Alignment to Purpose

Snyder: Put more money in schools

Governor promises more specifics when he unveils 2012-13 budget Feb. 9

By Paul Egan and Dawson Bell Free Press Lansing Bureau

   LANSING — After complaints that his second State of the State address was short on specifics, Gov. Rick Snyder told the Free Press on Thursday that he’s going to invest more state money in public schools in the coming year and press the Legislature to find a better way to pay for roads and bridges.

   He also detailed one option for replacing the personal property tax that businesses pay on equipment. The tax, he said, puts Michigan manufacturers at a disadvantage to their counterparts in other states.

   Snyder, who cut K-12 funding last year to help balance the budget, said he wants to boost spending for schools, but with strings attached.

   “Our intention is, from where we were last year, is hopefully to invest more in education,” Snyder said. But he stressed he wants to “invest more, not just spend more,” and funding would be tied to “best practices” and measurable results.

   More details, he said, would come Feb. 9 when he presents his 2012-13 budget to the Legislature.

   Though his Wednesday speech was widely panned as uninspiring and lacking specifics, Snyder said he “expected that.” He rejected suggestions he is losing the boldness that spurred what many saw as remarkable changes in tax, spending and regulatory policy in 2011.

   “I think we’re continuing to be bold,” but it’s important to gather public input on significant and long-standing issues, such as how to pay for roads in Michigan and make up a $1.4-billion annual shortfall there, he said.

   He said in many areas, he wants to focus this year on “not so much the flashy stuff,” but “let’s run a really good government,” and “it’s hard for people to get fired up about implementation.”

   Though deeper cuts were initially called for, public schools ended up with a 2% funding cut last year. Officials said the effect on classrooms was more dramatic because of hikes in costs, such as health care.

   Brad Biladeau, associate executive for government relations for the Michigan Association of School Administrators, said districts are “reeling” from funding cuts and more money for schools is “very welcome news.”

   The association, which represents more than 600 superintendents and frontline administrators, is ready to work with Snyder on pursuing efficiencies and measurable results, Biladeau said.

   For example, “we have been and will continue to share services and consolidate services” among districts.

   Republicans in the Legislature are working on proposals to address the rising cost of public school pensions, and some have suggested those costs to local schools could be offset by directing additional state funding into retirement rather than simply increasing the per-pupil foundation grant.

   Snyder did not directly address that idea in his Free Press interview.

   The governor also said figuring out road funding is a problem that goes back decades.

   Deciding on a funding formula, a regional approach to roads, sewer and water line improvements, and the proposed new public bridge to Canada is a “whole package … Iwould really like to see get done this year.”

   But he declined to endorse specific revenue proposals — raising fuel taxes or registration fees, for instance — instead urging the Legislature to get going on the public discussion of alternatives.

   Another high priority is repealing the personal property tax that businesses pay on their equipment.

   The problem, he said, is that the tax funds local governments and a replacement for the local government revenue stream is needed if the tax is repealed.

   Snyder said money now going to pay industrial tax credits may be part of the solution. The state eliminated most such tax credits in 2011with the repeal of the Michigan Business Tax but is continuing to honor tax credits that were promised earlier.

   “As they roll off, there’s actually a future opportunity for revenue coming in,” he said. “That could be the major element to deal with this reform.”

Contextualized Learning Content (WEB 2.0)

Context is King

With the current economic situation, learning organizations have been forced to look at more innovative ways to impact the business. Informal learning has risen to the top as one of the more desired approaches to extend our reach into the lines of business we support and show more direct business impact.

The trouble is, few have actualized these expectations. A recent study through the eLearning Guild by Jane Bozarth on the adoption of social media in learning shows that although 76 percent of learning organizations aspire to include social media in their learning offerings, only 20 to 30 percent succeed. Another study by Allison Rossett and James Marshall in T+D magazine showed that except for higher education, little informal learning is in practice, even things as simple and dated as discussion boards — even though most organizations’ top aspiration is personalized learning.

