In my previous article, I introduced a new series on how insights from Jim Collins’ Good to Great (New York: Harper Business, 2001) might apply to schools. In his book, Collins and his team of researchers study eleven companies that achieved exceptional results over a long period of time in relation to their comparison peers. Through his research, Collins and his team distilled seven characteristics of these great companies, each of which he claims are implementable across industry lines.
A few years later, Collins wrote Good to Great and the Social Sectors (2005). In this companion monograph, Collins draws out five key issues leaders face when applying the seven characteristics of great companies to nonprofit organizations like churches, hospitals, and schools. One issue, which I addressed in my first article, is that businesses and nonprofits evaluate success differently. Whereas businesses almost exclusively evaluate success by financial output, nonprofits measure success by how effectively they are achieving their mission. This sort of evaluation is admittedly more complex, Collins writes, but it is possible when leaders gain clarity on desired outcomes and establish metrics they can rigorously track.
In this article, I will examine an additional issue nonprofit leaders face when applying Good to Great principles: getting the right people on the bus amidst social sector constraints. I can imagine school leaders nodding already. They know how difficult it is to recruit, hire, and retain faculty and staff, especially in light of tight budgets. Despite this challenge, I contend that it is possible to attract and retain great teachers through cultivating the right culture and selectively choosing the right people. For Christian educators, these people will be self-motivated, humble men and women who are devoted to Christ and love both children and learning.
First Who, Then What
Before I consider the unique constraints educational leaders are under when staffing their schools, I will first summarize what Collins means by “First Who…Then What.” Essentially, what he is getting at here is that before leaders settle on their final business model, or organizational strategy, they need to first get the right people on the bus. This may strike you as counterintuitive. While it is reasonable to expect that establishing the new vision would logically precede hiring the right people–indeed, attracting the right people through the vision–this is not what Collins and his team found. They discovered that with the right people onboard, the organization as a whole becomes stronger–more versatile and more driven to succeed–even before the new direction is set (41).
In fact, for Collins, it is precisely this ordering of “First Who, Then What,” that differentiates a “Level 5” from a “Level 4” leader. Whereas a Level 4 leader sets the vision and hires a crew to help make the vision happen, the Level 5 leader builds a superior executive team and together they figure out the best path to institutional excellence. The vision and people could be the same, but the emphasis is different. The Level 4 approach is leader-dependent, while the Level 5 approach is team-centered. For this reason, it is even more important to get the right people on board.
On the sensitive topic of people decisions, Collins is careful to point out that the “great” companies made efforts to be rigorous in cultivating a culture of discipline, but they were not ruthless in how they treated people (52). They consistently applied exacting standards at all times and at all levels, to be sure, but not in a capricious sort of way. These companies were clear and predictable in their expectations as well as thoughtful in performance evaluations. Employees, therefore, could trust their supervisors and need not worry about their positions when the going got tough. In fact, six of the eleven good-to-great companies recorded zero layoffs, and four recorded one or two layoffs, for years on end. Conversely, the comparison companies suffered innumerable layoffs and incessant restructuring over time (54). The path to greatness, it turns out, is not by the swing of the ax, but the careful use of the pruner.
The Question of Compensation
So how can school leaders get the right people on the bus? It is time to address the question of compensation. Certainly, compensation plays a role in attracting talent. Teachers, like all humans, need to provide for their families and livelihood. They ought to be compensated reasonably for their work. All too often, unfortunately, private Christian schools are known for low compensation and meager benefits. While it is outside the purview of this article to address a solution in depth, I do want to assure readers that it is possible to compensate teachers well and enable the institution to be profitable when the right financial structure is put in place.
However, even if schools can offer reasonable compensation packages, it is simply the case that compensation is not going to be the primary driver for attracting great teachers. The best teachers are not in it to make a competitive salary, but to make a difference. Thus, the key advantage schools have in attracting talent, over and against the business world, is the invitation to join a mission infused with meaning. The mission for Christian, classical educators is to impact the lives of young people, helping them thrive as image-bearers and equipping them with the knowledge, virtues, and skills to serve society and Christ’s kingdom. It is ultimately the distinctiveness of this kind of mission that is going to attract great teachers.
Compensation is not only used to attract talent, of course. It is also used in many industries to incentivize good performance. This is growing more and more common, not only in the business world, but in schools. However, Collins and his team discovered some good news for organizations with tight budgets: compensation is not an effective motivator for producing long-term excellent results. Collins writes,
The comparison companies in our research–those that failed to become great–placed greater emphasis on using incentives to “motivate” otherwise unmotivated or undisciplined people. The great companies, in contrast, focused on getting and hanging on to the right people in the first place–those who are productively neurotic, those who are self-motivated and self-disciplined, those who wake up every day, compulsively driven to do the best they can because it is simply part of their DNA. (Social Sectors, 15 ).
