Want to improve your organization? If so, make sure your staff members understand what’s involved in organizational improvement. Make sure your staff understand that:

• The purpose of organizational improvement is increasing achievement of the mission.
• Improvement plans target mission achievement.
• When implementing improvement plans, staff are to live out organizational values, use organizational best practices, and collaborate with other stakeholders.

Question: How well do your staff members understand what’s involved in organizational improvement?

 

To get an idea of how well your staff understand what’s involved in organizational improvement, take the following assessment. Rate each item, using the following scale:

4: Consistently • 3: Usually • 2: Sometimes • 1: Rarely

• Staff members understand our values.
• Staff members understand our mission.
• Staff members understand our best practices.
• Staff members understand our improvement plans.
• Staff members understand the importance of stakeholder collaboration.
• Staff members understand how values, mission, best practices, improvement plans, and stakeholder collaboration are connected.
• Staff members understand what’s involved in organizational improvement.

3 questions:

1. How well do you want your staff to understand what’s involved in organizational improvement?
2. How can you help your staff better understand what’s involved in organizational improvement?
3. What are you going to do?

Bottom line: Pursue excellence. Help your staff understand what’s involved in organizational improvement. Today.

Here’s a set of DRAW questions you can use for a discussion of “How can you provide time during class for reflection?”

Define: Get the facts defined.

During the last week or unit, how much time did you provide students to reflect? to connect what they study and what the Bible teaches?

 

Respond: Get the facts responded to in terms of feelings/experiences.

1. How you do feel when you’re given/not given time to reflect?
2. How do your students feel when you give/don’t give them time to reflect?

Analyze: Get the facts, feelings, and experiences analyzed.

1. How does having time for personal reflection impact your learning?
2. How does having time for personal reflection impact student learning? impact students connecting what they study and what the Bible teaches?

What’s next?: Get next steps considered.

1. How can you provide time in class for your students to reflect?
2. How can you provide time in class for your students to connect what they study and what the Bible teaches?
3. How will you provide time?

By focusing, working smart, and pursuing excellence. To get an idea of how you can manage yourself more effectively, take the following assessment. Write the number that comes closest to representing how true a given statement is for you right now. Use the following scale:

4: Consistently • 3: Usually • 2: Sort of • 1: Rarely

Focus

___ I focus on joining God in what he is already doing.

___ I focus on doing right things, before I focus on doing things right.

___ I focus on my God-given mission.

___ I have defined my mission in terms of SMART goals.

___ I understand how my mission, goals, and daily activities are connected.

Work smart

___ I ask God for help.

___ I think big. For example, I ask myself questions like “What 3 dreams do I want to realize?”

___ I think clearly.

___ I think outside the box.

___ I document my goals.

___ I determine the actions steps I will take to achieve my goals.

___ I take SMART action.

___ I schedule my action steps.

___ I schedule my big goals first.

___ I plan backwards.

___ I track my progress on my goals.

___ I reflect on my goals.

___ I find better ways to achieve my goals.

Pursue excellence

___ I pursue my goals.

___ Before I start working on my goals, I get the resources I need.

___ I get the support, encouragement, and accountability I need to achieve my goals.

___ I pay attention to my goals (because I know that what I pay attention to gets done).

___ I target my strengths.

___ I eliminate my frustrations.

You want your students to develop a Christ-centered worldview. So, you decide to help your students deepen their Bible knowledge.

 Question: What 3 Bible verses will you help your students memorize, understand, and apply?

 

Here are sample Bible verses:

• Gen. 1.1, 1.26-28, 8.22
• Lev. 19.18
• Ps. 19.1-6, 104.13-16, 147.4
• Isa. 1.17, 61.1
• Mic. 6.8
• Matt. 7.12
• Luke 10.27, 12.7
• Rom. 12.1-2
• Phil. 4.8, 4.12-13
• Col. 1.17

Question: What other Bible verses could you help your students memorize, understand, and apply?

 

Target Biblical perspective. Start with 1 verse. Today.