With all the hype, desire, tools and incentives, why have we struggled to make the transition from formal to informal learning? My experience has been that we lack a key perspective to drive utilization and adoption: context.

In the 1990s, there was a saying in our industry: “Content is king.” We were riding the wave of technologies such as e-learning and the LMS; our ability to publish, distribute, track and maintain learning content was at an all-time high. Our efforts focused on making learning assets available on a scale never seen before. The Internet was the tipping point. The danger was that our design models focused on accessibility and not always on relevance. Our main objective was getting information and training out there, tracking it and grading it, while driving certification, credentials and compliance. Content truly was king, and it was justified.

Informal learning is a different animal. Availability is the easy part. Adoption and consumption are another matter. The fundamental difference between formal instruction and informal is its intent from the learner’s perspective. Formal learning, be it just-in-time or classroom-based, is something we’ve been able to mandate, track and grade. Learners see it as meeting a very specific need: knowledge gain. It helps them learn something for the first time or learn more based on prior knowledge. This is a powerful and important need, but counter to what drives informal learning consumption.

Informal learning meets three other needs: trying to remember or apply what’s already been learned, keeping up with change and troubleshooting a problem. Content designed to support knowledge gain is often not constructed in a way that supports these three needs.

For informal learning modalities such as embedded learning, performance support, social media and even mobile learning to work, they need to be delivered in a more contextual way. The design and integration needs to be driven by the learner’s workflow, job role or problem to be solved.

For example, many communities of practice and Web 2.0 tools struggle to gain traction because they are seen as something extra to do, not as contextual environments that help the learner solve a business problem or perform better. Social media thrives outside the workplace because it is seen as a powerful means of keeping in touch with friends, enriching hobbies or keeping up with topics of interest. In other words, the tool enhances the context in which it is used. We haven’t made this same contextual connection in the workplace. We haven’t positioned these tools as something of value based on the need being served. When a voluntary option is seen as taking time away from what’s most important and helpful, it simply won’t be consumed.

If content was king in the 1990s, when we were growing our just-in-time technologies and formal offerings, then context becomes king in driving the same level of effectiveness and adoption on the informal side today. Organizations that are rewiring their thinking around these moments of need are succeeding; those that don’t will continue to struggle.

9 Days to national Digital Learning Day!

Follow on Twitter: #digitallearning

Model the Practice

21st Century Learning | Feature

Strategies for Blog-Powered Instruction

• 01/01/12

Blogs are one of the oldest components of the web 2.0 toolkit, but their strengths as an instructional tool are still being discovered. It's all too easy to fall into the trap of seeing blogs as a substitute for online discussion boards or a new delivery system for traditional academic writing. As with any educational technology, blogs work best when instructors harness their unique features to supplement learning in the classroom.

"Blogs highlight individual contributions more than wikis," remarks Stuart Glogoff, senior consultant in the Office of Instruction and Assessment at the University of Arizona. "They're more flexible than threaded discussion forums, and they provide more room for expressing ideas than Twitter. Blogs provide an individual space where students can write publicly, where students can comment on each other's work, and where the professor's participation can subtly call attention to the best student work as a way of raising the bar for the rest of the class."

Glogoff has helped implement a variety of blogging initiatives at UA. In an upper-level Spanish course, for example, students wrote Spanish-language responses to the professor's posts on a shared blog. And in a recent Honors College "reading groups" initiative, students posted insights to their individual blogs on a variety of topics, such as ideas for economic development gleaned after meetings with local community leaders. "The blogs create an opportunity for shared understanding and an open exchange of ideas," explains Glogoff.

Blogging the Learning Process
Just as blogs can help foster conversation among students and faculty, instructors are discovering that they can also serve a more personal role, as a tool of reflection and self-appraisal. "The blog's biggest strength is in the development and authentication of the student voice in learning," notes Ruth Reynard, associate professor of education and the director of the Center for Instructional Technology at Trevecca Nazarene University (TN).

