Chapter 20
Bringing It All Together
Change and Leadership in Action
We can't always control the music life plays for us but we can choose how we dance to it.
—Anonymous
Life's daily challenges rarely arrive clearly labeled or neatly packaged. Instead, they come upon us in a murky, turbulent, and unrelenting flood. The art of reframing uses knowledge and intuition to read the flow and to find sensible and effective ways to channel the incoming tide.
In this chapter, we illustrate the process by following a new principal through his first week in a deeply troubled urban high school. Had this been a corporation in crisis, a struggling hospital, or an embattled public agency, the basic leadership issues would have been much the same. Our protagonist is familiar with the frames and reframing. How might he use what he knows to figure out what's going on? What strategies can he mull over? What will he do?
Read the case thoughtfully. * Ask yourself what you think is going on and what options you would consider. Then compare your reflections with his.
Robert F. Kennedy High School
On July 15, David King became principal of Robert F. Kennedy High School, the newest of six high schools in Great Ridge, Illinois. The school had opened two years earlier amid national acclaim as one of the first schools in the country designed and built on the “house system” concept. Kennedy High was organized into four “houses,” each with 300 students, 18 faculty, and a housemaster. Each house was in a separate building connected to the “core facilities”—cafeteria, nurse's room, guidance offices, boys’ and girls' gyms, offices, shops, and auditorium—and other houses by an enclosed outside passageway. Each had its own entrance, classrooms, toilets, conference rooms, and housemaster's office. The building was widely admired for its beauty and functionality and had won several national architectural awards.
Hailed as a major innovation in urban education, Kennedy High was featured during its first year in a documentary on a Chicago television station. The school opened with a carefully selected staff of teachers, many chosen from other Great Ridge schools. At least a dozen were specially recruited from out of state. King knew that his faculty included graduates from several elite East Coast and West Coast schools, such as Yale, Princeton, and Stanford, as well as several of the very best Midwestern schools. He knew, too, that the racial mix of students had been carefully balanced so that blacks, whites, and Latinos each made up a third of the student body. And King also knew—perhaps better than its planners—that Kennedy's students were drawn from the toughest and poorest areas of the city.
Despite careful and elaborate preparations, Kennedy High School was in serious trouble by the time King arrived. It had been racked by violence the preceding year—closed twice by student disturbances and once by a teacher walkout. It was also widely reported (although King did not know whether this was true) that achievement scores of its ninth- and tenth-grade students had declined during the preceding two years, and no significant improvement could be seen in the scores of the eleventh and twelfth graders' tests. So far, Kennedy High School had fallen far short of its planners' hopes and expectations.
David King
David King was born and raised in Great Ridge, Illinois. His father was one of the city's first black principals. King knew the city and its school system well. After two years of military service, King followed in his father's footsteps by going to Great Ridge State Teachers College, where he received B.Ed and M.Ed degrees. King taught English and coached in a predominantly black middle school for several years, until he was asked to become the school's assistant principal. He had been in that post for five years when he was asked to take over a large middle school of 900 pupils—believed at the time to be the most “difficult” middle school in the city. While there, King gained a citywide reputation as a gifted and popular administrator. He was credited with changing the worst middle school in the system into one of the best. He had been very effective in building community support, recruiting new faculty, and raising academic standards. He was also credited with turning out basketball and baseball teams that had won state and county championships.
The Great Ridge superintendent made it clear that King had been selected for the Kennedy job over several more senior candidates because of his ability to handle tough situations. The superintendent also told him that he would need every bit of skill and luck he could muster. King knew of the formidable credentials of Jack Weis, his predecessor at Kennedy High. Weis, a white man, had been the superintendent of a small local township school system before becoming Kennedy's first principal. He had written one book on the house system concept and another on inner-city education. Weis held a PhD from the University of Chicago and a divinity degree from Harvard. Yet despite his impressive background and ability, Weis had resigned in disillusionment. He was described by many as a “broken man.” King remembered seeing the physical change in Weis over that two-year period. Weis's appearance had become progressively more fatigued and strained until he developed what appeared to be permanent dark rings under his eyes and a perpetual stoop. King remembered how he had pitied the man and wondered how Weis could find the job worth the obvious personal toll it was taking on him.
History of the School
The First Year
The school's troubles began to manifest themselves in its first year. Rumors of conflicts between the housemasters and the six subject-area department heads spread throughout the system by the middle of the year. The conflicts stemmed from differences in interpretations of curriculum policy on required learning and course content. In response, Weis had instituted a “free market” policy: subject-area department heads were supposed to convince housemasters which course to offer, and housemasters were supposed to convince department heads which teachers should be assigned to their houses. Many felt that this policy exacerbated the conflicts.
To add to the tension, a teacher was assaulted in her classroom in February of that first school year. The beating frightened many of the staff, particularly older teachers. A week later, eight teachers asked Weis to hire security guards. This request precipitated a debate in the faculty about the desirability of guards in the school. One group felt that the guards would instill a sense of safety and promote a better learning climate. The other faction felt that the presence of guards in the school would be repressive and would destroy the sense of community and trust that was developing. Weis refused the request for security guards because he believed they would symbolize everything the school was trying to change. In April, a second teacher was robbed and beaten in her classroom after school hours, and the debate was rekindled. This time, a group of Latino parents threatened to boycott the school unless better security measures were implemented. Again, Weis refused the request for security guards.
