Michael Soulé

Understanding Governance by Michael Soule

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Understanding Governance by Michael Soule

 

Every organization struggles with the question of how to establish and maintain good governance.

Even the definition of  governance can be a challenge. Just like the descriptors  “environmental” or “sustainable” can mean different things, so too can the term “governance”.

Nevertheless, we as leaders must constantly strive to understand and improve the governance in our organizations.

Here are five essential tools to help leaders understand, nurture, and transform their organization’s governance.

 

  1. Know the difference between governance and management.

When you begin to sort out your governance structure, this will help you be clear and avoid too much overlap between different groups. Management, in a nutshell, has to do with operations, and governance has to do with structure, roles and responsibilities, but the differences go deeper than this. (See the article in our resources section.)

 

  1. Know the different basic types of governance models.

Understanding the principles of different models will help you be smart in defining your own

path, deciding when your organization needs to change or choosing a prescribed model. Below is a good outline that explores the different types and some of the possibilities and challenges of each.

 

  1. Know the history of governance in your organization.

Understanding the biography of your organization and its path of governance will give you insights into the potential future. There are many ways to approach this. This is often the first step in any major capital campaign and an important part of renewing your mission statement.

 

  1. Know the capacities of the people currently in the organization.

Understanding the capacities of each other will help you create roles and responsibilities that fit your particular situation. Spending time regularly to share individual biographies and life stories, to share personal and professional goals and to share self-assessments can help strengthen this.

 

  1. Be very clear about specific roles and responsibilities and the relationship between individuals and groups in the organization.

Overlapping roles and unclear roles are two of the primary areas that cause difficulties in an organization. There are also various ways to work on this – practicing the basics of a mandate organization (See article in the resource section) to implementing a RACI model are two promising ways.

 

The Heart of Governance: Agreements

 

An organization’s governance system is primarily a set of agreements. The organization’s success depends upon the nature of those agreements, including how they come about, how they are maintained and how they are reviewed and renewed. Agreements (like job descriptions, committee mandates, bylaws, mission statements, polices, handbooks, etc) are best when they:

 

  • Reflect the organization’s values and mission and help people feel connected to the whole organization.

 

  • Are clearly written, regularly reviewed and revised with the participation of those they effect.

 

  • Identify the pathways for collaboration and communication and outline processes for navigating changes

 

Understanding the importance of agreements and the role they play in the governance can bring great clarity to the leadership of an organization.

 

In the end, whether you follow a specific governance model or whether you create a hybrid form that meets your unique needs and skills, the underlying keys to success are the agreements that you are able to articulate, follow and renew. Personal relationships may carry the organization forward for a while but when life changes, the ways in which you have articulated the qualities of those relationships in the structural documents of your governance will be a guiding wisdom that will allow for health to continue in the organization.

 

Good governance is like good leadership; it is relational, responsive and self-aware. It strengthens relationships and a sense of community, building connection and trust. It builds confidence when it responds to needs in a direct and timely way. It creates a culture of self awareness and reflection that supports continual meaningful development.

Michael Soulé

Governance Models, An Essay by Nathan Garber with Reflections by Michael Soule

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Reflections on Nathan Garber’s Article on Governance Models

The article below by Nathan Garber is a good review and summary of the basic typical models of governance in organizations and the role that boards play in the different models. In Waldorf schools, there are many variations of governance models with most following a variation on the cooperative board model. All of the models below depend upon clearly articulated lines of authority and strong leadership. In the Cooperative model, like in most Waldorf schools the leadership is more dispersed throughout the organization. The keys to success in a dispersed leadership organization is the strength of the designated leadership Council (often the College in the Waldorf school) that acts similarly to the role of the CEO in other organizations. Garber points out very accurately the key downside to cooperative governance – the inability to assure accountability between peers. The Sociocracy and Holocracy models described elsewhere in Leadtogether newsletter, and the book by Frederic Laloux, “Reinventing Organizations” all offer ways that organizations can be more collaborative and overcome the lack of natural accountability. For more on how to assure accountability, see LeadTogether Newsletter #10. – Michael Soule

 

Governance Models:
What's Right for Your Board

by Nathan Garber

Introduction

Nonprofit boards tend to follow one of five different approaches to governance. Each approach emphasizes different dimensions of the roles and responsibilities of the board and each arises out of a different relationship between board members and staff members. These in turn reflect differences in the size, purpose, and history of the organization. I call these approaches the Advisory, the Patron Model, the Co-operative model, the Management Team Model, and the Policy Board Model. I conclude with some questions to ask when you are considering changing your board structure.