Reynard uses blogs as a way to get students to reflect on their coursework--essentially by keeping an online journal in which they track their learning. As opposed to a traditional journal that is read only by the instructor, student blogs are digital, immediate, and published--raising the stakes and increasing the students' investment in their reflective writing.

"Also, visually, you have a track of how the students' thinking has developed throughout the course," explains Reynard. "Students can see where they've changed their minds, or where they became stronger thinkers. By showcasing that development, the blog empowers students to develop an authentic voice and to see themselves as growing experts in that field of study."

When used as a tool for reflection, blogs allow students to write at length about their own experiences as learners, and to read and comment on the insights posted on their classmates' blogs. This type of public, shared self-reflection is difficult to achieve in other forms of collaborative online writing, such as discussion boards. "If the students were to post this type of self-reflective piece in an online discussion board, it would throw the discussion off track," says Reynard. "In a blog, though, it's your environment, your voice, and you can take your time to say what you need to say."

Reynard has also found that blogs are a great tool for helping her graduate students learn to write academically. She requires her graduate students to embed hyperlinks to online sources that are influencing their thinking in their reflective blog posts.

"Referencing the authors and sources is a learned skill," explains Reynard. "Because blogs are naturally a hyperlink environment, they can link directly to articles in library databases. Then, when it comes time to write a reflective paper, they can just cut and paste from their blog, because they've essentially been writing small pieces of that reflective paper throughout the course."

Free-Range Writing
Gardner Campbell, director of professional development and innovative initiatives in the Division of Learning Technologies at Virginia Tech, is also a strong proponent of blogs as tools for academic reflection. But he warns against falling into the trap of having blog posts become term papers by other means or just another kind of assignment that students must fit into their schoolwork.

Campbell prefers "free-range" blogging. In his courses, blogging is a requirement, not an assignment. It is graded as a participation component of the course. Students are given no prompts about what they should write, nor must they fulfill a specific word count.

"Blogs are a place where a student can find his own voice as a learner in an unusually powerful way," explains Campbell. "They offer a chance to get something that really comes from the whole person. They offer a window into the students' cognition. Blogs give you a fighting chance of seeing the work of understanding in its molten state, before it's congealed, before everything is rigid and turned to stone."

Campbell has found that free-range blogging--and the blogging platform itself--is also a great antidote to the tendency of students to write only what they think their professor wants them to write, rather than pushing themselves to discover what they truly understand about a topic. "Blogging seems to short-circuit that tendency and get students past that jam," notes Campbell. "Because blogging is so malleable, it's a wonderful platform for creativity."

At Virginia Tech, Campbell's students build their blogs on the WordPress platform, and he encourages them to spend time customizing the look of their blog, creating their own roll of blogs they follow, and incorporating audio and video elements into their posts.

Campbell, Reynard, and Glogoff all agree that blogging works best when it's blended into the curriculum, so posts are seen both as an extension of the discussions in the classroom and as an inspiration for future classroom conversations. "A student recently wrote a blog post that beautifully synthesized a number of classroom discussions and activities on various topics from the past month," recalls Campbell. "He'd obviously been mulling these ideas over in class, and had spoken up and participated. But it wasn't until he was able to get away and push at it on his own, and then share his ideas in the social context of the blog, that this powerful synthesis came out.

"When something like that happens, it draws from class. It pulls the coursework together in a way that's authentic to the individual learner, and then it is shared on the blog where classmates can comment on it. Then it comes back into the classroom discussion the next time we meet face-to-face. Learning becomes a virtuous cycle where the blog feeds the classroom and the classroom feeds the blog."