The Second Year
The school's second year was even more troubled than the first. Financial cutbacks ordered during the summer prevented Weis from replacing eight teachers who had resigned. As it was no longer possible for each house to staff all of its courses with its own faculty, Weis instituted a “flexible staffing” policy. Some teachers were asked to teach a course outside their assigned house, and students in the eleventh and twelfth grades were able to take elective and required courses in other houses. One of the housemasters, Chauncey Carver, publicly attacked the new policy as a step toward destroying the house system. In a letter to the Great Ridge Times, he accused the board of education of trying to subvert the house concept by cutting back funds.
The debate over the flexible staffing policy was heightened when two of the other housemasters joined a group of faculty and department heads in opposing Carver's criticisms. This group argued that interhouse cross-registration should be encouraged, because the 15 to 18 teachers in each house could never offer the variety of courses that the schoolwide faculty of 65 to 70 could.
Further expansion of the flexible staffing policy was halted, however, because of difficulties in scheduling fall classes. Errors cropped up in the master schedule developed during the preceding summer. Scheduling problems persisted until November, when the vice principal responsible for developing the schedule resigned. Burtram Perkins, a Kennedy housemaster who had formerly planned the schedule at Central High, assumed the function on top of his duties as housemaster. Scheduling took most of Perkins's time until February.
Security again became an issue when three sophomores were assaulted because they refused to give up their lunch money during a shakedown. The assailants were believed to be outsiders. Several teachers approached Weis and asked him to request the board of education to provide security guards. Again Weis declined, but he asked Bill Smith, a vice principal at the school, to secure all doors except for the entrances to each of the four houses, the main entrance to the school, and the cafeteria. This move seemed to reduce the number of outsiders roaming through the school.
In May of the second year, a fight in the cafeteria spread and resulted in considerable damage, including broken classroom windows and desks. The disturbance was severe enough for Weis to close the school. A number of teachers and students reported that outsiders were involved in the fight and in damaging the classrooms. Several students were taken to the hospital for minor injuries, but all were released. A similar disturbance occurred two weeks later, and again the school was closed. Against Weis's advice, the board of education ordered a temporary detail of municipal police to the school. In protest to the assignment of police, 30 of Kennedy's 68 teachers staged a walkout, joined by over half the student body. The police detail was removed, and an agreement was worked out by an ad hoc subcommittee composed of board members and informal representatives of teachers who were for and against a police detail. The compromise called for the temporary stationing of a police cruiser near the school.
King's First Week at Kennedy High
King arrived at Kennedy High on Monday, July 15, and spent most of his first week individually interviewing key administrators (see box). On Friday, he held a meeting with all administrators and department heads. King's purpose in these meetings was to familiarize himself with the school, its problems, and its key people.
King's first interview was with Bill Smith, a vice principal. Smith was black and had worked as a counselor and then vice principal of a middle school before coming to Kennedy. King knew Smith's reputation as a tough disciplinarian who was very much disliked by many of the younger faculty and students. King had also heard from several teachers whose judgment he respected that Smith had been instrumental in keeping the school from “blowing apart” the preceding year. It became clear early in the interview that Smith felt that more stringent steps were needed to keep outsiders from wandering into the buildings. Smith urged King to consider locking all the school's 30 doors except for the front entrance so that everyone would enter and leave through one set of doors. Smith also told him that many of the teachers and pupils were scared and that “no learning will ever begin to take place until we make it so people don't have to be afraid anymore.” At the end of the interview, Smith said he had been approached by a nearby school system to become its director of counseling but that he had not yet made up his mind. He said he was committed enough to Kennedy High that he did not want to leave, but his decision depended on how hopeful he felt about the school's future.
As King talked with others, he discovered that the “door question” was highly controversial within the faculty and that feelings ran high on both sides of the issue. Two housemasters in particular—Chauncey Carver, who was black, and Frank Czepak, who was white—were strongly against closing the house entrances. The two men felt such an action would symbolically reduce house “autonomy” and the feeling of distinctness that was a central aspect of the house concept.
Carver, master of C House, was particularly vehement on this issue and on his opposition to allowing students in one house to take classes in another house. Carver contended that the flexible staffing program had nearly destroyed the house concept. He threatened to resign if King intended to expand cross-house enrollment. Carver also complained about what he described as “interference” from department heads that undermined his teachers' autonomy.
Carver appeared to be an outstanding housemaster, from everything King had heard about him—even from his many enemies. Carver had an abrasive personality but seemed to have the best-operating house in the school and was well liked by most of his teachers and pupils. His program appeared to be the most innovative, but it was also the one most frequently attacked by department heads for lacking substance and ignoring requirements in the system's curriculum guide. Even with these criticisms, King imagined how much easier running the school would be if he had four housemasters like Chauncey Carver.
