The Heart of our School Service

March 4, 2012 in Uncategorized with 3 Comments

“For you yourselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain. But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed? God is witness.

Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers. For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.” (1 Thess. 2:1ff)

Paul’s heart for and ministry to the church is instructive as we strive to serve our students, parents, and each other in a way that pleases Christ.  Here are some simple thoughts and applications on this passage.

Boldness

We must be courageous and bold in declaring truth to students, parents, and to each other. The primary truth is the Gospel.  Never assume that a student or a parent is a believer.  He or she may not be.  As appropriate and with love and wisdom share the Gospel.

In the Midst of Much Conflict

We don’t like conflict and we try to avoid it.  However, conflict is unavoidable and is even profitable IF the the conflict arises from being honest versus being a difficult person or responding inappropriately to others.  For example, we need to deal with the conflict that arises when we tell students or parents the truth.  If a student is failing to work hard (being lazy), is being irresponsible, has violated a school policy, is not yet good enough to start on the team, is a bully, etc., we need to say so.  We are to speak the “truth in love,” never in a mean spirited or condescending manner, but we must tell the truth.  We don’t avoid necessary conflict, we work through it profitability for all concerned.

Pleasing God not Man

We like to be liked.  It is tempting to do that which will make others like us or to avoid doing that which may make some dislike our decisions or us.  The praise of others must not be the motivation for our decisions and actions.  God’s praise is to be our goal.  Popularity is as fleeting as your last decision or the latest fad or current values in our culture.  God’s standards never change.  We are to desire his smile, not the smile of people.  However, we must also remember that Jesus grew in favor with both God and man.  We don’t please God by being obnoxious, difficult, or self-righteous.

Not Self centered-It is Not about Us

Paul sacrificed what he had a right to, willingly gave it up to serve.  Although most of us are compensated well and fairly, most in Christian education could make more in a similar position in the public or corporate sectors.  Our work and ministry could also be easier if we never stretched ourselves, never tried new things, never adopted new methods, never reworked our material, etc.

But our motives are not related to compensation or avoiding extra work or frustration.  Our motive is to serve by being “living sacrifices,” by “being “poured out as drink offerings” in service to students, parents, and each other.  This is not easy.  This is not what the world values and preaches.  Our sacrifices are not always known or appreciated by others.  It doesn’t matter.  We seek “first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness;” we’ll leave the rest to God’s wise providence.

Continue Reading…

Worthy of our Attention!

March 4, 2012 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

 

Guest article by Dr. Mitchell Salerno, Assistant Superintendent (The Master’s Academy)

As we enter 2012, Christian schools face some decisions that could dramatically affect the extent of our mission and impact.  A recent article in USA Today (http://usat.ly/wlEI2N), makes some suggestions worthy of consideration.  In the article, Abrams suggests seven trends that small businesses must consider to remain competitive and relevant.  Not surprisingly, five of the seven directly or indirectly involve technology.  As small businesses, Christian schools would be wise to consider these technological trends, seriously considering how to responsibly respond.

1. The Cloud

Technology is encroaching into every area of business and education.  Christian schools need to consider how the cloud can impact business and education.  Many schools already utilize the cloud for SIS services (i.e. RenWeb); however, most schools do not strategically consider how the cloud can impact student learning and the bottom line.  Has your school considered Google Apps.?  Does your school evaluate software programs, asking essential questions about if the cloud could reduce costs and increase productivity?  Quality Christian schools should begin to engage the cloud and become knowledgeable regarding its potential to enhance the essential functions of the school.

2.  Social Media

Much myth and hyperbole surround social media.  Rarely does one find a moderate opinion regarding social media and its purpose and values.  Zealots leap in with little discrimination or discernment, while others are fearful and avoid all forms of social media.  Worse yet, some Christian condemn social media and those that use it.  In the midst of this contentious environment, Christian schools must navigate carefully.  One thing is clear, social media has a ubiquitous presence and it is not going away any time soon.

How should Christian schools engage social media?  Certainly there are opportunities for the admissions, school communication, alumni relations, and development; however, I would suggest that in 2012 schools must seriously consider how social media can impact student learning and pedagogy.  Immediately, many are polarized by this thought.  That’s too dangerous!  What would happen if students had access to all of the perils of the social media?  Really, what would happen?  Our students are engaged in this world everywhere except in our schools.

In my estimation, Christian schools must lead education by innovating methods for incorporating social media.  The modern classroom demands a skillful blend of traditional and digital pedagogy.  How can Twitter engage students and improve learning?  Do Facebook and Google+ have a place in the classroom?  As 1-to-1 technologies emerge, I question whether traditional pedagogical approaches are able to effectively utilize the power of 1-to-1 computing.  At some point, we are going to reach a tipping point where it will be impossible to ignore social media.  I believe that Christian schools should begin to engage social media for education, rather than simply utilizing it for administrative functions.

3.  Mobile

Continue Reading…

Why Don’t Christians ‘Get It?’: And All Jerusalem With Him

March 4, 2012 in Uncategorized with 3 Comments

Guest article by Mark Kennedy, ACSI Canada

Do you ever wonder why so many North American Christians ‘don’t get it’ about Christian schooling – why some of the people who should be happiest about Christ’s advent in the realm of education treat Christian schools as unwanted interlopers or even as threats. That kind of spiritual paradox isn’t new. Matthew 2:3 recounts Herod’s reaction to the Messiah’s birth in his kingdom: “He was disturbed”. That’s not a surprise really. History tells us Herod sold out his Jewish heritage for the power, prestige and plunder that complicity with the Roman Empire brought. His lifestyle and privileged position were endangered by “the one who has been born King of the Jews.” But the really troubling statement doesn’t have much to do with Herod. Not only was he disturbed “but all Jerusalem with him.” Now that’s kind of shocking. You’d think the citizens of Jerusalem, the centre of the Jewish religion, would be overjoyed at the news, but they weren’t. In religion or education or any other area of life, the coming of the living Christ is a threat to those who embrace the status quo.

In education:

  • He’s a threat to people who assume current secular education is the same as it was in those rosy days of yore when ‘public schools’ meant ‘protestant schools’.
  • He’s a threat to those who bought into the myth of a neutral education. A school system that doesn’t permit children to learn about him isn’t neutral. It shuts out  the most important realities about life and learning.
  • He’s a threat to people who believe that the primary purpose of life, even for children, is evangelism. Jesus gave us a different priority. He said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. Evangelism is only one result of obeying that commandment.
  • He’s a threat to those who believe that reality is broken into religious truth and secular truth. Fact is there’s only one kind of truth. And either it’s all God’s truth or none of it is.
  • He’s a threat to people who dismiss Christian education because they know of a Christian school that operates badly.  I know of a few churches that don’t do a very good job at their ministry. But that doesn’t give me an excuse to spend my Sunday mornings at the Loyal Order of Water Buffalos Lodge. That’s because a Christian school, like a Christian church, is meant to be a place to meet Christ and grow in Him. And believers need to support churches and schools that still do that.
  • He’s a threat to people who think that a couple hours of Christian training a week can equip a child against the influences of 30 plus hours of weekly secular education, many more hours of anti faith media and an increasingly complex anti Christian society.
  • He’s a threat to people who believe that Christianity is only about a transformed heart. In Romans 12 Paul tells us not to be conformed to the patterns (i.e. way of thinking) of the world but be transformed by the renewal of our minds. E. Stanley Jones expressed it well, “A Christianity that addresses the heart but not the mind will not long hold the heart.” Christian schools help transform minds by teaching a biblical worldview.
  • He’s a threat to people who think that teaching about the Creator of all truth and His creation is somehow sheltering students from reality.

The Academy Award winning movie, The Bridge on the River Kwai, tells the Second World War story of British soldiers in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. In order to alleviate the extreme suffering of his men, the senior British officer, Colonel Nicholson, agrees to build a bridge for his Japanese captors. And with its construction conditions for the British captives improve. The bridge becomes a  source of pride especially for Colonel Nicholson. After all he and his men have invested their lives in it. Then one day he is shocked to find a stranger, a British commando, planting explosives in order to blow the bridge up! He is emotionally torn. Should he warn the Japanese about this threat to ‘his’ bridge? In the end he come to his senses and realizes that even though his men built the bridge it belongs to Japan, and above all else he and the commando are on the same side fighting a common enemy.