5 Tips for Blogging Have a clear pedagogical purpose for incorporating blogs into the instruction, and clearly state the purpose and requirements of student blogging on the class syllabus. "Students need to see a purpose for the blog, and they need guidelines for entries and comments," explains Stuart Glogoff, senior consultant in the Office of Instruction and Assessment at the University of Arizona. "In the cases where faculty have incorporated blogs without establishing their purpose, student participation has been uniformly low." Blog contributions and comments should be a graded element of the course. "Your grade is your currency for your course," explains Ruth Reynard, associate professor of education and the director of the Center for Instructional Technology at Trevecca Nazarene University (TN). "If you don't assign a score to blogging, students aren't going to take it seriously or treat it as a priority because they're too busy doing the work that they're earning scores for." Don't assume that students are familiar with the practical aspects of blogging. Exercises on uploading images and videos, embedding text links, and writing constructive comments on peer blogs should be required before content-specific blog entries are due. Model best practices by contributing to your own blog and commenting on students' blogs. "There's no shortcut to this," advises Reynard. "If you don't comment, then students feel as if they're talking to the air. Commenting gives you the opportunity to connect directly with each student, and makes students feel as though they're getting direct tutoring, which is actually the best way to teach." Simplify navigation between student blogs by having students subscribe to each other's blogs via RSS feeds, dividing students into small groups to comment on each other's work, or building a mother blog--a front page for the course that aggregates recent blog posts, comments, updates from course-related websites, and social-networking feeds. "I like the mother blog because it's a great lesson in how to make the web work for you," explains Gardner Campbell, director of professional development and innovative initiatives in the Division of Learning Technologies at Virginia Tech. "Understanding how to create a site where chosen content is aggregated onto a single page is a best practice, not just for the classroom but for living on the web in general."

National Digital Learning Day (February 1, 2012)

Forbes Magazine

January 17, 2010

Digital Learning Day Cometh

With the arrival on February 1, 2012 of the first-ever national Digital Learning Day, the disruptive innovation of K-12 online learning—from in blended-learning environments to remote ones—seems to be taking yet another step toward the mainstream.

For over a couple decades, supporters of technology in education have talked of its potential benefits in transforming education. But beyond a set of enthusiastic early adopters, the use of technology in formal education remained largely stalled. Its talked-about benefits remained unrealized at best, as the cramming of computers produced few notable results that scaled.

With the rise of online learning, that began to change. Its growth is rapid and undeniable. Increasingly we’re seeing online learning stretch beyond areas of nonconsumption—where the alternative is nothing at all and where disruptive innovations first take root.

The shift from print to digital, as Tom Vander Ark so succinctly puts it, is upon us. Singapore for some time has had an e-learning week.

Now we have our first Digital Learning Day.

As we approach this day, and as district schools, charter schools, and states around the country participate, we must make sure that this doesn’t become a day that is all about technology for technology’s sake.

The critical thing is to fashion a student-centric system powered by digital learning that allows each child to realize his or her fullest human potential. Technology in this vision becomes the backbone that helps us to customize an education for each child’s unique learning needs, not the gadget that’s just there because it’s cool or because we simply think learning through or with technology is the way we should do it now.

To do this right, it’s important to bear in mind the definition of digital learning from Digital Learning Now’s Roadmap for Reform: “Digital learning is learning facilitated by technology that gives students some element of control over time, place, path, and/or pace.” The document defines each of these elements and offers the following line: “Digital learning is more than just providing students with a laptop.”

As our formal education systems move into the digital age, we should do so with the student and his or her learning at the center, not technology.

Another Quick Visual Lesson from Sir Ken Robinson

A favorite quote that relates to our work in many ways...

"The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something — because it is always before one's eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck him. — And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful." Ludwig Wittgenstein

DIY PRIMER: 21st Century Digital Learning Collaboration

Community Service by Design

The Risks & Potential of Required Community Service

Alfie Kohn on January 10, 2012, 11:51 AM

Q.  We are facing a proposal to require community service for all high school students.  I am very concerned about the mixed message this will send to our students about freely giving of themselves in service to others.  What are your thoughts on community service as a requirement for graduation? 

A.  I roll my eyes a bit when those up above reach for coercion to improve those down below:  We'll just mandate community service (or character education, or tougher graduation requirements, or whatever) and watch students improve.  But while a service requirement hardly guarantees any benefits -- which are contingent, among other things, on the extent to which your staff and the students themselves take the activities seriously -- neither does it preclude such benefits.  Much depends on how (and by whom) the activities are designed.

First of all, I have some concerns about bland activities undertaken by individual students.  If, however, you were to redefine "community service" as an opportunity for collective action, genuine democratic involvement, and work for social justice -- that would be as exciting as it is rare.  (See Joseph Kahne & Joel Westheimer's article "Teaching Democracy:  What Schools Need to Do" in the September 2003 issue of Phi Delta Kappan, as well as other writings by both of these authors.)

Second, for anything of value to come out of this, students need to be involved at all points -- in thinking about the rationale for doing some sort of service and in working together to plan every detail of the activities:  deciding democratically how many options will be available to each student and discussing the rationale for each option, making contact with people in the community to set things up, making arrangements to evaluate the activities themselves as well as the students' experiences afterwards, and so on.  The process probably ought to be framed as "How can we make our town/ our state / our country /the world a better place?  What needs doing?  Who requires our care and our help?" -- rather than "How can we fulfill this requirement?"  Sandwiching the activity itself between planning (before) and reflection (after) -- and having the students play a key role in every stage (rather than just giving a menu of options to each student individually) -- could turn out to be as valuable, both intellectually and socially, as the activities themselves.

Finally, what one doesn't do can be as important as what one does.  I hope it goes without saying that any benefit potentially derived from this activity would likely be wiped out by (1) rewarding students for their participation or (2) setting up some sort of competition between students (individuals or groups).

Some mandates are inherently useless, if not counterproductive, and should be actively resisted.  (See under:  NCLB.)  But my hunch is that this lemon can be made into lemonade.  For school administrators to treat students the same way the administrators are treated by policymakers would instead be to turn salmon into salmonella.

Alfie Kohn (www.alfiekohn.org) is the author of twelve books, including PUNISHED BY REWARDS, THE SCHOOLS OUR CHILDREN DESERVE, UNCONDITIONAL PARENTING, THE HOMEWORK MYTH, and, most recently, FEEL-BAD EDUCATION.  He has been described by Time magazine as “perhaps the country’s most outspoken critic of education’s fixation on grades [and] test scores.”

Just "Google It!"

CAN SCHOOLS TAKE A GOOGLE APPROACH

I recently revisited What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis and was struck by how it spoke to me about the needs of today's schools. Here are a few points that really resonated with me.

New Relationships are Forming

"Give the people control and we will use it. Don't and you will lose it"(p. 11). 

Are school leaders losing students (i.e., as physical, emotional, or intellectual dropouts) simply because they are trying to control the system? What would happen if students and teachers had more control over the learning process? What if these stakeholders controlled what they learn, when they learn, how they learn, and why they learn it? Co-collaboration / co-learning / co-construction could be the norm. 

"Your worst customer [student] is your best friend" (p. 20).

What if leaders of schools looked at those students who are performing worst and treated them as allies? These students know what is not working in the system and probably have lots of great ideas about what could be done to improve things.  On the flip side, Jarvis says that "Your best customer [student] is your partner" (p. 22). Ensuring that students are happy and getting the education they want / desire / deserve makes them happy customers. These customers / students are the best salespersons of the school. What we do now is say to students that we, as leaders, know what is best for all students' futures. This is despite the fact that we have no idea what the future holds or what specific skills they will need for jobs that simply do not exist yet. This has been discussed here, here, and here.

There is a New Ethic Out There

"Make mistakes well" (p. 91).

