[00:00:00] Dr. Jim: Thanks for joining us today. This is your friendly neighborhood talent strategy nerd, Dr. Jim. What should you be working on during your first year in the big chair? Some of what you do is going to be informed by the situation that you walk into. If you're coming into a situation that's on fire, your first priority should be to put out the fire. But is there a way to both put out the fire and build a foundation for success? That's sustainable. The saying goes that culture eats strategy for breakfast. This conversation will walk you through how you build a blueprint for a strong culture while you tackle the things that you're facing right in front of you.
And who's going to be guiding us through that conversation today? We are joined by Chris Piper, who is in his seventh year as superintendent of the Troy city schools, a district serving approximately 4, 200 students in Troy, Ohio. Prior to joining Troy, Chris was the superintendent of the Triad Local Schools, a rural district in central Ohio.
His career in education also includes roles as a high school teacher, middle school principal in the Jonathan Alder School District. And then during his time in [00:01:00] Troy, Chris has overseen the implementation of a strategic plan that has resulted in significant improvements in student progress. With the district now ranking among the highest in the state, Chris believes that while strategy is crucial, the culture of a district that is what drives lasting change, one of his proudest achievements as superintendent has been fostering a culture that understands the purpose of the work that the district does, and he finds a joy in student learning. Chris, welcome to the show.
[00:01:26] Chris Piper: appreciate you having me, thanks for having me.
[00:01:28] Dr. Jim: It's going to be a good conversation and I'm looking forward to it. I'm a, I nerd out in these culture conversations because there's a lot of different ways to build that sort of good foundation within any organization. So I'm always happy to have these discussions, but I think before we dig into that conversation. It's going to be important for you to share a little bit more about your story than what we just covered in your bio. That's that's two minutes to cover, probably 20, 30 years of a career. So when you think about your career and the different things that's [00:02:00] shaped your perspective and your philosophies, what are some of those key things throughout your career that helped? Helped shape you as a leader that you are today.
[00:02:08] Chris Piper: I think for one thing, I've had the great fortune of working with some really excellent people throughout my career from the time that I was a classroom teacher in a small rural district here in Ohio really formed close relationships with our administrative team. And they were just really high quality leaders that understood.
That school strategy is important, but what underlies that the culture of the district is really what drives a school's progress. So very fortunate to work with great people, smart people, and I've had a variety of experiences. So from my time as a classroom teacher in a high school coaching baseball, basketball, golf then moving into high school administration.
Over to middle school administration and then into the superintendency. I just had a wide range of experiences and a great fortune to work with a lot of great people.
[00:02:52] Dr. Jim: One of the things that I'm interested in that caught my attention was your experience working in rural districts in a lot of different capacities. [00:03:00] How do you feel that's impacted your leadership style and execution once you actually made it to bigger districts?
[00:03:07] Chris Piper: I think there's a lot of benefit to working in a rural district. One thing you have to play several roles and wear many different hats and in doing so you get to work closely with a lot of different kinds of people within the organization. For example when I was a middle school principal, I was also our transportation director for that for a school year.
So I got to work very closely with our bus drivers. Being a building principal get to work very closely with teachers and custodians moving into the superintendency in a small rural district didn't have a lot of central office staff. That would be specialized in different areas. So I was the HR director.
I was the superintendent. I was in charge of our school data collection. So I think working in those rural districts really gives leaders a great foundation and a wide range of experiences that really gives them the full picture of what schools do and how they run whereas sometimes I feel like if you're in a larger district, you may be pigeonholed or just be in a narrow area of focus for your leadership.
[00:03:59] Dr. Jim: So I can [00:04:00] understand how working in a larger district might give you a narrower scope of responsibilities. That makes sense to me. It's part of the reason why I don't like large organizations to work for. I'm more of a startup guy, but one thing that caught my attention about your answer is that you have to play a lot of different roles in a smaller organization, which is why I like working in smaller organizations. But what I'm curious about is when you're stretched to that level, how do you avoid falling into the trap of just being on this constant task wheel versus working on some of the bigger strategic or cultural things like what was your process to avoid falling into that task wheel trap?
