The big U-turn.

The big U-turn. In the 1990s Continental Airlines was struggling, even more thanits troubled U.S. airline peers. As the company's then-presidentGreg Brenneman Greg Blumfield Brenneman is the CEO of TurnWorks, a private equity firm, and president and CEO of Quiznos Sub, a fast-food sandwich chain. Brenneman also serves on the board of directors of The Home Depot, Inc.. explained in a 1998 article in the Harvard BusinessReview Harvard Business Review is a general management magazine published since 1922 by Harvard Business School Publishing, owned by the Harvard Business School. A monthly research-based magazine written for business practitioners, it claims a high ranking business readership and (HBR HBR Harvard Business ReviewHBR HarborHBR High Bit RateHBR Human Behavioral RepresentationHBR Heijmans Blackwell RemediationHBR Hydrobromide AcidHBR House Budget ResolutionHBR Hybrid Block RepairHBR Host-Based Replication ), "Continental ranked tenth out of the ten largest U.S.airlines in all key customer service areas as measured by the Departmentof Transportation: on-time arrivals, baggage handling, customercomplaints, and involuntary denied boardings." The airline hadalready been in bankruptcy twice, and was headed for a third round asits cash dried up. In 1994, Gordon Bethune Gordon M. Bethune (born August 1941) is the chairman of the board of Aloha Airgroup, parent company of Aloha Airlines. He was CEO of Continental Airlines from 1994 until his retirement at the end of 2004. From 1996 on, he also served as chairman of the board at that airline. took the helm, with Brennemanbecoming president and chief operating officer Chief Operating Officer (COO)The officer of a firm responsible for day-to-day management, usually the president or an executive vice-president. . They staved offbankruptcy by renegotiating with their creditors. And they launched anorganizational turnaround that proved remarkably successful, catapultingContinental from worst to best among big U.S. carriers. By 1995, Continental was moving up on the Department ofTransportation's (DOT's) performance measures (see Figure 1).Its stock price was soaring. And the turnaround stuck. The latestrankings by Consumer Reports place Continental first among the seven bigU.S. airlines. Zagat's 2007 survey of frequent flyers frequent flyerHospital practice A popular term for a Pt who is regularly admitted to a particular ER or health care facility, for various reasons found overallratings for the big airlines were low and declining, with the"notable exception" of Continental. Continental was the onlybig airline, and one of only five overall, to be a Zagat Top Spot. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] The mid-'90s were also a time for change in New York'spolice department (NYPD NYPD New York City Police Department (since 1845; New York City, NY, USA)NYPD New York Play Development ). As W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne describe intheir 2003 HBR case study, "Turf wars over jurisdiction and fundingwere rife rife?adj. rif��er, rif��est1. In widespread existence, practice, or use; increasingly prevalent.2. Abundant or numerous. . Officers were underpaid un��der��paid?v.Past tense and past participle of underpay.underpaidAdjectivenot paid as much as the job deservesunderpaidadj → relative to their counterparts inneighboring neigh��bor?n.1. One who lives near or next to another.2. A person, place, or thing adjacent to or located near another.3. A fellow human.4. Used as a form of familiar address.v. communities. ... Crime had gotten so far out of hand thatthe press referred to the Big Apple as the Roten Apple." Inresponse, then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani hired William Bratton to lead theNYPD, fresh from a string of successful turnarounds of other agencies,including NYC's transit police Transit police also known as transport police or transit enforcement, is a specialized police agency or unit employed by a common carrier, which could be a railroad, bus line, other transport carrier, or the state. . Though crime rates in NYC NYCabbr.New York CityNYCNew York City had started to decline in the late 1980s,Bratton's arrival accelerated the trend (see Figure 2). Time wrotein a 1996 cover story, "The drop became a giddy double-digitaffair, plunging farther and faster than it has done anywhere else inthe country, faster than any cultural or demographic trend couldexplain. For two years, crime has declined in all 76 precincts pre��cinct?n.1. a. A subdivision or district of a city or town under the jurisdiction of or patrolled by a specific unit of its police force.b. ." AsKim and Mauborgne note, the change wasn't just a flash in the panor a nationwide trend: "Statistics released in December 2002revealed that New York's overall crime rate [was] the lowest amongthe 25 largest cities in the United States United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. ." [FIGURE 2 OMITTED] Finding the Keys These turnarounds are classic: rapid U-turns from the brink of doomto stellar success. They may not last forever. But if a failing schoolcould achieve similar results for several years, thousands of studentswould