Education
Expert advice
How to make effective decisions to move your organization forward
By Abby Cymerman
Smart Business Columbus | August 2008
Page 1 of 1
Gene Harris
Superintendent, Columbus City Schools
Gene Harris is an outspoken
community leader, but she’s still interested in what
other people have to say.
“It’s common sense that
when you bring the experts
together, you get better information,” says the superintendent of Columbus City Schools.
“I never would be one to rely
only on the information that I
have. That limits the possibilities for your organization.”
As the leader of 7,400 employees, Harris believes that the
most effective leaders take an inclusive approach, and she
often relies on internal experts
and external business leaders to
share their opinions about the
potential impact of a decision.
But, sometimes, you have to
ignore what others think and do
what you think is right.
“When it is time to make the
decision, I have no problem
doing that, no problem pulling
that lever, even if it flies in the
face of what the majority might
think,” she says. “I am going to
do what I think is the right thing
to do.”
Smart Business spoke with
Harris about how she gathers
information from valuable
sources and puts that input to
use in her organization, which
has fiscal 2007-08 general fund
revenue of $653 million.
Recruit volunteer experts. You’ve
got to decide in the organization
what kind of skills and strategies that you need. Some of it is
science; you know you need a
great HR person and someone
who operates the organization
well, but then you have to look
outside of the organization, too.
For example, we needed to fill
some operational positions and
may not have had access to the
talent pool we needed for that,
so we were able to work with
some business leaders in town.
They were able to help us put
together a team to bring those
resources to the district.
You not only have to be able
to trust those people, but as the
leader, you have to know where
you want to go. It’s not a matter
of just saying, ‘Here, make this
happen.’ There’s a destination
that you want to reach, and
you’re asking these folks to help
you reach the destination that
you’ve already defined.
Allow yourself to be vulnerable.Open yourself up to new ideas.
If you don’t take on new ideas,
you become stagnant. The
world is continuing to change,
and your organization has to be
nimble enough to meet the
changing needs of our society.
Otherwise, you’ll be left behind.
We are partnering with a
local university to provide an
opportunity for our students to
get their high school diploma
and their two-year associate
degree. Typically, school districts don’t seek outside
expertise on certain issues but
we’re willing to do that
because we know that it is
good for the organization.
Create a partnership plan. First,
you have to have a clear
enough vision that people are
willing to volunteer to spend their time and their professional
expertise in helping you to get
the work done, and the second
thing is you have to choose the
right people. These are people
that you know are committed to
the same mission as you so
they’re willing to work with you.
One of the first things that
we do is look at our needs.
What are they? Are we able to
fulfill those needs on our own,
and if we aren’t, what creative
steps can we take to partner
with other institutions or other
organizations to meet that
objective?
In these economic times,
everybody is going to have to
move away from their traditional ways of thinking about how
to solve a problem. Otherwise,
there’s the old saying, ‘If you
continue doing what you’ve always done, you’ll continue to
get what you’ve always got,’
and that’s not going to work.
You’ve got a new goal out
there, something you need to
accomplish. Look at all of the
possibilities for accomplishing
that, even new ones.
Reap the benefits. Being inclusive really benefits our organization a great deal because we
get individuals who are willing
to come to the table and bring
resources.
The resources aren’t always
financial. Often those resources
are their expertise, and they’re
willing to donate that to the
school district. That means that
we’re getting a huge benefit,
and there’s really not a financial
impact on the district.
Have a flexible vision. A successful business leader not only has
the vision for a plan and sets
some goals but actually sees it
through to implementation.
You also have to be able to
say when something isn’t
working and be willing to
change course. It doesn’t mean
that you give up, or that it’s a
failure. It means that you’ve
either got additional information or something just didn’t
work.
An effective leader would
say, ‘We are going to be realistic, and we are going to pay
attention to the data. We are
going to be nimble enough to
make adjustments, if that is
necessary.’ Any effective
leader is going to face some
amount of opposition; the
point is whether or not you are accomplishing your goal.
Your mission is still the
same; how you get there may
have to be adjusted. Make sure
that everyone in your organization understands that things
change because change is hard
for people.
Respect the process. Process is
as important as outcome. You
can get great outcomes fast,
and that’s fine, but if you don’t
have a good process that is
understood by all, a process
that can be replicated and sustained in the organization, you
put the organization at risk.
You need to make sure that
you’ve got a good process in
place so that the organization
can run effectively for the next
leader.
HOW TO REACH: Columbus City Schools, (614) 365-5000 or www.columbus.k12.oh.us