Advisory Board Model

This model emphasizes the helping and supportive role of the Board and frequently occurs where the CEO is the founder of the organization. The Board's role is primarily that of helper/advisor to the CEO. Board members are recruited for three main reasons: they are trusted as advisors by the CEO; they have a professional skill that the organization needs but does not want to pay for; they are likely to be helpful in establishing the credibility of the organization for fundraising and public relations purposes.

Individual board members may be quite active in performing these functions and consequently feel that they are making a valuable contribution to the organization. Board meetings tend to be informal and task-focused, with the agenda developed by the CEO.

The Advisory Board model can work well for a short time in many organizations but it exposes the board members to significant liability in that it fails to provide the accountability mechanisms that are required of boards of directors. By law, the board has the obligation to manage the affairs of the organization and can be held accountable for certain actions of employees and committees. It must therefore maintain a superior position to the CEO. Although the board is permitted to delegate many of its responsibilities to staff or committees, it cannot make itself subordinate to them.

Patron Model

Similar to the Advisory Board model, the board of directors in the Patron Model has even less influence over the organization than an advisory board. Composed of wealthy and influential individuals with a commitment to the mission of the organization, the Patron Board serves primarily as a figurehead for fund raising purposes. Such boards meet infrequently as their real work is done outside board meetings. Writing cheques and getting their friends to write cheques is their contribution to the organization.

Many organizations maintain a Patron Board in addition to their governing boards. For capital campaigns and to establish credibility of a newly formed organizations, Patron Boards can be especially helpful. They cannot be relied upon, however, for governance tasks such as vision development, organizational planning, or program monitoring.

Co-operative Model

For a number of different reasons, some organizations try to avoid hierarchical structures. The decision-making structure in such organizations is typically labeled "peer management" or "collective management". In this model, all responsibility is shared and there is no Chief Executive Officer. Decision-making is normally by consensus and no individual has power over another. If the law did not require it, they would not have a board of directors at all. In order to be incorporated, however, there must be a board of directors and officers. The organization therefore strives to fit the board of directors into its organizational philosophy by creating a single managing/governing body composed of official board members, staff members, volunteers, and sometimes clients.

Seen by its advocates as the most democratic style of management, it is also, perhaps, the most difficult of all models to maintain, requiring among other things, a shared sense of purpose, an exceptional level of commitment by all group members, a willingness to accept personal responsibility for the work of others, and an ability to compromise. When working well, the organization benefits from the direct involvement of front-line workers in decision-making and the synergy and camaraderie created by the interaction of board and staff.

I have noted two areas of concern with this model. The first is that although the ability to compromise is an essential element in the successful functioning of this model, cooperatives often arise out of a strong ideological or philosophical commitment that can be inimical to compromise. The second concern is the difficulty of implementing effective accountability structures. At the time of implementing this model, there may be a high motivation level in the organization, which obviates the need for accountability mechanisms. But, as personnel changes take place, the sense of personal commitment to the group as a whole may be lost. In the collective model, there is no effective way to ensure that accountability for individual actions is maintained.

Management Team Model

For many years, most nonprofit organizations have been run by boards, which operate according to the model of a Management Team, organizing their committees and activities along functional lines. In larger organizations, the structure of the board and its committees usually mirrors the structure of the organization's administration. Just as there are staff responsible for human resources, fund-raising, finance, planning, and programs, the board creates committees with responsibility for these areas.

Where there is no paid staff, the board's committee structure becomes the organization's administrative structure and the board members are also the managers and delivers of programs and services. Individually or in committees, board members take on all governance, management and operational tasks including strategic planning, bookkeeping, fund-raising, newsletter, and program planning and implementation.

The widespread adoption of the Management Team model, arises out its correspondence with modern ideas about team management and democratic structures in the workplace. It also fits well with the widely held view of nonprofits as volunteer-driven or at least nonprofessional organizations. This model fits well with the experience of many people as volunteers in community groups like service clubs, Home and School groups, scouts and guides, and hobby groups. It also mirrors the processes involved in the creation of a new organization or service. It is no wonder then, that most prescriptive books and articles written between 1970 and 1990 (and many written more recently) define this model as the ideal.

Boards which operate under the Management Team model are characterized by a high degree of involvement in the operational and administrative activities of the organization. In organizations with professional management this normally takes the form of highly directive supervision of the CEO and staff at all levels of the organization. Structurally, there may be many committees and subcommittees. Decision-making extends to fine details about programs, services, and administrative practices. When working well, two criteria tend to be used in the selection of members: their knowledge and experience in a specific field, such as business or accounting; or because they are members of a special interest group or sector that the board considers to be stakeholders.

While this model works well for all-volunteer organizations, it has proven to be less suited to organizations that already have professional management and full-time employees. Indeed, the deficiencies of this model have led to the current thinking in the field which differentiates "governance" (the practices of boards of directors) from "management" (the practices of employees) and the deluge of research, articles, and manuals on this topic.

The most important shortcoming is that all too frequently, it degenerates into what I call the Micro-management Team Model in which board members refuse to delegate authority, believing that their role requires them to make all operational decisions, leaving only the implementation to paid staff. The result is invariably a lack of consistency in decisions, dissatisfied board members, resentful staff and a dangerous lack of attention to planning and accountability matters.

Policy Board Model

As noted above, the need to differentiate the board's role from the manager's role arose from the failure of many organizations to maintain proper accountability at the highest levels and the dissatisfaction of many board members over the their inability to comply with the expectations of their role. They began to ask why, when they were such competent and accomplished individuals, they felt so ineffective and frustrated as board members. This led to an examination of the role of the board, the relationship between the board and the CEO, and the relationship between the board and the community.

The originator and most influential proponent of the Policy Board Model is John Carver, whose book, Boards that Make a Difference, has had a great effect on thousands of nonprofit organizations. All Policy Board Models share the view that the job of the board is: to establish the guiding principles and policies for the organization; to delegate responsibility and authority to those who are responsible for enacting the principles and policies; to monitor compliance with those guiding principles and policies; to ensure that staff, and board alike are held accountable for their performance.

Where the models diverge is the way these jobs are done and the extent to which strategic planning and fundraising as are seen as board jobs.

Boards operating under the Policy Board Model are characterized by a high level of trust and confidence in the CEO. There are relatively few standing committees, resulting in more meetings of the full board. Board development is given a high priority in order to ensure that new members are able to function effectively, and recruitment is an ongoing process. Members are recruited for their demonstrated commitment to the values and mission of the organization.

Which Model is the Right One?

There are a number of reasons for considering a change in your governance model:

  • board members are dissatisfied with their roles or the way the board operates;
  • your organization is experiencing problems that can be traced back to inadequacies in board structure or process;
  • your organization is entering a new phase in its life-cycle;
  • the CEO has left or is leaving;
  • there has been a major turnover of board members;
  • there is a crisis of confidence in the board or the CEO.

The descriptions above, of the various governance models, will give you an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of each model, but the difficulty in making the transition cannot be overstated. Changing models is like changing lifestyles. You must abandon well-established ideas and patterns of behavior, replacing them with new ideas, roles, and activities that will seem confusing and unfamiliar. This type of change takes a considerable amount of time, energy, and other resources to accomplish. The answers to the following questions will help you to determine how badly you need to change your governance model and whether your board and organization have the necessary commitment and resources to accomplish it successfully. Take your time with each question, ensuring that each board member answers each question.

  • Do we have a clear understanding and agreement on the purpose of our organization? Is it written down?
  • What are the basic values which guide our organization and our board? Are they written down?
  • How do we know whether the good our organization does is worth what it costs to operate it?
  • What financial resources do we have and can we reasonably count on for the next few years?
  • To what extent are board members expected to contribute money and labor to fundraising efforts?
  • Do we believe that the organization should be run as a cooperative or collective - with staff participating along with board members in the governing of the organization?
  • How much time is each board member willing to give to the organization in the next year (or until the end of their term)
  • How much trust does the board have in the ability of the CEO to ensure that the organization operates in an effective and ethical manner?
  • What are our expectations about attendance at board and committee meetings?
  • What is the attendance record of each board member?
  • How do we hold board members accountable?
  • What is the record of each board member and committee with respect to meetings and results?
  • How useful has each committee proven to be?
  • To what extent do committees duplicate staff jobs? How satisfied are our members with the current board performance?
  • Who thinks we should change our governance model?
  • How much time and money are we willing to devote to increasing our own knowledge and skills to improve our performance as board members?
  • How does our board deal with differences of opinion?
  • How do members deal with decisions when we disagree?
  • To what extent is it necessary for us (board members) to be involved in the delivery of programs and services, marketing, public speaking, etc.
  • Who attends our Annual General Meeting? Why do they come?
  • As board members, to whom do we wish to be accountable?
  • How effective is our current recruitment method in getting excellent board members?

