Thinking Systemically

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THINKING SYSTEMICALLY

Making connections between moments and mission

BUILD STRATEGIC MUSCLE

UNCOVER CONNECTIONS

LEVERAGE YOUR TIME

BUILD STRATEGIC MUSCLE

How can I reframe my work as continuous testing and revision of hypotheses?

LEARN

What is Design Thinking?

Edutopia explains how Design Thinking equips educators with perspectives, tools, and new approaches for real, complex, and varied challenges

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How to Build Your Creative Confidence

David Kelley of Stanford Design School offers ways to build the confidence to create

WATCH >

The Six Core Principles of Improvement

Simple Principles of Improvement from the Carnegie Foundation

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Building a Collaborative Learning Organization

Tips from Education Week for becoming adept at and understanding the value of collaboration.

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PRACTICE

Creating a Theory of Action Tool

A tool from the UW Center for Educational Leadership to help define and keep front and center the rationale for strategies and actions

DO >

Stage 2 in the Design Thinking Process: Define the Problem and Interpret the Results

How you define the problem determines how you will course correct, from the Interaction Design Foundation

READ >

EXTEND

Design Thinking for Educators

This toolkit from IDEO can help you create solutions for everyday challenges

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Improvement in Action: Advancing Quality in America’s Schools

Anthony S. Bryk’s sequel to 'Learning to Improve' illustrates how educators have effectively applied the six core principles of continuous improvement in practice.

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UNCOVER CONNECTIONS

How can I construct a more coherent picture of the connections among and across people and functional areas?

LEARN

On Schools as Learning Organizations

How systems thinking and learning organizations work in education, with Peter Senge

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Four-Frame Model

Discover Bolman and Deal's Four-Frame Model as an approach to looking at organizational issues

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Adopting Systems Thinking and Design Thinking to solve daily problems

Pragya explains the power of using both systems thinking and design thinking together to solve not only problems at work/school but also the problems we face in our daily lives

WATCH >

The Six Signature Traits of Inclusive Leadership

DeLoitte Insights dives into "the six attributes of leaders who display the ability to not only embrace individual differences, but to potentially leverage them for competitive advantage."

READ >

PRACTICE

Frames Quick Self-Rating Scale

Take this 5-10 minute assessment to learn about your leadership orientation on Bolman and Deal's Four-Frame Model

DO >

EXTEND

An Organizational View from the Bottom Up

From the Systems Thinker, this article dives into how the commonly used language of "manage," "boss," and "support" may describe what needs to change in our organizations in order to thrive.

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The Fifth Discipline

The latest edition of Peter Senge’s bestselling book about putting strategies of learning organizations into practice has 100 additional pages based on interviews with practitioners.

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LEVERAGE YOUR TIME

How do I raise my consciousness of the relationship between how I use my time, my values, and our organizational mission?

LEARN

Managing Your Time as a Leader

From The Systems Thinker, an article to help leaders "update their approach to time management to better address the challenges of today’s work world"

READ >

4 Ways Leaders Can Protect Their Time and Empower Their Teams

Time spent thinking *is* legitimate critical work for leaders, from Harvard Business Review

READ >

PRACTICE

The Eisenhower Matrix

Use this simple tool to plan and prioritize action

DO >

Productivity Isn’t About Time Management. It’s About Attention Management.

Organizational psychologist Adam Grant reflects on how “time management” is not a solution — it’s actually part of the problem.

READ >

EXTEND

Inside the Mind of a Master Procastinator

Blogger and Writer Tim Urban offers a humorous take on the intricacies of procastination and what to do about it

WATCH >

Atomic Habits

This bestselling book by James Clear is subtitled 'An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones'

READ >

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Category	Types of Data and Purpose
Use of Site	When you visit or otherwise utilize the Site, we may ask you for your name, address, telephone number, email address, or other contact details in order to offer services and respond to any request or inquiry.
User Account Information	You may be able to create an account or submit a registration on the Site. If you decide to create an account or submit a registration form, we collect your contact information and ask if you would like to submit other identifying information and demographic information in addition to your username, your password, and registration information.
Cookies and Similar Technologies	Please see the Cookies and Similar Technologies section of this Policy below. If you choose to disable cookies and similar technologies, some areas and features of the Site may not work properly.
Automated Information	When you visit our Site, we automatically collect information from your browser or your mobile device, which includes the date and time of your visit, your Internet Protocol (IP) address or unique device identifier, domain server, your browser type, cookies and data about which pages you visit in order to allow us to operate and provide the Site and our services. This information is used to understand how you interact with the Site and to provide you with advertising and a more personalized experience. To learn more about our collection of technical data, please see the Cookies and Similar Technologies section of this Policy below.
Email Interconnectivity	If you receive email communications from us, we may use certain tools to capture data related to if/when you open our message and if/when you click on any links or banners it contains. Other information collected through this email tracking feature includes: your email address, the date and time of your "click" on the email, a message number, the name of the list from which the message was sent, a tracking URL number, and a destination page. We use this information to enhance our marketing efforts. We do not sell or distribute this information to third parties.
Mailing List, Newsletters, and Marketing Materials	When you sign up for one of our mailing lists, newsletters, marketing lists or download or access other marketing materials, including but not limited to free or trial software versions as well as whitepaper(s), we collect your contact information, including your email address, phone number, and/or postal address, when necessary to contact you in the way(s) that you request.
Feedback / Support / Inquiries	If you provide us with feedback or contact us for support or to ask us questions, such as any contact forms, we may collect your name, address, telephone number, email address, and other information needed to respond to your feedback, or request for support, or to answer your question.
Your Communications	When you communicate with us, we may retain your communications in order to process and respond to them, as well as to improve our services. We may use your email address to communicate with you about our services or send you periodic emails. If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from receiving future emails, you may unsubscribe through the provided method.
Financial and Payment Information	If you or your organization choose to purchase services from us, we may collect your or your organization's name, address, telephone number, bank account number, bank routing information, and other data necessary to process payments. By submitting your payment information, you expressly consent to the sharing of your information with third-party payment processers and other third-party services (including but not limited to vendors who provide fraud detection services to us and other third parties). Please note that credit card numbers and account information are not stored on our servers.
Third Party Information	In addition to the information that we collect from you directly, we may also receive information about you from other sources, including third parties, business partners, our affiliates, or publicly-available sources.

Category	Disclosure Contexts
Subsidiaries and Acquisitions	We may share your personal information with our subsidiaries and affiliates and with their respective officers, directors, employees, accountants, attorneys and agents. In addition, we may disclose your personal information in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our company assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by us about the Site's users is among the assets transferred.
Disclosures With Your Consent	We may ask if you would like us to share your personal information with other unaffiliated third parties who are not described elsewhere in this Policy. We will only disclose your personal information in this context with your consent.
Disclosures Without Your Consent	We may disclose your personal information in response to subpoenas, warrants, court orders or other legal process, or to comply with relevant laws. We may also share your personal information in order to establish or exercise our legal rights, to defend against a legal claim, to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding possible illegal activities, suspected fraud, safety of person or property or any other violation.
Service Providers	We may share your personal information with our service providers that need access to your information to provide operational or other support services on our behalf. Among other things, service providers may help us to administer the Site, support our provision of services requested by you; provide technical support; send marketing, promotions and communications to you about our services; provide payment processing; and assist with other legitimate purposes permitted by law. All such third-party service providers are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information and are prohibited from using your personal information except for the purposes for which we disclose it to them or as required by law.
Aggregated Data	We may disclose aggregated information about our users, and information that does not identify any specific individual, such as groupings of demographic data and customer preferences, for new product and marketing development.