Leadership in the corporate and not-for-profit worlds has changed dramatically over the last few years. Nowhere is that more evident than at the Golden Apple Foundation, where it has taken on a co-leadership approach that is working. On this episode of the “Can You Hear Me?” podcast, co-hosts Eileen Rochford and Rob Johnson continue their “How They Do It” series with Golden Apple CEO Alicia Winckler and President Alan Mather.
Alan Mather is the President of the Golden Apple Foundation. In partnership with Alicia Winckler, the CEO, Alan leads the education work of the Foundation. Prior to coming to Golden Apple, Alan served in the Chicago Public Schools for more than 32 years, from classroom teacher to principal to a key member of the CEO and Chief Education Officer’s cabinet--leading College and Career Success for the district. Born and raised in rural Southern Indiana, Alan hitchhiked up to Chicago after graduating from the University of Evansville in 1986 and has been working in the Chicago public schools ever since. Alan worked for 12 years as an English teacher, track and cross country coach before moving into administration after joining LAUNCH (Leadership and Urban Network for Chicago), the first principal preparation program in Chicago. His first administrative position was as the assistant principal at a new high school, Northside College Prep, which--in three years--became the top ranked high school in Illinois. In 2005, Alan was given the opportunity, as principal, to open Lindblom Math & Science Academy, a school that had once been top-tier but had declined. With the freedom, flexibility and support to create a high school, Alan hired all teachers, built a culture of excellence, and created an empowering climate. Since Alan opened Lindblom, it has become, according to the Sun-Times rankings, the top-performing majority AfricanAmerican school in Illinois and the only top 20-ranked school that has over 60% of its students on free/reduced lunch. He built the district’s largest Mandarin program, the largest non-heritage Arabic program in the United States, and the district’s first Biotechnology program in partnership with Baxter International and Northwestern University. Alan represented the Chicago Public Schools at Harvard University’s PELP (Public Education Leadership Program), was an inaugural member of the College Board’s Leadership Institute for Principals, has been part of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management’s “Leading Successful Schools” program, and was selected as one of two Chicago principals to participate in Columbia University’s Cahn Fellows Distinguished Principals Program for the 2012-2013 school year at Teachers College. He was the first recipient of the Golden Apple Foundation's Stanley C. Golder Excellence in Leadership Award for Principals or Heads of School.
Alicia Winckler, Chief Executive Officer, began consulting with senior leadership and the Board of The Golden Apple Foundation in late 2014; was selected as its first President and Chief Operating Officer in January of 2017; and was selected as its President and Chief Executive Officer in October of 2017. In 2018, she welcomed Alan Mather to join her in coleading the Foundation - with Alicia as CEO and Alan becoming President. Her professional experience reflects a unique combination of private, public and nonprofit sector expertise at both the executive and board level, as well as a demonstrated passion for serving others. Alicia led several substantial strategic initiatives at the Cabinet level of the nation’s third largest K-12 District - in Chicago Public Schools - and has been working in depth in education for more than a decade. She earned her M.A. in Industrial / Organizational Psychology from the University of Colorado at Denver and B.S. in Psychology and Alcohol and Drug Abuse Studies from the University of South Dakota.
Rob Johnson: [00:00:17] Hello again everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Can You Hear Me podcast. I'm Rob Johnson, president of Rob Johnson Communications. [00:00:24][6.6]
Eileen Rochford: [00:00:25] And I'm Eileen Rochford. I'm the CEO of the Harbinger Group, which is the marketing and strategy firm. So here on Can You Hear Me? We occasionally invite C-suite leaders to talk about their management styles. We call those the how you do it or How they Do it series. And today, we are honored to welcome Golden Apple Foundation CEO Alicia Winckler and President Alan Mather to talk about their unique co leadership, structure and communication styles. Alicia and Alan, welcome to the show. So awesome to have you guys. [00:00:54][28.7]
Alicia: [00:00:54] Thank you so much for having us. We're honored to be here truly. [00:00:57][2.9]
Alan: [00:00:58] Thank you. [00:00:58][0.3]
Rob Johnson: [00:00:58] Well, before we dive in a little deeper here, Alan and Alicia, would you both give us a brief look at your backgrounds, your origin stories, as it were, and what brought you to Golden Apple? So, Alicia, let's start with you on that. [00:01:10][11.6]
Alicia: [00:01:10] Well, thank you for that question. Alan and I share, a lot of things about our background, one of which is that we both grew up in rural America, in small towns in South Dakota. Alan will talk about his in Indiana. But my origin story is, is one that's, pretty, a pretty simple life. It's all about values and living in a small town. Everybody knows who you are. Everybody knows what you do or don't do or how well you do it or don't. And so it's all about, demonstrating reliability and just being a true human interest, being interested in other humans. And I grew up in a family, in a household where my mom was a lifetime teacher. My dad did various forms of social work. And although I started my career at a different pace, in private sector and corporate America, which I very much enjoyed for the bulk of that experience. And about mid-career point, I was having some issues with head connecting with heart and investing. The amount of time I was 80 to 100 hours a week tended to be the norm. I wanted to do it in a way that I knew more directly and explicitly, could make a positive impact, on the community in which I lived. And that changed my professional career choices. And I ended up moving to into Chicago Public Schools as the chief talent officer. And for five years, took on a very challenging but also very rewarding, role in, leading talent at Chicago Public Schools through a fairly tumultuous but, really positive turning point time, where we improved the graduation rate, from about 54% to close to 80% in my tenure there. I had the amazing luck and pleasure to meet Alan Mather while I was working there and our our paths crossed, which he'll pick up when he tells his origin story about how we ended up together here. But when I was leaving Chicago public schools, very much enjoying making an impact in education and on students who most needed us, Chicago Public Schools is predominantly serving, under-resourced students and, a very diverse population. We I had the opportunity to look at a lot of different nonprofits. I had the vantage point, at the time and in serving as chief talent officer at the third, nation's third largest K-12 school district, of seeing many hard working, highly credible, high quality non-profits at work. And, Golden Apple, though, rose to the top of the list, because its model was doing significant positive impact work, but it was frankly too small to make at that time a very significant difference in a large system like Chicago Public Schools. So I thought, hey, maybe there's an opportunity for me to take some of my big company corporate experience from years gone by, which spanned the U.S as well as Western Europe, and leading talent and human capital for large high growth organizations. And connecting that to the future of where students need us the most. addressing the teacher shortage, at the time and throughout the state of Illinois. But since then we'll talk about how we've grown the organization. And so the model was great, but the opportunity was also great to make a much more significant impact by helping to grow the organization. So, following my head and heart connection, which I had made, and the choice to move from private sector to public sector and Chicago public schools, albeit the most challenging job I've had in my career to date. As chief talent officer in Chicago Public Schools, the learnings propelled me to want to continue to do this work and to do it for a high quality nonprofit organization such as Golden Apple. [00:04:57][227.0]
Rob Johnson: [00:04:57] All right, Alan, what do you say, buddy? [00:04:59][1.3]
