We're on a mission from God.

—Jake and Elwood, The Blues Brothers¹

For some reason, I accepted the meeting.

On October 23, 2013, my colleague Michael Lagocki and I sat across the table from two guys who owned a school furniture dealership in Gainesville, Florida. Oh, God. Another meeting. Another agenda. Another pitch. But, as they talked, I began wondering Who are these guys? My curiosity came fully alive.

John Crawford, in full beard, was warm and relaxed. At a first impression, he might remind you of a favorite high school science teacher or maybe your minister. But, as I increasingly learned over the coming months, he was also an immovable rock. Bill Latham was intense, fierce, and maybe dangerous. His eyes glowed. As these two fellows talked, I began to realize that they were not John and Bill—they were really Jake and Elwood, “The Blues Brothers,” on a mission from God.

Their mission? To transform education in America.

Seriously? Two furniture dealer guys from Gainesville?

They had read my book about the dismal state of workplace engagement and what some of the best companies in the world are doing about it.²

So they thought I was the guy to lead the charge into the dark valley of an obsolete and contaminated education system.

“But, guys, I know nothing about the education system.”

“Yes, but you have a process for tackling monster challenges. We think it will work with education.”

“I don't have a network to recruit from.”

“We do.”

“My calendar is full and the process is long, involved, and expensive.”

“How expensive?

I threw out a number intended to blow their boots off.

“We think we can come up with the funding.”

These guys just kept coming. My carefully constructed roadblocks were bouncing right off the road as they plowed into them. So, yes, they were gaining my attention. But, let's be real, the problems in education had formed a monster, a roaring, multitentacled thing. It corrupted and controlled relationships, power centers, money, community spirit, and that very human reach for a better life. And it had already killed and eaten far better and smarter people than the four of us at Table 7.

But two furniture dealer guys from Florida had decided that I was their man, that I would lead this venture. “O-kayyy,” I muttered, scratching my head and trying to think of something. I bought time by suggesting we identify a list of stakeholders, underwriters, and important voices that might want to contribute. Once we crossed that threshold I outlined a “kick-the-tires” summit to see who would come and how committed they might be to “transforming education.”

After lunch, I pulled Michael aside and asked if these guys were for real. He grinned. “If this summit comes together, your job is to manage Bill. Just keep him at a safe distance.”

I didn't hear much from John or Bill for the next six months. Then in mid-August of 2014 I answered my phone. It was Bill.

“We're ready to launch this thing! What's next?”

They named the companies and experts they had enlisted. I knew only a few. Worse, I still didn't have any indices for measuring their strengths or their commitment to the journey. My previous two book projects had each required about 30 percent of my focus over a two-year stretch. And that was with people who were battle-tested; we had shared foxholes. Now here I was charging into battle with people I did not know, carrying weapons I did not understand, and facing a giant that had devoured whole communities.

I rubbed my eyes, took a deep breath, and laid out the road map for the next steps in a process I called “MindShift.”³

“Okay, guys, we first want to invite key underwriters and experts for a day to present the vision, lay out the timeline and process, practice our action learning workshop approach and tackle some of the issues. At the end of the day we'll take the pulse of everyone's seriousness.

That meeting convened in Tampa, Florida, on October 1–3, 2014 (see Figures 2.1 and 2.2). The participants included architects, furniture manufacturers, school superintendents, and several education experts. I also seeded the room with some of my own invited attendees, people who knew the MindShift process and those who had a link to education. My group included a futurist from Disney, leaders from Balfour Beatty (the third largest school builder in the nation), a Pepperdine professor of education, and a few other trusted companions from my past works.

The opening energy was high and positive. But, it still took me a while to get past feeling overwhelmed with the byzantine insanity and the sheer impossibility of public education in America. From my years of experience at every level of business, I could see that we were dealing with one of the most fragmented, siloed, contentious, compartmentalized, and toxic institutional hairballs on the planet.

I also knew that all interest groups behave tribally, shouting at one another in different languages on behalf of disconnected and incoherent constituencies. So naturally I was afraid that we might fall into gridlock, speaking at each other through our different professional languages and dialects.

At the same time, it was strangely clear to me that none of those factors would prevent us from going forward. Part of my confidence was in seeing that John and Bill had such a strong and impressive circle of like-minded relationships ready to go. The goodwill in that room brought focus to the mission and not even a nibble on the hairball. I would later learn that how that goodwill was created was the secret to toppling silos.⁴

The diversity of the stakeholders in Tampa, their strong and unique voices, and their deep levels of expertise were all very encouraging. As the facilitator, I had to listen, defer, and watch closely for the places and moments when the energy in the room coalesced. I leaned into the pools of enthusiasm or friction. I stirred each pot a bit and then watched it simmer. To my surprise, this group of leaders aligned more quickly than any group I had yet facilitated.

