Leading Through Complexity

All right.

Welcome everybody.

I am Peter Frank.

I'm the Senior director of certification and operations here at Atlas.

And, uh, to all of our Atlas members, welcome.

We, uh, appreciate your membership very much, and thank you for being here.

And, uh, if anyone is not currently an Atlas member, we hope you enjoy the presentation.

And if you'd like to learn more about Atlas membership, we, uh, we would be happy to to talk to you about that if you reach out to us or check our website.

And as Senior Director of Certification, I would be remiss to not mention Atlas as certification program, the Technology Leaders and Independent Schools certification, or the TLIs as we've come to call it.

Um, the telis basically says, I have a well-rounded, very thorough understanding of all aspects of the technology leader role, specifically at independent schools.

And I consistently maintain ongoing professional development related directly to my role.

That's what the certification means.

Um, we've seen, I've already seen a number of people here, uh, on the call that have earned the T lists, and I also see a couple people that are planning to earn the T lists.

Um, good luck to you.

The exam window is currently open.

The next window will be open.

The next exam window will be open in March, early March.

So if you have any interest in pursuing the TE lists, you could come back from the holidays, start preparing for it, and, uh, take the exam in March and then enjoy your spring break.

It's a good, uh, it's a good plan.

And again, feel free to reach out to me or, uh, anyone at Atlas.

Feel free to visit our website about, uh, to learn more about certification.

And finally, we just wanna mention that Atlas has several professional development opportunities between now and the end of the year that will be available.

So please visit our website, uh, to see, uh, what events are lined up.

There's another webinar tomorrow about ascending to the CIO role, which today's webinar will we'll, uh, certainly, uh, be related to that.

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We get, uh, questions about that.

I'm not totally sure.

I just know that staff is definitely buzzing about that.

Our annual conference is next April in Columbus, Ohio.

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Whenever it hits.

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Alright, so today's session is being recorded and we will send a link to the recording sometime after this webinar is over.

And today we're talking about systems thinking it's a high leveled approach to the challenges you face at your schools.

And we could not have a better presenter on this topic.

He's someone who's worked from the technology department up to, he's currently the assistant head of school at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey.

And, uh, he is seriously committed to this topic.

He has done some, uh, some extensive research on, uh, effective leadership practices.

And it will not be long before you can feel his passion, not only for understanding these things, but also sharing everything he's learned, uh, with, uh, with everyone else, everything he's learned and experienced.

He's an Atlas board member and a long time supporter and friend of our organizations.

I'm very pleased to introduce to you Dr.

Marquee.

Scott, go ahead, Marquis Peter, thank you for the thoughtful invitation and certainly with tomorrow's webinar and CIO I'm not sure if this, this talk today will help or, or expedite that process of those getting outta the business, but hopefully I can provide some, some insight on the, the work ahead.

So we have about an hour, right? So I have a lot to talk about and it's certainly one of the, the, the topics I think about most in my leadership style and certainly excited to be here today.

And as, as Peter said, my name is Marque Scott.

I'm currently the assistant head of school at the the Longville School.

And there we go.

And I've been here close to eight years.

I've been in education well over 23, 24 years.

I've worked at three different schools and different roles around it and communications and hr, DEI and Student Life and Wellbeing and the Coing Head of School.

I've done a lot of different roles at my, at my school.

And I think what I appreciate about, uh, I think what I bring to the conversation is the way I think about schools and systems thinking.

I have a, an MBA, um, I have a doctorate in organizational leadership here.

And, um, I have a master's in, in education leadership.

And I've always thought that going back to school would be helpful to what I do.

Um, but it didn't really come to light until the last four or five years.

And I've began to really understand how we work together and how we think together and all the work that we do together around school leadership here.

So I'm excited to talk to you about systems thinking, which really at a, at a broad stroke is really about the ways in which we think about the holistic picture around around education here.

And, you know, I'll, I'll tell some stories around what I've done or what I'm seeing, and then certainly we'll have time for questions, uh, throughout.

And the examples I'm gonna show today are both, um, what I think I'm seeing in schools and certainly, um, some of the work that you're seeing in your, in your roles.

So, so let let me jump in here at the end of the session here.

What I'm hoping that will happen is, you know, what I want us to do is really think about, you know, how we see the work that we do, and sometimes sim simple fixes and how that can often fall short for a variety of different reasons.

And how systems thinking.

Again, holistic thinking allows us to notice the patterns underneath the surface.

Uh, schools are in many ways living systems full of people and relationships and feedback and change.

Um, and these sometimes are, are con, they're all connected and they're just not separate parts of the system here.

So that will help us understand how systems thinking under looks at the underlying connections and assumptions that sometimes are visible and sometimes that are not visible here.

And at the end of the day here, the question at hand is, how can we, as school leaders use system thinking to understand and navigate the complexity of school life in ways that su support sustainable and meaningful, meaningful change here.

So that, that's our goal.

Um, and we'll go ahead and get, we'll go ahead and get started here.

So to me, real change happens when we stop reacting to parts and we start seeing patterns.

And all of us have been in conversations or engaged initiatives here, and we see these topics that emerge that we spend time discussing.

And sometimes you just wanna pause and understand how these different conversations are, are reactive here.

So what I want to do is sort of frame the topic around systems thinking, and then we're gonna use that today to dive into the work around three or four different examples of how we map our, our thinking here.

So, so number one, schools are, and organizations, like, they're just not machines, right? They're made up of people and purpose and people show up as, you know, in different ways, in different what ideas and questions.

And this is what I think makes schools so great.

And what we now know, and we've always known and mean different ways, is that every decision interacts with another decision.

Like there are just no isolated fixes.

It just does not happen here.

Even we take, take a step back and we, we discuss a new AI initiative here.

There are students there, faculty, there's a school, there's a parents, they're all interrelated here.

So for me, when I think about systems thinking, I take a step back and I think that leadership is just not about control.

It's about sense making in complexity.

So I, I think about sense making in complexity here.

So when, whenever I'm running a meeting or I'm leading an initiative here, I'm just trying to understand or make sense of what is and what is not actually happening.

And for that to happen, I sort have to take a step back in many ways here.

And if you notice on the right hand side, I sort of have this graph here about the school system.

There are students, there are faculty, there are parents, this culture, this policies there.

And they're all interrelated in many different ways here.

Whether we're discussing the ways around balancing DEI with student wellbeing, we align, we're aligning, advancing priorities.

In many ways, managing change across divisions can be tiresome.

There's fatigue.

And when that happens, sometimes we don't understand the ripple effects of what we're doing here.

'cause one small, one small policy shift here can affect another decision over there, whether it's around morale, trust or, or workload.

So the question I think about here that I'd like you to think about also is like, when's the last time a well-intentioned change had surprising ripple effects? And I know that the chat's not open, but I know as I look through the camera here, I, I'm on a webinar, but what's up? Oh, do you need dog treats? There you go.

Those are our teeth.

That's a good answer.

Um, well thank you for that.

That, so, um, so we, I think we all can, can, can understand this question and think about in our own ways.

We've seen this in our, in our own schools here.

So, and when I think about that here, it makes me understand intimately why some approaches, traditional approach, traditional approaches fall short.

Because in many ways it's like linear thinking.

There is, if we do a, we'll get B and we achieve C, right? That is just the way we function sometimes here.

But in our schools, it doesn't look like that, right? It's we do A, we expect B and we get F right? And they trigger new issues that we did not see coming.

And in some, I see a lot of folks shaking their head, right? And some of it's a, there's a smiley face, okay? Um, and sometimes that's because, right, the people who need to be in those meetings are just not in those meetings, right? Uh, and we see this all the time here.

And here's the reality, right? Linear thinking, I, I believe oversimplifies complex realities, like it's just not linear.

Number two, it produces short-term fixes that I think create long-term challenges and problems that we experience on a day-to-day basis.

Not just in it, but in organizations.

And many of our organizations, we have two to 400 employees who have their own lives.

And we have students who range from a hundred to to a thousand.

So that's like a living ecosystem here.

And the way I think about that, as in schools, there are feedback loops that are just not straight, you know, feedback loops, not straight lines drive behavior, right? Let me, let me pause there.

Feedback loops, not straight lines drive behavior.

So I've always believed that we spend more time upfront with engaging the right people in those conversations so that we can take a step back here, then we can drive the system or initiative in a really helpful, thoughtful way here, which is one of the reasons I believe that systems thinking shifts leadership from control to to learning.

Okay? Okay.

And with that, there are real assumptions and challenges in our organizations.

This is real, right? The system never stands alone, right? There's real complexity and sometimes we have multiple interacting unpredictable outcomes.

We've been in situations where we said, I had no idea that this was gonna happen.

I did not realize this may have occurred here.

That's just the way our systems function here.

And system thinking, systems thinking begins with recognition that schools are complex and adaptive systems, right? We're adaptive, that's how we adapt.

And we're not predictable, period, right? So change in one area will and can produce unexpected effects and elsewhere, right? So again, the point here is the system never stands alone.

Number two, schools as ecosystems, I believe schools are living systems, not machines.

Now, I'll keep coming back since coming back to this point here.

So what systems thinking does is it allows us to say these are organizations that are living human systems that learn, we adapt and we evolve.

That's just what we do.

That that's what makes our systems and our schools so important to who we are here.

And number three, solves causes not systems, right? Linear thinking leads to short-term fixes, not systematic solutions here.

So systems thinking allows us to re reject the quick linear cause and effect logic.

And it invites leaders to embrace patterns and feedback loops and root causes that drive reoccurring issues here.

So a lot of this upfront is just framing the way we're gonna think about these next set of series exercise as we engage in them.

Okay? So now let me define what I mean by systems thinking here.

Essentially, it's holistic way of thinking about an organization here for understanding people, processes and structures and how they interact over time.

That's just the root definition of it.

And it helps us in schools because it enables leaders to see how people, processes, and decisions are interconnected.

Helping us address root causes, ripple effects, and lead with clarity and complex environments.

So what I have here is a systems thinking model, where often, sometimes, and I love the iceberg effect is all, we always see what's happening above the iceberg here.

But when we take the time to understand what drove that decision here, it falls in different areas.

Number one, there are patterns and trends.

There are are then structures and reforms, right? What led to those patterns? And there's mental models.

The way you and I think about our assumptions and our beliefs, the work that we're gonna do today and talk about is really the mental model phase here.

Because if we get that right and we get people thinking about intentional and deliberate collaboration, then things happen in a helpful and important way.

So I've always believed that strategy without systems thinking is just wishful thinking, right? That's just, that's just what it is, right? Hope is not a strategy.

You need a framework to how you're gonna arrive at that decision here.

And sometimes that framework is about systems thinking from a high and holistic perspective here.

So I'm gonna take systems thinking here and explain how this works for strategic planning here.

I did some work with NI last couple years ago.

I wrote an article that's online right now about how do I think about strategic planning here.

So we move beyond lineer planning, right? We move from traditional strategic planning to mission and KPIs to thinking about dynamic systems.

So schools who have strategic plans, I always ask that when they do that here, to ensure that their strategic plan reflects what's happening today versus tomorrow.

You want that happen at the same exact time.

So that if the economy changes or the geopolitical environment is emerging and your community in ways that are just not helpful, or you're trying to think through here, you want a plan that reacts to that here.

Number two, it allows us, as we said earlier, to move and look beneath the surface.

So I love the iceberg model because it allows us to uncover patterns, structures, beliefs, to drive visual behaviors.

Number two, we begin to adopt, uh, an adaptive leadership model.

We wanna leave a curiosity, we wanna lead with understanding the balance of short-term actions with long-term learning and creating space for innovation, dialogue and iteration.

Number three, we think about scenario planning.

I love the zoom in and zoom out approach because it allows us to say, as an organization here, we're gonna go out three to five years with a plan, but our short term execution is gonna be three to six months, which is adapted to what's happening on the ground at our schools here.

Okay? And the last piece is it allows us to stay grounded in our values of our community.

So we begin to ask deeper questions.

We ask questions about our values, who we're serving.

And then the other question I often ask is like, what must be true for our plans succeed? Like what must be true for our plans to succeed in often cases that will involve the people, the culture, and the purpose? And if you can't answer that here, then we want to pause and have further conversations.

Okay? So here we go.

Here's the bottom line, right? Reoccurring challenges are in failures.

They're just patterns, actions asking to be understood, right? That's how I think about reoccurring challenges here.

So I'm gonna talk about another framework here.

So I'm building, I'm building the plane with you here.

We have a systems thinking and there's ways in which we see these experiences show up in our community.

And they're what we call system archetypes.

These are reoccurring patterns of behavior that show up in our schools.

And they reveal how structured drives outcome over time, right? They're called system archetypes.

And there's about 10 of 'em.

They're call limits to success, success that is successful tragedy of commons growth on investment fixes that fail, shifting that burden, and a few other ones.

I'm gonna talk about four today that I love when I think about schools.

And before I get into that, I always think about leadership isn't what happens at the top, it's at the patterns that connect people, person and practice, right? Leadership isn't what happens at the top, it's the patterns that connect people, person and practice.

So I'm, I'm, I'm asking you to look at this work from a holistic and organizational lens here when we adopt this pride quote here, okay? So I'm gonna talk about four system archetypes.

I just, all the, I've seen in schools that show up in different ways.

And we're gonna laugh a little bit.

You're gonna say, that's exactly, is that my school? I don't, I hope not.

Um, but I want to give you some tools to, to say, wow, I've seen this play out here, given my approach to school leadership, how might I navigate those conversations? So I'm gonna talk about four of 'em today.

And I think it's important to name things.

We're able to point to things, whether it's going well or there's opportunities for growth.

We want to point to things.

So the four I'm gonna talk about today are, one of 'em is fixes that fail.

The second one is shifting the burden.

The third one is limits to growth.

And the fourth one is success to the successful.

Okay? So here we go.

Let's talk about fixes that fail.

Let's move my screen up here a little bit.

Okay? So this is one of my favorites here.

This is a quick fix that seems to solve a problem with deepest root issue over time.

Let's just use ai for example.

I call the AI adoption trap.

'cause many of our schools are now navigating really intentional and important conversations around ai.

And with ai this often means implementing tools before establishing trust and and policy.

So let's give an example.

A school adopts a generat.

Generat generated AI tools to boost productivity and reduce grading workload.

But without clear boundaries, right? Faculty feel anxious, students exploit loopholes and trust begins to erode.

Okay? So here's the pattern.

When I think about fixes that fail, there is schools rushed to adopt the AI tools to improve efficiency or engagement.

Initially the tools save time, they spark excitement, but over time, new issues emerge, right? Faculty confusion and even use increase workload for the AI champions, right? Ethical privacy or grading challenges or even mistrust or fatigue among teachers and students.

So what began as a solution becomes another layer of complexity.