Christians built the public educational systems in North America and they built them well. But now it is clear that those systems are no longer Christian in any sense. Let’s hope that more believers will come to realize that the educational status quo is fatally flawed, that Jesus’ advent in the realm of education is not a threat and that Christian schools are on their side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to Design & Deliver High Impact Presentations: Before & After Examples

February 4, 2012 in Communication, Creativity, Leadership, Personal Development, Staff Development, Training with 16 Comments

Leaders make presentations. Transformative leaders deliver inspirational, informative, and persuasive presentations.

Good presentations are hard to design and deliver, which is why we have suffered through so many poorly delivered seminars and workshops. Although I like to think of myself as a decent speaker and presenter, the truth is that I’ve given my share of poor keynotes and boring seminars.

Fortunately for those who must listen to me (my staff) and those who will do so voluntarily during conferences, graduate classes, and workshops, I’m improving. My growth in giving higher impact presentations is the result of reading articles and books, the critique of others, and trial and error. I offer the following tips with the hope that you can benefit from my reading and experience.

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PREPARATION

Preparation Time

The amount of time that you spend on your presentation will vary based on the subject and context but in general, a 30-60 minute high impact presentation will require 36-90 hours of preparation. You read that right; a quality one hour presentation = 36-90 hours of preparation.

Presentation authority Nancy Duarte, author of the book Slideology and principal at Duarte Design (clients include Apple, Cisco, and Al Gore among many others), puts it this way; “The amount of time required to develop a presentation is directly proportional to how high the stakes are.” Duarte goes on to provide this guidance:

  • 6-20 Hours Research and collect input from the web, colleagues, and the industry
  • 1 hour Build an audience-needs map
  • 2 hours Generate ideas via sticky notes
  • 1 hour Organize the ideas
  • 1 hour Have colleagues critique or collaborate around the impact the ideas will have on the audience
  • 2 hours Sketch a structure and/or a storyboard
  • 20-60 hours Build the slides in a presentation application
  • 3 hours Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse (in the shower, on the treadmill, or during your commute)

Total Time: 36-90 hours

Is that accurate? Thirty six to ninety hours for a one hour presentation given all that I have to do? For what it is worth, that has been my experience lately. It takes a long time to prepare a good presentation. I have spent hours over several weeks preparing and designing presentations.

You are a steward not only of your time but of your audience’s time as well. Don’t waste your time or theirs by giving a poorly designed and delivered presentation. Don’t abuse your audience with a mediocre presentation.

I recommend that you schedule time throughout the week for several weeks to prepare your presentation. Your preparation time will be more efficient if you work on it in small, frequent chunks over an extended period of time.

Know your Audience

Your presentation is not about you; it is about your audience and what they need to hear, learn, and/or do. Your presentation is a service to them.

To serve your audience well you need to know them and their perceived as well as real needs. If I am speaking to an outside group I make it a habit to ask my host the following questions:

  • How many will be in attendance?
  • What is the average age?
  • What is the average educational level?
  • What will be the gender mix: balanced, mostly women, mostly men?
  • If this is a school audience, are most in attendance teachers, administrators, board members? If all three, in what proportion?
  • What are the primary areas of interest or concern of this audience regarding this topic? What are some of their likely questions?

Tailor your presentation to your audience. The stories you tell, the examples used, and the graphics employed should match the demographics and needs of your audience. Otherwise your presentation will be largely irrelevant.

Know the Venue

To prepare properly you need to know the venue and to request things that you may need. I typically ask:

  • What type of room/auditorium will I be in?
  • What type of sound and video equipment will be available?
  • Will I be controlling my slides or will you have an AV tech. assisting?
  • Will there be a podium mic? May I use a lapel mic.? (I prefer a lapel or head mic so that I am not restricted to standing behind a podium.)
  • I am using a Mac/Windows PC, can I load my PowerPoint/Keynote presentation on the local computer or do I need to have my computer on the platform?

SLIDE DESIGN-Less is MORE!

Less is MUCH MORE! This is probably the most important lesson I have learned from my reading and my experience. Keep it simple, clean, and elegant. Remove everything that is not absolutely necessary on your slides and charts.

Less is more-fewer slides, fewer points, less text, and less time.

This is harder than it seems! We want to add information, not eliminate it. When designing your slides keep the following in mind:

  • You want to talk to your audience and you want them to listen and watch you. You do not want them reading slides!
  • Slides are NOT a teleprompter! Do not design and use slides as an outline of your talk.
  • Slides are used to illustrate key points. They should be simple, clear, and uncluttered.
  • Eliminate most transition effects–they distract from your presentation.
  • Have few to no bullet points.
  • You should seldom have more than six to eight words on a slide.
  • Use large easy to read font.
  • Use consistent font styles and colors.
  • Do not use clip art! It is cheesy and unprofessional. Find good photographs or graphics.

You should seldom use template designs for the same reason–they are distracting. Here is an example of a distracting verses a good slide template:

Distracting Template:

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Good, Clean Template:

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Good and Bad Examples

Assuming that a “picture is worth a thousand words,” here are some examples of before and after designs. Many of these are slides that I have produced–both good and bad and a few are provided from other sources as examples. My slides are indicated by the initials BLM.

THE BAD

Continue Reading…

Why Sweating the Small Stuff Makes a Big Difference

December 26, 2011 in Communication, Excellence, Marketing, Presentations, Quality with 4 Comments

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For years I have been taught not to “sweat the small stuff.” I warmly embraced this notion because it reinforced my natural inclination to focus on big strategic initiatives and to pay less attention to the small details, leaving those to others.

I have changed my mind. I have concluded that small stuff make a big difference.  Small stuff deserve a great deal of our attention!

What Convinced Me

God’s Care for Us and Creation:

If anyone was going to focus on big strategic plans it would be God. As the creator and governor of the physical universe and the affairs of heaven and earth, God certainly is focused on large scale objectives.

Yet, notice the incredible attention to detail exhibited by his rule:

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Mt 10:29–31)

Consider the remarkable detail in God’s creation. Look at how imageintricately God designed a flower. While God wrote our names in the Book of Life before he laid the foundations of the world and “made from one man every nation of mankind to live yon all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,” (Ac 17:26), he also designed the intricate details of flowers.

And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the‘ field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. (Matt. 6:28-29)

Ugly can be beautiful. The head and eyes of a horse-fly may imagenot be “beautiful” in the classical sense yet the incredible creativity, detail, and symmetry is a beautiful reflection of God’s attention to detail and a nearly incomprehensible marriage of function and form.

Few things are more ethereal and ephemeral than a snow flake-especially imagein the U.S. South! Yet, even with something so fragile and short-lived, the variety, symmetry and beauty of a snow flake is a testament to God “sweating the small stuff.”

Not only does God’s creation “work,” it is beautiful and awe inspiring—and to the attentive soul—soul ennobling. Who has not been in the mountains, on a prairie, a beach, or a lake–and not been enthralled and enriched by the beauty made possible by God’s attention to the smallest details of his creation?

Steve Jobs:

It may seem odd to include Steve Jobs in a list with God. I do so because as an image bearer of his creator Job’s attention to detail imaged that of his creator—whether he chose to acknowledge it or not.  Jobs was fanatical about every detail of Apple’s products–even the unseen innards:

From his father Jobs had learned that a hallmark of passionate craftsmanship is making sure that even the aspects that will remain hidden are done beautifully. One of the most extreme—and telling—implementations of that philosophy came when he scrutinized the printed circuit board that would hold the chips and other components deep inside the Macintosh.

No consumer would ever see it, but Jobs began critiquing it on aesthetic grounds. “That part’s really pretty,” he said. “But look at the memory chips. That’s ugly. The lines are too close together.” One of the new engineers interrupted and asked why it mattered. “The only thing that’s important is how well it works. Nobody is going to see the PC board.”

