot Susan, part of the reason that I thought it would be great to have this conversation with you is that you also have a really strong affection for and interest in, and really an incredible skill set in the realm of leadership. And I know that leadership is kind of a smoky term, it's hard to capture sometimes what that actually means. But for ATLIS, our focus in terms of leadership is in making sure that if our tech leaders end up with the seat at the proverbial table, that they are well equipped to have these conversations and to think bigger picture about the mission and vision of the school about the headaches that the head may be wrestling. And so we're in the last few years shifting, especially coming out of the pandemic, we've been shifting our focus as an association, on what we need to do to provide good leadership guidance to our community. And so I guess, I'd like to start by just asking you high level, if you want to react to that, because you recognize that sometimes, you know, whether it we're talking about a tech leader or in other position in the school, that kind of middle chunk of leadership can be difficult, because you may not be able to control everything, sometimes you have to influence those things. So for those who are listening, that are interested in leadership, but not really sure how that word applies to them, Do you want to reflect on that for a minute?

Susan Baldridge 27:20
Well, it's one of my favorite topics, as you were alluding to Christina, because I'm so struck in almost any educational environment on almost any school campus, the ways in which leadership does not look like whatever traditional model of the powerful person who has direct authority to influence the behavior and require alignment of other people. Schools don't function that way, I have yet to see one that does. And even given that heads of school, play, obviously a very important leadership role. There is still exactly what you said, the group of people who play an essential role in making the best kind of work happen on a campus and those people are often not the Head of School. In fact, heads of school sometimes will laugh and say to me, Susan, people overestimate the amount of direct influence I have on a lot of what happens on campus, right? So who are those people that have that direct influence? That's a really important thing to identify. And I think tech leaders are often in a place where there is an expectation that they will help to lead. And yet their leadership cannot be expected to conform to the model that says I am the powerful person who says I am going to decree that every faculty and staff member does acts around our technology. That's just not how schools operate. So helping leaders, and in this case, we'll talk about tech leaders figure out what what does really effective leadership look like in that context? I love that question.

Christina Lewellen 29:02
And do you think that if somebody is identifying with what you're saying and saying, Yeah, that's me, I lead from behind or I influenced, but I can't entirely control and yet they're struggling with that skill set, right? Because we talk a lot at ATLIS about how tech leaders often come from an educational background, which my co host, Bill and Hiram, we're both teachers, so they come from the ed tech background, or they come from like an IT corporate background, and they're not as familiar with the workings of independent schools. So if someone listening to this and saying, okay, yes, I identify that I have this opportunity to lead and yet nobody listens to me and I can't get anything done. If there's a leadership challenge there, like where does a person even begin if they can't turn to a traditional corporate leadership book or the Harvard Business Review, you know, for guidance about leading a team because it doesn't necessarily fit like where do independent school people get leadership guidance from?

Susan Baldridge 29:59
Well, partly, I would say TABS is happy to help provide that guidance for our member schools. And I suspect, in fact, I know you all are doing the same thing. I had the privilege of getting to come to the ATLIS conference and talk a bit about some of this with some of your folks. I mean, I think this is partly just to reiterate the challenge that you're articulating, often people in schools find themselves in these leadership roles, not because they have been leaders elsewhere, they might have been, as we said, teachers, or they might have been doing something else on a campus and then got moved into a new role that involves taking on some tech responsibility. Or they might simply have been doing whatever their current job was really, really well. And people said, well, they're so good at this, I'm sure there'll be good at that, too. And then they get promoted into a new role, where the whole set of responsibilities looks really different. And it's not always obvious that the skills are going to transfer. Now, that's not a challenge that can't be surmounted, it just means I think that it's critical that people take seriously that they have the both the responsibility and the opportunity to lead. And I think sometimes in schools, we're kind of reluctant to do that it feels a little presumptuous sometimes to say I'm a leader. I think everybody on a school campus ought to think that they're a leader. We all know, people who didn't occupy a traditional leadership role. But you could say, oh, that person absolutely was leading, informally, or through charisma and vision, whatever skill set they had. So partly, that's just as I said, Me affirming what you said, I think there's no reason to expect that just because someone has been hired into a position to lead that they necessarily know exactly what it means. I'm happy to share some thoughts about things that I see people being able to do and skills that they can develop that I think help, especially in those roles that say, Here, you have all this responsibility, but not a whole lot of direct authority. Now go make that happen. Yeah, let's

Christina Lewellen 32:10
pause there for a second because all three of you, I think myself included, we at some point found ourselves in charge of something, or advanced, whatever that moment was. So I want to ask all three of you, Susan, whether it was when you found yourself the provost, having been a tenured professor, or now as a leader of an association, Bill, and Hiram, when you stepped into technology, leadership roles, was there a crunchy moment where you went, ooh, this little school of hard knocks here, like I gotta learn how to be better about crafting this conversation? And do you guys have any stories to tell, or even lessons learned in terms of how you overcame those shortcomings, when you found yourself advanced into that role?

Bill Stites 32:50
I think it's really interesting, because, you know, you mentioned our backgrounds. I started out at school as a fine arts major, I switched over to early childhood Ed, I had like one required Tech course, a zero on leadership, zero on like business or accounting. So when you step into this role of being a tech leader in a school, it's often with very little information on how you're actually going to be able to do it and make it work. And that's why I'll just share one little thing. I remember when the person who was in my position left, and I was still relatively young, in the position. And I remember going to her and saying, you know, I'm thinking about applying for your job that you're leaving. And she looked at me, and she said, I don't think you could do this job. But and that, to me was motivation to kind of figure out and

Christina Lewellen 33:39
you said, Hold my beer. Is that how that went down?

Bill Stites 33:42
Exactly. Exactly. And but but it was one of those things where it was like, you take that as a challenge, but then you have to think, Okay, what is it that this person doesn't see? What is it that I'm lacking? That would cause somebody to say that, that hurt hearing that, but then it was like, alright, you know, let's figure this out. And I know where I went, I turned to organizations like ATLIS, you know, at the time, it was here in New Jersey, it was NJECC it was the New Jersey Educational Computer Cooperative. It was all of these organizations, Hiram mentioned going to the Laussen Laptop Institute. You know, it was like turning to things like Twitter at the time. But I think the more we do and the work that we do with ATLIS, the more issues and talking about the work that she's doing at TABS, the more that we can get out and talk about these things, whether it's through the AI program that we run at ATLIS we're again, you know, coming to conferences and speaking the more we can get out there and build that base of knowledge because yes, so many of us, like Hiram, you know, you come out of a science background, you don't have necessarily the skill set, the more places we can turn, and the more organizations like ATLIS and TABS can step up, to provide that as a place for us to go just to build and to learn and then to talk to the other people through the various methods that each offers. I think that's the building blocks. That's what we need to really be the professionals that were asked to be that we weren't necessarily prepared to be and allow us to move forward.

Hiram Cuevas 35:10
I would also add that there's a certain vernacular associated with leadership that attending conferences, like ATLIS, and TABS, you know, you start to become more facile with this language, that when you go back to senior leadership, and they're talking about mission and vision, and how it connects to the other aspects of school life, you get it, you understand it, because in our current roles, you may not really understand the intersection between all of those points. And one of the things I found out very quickly, in terms of leading from behind, is, in terms of a pearl of wisdom, avoid mandates as much as possible in this role in an IT profession, what you really want to do is make recommendations, and you want to have all the stakeholders involved. So you essentially do a SWOT analysis with that team and say, Hey, listen, this is the situation, this is what we're dealing with. And these are my recommendations for what needs to be done, and have everybody own

Susan Baldridge 36:11
the result. And to build on both of those examples, I think, the more that it's possible to observe really effective leaders and frankly, observe ineffective ones, too. And take notes, either literally or mentally, about what you see what you appreciate about their leadership, what you feel like isn't working. If you're seeing that mandates don't work, take note of that, and change your own behavior to be consistent with it. One of my favorite leadership lessons actually came to me from in this case, it was a college president, and we were talking about DEI work on his campus. And I asked him about this challenge of, you know, sort of how do you bring an entire huge group of people along in this work? And as he was describing the challenges, he said, Susan, I have long since determined that it is not worth my effort trying to convince the resistance. And instead, I spend my time trying to incentivize the willing. And there's a reason why that sentence is burned in my brain because as soon as he said it, I thought, Oh, my word that is so powerful. When I thought about so many scratching moments, to your crunchy moments, to your question, Christina that I had had as a leader. So many of them were about me spending inordinate amounts of time trying to convince the resistant. And the effect of that was it was absolutely halting progress. I had, I'll tell you a story that still makes me laugh when I think about it. But it's the truth. When I was dean at the faculty, we had a very large and somewhat controversial initiative we were trying to move through. I am not joking when I say there were two years, two years of conversation about it and debate. And I was nearing my wit's end and thinking, I can't figure out how to bring this thing over the finish line. And a faculty member came in and sat down at my table and said, Susan, this is all happening with baffling speed. And I realized that if I was going to wait for every single person to come along, it could be a decade. And so that, and this notion of incentivizing the willing, really, those were just two lessons, both from my own experience, and from watching a really effective leader that I was able to take away and say, Okay, I have to do things differently. That's

