Thank you for the feedback on the last Coaching Letter, about white privilege, I am glad so many people found it helpful. Of course, when I wrote it, I had no way of knowing that one of my fellow citizens would drive for 10 hours across Texas to kill “Mexicans” peaceably going about their [...]

I am so fascinated by the latest storm over “go back where you came from.” The New York Times asked people who have had that said to them to tell their stories, and got over 16,000 responses. Sixteen thousand! Most of these are the stories of people who were born here, and yet there [...]

Hello, I hope your summer is going swimmingly. As I write this, outside it looks as though it is cool and misty, because it’s overcast and raining, but in fact I know it’s 95 degrees and appallingly humid. I am dreading having to go out. I have been working on several coaching letters—one about [...]

Beginning of July already, can you believe it? I feel like spring break was just a couple of weeks ago. At the same time, it’s only two weeks since we were getting to start HQI Live in Milford, and that seems like a very long time ago—so much has happened since then. The Strategy [...]

Friends, I hope this finds you well. I feel like I am stealing a few moments between the end of HQI Live in Milford yesterday and the Strategy Workshop at Connecticut College next week—an intense couple of weeks! But I wanted to write about the similarities between the two, partly for my own benefit [...]

Today is the first day of a very ambitious adult learning experience in Milford. There are 70 people here at Foran High School today—two teachers from each school, and all the building and central office administrators. We are here in preparation for the really ambitious part, which happens next week. Two teachers are going [...]

This Coaching Letter is about Coaching! I think a lot about coaches and teacher leaders, and how to leverage them better. These educators tend to be really strong teachers who also have other great qualities—they are hard-working, reliable, committed to student success, committed to their own improvement, credible to their colleagues, and have good [...]

Not too late to sign up for our Reading for Leading Soiree next week. Here’s the link. I chose Amy Edmondson’s book, The Fearless Organization, because of several experiences I had last year working with principals and other relatively junior educational leaders who believed that they had been given the message by senior leaders [...]

This Coaching Letter is about listening and empathy. I really appreciate Shane Parrish’s work, and I am grateful for the Brain Food newsletter, the Farnam Street blog (see this post on decision making, which is my favorite so far, although this one on mental models is also very interesting) and the Knowledge Project podcast. And see also CL #61. However, [...]

Good evening, I hope this finds you well. First, when we first announced that The Fearless Organization was our latest Reading for Leading book selection, we asked you to hold May 29 for a soirée. We shifted that date to June 4, because that evening the author, Amy Edmondson, can join us by video [...]