Jobs reacted typically. “I want it to be as beautiful as possible, even if it’s inside the box. A great carpenter isn’t going to use lousy wood for the back of a cabinet, even though nobody’s going to see it.”

For Jobs, designing and manufacturing electronics was craftsmanship, not merely an economic activity.  He was fanatical about design and detail, even in product packaging because he learned that people DO judge a book by its cover:

“You should never start a company with the goal of getting rich. Your goal should be making something you believe in and making a company that will last.” Markkula wrote his principles in a one-page paper titled “The Apple Marketing Philosophy” that stressed three points.

  • The first was empathy, an intimate connection with the feelings of the customer: “We will truly understand their needs better than any other company.”
  • The second was focus: “In order to do a good job of those things that we decide to do, we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities.”
  • The third and equally important principle, awkwardly named, was impute. It emphasized that people form an opinion about a company or product based on the signals that it conveys. “People DO judge a book by its cover,” he wrote. “We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software etc.; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities.

Application to Our Leadership and Schools

Perception is important.  How we “present” our product is important.  We may have wonderful teachers and programs but unless we present them with excellence would-be and current parents may perceive our schools as second-rate.  The good news is that “good packaging” doesn’t have to be expensive, it just needs to reflect attention to detail. Continue Reading…

Shoulders to Stand On in the Theater of Bullying

September 24, 2011 in School Culture with 0 Comments

bully

A Word from the Publisher:

I am pleased to introduce The Protectors as a new sponsor of the Christian School Blog. More importantly, I can speak from personal experience regarding their effectiveness in training our faculty to create an effective and spiritual response to the problem of bullying. Please feel free to contact me personally for a reference. Dr. Mosbacker, Publisher

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As we digest the sobering conclusion of a recent survey–that bullying is the leading concern among students returning to school–it’s essential that authority in this complex theater understand the real issues that empower this unique form of abuse to harm the mission and integrity of faith-based organizations.

Yet head-smarts have never been enough to create love, light and fairness. Equally if not more important is for administrators, teachers and related faculty to act courageously and quickly against it. Most schools do not lack an anti-bullying policy. What they sometimes lack are the will and courage to enforce it.

Leaders, remind others within your organization that bullying is not about conflict, disagreement, misunderstanding or anger management. It is about something far more insidious and initially difficult to discern: the superior use of power (usually physical, social, or verbal) to deliberately harm another over time.

Bullying is not about two people who “just don’t get along” and “who need to learn how to work out their differences on their own.” It’s about intentional domination of another with the intent to harm, usually through humiliation, isolation and the threat of further abuse. It creates pervasive fear, not just among targets but among the majority of bystanders who quietly worry that they might be next.

Most Christians are familiar with the clarifying truth that perfect love castes out fear (I John 4:18). Yet the inverse is also true: fear casts out love–and learning. Psychology 101 tells us that we don’t learn or grow well when fearful. We just survive, and no faith-based organization charged with educating young minds and stirring tender souls can achieve its mission with this condition in place. Know fear, no meaningful learning and spiritual growth.

Educators, let’s resurrect what seems to be a lost question, “Who started it?” Targets of serial bullying are more sinned against than sinner, and justice is miscarried everyday when this truth is overlooked or explained away through the misapplied proverb, “It takes two to tango.” Sometimes it takes just one.

Authority, be more skeptical than you were last school year when you see what appears to be garden-variety conflict among students. Get in touch with your inner-Columbo, Dexter. Employ your gut. Talk to other teachers and ask a few more penetrating questions among those involved. Also, be more unpredictable in your monitoring of bullying hotspots. Where there is smoke there is likely fire. Put out the fire.

Bullying is abuse that is sometimes evil–not a God-ordained path toward “personal growth.” A recent letter to The Protectors from a mother of a serial target testifies to this truth. Her son is a young adult now, but like approximately 7 out of 10 serial targets, he battles “lots of anger, difficulty with social interaction and relationships, deep-seated resentment, self-hatred, haunted by guilt and shame, and retreats into obsessive behavior when hurting.” He, like the majority of targets, has been more than bit by evil–his soul is poisoned by it. The devil and his minions walk laughing. Pray and behave that such abuse will not take place during your watch.

