VOLUME VI – CHAPTER XXII
A FUNCTION OF EXPERIENCE
Make your school an “experience – centre. Café Coffee Day plans to open a coffee museum where one could actualise coffee experiences, preserve coffee history, displays hundreds of coffee percolation and decanting methods.
Can you create something like this in your school where visitors can emotionally feel a sense of seeing the growth of the school? Its activities, its achievements, its distinguished heads and famous alumni, its contributions to society, its innovations and milestones. This can be 3 dimensional and can enable the visitors to operate, see and or hear the story as it evolves.
Students can serve refreshment prepared by their Home Science Department. Such an experience centre will create positive remembrances. This experience centre will give you an edge over others and loyalty becomes a function of experience.
Parents/ visitors would like to return again when they know they are recognised and welcomed with a real warmth and not a paper flower greeting.
Take care of the touchpoints. Several points of interaction/ contact for parents/ visitors with the school hours lie. Achieve perfection in every touch occasion. It can be touch. But it is fascinating. Make a check list of these touch occasion that will go through the process quite shortly.
Your school brand is a thought-one that lives- that has to live in your parents’/ visitors’ mind. This thought is a function of many things such as the physical look of your school building – the school building must be liveable and lovable. Mani high School, Coimbatore has a periodical sprucing up so that the school always presents a fresh look about its campus; its facilities offered, quality of its staff, the bench marks it has created, its leadership display, its caring and sharing attitude, its reputation, its courteous support staff, its heritage factor and its brand ambassadors.
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VOLUME VI – CHAPTER XXIII
BECOMING AND BEING?
On your joining duty in a new school reach office early and leave for home a little late for the first one month. That will give you enough time to familiarise yourself with various aspects of the school. Find out from the predecessor or Vice- Principal the small Do’s and Don’ts which are expected of you. Familiarize yourself with the people (who matter) related to work and with whom you may have to work- especially in defence stations and PSUs. In civil areas the local District Collector, Tashildar, District Heads, important people in the computer field matter much.
As early as possible, build a professional bond with your boss. Listen and observe more, but talk less, don’t try to show off or exhibit your talents immediately.
You could have been appointed as Principal. But, you should become and be a Principal. Appointment as a Principal ( as an executive) may look easy to you. But becoming an executive is not a cake walk. You may be physically occupying the Principal’s chair but you have to earn your ticket to that chair by reaching heights of excellence and effectiveness. In management jargon it is said, “ The executive clubhouse accepts only people with a deep knowledge of their work”. So it is essential that you understand the “drivers” of your school, its roots, its wings, its leaves and its branches. You have to keep talking to different people to understand the above.
The little trick is to network actively so that you build good relationships with the correct persons.
There is nothing wrong in your going and meeting these people. You shall stop to conquer. In the defence stations, the author had worked at the Naval Base, Cochin and Airforce Station, Avadi. He had to meet the Station Commander immediately on arrival and within a week the Adjutant, Education Officer, Department Heads, the Garrison Engineer of M.E.S (Military Engineering Service) the hospital I/C, The security officer, the defence services Canteen Manager, the office I/C (transport) , water and electricity, the P. A. to station commander and cap it up with a courtesy call to the Station Commander’s wife.
In the civil areas, Coimbatore and Sambalpur and HVF the author had met the Revenue Divisional Commissioner, Chairman, District collector, Vice Chairman Sambalpur KV and the District Collector Coimbatore (KV Chairman). The GM of HVF Avadi, and then the Station Commanders of Coimbatore and Sulur, GE of MES, the Executive Engineer CPWD, District Heads, Heads of Educational Institutions, Station Director of All India Radio, Press correspondents, Important local people.
He found these first visits very useful as it created a nice first impression in their minds and later on they were very helpful to the school. You should have everyone ( who matters) on your side and in your pocket.
Along with your knowledge of management, you shall have financial smartness. “ You should know your numbers” . As the saying goes, beyond the basics you shall have the clear grasp of “ where the money comes and where it goes”. In the budget section of the Secretariat the terms commonly used are “sources” and “uses” for the above.
Expand your growth curve by continuously updating yourself in education – both academic subjects and management. Attend meetings and conferences, take leadership and management courses. Be a regular reader of Pedagogic Journals.
