Uncategorized

This one is going to hit deep for some of you. I promise: if I were writing about you specifically, I’d clear it with you first. Across several organizations, I am noticing two patterns that look like opposites: My emerging hypothesis is that they are actually the same thing – avoidance of discomfort. Let me […]

Last week, I shared a simple framework I use for educational program and school design: a user on a journey to a desired outcome. When those three elements are well aligned, the program gives users opportunities to practice and learn what they need to achieve the desired outcome. There’s another benefit to getting this right:

I developed a framework for educational program and school design that I’ve been using for about 12 years, with increasing conviction. Its roots are in human-centered design. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve used it in two very different settings: a university and leadership accelerator school for girls in rural Guatemala, and a basketball

If you had followed me from one partner meeting to the next over the past two weeks (which would have been a weird thing to do), you would have heard the same question more than a few times: Where is the 20%? The Pareto principle, or 80/20 rule, says that roughly 80% of outcomes come

When I was chief program and strategy officer at a nonprofit, I had several dozen people in my org and six direct reports. I had a really good team. But sometimes (and this may sound familiar) they came to me with issues. Or someone brought an issue to their manager, who brought it to their

A partner asked me to help improve high school graduation rates. My first request was a list of 50 students who had dropped out. About 80% of students were already graduating. There were likely many things working simultaneously to produce that result, making it difficult to know which were most important. I suspected we would