Strategic Thinking and Adaptive Learning

Abstract

There is little doubt that schools no longer function as closed systems as was largely the case until the latter part of the twentieth century and that they have become a part of a large complex adaptive system. Having accepted that reality, we recognize that the traditional approach to strategic planning—consulting selected stakeholders (assessment), writing a plan (planning), announcing implementation of the plan (implementation), and evaluating the planned outcomes (evaluation)—will likely result in disappointment. More contemporary models facilitate members engaging in formal planning, not to create strategies, but to program the strategies they already have, that is, to elaborate and operationalize their consequences formally. Examples of these more contemporary models of strategic planning are rare; however, this chapter will document one such experience. We trace one superintendent’s journey as he works through strategic thinking and adaptive learning to establish a collaborative culture and a shared vision of professional learning in a school district steeped in bureaucratic thinking, while operating in an era of government accountability and mandated change. In the end, we acknowledge that the bureaucratic contexts in which school boards and provinces or states govern education often make it very difficult to plan strategically within an organizational learning framework. This case exemplifies this principle.