Alan: [00:04:59] Yeah, that's that's always a tough one to follow. But, yeah. Yeah. As Alicia said, I grew up in rural southern Indiana. I went to college in southern Indiana. I was up in Bemidji, Minnesota with a girlfriend and her family. We broke up. So how do you get back? You hitchhike back? Back to southern Indiana, and I was just on my way. There. I stopped in Chicago because I had a cousin there that I wanted to, you know, teach in a city near an ocean. She said Lake Michigan is pretty big. And so I went to the Board of Education there and was in the Chicago Public Schools. Then for 33 years, high school English teacher, track coach, assistant principal, principal, and then chief officer of the Office of college and Career Success. But what I tell people the most about is during my ten years as principal, two of my teachers won the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in teaching. And Golden Apple, has since 1985 honored outstanding teachers across the state. I had 30 of my students in my ten years as principal, all students of color, who became Golden Apple Scholars. So future teachers with Golden Apple. I hired 13 Golden Apple Scholars to be teachers in my school when I was principal, and I was the inaugural recipient of the Stanley C. Golder award, the Golden Apple Award for principals that they, gave out in 2014. So there was a deep connection with Golden Apple through that. So when, I went to the central office, I was getting near my failed retirement. And Alicia Winckler, who had done such great work making the job of principals so much better and helping students, called up and said, you know, I'm looking for a co-leader of the organization. What do you think? If we got together and, had a little discussion about what that could look like. And so for a year we had breakfasts. We traveled together to make sure that this, professional marriage could work. And we decided that this was the right thing to do to really move the needle for students. So that's how we got connected to Golden Apple. [00:07:02][122.9]
Eileen Rochford: [00:07:02] Wonderful story. And I think this is the place where I should have probably mentioned that I have known alanthe entire time that he has, been a part of Golden Apple since helping to arrange the day when he was honored with that incredible, inaugural award and God was that an amazing moment? So in our shownotes, I'm going to put the video from that day because I just think it's wonderful. And you're just I just had the most incredible time. And that's the day that I met Amy and your wife and everything. Just the whole everything began there. But I'd been working with Golden Apple think for about five years before that. So that means it's a grand total of 15 years, guys, I think. [00:07:43][40.3]
Rob Johnson: [00:07:43] Yeah, I think our listeners may know because I think we've talked about it before, that that's where you and I got to meet each other, I guess, because you're working for Golden Apple, and I was working in the TV biz and and you'd say, come on by bring the camera crew, whatever. And I was always just so amazed because it's such a this is your life moment, and it's and it's, you know, honoring people that deserve to be honored teachers, you know, they should. Everybody says, oh, teachers should be heroes, but they rarely are. It's always, you know, somebody else who's maybe not making a contribution to society like teachers are. And it was just so wonderful to see all these teachers with their favorite people around, saying great things about them in front of them. It just, I mean, you all have just cornered the market on just the feel good for that particular event, and I always loved it, so did I. [00:08:30][46.6]
Eileen Rochford: [00:08:30] Those are my favorite days. But honestly, once, things kind of started to evolve more and that was really the thought arrival, I think of Alicia at the organization and then Alan joining the organization. For me, it became so much more meaningful to understand how those award recipients, became a part of this ecosystem and Golden Apple and helped develop the future generation of teachers so successfully, which I think is a nice segue to hear about the mission of Golden Apple, which I think as just backstory or folks would love to hear about, because it's such a unique and highly successful organization in Illinois and elsewhere. That's the tell us all about it. [00:09:09][39.3]
Alan: [00:09:10] Okay. Yeah, start us off. Maybe. So the mission, of course, is to inspire, develop and support teacher and school leader excellence. Wherever we are. And this really was the brainchild of Mike and his late wife. Pat called Ike, who were sitting on the couch watching the Academy Awards, and Pat turned to Mike and said, those should be teachers up there. Mike was a very successful venture capitalist. He started the Golden Apple Foundation as a way to honor ten great teachers across the Chicagoland area at that time, which is now statewide. But you know that that first group of award winning teachers, along with Pat Coldike said, this is great, but we should be doing more. And that's when they started the Golden Apple Scholars program, which launched in 2019 to recruiting high school seniors through sophomores in college, recruiting them, supporting them, preparing them to go into schools of need across the state and make a difference for children. And so when you look at, you know, what Alicia talked about early on was how the program started very small, but really grew. And I'm going to say Alicia. Was incredibly responsible for so much of that growth. So, Alicia, why don't you pick up from there? [00:10:22][71.7]
Alicia: [00:10:22] Thank you. Alan. And as Alan was sharing the history, so the scholars program started in 1989. So it has been around for 35 years. The organization has been around since 1985. So we're nearing our, 40 year mark and, very proudly, what we discovered in the launch of the Scholars Program was that although that was our primary business, if you will, preparing teachers to address the teacher shortage, most people only knew us for the awards side of what the work that we did. And although, that is our foundation, that is our legacy. And that is such important work, engaging those award recipients whom we call fellows in the preparation of future teachers. So really an apprenticeship model, where you have expert teachers preparing, and helping scale up the newest in the profession, we were getting results that far outpace those that we see at other high quality nonprofits in a similar space. Get, our scholars stay in teaching, 80% of our scholars stay in teaching, for more than five years in schools of need where it's hard to persevere on any given day. And so, preparing those scholars which, at the time, seniors in high school, through sophomores in college, and then shepherding them through their undergraduate experience, placing them in right fit opportunities to be full time teachers throughout the state and mentoring them in their first years of teaching so that they can excel, have the impact that we desire them to have for pre-K through 12 students, and stay in the profession and be very engaged in the profession, not be staying to hit a milestone, but staying because the impact is so critical in there. We knew that Scholars Program wasn't the only way that we could contribute. But I knew and thankfully I made one really good decision. In those first years with Golden Apple, which was to find and, sell the board on this co leadership model and, that we would have me not an educator by trade and industrial organizational psychologist by education. With all this HR and talent experience, combine my skills and complement and fill in the gaps of my skills with a fabulous educator like Alan. And so basically, I sold the idea into the board of this co leadership model. I shared an example of a co leader that I was thinking about with Alan's resume specifically, and then thankfully ultimately he said yes, to joining as the co leader of the foundation. And we knew there's a lot of space in which we could move. Not only did we need to grow in terms of, volume and the significance of the program, we needed to refine a few things to make sure that our quality outcomes were reliably gotten. And we know and we knew then and we know now that we are needed in many, many, many places and geographies that we are presently not in. And so with that journey, we not only expanded from our scholars program primarily for undergraduates, traditional and nontraditional students, but primarily traditional students have come into that program with a program for career changers, folks middle of their career, later in their career who say, you know what, I want to make an impact, and I want to teach, and we help them convert into the profession. And we anticipate that we're going to grow school leaders like Alan was very successful at, as well as teachers in future years in the profession. And from there we expanded not only, statewide in terms of our awards. Our scholars program was already statewide. When alanand I joined, we introduced a Golden Apple Accelerator program, which is a program for career changers in Illinois in, 2020. And then, since then, we've expanded to a state which really needs us, New Mexico. And we love the state of New Mexico, and we love serving the students, in New Mexico. And most recently, this year, we just expanded to the state of Michigan and are very determined and have our board support to continue, an accelerated expansion, to several new geographies in the next 3 to 5 years. So, we anticipate that the size at which we are now will likely triple to quadruple, within the next handful of years. If we are able to secure the necessary funds to support the work where, where we're needed the. [00:15:04][282.5]
Rob Johnson: [00:15:05] Most amazing stuff. Go ahead. [00:15:07][2.3]
Alan: [00:15:07] I Alicia there just mentioned the accelerators, and I want to point out two part that's part of just like identifying a problem that exists and. Working within the mission to solve it. Because, you know, we were traveling around the state talking to rural superintendents, all of whom said, we love the scholars program. That's a long term investment. It's really great, but I can't wait five years. I haven't had a special education teacher in two years. I haven't had a biology teacher in three years. We need somebody now. And so that career change, your post-baccalaureate 15 month residency and concurrent licensure program was born out of that need and started purely in rural communities until the state of Illinois said, boy, that's really important. You should grow that. And so we've moved into the Chicago area as well. But it's just identifying needs, talking to people, listening them, and building programs to address, the issues that exist and that are aligned with our mission. [00:16:04][56.8]
Rob Johnson: [00:16:05] Well, obviously you all are making the co leadership approach work. And Alicia, we heard you explain kind of how you decided on that philosophy. But I'm fascinated to know like how had you had you seen it work elsewhere. Had you heard it work elsewhere. And you know, day in and day out, how do you make it work so well? So I guess it's a two part question. It's, it's, you know, where did the idea come from? You explained it very well. But where the idea come from, it's pretty radical. You don't hear about other people or other companies or not for profits, and it's not very common. And you made it work. How'd you do it? Well. [00:16:39][34.6]
