Focus: It's About Time

If you listen at all to educators these days, you hear the word "focus" a lot. I've recently visited with people from several districts across the country, and their frustration was often expressed to me as a perceived lack of focus. They were frustrated by the failure of their school organizations to sustain a clear, coherent program of action toward a manageable number of goals. They were tired of constantly shifting emphases; of being pulled, sometimes at a moment's notice, in brand-new directions; of being asked to add yet another activity to an already full plate. These schoolpeople knew what we all should know--that a lack of focus wreaks havoc with effective, systematic school improvement efforts.

"Focus" is a simple notion, but a difficult reality to attain. If better results are what we're after, though, focus is the indispensable key. It can give us fewer dropouts, higher achievement, a more productive, engaging, and inviting climate for students and teachers. All of this is within our reach the moment our schools decide to select a limited number of improvement goals and then work regularly and doggedly toward their achievement--all the while protecting them from potential derailments and distractions. The simple, happy fact is that, if we do these things sensibly and intelligently, better results are all but inevitable.

But typically we don't. The problem isn't that we can't palpably improve our schools, even in the short term. It is that we haven't yet learned the importance of maintaining a productive relationship between time and effort. If we have learned anything from the "fifth discipline"--systems thinking--we ought to know that this is one of its first principles. The failure to be focused is a systems issue; it is a time issue. Time and its best use are the essence of focus, of optimizing a system toward...