During his interviews with the other three housemasters, King discovered that they all felt infringed upon by the department heads, but only Carver and Czepak were strongly against locking the doors. The other two housemasters actively favored cross-house course enrollments. King's fourth interview was with Burtram Perkins, also a housemaster. Perkins, mentioned earlier, was a black man in his late forties who had served as assistant to the principal of Central High before coming to Kennedy. Perkins spent most of the interview discussing how schedule pressures could be relieved. Perkins was currently developing the schedule for the coming school year until a vice principal could be appointed to perform that job (Kennedy High had allocations for two vice principals and two assistants in addition to the housemasters).
Two bits of information concerning Perkins came to King during his first week at the school. The first was that several teachers were circulating a letter requesting Perkins's removal as a housemaster. They felt that he could not control the house or direct the faculty. This surprised King because he had heard that Perkins was widely respected within the faculty and had earned a reputation for supporting high academic standards and for working tirelessly with new teachers. As King inquired further, he discovered that Perkins was genuinely liked but was also widely acknowledged as a poor housemaster. The second piece of information concerned how Perkins's house compared with the others. Although students had been randomly assigned to each house, students in Perkins's house had the highest absence rate and the greatest number of disciplinary problems. Smith had told him that Perkins's dropout rate the preceding year was three times that of the next highest house.
While King was in the process of interviewing his staff, he was called on by David Crimmins, chairman of the history department. Crimmins was a native of Great Ridge, white, and in his late forties. Though scheduled for an appointment the following week, he had asked King whether he could see him immediately. Crimmins had heard about the letter asking for Perkins's removal and wanted to present the other side. He became very emotional, saying that Perkins was viewed by many of the teachers and department chairmen as the only housemaster trying to maintain high academic standards; his transfer would be seen as a blow to those concerned with quality education. Crimmins also described in detail Perkins's devotion and commitment to the school. He emphasized that Perkins was the only administrator with the ability to straighten out the schedule, which he had done in addition to all his other duties. As Crimmins departed, he threatened that if Perkins were transferred, he would write a letter to the regional accreditation council decrying the level to which standards had sunk at Kennedy. King assured Crimmins that such a drastic measure was unnecessary and offered assurance that a cooperative resolution would be found. King knew that Kennedy High faced an accreditation review the following April and did not wish to complicate the process unnecessarily.
Within 20 minutes of Crimmins's departure, King was visited by Tim Shea, a young white teacher. He said he had heard that Crimmins had come in to see King. Shea identified himself as one of the teachers who had organized the movement to get rid of Perkins. He said that he liked and admired Perkins because of the man's devotion to the school but that Perkins's house was so disorganized and that discipline there was so bad that it was nearly impossible to do any good teaching. Shea added, “It's a shame to lock the school up when stronger leadership is all that's needed.”
King's impressions of his administrators generally matched what he had heard before arriving at the school. Carver seemed to be a very bright, innovative, and charismatic leader whose mere presence generated excitement. Czepak came across as a highly competent though not very imaginative administrator who had earned the respect of his faculty and students. Housemaster John Bonavota, age 26, seemed smart and earnest but unseasoned and unsure of himself. King felt that with a little guidance and training, Bonavota might have the greatest promise of all; at the moment, however, the young housemaster seemed confused and somewhat overwhelmed. Perkins impressed King as a sincere and devoted person with a good mind for administrative details but an incapacity for leadership.
King knew that he had the opportunity to make several administrative appointments because of the three vacancies that existed. Indeed, should Smith resign as vice principal, King could fill both vice principal positions. He also knew that his recommendations for these positions would carry a great deal of weight with the central office. The only constraint King felt was the need to achieve some kind of racial balance among the Kennedy administrative group. With his own appointment as principal, black administrators outnumbered white administrators two to one, and Kennedy did not have a single Latino administrator, even though a third of its pupils were Hispanic.
The Friday Afternoon Meeting
In contrast to the individual interviews, King was surprised to find how quiet and conflict-free these same people seemed in the staff meeting he called on Friday. He was amazed at how slow, polite, and friendly the conversation was among people who had so vehemently expressed negative opinions of each other in private. After about 45 minutes of discussion about the upcoming accreditation review, King broached the subject of housemaster–department head relations. There was silence until Czepak made a joke about the uselessness of discussing the topic. King probed further by asking if everyone was happy with the current practices. Crimmins suggested that the topic might be better discussed in a smaller group. Everyone seemed to agree—except for Betsy Dula, a white woman in her late twenties who chaired the English department. She said that one of the problems with the school was that no one was willing to tackle tough issues until they exploded. She added that relations between housemasters and department heads were terrible, and that made her job very difficult. She then attacked Chauncey Carver for impeding her evaluation of a nontenured teacher in Carver's house. The two argued for several minutes about the teacher and the quality of an experimental sophomore English course the teacher was offering. Finally, Carver, by now quite angry, coldly warned Dula that he would “break her neck” if she stepped into his house again. King intervened in an attempt to cool both their tempers, and the meeting ended shortly thereafter.
