Merrill Vargo

Merrill Vargo

There is a great, but also deeply challenging, story in Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. Mandela had been working to end apartheid. There is a warrant out for his arrest, he goes underground, but eventually is caught, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment at Robben Island. No one has ever escaped from this infamous prison. This is the end. There is no possible plan or blueprint that leads from here forward. But when Mandela gets to the prison, he notices that while white prisoners wear long pants, black prisoners must wear shorts. This strikes him as wrong, and he goes to work on the pants. And, of course, his work on the pants issue ultimately – via a completely unplanned and unpredictable path – leads to freedom and ultimately the presidency.

Unlike Mandela, who had no plan but only a vision of what he and his fellows were trying to create together, educators generally have a plan for every program and purpose. We’ve internalized the thought process of planning: Do a gap analysis, develop a vision, set measurable goals, define a set of activities, implement, collect data, reflect and refine.

This works well when the task is implementing “best practices,” and in the world of NCLB this kind of planned change yielded some very real benefits. There will always be a place for this kind of planned change. But, as the Mandela story illustrates, when the path forward is truly unclear, there is no point in developing a three-year plan. The only thing to do is to choose something that matters and start.

The imperative facing public education today is innovation: We need to teach it and we need to do it. As we embark on this process, we have outrun our research base. There is no set of best practices we can implement, because this work is new. We’ve started to call these new, promising but untested ideas “next practices.” Once we are in the world of next practices, we are no longer in the world of blueprint-type planned change.

Working in the world of innovation and next practices is both exciting and terrifying because it is profoundly different.

First, leaders of innovation processes must embrace the idea that nobody can assign anybody to be creative or innovate, and certainly nobody can “hold someone accountable” for innovating. So leading innovation is an insecure process – it means embracing the idea that leadership is letting go of control.

Second, in the world of next practices, data collection is no longer about checking for implementation and it is not always about assessing impact. In the world of innovation, data is collected as part of a “rapid prototyping” process whose goal is to find out quickly what is not working. Remember the Silicon Valley advice: Fail fast.

Finally, remember Nelson Mandela and the pants. When you truly don’t have a plan – but do have a worthy destination in mind – stop planning and just start. The world is full of opportunity.

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Merrill Vargo is both an experienced academic and a practical expert in the field of school reform. Before founding Pivot Learning Partners (then known as the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative, or BASRC) in 1995, Dr. Vargo spent nine years teaching English in a variety of settings, managed her own consulting firm, and served as executive director of the California Institute for School Improvement.

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  1. Kim 11 years ago11 years ago

    I am usually wishing my district had more planning. And self-evaluation too. Maybe it's in what is meant by having a plan where I differ from Merrill. While there may be "plans", they are not the kind of robust roadmaps I am used to in my other experiences (in business or otherwise). I don't usually see a spending plan or outcomes that demonstrate success as part of the plans I see … Read More

    I am usually wishing my district had more planning. And self-evaluation too. Maybe it’s in what is meant by having a plan where I differ from Merrill. While there may be “plans”, they are not the kind of robust roadmaps I am used to in my other experiences (in business or otherwise). I don’t usually see a spending plan or outcomes that demonstrate success as part of the plans I see – which often affects implementation and then the ability to evaluate the implementation and results. I agree that there are times when urgent action is clearly indicated – but there should still be roadmap from where we are now to where we’d like to be.

  2. Deanna Niebuhr 11 years ago11 years ago

    Thank you Merrill ... and Navigio. The points you make also make me think about Michael Fullan's work on change / education reform and how each strategy can only go so far. And that we need to adapt and think about phases of change. Maybe it's that we need to be better about building into the planning self assessment that is timely, and intentionally adapt and improve as we go. i.e. not at the end … Read More

    Thank you Merrill … and Navigio.

    The points you make also make me think about Michael Fullan’s work on change / education reform and how each strategy can only go so far. And that we need to adapt and think about phases of change.

    Maybe it’s that we need to be better about building into the planning self assessment that is timely, and intentionally adapt and improve as we go. i.e. not at the end of the school year after test scores are in . . . and especially, not after 3 years!

    Thanks for your very compelling thoughts.

  3. navigio 11 years ago11 years ago

    Hi Merrill. Inspiring piece. I would also like to add for anyone who has not done so to read "I write what I like". Selected writings of Steve Biko. You will never be the same. Of course you are right, its about vision. And in some sense, seeing the goal instead of the barriers. Action is as important as anything, even in the case where planning is included. That said.. :-) .. I would mildly disagree that … Read More

    Hi Merrill. Inspiring piece. I would also like to add for anyone who has not done so to read “I write what I like”. Selected writings of Steve Biko. You will never be the same.

    Of course you are right, its about vision. And in some sense, seeing the goal instead of the barriers. Action is as important as anything, even in the case where planning is included.

    That said.. 🙂 .. I would mildly disagree that innovation is something we have not or should not have been doing. I also dont believe leadership has or should have been about control. If there is one thing that gives me hope about humans and their politics it is that we continue to use the word ‘leader’. That word evokes inspiration and enablement and example, not ‘management’ or control.

    See the ball, be the ball.