As school leaders consider how compensation impacts attracting, retaining, and motivating great teachers, Collins’ research offers both encouragement and a subtle challenge. The encouragement is that schools can attract great teachers apart from extravagant compensation packages. They offer a truly unique benefit: the opportunity to invest in a life of meaning and purpose by helping young people and serving Christ’s kingdom. The subtle challenge, nonetheless, is to practice rigorous financial prudence, taking advantage of the best budgetary practices in independent school management, in order to compensate teachers fairly so they serve at their schools with a general sense of financial peace.
Attracting and Retaining the Best
If compensation is not going to be the primary attraction for great teachers, how can schools attract the sort of self-disciplined and self-motivated people that Collins describes? How can school leaders effectively draw the right men and women to join the mission?
First, Collins advises a rigorous and selective hiring process. If school leaders are going to find the very best, they need to develop a way to evaluate what they mean by “best.” Once this process is created, they need not fear deterring top candidates from too rigorous of a process. In actuality, the sort of candidates schools should be after will be drawn to the challenge. These exceptional men and women will be interested in working somewhere that shares their values for excellence and hard work. A rigorous selection process sets the tone for what sort of culture the school maintains. Top candidates will pick up on this immediately.
Second, Collins recommends early assessment mechanisms. These mechanisms will enable school leaders early on to determine whether the faculty member is a long-term fit. In this approach, the first six-twelve months function like an extended interview. As Collins writes, “You don’t know a person until you work with them” (15). In this way, early assessment mechanisms will avoid delaying the determination of a bad fit. Unlike companies, which typically follow strict evaluative processes for determining the retention of an employee, schools can struggle to let people go. After all, schools, unlike businesses, are communities united around a greater purpose. Members of these educational communities share core values that bond them together in a unique and transformative way. Consequently, it can be very difficult to part ways with teachers after years of serving in the trenches together. By implementing clear and objective assessment mechanisms early in the teacher’s employment, there will be immediate clarity on how things are going. Moreover, these assessments will communicate the culture of support and discipline the school seeks to maintain. As teachers who are not good fits experience this culture, they will often self-select out (14).
With all this talk of rigorous selectivity, assessment mechanisms, and the desire for institutional excellence, it is important as Christian educators to remember an important truth. While school leaders are ultimately responsible for creating a strong faculty plan and culture, in no way is this license to discourage or objectify members of faculty and staff. Regardless of abilities and outcomes, practices pertaining to attracting, assessing, and retaining teachers must align with the broader educational philosophy of our Christian commitments. This includes treating teachers as persons and mentoring them to pursue wholeheartedly God’s will for their lives.
Sample Interview Questions
If recruiting the right people is a top priority for schools, then it becomes crucial to discern who these people are during the hiring process. In The Ideal Team Player, author Patrick Lencioni identifies three core traits that ideal team members possess: humility, hunger to do one’s very best, and smartness as it pertains to connecting with people (think EQ). To this end, here are some sample interview questions Christian school leaders might ask to discern whether the candidates possess these traits.
- What motivates you as a person? Would you consider yourself self-motivated? Why or why not?
- Describe how your faith in Christ impacts your daily life. What role does the local church play?
- Share an example in which you actively sought to help or serve someone. What motivated you to step in and help?
- Share an example in which a student encountered struggle in your classroom. How did you respond? What was the result? How did you include the student’s parents in the process?
- Have you ever worked with a difficult colleague or boss? How did you handle that situation?
- What is the hardest you have ever worked on something in your life?
- Provide two examples of colleagues you enjoyed working with. What did you appreciate about them? What did they contribute to the team?
Of course, a rigorous and selective hiring process for schools is going to include more than an interview or two. It could also include lesson demonstrations, meetings with potential colleagues, essay responses, and the like. Whatever a school decides, the point is to not shy away from taking the time to find the right people. For, according to Collins, getting the right people on the bus makes all the difference.
Conclusion
There is much more that could be said in this article on the topic of attracting, hiring, and retaining the right teachers. We must remember in this discussion that people who go through the life cycle of being an employee at a school are not objects, but men and women made in God’s image. They are not mere human resources to be manipulated or discarded at the school’s will. Whether a teacher becomes a long-term member of the school community or not, school leaders would do well to treat each teacher with dignity and respect. The lure of institutional excellence is enticing. Noble is the aspiration to advance the kingdom of God through classical, Christian education. But only when core values are upheld, especially a firm commitment to treat all members of the school community as persons, will an institution thrive for the good of society and the glory of God.