benefit permanently. How did they happen? This article explainswhat we know, from plentiful cross-sector research, about how toengineer turnarounds within existing organizations. It then identifiestwo critical policy issues that states and districts must address toaccelerate the prevalence of real, successful turnarounds in education. Education reformers faced with failing schools and districts tendtoward one of two camps: The Incrementalists hold that meaningfulimprovement can only happen slowly, with soul-wrenching culture changeleading to instructional change and eventual student success. The CleanSlate Noun 1. clean slate - an opportunity to start over without prejudicefresh start, tabula rasachance, opportunity - a possibility due to a favorable combination of circumstances; "the holiday gave us the opportunity to visit Washington"; "now is your chance" Club believes the only way to fix failing schools is to shut themdown and start fresh, with entirely new rules, staff, and leadership. Both camps have it wrong, but for different reasons. The slow andsteady approach won't work for chronically failing organizations.The fresh-start method is much more promising, based on the dramaticsuccess of some newly formed schools serving tough populations. But moststart-ups fail or bump along in the purgatory purgatory(pûrg`ətôr'ē)[Lat.,=place of purging], in the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, the state after death in which the soul destined for heaven is purified. of mediocrity me��di��oc��ri��ty?n. pl. me��di��oc��ri��ties1. The state or quality of being mediocre.2. Mediocre ability, achievement, or performance.3. One that displays mediocre qualities. , even insectors that, unlike education, enjoy abundant venture capital and aready stable of capable entrepreneurs. Moreover, troubled organizationsacross sectors regularly transform themselves from bad to great withouta clean slate. The consequence of education's failure to recognizeturnarounds as a means of school improvement is twofold: in education,turnarounds have been tried rarely and studied even less. Whileeducation researchers catch up, practitioners can use the turnaroundlessons of other sectors. Essential Actions To identify what makes turnarounds successful, we reviewed dozensof studies across a wide range of organizations: nonprofits of differingsizes, some in highly regulated industries such as health care;government agencies with varying missions; and for-profits in numerousindustries. Case studies of single turnarounds comprise most of thisresearch, including studies of both large, stand-alone entities andsmall units within larger organizations, closer in size to schools. Theturnaround precursors, patterns of action, and chronically challengingenvironments we found were surprisingly consistent across these variedvenues, bolstering their potential relevance to both districts andschools. Turnarounds were attempted when organizations were failing bymany measures, not just financial metrics metricsManaged care A popular term for standards by which the quality of a product, service, or outcome of a particular form of Pt management is evaluated. See TQM. . While this article uses the well-documented Continental Airlinesand NYPD cases as illustrations, what happened in these twoorganizations is similar to what we saw across the research. We codedthe cases from this broad research to reveal two overall successfactors. First, turnaround leaders work in an environment that gives themwhat we call "the big yes." Second, bad-to-greattransformations require a point-guard leader who both drives key changesand deftly deft?adj. deft��er, deft��estQuick and skillful; adroit. See Synonyms at dexterous.[Middle English, gentle, humble, variant of dafte, foolish; see daft. influences stakeholders StakeholdersAll parties that have an interest, financial or otherwise, in a firm-stockholders, creditors, bondholders, employees, customers, management, the community, and the government. to support and engage in dramatictransformation. To be sure, staff help effect a turnaround, but theleader is the unapologetic driver of change in successful turnarounds.Effective turnaround leaders follow a formula of common actions thatspur dramatic improvement. The actions interact to move the organizationrapidly toward impressive, mission-determined results that influencestakeholders to support additional change. Below, we explain the sixmost consistent actions in the bad-to-great formula and provide anexample of what each action might entail in school and districtturnarounds. Focus on a Few Early Wins Successful turnaround leaders choose a few high-priority goals withvisible payoffs and use early success to gain momentum. While these"wins" are limited in scope, they are high-priority, notperipheral, elements of organization performance. Early wins arecritical for motivating staff and disempowering naysayers. At Continental, Bethune and Brenneman initially focused on whatBrenneman calls "the customers in seat 9C, the business travelerswho book the aisle seats aisle seataisle n → place f c?t�� couloiraisle seataisle n → Sitz m am Gangaisle seatn (on plane in the front of the