Christina Lewellen 38:37
an incredible story. Let's go back to those ideas that you do. Have, you mentioned a few minutes ago that you have some ideas and thoughts in this space. Let's stop down on that and spend some time exploring and picking apart some of your ideas.

Susan Baldridge 38:50
Sure. One of the resources that I shared, actually, when I was at the ATLIS conference is a book called The Work of Leaders. It's by Julie Straw and several other authors. You know, there are lots and lots of leadership books out there. And to my mind, many of them probably could have been a pamphlet, not a book. But this one I think is really effective in that is a very simple model and very skills based in a way that I think pretty much anybody in any kind of leadership role could pick up. And so the reason I bring it up is because one of the things they focus on that I think is probably really relevant for tech leaders is alignment, that it's critical, especially in places where you don't always have direct authority to tell people what to do and expect that they're going to just do it, then you have to get alignment with those people. And so you know, a couple of thoughts about that. One is, you know, I was a faculty member in psychology. I'm trained as a social psychologist. So sometimes my social psych background comes in handy. I think it is quite reasonable to assume that almost any new idea you You are trying to bring people along with their first response is going to be no. I just think people should design for that. build that into their thinking about how they want to initiate change. If you walk into a room full of people and tell them, here's the thing I think you need to do, and it's an idea they've never heard about before. And you think that's the last time you're going to have to say that you are going to be in for a rude awakening. So inevitably, the kinds of alignment that I think folks like ATLIS members often are being asked to promote and develop requires really frequent and what might feel like repetitive communication. You've said it five times and you're bored with hearing yourself, say it. But keep saying it. Because you probably didn't say it five times to the exact same people. And most of us know, we've got to hear something a couple of times, at least before we even start to think we understand it, let alone own it. So I think that's one example of a thing that when people talk about, oh, it's so hard. I feel like my job is herding cats. Well, okay, fighting, that isn't going to change it. So you got to think about what do I do to get the cat's attention, and repeated communication and designing for the fact that their initial reaction may not be super positive. I think it's critical. Yeah, that's

Christina Lewellen 41:30
really interesting. At ATLIS, we jokingly call that violent alignment. As we you know, think about our annual goals and whatnot, it's important to have goals, it's important to have initiatives. But actually on our checklist for the year, one of the checkboxes is violent alignment. And I think what that means to us is that we are just all on the same page, helping each other rowing in the same direction and making sure that everybody understands why we're doing something. And so that might be an aggressive way to phrase it. But I do think that the idea of a model, I remember you talking about that, and your session with this book is that a system, a framework, a model, that's how a lot of tech leaders brains are wired. And so I think that kind of thing really helps.

Bill Stites 42:16
Right? One of the things I think is very interesting with that, too, is the fact that if you can bring one additional person on board, and have them advocate with you for that change, I think that's really important. And whether that person is someone inside the organization, or often I'll go back to you know, a lot of the work that Hiram and I do is if we're brought into a school to help them think about something, we may be saying the exact same thing that the people there are saying, but when you bring in that outside voice or that other leadership perspective, whether it's through another leader at the school, or whether it's through a consultant, or other people that you bring in having that other voice, even if it's just simply echoing the things that you've said, can often help. Because when we go through any type of change that requires that leadership, and a coordinated effort, will often say that, you know, we don't want this to be a tech decision. Because then it is all put upon technology, if it goes wrong, you need to have that buy-in, you need to have that voice that's heard outside of just that one area and can understand the need for if it's a systematic change, the way that's going to impact the school, the institution, the organization, in a positive way needs to have that fuller buy in, I think it's always important,