But something else was going on. That meeting was one of those times when truth slowly dawns. I saw, and I think that others saw, that the needs, agendas, possibilities, and problems that called (or justified) this meeting were not the real reasons we were together. We were invaded by something larger than us. Because we were, for the most part, married, parents, and people who cared about community, public education was infinitely more than an issue. We could not talk about it and remain at a cerebral place. That plow sank deep into our personal and family experiences.

And so it was that we settled into conversation that was deeply human; we talked about education as an experience (rather than a policy issue, governmental department, or budget item) and connecting with students as kids. We shared about our favorite teachers, or the other adults—coaches, cops, uncles, wardens, or drill sergeants—who made a difference in our past. Some began to open up about their battle scars from life in the trenches of K–12 education. Others talked about their own kids and their school-based injuries. But through it all, we were all reaching for that thing, that elemental thing in the center of our yearning. What was it? Then I saw that our conversational roads kept looping back to . . . the kids.

Everyone in the room instinctively knew that the students are the whole point of education! Yet, it seems that the current state of K–12 education is about anything and everything but the kids. The great reform of the educational-industrial complex had centered on only testing. Rituals. Standards. Curricula. Government. Politics. Funding . . . and turf! We heard one story about a teacher who tried to change the layout of the classroom in order to create more interaction. But then, the janitorial staff piled all of the desks into a corner. On the pile was taped a message: “The desks will stay lined up, so we can clean the classroom quickly and get in and out. The next time you may not be able to find your desks.”

It all seems to come down to a question: Who the hell is education for? Why have we lost that vision? How did we lose it? How can we get it back?

Simply experiencing agreement around the real issue generated a soul-satisfying aha moment. To say out loud that “kids have been kicked from the center of education” was a revelation for me. As a parent, I had known it intuitively, but had not been able to articulate it. My wife Lisa and I had dared not think it through or speak about it. But that enormous and monstrous reality did not seem to surprise anyone else in the room.

And it was somewhere around this point when my concerns about Bill dissolved. And it came from seeing him in his element with other educators. If he was dangerous, it was because Bill was a true believer. He was, in a biblical allusion, a man with fire shut up in his bones. He and the others were veterans of the wars for the kids. They knew the story very well. No wonder some eyes reddened and others swallowed hard when they talked.

And, in that meeting, I realized I was not an alien. I was passing through a rite of initiation into what was an emerging personal mission. I was being baptized into the groaning hope and concern of every child, every parent, and most teachers and administrators. Everyone in that room gave a damn. That certainly included one 50-something-year-old man who had spent his life in the corporate world. I felt as though I were coming home to a place I'd never seen.

One of the words that kept popping to the surface of our conversation was obsolescence. We seemed to find agreement that “the system is broken.” That phrase certainly reflected our collective frustration, but at the same time it seemed to assume there was a solution waiting to be discovered. We agreed upfront to be suspicious of easy answers. I reminded everyone, “There are no silver bullets! Complex problems are never solved but can only be navigated or reframed.”

As we talked, the notion of “obsolete” education began to steer us into a different conversation and tone. We seemed to sail past consternation, recrimination, agitation, and seething frustration. From the circular debates we found a new rhythm in the form of a “from–to” stanza. The conversation took on an improvisational flow generating a clear cascade of insights.

• From Gutenberg to Google
• From tests to mastery
• From content to context
• From memorization to application
• From mind to mindfulness
• From activity checklist to activities with purpose
• From answers to inquiry
• From custodial to engaged
• From taking directions to taking initiative
• From competition to collaboration
• From individual to team player
• From achievement to character
• Extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation
• From college-ready to life-ready
• From lagging indicators to leading indicators
• From fail-safe to safe-fail
• From compliance to agency
• From batched learning to tailored learning

This flow of ideas led us into a variety of paths for deeper exploration. Like explorers in all generations, we let go of the past and scanned the valley for the best trails leading to new frontiers. And we found the new path in a new conversation.

• What kind of learning experiences and environments enable kids to thrive?
• What will prepare kids for the world of 2040?
• Can we leave a road map that will enable others to follow?
• Is that road map also a blueprint for community?

At the end of two days we had moved from a “cohort of the willing” to a “company of the committed.”

My apprehensions about tackling the beast began to recede as I watched these diverse leaders align so quickly. Their stories of what was working where they lived painted new pictures for us to consider.

Those stories also called us to meet in other rooms on other campuses in other places. And, as we traveled around the country together, one transforming effort spilled into another and another. It was as if a large tornado began pulling us away from the dull and dehumanizing tones of public education.

And we soon began to see common patterns emerge. Kids were at the center, small groups created magic, silos were torn down, social capital unlocked resources, physical movement and breaks added capacity, creating together transformed learning, engagement drove design, and transparency led to innovation.

In the story you are about to read, you will see that public education is like the Emerald City of Oz, a walled city ruled over by an intimidating, but deceptive, wizard. Somewhere in that story, we all began to realize that it took only one student—not a bureaucracy, not a think tank, not a U.S. Department of Education—to pull aside the curtain and reveal the truth. It slowly dawned on all of us that we were caught up in a student-led revolution.

You might want to keep reading. Trust me; you haven't read this story before.