Okay? So what we want to think about when we see this here is the system dynamics, right? The solution becomes another layer of complexity.

The AI adoption trap.

So we have some system dynamics at play here.

We have the short-term fix, which is other schools are doing it.

I went to a conference, I talked to a hundred people, we have to do this today, right? Because it will make grading, planning, writing, what? So have you easier and better, right? We've heard something like that before.

But in reality, unintended consequences, there was no training, there was no faculty meeting about boundaries, no presentation from the IT department or academic office or faculty office to talk about misuse or anxiety, right? So here's the loop of it.

The reinforcing loop here.

Early excitement or gung-ho or where to go turns to resistance leaders add more training or tools to compensate, right? So now, but the problem is the frustration has started, right? In many ways the result is time and energy and innovation is really meant, uh, how we manage the fallout of this here.

And then what happens is trust declines, right? So we went from what we thought was a great idea without really taking a step back and thinking about all those other factors that matter.

So when you sort of break this down, some of the goals of this conversation here, especially around the AI adoption trap, is we wanna, one, we want, we want to one, see the big picture right map where AI impacts teaching, assessment and equity, not just from operational standpoint here, we want to understand the full system of trust, policy and capacity, right? That's the first initial step.

As you think about when you see fixes that fail or short term solutions or ideas that you believe may not be beneficial long term.

The second piece of it is, how do we engage multiple stakeholders in this conversation, including the faculty, the students, the parents, tech partners are helping shape AI norms, right? Because everyone sees the system, or at least in this case, AI from a different vantage point.

And the third point is we wanna make sure that we're focusing on relationships, right? How do we build psychological safety to experiments? How do we normalize learning together, rounding, top down directives? And how do we embrace this work? We start with controlled pilots, one department, one project.

We gather some feedback, we adopt policies, right? That are evolving and changing.

And how do we track indicators of this work going forward? For example, faculty confidence, academic integrity, time save, right? Important conversations.

So that's fixes that fail.

The AI adoption trap.

So as you think about your own work here, and you're leaning to leaning into this conversation here, there are three questions that I encourage you to think about in some way, shape, or form.

What, what systemic issues, workload, communication, clarity, are we trying to solve through ai, right? Let's have that discussion here and ensure that we have the right people in the room.

Number two, how might short term fix create fixes, create new challenges elsewhere, and culture expectations or equity? What are the unintended impacts? And then what deeper structures like PD or trust or policies need to evolve alongside this technology to ensure long-term change, right? And you can do this with a group that's diverse, that allow you to think more broadly.

And these questions, or at least similar ones like this, will allow you to take a step back and ask the global questions around systems thinking.

So that's one of my favorites, fixes that fail.

Let's talk about one of my other favorites.

Shift shifting the burden, right? So shifting the burden here is important because an example I'm gonna use is over reliance on outside contractors, right? What this one is focused on is it's a system dynamic where schools rely on external fixes instead of developing internal capacity, right? So I'm gonna use tech leadership for example.

This looks like outsourcing expertise to consultants, developers, or contractors rather than investing in training and sustainable internal structures, right? So example that I want to use for this shift in the burning system archetype is around a school hires an outside firm that manage its data integrations or network upgrades every year instead of building in-house know-how or documentation, and it's initially efficient, but long term the school becomes dependent, vulnerable and less adaptive, right? So I'm gonna walk you through what this feels like to, we can point to it when we think about shifting the burden.

And give a example down here of a, of a diagram here.

So what in most cases what the school will do, organization is to solve an urgent or complex operational challenge was a tech upgrade, maintenance or something else.

The school will turn to an outside contract or consultant.

And at first this relieves the immediate pressure ensures professional ex expertise is off and running, right? We've checked that box.

The challenge is, if we continue to do that here, and we see this over time, is internal knowledge and capacity, it becomes stagnant, right? Faculty and staff disengage from the problem solving, right? The creativity that we want to happen in our communities and dependence on external support grows, right? And there's obviously a financial increase to that.

There's a coordination demand increase for that.

And what began as a practical solution becomes an ongoing dependency that weakens institutional self-reliance, right? So this is called shifting the burden.

And again, what began as a solution becomes another layer of dependency here.

And the short term fix was let's bring an outside contractor, the they can solve the issue faster, more efficiently, whatever the case may be.

And the unintended impact of this is the internal teams, whether we can see it or not become disengaged, right? Institutional knowledge stops growing, right? And sometimes this is visible and sometimes this is not visible.

Sometimes we can measure this and sometimes we can't measure this.

And the reinforcing loop here that's happening here is as the internal capacity begins to erode, the dependency on external help increases, right? And now the new projects, the default is now just outsource, right? And the result of the school becomes less agile and more costly to sustain the staff feels less ownership and empowerment, right? This is a shifting the burden system archetype here.

So when we see this, right? What we want to do as school leaders is just take a step back here and look at this from a global perspective.