Today's accountability system is great at telling students what they did right and rewarding them for it. But what if schools were more concerned with what students did wrong and gave them the liberty to fail often? Or, better yet, what if we allowed teachers to get it wrong from time to time? Do we reward students and teachers for sorting out how they did something wrong or do we reward them for only those things they got right? 

"Life is a beta" (p. 93).

Today's school system is set up into disparate parts and silos. That is, students take subjects in given time slots for a given number of weeks to earn a given grade. Thus the end of the course indicates the end of learning for that silo. Does this reflect life after the classroom? What if school was a big experiment - a constant work in progress? In the real world, our intellectual skills are not used one at time for a given number of minutes per day. Instead, we use multiple skills to accomplish the task at hand, knowing full well that that task may morph tomorrow.

"Be honest" (p. 95) and "be transparent" (p. 97) and "collaborate" (p. 98).

These points ring true for students, teachers, and leaders.  As leaders we should be asking ourselves how we support environments that allow everyone to tell their truth, in an open and honest manner, and in a way that invites others into our learning space.

Beyond the Three R's lie the Four C's (Gap-Analysis)

The Real Education Gap

Sandi Edwards -  1/10/12

Cutbacks to in-house education and leadership development programs mean many companies are relying on the nation’s schools to deliver graduates who are ready to fill leadership roles. Yet on March 9, 2011, the Los Angeles Times reported the Obama administration said 82 percent of American schools fail to teach curricula that imbue students with the skills leadership demands. Consequently, it is left to corporations and their learning leaders to bridge this performance gap in American education and head off the talent pipeline threat.

When parents, politicians and pundits bemoan the state of education in America, they often ask the shorthand question, “Why can’t Johnny read?” But generally speaking, that’s not the problem with the workforce. Even with an inadequate educational system, the “Johnnys” who reach the workforce have the three R’s down. They can read, write and do arithmetic well enough to perform their jobs.

But the modern workplace has a much higher threshold for success. In today’s world, proficiency in the three R’s is not sufficient without the abilities to think critically, solve problems creatively, collaborate and communicate effectively. It is in these skill areas that new American workers come up short, regardless of the quality of their educations.

The 2010 American Management Association (AMA) Critical Skills Survey showed that overwhelming majorities of executives had begun to emphasize a new set of skills that was neither intuitive for most people nor taught in school. These skills were dubbed “The Four C’s” (Figure 1) and consist of:

• Critical thinking and problem solving: the ability to make decisions, solve problems and take actions as appropriate.
• Effective communication: the ability to synthesize and transmit ideas in written and oral forms.
• Collaboration and team building: the ability to work effectively with others, including those from diverse groups and with opposing points of view.
• Creativity and innovation: the ability to see what’s not there and make something happen.

According to the study findings, effective communication is paramount, edging out even critical thinking, collaboration/team building and creativity and innovation as competencies that are increasingly essential in a fast-paced economy. Employees must be able to execute the Four C’s effectively at every level in the organization. Communication isn’t just speaking or writing well. To be an effective communicator, an individual has to think clearly, understand what’s key and express it persuasively. In fact, communication is recognized as a vital component of leadership in the global economy, which is another reason it’s top of mind in today’s organizations.

The survey revealed that employers are finding the workforce does not possess this mix of skills (Figure 2), and as a result cannot do the jobs an increasingly competitive and innovation-based global business environment demands.

Bridging this performance gap in American education is a challenge organizations will have to face head on in the coming years or risk losing their competitive edge. The gap is one that must be addressed at all levels of business, but particularly at the leadership level, because without the Four C’s, the pipeline is in jeopardy.

The survey found employers have begun assessing workers in the four critical skills with regard to leadership development/potential, talent management and succession planning. But even below management level, those employees who don’t develop the Four C’s will find themselves left behind, as will companies that don’t make attaining them a priority.

According to the AMA survey, top executives believe it is time for the educational system to fuse the Four C’s with the Three R’s to develop students who are better prepared to enter the workforce. But while that solution might address the workforce of tomorrow, it does not retool today’s workforce.

