Partners in Thought® Support for

Educators and Schools

Educational institutions are organizations with the most unique challenges addressed by Partners in Thought® coaching.  Beyond the issues common to most for-profit and nonprofit enterprises, public and private schools and school districts additionally benefit, and are challenged by, the following:

• Schools operate more horizontally than most organizations, with decisions generally derived from consensus rather than through hierarchical processes.

• The “clients” or “customers” of the school are not always obvious.  Instead of serving just students, the educational institution can also be seen to serve the parents, taxpayers, communities, society, and sometimes even the faculty itself.

• Students are customers who often don’t know what they want, or want what they need.  Same with parents.

• Schools, as institutions, are relatively more resistant to change than other enterprises, largely because of formal rules, cognitive pillars based on assumed orthodoxy, and entrenched social norms.  Most schools are employing the same general approach to education that was developed to serve the industrial revolution.

• Innovation and experimentation are seen as risky because the subjects of educational experiments are our children and young adults.

• Educators are underpaid.

• Educators have the opportunity to change the world.

In addition to particular education issues and goals, Partners in Thought® services support domains that affect organizations in general, including organizational development; nonprofit and public agencies; organizational and individual transitions ; people skills, leadership and management; meeting and retreat planning and facilitation; making tough decisions; managing stress and time; and development of individual happiness and fulfillment.

Partners in Thought® head coach, Jeff Schneider, carries particular expertise, experience, and insights as to educational institutions.  As a teacher, professor, school board president, student, and Master of Education from Harvard, Jeff has shown his passion for and understanding of educational enterprises.