Alicia: [00:16:40] You know, I want to say a couple of things. So I think one of the really, really important things, when you're in a leadership role with a significant amount of accountability is, to demonstrate humility in what you know, you are good at and what you know, you may not be as good at or, that is an opportunity for you. Most people do not change their strengths and opportunities dramatically. They refine them. They improve their strengths. They enhance them. They use them, to the best ability to be successful. And they try to mute or diminish, the areas of opportunity we as humans all have them, strengths and opportunities. And there were certain experiences. Number one, I didn't have, I'm not going to claim I've been an educator very, very brief time as an adjunct faculty member doesn't count. So not, I have not been trained as an educator. Therefore, I wanted to make sure that to lead this high quality education organization, an educator was at the helm. Yes. It is less common, for a couple of reasons at least, if not more. Number one, in this situation, I recommend it to the board to give up half my title. And then I also had to convince the board that they wanted to spend about twice as much money, on this layer of the organization, which I sold in by saying that simply, if what you want to do is simply maintain the organization that we have, then a co leadership model is not necessary and it's too expensive. The administrative load of me and another leader, in these roles would not demonstrate the ROI that you're going to need to have. If, however, you want to dramatically grow this organization in a way that can be sustained well beyond me and whomever else leads this organization at this time, then this is a future dated investment. Right now. It's a heavy load on a small nonprofit to have a co leadership model. But if in three years or five years or seven years from now, we're double, triple, quadruple the size that we are today, it'll be well well worth it. And so I asked the board to kind of make that choice. And in making that choice, it made the decision easier. I wish I could tell you I had a great model to look at for how this would work. I didn't, but I knew that, to be successful, it was going to need to be more than just alan and I, in this case, sharing a professional vision of what we thought Golden Apple could be in the future if we didn't authentically enjoy, if we weren't going to authentically enjoy working together with the frequency with which we would need to to make this model easy enough for the staff. And not confusing to our teams, as well as easy for the board because the board. This is a terrible phrase, but the board's want one throat to choke. They want one person to say you're accountable. This is the person I'm holding accountable for everything. So we knew we basically had to operate as one unit even though we were two people. [00:19:42][182.3]
Alan: [00:19:44] alan and I, you know, I would say tied into that. Our end of the year evaluation is jointly presented to our board. We we do not divide this up even though our roles are very much divided, although we work together incredibly closely. You know, the development work that labors under Alisha, the talent work that lives under Alisha, I just find incredibly painful. Yet you get me in front of some principals and some superintendents and, future teachers. I'm just, gaga. So it's. That's a really wonderful time. And so it is this complement of skills that we bring to it. And we set forth to our board as well as to others together and say, you know, this is what we do as one. And, you know, it wouldn't work if we didn't just talk and work things out all the time. That's what we do. [00:19:44][0.0]
Alicia: [00:20:37] It's just like a personal one. I'm sorry to step on your comment, Eileen, is that strength in communication? And Alan and I talk multiple times every day. We are in meetings together, jointly. Certainly we agree on a lot of things. We don't agree on everything. Just like no and no relationship. Do you agree? 100% of the time we work those things out primarily by ourselves. We come back aligned to the team and to the board in terms of how we want to move forward. [00:21:04][27.0]
Eileen Rochford: [00:21:05] Do you mind if I just ask? Brief aside, how do you handle conflict between the two of you? We get to. [00:21:12][7.0]
Alan: [00:21:12] It, we work it out. I mean, it's I don't I can't think of anything that we have had that either of us has wanted to die on the sword of. Yeah. You know, so it you know, if you have a shared vision, if you know the mission of the organization and you're working toward that, I really don't think there's anything unless ego gets in the way, that's going to stop you from reaching, at very least, consensus. [00:21:37][24.4]
Alicia: [00:21:38] And we've just surpassed six years of working together in this co leadership model. So it's not you know we're not in the honeymoon phase of this experience. we're beyond that. And and it continues to work. you know if somebody said well well what are the types of things you might disagree on? It's usually not the direction we're going. It might be the priority of things. Which thing do we do for second third, which is more urgent or more important in this particular, you know, context that we're in. And so those are the things we kind of wrestle and work out so that the team isn't feeling conflicted about what we're asking them to work on, or the board isn't confused about our strategic plan or our strategic priorities. [00:22:18][40.5]