 

Imagine asking 3 Christian leaders what their God-given organizational mission is. Imagine you got the following 3 responses:

1. To look busy.
2. To be busy.
3. To be productive.

How would you feel? I’d be stunned. And I’d feel discouraged and sad. Why? In part, because these Christian leaders have confused indicators of carrying out the mission with the mission itself. That’s dangerous.

 

It’s true that carrying out your God-given mission involves action:

• This means you might be busy. But being busy isn’t the mission. God’s ultimate goal for your organization is not to look busy or to be busy. If you fall into the trap of wanting to look busy or thinking that busyness equals your God-given mission, you can end up being overloaded.
• This means you will need to be productive. But God’s mission for your Christian organization is not simply about being productive. What your productivity targets matters a great deal. If you fall into the trip of striving for productivity (instead mission), you might be doing a lot of good things that don’t target your God-given mission.

Remember, your God-given mission is not:

1. To look busy.
2. To be busy.
3. To be productive.

Bottom line: Don’t equate your God-given mission with busyness or productivity.

You want your 8th graders to make connections. You’ve assigned them an essay requiring them to connect what they study and what the Bible teaches. And you’re ready to collect their rough drafts. Good.

 Question: How can you help your students make better connections?

 

Answer: By having them reflect on the connections they made in their rough drafts. How? By asking them to respond to these questions:

• What connections did you make?
• What’s satisfying/unsatisfying about your connections?
• What helps you make connections?
• What question do you want to ask me about your connections?

Ask your students to write responses to these questions. Then, ask them to staple their responses to their rough drafts. Tell them you’ll answer the question they asked you about their connections.

 

Help your students make connections. Ask them questions. Today.

“This coaching series has been life changing,” says Trudi, a secretary at an international Christian school in Singapore. It’s her final coaching session. She adds, “I’ve gotten a better understanding of God’s calling for me. My personal mission statement gives me something to focus on. And the 5 goals I’ve developed for carrying out my mission help me take action on my mission. I want to keep at it.”

 

Question: What can you ask Trudi?

 

Answer: How can you continue to make progress?”

 

Get Trudi to create an environment that empowers her to consistently take action on her goals. To help Trudi create an empowering environment, ask her questions like:

• What helps/hinders you in focusing on your goals?
• What helps/hinders you in designing action steps each week?
• What helps/hinders you in accomplishing your action steps?

Empower your client to pursue God’s calling. Today.

You want your organization to achieve its mission. You know that a quality improvement system can help.

Question: What’s next?

 

Answer: Take time to reflect. Take time to reflect on key questions, for example:

• How well does your staff understand what’s involved in organizational improvement?
• How involved are your stakeholders in organizational improvement?
• How focused is your staff on organizational improvement?
• What drives your organization’s improvement?
• To what extent do improvement plans guide staff work?
• To what extent are staff accountable for improvement plans?

Reflect, then take action to enhance your organization’s improvement system.

 

Pursue excellence. Today.

You want your students develop a Christ-centered worldview. You want your students to better connect what they study and what the Bible teaches.

Question: What can you do?

 

Answer: You can reflect on questions like:

• How can you help your students make connections?
• How can you help your students use relevant Biblical principles?
• How can you help your students use relevant Bible verses?
• How can you help your students include Biblical perspective in their thesis statements?
• How can you help your students apply a Biblical perspective throughout their essays?
• How can you help your students apply a Biblical perspective to issues?

Help your students develop a Christ-centered worldview. Reflect on questions. Today

Question: Is it OK to teach to an assessment?

 

Answer: Yes. In fact, teaching to an assessment is an effective practice. When I teach, I look at what students are supposed to learn, develop an assessment, and teach to it.

 

Question: So, should I teach to all my assessments?

 

Answer: That depends. Are your assessments worthy of being taught to? If so, teach to them. If not, change your assessments so they are worthy of being taught to, and then teach to them.

 

Question: What does a worthy assessment look like?

 

Answer: Here is a sample essay prompt from English 10: Using the poetry analysis skills we practiced, critique the lyrics of a favorite song (what the lyrics say, how they say it, and what God might think of what they say).

 

Bottom line: Make sure your assessments are worthy of being taught to—then teach to them.