Periodically propose new ideas to the staff and to the management. Let them know that you know what should be done. At the same time ensure that your opinion/ suggestion is backed up by solid facts.
To get into the educational executive fold, you have to speak like them. Get yourself acquainted with the acronyms and jargon which are used by them – which is called e- speak. Develop a core set of skills and experiences supported by a strong personality.
At Coimbatore each head was strong in one area and his expertise was sought after. Sri. N. Chinnaswamy Naidu (Mani High School) for general administration, Sri Venkatesalu Naidu (Rajalakshmi Mills High School) for interface with society, Sri. S. S.Rajagopalan (Sarvajana high school) for teacher welfare. Sri Ponniah ( Union Christian High School) for Public Relations, Sri T. R. Radhakrishnan ( Suburban High school) for compering Public functions. Your motivation, passion, dynamism, confidence, agility, reliability, credibility, decisiveness, hard work, shall help you hold on to the seat which you wanted and got but its retention is in your hands.
A PGT was appointed as In-charge Principal and in nine months he did so much ( negatively) that he was reverted as a PGT. What one could not do in a year, he could do in 9 months!
You can just be the opposite of the aforesaid person in your balance sheet. Put your people (staff) as assets, even as Sri Narayana Murthy of ‘Infosys’ did.
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VOLUME VI – CHAPTER XXIV
DEVELOP LEADERS FROM WITHIN
You should have the ability to create a sense of bonding among the staff. To know how to achieve this you should know about a recent development in motivation. Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria (Dean of Harvard Buisness School) have explained in their book “Driven”. The four drive theory”- The four drives being – drive to :-
- Acquire and achieve
- Bond and belong
- Be challenged and comprehend
- Define and defend
Everyone has to relate to each other’s work and do everything as a team and institution. Make them enjoy the work and give freedom to experiment. Give them more time to be spent together in getting things done-birthday celebrations, picnics and get together and planned outdoor activities.
Let each staff know your expectations of him and against what yardstick his performance will be assessed. A transparent and an open door policy will help bonding.
Some schools have a system of rewarding one staff as the best teacher of the year. It may be said in its favour that it motivates the staff to work with more enthusiasm. But it may lead also to envy and jealousy and start rumours about favouritism.
As an interesting sideline-one Dr. Venkatrangan, Professor of Mathematics was voted by the students of I. I. T. Chennai as the best teacher consecutively for 7 years. He has to request the students to choose some one else in the 8th year to avoid any negative remarks.
The author asked him why he came to be voted like that for 8 years. He said, “The Psychology I learnt from you in 1955- 56 in the Teachers College at Sri Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya, Coimbatore, helped me . I knew how to handle the students”.
Start identifying the leaders among the staff – the real talent at various levels.- the leadership potential of a staff can be identified by his task completion ability and team management skills, ability to think out of the box, ability to look at problems from solution perspective, ability for multi –tasking, ability to pre-empt situation, actively seek the passive and also those who are silently active.
Dr. Ekambaram and Sri. Padmanabhan in Mani high school, Sri Rama Seshan in Sarvajana high school, Sri Pugalum Perumal and Sri Perumal in Sri Ramakrishna mission Vidyalaya, Sri Swaminathan HM, Kikani High school – all at Coimbatore, Sri. A. Subbarmiah, Sri. T. K. Padmanabha Sarma, Sri T. Natarajan in the Hindu Theological High School. Smt. Saraswathy Srinivasan in Rani Meiyammai Girls High School. Smt. Vijayalakshmi Srivatsan and Smt. Lakshmi Srinivasan of P.S. Senior Secondary School, Sri Alamelu of Vidya Mandir, Sri Pankajam Kailasam of P. S. B. B Senior secondary school – all leaders identified from within. This is the norm in Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan where PGTs get promoted as Vice Principal, Principal, Asst. Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner.
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Spent the allotted span of years in the contemplation and the adoration of the Almighty, not in servile praise of the feeble, the futile and the weak. Life is an opportunity afforded to each, not to eat and drink, but to achieve something nobler and grander; to master oneself and merge in the Reality. – Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba
