By Christian Talbot, President of MSA-CESS

One time, a school called me to help them reboot their strategic plan. They had a beautiful document with elegant langage.

But the plan was a year old and had gone nowhere.

As I talked with board members, administrators, and teachers, it became clear that only one person knew what the strategic plan’s words meant: the head of school. Some people knew the meaning of certain words and phrases, some knew the meaning of other content, while most people had no idea what any of it meant. No wonder the plan stalled.

In working with scores of schools undertaking significant change, I have noticed that their challenges typically begin with one of two things:…