A teacher interview discussion panel is held at the end of each semester as part of the teacher Alternative Certification Program at Manatee Community College.

The panel is made up of myself and four administrators (1 elementary, 2 middle school, and 1 high school).

We each spend about 15-20 minutes talking and answering questions about how to land a teacher interview, what we think the most likely teacher interview questions will be, and how to answer each interview question.

I can’t help, but think what an advantage these student-teachers have…they actually get to pick the brains of administrators in their own county prior to going on their first teacher interview!

Below are ten teacher interview tips that the administrators shared at the teacher interview discussion panel: 

1. Definitely hand-deliver your resume. An administrator MAY very well interview you on the spot. Two of the administrators admitted that for certain teaching positions they have their secretaries contact them immediately if someone comes in to drop off a resume.
2. If you are substitute teaching to get your foot in the door remember…everyday is a job interview…dress the part, become part of the school community, and make contacts!
3. Make as many contacts as you can. This is a teacher’s greatest resource when trying to land a teacher interview. A phone call from a teacher or another administrator…even if they don’t know the each other…will often get you the interview.
4. Research the school and the district!! The administrators want to know that you have done your homework. You should know everything you possibly can about that school/district. Know the mission statement and any major current initiatives that are underway in the school district.
5. Research the people conducting the interview. Just as much as they want a quality teacher they want someone that they can work well with…they are looking for a relationship…a good fit!
6. They will Google you! Therefore make sure to Google yourself and see what comes up.
7. Get rid of your MySpace account.
8. Have a professional email address…Don’t make silly mistakes like having an email such as sexylove69@aol.
9. Even the high school administrators want to know how teachers get parents involved. Yes, the high school administrator expects teachers to call parents too!
10. Be prepared to explain how you cover something that you are NOT interested in. Many teachers prepare for the question, “Take me through one of your favorite lessons”, but these administrators always ask, “How would you teach something that you do not want to cover but must.” This is a great question, because the reality is you will not enjoy teaching every part of your curriculum.

The teacher interview discussion panel really clearly gave everyone involved a huge advantage over the competition I hope you can take something away from my brief overview of the day and use it successfully at your next teacher interview.

The gross dearth of effective administrative leadership is draining the teaching profession of potentially excellent and dedicated teachers. A great number of well-educated and heart-driven teachers are calling it quits prematurely and shortchanging the teaching profession, students and themselves. Though teachers cite a wide range of reasons for leaving, despite 4 to 5 years of preparatory schooling and the investment of many dollars of financial aid, many of these reasons have one point of origin—poor administrative leadership.

My research on this topic, though empirical, is not necessarily scientific by any stretch. I look back on the last 19 years of teaching and my direct association with at least 15 administrators as principals or assistant principals and the obvious positive correlation between effective leadership and teacher retention cannot be denied. When I make this observation known to veteran teaching peers I am usually told that I haven’t been struck with a ray of brilliance, but simply that I have a firm grasp on the obvious.

I remained at one particular school for an agonizing 16 years. Administrators came and moved on, though sometimes not quickly enough. Many teachers came and went during those years also. However, a large number of those teachers were young and experiencing their very first teaching assignment. Some of these young teachers and some of the new teachers were under the impression that what they were experiencing was normal and expected for a teaching environment today. Sadly, but not surprisingly, many of those young people moved on to other professions.

Administrators in charge of molding, guiding and nurturing beginning teachers were running them out of the profession at, what seemed to me, an alarming rate. Some of the administrators made unrealistic time demands on new teachers, were unsupportive in discipline situations, were negligent in providing resources or gave the impression of being inflexible or unsympathetic. These negatives from an administrator wear on a veteran teacher, but have the potential to cause new or young teachers to consider other professional options.