Wanna see the big picture? And we wanna say what, which functions rely on outside help? And why? Is it time? Is it trust? Is it training or some other factor? And then as we, as we, as we engage with those outside vendors, right? Let's make sure that we have the perspectives of our teams, whether it's finance, academics, or IT or other groups to evaluate outsourcing versus internal, internal investment, right? And much of that it's focusing on relationships.

We wanna encourage mentorship and knowledge transfer from vendors to staff if that is a one-off initiative for you.

How do we, how do we ensure that our people understand and retain the knowledge from these vendors, right? And we want to begin to embrace experimentation, right? Gradually in source small processes.

For example, managing a dashboard to build confidence over, over time.

Otherwise you have that reinforcing loop going on here.

And then again, you want to, you want to track how much this external work you're doing translate into skill development or, or attending gains here.

Okay? So shifting the burden, three questions for school leaders that I'd like you to think about.

Is one, internal capacity or expertise are we avoiding developing outside by outsourcing this work? Number two, how might our short term reliance on external help weaken ownership, trust, institutional knowledge among our faculty and staff? And what would it take to transition to design a transition plan that builds self-sufficiency and shared learning from our external partnerships, right? So questions like this you wanna ask upfront as you begin to see these initiatives play out.

Marquis, I was wondering if I could ask a question.

Oh, oh, yeah, Yeah.

Hi, I'm John Adams.

I work at the river school.

It's just, uh, west of Boston.

I lead our technology department.

It almost sounds like this example could be used internally too, when certain departments may be overburdened on, may be the out equivalent to the outside contractor in this example.

That's exactly right.

Yeah.

And this example I gave was outside, but you can certainly flip this to inside.

And I think the, the point is, John, but I'm from Boston.

Love it.

Oh, nice.

We got the pitches off and running.

Um, I'm an Eagles fan, so I'm not gonna, Um, but, but the, the point here that you raise here is, is immediately you notice this is happening internally here.

Yeah.

And now you're asking different but similar questions around, yeah, we shifting the burning here.

But you're exactly right.

Yeah.

Okay, great question.

Thank you.

Um, okay, so, oh, I love this one.

One of my other favorite ones, this is limits to growth here.

And the reason I like limits to growth here is I'm gonna talk about this as in the innovation chase, right? An example here, and what this is all about for this system archetype is it's a situation where schools are eager to keep pace with peers and they begin launching multiple innovation initiatives, right? But internal limits are occurring time, clarity, culture, coherence, right? And they begin to slow down momentum, but also create fatigue.

So one example I'm gonna use here is a school adopts new programs, design thinking, AI literacy, experiential learning, new schedule, because peer schools are doing the same exact thing or departments are doing the same exact thing.

And the early excitement boosts reputation and energy, but the faculty feel stretched.

Alignment erodes and initiatives lose depth.

And the pattern we see on, on, from a holistic perspective is the school is really excited about the initiatives here, whatever it may be, AI signature programs, wellness, DEI frameworks the state current and inspire momentum.

Initially, these efforts bring energy, visibility, and pride, which is great, that's what we want.

But over time, in absence of asking the right questions, faculty capacity and tension becomes stretched.

There are now competing priorities.

We always see this, right? Like, what is the plan for this year? Who's looking at this? Who's looking at that? And then fatigue sets in, right? And the culture shift from death to constant reinvention.

So what began as a pursuit of progress becomes a cycle of exhaustion and diminishing returns.

So here's where the loop begins to happen, right? It's let's launch this initiative.

This makes sense, it's gonna spark innovation and move us forward.

We hear that, we see that we're on board here.

But the unintended consequence of that, without asking thoughtful and intentional questions from a holistic perspective, is faculty.

The energy spreads thin across too many priorities, right? And we see this, the impact and departments, especially the IT department with certain initiatives.

And it's hard to follow through and therefore it declines.

So what do we see? We see fatigue, we see diminishing capacity of a slow progress and enthusiasm fades.

The result is leaders introduce more initiatives to reignite energy, the second repeats and true innovation plateaus.

So what we want to do as systems leaders is we wanna see the big picture, right? We wanna map the relationship between innovation, energy, and capacity, right? Great idea.

Sounds good.

And let's just make sure we have the right systems in place to support the good work, right? And if we don't, let's, let's step into this conversation, right? Because the facet we chase the more strain we create.

But to do this, we have to ask and engage multiple stakeholders.

What changes actually deepen our mission, right? Faculty and students will spot overload first, they will tell us when there's too much going on, right? We want them in the conversation, right? As you think about relationships, right? When align innovation with purpose and pacing, not competition, we wanna build trust before asking for change.

We wanna, again, we wanna embrace experimentation, we wanna focus on depth over breath one, meaningful pilot versus five rust rollouts.

And how are we monitoring our work? We're tracking indi indicators of fatigue, meeting load, pd, attendance, morale, initiative count.

And here's some questions that we can think about.

And you'll see that I asked one and two twice, and that was intentional, right? Because this is the big one here, right? And I always ask twice, right? What capacity or constraint is limiting our ability to sustain meaningful innovation, right? And then come back to it again and again, right? And then how might we simplify or sunset initiatives to create space for learning mastery or renew, right? So your questions will look similar to this or slightly different, but the intention here to take a step back, put your systems hat on to address some of these questions in a thoughtful, diverse, and, and, um, collaborative group.

