Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Learning

As I sat in Gutman Library at Harvard's Graduate School of Education on Friday, I took the time to reflect on what I had learned during my year (2008-2009) as a HGSE student. Above all, I was hit with the realization that it is incredibly difficult to actually apply the lessons learned in lectures and discussion groups. How often do I actually have time to think about the three concepts listed in this entry's title - and, are they even distinct concepts? Considering the last year of work, I discovered two themes that emerge from the most difficult challenges of Reach's first year.

First, I discovered how much I consider learning to be part of leadership and entrepreneurship - and organizational management. Speaking with Monica Higgins, a favorite HGSE professor (whose course shares the title of this entry), I tried to explain the most intense pressure I experience when speaking with people about Reach. Mostly, that pressure centers on the idea that we should already have it figured out. The goal, in my mind, is to create an organization that operates effectively, measures outcomes, reflects on impact, and makes improvements that build on new knowledge. Speaking as though I should have a perfect program model before launch assumes that organizations are stagnant and rigid. The goal is to create an organization that learns and grows, not one that assumes to be perfect at launch.

Second, and closely connected to the first theme, is the idea of depersonalization of work (a topic covered more closely in Richard Elmore's class). Discussions about reform efforts often closely resemble investigative interviews - poking holes and identifying weaknesses. It is easy for me to assume that I am doing something wrong when I find myself unable to answer a question. Depersonalizing the work forces us to consider that Reach (the organization) being unprepared to answer a question does not mean that I (the individual) am unprepared for the discussion. There are things we don't know now - so much learning occurs in the actual implementation of ideas. It's our ability to learn and adjust that will predict our future success. However, it is exceedingly difficult to avoid feeling like a student staring at an empty pop quiz about an unread chapter. Reach's growth as an organization now exists as an entity larger than me - there are things I can not know right now.

Reform efforts are not finished products, especially before they are existing products. I will only be successful in leading this entrepreneurial endeavor if I never stop learning - to do so, one need not know all the answers.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark