I feel that an effective and successful decision is in the best interest of the students at the institution in question. This flies in the face of most proprietary school decisions as these decisions are made in the best interest of the corporate entity. Public school decisions in this climate are made in the best interest of the budget. The needs of the student, the real reason we became teachers and administrators to begin with have been lost in seas of red ink. I have taught at both types of institutions and as a student-centered educator I am appalled.
Rebecca,
One thing that may help is to link your short term ideas to how they would impact key performance metrics that are important to your administration and also how they support long term goals.
Most administrations are looking for solutions to problems not just having the problem identified. Providing a solution that supports organizational objectives is welcome in most organizations so I would keep the great ideas flowing!!
Sincerely,
Dr.Faulkner
David, Well said. I am new in the school business, specifically the management side and have found that short term decisions seem to be lacking from administration at times; every decision seems to be long term. Do you have suggestions on how I could have "the beginner voice" heard and have some short term ideas listened to?
Thanks,
Rebecca
David,
I have enjoyed having you in the class. I think you are right that many decisions have both short term and long term ramifications. The fact that you are looking at both short term implications and long term impact when you make decisions is again a good indicator that you are building an organization that will sustain its success. When you look at this that have had problems in our industry as well as others, they often times have been so focused on short term impact and results that they sacrifice their future.
Take care and keep in touch. If I can ever be of any help or you need to bounce something around let me know. My email is bfaulkner@pcitraining.edu.
I believe an effective and succesful decision may take a great deal of time to classify as such. A decision that reaps both short term and long term desired results falls in this category. How we define short and long term depend on the situation being discussed.
In the school business I think short term might be defined by a quarter or a "mod". Long term might be a year or more. So once we have the timeframe defined it makes it easier to determine if the decision was effective and successful.
In the end if the decision met your expectations and generated the desired results within the boundaries the team had in mind when the decision was made. Then and only then I think we can declare it's success and effectiveness. Thats just my opinion and the way I make such evaluations. Dr. Faulkner I have enjoyed the course.