I am currently working on a Ph.D. in educational leadership and am doing a great deal of reading and research on effective leadership. Much of the course work involves readings, discussion, writing and research on effective leadership and leadership styles. I see in the scholarly literature and course texts a wide variety of characteristics of effective leadership. Many of the leadership characteristics are simply common sense yet many of them require careful consideration and reflection to appreciate.

I am excited, proud, and very fortunate to be working for an administrator now that personifies effective leadership. His concern for each teacher and staff member professionally and personally is obvious. He presents himself as a servant, ready to help each and every one of us and provide to us any resource necessary for the job. He is truly the embodiment of effective leadership. We do not work for him, we work WITH him.

I will never forget my first day teaching at this school. I walked out of the gym toward my office to grab a piece of equipment I needed for class. I was surprised by the Principal on my way. First, I was amazed that on the first day of school he found time to walk down by the gym and secondly, I was even more amazed at his remark to me. “Hello Coach Bradley, is there anything I can do for you”.

There can be no better teaching environment. We are supported in all discipline situations. We are routinely consulted on many issues and even in policy development when possible. None of our classroom teachers have duty outside of their teaching responsibilities. He, the four assistant principals and the coaches of the school assume all monitoring duties. We do not have unnecessary meetings, the meetings we do have are productive and often short, and meetings outside of an emergency are scheduled. He makes every effort to see that we are performing to his expectation, but at the same time, he makes every effort to see that we are content.

I recently spoke with a teaching peer who was still trying to endure the horrific teaching environment from which I escaped. I felt sadness for her and for the students. She asked how we made AYP and how did we win the governors cup (awarded to the high school in the State of Georgia that achieves the highest SAT point gain from one year to the next). It required absolutely no consideration. I proudly said, “Because we all love the job and morale is high”. We’re not just happy, we feel trusted, valued and secure in that we belong to a concerted effort.

Effective leadership can make or break a school or a teacher. Administrators possess as much power to mold and empower teachers as teachers possess to mold and empower students. With that said, it cannot be denied that administrators have a direct impact upon student achievement. I would even go so far as to assert that with effective administrative leadership at the helm, student achievement is almost guaranteed.

After considerable reflection, I recently and reluctantly purchased a copy of Who Moved My Cheese? It is a best-seller, authored by Spencer Johnson, M.D., who, along with Ken Blanchard, co-authored another best-seller, The One-Minute Manager. After reading it, I concluded that my reluctance to buy it was warranted.

Who Moved My Cheese? is another in a series of books falling into the genre of “let’s make life simpler than it really is.” When I first read The One-Minute Manager, I put it down and mused to myself, “This is one of the most dangerous books I’ve ever read.” Why? Because The One-Minute Manager is a book that presents life at work, especially life at work as a manager, as a problem easily solved – if you can be what many of us have always wanted; namely, that idealized father figure we might call “the perfect Pop.” That is the essence of The One-Minute Manager: a facile description of the perfect Pop. (Please note that I did not say that it was a practical prescription for how to be the perfect Pop.) But I digress. Back to Who Moved My Cheese?

The long and the short of Spencer Johnson’s latest “let me make it simple for you” book is that we need to adapt to change. Gee. What a remarkable insight. The senior executives of this country (“The swells who run the show,” to borrow a phrase from the musical, Les Miserables) will no doubt love it. (Indeed, if bulk sales are any indicator, they certainly do.) Why? Because Spencer’s book puts the onus for adapting to change on those who have it imposed on them instead of those who impose it. In effect, it’s a “Get on board or else” message. Frankly, I think the book is mistitled. It should be titled, They Moved Their Cheese – Again. Of course, that would reveal an ugly truth, namely, that life is all about getting and keeping your own cheese instead of constantly running the maze looking for cheese that someone else controls. God forbid you should learn that lesson.

Consider the title: Who moved my cheese? To be perfectly honest, if I find anyone tampering with my cheese, I’ll break their freakin’ legs (hands, too). To be fair, the book points out that we human beings tend to think of their cheese as our cheese. Not me. My cheese is my cheese and their cheese is their cheese. Actually, that’s not a bad analogy or metaphor or whatever. The trick in life is converting their cheese into my cheese. I can move my cheese all I want but they’d better not touch my cheese.