plane. They pay full fare,and they travel a lot." To win these customers back, Continentallaunched a massive effort to refurbish re��fur��bish?tr.v. re��fur��bished, re��fur��bish��ing, re��fur��bish��esTo make clean, bright, or fresh again; renovate.re��fur airplanes inside and out,recarpet their terminals, and upgrade food service, all in six monthsrather than the four years originally estimated. These changes might seem merely cosmetic. But in fact theyaddressed a major concern of the customers most important to theairline's success. And the upgrades built positive momentum forfurther change. As Brenneman recalls, employees "could see seniormanagement finally taking the actions they knew had been needed foryears." For a demoralized de��mor��al��ize?tr.v. de��mor��al��ized, de��mor��al��iz��ing, de��mor��al��iz��es1. To undermine the confidence or morale of; dishearten: an inconsistent policy that demoralized the staff. organization, this kind ofmission-focused early win is vital to convincing the team that it can infact be successful. At NYPD, Bratton initially launched an effort to crack down onminor offenders. While their offenses weren't the city'sbiggest crime issues, the effort helped convince skeptical citizens andofficers that the police could make a difference. In schools, early wins must tackle similarly visible goalsessential to the learning mission. An elementary school elementary school:see school. might aim toraise reading scores to within one grade level of year-end goals for 90percent of 5th graders by the first semester's end. This ischallenging in schools where many children are multiple grade levelsbehind. But it is achievable, as many cases of high-poverty start-upschools have demonstrated, and a necessary step toward achievinggrade-level pass rates at year's end. All other changes can supportthis goal. Imagine the impact when teachers realize that the school neednever again graduate a class of non-readers. A district also must focus early wins on student learning to fitthe turnaround formula, perhaps by adopting similar goals for one subsetof struggling children or a few low-performing schools. To achieve thegoals, the district must then tackle barriers blocking success for thosestudents or schools. For example, a district might arrange to providetargeted schools with materials online to work around book shortages orimprove dramatically their access to interim assessment data. Suchonline materials, assessment data, and other changes in districtmanagement systems are not themselves "early wins," They mustbe used as tools to achieve rapid academic results and convincestakeholders that additional focused change will produce more success. Break Organization Norms In a failing organization, existing practices contribute tofailure. Successful turnaround leaders break rules and norms. Deviatingto achieve early wins shows that new action gets new results. In response to Continental's financial struggles, anentrenched en��trench? also in��trenchv. en��trenched, en��trench��ing, en��trench��esv.tr.1. To provide with a trench, especially for the purpose of fortifying or defending.2. norm of cost cutting pervaded the organization. As Brennemanexplains, the company's "myopic my��o��pi��a?n.1. A visual defect in which distant objects appear blurred because their images are focused in front of the retina rather than on it; nearsightedness. Also called short sight.2. focus" on costs had ledto perverse tactics: skimping 'skimping'Managed care The delaying or denial of services to members of a prepaid or 'capped' health plan, to control costs–because the monies received by the health plan remain constant, providing 'extra' services is more costly to the plan. See Skimming, Capitation. on cabin air conditioning air conditioning,mechanical process for controlling the humidity, temperature, cleanliness, and circulation of air in buildings and rooms. Indoor air is conditioned and regulated to maintain the temperature-humidity ratio that is most comfortable and healthful. and flying moreslowly to cut fuel use; removing high-revenue first-class seats tosqueeze in more passengers; and eliminating corporate discounts even forthe airline's top customers. Brenneman calls the result a"doom loop. By focusing only on costs, the airline had created aproduct no one wanted to buy." Declining revenues sparked moreill-advised cost cutting, such as morale-sapping wage reductions. When Bethune and Brenneman took over, they pursued strategies thatactually increased costs, like the plane and terminal upgrades. Theairline started paying employees more, based on performance. For everymonth the airline finished in the DOT's top five for on-timearrivals, each employee received $65. The on-time bonuses cost thecompany $3 million per month, but improving the on-time record boostedoverall financials by an estimated $8 to $9 million per month. Like many large organizations, Continental had accumulated hundredsof regulations. The result was a nine-inch-thick tome known as the"Thou Shalt shalt?aux.v. ArchaicA second person singular present tense of shall. Not" book. A central part of leadership'splan was to free employees to do what was needed to solve problems andmeet customers' needs. To make the point, the executives took acopy of the book into the parking lot, soaked it with gasoline, andtorched it in front of a crowd of employees. Bratton, too, made a practice of norm busting. At NYPD, he soonlearned that only 5 percent of the budget went to narcotics narcoticsn. 