'On Writing Strategies' - The Similarities in Strategy Formation between the UK Government and Schools

Recently, the incredible Lawrence Freedman, one half of the Comment is Freed substack along with his son Sam Freedman, wrote an intriguing post, 'On Writing Strategy'. The post focused on how a new Government would conduct strategy document formation - from determining who is responsible for the document research and write-up, to the scope of the strategy and the level of blue-sky thinking which can occur. When I first came across the blog post, I squirrelled it away, because the similarities with school leadership were uncanny. The ways in which Senior Leadership has to create school-centric policy echoed so true with the ways in which Lawrence described central Government strategy formation. Within this blog, I don't necessarily provide any new insight into how school leaders should form strategy documents, but I do consider an alternative frame to the work that leaders have to do on a daily basis.

Framing the Need for Strategy

Lawrence begins with a consideration of the framing that new strategy documents can take. In any organisation, there are those that will speak up for continuity (and complacency), as well as those who will be demanding radical change, reform and reappraisal. Often, leaders want to be seen in the second category. Change is often viewed as good, and any-how, no leader wants to be seen without having new ideas or to only be acting in a reactive or improvised manner.

But framing the need for a new strategy is complex. I've summarised the main parts of what Lawrence said.

We've all worked in schools where the staff body have displayed one of these negative reactions to the perceived need for new strategy. Why, we've probably been in those groups ourselves. But what it does demonstrate is the difficulty which we have with framing new strategies that we are bringing into a complex organisation, like a school.

Getting Strategy Right

Lawrence provides some help, though, concluding that the best strategy document will have a clear audience, tackle a real problem, and be simple enough (to avoid going awry from the true issue at hand). Once again, education can often be over-complicated, so stripping it back to the core of problem and solution is ideal.

Notably for leaders is Lawrence's consideration of over-exaggerated documents. A new proposal may sound exciting, but if it is not possible to implement, because the capacities required (which in schools is often time, money, expertise or teaching capacity) are not there, then the whole process can be discredited. In a school, where a new policy is introduced but flops due to poor planning (i.e. one of these key capacity requirements is not available), staff buy-in to the next proposal will be lessened.

Another key consideration building from this, is outside-the-box thinking. Though this may seem fanciful, sometimes radicalism is needed. However, sometimes stepping outside of the box can mean stepping outside the realm of reality. As Lawrence quips, outside-the-box thinking is only good if you remember why there is a box there in the first instance!

Audience Access

Though Government policies are more likely to be formally leaked, that is to papers and so forth, school strategy documents can also get leaked. No educator who has worked in schools for any length of time has avoided hearing rumours of what the leadership team are going to do next or that someone has seen the new strategy document lying on so-and-so's desk.

The same risk that Government faces can occur for schools too. Where information is leaked, it provides an opportunity for a group of individuals to mobilise opposition - which is especially easy where any document has been leaked in snippets or is in draft form.

A further consideration is audience, because as Lawrence writes, easily available documents need to limit what is said about problems and risks. In practice, an optimistic and positive stance is still required.

Implementation

Everything in education seems to come back to implementation, and why wouldn't it. There's little point in strategy documents if nothing changes (for the better). Lawrence makes this point, where he considers how leaders need to demonstrate that the new strategy document needs to be taken seriously. There are a couple of key ways. The first is through real restructuring - that is the removal or merger of units, or, in the context of a school, the removal or tweaking of other requirements placed on staff. The second is funding. Where a leadership team place money behind their idea, it demonstrates that they 'mean business'.

In the same way that Government has to consider its level of control, so does a school. How much control ought the centre have, and how much authority can be delegated? This debate around structure and agency is everything, especially where further tension can be caused through conflicting objectives.

Conclusions

Lawrence concludes his post with a consideration of what strategy really is. He writes that strategy really ought to be considered a verb, rather than a noun, for it is the process of "acting strategically" that matters - addressing problems at hand, acknowledging trade-offs, flagging up awkward consequences and the like. The same is true for school leaders. A strategy document means nothing, unless you are constantly acting strategically yourself.