Archive for Book review

The Decision Book

Wednesday, 1 February, 2012 admin No comments

The Decision Book by Mikael Krogerus & Roman Tschäppeler
(Profile Books, £9.99, 2008)

(This is the fourth in a regular series reviewing books outside of the realm of education, and looking at the impact they could have in a learning environment.)

Tagline
Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking

Lowdown
What a clever little concept that has probably made a fortune for the two writers. They have distilled a range of popular, pithy and scientific models to aid decisions. Cunningly designed as a notebook, it has the feel of something you might want to write elegantly in, or even scribble down notes.
It is hard to review this book individually, as there are such a range of strategies it is possible to examine, but as a collection it is actually very clever. A cursory glance will give you ideas for quick decisions, long strategic views, ways to look at implementing something from another perspective, and even ways of developing pros and cons. It is a little like an advice book, where you can dip into to get guidance, and is a brilliant springboard for kickstarting new thoughts on what could otherwise become quite a stale topic.
Schools being as they are, great ideas are regularly trapped under a myriad of blockades, worries and concerns, and it can sometimes feel like you are dragging an initiative behind you like a boulder, rather than bringing something useful and exciting to the table.
It is very easy for schools to develop a culture of decision-making which is hard to (in the best sense) ‘disrupt.’ Any new Head will dread the words ‘but we have always done it this way’, and while protocols help in ensuring nothing is missed, sometimes they can stifle momentum, enthusiasm and innovation. This book gives a range of ideas suited to all sorts of business models, but the mutinae of decisions that are made every day in schools across the country could well benefit from a fresh pair of eyes.
More importantly, some of these models could help to break the cycle of ‘choke’ which is all to regular an issue, where a decision has been delayed or ended in a stalemate, and is unable to progress. The enoromous danger here is bigger than the item in question – if no decision can be made regularly, how does that reflect the decision process as a whole?

The Management Angle
The central joy as an SMT is that you are charged with making the decisions no-one else wants to make. As Barak Obama said, ‘anything that ends up on my desk is a problem no-one under me can solve.’ We have all felt like that. A gut instinct can work incredibly well for much of the time, but does it give us enough of an evidence base to fight our corner?
I looked at this model in light of several key decisions that had to be made, and although at this point none of them changed my decisions, it really helped to clarify for me how I had innately come about my decision, and also, with more focus, the various implications my decision may have on others. While I wouldn’t advocate using new models all the time, it is useful to be familiar with strategies which are unusual for your normal mindset.

The Teacher Angle
Brainstorms are great for spilling out everything a pupil knows about a subject, but they tend to run into difficulty afterwards. How do you organise this information? How do you evaluate it? What gaps have you missed?
The opportunity to look at data a little differently can also produce more critical thinking within pupils, and certainly changes the emphasis from ‘how much do I know’ to ‘what can I do with what I know’, which in turn reflects a learning style from something fact-based to something skill-based. Many of these models would turn simple Q/A type activities on their heads in class, and can be used (as I have done) as a source of inspiration when you have a lesson objective, but find the method for achieving this to be awkward or ineffective. One strategy would be to examine a topic you have little enthusiasm for, and skim through the book. I would be surprised if you didn’t find something of use this way.

The Pupil Angle
Which child wouldn’t want to think better? In terms of personal growth, there is a genuine benefit and reward to teaching thinking skills to pupils, as they can then begin to apply them to a range of other problems. Informal studies have shown inside a classroom that while methods may lock into place, especially in Maths, it is when these methods needs to be transferred to a different, unfamiliar environment that cognitive ‘choke’ tends to occur. The key here would be to offer children tools to allow them to make transitions from method to practical use. Throwing  pupils a range of different scenarios is quite different to equipping them with an effective transfer strategy.

Best quote
“A person who wants to think outside the box is better off thinking inside a box.”

Ponder now
What is the biggest influence in how you make decisions? How much control do you have over this influence?

Book review, Book review, Opinion, Reflections , , , , ,

Who Moved My Cheese?

Sunday, 22 January, 2012 admin No comments
Who Moved My Cheese by Dr Spencer Johnson
(Vermilion, £5.99, 1999)(This is the third in a regular series reviewing books outside of the realm of education, and looking at the impact they could have in a learning environment.)

