I was bowled over by the attendance at my workshop on April 10 at the annual meeting of the National School Boards Association in Chicago.  Thinking that 50 people would be a respectable turnout, I was delighted that over 200 showed up – standing room only, with many disappointed people turned away at the door.  Clearly, the subject of my workshop – “Taking Command of Strategic Change” – struck a real chord among school board members and superintendents.

I really shouldn’t have been surprised.  These are challenging times, and old-time strategic/long-range planning, with its pounds of paper and thousands of words, can’t cut the mustard where dealing with strategic issues in a rapidly changing world is concerned.  Judging from the questions participants asked and the evaluation forms that were submitted, the education leaders in my workshop thought that my Strategic Change Portfolio model for leading change made the best of sense.  In brief, the model involves identifying strategic issues in the form of challenges/problems (e.g., a looming revenue shortfall) and opportunities (a possible partnership with the business community), selecting the highest stakes issues, fashioning Strategic Change Initiatives to address the issues, and managing implementation of the Initiatives in a portfolio kept separate from day-to-day operations.  You might want to check out my paper on the subject – “Applying the Strategic Change Portfolio Model” – at www.DougEadie.com/resources/.

My workshop participants at NSBA-Chicago were very interested in a large-scale change initiative going on in the Hillsborough County Public Schools here in Tampa Bay, Florida.  The initiative – a large-scale effort to strengthen teacher effectiveness, supported by a $100 million grant from the Gates Foundation – is described in my column in the May issue of NSBA’s “American School” magazine:  “A Bold Partnership.”  You can also find the column at www.DougEadie.com/resources/.

I’d like to hear from you about your experience in managing strategic issues in your organization.  Contact me at Doug@DougEadie.com.  

I wish you could’ve traveled around Tampa Bay with the Blind Visionary Express on Friday, February 19.  In this and the following blogs in this series, I’ll be sharing highlights from this really power-packed day that saw Virginia Jacko, co-author with me of The Blind Visionary,   and I and our little entourage trekking from Tampa to St. Petersburg to Safety Harbor from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., introducing The Blind Visionary and Virginia to hundreds of new admirers. If you agree with me that the lessons in our book are worth sharing widely, I’d really like to have your thoughts about ways we might introduce Virginia and The Blind Visionary in your community.  You can send your ideas to Doug@DougEadie.com.

The Blind Visionary Express stopped first at Hillsborough High School in Tampa, where Virginia spoke to 150-plus student leaders in the Social Media Center.  MaryEllen Elia, superintendent of the Hillsborough Public Schools – one of the 10 largest districts in the country – gave Virginia a truly heartfelt introduction.  She focused on Virginia’s courage and tenacity in turning a tragedy – losing her eyesight to retinitis pigmentosa – into a triumph – becoming  president and CEO of the Miami Lighthouse.  By the way, as the mother of a highly accomplished son who also lost his eyesight to retinitis pigmentosa, MaryEllen not only easily relates to Virginia’s story, but she’s also passionate about meeting challenges head-on and about the responsibility of public schools to serve their blind students.

“Go Terriers!”  Virginia’s opening words – greeted by enthusiastic cheers – got the students’ attention, and, looking around while she was talking about her amazing journey from Purdue to the Miami Lighthouse, I could tell that she wasn’t ever in danger of losing her audience the least bit – a testimony to the wonderful stories in The Blind Visionary and Virginia’s skill in telling them.  Virginia touched briefly on each of the four lessons from Part Three of The Blind Visionary – reaching out aggressively; taking action; not giving in to fear; and keeping things in perspective – telling a vivid story from our book for each lesson.  You could’ve heard a pin drop, for example, when Virginia explained how she decided, on her way out the door of the president’s office at Purdue University, that she couldn’t keep going in her job and needed start all over at the Miami Lighthouse as a vocational rehabilitation student.  I could tell that her core message was really hitting home:  Take Action!  Don’t let yourself be a victim!  Overcoming challenges, whatever they are, is what gives life meaning, so go for it, boys and girls!

