In The Knowing-Doing Gap, Pfeffer and Sutton (2000) explored what they regard as one of the great mysteries of organizational management—the disconnect between what we know and what we do.
Part of understanding your leadership role in causing the “knowing-doing gap” of the colleagues you influence is to examine the old paradigm of school wide professional development. In this model school administrators and leaders dedicated time, money, and resources for professional development in which they fell victim to a parallel gap—the disconnect between the desired results of the professional development, and ultimately what leaders and colleagues were willing to tolerate—based on the action or inaction toward the actual implementation level. Think of this as your “Aspirations-Tolerance” gap as a professional learning community participant. Aspiration is defined as “a strong desire to achieve something high or great” (2010, www.mirriam-webster.com). Thus, you “desire or aspire ” for all colleagues to implement research-affirmed practices resulting from their professional development, but do you “tolerate”—perhaps unintentionally—far less?
Great blog!
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