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Host Etienne R. Legrand
Host Etienne R. LeGrand to learn how to change your district’s culture to drive results, enhance parents’ and stakeholders’ experience and employee engagement at all levels, bring value to life across your district, and become a higher-performance learning organization.
Areas of expertise
Our customized programs allow you to minimize stress, create an enjoyable and effective environment, and build community-wide pride.
New superintendent, key leaders and teams
School closings
Shift in strategy or industry dynamics
Taking practices to the next level
Why a Healthy, High-Performance Culture Matters
School districts, like other organizations have a culture whether leaders choose to intentionally establish it or not. It becomes unique to that district formed of individual and team habits, behaviors and mindsets that condition how employees and students engage with one another and make decisions. Culture is essentially the “way things work around here” – the unwritten rules that guide how people work and learn together and how they interact with parents and other stakeholders.
Culture becomes invisibly ingrained overtime in response to the style and actions of an influential leader. A district’s culture plays a significant role in whether it can successfully execute its strategies and plans. Successful leaders deliberately shape their cultures – harnessing the hearts and minds of their people- instead of allowing their culture to shape the district.
What is Culture Shaping?
Source: Booz & Company Global Culture and Change Management Survey 2013.
Culture shaping is an intentional process of shifting the way people work and learn together from the district office to the school house. It involves helping individuals and teams become better personally and professionally by keying in on habits, behaviors and mindsets that may be undermining learning and performance. Personal transformation is at the heart of school district transformation. It’s the foundation for meaningful change.
Why does culture need to be shaped?
A thriving, high-performance district culture that is aligned with the district’s vision, mission and values is the lynchpin to enabling and promoting learning among students and employees – because learning isn’t just for students anymore. Culture is not the “soft stuff” but is a vital strategy that enables the hard stuff leaders are after. There are many benefits that translate into measurable, sustainable learning and performance.
What makes culture different than climate?
Climate and culture are related and often conflated, but school climate is not district culture. Climate refers to the quality and character of school life and is a reflection of a district’s culture. Culture is defined by a collection of habits, behaviors and mindsets that condition actions of individuals and teams in a school district.
Why does culture shaping require a well-coordinated, unified approach?
Shaping culture is not an event, it’s an ongoing journey. A district’s culture is not fixed. It gets tweaked overtime as new strategies and initiatives are devised. The process requires a unified approach that must begin at the top of the district and be embedded throughout the entire organization. Leaders who try to shape culture alone or in one department, don’t succeed. If done well, shifting culture can be a successful, rewarding, positive process.