The following morning, Dula called King at home and told him that unless Carver publicly apologized for his threat, she would file a grievance with the teachers' union and take it to court if necessary. King assured Dula that he would talk with Carver on Monday. King then called Eleanor Debbs, a Kennedy High math teacher he had known well for many years, whose judgment he respected. Debbs was a close friend of both Carver and Dula and was also vice president of the city's teachers' union. Debbs said that the two were longtime adversaries but both were excellent professionals.
She also reported that Dula would be a formidable opponent and could muster considerable support among the faculty. Debbs, who was black, feared that a confrontation between Dula and Carver might stoke racial tensions in the school, even though both Dula and Carver were generally popular with students of all races. Debbs strongly urged King not to let the matter drop. She also told him that she had overheard Bill Smith, the vice principal, say at a party the night before that he felt King didn't have the stomach or the forcefulness to survive at Kennedy. Smith said that the only reason he was staying was that he did not expect King to last the year, in which case Smith would be in a good position to be appointed principal.
David King inherited a job that had broken his predecessor and could destroy him as well. His new staff greeted him with a jumble of problems, demands, maneuvers, and threats. His first staff meeting began with an undercurrent of tension and ended in outright hostility.
Sooner or later, you may encounter a chaotic situation like this that leaves you feeling confused and overwhelmed. Nothing makes any sense, and good options are hard to find. Can King avoid disaster?
There is one potential bright spot. As the case ends, King is talking to Eleanor Debbs on a Saturday morning. She is a supportive colleague. He also has some slack—the rest of the weekend—to regroup. Where should he begin? We suggest that he start by actively reflecting and reframing. A straightforward way to do that is to examine the situation one frame at a time, asking two simple questions: From this perspective, what's going on? And what options does this view suggest? This reflective process deserves ample time and careful thought. It requires “going to the balcony” (see Heifetz, 1994) to get a panoramic view of the scene below. Ideally, King would include one or more other people—a valued mentor, principals in other schools, close friends, his spouse—for alternative perceptions in pinpointing the problem and developing a course of action. We present a streamlined version of the kind of thinking that David King might entertain.
Structural Issues and Options
King sits down at his kitchen table with a cup of coffee, a pen, a fresh yellow pad, and his laptop computer. He starts to review structural issues at Kennedy High. He recalls the “people-blaming” approach (Chapter 2), in which individuals are blamed for everything that goes wrong. He smiles and nods his head. That's it! Everyone at Kennedy High School is blaming everyone else. He recalls the lesson of the structural frame: We blame individuals when the real problems are systemic.
So what structural problems does Kennedy High have? King thinks about the two cornerstones of structure: differentiation and integration. He sees immediately that Kennedy High School has an ample division of labor but weak overall coordination. He scribbles on his pad, trying to sketch the school's organization chart. He realizes that the school has a matrix structure—teachers have an ill-defined dual reporting relationship to both department chairs and housemasters. He remembers the downside of the matrix structure: It's built for conflict (teachers wonder which authority they're supposed to answer to, and administrators bicker about who's in charge). The school has no integrating devices to link the approaches of housemasters like Chauncey Carver (who wants a coherent, effective program for his house) with those of department chairs like Betsy Dula (who is concerned about the schoolwide English curriculum and adherence to district guidelines). It's not just personalities; the structure is pushing Carver and Dula toward each other's throats. Goals, roles, and responsibilities are all vaguely defined. Nor is there a structural protocol (say, a task force or a standing committee) in place to diagnose and resolve such problems. If King had been in the job longer, he might have been able to rely more heavily on the authority of the principal's office. It helps that he's been authorized by the superintendent to fix the school. But so far, he's seen little evidence that the Kennedy High staff is endorsing his say-so with much enthusiasm.
King's musings are making sense, but it isn't clear what to do about the structural gaps. Is there any way to get the school back under control when it is teetering on the edge of irrational chaos? It doesn't help that his authority is shaky. He is having trouble controlling the staff, and they are having the same problem with the students. The school is an underbounded system screaming for structure and boundaries.
King notes, ruefully, that he made things worse in the Friday meeting. “I knew how these people felt about one another,” he thinks. “Why did I push them to talk about something they were trying to avoid? We hadn't done any homework. I didn't give them a clear purpose for the conversation. I didn't set any ground rules for how to talk about the issue. When it started to heat up, I just watched. Why didn't I step in before it exploded?” He stops and shakes his head. “Live and learn, I guess. But I learned these lessons a long time ago—they served me well in my last school. In the confusion, I forgot that even good people can't function very well without some structure. What did I do the last time around?”
King begins to brainstorm options. One possibility is responsibility charting: Bring people together to define tasks and responsibilities. It has worked before. Would it work here? He reviews the language of responsibility charting, a technique for clarifying roles and relationships. The acronym CAIRO (Consulted, Approves, Informed, Responsible, and Omitted) helps him remember. Who's responsible? Who has to approve? Who needs to be consulted? Who should be informed? Who doesn't need to be in the loop, and so can be omitted?