Susan Baldridge 43:35
right? So who are those key individuals that can help kind of lend credibility and maybe speak to the particular language and culture of a place? I think most people on a school campus if they thought about it could identify 235 people on campus who always seem to be kind of on the quote unquote, right side of an issue, right? They, they seem to be the ones who can influence others. And they may not be the head of school, they may not be the people with the title. Sometimes it's just a really well respected faculty member or staff member, somebody who's been around a long time, whatever it is, do that pre-sync work with those key individuals, before you have to roll this thing out, not after because once you've rolled it out, if the initial response is negative, it doesn't mean that the thing is dead in the water. But you now have to deal with the negativity in addition to trying to get the message out. Whereas if you can start with a key group of people who you think are going to be willing to stand up with you, or offer some support by saying, Yeah, this actually makes sense to me, or I tried that. Personally, I will tell you, I'm a big fan of trials and experiments and beta tests. Because once you can get In a small group of people to try something out, first of all, they will give you good feedback. And you may find out things you need to do differently, better to find that out with a small group than with the entire school community. And once you do that those people are now pleased, because they've been helpful to you. Social psychology, by the way, tells us that we like people for whom we have done favors. So get them to do you the favor of helping with your experiment. And then now they are part of that group of people you can call on to help influence.

Hiram Cuevas 45:31
So Susan, you had mentioned your social psych background again, and I wanted to tease that out a little bit as well with this, we've been discussing, you know, team building and forging alliances and relationships, which we discussed quite a bit on the cast, or, as Christina says, the pod. And what I'm also curious about in terms of your opinions, in terms of leadership, a leader that shows vulnerability, risk taking, and failing gracefully, and how that fits into this equation.

Susan Baldridge 46:01
That's a really great example. I mean, it's funny, because you asked me as a social psychologist, so my brain immediately goes to research. And there is actually some relevant research here, some of it fairly classic and social psychology, for example, we like and admire people better when they are not perfect, but have at least some small failings that we can identify with. Now, that sounds obvious, but think about that. I mean, it's actually kind of freeing as a leader, right to know that nobody is expecting you to be perfect. And in fact, they don't want you to be perfect, right. And I will also say, there's plenty of good generational trend information out there that if you think about young people, the people who are just being hired into many of our schools, they are looking for a kind of authenticity and leadership kind of generationally that I think, historically may not be what some of us came of age with, but is critical for them and feeling like they're connected to the work of that institution. So that kind of transparency, that authenticity, that vulnerability that you're referencing, Hiram, I think absolutely is something that helps with the leadership not hurts it. And

Christina Lewellen 47:16
before we hop off of the leadership topic, I wanted to ask about marginalized voices. Because I think that whenever we talk about leadership, you know, I have the most experience in particular being I like to be thought of as a woman who supports women, I'm raising four girls. And so that kind of support and making sure that that voice is in the room making sure that women have an opportunity to advance through a leadership pipeline, whatever that might look like in whatever industry. So I've spent a lot of my energy in particular, looking at it through a women's lens. But if we broaden that out to any kind of marginalized group, tech leaders, we find sometimes have an opportunity to advanced marginalized groups into leadership positions, just because it tends to be one of the most diverse groups on campus sometimes. And so I just thought I would pause for a second and see if you have any thoughts about in particular, our roles as leaders to make sure that the right voices are in the room or being reflected or being heard in that space?

Susan Baldridge 48:22
No, it's such an important question. And yes, I think leaders in whatever role they're in have both the responsibility and the opportunity to do exactly what you're describing. And the responsibility is there. from a human standpoint, right? We all know what it feels like at some point in our lives to have been in a room where we weren't being recognized where we weren't being elevated. So from a human perspective, to be able to look around the table, ask who's there but also, who's not there, ask who has spoken, but also who hasn't spoken? That's an incredibly powerful role that a leader can play. I'll also say just really pragmatically, in addition to the important equity issues that are involved there. One of the things I hear so often from leaders in schools is their concerns about staff retention, and hiring, and what it means to really be getting talented young people into schools to do this work. And again, if you think generationally, this is a group of people who expect that diversity in all kinds of ways, and who will potentially represent folks who could be incredible leaders themselves one day if you were willing to invest some time and energy in developing them, but maybe they don't look like or don't present as the kind of person who historically you would have thought of as a leader. Well, that's a missed opportunity if you turn a blind eye to The potential that those people can represent in your own organization. I

