Authors of the book, Designing Effective Teaching and Significant Learning, share articles for additional learning. Ponder these ideas as you enjoy these ways to get you thinking about your work. These articles are written to help all leaders, managers, and administrators.

Assessing
  • The Lost Art of Assessment – John Mirocha  Organizational assessment is a data gathering and diagnostic process in which you step back from the day to day details of life in the organization and try to see the bigger picture: the trends, patterns and dynamics that have made the individual or organization what it is today. Assessment is a lost art. Many individuals and organizations want to jump right to the action aspects of the change process.
Change Management
  • Business as Usual… Defining the New Normal – Zala Fashant  We are all swept up in the flurry of change that the COVID-19 pandemic has created. Having been through several diseases that have swept the globe there is something about this one that is making us take notice and change the way we live and do our work. Some would argue that there is too much hype and others support the strong caution being taken. We have faced disease sand other environmental changes in the past, but for some reason this pandemic has made us question the way we operate and makes us wonder how this will impact the future.
  • Making Successful New Year’s Resolutions – Zala Fashant  The annual making resolutions to change and improve our lives is upon us. Now that year is coming to an end, and in this case a decade as well, you may be reflecting on what you want to do differently next year. Several sources say that approximately 80% of us fail at making actual changes successful by creating resolutions. I can tell by seeing attendance at the gym that by mid-February resolutions have fizzled to a culture of past practices.
  • Successfully Delivering Significant Change – Zala Fashant   The reason most change fails is that it isn’t properly designed. Often the changer decides something needs to be different than it is now. Designing quality change begins with communicating the dream or vision of the change destination is critical if you want everyone to be successful on the change journey.
Engagement
  • Client Engagement – John Mirocha  I have a love-hate relationship with some of my clients. I cannot do a project without them. Some are inspiring and thoughtful partners. However, working with some other clients can be more difficult than actually designing and completing the project itself.
Leadership
  • Creative Tensions in Change Leadership – John Mirocha  The idea of intellectual, emotional and organizational tension, whether creative or debilitating, has often been mentioned by management scholars and consultants. The insight derived is that change leaders must stretch the imagination of their organizations in order to get engagement from the organization’s members to address the challenges implied in the change.
  • Leaders as Teachers – Zala Fashant  I have spent my career working in the worlds of education and business. In teaching university courses I have often translated the mission from one sector to another. In conversations with business and industry leaders, they often chose to point out differences between themselves and their education counterparts. As a college dean, I needed to form partnerships with business and industry partners and the longer I worked developing these relationships, the more I saw the similarities between the two.
  • Leadership in Crisis – John Mirocha Although stakeholders to organizations watch the behavior of their leaders intently in normal situations, in times of crisis stakeholders scrutinize the behavior of their leaders. Many leaders do not realize this in normal situations, much less in crisis. Great leaders realize this under all circumstances.
Learning
  • I Read it, But… – Linda Russell   Have you ever been surprised by the seemingly low level of reading skills your students or direct reports have? Learn more about what you can do to better understand and help ineffective readers.
Managing People
  • Managers as Teachers – Zala Fashant    Not getting the kind of employees you want? Teach them to be the employees you need!
  • The Middle Management Dilemma – John Mirocha  There are many management issues that academics, consultants and business leaders have struggled with for generations. This essay focuses on middle managers who do not grow into their supervisory and strategic responsibilities and instead continue to spend the majority of their time addressing day-to-day tactical issues.
Teaching
  • Teaching Online… Defining the New Normal – Zala Fashant  Suddenly, the luxury of offering courses in a variety of deliveries vanished. With stay-at-home  lockdowns in place, it was strongly recommended that only essential personnel went to work and only essential travel for food, medical and the like, was acceptable. For the first time, many faculty were stripped of choice and needed to continue student learning moving forward by meeting with their students virtually. With no real end in sight, this was the new normal – at least for now.