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Village Advisor: Upgrade Your Ecosystem

The more your school or organization feels like a village the better it is for you. 

Everyone is just calmer when Ted is around.
Hatim Eltayeb
CEO, African Leadership Academy, Johannesburg, South Africa
I have seen how educators in my ecosystem transform through conversation with Ted. The shifts he prompted offered the most authentic way to support learning and our culture.
Peter Lauenstein
Head of Taktse Internaltional, Sikkim, India
A free call is here

Here’s my claim: The temperature you want on campus and the innovation you’d like to see there comes from lots of conversations, not another meeting or workshop.

You need to offer individuated support that puts people over process.

Let’s decrease the drama going on around you, increase innovation, and make your day lighter.

That’s what I do as your village advisor.

  • With technology the pacesetter for work and life and everyone at the mercy of a to-do list, people guard their time fiercely. Even the most promising off-site risks pushing people away rather than drawing them in.
 
  • Fewer and fewer people stay in one job for long.  As everyone imagines other ladders to climb the “we” you refer to in a meeting means less than it once did and, of course, retention becomes a challenge.
 
  • Everyone believes--rightly--that their journey matters.  The provost and the provost’s assistant both want support tailored to their needs. 
  • With a toxic post, any one person can cause strife that impacts the whole environment and individuals who feel put-off by the system are often the source of that post.  
 
  • Schools and organizations are not as insular as a decade ago and all stakeholders, from board members to those in the surrounding community have access to ,and demand a voice in, what’s happening.
 
  • The old challenge of working across silos is even more pressing for innovation and community.

So sure, coming together around a whiteboard can still be useful (often enough I am  the person handing out markers or sticky notes) and you still have to use the word “we” with pride and gusto.

But calming down a campus and initiating change that sticks now comes from one-on-one rather than in meetings. 

As a “village advisor” to a campus or community, here’s what I provide:

  • Conversations that offer individuals a chance to reflect and transform.  That’s what I do as a coach and thought partner.
 
  • Someone who can talk with a whole ecosystem--teachers and administrators, alumni and the entrepreneurs working in the community--with equal facility.
 
  • An ear for new kinds of connections and partnerships across silos as well as suggestions for how those connections might lead to better retention and meaningful innovation.
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  • A view of village culture, what it is and could be, that can be useful to leadership.
 
  • Support that does not come from HR or anyone with a vested agenda.  Just the village advisor anyone in the community can speak with to their benefit.
 
  • Curated connections with the other communities I serve.
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Let's Talk About Village Advising:

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