The Blind Visionary Express was even more special to me because of the family members who climbed aboard and worked really hard to make February 19 a great day.  In addition to myself and Virginia, our entourage included my wife, Barbara Krai, my son, William, representing our publisher, Governance Edge, who flew in from Cleveland and my sister Kay Sue Nagle, who flew in from Chicago for the party. 

From Hillsborough High School, the Blind Visionary Express headed to the Lions Eye Institute in Tampa, where parents and students were participating in the Braille Challenge.  But I’ll tell you about that in my next blog.  Don’t forget:  I want your ideas for getting out the word far and wide on Virginia’s amazing journey and the powerful lessons in it for all of us.

“Don’t let fear win.”  That’s the third lesson that Virginia Jacko and I discuss in Part Three of our new book, The Blind Visionary, which is due out in mid-January 2010 from Governance Edge Publishers.  You’ll recall that The Blind Visionary is about Virginia’s incredible journey. It begins at Purdue University, where Virginia slowly but surely goes blind while working as a senior financial executive.  Virginia’s journey continues at the Miami Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, where she starts all over as a vocational rehabilitation student and only four years later is the Lighthouse’s president & CEO.

I think you’ll really like what Virginia has to say in The Blind Visionary about not letting fear defeat you.  Here’s just a small sample:

“Maybe it’s kind of too obvious to mention, but I really do think that being a positive thinker has helped me get over fears.  It’s really close to the idea of believing in myself.  I don’t think I’m being – what do you call it? - a Pollyanna, when I try to see the glass half-full.  To me, it’s simple:  You waste precious time and energy on negative thoughts.  You’ve only got so much energy and you’ve only got so much time.  And so you can choose how you spend your time.  You can choose how you spend your thoughts.  And so spending much time on something negative is not really productive.  And I really think it comes more from that attitude than that I’m such a bubbly, Everything’s Okay!, type.  Because I don’t think that really is me; I’ve always been a pretty hard-headed realist.  But that doesn’t mean I’m negative.  I just think that when you see a bump in the road you assume you can deal with it, you don’t expect it to defeat you.  So you tackle the bump realistically, you get over the bump, and you go on.  Because that’s your life.  That’s life.  That’s what it is.”

That’s pretty good advice, isn’t it?  You’ll find lots more in The Blind Visionary.  Check it out at www.GovernanceEdge.com. 

So I told myself to let go of Tracker, since it’d be tremendously difficult to get him out of the Bay on a ladder, and I resigned myself to having a swim, just like in a pool.  Indeed, the tide was in and the water was deep, so it really was like falling into a swimming pool.  When I came up, a gentleman who was standing on the sea wall looking down at me yelled, “Virginia, I’m a friend of your husband’s.  How can I help?”  By the way, I was a little embarrassed since I was sure he’d heard the expletive that popped out of my mouth when I got my breath – understandable, but not my normal style.  Bobbing in the water, I looked up and said calmly, “Oh, why don’t we get a ladder so I can climb back up.”  That’s what he did, and I climbed back up to the sea wall, to the applause of a crowd of onlookers that’d gathered for the unplanned entertainment.  What a sight I must have been!  Someone was nice enough to walk with me and Tracker back to my apartment. Tracker had just stayed on the edge watching the show, by the way.  I thought to myself, “Virginia you’ve got to change your clothes pronto and get back out there and walk around.”  And that’s exactly what I did.  You see, Doug, for one thing I didn’t want to get scared and lose my confidence.  And I wanted people to see I was alright and not to worry. 

Virginia Jacko and I first met face-to-face on September 14, 2006, although we had talked several times by phone over the prior month.  When my taxi from the airport arrived at the Miami Lighthouse For the Blind and Visually Impaired at 8 a.m. that day, I was feeling uncharacteristically apprehensive.  The purpose of my first visit to the Miami Lighthouse was to officially kick off a major project – we called it the “High-Impact Governing Initiative” – aimed at strengthening the governing role, functions, and structure of the Lighthouse Board of Directors.  In a few minutes I would be meeting Virginia, who had been the Miami Lighthouse’s first blind president & CEO since June 2005, after serving in an interim, pro bono capacity for the prior four months.  Most consultants probably feel a slight tingle of danger at the prospect of working with a whole new cast of characters when beginning a new engagement, but I had an unaccustomed case of nerves when I got out of the cab that morning. 

