Organization Context for Professional Practice Essay

There is a huge amount of private colleges offering their services to pupils who want to specialize in some sphere and upgrade their knowledge of certain subjects and receive a prestigious diploma at the same time. Parents are also concerned about what college to choose to reach all of their goals: both to pay a reasonable sum of money for the college’s services and to give their child the best possible education to ensure his or her future, career, and success. In this respect every college tries to advertise itself in the most favorable way, showing all benefits it may provide for its enrollees.

According to business metrics costs for tuition would be considered as compared to the quality of education provided in that particular college. However, the Jim Collins’ scheme of greatness does not include business metrics and has to be based on some other considerations besides the economic side of the issue. Thus, in the context of discussing greatness of a college it is possible to suppose that the metrics indicators will include here the quality of education provided (i.e. the degrees and professional status of tutors), the quality of management and coordination of the college, the records about successful careers of those who graduated from this college, the quality of life in the dormitory as well as all other studying conditions that have to be at the adequate level.

One more point one should not forget about is the ability to call a college good-to-great if it passed the way through at first having indicators below than average and further on upgrading them up to three times better than the average. No matter how this breakthrough would be achieved by the college, but it should officially show these results.

The next step is to define the college according to the level five leadership. It becomes clear that the leaders in the college should be represented from all interest groups, starting from the administration of the college and finishing with student unions and societies. According to the opinion of Collins (2001), the level five leader should be mainly focused on the success and welfare of the organization he works for, but not on his or her own benefits. So, it is possible to say that in schools these level five leaders should fight for the success of the school, for satisfaction of students and teachers and the overall status and respectable position of the college in the overall educational space of the country and the whole world.

Again following the guidance of Collins (2001), one needs to identify the level of the step five leaders have to take in order to win the leading position in the college and bring it to success. “Building ‘enduring greatness’ into organizations” means constant pursuing a firm goal of bringing the college to success; “setting their successors up for success” involves constant recruiting of interested people who would be able to contribute to the success of the undertaking jointly (this feature is very important because the increasing number of people sharing the same goals and striving for success always facilitates achieving efficient results).

Disseminating the information about the college and other people involved but not speaking about themselves the level five leaders preserve their charisma and ensure the growing interest in the college and its aim; “ordinary people producing extraordinary results” – this is the way enthusiastic and devoted people expressing their commitment to the joint undertaking may achieve profound success and make their college a really great one; level five leaders usually come from within the company, so it is the sole task of the college to look for talented, motivated and active people among the administrative, teaching staff as well as among students – surely there would be many people interested in the destiny of the college and want to contribute to its becoming great.

One more important feature of level five leaders is the responsible approach both to appraisal and punishment. Realizing that all members of the team take part in every project, so they have to bear responsibility together, level five leaders still manage to distribute credits for success among everyone but to take the responsibility for the failure on themselves, ensuring the employees’ devotion, personal gratitude and respect. Besides, what is important to know about level five leaders is that they were very picky about who to hire in the company (Collins, 2001). So, of course, it goes without saying that the selection criteria both for the tutors of the college and its students will be extremely tough.

The principle of ‘first who’ can also be wonderfully applied to the establishment of a great college. Since a college is an educational establishment it is first of all important to form a professional, committed tutors’ staff and to arrange a good working administration. Here the three principles, motivation, selection and adaptability, are very suitable. Speaking about adaptability, it is important to remember that a wonderful economist or a great physician cannot be hired in a college even if their knowledge is profound if they are unable to work in a group or have no teaching abilities. Of course they may have a huge experience and a set of professional skills, but as soon as they are inadaptable, then they have no place in a group.

Besides, motivation is a key factor for hiring strategies under the condition of making a good college a great one. Only motivated teachers and coordinators are able to engage students in studies and succeed in making them interested in the subject, thus ensuring their high-quality knowledge. Teachers who are not motivated and who bear the burden of teaching as a heavy load cannot make students like their subject. Finally, speaking about selection, it goes without saying that only the best (both teachers and students) should be accepted in the college – only under this condition it will be able to move towards greatness.

The hedgehog concept can also be applied to building up a structure of a great college. As Collins (2001) writes about that, the concept includes combining three circles – the best one can do, the thing he or she is most passionate about, and the efficient economic considerations thereof. If a person manages to arrange the working process in the college according to these principles, the college will surely become great: motivated teachers and devoted administration, committed students, and fair fees for tuition – all this may contribute to the success of the college wonderfully.

The flywheel is the clue to success in any organization, and a college is not the exception. No headmaster and no student will ever be able to arrange a breakthrough in the college that will bring about success and profit for it and will upgrade its status enormously. In order to achieve a breakthrough of such a scale that would make the college great it will be necessary that everyone would take a little part in the process of improvement, make a little contribution that would form a huge moving force and push the college to the unrivaled height, popularity and success. Achievement is possible only if every person thoroughly chosen at the beginning of organizing the breakthrough process does his or her best to contribute to the joint undertaking – then the awaited results may be easily achieved.

References

Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t. HarperBusiness, 300 pp.