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MASA
St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
Minnesota Association of School Administrators
Recent Activity
Claiming Your Place At The Fire: Living The Second...
Claiming Your Place At The Fire: Living The Second Half of Your Life On Purpose, Leider & Shapiro The metaphor of fire is used in the book because the author proports that nothing is more essential to the human experience. Our most distant ancestors depended on fire for survival and... Continue reading
Posted Mar 26, 2019 at What We Are Reading
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The Trust Edge, David Horsager, 2012 Summary by...
The Trust Edge, David Horsager, 2012 Summary by Steve Malone Chapter 1: The Trust Edge • Trust is defined as the belief in an entity to o Do what is right o Deliver what is promised o Be the same every time in spite of the circumstances • Trust is... Continue reading
Posted Aug 1, 2018 at What We Are Reading
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Leading Change, Kotter, 2012 Transforming...
Leading Change, Kotter, 2012 Transforming Organizations: Why Firms Fail: • Allowing too much complacency: Overestimating how much big changes can be forced. Underestimating how hard it is to drive people out of their comfort zones. Not recognizing that leadership actions can inadvertently reinforce the status quo. Lack of patience. Becoming... Continue reading
Posted Mar 29, 2018 at What We Are Reading
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The Little Big Things, Peters, 2012 Summary: The...
The Little Big Things, Peters, 2012 Summary: The book is a compilation of Blogs, articles, and observations by the author. He contends that “soft is hard” meaning that relationships, courtesy, recognizing success, and demonstrating values are as important as strategic planning and execution through the traditional business model hierarchy. The... Continue reading
Posted Jan 1, 2018 at What We Are Reading
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The Path of Least Resistance for Managers, Fritz
Summary The author asserts that the underlying structure of an organization will determine its success or failure. Energy follows the path of least resistance, which is determined by the organizational structure. Structures determine how people will act. Changing structure will change employee behavior. Implementing organizational change without structural change leads... Continue reading
Posted Jul 14, 2017 at What We Are Reading
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Creating Innovators, Tony Wagner
Summary The basis of the book is survey research and the opinion of the author. The population selected for the book was young innovators, their parents, and their mentors. Additionally, the author interviewed business and military leaders to solicit their opinions regarding innovation. Most of the book is case studies.... Continue reading
Posted Apr 4, 2017 at What We Are Reading
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The Managerial Moment Of Truth, Bodaken & Fritz....
The Managerial Moment Of Truth, Bodaken & Fritz. 2011 Summary The book describes a method whereby managers can hold individuals and teams accountable and improve their performance. The Managerial Moment of Truth or MMOT includes four steps: 1. Acknowledge the truth 2. Analyze how it got to be that way... Continue reading
Posted Feb 15, 2017 at What We Are Reading
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Smart Leaders Smarter Teams: How You and Your Team Get Unstuck to Get Results
By guest blogger Mary Ann Nelson Most every leader in education appreciates the value of effective teams, but this book suggests why very smart leaders often create less-than-smart teams. Schwartz suggests that sometimes a leader’s mindset and well-intended but misguided actions get in the way of success. Sound familiar? In... Continue reading
Posted Dec 26, 2016 at What We Are Reading
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The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
So if you set a New Year's Resolution to improve your life, take the advice of Oprah and Wayne Dyer and read The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. It has been a #1 bestseller on the New York Times best seller list. In a career where you are often surrounded... Continue reading
Posted Jan 9, 2016 at What We Are Reading
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Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Entertaining and informative not only about the man himself, but also about how different products developed. The focus is not necessarily on the wide range of behaviors Jobs exhibits, although there is evidence of the disregard for how others perceive his words or dismissive attitude to those who have not... Continue reading
Posted Sep 7, 2015 at What We Are Reading
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Walking on Sunshine by Sheryl Hill
Students go abroad more often now than they used to, so I picked up a book referring to a student who died while in Japan and a parent who sued for legislation to "keep America's children and students safe on programs abroad." It was not what I thought it would... Continue reading
Posted Jul 25, 2015 at What We Are Reading
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Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking when Stakes are High by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, Switzler
TRUST sums up the thrust of the book. The examples provided come from our everyday lives, not just work life, but personal life, as well. Are you able to deliver bad news gracefully? Are you able to read the signals as to whether someone is ready to hear what you... Continue reading
Posted May 18, 2015 at What We Are Reading
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Sivumut: Towards the Future Together by Fiona Walton & Dalene O'Leary
Having taught cohorts of indigenous learners, I was very interested in this compilation of Masters Theses from Inuit women educational leaders in Nunavut and Nunavik. The University of Prince Edward Island supported the Nunavut MEd program from its inception until the final convocation on June 1, 2013. Walton and O'Leary... Continue reading
Posted May 18, 2015 at What We Are Reading
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Influencer: The Power to Change Anything by Patterson, Grenny, Maxfield, McMillan and Switzler
The authors of Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations have taken over fifty years of social science research and created a number of entertaining stories about how "influencers" have implemented changes in personal lives, businesses and the world at large. The one thing we often try first is usually the least... Continue reading
Posted Apr 25, 2015 at What We Are Reading
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Good Leaders Ask Great Questions: Your Foundation for Successful Leadership by John Maxwell
I love a great question! When we may be "stuck" in a situation, asking for questions from a variety of people can help raise thoughts that have not previously been considered. Whether in your personal life or your school setting, question posing is helpful. Maxwell first examines how to use... Continue reading
Posted Mar 29, 2015 at What We Are Reading
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Think Like a Freak by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
The authors of Feakonomics and SuperFreakonomics have come out with another book to possibly retrain your brain. Their stories and analysis can help you think a bit more productively, more creatively, and more rationally. Another entertaining book from Levitt and Dubner! If you have an opinion that something is right... Continue reading
Posted Mar 29, 2015 at What We Are Reading
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Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull
Ed Catmull with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter are the founders of Pixar Animation Studio. The atmosphere at Pixar is something I had heard about but wanted to learn more. Whether we are looking at a studio that is in need of a success - it took eight years before... Continue reading
Posted Mar 3, 2015 at What We Are Reading
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The Universal Tone by Carlos Santana
Maybe this is not what you expect on the MASA book blog, but I take creative license in that we do not only read professional work, but we also read works that have a story line from which we can gain further insights into ourselves and others. Yes, ever since... Continue reading
Posted Feb 20, 2015 at What We Are Reading
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The Triple Focus: A New Approach to Education by Goleman and Senge
Daniel Goleman of Emotional Intelligence fame and Peter Senge, organizational and systems thinking guru from MIT, partner to create a small (fits in a pocket or a purse) less than 90 page book worth the under $15 purchase. Try it for a group book read or a PLC or your... Continue reading
Posted Feb 4, 2015 at What We Are Reading
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Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within by Robert E. Quinn
Are you in a school district that has recently experienced Deep Change or do you think it might be time for Deep Changeto occur? Quinn's book has practical exercises and personal reflections with real examples to help embrace and implement change and avoid the slow death of status quo. "Organizational... Continue reading
Posted Oct 26, 2014 at What We Are Reading
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On Your Mark: Challenging the Conventions of Grading and Reporting by Thomas Guskey
How courageous are you? This book is not for anyone who is comfortable with the status quo in education nor the one who trusts traditions. Some of you will dismiss it outright! However, Guskey poses the question that is rarely considered today as we continue to accept a practice that... Continue reading
Posted Sep 27, 2014 at What We Are Reading
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The First Phone Call From Heaven
Setting up online classes and reading texts for assignments to students for fall semester, I escaped this weekend into a Mitch Albom book that I had not yet read. This allegory about belief in life after death was interesting as applied to belief in the power of education. The detractors... Continue reading
Posted Sep 1, 2014 at What We Are Reading
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Teaching with Heart: Poetry that Speaks to the Courage to Teach by Intrator and Scribner
After seeing so many electronic references to this book on Facebook and in emails, I felt a desire to see what the hype was about. Sam Intrator and Megan Scribner produced this as a sequel to Teaching with Fire: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Teach. The English major in... Continue reading
Posted Jul 3, 2014 at What We Are Reading
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Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread by Alex Pentland
As a new science, "social physics" is an interesting study and Pentland is considered a presiding visionary in the Big Data revolution. "Social physics" is a quantitative social science that describes reliable, mathematical connections between information and idea flow on the one hand and people's behavior on the other. Studies... Continue reading
Posted Jun 28, 2014 at What We Are Reading
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Making Hope Happen by Shane Lopez
Gallup Senior Scientist, Shane Lopez shares volumes of research that show hope matters, hope is a choice, hope can be learned and hope is contagious. Hope relates to academic success, business outcomes, and well-being. How we think about the future is a key determinant of success in school, work. and... Continue reading
Posted May 31, 2014 at What We Are Reading
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