Okay? And the last one I want to talk about, this is one of my favorites.

They're all my favorites, to be honest.

This is success to the successful.

And I'm gonna use an example why I call the PD divide, the professional development divide.

And this one is when we see a, a pattern where a success attracts more resources, attention and opportunities, which widens the gap between groups of people on campus in schools, this often shows up in faculty professional development where certain departments or individuals receive consistent investment while others struggle to act the same growth experiences.

So one example is the tech savvy leader, or early adoptive faculty member is repeatedly chosen for conferences access to PD budgets or pilots.

And what we see is their expertise grows, but colleagues who need the most support becomes increasingly disconnected from the school's innovation culture because they're visually seeing this here.

And the pattern, we're gonna get back to patterns here, right? Is schools invest heavily in PD opportunities for the same small group of high performing or visible teachers, those who are already engaged and confident.

And initially this creates quick wins, enthusiasm from the participants, they bring back new strategies and initiatives.

But over time, with that disconnect happening, the same teachers receive more growth and recognition.

Others feel overlooked and excluded.

Knowledge and practice remains siloed with a small circle of, of, of faculty and staff, right? And then gaps in the morale and cnce innovation and wides across the community.

So what began as a wonderful idea, investment in growth becomes a source of division and equity.

And in many ways, as we think about the arc of the, the journey of faculty pd, we're gonna approach this in different ways.

Some of it's gonna be intentional, some of it's gonna be in groups, some of it's gonna be individual, and it's gonna be dynamic because we know that PD feels and shows up differently depending on where you are in over the arc of your faculty career here.

So it's important to approach this from a systems perspective.

So here's what happens underneath the system here, right? We are reinforcing loops, right? The PD access and improved skill and visibility, more investment in those same teachers.

Like that's happening over here, right? Whereas in group B here, those who are not benefiting or, or involved in, in in loop A here have limit access, disengagement, stagnation.

And there's few opportunities for others.

Here, there, there's the balancing of loops here.

And then efforts to scale, best practice fail without inclusive structures, structures, right? So when we're looking at this here, we want to take a step back here because if we don't do that here, we just have these wheels spinning by themselves here.

And the result of this, as I described earlier, is that the PD experiences for our faculty and staff becomes uneven, which then impacts the culture, right? So the learning narrows and, and instead of expands, okay? And again, this is one as, as we just described earlier here, it's not just with pd, it can hap it can happen across the school here, but we wanna spot that early and take a step back and say, are we building, are we building this program from a holistic or systems perspective? So again, we wanna see the big picture, right? We wanna map who is receiving access to the pd, the funding, the time, and the recognition.

And we wanna identify concentration points, right? Again, we wanna make sure that we're engaging multiple perspectives, right? When we're, we wanna invite faculty from different divisions and experiences, right? We're bringing together the co-design, as I said earlier, want them to co-design their PD priorities.

Because when you have multiple perspectives here, you're ensuring, or at least you're taking one step forward and ensuring that you are approaching this from a global perspective here.

And then it's about relationships, right? We wanna pair innovation leaders with newer or hesitant faculty members.

Let faculty lead that piece of it.

Wanna map and pair, right? That's collaboration In many ways.

We wanna rotate PD opportunities, right? We want those who are not.

We want those in loop A feeling supported, and we want those in loop B also feeling supported, right? But to do that here, we have to rotate PD opportunities and create emerging leaders, right? And how are we monitoring that success by department, by role, by experience, equity, not just attendance, right? These are, these are the themes, the conversation that we want to have as a diverse group.

So here's some three questions I'd like you to think about, right? Who consistently benefits from our PD learning opportunities and who's left out, right? That's an important, that's an important question.

Number two, how can we design PD systems that build shared capacity for learning rather than reward existing strengths? Another, another important question.

And what structures would ensure that learning spreads across the community, not just within a small group, right? And certainly there are other questions that you might ask, but when I wrote these here, that the idea was to, to help you think about this from a, from a holistic perspective.

So those are four different ways of thinking about system archetypes.

And you know, in many ways these are not in in isolation here, right? They interact with each other, right? So imagine a sequence, right? The, you try to solve a problem, you have fixes that fail and it doesn't work.

So you launch another initiative and another one, and now you're in limits to growth because faculty are exhausted and they spread then thin.

And when capacity is exhausted, what then happens, right? You start outsourcing, you bring in consultants, you hire more people, right? That's your shifting the burden archetype, internal knowledge stops growing meanwhile, right? Meanwhile, the only people who survive in this chaos and, uh, situations that are experiencing in, in different environments are the resilient ones, right? In most cases, the early adopters, the high performers, right? And everyone else disengaged.

And now you're, you're looking at a situation that we're describing, which is success to the successful.

So your three patterns feeding each other, and the culture narrows instead, instead of expands.

