Searching for a New Head of School? Hit "Strategic Pause" First

MIKE CONNOR

Mike Connor

Mike is President of Connor Associates and co-author of the NAIS book, Marketing Independent Schools in the 21st Century.  His latest e-Book, Pulling in the Same Direction, emphasizes everyone’s role in recruitment, retention, and fundraising.

Earlier in his 30+ year career Mike worked in nearly every position at independent K-12 schools. Today, Connor Associates has 16 Associates and Partners and has served clients in 28 states and on four continents.

Connor Associates stakes its value on its experience with providing comprehensive marketing and financial services, including ensuring proof of ROI through confidential Image Audits and Surveys, Enrollment Feasibility Studies to identify and map mission-appropriate families, Five-year Enrollment Forecasts, Business Office Evaluations and Plans, Strategic Marketing Plans, and Institutional Strategic Plans. 

Connor Associates’ newest offering, Executive Searches, uses a unique approach that finds, trains, and provides coaching and support for members of your leadership team.

Thom Greenlaw

Thom Greenlaw

After serving not for profit organizations for over 40 years Thom Greenlaw founded Creative Independents (CI) in 2012. CI serves not-for-profit schools, colleges and other education focused institutions finding creative solutions to strategic issues facing these organizations. Thom joined Connor Associates as a Senior Strategic Partner for Finance, Operations, and Executive Searches in 2018. In addition to coordinating Leadership Searches, he specializes in Compensation Analysis, Tuition Elasticity, and Financial Sustainability Studies. 

For over 20 years Thom served in varying senior operational and finance roles in independent schools including thirteen years as Assistant Head for Operation / CFO at the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, MA. Prior to his employment at BB&N, Thom served as Business Manager at the Dana Hall School. A former Board member for NBOA and AISAP, he also served on the Board of Summit Montessori School and was a volunteer mentor, specializing in not for profits for SCORE. He was President of The Independent Schools Compensation Corporation, a self-insurance group for over 170 independent schools, colleges and cultural organizations from 2012 to 2022. 

Mike and Thom Quoted

“What we advocate is a strategic pause, possibly with an energetic interim head, not just a placeholder, before jumping into the search for a new longer term head…this should be an official policy as opposed to adopting the hiring of an interim head as a necessity because of timing.”

“Best practice used to be that new Heads come on board, and you leave them alone for a year until they find the way around. What we're proposing is something different, which is to continue to do the good work and prepare the school and ahead for success.”

“What we're suggesting is that the interim period can be up to two years.”

“What we're asking schools to do during this period of time is something akin to a self evaluation for an accreditation: legal issues, forecasts for enrollment, financial modeling, [assessment of] deferred maintenance, access to our campus and make it safe, compensation analysis…”

“We do an internal audit first to see who the school thinks it is. And then we talk to matriculating schools, sending schools, community influencers in a position to refer families, alumni and alumni, parents, admission funnel families, our reporting groups that the school sees as its external relationships, so that they can tell the school this is who we think you are.”

“When you get the evidence from your alumni and parents…80% of them will say that the value was far greater or equal to the cost that they paid.”

What You’ll Learn

• There are three kids of interim heads:

  • Placesitter — usually somebody who's a long-serving administrator and the board says, “Here are the keys. Just don't screw it up.”

  • Rising Administrator — The board will say, “Let's give this person a chance and let's see what happens.” Then that person usually becomes a candidate for the permanent role, and hard feelings happen when, inevitably, that person doesn't get the job.

  • Professional Interim — Somebody who's chosen as their life's work, or at least at this stage of their career, the opportunity to be able to do a series of interim heads in a strategic way to be able to help schools with a variety of circumstances in bulk.

• How to get the most out of the transition period.

• What not to do during the transition period.

• How long it takes to hire a new Head of School.

• How to set a roadmap for a successful search and successful transition to the new Head of School.

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