1) techinically, drugs which dull the senses. 2) a popular generic term for drugs which cannot be legally possessed, sold, or transported except for medicinal uses for which a physician or dentist's prescription is required. forces, eventhough a high percentage of crimes were drug-linked. The reason? Anassumption that the department's top priority was responding to 911calls, rather than to the kind of long-term, preemptive pre��emp��tiveor pre-emp��tive ?adj.1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of preemption.2. Having or granted by the right of preemption.3. a. work done by thenarcotics unit. In addition, the narcotics squad worked Monday throughFriday, while narcotics activities and related crime soared on weekends.One of Bratton's early actions was a major reallocation Noun 1. reallocation - a share that has been allocated againallocation, allotment - a share set aside for a specific purpose2. reallocation of staffand resources into narcotics, including shifting officers' time toweekends. In an elementary school, the leader might bend time-use norms byhaving teachers provide rolling reading instruction as children arriveon buses in the morning. Rescheduling classroom volunteers intolunch-hour chaperoning could replace lost morning teacher-planning time.This schedule adjustment would add one to three weekly instructionalhours per child in many schools. For districts, delivering individualized in��di��vid��u��al��ize?tr.v. in��di��vid��u��al��ized, in��di��vid��u��al��iz��ing, in��di��vid��u��al��iz��es1. To give individuality to.2. To consider or treat individually; particularize.3. reading assessment andinstruction to every classroom via technology, for example, wouldrequire veering from textbook and technology budgets, as these lineitems are typically separate. Shifting dollars can ignite turf battles,because budgets are often equated with number of staff positions and jobimportance of district department leaders. The key is making thelearning goal the organization's clear priority. Push Rapid-Fire Experimentation Turnaround leaders press a fast cycle of trying new tactics,discarding failed tactics, and investing more in what works. They resisttouting toutingthe making of personal representations by a veterinarian to persons who are not clients in an attempt to solicit their business. mere progress as ultimate success. Bratton's most famous innovation was the introduction of theCompstat system, short for computer statistics, which provided everyonefrom precinct A constable's or police district. A small geographical unit of government. An election district created for convenient localization of polling places. A county or municipal subdivision for casting and counting votes in elections. PRECINCT. staff to top brass with detailed statistics and mapsshowing how patterns of crime and law enforcement actions played out indifferent places and over time. The system made possible big,department-wide strategic decisions, like the reallocation of resources The provision of logistic resources by the military forces of one nation from those deemed "made available" under the terms incorporated in appropriate NATO documents, to the military forces of another nation or nations as directed by the appropriate military authority. to narcotics work. Perhaps more important was the system's value for precinctcommanders as a day-to-day management tool. The Time cover story onBratton begins with an account of a semiweekly sem��i��week��ly?adj.Issued or occurring twice a week.n. pl. sem��i��week��liesA semiweekly event or publication.adv.Twice weekly. See Usage Note at bi-1.Noun 1. Compstat meeting, inwhich a precinct commander is grilled about a rise in robberies and hisresponse. New problems demand new strategies, and the Compstat meetingswere designed to keep that fast cycle of response-measure-adjust going. In a school, the leader might redeploy re��de��ploy?tr.v. re��de��ployed, re��de��ploy��ing, re��de��ploys1. To move (military forces) from one combat zone to another.2. a motivated,technology-capable staff person to provide Compstat-style reports ofstudent-by-student, teacher-by-teacher, grade-by-grade results onmandatory quizzes. This effort would provide the fodder fodderfeed for herbivorous animals, usually used to describe dried leafy material such as hay. See also forage.fodder beeta root crop grown solely as a source of feed for cattle, possibly sheep. for makingchanges before semester's end. Most important, each person and teamwould receive timely data about the progress of students for whom eachis accountable. In a district, new interim assessment data would provide feedbackabout what schools, grades, and student subgroups are meeting goals.Slow progress would be a trigger for district organizers to do someproblem solving problem solvingProcess involved in finding a solution to a problem. Many animals routinely solve problems of locomotion, food finding, and shelter through trial and error. . Get the Right Staff, Right the Remainder Successful turnaround leaders typically do not replace all or evenmost staff at the start, but they often replace some key leaders whohelp organize and drive change. For remaining staff, change ismandatory, not optional. At Continental, cleaning house at the top ofthe organization was a big part of the turnaround. Of 61 officers,Bethune and Brenneman showed 50 the door. Some housecleaning house��clean��ing?n.1. The cleaning and tidying of a house and its contents.2. Informal Removal of unwanted personnel, methods, or policies in an effort at reform or improvement. took placeat lower levels as well, but an organization with 40,000 employeescan't possibly transform itself by swapping out all of its people. Continental's new "people strategy" focused onmaking dramatic change mandatory for employees already in theirpositions. When the maintenance department told Brenneman that plane andterminal upgrades, his key "early win," was a four-yearproject, Brenneman insisted on his six-month schedule: he'd findsomeone else to do the work if the maintenance department wasn't upto the job. As it turns out, the department was up to the job, once itwas clear that change was mandatory. Bratton also mostly replaced leaders, not the rank and file. His"number two" was a veteran officer who knew everyone atheadquarters. One of his first jobs was to help Bratton identify membersof top staff likely to oppose or seek to undermine his reforms, leadingto what Kim and Mauborgne call "a dramatic changing of theguard." Bratton did replace half of his precinct commanders, butnot immediately. The turnover grew out of the Compstat process. As Timewrote in 1996 on Bratton,"Effective precinct commanders ... merelyget grilled to a medium rare at Compstat. Those who show up unprepared,without coherent strategies to reduce crime, are fried crisp, thenstripped of their commands." Swapping out people was core toBratton's approach, but it followed from his turnaround effortsrather than preceding them. In a school, the total staff replacement advocated by the CleanSlate Club would not be necessary. While not every teacher would bewilling and able to do what's needed, most would rise to theoccasion. The rest typically reveal themselves during the "earlywin" phase and must then be removed. The most important early staff decision would be the selection ofan organizer to drive the action plan. The per son might or might not beselected from the current staff and might be given power exceeding theperson's current title and tenure. This individual would ensure,for example, that analysis of student progress and instructional problemsolving happened regularly, timed with the quiz schedule. For a district turnaround, the superintendent would need to tap atrusted leader who could cut through the usual district machinery. Thisleader's team would need to include additional organizers who couldfocus on implementation issues In the Business world, companies frequently set-up a connection between which they transfer data. When the connection is being set-up, it is referred to as implementation. When issues occur during this phase, they are known as implementation issues. in targeted schools or studentpopulations, and each of these people would need to be accountable forlearning success among their assigned students. The superintendent mightalso replace critical department leaders from the start, making room forteam members who can drive change. Drive Decisions with Open-Air Data Successful turnaround leaders are focused, fearless data hounds.They choose their initial goals based on rigorous analysis. They reportkey staff results visibly and often. All staff who participate indecisionmaking are required to share periodic results in open-airsessions, shifting discussions from excuse making and blaming to problemsolving. Again, Bratton's Compstat meetings are a powerful example.These regular gatherings brought together top brass with all 76 precinctcommanders, the police force's key line managers. At every meeting,one commander took the hot seat, facing questions about theprecinct's performance that emerged from the Compstat data. How wasthe precinct working to solve the problems the data revealed? Why wasperformance going down on some key metrics? The result was what Kim and Mauborgne call "a culture ofperformance. ... An incompetent commander could no longer cover up hisfailings by blaming ... neighboring precincts, because his neighborswere in the room and could respond. By the same token, the meetings gavehigh achievers a chance to be recognized." Some commanders usedsimilar tactics within their own precincts, extending the new culture. Bethune and Brenneman, too, used data to drive change. As they werepoised to assume the leadership of Continental, the twosome met overdinner for a week, poring Poring is a small tourist resort in Sabah, Malaysia. Located 40 km south-east of the Kinabalu National Park Headquarters, in the district of Ranau, Poring is situated in lowland rainforest, contrasting with the montane and submontane rainforest of Kinabalu National Park. over data and writing down "everythingthat was wrong with Continental." The result was a set of some 15key metrics that the pair decided to track rigorously and publicly overtime and compare with those of their competitors. Results on thesemetrics, good and bad, became the central focus of a massivecommunications campaign that leadership launched inside and outside thecompany. "Using data to drive instruction" has become such amantra mantra(măn`trə, mŭn–), in Hinduism and Buddhism, mystic words used in ritual and meditation. A mantra is believed to be the sound form of reality, having the power to bring into being the reality it represents. in public education that it's important to pause here andexplain how data strategies in successful turnarounds differ fromtypical K-12 data systems. The keys are using the right data to drivechange and requiring all relevant staff to put their data on display inan open-air forum and then face tough questions (and helpful problemsolving). The process helps people improve their practice, but it alsotransforms the culture. In a school, staff capable of leading instructional change forlearning results would be identified by student progress data. Those notcapable of leading or accomplishing instructional change would beidentified as well. The progress data would provide the school leaderwith a guide to the staff changes that would further improve studentlearning, and the achievement of early goals would help build supportfor such changes. In a district, progress reports would enable the leader to evaluatethe school-level leaders and district team members responsible forimplementing changes by tracking the results achieved for defined groupsof students within or across schools. Each of the staff leaders affectedwould need to be included in regularly scheduled meetings to presenttheir own performance data for discussion. Lead a Turnaround Campaign Successful turnaround leaders know that change of any kind is hardand that people resist it for many reasons unrelated to success. Leadersuse a consistent combination of motivating and maneuvering tactics thatinclude communicating a positive vision of success; helping staffpersonally feel the problems customers feel; working through keyinfluencers; and silencing critics with speedy success of early wins,thereby casting vocal naysayers as champions of failure. Continental's leadership orchestrated or��ches��trate?tr.v. or��ches��trat��ed, or��ches��trat��ing, or��ches��trates1. To compose or arrange (music) for performance by an orchestra.2. a "forgivenesscampaign" to apologize to its unhappy customers. Officers, from theCEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. through the vice presidents, divided complaint letters and startedplacing calls. Each officer took a city served by Continental andcontacted travel agents and corporate customers. Saying"sorry" was part of the script, but the other was outliningthe airline's bold plan to fix problems. "We heard our shareof shouting," recalls Brenneman, but he argues that the campaignhelped reverse the "doom loop" by convincing many customersthat change was happening. Of course, this communication onslaught onlyworked because leader ship had results to show, flowing from its earlywins. According to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. Kim and Mauborgne, one of Bratton's specialtieswas putting managers face to face with the operational problems as a wayof convincing them, in ways that no amount of memos, speeches, andPowerPoint presentations could, of the change imperative. As head of theNYC transit police, Bratton had famously fa��mous��ly?adv.1. In a way or to an extent that is well known: "his famously neurotic mannerisms [are]lampooned in the novels of Evelyn Waugh"battled complacency com��pla��cen��cy?n.1. A feeling of contentment or self-satisfaction, especially when coupled with an unawareness of danger, trouble, or controversy.2. An instance of contented self-satisfaction. byrequiring all senior managers to ride the sub way to work and meetings,including at night, and did so himself. At NYPD, Bratton hired John Miller, an investigative journalist, tolead his communications efforts, both inside and outside of the force.And he needed all the help he could get. One key "early win,"processing small "quality of life" crimes, was nearly scuttledby court officials who feared these cases would clog the dockets. Byallying with the mayor and running a smart media campaign, Brattonframed the issue as make or break for NYC's future, causingjudicial leaders' concerns to appear selfish and petty. Thestrategy worked. In both schools and districts, leaders and their teams would needto analyze the required involvement and likely reaction of allstakeholders: school and district staff, parents, students, unions, andcommunity members. At the start, most stakeholder stakeholdern. a person having in his/her possession (holding) money or property in which he/she has no interest, right or title, awaiting the outcome of a dispute between two or more claimants to the money or property. groups would feel thattheir power was being reduced as the turnaround leader focused sharplyon early-win goals. Leaders would need to communicate clearly howsuccess would affect children's later learning and work prospects.They would need to find ways for staff to empathize em��pa��thizev.To feel empathy in relation to another person. with childrenexperiencing slow or no change. And they would need to identify vocalsupporters and work with them to rally others to advocate for change.Most important, the leaders would need to achieve naysayer nay��say?tr.v. nay��said , nay��say��ing, nay��saysTo oppose, deny, or take a pessimistic or negative view of: They will naysay any policy that raises taxes. support orsilence by accomplishing early student-learning gains. The Turnaround Environment These six key actions recur in story after story of successfulturn-arounds. But don't turnaround leaders also need a supportiveenvironment? Yes and no. Some conditions prove to be not that valuable,or even detrimental. Some scholars, for example, conclude that too muchmoney dooms turnaround efforts, by diluting leader attention rather thanfocusing it on early wins. One environmental condition is critical. Turnaround leaders need a"big yes," a clear nod from the top in support of dramaticchange, even if it causes discomfort and political fallout fallout,minute particles of radioactive material produced by nuclear explosions (see atomic bomb; hydrogen bomb; Chernobyl) or by discharge from nuclear-power or atomic installations and scattered throughout the earth's atmosphere by winds and convection currents. . However,there is no evidence that the larger organization needs to be highlyeffective or in turnaround mode to grant the "big yes" to aunit leader. Indeed, breaking the norms and rules of the status quo [Latin, The existing state of things at any given date.] Status quo ante bellum means the state of things before the war. The status quo to be preserved by a preliminary injunction is the last actual, peaceable, uncontested status which preceded the pending controversy. toachieve support-winning early victories is what successful turnaroundleaders do. While leaders at both Continental and NYPD had a "bigyes" from their ultimate bosses, they were not handed a cleanslate. Instead, they faced the same tough environmental conditionsplaguing failing schools and districts: tight budgets, deep-seatedstatus quo routines, and tough opposition from organized employees. Theyturned around their organizations nonetheless. Enabling School and District Turnarounds To enable more widespread, successful turnarounds in education,state and district leaders need to focus on two critical policy changes.First, states (particularly governors) need to create much morepolitical will to try turnarounds at the district level and to retry re��try?tr.v. re��tried , re��try��ing, re��triesTo try again.Verb 1. retry - hear or try a court case anewrehear when some inevitably fail. They can only do this by developing much morecapacity, in-house or through contractors, to take charge of failingschools when districts don't act. Second, states and districts could do much more to fuel thepipeline of K-12 turnaround leaders. One key step is to open the door tononeducation leaders with turnaround competencies, induce them to takethe job, and invest to equip them with the education know-how they needto succeed. A few states and districts, such as Chicago, the District ofColumbia District of Columbia,federal district (2000 pop. 572,059, a 5.7% decrease in population since the 1990 census), 69 sq mi (179 sq km), on the east bank of the Potomac River, coextensive with the city of Washington, D.C. (the capital of the United States). , and Louisiana, are attempting real turnarounds. Relatedefforts, such as New Leaders for New Schools and the University ofVirginia's School Turnaround Specialist Program, are underway tohelp more turnaround leaders succeed. Mass Insight Education haslaunched a national campaign to encourage state leaders to play a moreactive role. All of these initiatives are promising. And the good news is theydon't have to start from scratch to start (again) from the very beginning; also, to start without resources.- Thackeray.See also: Scratch . From Continental Airlines to NYPDto countless others, turnarounds have happened with dramatic results.Turnarounds can happen in education, too. Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan C. Hassel are codirectors of PublicImpact, a national education policy and management firm based in ChapelHill, North Carolina Chapel Hill is a town in North Carolina and the home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), the oldest state-supported university in the United States. As of the 2000 census, it had a population of 48,715. As of 2004 its estimated population was 52,440. . Their earlier work on this topic includes SchoolTurnarounds: A Review of Cross-Sector Evidence on DramaticOrganizational Improvement (Center on Innovation and Improvement, 2007),and Julie Kowal and Emily Ayscue Hassel, Turnarounds with New Leadersand Staff (Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement,2005). BY EMILY AYSCUE HASSEL AND BRYAN C. HASSEL ILLUSTRATION / ACME ILLUSTRATION, ANTHONY FREDA