So when we as leaders begin to see these interactions here, right? We stop trying to fix the individual problems, we start changing structures and systems that create them, and that's when real change begins to to happen.

So, so at the end of the day, I think leading through complexity means embracing interdependence.

And we as school, when I think about my role, right? I, I wanna, wanna, wanna make sure that our environment has conditions where they feel successful and supported.

And that's important, has systems that can, that they can learn with.

And when we have the people and the systems connected here, we are moving forward in a, in a much more adaptable and agile way, right? Because I wanna stay at a, a holistic and systems perspective here.

So what have we learned about systems thinking in, in schools? There are few points I've learned over my many years in, in school leadership, right? C complexity to me is not, is not chaos, right? It's just a real opportunity to understand connections by bringing people in the room to unpack what is or is not emerging.

But that requires intentional oversight.

That requires, uh, intentional connection and collaboration that requires setting up the experiences for all of us to engage and, and really thoughtful conversation and impact our schools.

Number two, linear fixes create loops, right? A to B2C i, I believe system thinking reveals patterns, right? We, we, we in our schools see a number of patterns, whether it's around advancement, French, sustainability, enrollment management, faculty growth, academics.

These are all experiences that all I believe derive from patterns here.

And we as school leaders wanna make sure that we are understanding the holistic perspective and the way that drives the individual and departmental perspective.

And that just requires us to put on a different lens and a different hat as we navigate these important conversations.

Number three, leadership means shifting from control to curiosity to collaboration, right? I, I don't think I could be successful in my job unless I'm collaborating across the school, right? I need to engage with my counterparts, my peers, with students and faculty and staff to ensure that whatever I'm delivering on or whatever I'm leading or messaging here, they have their fingerprints on on it.

That's important, right? So control, curiosity, collaboration, right? And the fourth piece is sustainable change happens when we design for relationships, feedback and learning.

So when I think about my work with in school leadership here, I wanna make sure that I'm, I'm thinking about relationships, right? I want your feedback in this, whatever I'm doing here, like that is important.

I want your fingerprints on that conversation because when that happens, I get real authentic feedback, but, but whatever it is I'm working on.

And, and then what the outcome is, is it's an experience that was built on learning of each other together in a space as one here, right? So there's relationships, there's feedback, and there's, there's learning.

And sometimes some of the work that we do, we just wanna point to it and say, how do you operationalize that? Like, what does this look like in my school? Can anyone just do this? And I would say absolutely, absolutely, right? We want, we want to make sure that you're seeing the big picture and we are looking beyond systems to structures, right? Remember, as I said earlier, that when you see reoccurring patterns, they're asking to have a conversation, they're asking to be known, right? We wanna unpack that further, right? We wanna look underneath the iceberg to processes, to policies, and to people's mental models, right? Number two is, we wanna make sure that we're engaging multiple perspectives, right? Bring the system into the wrong, right? What are we trying to solve today? What are the key questions that we need to address, right? What are some of the unintended impacts of a decision, right? Bring that systems thinking into the actual room to facilitate the conversation, right? We think about COVID from years ago, right? We needed to have a systems thinking perspective because many of us had to reopen school in five or six months, and many of us had to get school online within two or three weeks of a spring break, right? That doesn't happen without a systems perspective.

And to do that, we wanna focus on relationships, right? Culture drives every loop.

You know, people often say, you know, strategy eats culture or culture, sorry, culture eats strategy.

And I would say that leadership drives culture, leadership drives culture, and so does relationships.

You get the culture piece, right? You can do whatever you want to do, but that requires us to have authentic and meaningful relationships move forwards.

We wanna make sure we're embracing experimentation, right? We want to prototype, we wanna learn, we want to adapt.

In other words, we have an idea.

How do we stutter step all the way through that initiative? So maybe we're not piloting 50 teachers next year, we're piloting one or two, and we're gonna learn about those outcomes.

We're gonna learn about successes and challenges, and we're gonna adapt, we're gonna innovate, we're gonna keep it moving, right? And then like, how are we measuring, learning not just outcomes, right? What does that then look like? We know that learning will feel different for whomever is in our organization.

And sometimes it's just deliberate and intentional and sometimes it's just in different ways.

But how are we capturing that? How are we doing that? And what does that look like? How will we know if it's correct and what must be true to ensure that's that initiative is moving forward? So I'm gonna to, as I wrap this up here, some of my favorite books are The Fifth Discipline by Peter Sanjay.

Really good book about systems thinking.

I wrote an article for NAS, which is online right now.

I'm happy to collect on LinkedIn if you want, about the article, but it helps us think about systems thinking.

And I think this idea of systems thinking will be important for our schools as we continue to navigate real complexity over the next few years, right? Whether it's enrollment management, whether it's scholarship aid, whether it's fundraising, right? It's gonna, it's gonna be even more important that we adopt a systems thinking perspective for all of our schools here.

So when I, when I take a step back here and I think about what does, what does marquee mean when he thinks about leading through complexity, right? To me it means we wanna see the system, right? Every problem is a part of a larger paradigm period, right? Two, we want to, we want to name the loops.

