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Tom McDonald,
Ph.D., School Business Affairs, February 1998
A little thought goes a long way toward effective action.
Today, school administrators are spread paper-thin. Pelted by
non-stop change, they scarcely have time to catch their
breath, much less think substantively about educational
challenges. But to overcome those challenges, thinking is
exactly what they need to do.
Often, a "bias for action" prevents us from thinking at all
before we act. The result: Upwards of 50 percent of what we do
misses the mark and has to be redone.
Effective leaders are turning this around. Thinking is now a
valued business skill. Here are five guidelines that will help
everyone to think before they act. Put to use, they will
deliver better business results.
Build in Thinking Time. Many of us rarely take
the time we need to really think. Our methods of avoidance are
often quite intricate. For example, look at your Day-timer.
Estimates are that 50-80 percent of your time is spent in
meetings. The rest is spent doing something else. Look closer
now. Do you have an appointment scheduled with yourself?
Chances are that every bit of your time is blocked out meeting
someone or doing something. It's impossible to think about
anything when you're fully engaged externally.
To get a handle on this, set up a daily meeting with yourself.
Arrange everything and everyone else around it. Take a full
hour, make sure you shut your door and use your voice mail.
This will help anchor the rest of your day.
Think About One Thing at a Time. On average, we
spend only eight minutes on any one activity during the
business day. This means we've got a lot of balls in the air.
While our brain is juggling many thoughts at once, this is not
the same as substantive thinking.
The challenge is one of mental focus. We distract ourselves
easily. One thought leads to another, and before we realize
it, we're thinking about something else altogether. To corral
your thinking, stick with one question for a period of time,
and make sure you've answered it completely.
Shift Your Perspectives. When we think, we
always start from a certain point of view. That perspective
determines what we see and what we overlook. If we think about
things from one perspective only, we seriously limit our field
of vision and our solutions.
Try this experiment. Stop reading for a moment and look
around. Pick our five things that are blue. They've been there
all along, but it was only when you looked through a "blue"
perspective that you could see them. The brain is capable of
an infinite number of perspectives. Make sure you use at least
three of them when you think. You'll be surprised at the
different things you'll see.
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