[00:04:36] Chris Piper: It's difficult. The job can be overwhelming to some degree. So you have to be organized. You have to lean on people that are surrounding you, even if they're in different capacities within the small district. For example there were often calls that I had to make a superintendent, but I still checked in with my building principals to help inform my decisions to find that kind of support and also leaning on colleagues that you get to know outside of your district.
When there were unique questions, or [00:05:00] I felt like things were. Spending around me. I had people that I could reach out to my network. They were, they're quite helpful.
[00:05:06] Dr. Jim: one of the interesting things about what you mentioned was how you had to lean on people within the district and also even outside the district in your network to help. Spread the load out. One of the things that I'm curious about is what role did your building level leaders play in helping you share the load or spread the load out that helped develop them into future future Senior leaders within a district.
[00:05:32] Chris Piper: think that it's really just as simple as asking the question. And I think that that's something that I learned working in the first district where I became a school administrator. That was a small rural district and our superintendent who's still a great mentor for me today. He really made sure that the building administrators, We're a collective team and that we were involved in making district level decisions.
Not that there weren't many decisions that he made independently, but he really pulled us in and got us involved. And sometimes it was simply just asking the [00:06:00] question, what should the school calendar look like? How should we design this new building? Those kinds of things. So I've tried to carry that forward in my work as superintendent and have tried to include my building administrators, Different area supervisors and just helping make decisions at the district level, not that they, you have to balance that with understanding that they're also busy in their work, but I feel like they're more connected to the strategic plan to the culture of the district when they're deeply involved, even on a day to day basis, if possible.
[00:06:27] Dr. Jim: One of the other things that I think about when I think about your career trajectory is that you went from leading a small rural district to leading a bigger district in a suburban slash urban area. what I'm curious about is when you're used to having your hand in everybody's kitchen, not necessarily everybody, when you're used to having your finger in a lot of different pies and you move to a bigger district, it can be easy to take that same posture in that larger district. that's not necessarily good. So how did you fight [00:07:00] against yourself to learn a new way to lead in a much larger district?
[00:07:03] Chris Piper: That's a great question. And one of the things that I did when I first came to Troy City Schools was I spent about an hour with every building principal with every director and we have several. But I just wanted to get to know them, and I wanted to hear from them what their perception was of their work, how it would relate to my work.
And one thing that I heard consistently across the district where I am now, Troy City Schools, is that They felt like they were a bit micromanaged previously. So everyone, it was almost like they got together as a team and said, here's the answer we're going to give him because it was so consistent.
But everyone told me that they really wanted the opportunity to do their job and to be involved in district decisions, but really given the ability to do what they needed to do. Which was music to my ears because that's how I tend to operate. Certainly expect them to carry out their duties. But also want to invite involved in the district.
So I think first it's listening. To your people and trying to gain an understanding of where the district is and what kind of culture you have and that's [00:08:00] what I did here in Troy.
[00:08:01] Dr. Jim: So it's interesting that they were that transparent with you because I think it's more natural for people when a new leader comes in and I'm just going to keep my mouth shut and my head down because I don't want to be the first one that gets whacked. If I irritate this guy what do you think drove, That level of openness in an early stage conversation with you.
Was there any behind the scenes stuff that you learned after the fact that informed, the position that they took?
[00:08:24] Chris Piper: Yeah I asked that question. It was so consistent with an answer that I literally thought that maybe they got together and said, here's what we're going to tell Chris when he comes and asks his questions. But that was not the case. I think it was just the fact that the previous leadership did. Probably take an overactive role in their work at the building level and didn't allow them the freedom to try to accomplish the strategic plan. That was that they had at the time. So I really think that sitting down talking with them allotting enough time, an hour each.
And I didn't come with a lot of questions. So I think when you have few questions and give more space for them to answer, sometimes, just asking a question [00:09:00] and allowing them space to answer, you'll get to the truth, which is, I think, what happened here in Troy.
[00:09:04] Dr. Jim: That's good that you had an early indicator in those conversations from the team on some of the things that were important to you. When I opened the show, I talked about how this is going to be a conversation about building strong cultures. How did that early insight shape what you did over the course of the first year that you were in the district?
[00:09:21] Chris Piper: I would love to tell you that it was very intentional from the beginning but I feel like really things just came together in a very organic way here in Troy. So the conversations that I referred to that I felt were pretty illuminating about how people perceived our district culture and the work they did. At the same time, we read, we collectively read a book study with our administrative team here. And I believe the name of that book was above the line by Tim Kite. It's based on the Ohio State Buckeyes, which, we're Ohio. That book is about developing a culture blueprint. At around the same time, I came across an article in the Harvard business review that was Very illuminating about different kinds of corporate cultures and how [00:10:00] they're in very intentional.
So the star was aligned for us between those conversations. The book study, we did the Harvard business review. It came together and it became our focus. My focus to help us understand where we currently were as a district culture and what our ideal culture would be and how we bridge the gap from one to the other.
[00:10:18] Dr. Jim: So it's interesting that part of your approach involved a book study as well as a review of some of the content from Harvard Business Review when you introduce that as something that you were going to do as part of this exercise. What was the response that you got from the leadership team?
[00:10:36] Chris Piper: Yeah, they were very open to it. And I thought very enthused to go through that process. It is not something that they had done before. Honestly, it's not something that I had done before. We had talked about district culture in my previous districts, but we hadn't been, I would say, very intentional 321.
We hadn't been very intentional about what we put. On paper as a plan for district culture. So they were very excited to have the conversation. I really feel like it was some of our best work [00:11:00] at the same time that we were developing that school and district culture. We were also developing a strategic plan. The strategic plan of the technical aspects of what we want to accomplish and how we're going to measure success here in Troy. And there were. Probably more challenges with developing that plan than there were about the district culture blueprint. Very participative, very willing to have the conversation.
And I would say excited to define what culture we wanted to build here in Troy.
[00:11:23] Dr. Jim: It's interesting that you mentioned that you rolled this out without ever having done this sort of work in. Your previous district, why did you decide that this was the right course of action to take on when it's not something that you, that's been a normal sort of arrow in your quiver.
[00:11:40] Chris Piper: I think you mentioned at the beginning of the podcast when you said culture each strategy for breakfast. And that's a conversation that we had. And that was also something that's clear in the book that we were reading together, that you can have a beautiful strategic plan with excellent Steps that are clearly outlined for and task for everyone to accomplish and very clear goals.
And that's great. And that's important to have [00:12:00] that. But it is a culture of the district that really decides what kind of progress you're going to make towards those goals. So it was organic, but it was also very intentional. And I thought it was a great process here that I think a lot of leaders could take from.
Because I think if we step back and take a clear look at our district culture, first, do we even really truly understand what the culture is but it's such a driving force in what we're able to accomplish.
[00:12:22] Dr. Jim: So digging in a little bit deeper in some of the findings. Um, before you started looking at and prioritizing what came out of that book study in the Harvard Business Review, what was your sense of the existing culture within the organization after you had all of these conversations?
[00:12:39] Chris Piper: Yeah, it was really interesting. As we use the Harvard Business Review to understand the different kinds of cultures that can exist and how different companies demonstrate those characteristics. We started to analyze ourselves through conversation and a little activity that we did, and what was revealed through that activity matched perfectly with the conversations that I [00:13:00] had with people on a one on one basis.
What was revealed is that here the district culture was very focused on safety, and I don't mean student safety, I mean making sure the day to day was managed well. That there weren't a lot of disruptions, positive or negative disruptions. Just maintaining the status quo was the expectation.
There was a focus on students, of course, but really making sure that things were orderly, things were safe, and we got through the day without much fuss. That was the district culture that, as it existed.
[00:13:33] Dr. Jim: So if you have this culture of maintaining the status quo. How do you create the momentum for change? Because everybody's going to be like, Oh that sounds risky or I don't want to do that. It's not what we've done before. So how did you tackle that? Specific resistance, because if everybody's used to keeping the lights on, having them, reinvent the wheel is a big ask.
So what did you do there?