Eileen Rochford: [00:22:19] Very good. You mentioned a moment ago communication in the context of of speaking to each other, to kind of work things out. And Alan, you did it as well as kind of that means to kind of get to the bottom of things. If you do have a little bit of conflict. What I'd like to explore next is when two voices are coming from the C-suite as as you two clearly are. How do you effectively communicate Apple's vision and values to the team, to the marketplace, and how do you ensure consistency in everything that they do, particularly your team? [00:22:51][32.1]
Alan: [00:22:52] No, I guess I'll jump in first. The, I think first of all, there is rail alignment, so it's easier to share that. But I will say that the one piece that it takes probably more time on is preparation. Before we meet with the team. You know, the the discussions that have to take place and where we're getting ready for an all staff retreat. Who is going to do what, you know, which part do you have? How are we? How are we messaging this. And we we work that out together. And there are times where we are in meetings separately where we will say, well, you know what relation I need to check in on this, Alan and I need to check in on this. So we come back to that alignment before we ever go back out to the team. We have a lot of meetings. We have a weekly staff meeting where we have everybody together. Basically the people from, who report to me report on one day, the other team the other day. But we have everybody together listening, finding alignment and how they communicate with one another as well. Alicia, what am I leaving out? [00:23:51][58.8]
Alicia: [00:23:51] Yeah, I, you know, that we we refer to that meeting that Alan was just speaking of as our huddle meeting, and I took this lesson from a really strong leader that I worked for in corporate America. His name is Gaspar Bonus. I mean, I'll give him credit. He did stand up huddle meetings. He's a 4 or 5 star general in the military. He ran Desert Storm logistics, and he would do, like, a 5 to 7 minute huddle meeting. Now, he had a bunch of rules that were employed, that you had to be able to complete that meeting standing. There was no sitting down. There was no lagging. It was very focused. We do that every single Monday morning. That's how we kick off our week with our team. And every single full time team member is present at that meeting every week. Even though, as Alan said, our agenda shifts, we then have longer, more deep, staff meetings where we might dive into a topic or two that we kind of need to work out with the team. But in addition to what Alan shared about just acknowledging where we need to connect and making sure he and I remain aligned, in front of and behind the team when we're separate. We also acknowledge very publicly in certain meetings because sometimes people just get it wrong. They'll say, Alicia, I want to know what Alicia thinks of this, but it's not my lead topic. It's Alan's will toss it back and forth to each other. Well, that's something that Alan takes the lead on. Cycle. Respond first, so we just reinforce the. All in terms of each of us staying true to our strengths and our lanes of traffic, while also demonstrating alignment to the team. And we're okay to sometimes communicate that we have different perspectives on something in front of the team. But ultimately then we will say, you know, but Alan is the lead on this item, so Alan will decide or Alisha's lead on this item. So it will be up to her. Where, where which, you know, direction we go in. And I think being very clear like that is important. We also depending on what other teams are present at work, we use a similar model. So I'll use the example that's related to our communications and PR work. We we happen to engage a number of PR firms and communications experts, from different geographies in our work. And we meet biweekly with all of those folks. And they in turn, in that meeting, have access to all of our chief program officers in each of the geographies we serve so that we stay tightly connected there. So even though I am specifically the lead on our communications and public relations and marketing work, and we have teams of contractors and consultants who work on that, topic, all of our operational program leadership is also present in those meetings to make sure we're not only, making the right decisions, but that everybody who needs to be engaged in executing against those decisions is present, informed, and can move forward expeditiously. So that that communication flows all the way through. We have a separate senior leadership team huddle where we work things out with the senior leadership team. That's another place where if there is a difference of perspective, a difference of opinion, a conflict between or among, different perspectives on how we should approach something with our larger team, we can work it out there. And then, of course, the traditional one on one type meetings, that you have as well, just to stay connected and, and make sure that everybody, really understands their accountabilities, and is making the necessary forward progress, on their goals. [00:27:16][205.4]