I recently spoke with a man who helps the poor in Third World countries. When he trains new groups of Americans who will spend the next few weeks building homes and creating other forms of tangible care, he asks them to define a small but potent word: Poverty. Most answer that it is the lack of resources. Surprisingly, “Poverty to the poor,” he reveals, “means lack of hope.”

Targets of ongoing campaigns of humiliating cruelty experience poverty of spirit. When this fundamental need is reduced to a pilot light deep within or, heaven forbid, is blown out, they sometimes turn to dark thoughts of bullycide, suicide due to bullying, or bringing a weapon to school (most school shooters told the Secret Service that they murdered classmates and faculty due to ongoing bullying).

This year, someone within your realm of care will need your help keeping blessed hope alive. And hope is not ushered in upon the wings of worn-out platitudes or a shoulder to cry on. Hope in this theater of deliberate abuse is ushered in upon courageous and justice-building shoulders to stand on.

Be those muscular and protective shoulders this school year and years to come, making your organization a beacon of God’s love, compassion and righteousness.

Paul Coughlin is an author, speaker and Founder & President of The Protectors: Freedom From Bullying–Courageous, Leadership & Character for Life. This faith-based program is used by hundreds of organizations throughout the world, including Christian schools, churches, summer camps and more. www.theprotectors.org.

Full Loyalty, No Negativity? What Can Our Schools Learn from Apple?

August 14, 2011 in Customer Service, Excellence, Leadership, Marketing with 8 Comments

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone could write an article describing our schools titled “Full Loyalty, No Negativity?”

I am a recent convert from a Windows PC to the Mac computing environment. That is a story for another day but what I want to share with you are some observations from my experiences in Apple stores  and how those observations can be applied to move more of our students, parents, and employees closer to Full Loyalty with No Negativity.

If you have been in an Apple Store recently (if you haven’t I Apple_Logo_2encourage you to do so as an observant leader–but you may want to leave your wallet at home!) you will discover that they are almost always filled with highly engaged customers, attentive staff, and great customer service. At least, that has been my experience every time I have visited an Apple store. Moreover, whenever Apple introduces a new product or an upgrade to an existing product line, customers will line up for hours and blocks, even camping out overnight, to be first in line to buy Apple products.  Loyal Apple customers even have a nickname: “Apple Evangelists.”  That speaks volumes!  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our parents were so enthusiastic about our schools that they would line up for hours and blocks and be tagged with the nickname “XYZ Christian school evangelists?”

How do we get students, parents, and prospective parents to exhibit the same level of enthusiasm for enrolling their children in our schools and paying tuition as Apple customers do for Apple products?  Without stretching the illustration too far, I think it would be wonderful if when parents and vendors visited our schools they sensed the same type of engagement, enthusiasm, and customer service that one experiences in an Apple store.

Consider some of the observations from a recent Wall Street Journal article; Secrets From Apple’s Genius Bar: Full Loyalty, No Negativity.   Below is a summary of the key observations of this article.  Beneath each summary point I have added some possible applications for our schools and for our leadership.

•    Apple goes to great lengths to train its employees at its popular retail stores, tightly managing what feels like a casual consumer experience.  A look at confidential training manuals, a recording of a store meeting and interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees reveal some of Apple’s store secrets. They include: intensive control of how employees interact with customers, scripted training for on-site tech support and consideration of every store detail down to the pre-loaded photos and music on demo devices.

APPLICATION:  Our schools could benefit from systematic training in customer service. Such training would include all school personnel from administrators to groundskeepers. Everyone would understand that they are customer service agents with the mission of ensuring that students, parents, and visitors have wonderful experiences in the classroom and with every interaction with school staff.

Additionally, everyone should devote attention to quality throughout the school.  Every detail of the school should reflect quality, attentiveness, and care.  School grounds should be well kept, hallways free of clutter and book bags, walls adorned with well designed posters and student work, school communications should be warm, clear, and professional, the school’s website should be modern and easy to navigate, and all points of contact between students and parents should communicate that “we care.”