Tagline
An Amazing Way to Deal With Change In Your Work and in Your Life

Lowdown
In terms of big sales, this business book is enormous. I was given it by a previous boss, who had bought all the staff it en masse. I quickly looked it up on Wikipedia, and immediately was drawn to the following:

Some managers are known to mass-distribute copies of the book to employees, some of whom see this as an insult, or an attempt to characterize dissent as not “moving with the cheese”. In the corporate environment, management has been known to distribute this book to employees during times of “structural re-organization,” or during cost-cutting measures, in an attempt to portray unfavorable or unfair changes in an optimistic or opportunistic way. This misuse of the book’s message is seen by some as an attempt by organizational management to make employees quickly and unconditionally assimilate management ideals, even if they may prove detrimental to them professionally. Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams claims that patronizing parables are one of the top 10 complaints he receives in his email.

This was indeed the case with my boss, who in every other way was inspirational. This book however will make you want to weep with derision, such is the patronising manner of what is a very simple concept to grasp. So simple in fact, it could be told on a beer mat. The trouble with beermats is however that they are trickier to sell many millions. Instead, you might want to do what Dr Spencer has done here and write a slim volume, which is a story within a story. We meet some lovely, wholesome people, just like you or I, and over the course of a colossal 73 pages, describe a tale where some mice have run out of their favourite cheese. Two mice react differently, one waiting for their old cheese, the other goes off, seeking new cheese.
If you haven’t detected it yet, I am rather cynical toward this book. The message of ‘change happens, deal with it’ may have had a warmer response in a previous, perhaps American, climate, but I found the read to be akin to watching a very badly-acted play. The link to buy the book, as ever is below, but to save you the money and trouble, here is the central message again: ‘Change happens. Deal with it.’

The Management Angle
One of the trickiest aspects for any member of management is that they are responsible for implementing change. This involves braking the norm, introducing or removing tasks or incentives, and altering things that have always ‘just worked.’ This in itself isn’t so much the difficulty so much as convincing those who need to change of that need. Buying this book will not help matters.
Two convincing leads toward managing change successfully are to indicate a benefit. While this may be challenging, especially in times of austerity, any benefit in saving time, effort or money is often warmly welcomed. The difficulty with this is that there are introductions made which never have these benefits – the ‘sell’ is far harder here. To convince them of the greater good is one perspective – to have all the staff on board with the mission, values and development plan something else. Isolation leads so quickly to indifference and resentment. Change is most effective when we all feel ownership.

The Teacher Angle
There just aren’t enough hours in the day, and then another thing comes along, trying to fill the spare thirty seconds you had just clawed back from another activity. The main difficulty with change as a teacher is that it often seems like an addition rather than an adjustment – and it needs to be accommodated. Added to that are new members of SMT, keen to make their mark by implementing new changes.
This of course can’t actually be true. Given time, changes settle into a comfortable groove of either happening if useful, or fading out if not. It is far better instead to rationalise new initiatives by giving them a chance, safe in the knowledge that if they are good, they will stick around, and might even make your job that little bit easier.

The Pupil Angle
Pupils seem the most content to change of all the members of a learning group. Their lives are governed by regularity and timetables, so change is welcomed, desired in fact. ‘A change will do them good’, ‘a different voice always helps’, ‘we’re going to do something different today’; all these phrases come about because change helps to kickstart thinking and learning. Why do we end up fearing or feeling uncomfortable about change then? This is a question with no real answer, similar to ‘why do children laugh more than adults’ – there is no definitive, but it is a real shame that there isn’t. Pupils, especially children, embrace change and view something different as an adventure. On the subject of change, the pupils are the experts.

Best quote
“One of the most successful business books ever”
Daily Telegraph

Ponder now
What was the last big change you feared at work? How did it turn out in the end?

Book review, Opinion, Reflections, Tips & Tricks , , , , , , ,

The 4-Hour Work Week

Sunday, 15 January, 2012 admin No comments
The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss
(Vermilion, £11.99, 2010)
(This is the second in a regular series reviewing books outside of the realm of education, and looking at the impact they could have in a learning environment.)
Tagline
Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich

Lowdown
I was keen to buy this from the moment I heard an interview with the author several years ago, not least because so much of our jobs in Education are what I will politely call ‘contact’ tasks; things that we can’t farm out to call centres in India or shippers in the next county from ours. Nevertheless, I was still intrigued by what he could share, and bought the book to find out what I could glean from it.
While the bulk of the book is indeed based around setting up an internet-only business, and streamlining it to within an inch of its life, there are several brilliant sections on actually becoming more efficient. It could quite easily be two books mixed into one – one about being a more organised person, and the other about automating a ‘virtual’ business.
The main benefits an educator can get from the book are practical ideas about efficiency. The author writes about strategies to reduce and improve communication, especially through email, and how to inform and reduce meeting times. These are two big problems in schools and colleges, and many good tips for improving them can be found.
Email for example has two main ‘choke’ points – habitual checking, which becomes inefficient, and replying can unresolve initial questions. The author recommends only checking work emails twice a day. When that statement is first read, how you react may well reflect your dependence on email. He suggests that 11am and 3pm are good times to check and respond to email, stating that if you check your email first thing, it controls your initial tasks. By waiting until 11am, it forces you to complete any outstanding work in good time. To help others appreciate this, re recommends setting up an Autoresponse, explaining that this is the policy of the email account, and also where other help may be found. While the logic is sound, how could this work in an educational environment?
Certainly, there is a range of evidence to suggest that schools need to improve their communication skills, and the use of email has helped this. In many other ways, it has also stifled and hindered communication, and Ferriss recommends answering any question with as a definitive answer as possible, recommending services which book up your ‘appointments calendar for you. He is all for automation, and it is this lack of personal touch which might be hardest to accept, and which may well depersonalise effective communication.
Nevertheless, there are some really sound ideas in this book, as well as strategic ways forward, to improve communication. His view on meetings for example are probably shared by many staff – by and large, meetings are over-long, pointless and create work rather than find solutions to problems. He advocates having a very specific list of minutes in advance, which people action before the meeting, the aim being that if you action enough of the points relevant to you, you are effectively able to withdraw from the meeting – your purpose has been served! While this may function well in a small business, I can see the practice being less successful than the theory in schools.
This book has aspiration – to improve, refine and streamline work tasks. While not all the ideas are appropriate, suitable or even relevant to Education, there is enough in here to ensure that schools and colleges will really benefit from.

The Management Angle
A big danger for SMTs is both the ‘include all’ email and the automated meeting – that of a meeting which involves the same people, at the same time, for the same duration every day/week. While it is important to get heads working together, the idea of an agenda completed in advance is both clever and could save countless valuable hours each year if implemented effectively.
Likewise, developing an ‘open after 11am’ strategy for emails, and only including emails to people you would like a response from can only boost productivity. Ferriss writes that email is the hardest thing to for an individual to give up, but many staff in SMT would be far more productive if all their email went through a human ‘filter’ first, to cherry pick relevant emails for action. A £60,000 head using 20% of their time to sort emails that a £15,000 could do in the same length of time is effectively wasting £9,000 a year.

The Teacher Angle
There are many repetitive tasks we would all as teachers much rather not involve ourselves in, yet are necessary for the job. Creating reports and labels, researching policies and mining data all take up time away from the real grit of teaching; planning, pupil contact and assessment.
In this book, Ferriss recommends offloading a lot of this autonomous work to others. While we may feel uncomfortable following his suggestions to use Mumbai-based office staff, there are plenty of other ways teachers could utilise others for mutual benefit or financial gain. A recent search on eBay for example found cottage industries happy to create labels for your primary class children’s books, for probably pennies more than it would take for you to make yourself, ignoring any time costs.

The Pupil Angle
Efficiency is not often seen as an important skill, but how often is it overtly taught to the children? Writing maths down using figures rather than words is efficient, as is touch-typing, preparing in advance and learning clever methods to remember the Periodic Table. Teaching children to pass on messages, and to complete tasks discretely from other members of a group are all very useful skills which are active in our lessons, but not often signposted enough. After reading this book, I tested this concept by looking at one pupil who was particularly efficient in getting ready for the ‘work’ part of the lesson. We discussed it, noting her techniques (sharpen at the end of every lesson, so the pencil is sharp at the beginning of a work task), and the class adopted some of her strategies. The result: whole-class productivity inside two minutes, rather than five.

Best quote

“By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day.”

Robert Frost, American Poet

Ponder now
How much time do you spend carrying out non-essential tasks? How much time would you have freed up if you could have these tasks removed?



Book review, Opinion, Reflections, Tips & Tricks, Uncategorized , , , , , , ,