Rob Johnson: [00:27:17] There's a lot to unpack there, but that is that is truly amazing. So with the co leadership model that you have, what kind of culture have you fostered a golden apple. And why is the culture so crucial to your mission and your success? [00:27:29][12.4]
Alicia: [00:27:30] Alicia this has been a big deal. Because in the last I would say six years and especially through the pandemic, in the last 3 to 4 years, the pace of change at Golden Apple has accelerated dramatically. So we went from serving a few to several hundred program participants annually, to a few thousand annually in the last, few years. And that will grow exponentially in the next few years. Again. And to, to, to ensure that we're working towards our goals, but not the team isn't feeling so much pressure and stress that it gets in the way of productive relationships. We've we've made some statements that we continue to reinforce, all the time with the team. One is that we expect collaboration. So we rarely will accept an idea or accept, a decision or make a decision on something that only has one individual's input or one team's input. We expect collaboration. A second is that, we have said for some time together, we want people in as many cases as possible. And I know it sometimes can be hard, but assume positive intent. Assume that whatever has happened with communication with another individual, assume they had positive intentions. Maybe it didn't come come off the way it want that was best done, or that you wanted as the receiver of that communication, but assume that positive intent and try to stay positive because we have too much work to do to allow, contextual staff around emotion to get in the way of getting the work done. But there's a third that's really important. And that is, I think, to reinforce that, that not only do we expect a lot in terms of positive outcomes, but we care about the individuals in our Golden Apple community greatly. And we demonstrate that more importantly than words, words are a piece of this process. We demonstrate it with action. We recognize people's birthdays and golden apple anniversaries in our in our huddle meetings. Every week, we do some quirky things that we started doing during the pandemic just to make it a little more fun. We call it the bad Birthday song. We literally sing Happy Birthday to everyone on these calls. It's horrific in terms of tone, but the intention is there and and people painful. [00:29:58][148.5]
Alan: [00:29:59] So wonderful. Yeah. [00:30:00][0.8]
Alicia: [00:30:01] Yeah, people love it. We also have done some things sporadically, like, to keep that positivity and collaboration infusing music in some of our meetings. So we might ask somebody, hey, would you share, you know, a song that you're listening? Thing to to close out this meeting today, because many of us work virtually most of the time. And so you're missing that human element that that connection. And so we do fun stuff just to like, get in people's heads and have a little joy before we sign off of our huddle meeting. [00:30:30][29.5]
Eileen Rochford: [00:30:30] That's lovely. [00:30:31][0.2]
Alan: [00:30:31] Jump in on one thing that Alicia said the expectation is collaboration. I think we do that through modeling it, too. I think they see us working together, and that helps to align people from the education side to the operations side much more tightly. [00:30:47][15.5]
Eileen Rochford: [00:30:48] That's evident. I can just say as an outside observer, your collaboration is clear. And just from everything that you've described to our listeners today, the way that you go about working together, collaboration seems to be really your foundation of your professional relationship, which is, it's, very refreshing. And I thank you for sharing all the details about this with our listeners. I think everyone's going to learn a whole bunch today. I'm curious, how the heck did you guys get so good at being communicators? Because everything you've just described, everything I witness over the whole time that you've both been at this organization, I've been kind of on the sidelines, observing. So did you have great mentors? Did you have great bosses? Who were the people who influenced you to become so good at this? Tell us about them. [00:31:34][45.8]
Alan: [00:31:35] Oh my gosh. I would say that there are great examples and poor examples, and the poor examples are just as important. The when I was a teacher, the principles I had who would spring something on you at the last minute and you had no context for it, then, you know, I became an assistant principal and Jalali was my person who really could break things down, had the forest there, but at the same time, when people would come with individual issues that maybe were in conflict, really keeping the vision in mind, keeping that big idea at the fore so that we didn't get waylaid by the but what ifs. And so I think he was probably the, the greatest, had the greatest impact on me of anybody else along the way. [00:32:21][46.7]
