Dr. Gerald Hudson | Superintendent, Cedar Hill ISD

Golf is an interesting sport. It can be a relaxing, fun experience with friends, or it can be the most frustrating sport imaginable. One can play the same course 100 times and never have the same experience.

We may hit a fantastic drive that we enjoy watching until the ball stops rolling in the middle of the fairway. The next shot may be a hook or slice that heads for the rough, and we immediately look away in frustration, which only compounds the problem because by looking away, now we cannot find the ball.

We can improve as a golfer, but golf can never be mastered. Two things I have learned through golf are that I am accountable for my actions and I cannot stay fixated on what just happened. Celebration or frustration about the previous shot distracts from the focus necessary for the next shot. We must always focus on the current moment.

I submit that the superintendency has similarities to golf. Sometimes superintendents make decisions that work out beautifully. We want to stand there like a proud peacock and watch the success of that decision.

In the next moment, one of our decisions can go wrong and subject the superintendent and the district to negative scrutiny which takes a life of its own on social media and news outlets. We want to look away, which only makes things worse.

Like a good golfer, superintendents must be accountable and must focus on the current moment, and here are my suggestions to do just that.

Establish Clear Goals

We all recognize that one of the most important aspects of the superintendent’s job is to build relationships with our staff and the school board. Taking relationships with those important groups of people for granted is a mistake. We must work to build and keep those relationships.

However, relationships alone will only get you so far toward the goal of academic improvement. There are other components to effective teams such as clearly defined roles and responsibilities, sustainable systems, and clearly defined goals that play important roles in progress.

Of these four components, research clearly shows that the number one influence on effective team progress is having clearly defined goals.

I am fortunate to work with an amazing Board, and as a team of eight, we have committed to growing through Lone Star Governance training. A fundamental component of that school improvement training is establishing goals, and we have four student outcome goals on which we are focused.

Develop a Scorecard

Think for a moment about how important a scoreboard is to a football game. It is where the most important data is kept, and that data is constantly updated throughout the game. Coaches, players and fans look at the data on the scoreboard throughout the game to determine how things are going for their team. Coaches make corrections during the game based on that data — how much time is left, what the score is, how many time-outs are left, and what down it is.

Fans cheer wildly or are emotionally sad depending on the scoreboard data. Coaching strategy is different when your team is ahead with 10 minutes left on the clock or when your team is behind with two minutes left. Coaches adjust our plan based on the scoreboard’s data.

Imagine if the game’s scoreboard was not updated until the day after the game was over. For the entirety of the game, nobody would know the score, how much time was left, whether it was first down or fourth down. We would hope for the best but would not know if we won until the score was officially reported.

I support the notion that to be successful, school districts must develop a scorecard that contains the data that defines our success. That scorecard must be updated throughout the year, and our strategy must change based on that data. We cannot wait until the end of the year to see how we did.

There is an old saying that, “Hope is not a strategy.” Implementing a plan and then waiting until the results come back to see if the plan worked is simply hoping. That is no way to play a game, and it is certainly not the way to know whether our students are learning to read, becoming CCMR certified, or are on track to graduate.

Create an Accountability Mindset

Studies of people who have transformed their lives reveal that accountability was key to the transformation. Whether the goal is to lose weight, run faster times or longer distances, increase strength, or defeat substance abuse, successful individuals usually share the commonality of having an accountability partner on their journey.

If it were not for the fact that someone is holding me accountable for something I am trying to accomplish, it would be easy to kick it down the road a few times. For example, if my goal is to work out every day, every morning when I wake up, I start debating on whether I want to work out or not, rationalizing I did not sleep well last night, I have a tough day ahead, or I will double up tomorrow as excuses to not achieve that goal.

However, accountability to a team or another individual helps my fidelity to the commitment I have made. I do not like letting anyone down and it is no longer about me as an individual — it is about us as a collective group. I have a responsibility to my workout partner to show up for my workout.

Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling wrote The 4 Disciplines of Execution which maps out their cadence of accountability process, which is an essential part of our district’s accountability system. It is the process we use to examine the data on our “scoreboard” throughout the year to determine what mid-course corrections we need so that we meet our year-end goals.

Our principals are accountable to each other and to the cabinet leaders. They bring their data forward several times a year and express their plans for responding to that data. If the data shows we are not on track to meet our goals, we can come together as a team, discuss the situation, and make mid-course corrections before it is too late to have an impact on the goals we are trying to achieve. If the data shows that we are on track, we stay the course and carry on.

In conclusion, the superintendency, like golf, is something that you must continue to work at if you want to get better at the job. There is really no finish line that indicates you have arrived. You always have to evolve and adapt. It is not the strongest or the fastest that survives and thrives. And always remember hope is not an effective strategy.

Establishing Clear Goals, Developing a Scorecard and Creating an Accountability Mindset — Those are your Superpowers.

Dr. Gerald Hudson serves the Cedar Hill ISD community as its superintendent. He grew up in Dallas, attended Skyline High (one of the first Dallas area schools to have an Engineering Academy) and originally planned to become an engineer. He graduated from Texas Tech University with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and a minor in Electrical Engineering. He earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from Texas A&M University-Commerce. He may be reached at gerald.hudson@chisd.net.

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