We wanna, we wanna be able to recognize reoccurring archetypes before reacting.

That's important to see.

I, I've seen that before here.

Let's just, let's pause and reflect and ask some thoughtful questions.

And then we're off and running in a, in, in the really important ways that we know we need to.

Number three, wanna engage the system.

That just means we'll involve a diverse set of voices because that allows us to reveal hidden dynamics.

We've all been in meetings where we've, someone has said something and we said, oh, that was wonderful.

I'm so glad this person was in this meeting.

Well, guess what, what happens if they were not in that meeting? Right? So there is a benefit to engaging a diverse of set of voices in all that we do in schools, right? And we wanna design systems for learning, right? We wanna pilot, we wanna reflect and we wanna adapt continuously.

And most importantly, we wanna measure what matters, right? How do we track capacity, coherence and, and connection? And as you think about your next steps here, and some key takeaways that you might think about as you move forward is start small, right? Pick or identify one, persistent challenge, faculty, morale, innovation, fatigue or communication flow.

It could be anything you want, right? Map the system, right? Identify the people, the processes and policies shaping it, right? And name the pattern is it fixes that fail or limits to growth or success, that successful, right? We have a number of, of archetypes that we can use as a, as a reference tool, and then we wanna engage others in those conversations, right? Bring a small cross-functional team together just to test one, one change you're thinking about, right? And then when that success works, reflect and share and celebrate the learning, not perfection.

And, and the goal here is not to overhaul your system overnight, it's to build a culture, right? We wanna build a healthy culture that sees a system and what you're doing here.

So start with one loop, one conversation and, and one experiment.

And I'll end with with this as I, as I begin to wrap up.

You know, to me systems thinking is not isn't about new tools or framework, it's about a fundamental shift in how we lead, you know, the old ways of seeing the work.

I see the problem, I know the solution.

I think this is the plan, how we wanna move forward.

I I don't think that can work anymore as we continue to navigate complexity and systems thinking allows you, your leaders to see something different, patterns, connection, togetherness, so that we can design a response with people who know each other best, who knows systems best, who bring the wisdom to the table here.

So it's not about giving up leadership here, it's about moving from control to collaboration, from telling to learning, from fixing to designing.

And here's what I know from my days in school leadership is, is that schools can make this shift when they learn to see the system.

They don't just solve individual problems, they build cultures where people think and live and learn together.

Where change sticks in ways that everyone feels that they help, support or create it.

And where complexity becomes a feature, not a, not a bug.

So that's the, the world I believe in when it comes to organizational leadership.

And I think that's what's possible for all of our schools.

So, you know, pick one pattern, invite one person to the conversation, run one experience, and, and, and have some fun.

And I believe the rest will will happen from there.

So I wanna say thank you for allowing me to share some of my thinking, my learning.

Hopefully you learned a few things.

I'm happy to connect offline.

I'm passionate about school leadership.

I love what I do.

Um, and I love cultures and I love schools.

So hopefully this has helped you move the needle, um, forward in one, one way or another.

Thank you for having me, Marquee.

Thank you so much, Stacy.

We, we did see your question in the chat and, uh, we're gonna get a chance to address that just in the last few seconds here.

Um, Stacy had asked about factoring in school culture and technology norms for a long period of time versus technology best practices.

Yeah, so, sorry, what's the question again? When we're, when crafting systems thinking within our plans, how do you, how do you suggest factoring in school culture and technology norms for a long period of time versus technology best practices? Yeah, so that's a great question.

And when I think about school culture, I think about people.

The people, right? When you, when you, when we are leading schools or an initiative here, the people allow us to create the norms and the processes and the culture.

But if they are not together in those conversations, it's a, it's, it's a short term fix here.

So in the case that you're asking here, I would recommend getting a cross represented group here to decide on what are the norms that we want to see? What are the questions that we want to ask here? And then you go back to the faculty and say, are we on course? Are we missing something? What are the key questions here? And what that does, Stacy, it allows you to create, uh, a framework that's built by your school that they can point to where they have their fingerprints on that they can believe in here.

But we can't do that without the people here.

And when I think about the technology piece of it here, I think technology's in, technology's in sort of in a, in, in a weird scenario where they have their fingerprints across the school here.

So in many ways here, we want the technology folks here to ensure that when they think about their own best practices here, to ensure they have an outside voices who are non technologists in those actual conversations here, so that they together collectively can shape scope culture here.

So again, it goes back down to the people here and the culture and processes.

Great.

Thank you so much, Marquis.

Thank you to everybody for attending.

Uh, Marquis, thanks so much for sharing your, your insights and expertise.

This is great.

Um, as a reminder to everyone, you will get a link to the recording if you, uh, joined late, uh, or whatnot or wanna see it again.

Uh, we'll get that out to you as soon as possible Again.

And, uh, yeah.

Thanks.

Thanks again.

Thanks again, Marqui.

We really appreciate it.

And thanks to all of our attendees, we hope you have a great rest of the day.

Thank you all.

Have a great day..