As he applies these questions to Kennedy High, the overlap between the housemasters and the department chairs is an obvious problem. Without a clear definition of roles and relationships, conflict and confusion are inevitable. He wonders about a total overhaul of the structure: “Is the house system viable in its current form? If not, is it fixable? Maybe we need a process to look at the structure: What if I chaired a small task force to examine it and develop recommendations? I could put Dula and Carver on it—let them see firsthand what's causing their conflict. Get them involved in working out a new design. Give each authority over specific areas. Develop some policies and procedures.”
It is clear from even a few minutes of reflection that Kennedy High School has major structural problems that have to be addressed. But what to do about the immediate crisis between Dula and Carver? The structure helped create the problem in the first place, and fixing it might prevent dustups like this in the future. But Dula's demand for an immediate apology didn't sound like something a rational approach would easily fix. King is ready to try another angle. He turns to the human resource frame for counsel.
Human Resource Issues and Options
“Ironic,” King muses. “The original idea behind the school was to respond better to students. Break down the big, bureaucratic high school. Make the house a community, a family even, where people know and care about each other. But it's drifted off course. Everyone's marooned on the bottom of Maslow's needs hierarchy: No one even feels safe. Until they do, they'll never focus on caring. The problem isn't personalities. Everyone's frustrated because no one is getting personal or professional needs met. Not me, not Carver, not Dula. We're all so frustrated, we don't realize everyone else is in the same boat.”
With the Dula–Carver mess staring him in the face, King shifts his thoughts from individual needs to interpersonal relationships. Tense relationships everywhere. People talking only to people who agree with them. Why? How to get a handle on it? He remembers reading, “Lurking in Model I is the core assumption that an organization is a dangerous place where you have to look out for yourself or someone else will do you in.”
“That's us!” he says. “Too bad they don't give a prize for the most Model I school in America. We'd win hands down. Everything here is win–lose. Nothing is discussed openly, and if it is, people just attack each other. If anything goes wrong, we blame other people and try to straighten them out. They get defensive, which proves we were right. But we never test our assumptions. We don't ask questions. We just harbor suspicions and wait for people to prove us right. Then we hit them over the head. We've got to find better ways to deal with one another.
“How do you get better people management?” King wonders. “Successful organizations start with a clear human resource philosophy. We don't have one, but it might help. Invest in people? We've got good people. They're paid pretty well. They've got job security. We're probably okay there. Job enrichment? Jobs here are plenty challenging. Empowerment? That's a big problem. Everyone claims to be powerless, yet they expect me to fix everything—the way they want it fixed. Is there something we could do to get people to own more of the problem? Convince them we've got to work together to make things better? The trouble is, if we go that way, people may not have the emotional intelligence or the group skills they'd need. Staff development? With all the conflict, mediation skills might be a place to start.” Conflict. Politics. Politics is normal in an organization. He knows it's true. “But we don't seem to have a midpoint between getting along and getting even.”
Political Issues and Options
King reluctantly shifts to a political lens. He knows it's relevant, but he's always hated political games. Still, he's never seen a school with more intense political strife. His old school is beginning to seem tame by comparison; he tackled some things head-on there. Kennedy is a lot more volatile, with a history of explosions. Threats and coercion seem to be the power tactics of choice. But that's not an option he's comfortable with.
Things might get even more vicious if he tackles the conflict openly. He mulls over the basic elements of the political frame: enduring differences, scarce resources, conflict, and power. “Bingo! We've got 'em all. We've got factions for and against the house concept. Housemasters want to run their houses and guard their turf. Department chairs want to run the faculty and expand their territory. One group wants to close the doors and bring in guards. Another wants open doors and no guards. We've got race issues simmering under the surface. No Latino administrators. This Carver–Dula thing could blow up the school. Black male says he'll break white female's neck. A recipe for disaster. We need some damage control.
“Then we've got all those outside folks looking over our shoulder. Parents worry about safety. The school board doesn't trust us. They want higher test scores. The media are looking for a story. Accreditation is coming in the spring. Could we get people thinking about the enemies outside instead of inside? A common devil might pull people together—for a while anyway.
“Scarce resources? They're getting scarcer. We lost 10 percent of our teachers—that got us into the flexible staffing mess. Housemasters and department chairs are fighting over turf. Bill Smith wants my job. It's a war zone. We need some kind of peace settlement. But who can lead the diplomatic effort? Almost no one is neutral. Eleanor Debbs would respond to the call. People respect her. But she's not an administrator.”
King's attention turns to the issue of power. “Power can be used to do people in. That's what we're doing right now. But you can also use power to get things done. That's the constructive side of politics. Too bad no one here seems to have a clue about it. If I'm going to be a constructive politician, what can I do? First, I need an agenda. Without that, I'm dead in the water. Basically, I want everyone working in tandem to make the school better for kids. Most people could rally behind that. I also need a strategy. Networking—I need good relationships with key folks like Smith, Carver, and Dula. The interviews were a good place to start. I learned a lot about who wants what. The Friday meeting was a mistake, a collision of special interests with no common ground. It's going to take some horse trading. We need a deal the housemasters and the department chairs can both buy into. And I need some allies—badly.”