In retrospect, I realize my trepidation had to do with Virginia’s being blind.  Although I had briefly interacted with a handful of blind people in various consulting engagements over the years, I had never worked closely with a blind chief executive in my twenty-five years of nonprofit consulting. So on the taxi ride from the Miami Airport, I found myself worrying about small things that seem a bit silly in retrospect.  Was the subject of her blindness off-limits, or would it be appropriate to ask her about the history of her losing her sight?  If we walked down the corridor together during my visit, should I take her arm?  During the buffet lunch that was being served in the conference room during my meeting with Virginia and her top executives, should I offer to fill Virginia’s plate?  Not knowing the rules of etiquette really bothered me, since unwittingly committing a faux pas is not my custom, and the last thing I wanted to do was offend my new CEO client.

This account of my meeting Virginia Jacko comes from my newest book, The Blind Visionary, which Virginia and I co-authored.  Due out in January 2010 from Governance Edge, The Blind Visionary tells the extraordinary story of Virginia’s gradually losing her eyesight while serving as a senior financial executive at Purdue University, starting over as a vocational rehabilitation student at the Miami Lighthouse in 2001, and becoming the Lighthouse President & CEO only four years later.  In addition to telling Virginia’s fascinating story, The Blind Visionary provides readers with practical guidance in overcoming whatever obstacles they face on the way to fuller, more satisfying lives and careers.

Be on the lookout for other excerpts from The Blind Visionary in future blogs. 

In my last blog, I talked about my son William’s momentous ’09 summer, which saw him receiving his MBA and law degrees from Case Western Reserve University and marrying his sweetheart Christine.  I also briefly mentioned William’s becoming my business partner in an exciting new venture, Governance Edge.  As president, William is in charge of day-to-day operation of Governance Edge’s publishing and web-based learning programs.  We’ve already brought out two briskly selling books, and we have a new one on the way that tells the fascinating and exciting story of a blind CEO, Virginia Jacko, who is my co-author.  I’ll be describing this new book, which we’re tentatively calling “The Blind Visionary,” in a future blog.

What an experience it’s been thus far working with son and colleague William – always educational, rewarding, and energizing and occasionally a bit stressful.  Governance Edge is without question benefiting from William’s entrepreneurial and technological savvy (Case’s Weatherhead School of Management is a major center for entrepreneurial research and education), as well as his energy and enthusiasm.  With his help, I’m becoming ever more comfortable with the today’s world of hyper-connectivity, with the likes of LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.   I may not be tweeting much yet, but I’m certainly on the verge, thanks to Will’s guidance and pressure.  I certainly clearly see the potential of social networking, especially for widely and relatively inexpensively getting out the word on exciting new products  like “The Blind Visionary.” 

Now, the fact that I’ve been the sole boss who’s used to getting his own way for 20 years has made the transition to a partnership rocky at times, but we’re working out the kinks.  Looking back over the years, I can see a number of decisions that would have benefited from William’s insightful counsel, so I’m sold on the idea of collaboration as we move forward.  Well, theoretically anyway.  The emotional thing does every so often get in the way.  William, who graduated in the top 10 percent of his law school class at Case Western, can hold his own in debate, and he’s not about to back down when he believes his position is sound.  That’s what I need, no question, but now and then his being so challenging throws me on the defensive.  But that’s normal, I assume, and we’re working through the issues.

We did have a funny run-in his first week on the job at Governance Edge.  William and I had agreed on Monday that he needed time to settle in and find his sea legs, without pressure, and that I should step back and give him space, resisting the temptation to hurl “suggestions” his way.  I was sincere, I really was, but I couldn’t resist peppering him with 10 or 11 emails over the next couple of days, sharing my thinking on this and that issue.  Mea culpa!  Will’s response to this unsolicited advice was succinct and a trifle brutal, involving his deft use of the delete key.  I was appropriately chastened, if not completely cured, but I’m getting there, day by day.

I welcome hearing about similar experiences – father-son, mother-daughter, father-daughter……..Oh, and I’d like to know if anyone out there is aware of a 12-step program for recovering bosses!