Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Stop Doing List

Jim Collins writes extensively at his website about stop doing lists. After engaging in a recent conversation with folks who do not work in education something struck me. In Good to Great Jim Collins tells the story of how Darwin Smith, after becoming CEO of Kimberly Clark, started stop doing immediately.

Stepping back into the 1970's, Kimberly Clark was a paper product giant that had layers and layers of bureaucracy. The hierarchy was staggering. He began by stopping systems and processes that were not working. He created his stop doing list. Eventually this process would lead the the ultimate decision to sell the paper mills.

Translating that to the education sector made a lot of sense. 100 years old, bureaucracy, hierarchy, etc. What should we have on our stop doing list? Please share your ideas.

2 comments:

  1. Stop just filling grade books with meaningless busy work assignments.

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  2. Pull the plug on the copier might be a good start. How do you start this dialogue with staff?

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