He smiles as he remembers all the times he's railed against analysis paralysis. But he feels he's getting somewhere. He turns to a clean sheet on his pad. “Let's lay this thing out,” he says to the quiet, empty kitchen. Across the top he labels three columns: allies, fence-sitters, and opponents. At the top left, he writes “High power.” At the bottom left, “Low power.” Over the next half-hour, he creates a political map of Kennedy High School, arranging individuals and groups in terms of their interests and their power. When he finishes, he winces. Too many powerful opponents. Too few supportive allies. A bunch of fence-sitters waiting to choose sides. He begins to think about how to build a coalition and reshape the school's political map.
“No doubt about it,” King says, “I have to get on top of the political mess. Otherwise they'll carry me out the same way they did Weis. But it's a little depressing. Where's the ray of hope?” He smiles. He's ready to think about symbols and culture. “Where's Dr. King when I need him?” He recalls the famous words from 1963: “For even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.” What happened to Kennedy High's dream?
He decides to take a break, get some fresh air. He takes stock of his surroundings. Moonlit night. Crowded sidewalks. Young and old, poor and affluent, black, white, and Latino. Merchandise pours out of stores into sidewalk bins: clothes, toys, electronic gear, fruit, vegetables—you name it. It makes him feel better. King runs into some students from his old school. They're at Kennedy now. “We're tellin' our friends we got a good principal now,” they say. He thanks them, hoping they're right.
Symbolic Issues and Options
Back to the kitchen and the yellow pad. Buoyed by the walk and another cup of coffee, he reviews the school's history. “Interesting,” he observes. “That's one of the problems: The school's too new to have many roots or traditions. What we have is mostly bad. We've got a hodgepodge of individual histories people brought from someplace else. Deep down, everyone is telling a different story. Maybe that's why Carver is so attached to his house and Dula to her English department. There's nothing schoolwide for people to bond to. Just little pockets of meaning.”
He starts to think about symbols that might create common ground. Robert Kennedy, the school's namesake. He has only a vague recollection of Bobby Kennedy's speeches. Anything there? He remembers the man. What was he like? What did he stand for? What were the founders thinking when they chose his name for the school? What signals were they trying to send? Any unifying theme? A search engine takes him to Ted Kennedy's eulogy for his brother, where he quoted one of Bobby's favorite sayings: “Some people see things as they are, and say why? I dream things that never were, and say why not?”
“That's the kind of thinking we need here,” King realizes. “We need to get above all the factions and divisions. We need a banner or icon that we all can rally around. Celebrate Kennedy's legacy now? Can we have a ceremony in the midst of warring chaos? It could backfire, make things worse. But it seems the school never had any special occasions—even at the start. No rituals, no traditions. The only stories are downbeat ones. The high road might work. We've got to get back to the values that launched the school in the first place. Rekindle the spark. What if I pull some people together? Start from scratch—this time paying more attention to symbols and ceremony? We need some glue to weld this thing together.”
Meaning. Faith. He rolls the words around in his mind. Haunting images. Ideas start to tumble out. “We're supposed to be pioneers, but somehow we got lost. A lighthouse where the bulb burned out. Not a beacon anymore. We're on the rocks ourselves. A dream became a nightmare. People's faith is pretty shaky. There's a schism—folks splitting into two different faiths. Like a holy war between the church of the one true house system and the temple of academic excellence. We need something to pull both sides together. Why did people join up in the first place? How can we get them to sign up again—renew their vows?” He smiles at the religious overtones in his thoughts. His mother and father would be proud.
He catches himself. “We're not a church; we're a school. But maybe the symbolic concept bridges the gap. Organization as temple. A lot of it is about meaning. What's Kennedy High School really about? Who are we? What happened to our spirit? What's our soul, our values? That's what folks are fighting over! Deep down, we're split over two versions of what we stand for. Department chairs promoting excellence. Housemasters pushing for caring. We need both. That was the original dream. Bring excellence and caring together. We'll never get either if we're always at war with one another.”
He thinks about why he got into public education in the first place. It was his calling. Why? Growing up in a racist society was tough, but his father had it a lot tougher—he was a principal when it was something black men didn't do. King had always admired his dad's courage and discipline. More than anything, he remembered his father's passion about education. The man was a real champion for kids—high standards, deep compassion. Growing up with this man as a role model, there was never much question in King's mind. As far back as he could remember, he'd wanted to be a principal too. It was a way to give to the community and to help young people who really needed it. To give everyone a chance.
In the midst of a firefight, it was easy to forget his mission. It felt good to remember.
A Four-Frame Approach
Before going further, King senses that it is a good time for a review. Over yet another cup of coffee, he goes back over his notes. They strike him as stream of consciousness, with some good stuff and a little whining and self-pity. He smiles as he remembers himself in graduate school, fighting against all that theory. “Don't think; do! Be a leader!” “Avoid analysis paralysis.” Now, here he is, thinking, reflecting, struggling to pull things together. In a strange way, it feels natural.