•    With their airy interiors and attractive lighting, Apple’s stores project a carefree and casual atmosphere. Yet Apple keeps a tight lid on how they operate. Employees are ordered to not discuss rumors about products, technicians are forbidden from prematurely acknowledging widespread glitches and anyone caught writing about the Cupertino, Calif., company on the Internet is fired, according to current and former employees.

APPLICATION:   This is a tricky one.  Although we would not want to go to the extent described above in how we deal with our employees, nevertheless, the focus on “airy Interiors and attractive lighting in a carefree and casual atmosphere” does have relevance for our schools.

Some of our schools and employees are too uptight.  We can improve student achievement and their enjoyment of school–and thus parent satisfaction and enthusiasm for our schools–if our classrooms are characterized by an open, airy, more casual environment in which students are actively engaged in learning, who feel free to be themselves and to ask “politically incorrect questions,” and to make mistakes.  In other words, although school is a serious business it does not have to feel like a strait jacket. Schools should be a place in which the emphasis is not on what is wrong  or what not to do.  Instead, we should champion what students can do and cast a compelling vision for the future.

•    Apple is considered a pioneer in many aspects of customer service and store design. According to several employees and training manuals, sales associates are taught an unusual sales philosophy: not to sell, but rather to help customers solve problems. “Your job is to understand all of your customers’ needs—some of which they may not even realize they have,” one training manual says. To that end, employees receive no sales commissions and have no sales quotas.

“You were never trying to close a sale. It was about finding solutions for a customer and finding their pain points,” said David Ambrose, 26 years old, who worked at an Apple store in Arlington, Va., until 2007.

APPLICATION: there are two very important principles contained in the description above. The first is the focus on innovation and the second is the focus on meeting needs. Our schools, and more importantly our students and our parents, will benefit immensely if we place an energetic and consistent emphasis on innovative teaching, innovative programs, innovative training, and innovative ways of serving our students and our parents.

Moreover, rather than focusing on our policies and procedures,  we should spend more time focusing on good customer service for both students and parents in an effort to alleviate, insofar as possible, things that produce spiritual, emotional, social, or academic pain. We should focus on finding solutions for our students and parents and less on policies and rules.

imageThat is not to say that we compromise our standards, rather it is simply to say that if we devote far more attention to making our students’ and parents’ experiences with each person and situation as enjoyable as possible we will go a long way to increasing their satisfaction and deep loyalty to the school.  In effect this is nothing more than applying the Golden Rule, “As you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” (Luke 6:31, ESV)  The result will be higher retention rates and the enthusiastic endorsement and recommendation of the school to others.  Our parents will become our school “evangelists.”

•    Apple lays out its “steps of service” in the acronym APPLE: Approach customers with a personalized warm welcome Probe politely to understand all the customer’s needs
Present a solution for the customer to take home today Listen for and resolve any issues or concerns, and End with a fond farewell and an invitation to return

imageAPPLICATION:  What a wonderful model for our staff to follow! In fact, with a little tweaking this acronym can be readily applied to our schools. In many ways it reflects biblical servanthood, “as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them,” and  “go the extra mile.” Here is the same acronym revised to reflect a Christian school environment.

Approach every student at the beginning of the day and in the halls with a personalized warm welcome.  Greet every parent and school visitor in like manner.

Probe politely to understand student needs–spiritual, emotional, and academic.  Probe politely to understand parents’ needs.

Present solutions for students and parents to take home with them.

Listen for and resolve issues and concerns following James’ instruction, “be quick to hear and slow to speak.” (James 1:19)

End each class period and parent conference with a fond farewell, letting students know that you look forward to seeing them tomorrow and inviting parents to see you again if they continue to have concerns.

•    Apple’s control of the customer experience extends down to the minutest details. The store’s confidential training manual tells in-store technicians exactly what to say to customers it describes as emotional: “Listen and limit your responses to simple reassurances that you are doing so. ‘Uh-huh’ ‘I understand,’ etc.” Continue Reading…

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