[00:13:55] Chris Piper: I don't think I had to do much. I think that identifying that culture, that wasn't what people wanted, it wasn't [00:14:00] the ideal. And that's what was revealed through the next part of the conversation when we really started to talk about what kind of culture do we want to have. There was a lot of eagerness within the team to talk about that and to argue for different ways that we should do our business.
But it was an exciting conversation because where we landed was, I feel like a really important place and a place that I completely agree with. And that is that, the work that we do with kids is extremely important work. So there's a lot of purpose behind what we do. And whenever we feel down or, things, the year trudges on or we're faced with difficult challenges, we have to remember that the work we do is very important and purposeful work.
So that was a component of our new culture that we wanted to build. And that wasn't difficult to sell. We all bought into that very quickly, and we all believe that. The second part of it was, Yeah. That we are a team of adults that care for each other and care for kids and we're here to help each other.
So that was also very clear and a lot of energy in the room to support and to make sure that we maintain a culture like that. And the 3rd component that I was also very excited about was. [00:15:00] That learning is fun and working with kids is fun and we should remember every day that we are lucky to get to do this work, that this work is fun.
And when we have fun and we have helped students have fun and learning that we can learn at much higher levels because students are so engaged in the work. So we move from that safety order. Taking care of daily business to really understanding it was deep purpose to our work, and it was fun to do.
[00:15:23] Dr. Jim: So you're making it sound like it was pretty turnkey, but I would imagine when you ask the question, what kind of culture do we want? You're going to have 15 different answers if there's 15 different people in the room. So what was the process that you went through to solidify around two or three key things?
Like you just mentioned, how did you get to those key pillars when you have so many different visions of what a good culture can look like?
[00:15:48] Chris Piper: We used that Harvard Business Review article that kind of identified eight different kinds of cultures that an organization could have. And we literally put those up on large posters around the room and had [00:16:00] people place their sticky notes on where we thought that our culture should focus. And we had some great conversation.
One of my favorite parts of that conversation was the conversation about. Should we identify fun as one of our top three culture goals? And I remember our HR director. If you think about your organization you wouldn't expect your HR director to be pushing for fun, but he was very adamant that we should absolutely be having fun in our jobs and having fun with kids because learning is inherently fun.
So there was structure to our activity. We provided people the opportunity to have input and then we literally sat down and argued. In a very positive way which one should be our priority. And I think when the dust all settled, we were all very happy with the final product. And I know that because even now, seven years later, six years later when I walk around our district, I see our culture blueprint that is printed on paper hanging in many offices, in many classrooms around our district.
[00:16:54] Dr. Jim: That's a good exercise to narrow it down. I'd still imagine that this is, there's a lot of [00:17:00] consensus building that's required to land in these three spots. And one of the sayings that's out there says that a camel is a horse that's designed by committee or consensus.
So how did you make sure that in that building consensus effort, nobody was really left behind on something that they felt strongly was the better direction. How did you deal with those conflicts and resolve those?
[00:17:22] Chris Piper: I think first, conflict is good and you have to welcome it because when you, conflict means there's a, there's an exchange of different kinds of ideas. It's not necessarily a negative thing. We had voiced that very clearly that people needed to speak their mind and be clear and it was a safe space and you don't just announce that you have to build that to this team here.
That I joined had been together for several years. There weren't many new members of that team, so they had trust in each other. And then, I had done what I could that first year to build trust with them. And I think that's one of the most important things any leader can do that first year is just.
Listen more than you talk and build trust and ask the right questions. We vocalize that it was important [00:18:00] to have everyone have their say. And then throughout the activity and just part of how we run our meetings, we check in with people. If we're not hearing someone's voice, we ask them specifically, what are your thoughts on this?
Where are you with this? So we try to be very inclusive in our conversations.
[00:18:14] Dr. Jim: Okay. You started this out six, seven years ago when you started in this district and now you've built this framework, you've built the key things that you're going to focus on the pillars of your district from a cultural perspective. That's great on paper. How did you bring that to life so that it actually lives in each building in your district?