He organizes his ideas into a chart (see Exhibit 20.1). He's starting to feel better now. The picture is coming into focus. He feels he has a better sense of what he's up against. It's reassuring to see he has options. There are plenty of pitfalls, but some real possibilities. He knows he can't do everything at once; he needs to set priorities. He needs a plan of action, an agenda anchored in basic values. Where to begin? Soul? Values? He has to find a rallying point somewhere.
Exhibit 20.1. Reframing Robert F. Kennedy High School.
| Frame | What's Going On? | What Options Are Available? |
| Structural | Weak integration—goals, roles, responsibilities, linkages unclear | Responsibility charting |
| Ill-defined matrix structure | Task force on structure | |
| Underbounded | Establish his authority as principal | |
| Human resource | Basic needs not met (safety and so on) | Improve safety, security |
| Poor conflict management | Training in communication, conflict management | |
| People feel disempowered | Participation | |
| Teaming | ||
| Political | House-department conflict | Create arenas for negotiation |
| Doors and guards issue | Damage control | |
| Carver–Dula and racial tension | Unite against outside threats | |
| Outside constituents—parents, board, media, and so on | Build coalitions, negotiate | |
| Symbolic | No shared symbols (history, ceremony, ritual) | Hoist a banner (common symbol: RFK?) |
| Loss of faith, religious schism | Develop symbols (meld excellence and caring?) | |
| Lack of identity (What is RFK's soul?) | Ceremony, stories | |
| Leadership gifts |
He has already embraced two values: excellence and caring. He turns his attention to leadership as gift giving. “I've mostly been listening and learning. Now what? What are my gifts? If I want excellence, the gift I have to offer is authorship. That's what people want. They don't want to be told what to do. They want to put their signature on this place. Make a contribution. They're fighting so hard because they care so much. That's what brought them to Kennedy in the first place. They wanted to be a part of something better. Create something special. They all want to do a good job. How can I help them do it without tripping over or maiming each other?
“What about caring? The leadership gift is love. No one's getting much of that around here.” (He smiles as a song fragment comes to mind: “Looking for love in all the wrong places.”) “I've been waiting for someone else to show caring and compassion,” he realizes. “I've been holding back.”
The thought leads him to pick up the phone. He calls Betsy Dula. She is out, but he leaves a message on the machine: “Betsy, Dave King. I've been thinking a lot about our conversation. One thing I want you to know is that I'm glad you're part of the Kennedy High team. You bring a lot, and I sure hope I can count on your help. We can't do it without you. We need to finish what we started out to do. I care. I know you do, too. I'll see you Monday.”
He senses he's on a roll. But it's one thing to leave a message on someone's machine and another to deliver it in person—particularly if you don't know how receptive the other person will be. She may think I'm just shining on, faking it.
On his next call, to Chauncey Carver, King takes a deep breath. He gets through immediately. “Chauncey? Dave King. Sorry to bother you at home, but Betsy Dula called me this morning. She's upset about what you said yesterday. Particularly the part about breaking her neck.”
King listens patiently as Carver makes it clear that he was only defending himself against an unprovoked public attack. “Chauncey, I hear you…Yeah, I know you're mad. So is she.” King listens patiently through another one-sided tirade. “Yes, Chauncey, I understand. But look, you're a key to making this school work. I know how much you care about your house and the school. The word on the street is clear—you're a terrific housemaster. You know it, too. I need your help, man. If this thing with Betsy blows up and goes public, what's it going to do to the school?…You're right, we don't need it. Think about it. Betsy's pushing hard for an apology.”
He feared that the word apology might set Carver off again, and it does. This is getting tough. He reminds himself why he made the call. He shifts back into listening mode. After several minutes of venting, Chauncey pauses. Softly, King tries to make his point. “Chauncey, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just asking you to think about what's best for the school. Let me know what you come up with. Can we meet first thing Monday?…Thanks for your time. Have a good rest of the weekend.”
King puts down the phone. Things are still tense, but he hopes he's made a start. Carver is a loose cannon with a short fuse. But he's also smart, and he cares about the school. Get him thinking, King figures, and he'll see the risks in his comment to Dula. Push him too hard, and he'll fight like a cornered badger. With some space, he might just figure out something on his own. The gift of authorship. Would Chauncey bite? Or would the problem wind up back on the principal's doorstep—with prejudice?
After the conversation with Chauncey, King needs another breather. He goes back to his yellow pad, which has become something of a security blanket. More than that, it's helping him find his way to the balcony. It has given him a better view of the situation. He's made notes about excellence and caring. Is he making progress or just musing? It doesn't matter. He feels better; the situation seems to be getting clearer and his options more promising.
King's thoughts move on to justice. “Do people feel the school is fair?” he asks. “I'm not hearing a lot of complaints about injustice. But it wouldn't take much to set off another war. The Chauncey–Betsy thing is scary. A man physically threatening a woman could send a terrible message. There's too much male violence in the community already. Make it a black man and a white woman, and it gets worse. The fact that Chauncey and I are black men is good and bad: It makes for a better chance of getting Chauncey's help—brothers united and all that. But it could be devastating if people think I'm siding with Chauncey against Betsy—sisters in defiance. It's like being on a tightrope: One false step and I'm history. And the school, too. All the more reason to encourage Chauncey and Betsy to work this out. If I could get the two together, what a symbol of unity that would be! Maybe just what we need. A positive step at least.”