In the last analysis, the message of the book is even simpler than the book: “Change Happens” (So, get used to it).

Tom Davenport has done us all a big favor by writing this book.  He has clarified what it takes to “get better performance and results from knowledge workers.”  As his book makes clear, this is a large, complex, multi-faceted and probably long-term  – but doable – task.  Although it won’t happen overnight, it can indeed happen, as Davenport shows by way of numerous examples and illustrations.  Along the way, he places several well-known initiatives in their proper and useful context (e.g., knowledge management, communities of practice, decision and performance support systems, and social network analysis to name a few).  As befits a professor, one who holds the President’s Chair in Information Technology and Management at Babson College, Davenport’s book is thoroughly researched and very well-documented.  It is also an easy read without being simplistic.  In short, his book is scholarly without being academic.

I bought the book because I have been a student of knowledge work and knowledge workers for more than 35 years, ever since I read Peter Drucker’s 1969 book, Age of Discontinuity, in which Drucker laid out the first full-scale treatment of the shift to knowledge work.  More than 20 years ago I published a piece of my own about the shift to knowledge work (see the note at the end of this review) and in it I cited Drucker as follows:

To make knowledge work productive will be the great management task of this century, just as to make manual work productive was the great management task of the last century (Age of Discontinuity, p.290).

To my surprise, I came across that same citation on page 8 of Davenport’s new book.  When it comes to knowledge work and knowledge workers, we both seem to have been greatly influenced by Drucker.

Thinking for a Living is organized into nine chapters.  In the first two chapters, Davenport defines what he means by knowledge workers as well as identifying important differences among them.  In Chapter 1, he defines knowledge workers as follows:

Knowledge workers have high degrees of expertise, education, or experience, and the primary purpose of their jobs involves the creation, distribution or application of knowledge (p.9).

In Chapter 2, Davenport lays out some of the differences among various kinds of knowledge workers using the consultant’s favorite tool, a 2×2 matrix.  His matrix places the level of interdependence on the vertical axis (ranging from individual actors at the bottom to collaborative groups at the top) and the complexity of the work on the horizontal axis (ranging from routine on the left to interpretation/judgment on the right).  These two axes yield four categories or classes:

1. Integration Model (routine work by collaborative groups)
2. Transaction Model (routine work by individuals)
3. Expert Model (interpretation/judgment work by individuals)
4. Collaboration Model (interpretation/judgment work by collaborative groups)

Clearly, what it takes to “get better performance and results from knowledge workers” varies with the kind of work and worker.  Davenport elaborates on each category and includes comments about illustrative interventions.  But his main treatment of the intervention issue occurs in Chapter 3.  There, he points hammers home the point that interventions will have to vary with the kind of work and worker, especially when it comes to measures of performance.  He also touches on common mistakes made.

In Chapters 4 through 9, Davenport discusses six basic categories or angles of attack to the task of making knowledge work more productive.

Chapter 4 focuses on the process perspective.  As the author of the first book on reengineering, Davenport is eminently qualified to comment here.  And he warns of the likely failure of efforts to impose externally-engineered processes on knowledge workers.  He argues instead for a collaborative approach.  He also argues that the most common forms of successful process-oriented improvements are likely to be participative, incremental and continuous.

Chapter 5 centers on the use of technology.  Here, as you might expect, Davenport addresses many of the technological initiatives that many of us have encountered in the workplace (e.g., knowledge re-use, decision support and automation, data mining/analytics, and embedded knowledge).  He very usefully arrays these in an overlay on the matrix he developed earlier.  Again, he makes the point that not all interventions (in this case, technologies) are appropriate for all kinds of knowledge work.  Scripts for call center workers might succeed there but will certainly fail with researchers.  Here is where Davenport touches on knowledge management, an area where he is also well-qualified to comment.