Christina Lewellen 50:04
love that. As we begin our wrap up here, we got off on kind of an interesting rocky foot. So we're going to end with something a little different. And we're going to bring Susan into the family. So Susan, I'm going to ask you to draw on your psychology background and I want you to give the gents a grade. Hold on. Wait for it, Bill. He's already getting round up. I'm gonna put you on the spot and you're gonna give them a grade A through F. Gentlemen, your assignment is that you have to say something heartfelt and nice to each other before we end this podcast, not sarcastic Mr. New Jersey. You are friends. Why

Bill Stites 50:41
are you coming at me? Why are you coming at me?

Hiram Cuevas 50:44
He's the one. Okay.

Bill Stites 50:46
You're coming at me hard right off the bat. Blood

Hiram Cuevas 50:49
pressure blood pressure Bill.

Susan Baldridge 50:52
Bill, the test starts now.

Christina Lewellen 50:54
I know. Okay, so the grading is about to begin on this exam. I'm going to make you say something nice to each other. And then Susan is going to grade you. Alright, we're gonna let Hiram go first, say something nice,

Hiram Cuevas 51:05
say something nice. Now, if this is truly heartfelt Bill is one of my dearest friends. I learned something from him every time I talk to him, despite his obnoxious side. And suffice to say, if we were in the zombie apocalypse, Christina, there's no one else I would want to be with than with Bill Stites.

Bill Stites 51:28
And that's exactly where I was gonna go. was gonna go right back to the zombies. If there was anyone I would want by my side, it would be you because I know we would dominate the world, we would have a plan for everything just because of how well we see eye to eye on this topic. So dig into that one as much as you want from a psych perspective. There's a lot to go on there about both those.

Hiram Cuevas 51:51
There's some medicine for that. I think too.

Bill Stites 51:53
Oh, there is exactly.

Susan Baldridge 51:57
It would be unprofessional for me to go too deep. To say that, I think you could have had an A if one or both of you could have left out the obnoxious reference, I think you might get knocked down to an A minus. That was me.

Bill Stites 52:11
Thank you. And it wasn't me. Thank you, thank you.

Susan Baldridge 52:17
But here's what I'll say that, like Christina, I felt an immediate kindred spirit feeling when she and I met. And it has been a delight to be able to talk to all of you and be welcomed into the family. I recognize that sometimes dinner table conversations can be a little contentious. But that's just people who adore one another. So count me in. It's

Bill Stites 52:38
like you always say, you know, we can say bad stuff about our family. But no one else can say bad stuff about our family. And that's exactly what we've gotten.

Hiram Cuevas 52:45
Exactly. That's right. Because we got people. I got Jersey people.

Susan Baldridge 52:51
You guys are great. Susan, it's

Christina Lewellen 52:53
been so great to have you here. And also just to have you in this independent school space, and your work a lot. I see you interacting with other leaders in the independent school world. And I'm sure the TABS community understands how lucky they are to have you. But I will just reiterate to everyone. I love that you and I are a text away from each other. And a lot of times we are solving the world's problems with each other. And I'm just so grateful that you are in this community because you make my job better and easier. And just more fun. I love seeing your face at industry events. So it's been very cool to have this conversation with you because I just value you so much.

Susan Baldridge 53:32
Oh, thank you so much. I feel exactly the same way. I appreciate you see

Bill Stites 53:37
Hiram, that’s what saying something nice about someone sounds like okay, just pointing that out.

Susan Baldridge 53:42
That was an A plus.

Bill Stites 53:44
Yes. No, it was an A plus. Thank you.

Christina Lewellen 53:46
Boom. Star of the class, like usual.

Hiram Cuevas 53:49
And I'll just stop.

Christina Lewellen 53:53
I know Hiram, you're muted. You're done. I'm muting. You see, you guys are over. I get the A plus; this podcast is over. Thank you for joining us, everyone. We will talk to you next time. Don't say any words mute. Done.

Bill Stites 54:05
Thanks so much.

Hiram Cuevas 54:08
Thanks, Mom.

Narrator 54:10
This has been Talking Technology with ATLIS produced by the Association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools. For more information about ATLIS and ATLIS membership, please visit the atlis.org If you enjoyed this discussion, please subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast with your colleagues in the independent school community. Thank you for listening.