Burn the Boats!

Have you ever been faced with a situation in which you were not sure you could get full support from your team?  A situation that required complete buy-in from all constituents, yet you doubted standard operating procedures would garner that support?  Well, I have a strategy for you!  I know how to get the support you need—burn the boats!

                Hernan Cortes arrived in Mexico in early 1519 on shaky ground.  His commission legalizing his trip to Mexico has been canceled and he doubted the loyalty of his men.  He was a long way from home, his support was dwindling, and failure looked inevitable, so he burned the boats.  Now, there truly was no turning back; no way to head home,  Cortes left them with no choice but to press on.  He took away any safety net his men believed they had and gave them no choice but to continue to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and face down the most-feared warriors in the area.  No matter what you think of Cortes, he was successful implementing this strategy given that he went on to conquer the Aztec empire and four years later he was named Governor and Captain-General of New Spain.

                Last year was my first year as a school leader and with the support of my administrative team, we decided to burn the boats.  We wanted our school community to know we were serious about academic achievement.  We wanted them to believe us when we said it was unacceptable for any students to fail.  I saw the eyes rolling and the looks between some staff members when we told them it was unacceptable for students to fail.  Moreover, we knew that some of our students had heard this message before and believed they could always rely upon summer school to get to the next grade.  We knew all of this, so we figuratively burned the boats.  I spent the money we allocated for summer school.  Technically I reallocated it and informed our staff and students we were going to do it right the first time and not have a need for summer school.  We did this knowing that over 30% of our students were retained or had to attend summer school the previous year.  In short, we gave them no other options.  Did it work?  Last year we promoted 99.9925% of our students to the following grade and had an aggregate academic average of 83%.  If you really want to get something done, burn the boats.  Give people no other option but to press on and move forward.  Burn the boats: make failure painful and most people will work their tails off to avoid it.