In Chapter 6, Davenport moves his focus to developing individual knowledge worker capabilities.  As he observes in the opening paragraph, “Ultimately, knowledge worker performance comes down to the behaviors of individual knowledge workers (p.111).”  The central point in this chapter is that personal information management is one key to improving individual knowledge worker performance.  Unfortunately, as Davenport also points out, we know very little about how that is done or how to improve it.  Yet, he also believes that the field of personal information and knowledge management is poised to take off.  Consultants take heed!

Chapter 7 moves away from the individual to the social context in which the individual operates; specifically, social networking.  Numerous instances are cited in which high-performing knowledge workers attribute much of their success to their networks.  In this chapter Davenport points to communities of practice as one avenue for improving knowledge worker performance and results, including a tool known as social network analysis.

Chapter 8 will warm the hearts of some old OD consultants, especially fans of Fritz Steele.  Here, Davenport addresses the physical environment and its impact on knowledge worker performance.  As is the case throughout his book, Davenport warns against one-size-fits-all approaches and issues a subtle warning to those who would shift from offices to cubicles for the sake of saving on space costs.  Those costs will show up elsewhere and could easily offset or outweigh any space cost savings.  The message here is that the physical environment should support the kind of work being done and several examples illustrate how physical-space interventions work and how they can backfire.

Chapter 9, the last chapter, treats the subject of managing knowledge workers – as well as the rather obvious issue that managers are themselves knowledge workers.  Given the ever-increasing importance of knowledge workers to today’s organizations, Davenport opens with the proposition that a key task of those who manage knowledge workers must be to recruit and retain them.  As he illustrates, that’s easier said than done. Worse, he adds, “…the evidence suggests that most firms are moving in the wrong direction on recruitment and retention issues (p.197).”  As with all the preceding chapters, this one includes at its end a helpful set of recommendations for getting results from knowledge workers.  Davenport closes this chapter and his book with the following comment:

Peter Drucker wasn’t exaggerating when he noted that the fate of advanced economies depends on making knowledge workers more productive.  There is no business or economic issue that is more important to our long-term competitiveness and standard of living (p.208).

I agree and if you buy and read his book, as I am unabashedly encouraging you to do, I think you will too.

Allow me to conclude with what I believe to be three major contributions of Davenport’s book:  First, he clearly articulates the scope, scale and complexity of Peter Drucker’s challenge (i.e., to make knowledge work productive).  Next, he provides us with a useful conceptual framework and dozens of illustrative interventions that can help us tackle that challenge successfully.  Last, he does so in an easy-to-read yet scholarly way, which means he makes it possible for us to access his knowledge in a straightforward, painless way.  His book is a giant step forward.

Geary Rummler’s new book, Serious Performance Consulting (according to Rummler, of course) is a valuable addition to any serious consultant’s library.  It is packed with useful schematics, templates, checklists and, most important, the “mental models” that guide Rummler’s own consulting practice.  Indeed, the book is worth reading just for the insights it provides into the way Rummler thinks about performance and performance consulting.  It is worth owning because of the tremendous treasure trove of concepts, models and detail it sets forth about consulting to improve job, process or organizational performance.

Organized into two parts, Part 1 (Chapters 1 through 4) is wrapped around a case study that illustrates serious performance consulting (SPC) in action in a parts plant in the automotive industry.  Two appendices contain detailed descriptions of the findings and recommendations from this case study.  In Part 2 (Chapters 5 and 6), Rummler acknowledges and explores the restraints and constraints confronting internal consultants regarding the practice of serious performance consulting and then lays out his thoughts about the path one must follow to become an SPC practitioner.  Each chapter conveniently contains a summary of key points at its end.