Alicia: [00:32:22] And I, I would say I am grateful to have served under a number of fantastic leaders who are also great communicators, and the first was one of my first experiences in my professional career beyond, graduate school, which I worked in a small, internal consulting team that was a measurement assessment team, for a large corporation. And the vice president of that team, Sally Hartman, was her name, was an incredible communicator. Wanted to make sure that everybody felt cared for, that everybody had context for what they did. She worked harder than anybody else on the team, not only to do that, but to make sure that we were recognized as a team and integrated into the work we needed to be to to have an impact at the company we were serving, which at the time was about a $50 billion organization, annually. And so, you know, she really role model for me at an impressionable time in my mid-twenties, as I was just kind of launching my professional career, what it meant to be a great communicator. Like Alan said, there were many then that happen that occurred after that that, showed the other side of that. And then, you know, I just want to admit, like, professionally, I made my own share of mistakes that drove some of these points home when I failed to communicate well about something and didn't achieve the goal that was desired, not because the folks couldn't get it done, but because I didn't prepare them to get it done. And and so I think, you know, reflecting on your own successes and failures and learning from them and doing differently, intending and actually doing differently the next time, and then developing the right pattern of like preceding variables for success is really, really important as you grow and in your leadership that. [00:34:13][111.4]
Rob Johnson: [00:34:14] I love the candid introspection, Alicia, because that and I love what both of you said about here's somebody that did it right, here's somebody that did it wrong, because you really are the sum total of all of those experiences. So as we wrap things up here, what one important piece of advice would you give to others sitting in your chair, or who aspire to sit in or even to share the chair as you are doing professionally Alicia? [00:34:37][23.5]
Alicia: [00:34:39] One piece of advice do your best. Always take the time to meditate and reflect on what you've done and what you've accomplished, and why you think you've gotten A, B or C and why you didn't. Ask others for feedback along the way. Because no one is 100% self-aware. We don't see ourselves the same way other people see us. And hopefully if we're achieving a modicum of introspective success along the way, as we grow in our own skills, we are closing that gap between how we see ourselves and how others see us. As we mature professionally, but it's never completely overlapping, so I ask people for feedback along the way. Feedback is a gift, and those who are candid enough and courageous enough to give you the toughest feedback are the ones you need to hear from the most. [00:35:32][53.3]
Alan: [00:35:33] Yeah, I think I would, just echo so much of what Alicia said. Because we, we, share many views. But, the last thing I would say is, don't let your ego get in the way of what you're trying to accomplish. You know, it's that is, I think, the biggest problem that people have with whether it's co leadership, whether it's, you know, thinking that I am in charge. And so I have to be the one who, you know makes that decision may or may not listen to others. And if you let your ego get in the way with what you're trying to accomplish, you're probably going to have a tough row to hoe. [00:36:09][36.3]
Eileen Rochford: [00:36:10] Well, thank you, Alicia Winckler and Alan Mather. It feels so funny to use these formal titles to review, but for our listeners benefit. Elisa Winckler and Alan Mather, thank you so much for joining us today. I honestly, I, I appreciate I think I'll pull out two words of what you told us today, the reminders about honesty and humility the most for me personally. It's just it's always good to hear, particularly people whom I deeply respect. Talk about that as much as you did today. It's just a great reminder about, you know, how to how to live a good life. A thank you for being with us today, and congratulations on all of your success. You're doing a fantastic job. And, I'm just happy to be along for the ride as our team members at the Harvard Siggraph. So thank you for that. We've we like to be there with you. [00:36:57][47.4]
Alan: [00:36:57] Thank you so much. [00:36:58][0.6]
Alicia: [00:36:58] Again for having us. [00:36:59][0.9]
Rob Johnson: [00:37:00] It was it was absolutely our pleasure. And it's great to see authentic leadership because that's something we talk about a lot here and how important it is. And you all just embodied it today. So thank you. Well, that's going to do it for another edition of Can You Hear Me? I'm Rob Johnson. If you'd like to comment on the podcast or suggest a topic, please contact us at our Can You Hear Me podcast page, which you can find on LinkedIn. [00:37:22][22.5]
Eileen Rochford: [00:37:23] And I'm Eileen Rochford. If you like this show, please consider giving us a review of yours. We'd love to hear what you think you can find. The the review ability on any of the platforms where you find your podcasts. Because here's why reviews are important. Your reviews help other listeners possibly find the show, and we'd love to have more people benefit from hearing from guests like Alicia and Alan. So thanks very much, everybody. Till next time. [00:37:23][0.0]
[2148.5]