Finally, King thinks about the ethic of faith and the gift of significance. Symbols again, revisited in a deeper way. “How did Kennedy High go from high hopes to no hope in two years? How do we rekindle the original faith? How do we recapture the dream that launched the school? Well,” he sighs, “I've been around this track before. My last school was a snake pit when I got there. Not as bad as Kennedy, but still pretty awful. We turned that one around, and I learned some things in the process—including be patient, but hang tough. It's gonna be hard. But maybe fun, too. And it will happen. That's why I took this job in the first place. So what am I moaning about? I knew what I was getting into. It's just that knowing it in my head is one thing. Feeling it in my gut is another.”
By Sunday night, King has pages of notes. They help—but not as much as his conversation with himself in an empty kitchen. Going to the gallery, getting a fresh look, reflecting instead of just fretting. The inner dialogue has led to new conversations with others, on a deeper level. He's made a lot of phone calls, talked to almost every administrator in the building. A lot of them have been surprised—a principal who calls on the weekend isn't business as usual.
He is making headway. He needs to hear from Betsy but has some volunteers for a task force on structural issues. He's done some relationship building. A second call to Chauncey to commend him for devotion to the mission. A deeper connection. Crediting Frank Czepak for excellent counsel, even if the principal isn't smart enough to pay attention—a frank admission.
Some has been pure politics. Negotiating a deal with Bill Smith: “I could help you, Bill, next time the district needs a principal, but right now I need your help. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.” Gently persuading Burt Perkins that he was needed much more for scheduling than running a house, and that moving to assistant principal would be a step up. A call to Dave Crimmins to tell him Perkins has decided to make a change. An encouraging conversation with Luz Hernandez, a stalwart in his previous school. She might be willing to come to Kennedy High as a housemaster. Planting seeds with everyone about ways to resolve the door problem.
Above all, King has worked on creating symbolic glue, renewing the hopes and dreams people felt at the time the school was founded. A cohesive group pulling together for a common purpose: a school everyone can feel proud of. His to-do list is ambitious. But at least he has one. A month and a half until the first day of school and a lot to accomplish. He isn't sure what the future will bring, but he feels a little more hope in the air. The knot in his stomach is mostly gone. So are the images of being carried off like his predecessor, a broken man with a shattered career.
The phone rings. It's Betsy Dula. She's been away for the weekend but wants to thank King for his message. It was important to know he cared, she told him. “By the way,” she says, “Chauncey Carver called me. Said he felt bad about Friday. Told me he'd lost his temper and said some things he didn't really mean. He invited me to breakfast tomorrow.”
“Are you going?” King asks, as nonchalantly as possible. He holds his breath, thinking, If she declines, we could be back to square one.
“Yes,” she says. “Even a phone call is a big step for Chauncey. He's a proud and stubborn man. But we're both professionals. It's worth a try.”
A sigh of relief. “I agree. One more question,” King says. “When you came to the school, you knew it wouldn't be easy. Why did you sign up for this in the first place?”
She is silent for a long time. He can almost hear her thinking. “I love English and I love kids,” she says. “And I want kids to love English.”
“And now?” he asks.
“Can't we get past all the bickering and fighting? That's not why we launched this noble experiment. Let's get back to why we're here. Work together to make this a good school for our kids. They really need us.”
“Maybe even a great school we can all be proud of?” he asks.
“Sounds even better,” she says. Maybe she doesn't grasp what he means. But they are closer to being on the same page. It will take time, but they can work it out.
At the end of a very busy weekend, David King is still a long way from solving all the problems of Kennedy High. “But,” he tells himself, “I made it through the valley of confusion, and I'm feeling more like my old self. The picture of what I'm up against is a lot clearer. I'm seeing a lot more possibilities than I was seeing on Friday. In fact, I've got some exciting things to try. Some may work; some may not. But deep down, I think I know what's going on. And I know which way is west. We're now moving roughly in that direction.”
He can't wait for Monday morning.
Conclusion: The Reframing Process
A different David King would probably raise other questions and see other options. Reframing, like management and leadership, is more art than science. Every artist brings a distinctive vision and produces unique works. King's reframing process necessarily builds on a lifetime of skill, knowledge, intuition, and wisdom. Reframing guides him in accessing what he already knows. It helps him feel less confused and overwhelmed by the doubt and disorder around him. A cluttered jumble of impressions and experiences gradually evolves into a manageable image. His reflections help him see that he is far from helpless—he has a rich array of actions to choose from. He has also rediscovered a very old truth: Reflection is a spiritual discipline, much like meditation or prayer. A path to faith and heart. He knows the road ahead is still long and difficult. There is no guarantee of success. But he feels more confident and more energized than when he started. He is starting to dream things that never were and to say, “Why not?”