Right up front, Rummler wastes no time in coming to the heart of “serious performance consulting.”  According to Rummler, it’s “performance analysis.”  He goes on to identify three characteristics that distinguish between serious performance consulting (SPC) and what he calls performance consulting “lite”:

• an objective of closing a measurable gap between “is” and “should”
• a systematic results improvement process
• a sound, rigorous performance analysis

Several models are central to the practice of SPC.  These are clearly laid out and explained in the book.  Three of the more important models are:

• AOP (Anatomy of Performance).  This is the big picture view of performance according to Rummler.  It is also scalable; it accommodates three levels of performance: job or individual, process and organization.  It reflects Rummler’s views about organizations as systems, especially as adaptive, processing systems.  Rummler takes pains to point out the importance of keeping the organization-as-system aligned, both vertically and horizontally.
• RIP (Results Improvement Process).  A simple, straightforward, feedback linked model with four stages or phases:

I. Desired results determined and project defined

II. Barriers determined and changes specified

III. Changes designed, developed and implemented

IV. Results evaluated and maintained or improved

The RIP model also serves as the basis for four basic models of a consulting engagement.  In two of these models, the consultant is involved throughout all four stages.  In the other two, the consultant’s involvement is limited to the first two stages.  The major differences are tied to the extent the consultant leads and directs the effort and the degree of internal staff involvement.  The case study has the consultant involved in only the first two stages with the client implementing the recommendations.

• HPS (Human Performance System).  This model contains five basic elements: input, performer, output, consequences and feedback.  Diagnostically, they lead to five basic areas affecting performance: task support; individual capacity, knowledge and skill; performance specifications; consequences and feedback.

This reviewer is a long-time fan of Rummler’s work and a long-time student of performance technology and so it was especially rewarding to see some of the hallmarks of performance technology according to Rummler: for example, the HPS model above as well as the use of and reliance on an “exemplary performer” to establish benchmarks for best practice.  In this instance, the exemplary performer was another parts plant not plagued by the problems besetting the plant serving as the focal point in the book’s case study.

Internal and external consultants will both find value in Appendix A, which presents the detailed recommendations from the project serving as the case study.  Particularly fascinating is the list of client personnel reactions the report was trying to pre-empt through the careful use of graphics, evidence and the case for change:

• “What do you mean by that?  I’m not sure I understand.”
• “How do you know that?  How did you reach that conclusion?”
• “Says who?  Who told you that?  What evidence do you have?
• “So what?  Why do you think that’s a big deal?  It happens all the time?

Sound familiar?  They should.  And if you’d like some insight into how to head off these commonplace sniping attacks at report presentation time, Appendix A is for you.

Interestingly, Rummler doesn’t view SPC as a profession.  Instead, he views it as a craft.  Craft or profession, successful practice hinges on the consultant having the “right stuff.”  According to Rummler, this includes:

• being committed to improving measurable results
• remaining solution-neutral
• being capable of using a validated, robust results improvement methodology (RIP)
• having a broad repertoire of results improvement strategies and tactics

Scattered throughout the book are little boxes with “according to Rummler” comments about the subject matter at that point.  Many of these are little gems and stand as lessons on their own.  For example, in ATR 3-41 (the 41^st According to Rummler comment in Chapter 3), he explains why, in an age when consultants are hard-pressed to continue on past the point of recommendations and get involved in implementing their recommendations, his experience suggests that the follow-on implementation and change management phases pose less of an issue if certain factors have been satisfied (e.g., a solid business case and a deep, credible analysis).

Indeed, in the last analysis, Serious Performance Consulting is, as Rummler makes clear at the outset, a matter of serious performance analysis.  Rummler’s book, then, is also a sobering view of SPC in that you get an up-close look and, thanks to the appendices, an in-depth view of what it takes to do SPC – and it’s not for lightweights.  Although Rummler didn’t explicitly spell it out, it seems unlikely that SPC can be carried out without the involvement of a seasoned pro who has “the right stuff” – according to Rummler.