[00:18:32] Chris Piper: When we put our culture blueprint on paper, we talked very clearly about the behaviors. So we certainly believe things inherently, but it is the behaviors that we demonstrate that really help you understand if our beliefs are coming through. So in our culture blueprint, we were very specific about the behaviors that we would expect to see from people.
So it may sound silly, but let's take fun for example. We should see teachers and students laughing, smiling. We, as leaders, should be modeling that same [00:19:00] thing. So we were very clear with it had to be visible not just something that we all agreed to think, but it had to be visible and in front of us.
We were trying. To make sure that we demonstrated those behaviors and also communicated that this is what we're looking for. And this is the expectation.
[00:19:15] Dr. Jim: So I really like how you tied specific behaviors to cultural pillars. Now I would find it interesting on how that's leveraged from a development perspective. So let's say if I'm behaving in a way that is in conflict with the core pillars of our culture, how did the actual cultural blueprint help leaders have more constructive conversations and calling that out and getting those things back on the right track?
[00:19:42] Chris Piper: It was very important to, to clearly identify the behaviors that we were looking for and actually articulate them, put them on paper. And then also to communicate those expectations with staff. I think that, without that, you're left with just trying to encourage people to [00:20:00] believe a certain thing.
So I think just in the practice of articulating what expectations are there's great power in that. Take, learning is fun. For example, we often get so frustrated in schools because students don't do their homework. And we wonder why that is. I think part of the answer is student engagement.
And I think that because if when you when I get into the skate park in town, I see some of those same students that struggle to do their homework. And if you watch closely, you'll see one of those children practice the same, almost dangerous stunt many times and fall down and sometimes hurt themselves and they continue to practice that skill until they get it, even though sometimes it's physically hurting them.
Why would that student do that? And then not do their math homework. I think part of the answer is there's a reward for them in practicing and mastering that skill to skate park. And sometimes we don't make sure that our schoolwork is engaging enough or that we celebrate successes enough with our kids.
Sometimes, We have to really be focused that learning is fun and it's our job to make sure that it's fun.
[00:20:58] Dr. Jim: I like your comment [00:21:00] about, part of the reason why, or some of the reason why people give up on things is because the celebration aspect of it is missing from the exercise. So when you bring that internally to your internal school culture and you can apply it to fun or any of your other cultural pillars, how are you bringing celebration and recognition into the the walls of the district so that It's acting as a reinforcement exercise to make sure people are going and living the cultural pillars.
[00:21:31] Chris Piper: I think from a leadership perspective there's so much power in giving people permission. Especially I'm going to talk about the fun part again. What I saw happen here in Troy City Schools was it seemed to be that when we gave staff permission to have fun and permission to celebrate that they took advantage of that.
When I think about The departments in our district and our schools that really are excelling. That is something they're doing very well. You mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, the results that we've seen in our district with student learning, our [00:22:00] student growth scores for our high school in the past 3 years.
Our high school has been ranked number 3. Number one and number two. Now, this year in the state of Ohio for student growth scores and one of the leading departments in our high school is our math department. And I think there's probably from what I've seen, there's probably no better department or school in our district that does a better job of celebrating student success than our math department. Much of it is organic. It's in the day to day. Whether it's a homework assignment, a problem quiz, a test, making sure that they're taking time in class to recognize achievement to celebrate those successes. They talk about team math and they live that there's also very formal ways in the hallways. They have posted student scores and who has achieved certain levels on the or different kinds of tests that we take.
So they're calling that out in very formal ways. But I've got the opportunity to watch them in class and really it's the organic day to day they've actually created a math support course. So for our students that struggle with math they take two math courses, which if you think about [00:23:00] that state skate park analogy, we've invited our students who struggle with math to not do it once in a day, but we're gonna do it twice in a day.
And our students have bought in because our teachers celebrate them on a day to day basis.
[00:23:11] Dr. Jim: As somebody who is a math challenge, when you said you invite them to take two math courses in a day I cringed because I was like, Oh, that sounds terrible. At this point in the conversation, I have a good sense of, what you did to build. Or lay the cultural foundation that you want to move forward from now, you're, 67 years in what outcomes have you seen in terms of, student achievement, educator retention, people development?