Does business have the time and expertise to tackle what the educational system is failing to deliver? The obvious answer, despite the efforts of learning and development departments, is no. Organizations are responsible primarily for performing their core functions. They have neither the time nor the expertise to address every educational need.

“In the training industry, outsourcing is absolutely necessary to be successful,” said Josh Bersin, CEO and president of research firm Bersin & Associates. To bridge the education gap, business will have to team up with independent development organizations to develop a learning culture, which includes wholesale instruction in and development of the Four C’s.

According to Bersin, a culture of learning “is the collective set of practices and management behaviors that allows the company or the organization to adapt and learn.” Failure to develop such a culture can lead to disastrous results, which Bersin illustrated using Nokia, which until the advent of the BlackBerry, iPhone and Android operating system, was the 800-pound gorilla of the cellular phone industry, with nearly a 40 percent share of the market. Now, Nokia is in danger of becoming an also-ran — its share has dipped to roughly 31 percent during the past two years — and may soon be a footnote in the history of one of the greatest technological shifts of our time, according to a Jan. 27, 2011, article on Engadget.com.

“Nokia had a touch-screen cellphone three to four years before Apple. But it didn’t get out of development, and the reason it didn’t get out of development was because Nokia’s culture did not support the development of new ideas and the continuous learning that [would encourage its] engineers to learn about the new kind of cellphones,” Bersin said. Basically, they were so invested in the old user interfaces they didn’t notice the earth shifting under their feet.

Would anything have averted this problem for Nokia? Perhaps leadership that encouraged a culture of learning which would result in a workforce focused on the Four C’s. But that is almost circular reasoning — for leadership to encourage such a culture the leaders and leaders-in-training must be students of the Four C’s as well. The fact that Nokia is not an American company — it is headquartered in Finland — drives the point that the need for these skills is a global phenomenon required by companies that seek to excel in today’s business world. Also clear is that these competencies are simply not taught — not in schools, colleges or graduate programs.

Forward-looking companies are doing their best to teach these skills internally and via outsourcing (Figure 3). These organizations can expect their leadership pipelines to be more robust and fluid and their workforces to be more innovative and flexible, thus able to deal with sudden change. Consider Apple. Before his death, the much publicized departure of CEO Steve Jobs demonstrated the organization’s preparedness for change as Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook stepped in to handle the day-to-day operations. Apple didn’t miss a beat, either in leadership or in performance.

Most organizations are far from being as well prepared for sudden change as Apple. Instead, their leadership pipelines are running dry, their workforces are not nimble enough to transition through sudden change, and they have failed to instill the Four C’s on an organization-wide basis. This sort of developmental failure is every bit as disturbing as a graduating class not competent in the Three R’s. No company would abide such a workforce, but many willfully accept a workforce that knows little of the Four C’s.

In such organizations, when there are unplanned changes at upper levels of management, the all too common outcome is chaos or paralysis reflected by a lack of continuity in product innovation, inconsistent service and customer defections, and the lengthy ramp up before a new hire is functioning effectively and making positive contributions. This is where most of a firm’s productivity is generated and where unplanned turnover is prohibitive. Morale and engagement take a hit and the malaise hurts creativity, productivity and performance.

Organizations that develop their people have more success across all performance metrics. According to AMA’s 2011 report “Developing Successful Global Leaders,” 12 percent of high-performing organizations spend at least one-quarter of their annual budgets on global leadership development. Sixty-two percent of low-performing companies spend less than 10 percent of their budget. High performance is defined by market share, revenue, profitability and customer satisfaction.

Educational investments should be targeted to the Four C’s. Organizations need to address them across the enterprise to achieve the right kind of results and to have a leadership pipeline that guarantees those results in the future. Everyone in an organization should be skilled in these areas. Without them, an organization is jeopardizing not only its business edge, it’s taking a chance on its very survival.