[00:23:37] Chris Piper: I think that our culture blueprint has certainly strengthened us as an organization and certainly, I think made this a place that people want to be. We see that with our current staff and the way they talk about the work they do. We've seen that with new staff that we've hired. I've talked to some of the new teachers that we've hired.
A couple of the high school come to mind and I've asked them, why Troy, why did you come here? There are many great school districts around us. And [00:24:00] they have spoken about the things that we've accomplished and. The passion that they've seen from our teachers, as our teachers go out and present at conferences, we have many schools come and visit our high school because of the growth scores we're getting, and they have the chance to see how our people operate on a day to day basis with each other.
And it's infectious. I think that our staff does have fun. I think that it's really paying dividends in our retention of staff and also our ability to attract new staff.
[00:24:23] Dr. Jim: So when you look at all of the things that you've done within the district. And building that cultural footprint and blueprint that you use as a springboard for everything else. If you were to advise another superintendent or somebody else that's listening to this conversation, what are the things that they need to point at that pay attention to, to pull this off successfully?
What are the three, four things that they need to keep in mind as they do this type of work within their district?
[00:24:50] Chris Piper: I think it's important to make sure that first and foremost, if you're going to engage in this conversation with your team, with your staff about what kind of culture. You have first, you need to be willing to [00:25:00] listen and understand that's their perspective and that it's true.
And if you have been in an organization for a while, that can sometimes be difficult to hear, what you want to hear and what you actually hear may not. Line up with what you want it to be. So you have to be open to that conversation and listening to people. And I think giving people the freedom to identify what they want the culture to be.
It's not my district culture. I'm the superintendent for our school district, but I didn't drive and I didn't dictate what our culture is going to be or should be. And I think it's important for a leader to do that. You may have a clear understanding of what you want it to be, and I think it's okay to share that, but you certainly have to make sure that your team is developed, is building your ideal culture, not just you and giving them the space to do that.
I think what helped us here in Troy is some of the work that we had done. I mentioned that Harvard Business Review article. It was pretty illuminating. I hadn't thought very clearly about the different kinds of culture that may exist. Once I read it, I understood, when I think about different school districts around Ohio, even there [00:26:00] are some that place a great deal of value on student outcomes and their achievement scores and those kinds of things.
And that's really what drives them as a school district. And that's what drives their staff. And that's what their community expects. And that's great for them. There are other districts where You know, they're very innovative and project based learning is their thing. And if you try to take that away from them, you might have a right on your hands.
So I think one is maybe learning about what different cultures may look like and the different benefits and detriments that having a strong culture like that can bring with it. And that's one of the things that article eliminated for us. We looked at different companies and how they.
Attack their business. And, every choice you make, there's a benefit to it, and there's a consequence for it, possibly. So you have to make sure that you clearly understand what different cultures can look like. So be informed ask the questions, but be informed, certainly. So I think those three things, listen intently, be informed with your decision making, and give people voice in the process.
[00:26:53] Dr. Jim: Great stuff. If folks want to continue the conversation with you, Chris, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?
[00:26:59] Chris Piper: By email would be, [00:27:00] feel free to reach out to me by email. I'd be happy to share.
[00:27:02] Dr. Jim: Thanks for hanging out with us, Chris. I really appreciate the the point of view that you helped build. When I think about this conversation, there are a couple of things that I think are worth calling out and pointing out so that other listeners have it on their radar as well.
Now, a lot of times when we talk about this culture building stuff in general, People that are out there in the audience listening to this stuff can look at it and roll their eyes a little bit because everybody talks about culture in this theoretical perspective. And the reality of it is the reason why a lot of people roll their eyes in these culture conversations is because it's really difficult to bring it into practice.
And what I like about the process that you took or you did as a district. And as a leadership team was that you collaborated to identify the things that matter the most the people that were involved in the discussion. And then you took the steps to define what good behavior and good alignment looks like that's consistent with those cultural pillars.
And I [00:28:00] think that is the key lesson that a lot of people miss when they talk about this culture stuff is that they don't take that and extend it to what does the behavior look like? And I thought that was really an important step. In building that culture and helping it come to life. So I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and experience with us.
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