Take some time to consider these questions. The answers will tell you the degree of difficulty you will have in changing to a new governance model and where the problems lie. For additional information and for training and consulting services related to governance models, contact: Nathan Garber & Associates email: nathan@GarberConsulting.com

© 1997, Nathan Garber. Permission is hereby granted to reprint this article in part or in total provided that the author is acknowledged.

Michael Soulé

Personal Reflections on Waldorf School Governance and Effective Practices, Lynn Kern

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Personal Reflections on Governance:

The Eleven Keys to Success

Lynn Kern

 

The research into School Governance is one of the most widely anticipated topics in the long history of the Effective Practices research project. Schools have been struggling with the questions of how best to organize themselves and manage their affairs so that the young human beings in their care can receive the best possible Waldorf education. “Just give us the organization structure, the policies and the practices of the successful schools so we can put them into place. We want to get on with the real work of educating children,” has been the unspoken plea of many a leader in our school communities. And yet, having completed a detailed study of the ways in which schools with strong and successful governance cultures approach this issue, I was struck by the wide variety of approaches the well governed schools have put into place. There does not seem to be a single approach, structurally or procedurally, that works well in the best schools. There is no fixed, perfect form or approach to governance in our schools. A number of different forms and a variety of policies and procedures are in place in well governed schools, and these differing forms are each effective and appropriate for the schools which employ them. Biography, size, and the stage of a school’s development all play a role in suggesting the best form for a particular school at a given time, yet even here there is no one-approach-fits-all-schools solution.

 

What then can we take away from the study of Effective Practices in governance? If the answer isn’t in the structure per se, where is it? What do all of these schools have in common that, despite their different structures, policies and personalities, allow each of them to be particularly effective in their approach to school governance? What are the overarching principles that will inform other schools which are earnestly striving to address governance issues in their communities?

 

Despite the wide variety of approaches, structures, methods and practices we documented, each of the well governed schools seem to me to share eleven key features that contribute to their ability to govern their schools at a highly effective level. These eleven keys to governance success are:

  • Conscious Agreement
  • Shared Vision
  • A Republican Approach
  • Cultivation of Leadership
  • Separation of Policy and Operations
  • Operational Leadership Teams
  • A Threefold Perspective
  • Active Participation and Destiny Meetings
  • Ongoing Review
  • Communication and Trust
  • The Collaborative Path

 

Conscious Agreement

Each of the schools with successful governance enjoys a high level of conscious agreement about their governance structure, policies and procedures. In these schools the mechanisms of governance are well understood by the employees of the school and by the broader parent community. Not only is the governance of the school well understood – it also enjoys broad support.

 

Oftentimes these schools developed their approaches to governance as the result of crisis or breakdown of some sort in the school. These crises force schools to address their governance practices, and to do so in a way that achieves the understanding and support of the employees and the parents at the school. The combination of structure, policies and practices were typically built up over time, as faculty and volunteers worked together to find approaches that best addressed the needs of the school. In no instance did a school report adopting an entire governance structure and implementing it whole. Instead they worked and struggled and built something that was uniquely their own. It is clear that there is something in the struggle to build consensus and support that sharpens the thinking and allows broad levels of understanding and support to develop. These schools have embraced the need to address governance issues and worked them through. Good governance is not something they implemented; it is something they have earned.

 

Shared Vision

Not only do these schools have broad-based conscious agreement to their governance structure, policies and practices, but they also have a clear vision of the school and where it is headed. This vision of the immediate needs and long term dreams for the school, and the understanding of the values that underlie the way in which work is done, are well articulated and talked about regularly in the community. Faculty and parents, paid staff and volunteers, all share a common vision of the school and support the values that inform the way in which the school is managed. These schools have, in the words of Rudolf Steiner, worked “to acquire the spirit that will unite the school.” This works “engenders in us our sprit of unity.”

 

A Republican Approach

All of the schools in our study of effective governance employed a republican approach to their operations. A republic is a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of its citizens, and that power is exercised by representatives chosen by the citizens. Schools with successful approaches to governance use decision making processes such as various forms of consensus to ensure that power rests in the general bodies of the school rather than in the hands of a headmaster, director or single administrator. Large bodies such as the Board of Trustees and the College of Teachers make key policy decisions for the school, and these bodies choose representatives to do the operational work on their behalf.

 

This approach, often called republican academies, is the basis on which the committee life of a well governed Waldorf school is based. Large groups consciously delegate authority and responsibility to individuals and to groups to do work on their behalf. These delegations may take the form of a job description when authority is vested in a single individual or in the form of a committee or task group mandate when the delegation is given to a group of individuals. In this way large governing bodies are able to retain authority in the key areas of decision making (policy setting) while delegating operating issues to volunteers and staff. This ensures that the proper amount of time and attention can be paid by individuals entrusted to deal with them without bogging down large governing bodies with the need to deal with operating minutiae.

 

Environments that Cultivate Leadership        

Schools with effective governance do more than tolerate their leaders – they empower their leaders, honor their willingness to serve as leaders, and consciously work to develop more future leaders for the school community.   The presence of a strong shared vision and clear delegations of authority in the form of written mandates and job descriptions allow leaders to step forward in many areas of the school’s operation. The faculty, Board and parents can be comfortable in allowing leaders in various areas to act, knowing that the depth of the shared vision and the clarity of written delegations will inform the well intentioned individuals the school has selected to do work on its behalf. The personal freedom of the various leaders in the school is maximized, meaning that people are free to be as creative as possible in the ways they choose to carry out their responsibilities. Structures that allow many people the opportunity to practice leadership mean that the school will be well served when new leaders are asked to step forward to fill a void – it will have a strong stable of experienced leaders from which to choose should the need arise. And, perhaps most importantly, because individuals and small groups have been entrusted to do work on behalf of the larger group, the time available for the most important work – educational deepening and pedagogical study – is maximized.

 

Separation of Policy Setting from Operations

The successfully governed schools are increasingly moving toward a state where the Board and the College of Teachers are the primary policy setting arms of the school. Operational implementation of the policies created by the Board of Trustees and the College of Teachers is delegated to its key administrative personnel (the pedagogical chair, the business manager and the community development chair) and to their respective committees. The College of Teachers sets educational policy out of their shared study of the growing child, and then directs the key administrative personnel of the school to work cooperatively to see that these policies are implemented. Because the College is able to successfully entrust the operational implementation of its policies to others significant time is freed in the College meetings to allow further study. The days of the College attempting to coordinate the detailed implementation of all of its policies are ending, allowing the College to become the etheric heart that is so necessary to support the development of the young people in the school’s care.

 

Similarly, the Board of Trustees is increasingly avoiding the temptation to dip into financial and development operations. The successful Board keeps its vision firmly on the horizon and its ear cocked to catch the thoughts of the moral owners of the school. Boards are learning to avoid the trap of double delegation that has so plagued them in the past. Double delegation occurs when a Board names a business manager, but then also names a Board treasurer with a remarkably similar job description and unclear separation of duties. It can also occur when a community development director is hired and a Board development committee is also created. Increasingly Boards keep their focus on the creation of policy and the long term strategy for the school, while the operational aspects of those policies are handled outside the trustee circle.

 

Leadership Team

While a number of Waldorf schools have been experimenting recently with the use of an executive director, it is interesting to note that not one school using this approach was recommended for inclusion in our study of schools with strong governance. While it may be that with increased experience schools will find a way to make the single headmaster approach work, Robert Greenleaf suggests that this will not be the case. Known for his work in the area of Servant Leadership, Greenleaf writes about the perils of a single chief in his booklet, “The Institution as Servant”. His concerns about the concept of a single chief include:

  • “To be a lone chief … is abnormal and corrupting. None of us is perfect and all of us need the help and correcting influence of close colleagues. When a person is moved atop a pyramid he or she no longer has colleagues, only subordinates. The frankest and bravest of subordinates does not talk with one’s boss as one talks with colleagues.” Communication is instead warped and filtered.
  • “A self-protective image of omniscience often evolves from these warped and filtered communications. This in time defeats any leader by distorting one’s judgment.”
  • “The idea of one-person-in-control enjoys widespread support because of the decisiveness it affords when decisiveness is needed. Yet a close observation of top persons everywhere reveals the burden of indecisiveness to be much greater that the benefit of decisiveness. The difference is that decisiveness is usually conspicuous and sometimes heroic, whereas indecisiveness is often subtle, hard to detect, and sometimes tragic. When one person is chief the multiple liabilities to the institution resulting from indecisive moments much overweighs the assets of the few cases where the chief is conspicuously decisive.”
  • “Everywhere there is much complaining about too few leaders. We have too few because most institutions are structured so that only a few – only one at a time – can emerge.”
  • “The typical chief … is grossly overburdened. The job destroys too many of them … But for the institution there is also damage. For in too many cases the demands of the office destroy the person’s creativity long before they leave office.”
  • “When there is a single chief there is a major interruption when that person leaves.”
  • “Being in the top position prevents leadership by persuasion because the single chief holds too much power. The chief often cannot say persuasively what one would like to say because it will be taken as an order.”
  • “The prevalence of the lone chief places a burden on the whole society because it gives control priority over leadership.”

 

Perhaps our successfully governed schools have intuited many of Greenleaf’s concerns. For whatever reason, these schools are increasingly moving to the use of a leadership team to manage the day to day operational matters of the school. These leadership teams manage the daily operations of the school in a collective manner, and report on their work in a regular way to those they serve.

 

A Three Fold Perspective

In the past schools employed organizational structures which were built on polarity, and this scheme seemed to bring out oppositional forces in a predictable and negative way. The Board and College were seen as the two primary organs of the school. The College was the pedagogical/cultural arm, and handled both policy setting and operations in that realm. The Board was the realm of “everything else”, and focused on policy and administration in the administrative and development realm. The Board and College in these schools might enjoy good relations for extended periods of time, but when challenges arose they frequently engaged in a game of power tug of war. While these challenges are always overcome in the end, the drain on the etheric forces of all those caught up in the struggle far outweighed the benefits from the eventual solution to the problem.

 

Schools now seem to be moving in an operational direction that is more explicitly threefold in nature, leaving the realm of opposition and polarity for one that enjoys the stability inherent in a three-legged stool. The Board and College have limited their focus to policy setting and long term strategy, leaving the operations to three carefully selected leaders. These leaders are the pedagogical chair, the administrative chair, and the community development chair. Together they form a management circle or leadership team that can ensure that policies established by the Board and College are put into effect in a way that meets the sometimes competing needs of these three realms and recognizes that the spirit of the school can only succeed when all three aspects of its being operate in harmony.

 

Active Participation and Destiny Meetings

The well-formed and active committee structure in the strongly governed schools has several benefits. One of those benefits just mentioned is that it allows many opportunities for people to practice the exercise of leadership in roles both large and small. But another, more subtle effect of the committee life is that it allows many people to develop a personal and direct experience of the school. Development officers all know the same secret – the fastest way to make someone feel like an owner of the school is to allow him an opportunity to be the servant of the school. It is interesting how quickly a parent’s speech can be transformed just by allowing him an ongoing responsibility for some aspect of school life. Often it only takes a few weeks of meetings before the phrase “the school” is replaced with “our school” or “my school”.

 

Not only does active participation create a sense of ownership and responsibility, it also sharpens thinking and moves conversations out of the philosophical (who cares?) realm into the immediate and practical (we do!) realm. This sharpened thinking, especially when coupled with the use of consensus decision making, requires people to bump into each other, find areas of agreement and, on occasion, to knock the rough edges off of each other. Consensus decision making adds another layer to this awakening process. While hierarchy allows one individual to suppress the other, consensus decision making requires true meetings between people and forces them to hear and consider what the others in the group may be considering. While consensus decision making is not always the most expeditious approach, it certainly has the advantage of being the most effective in the long run, for the school and the individuals involved.

 

It is these opportunities for us to truly meet each other that led Rudolf Steiner to demand non-hierarchical republican structures and consensus based decision making for our Waldorf schools. Only in this way can we achieve the shared understanding of the spirit that will unite the school that is essential if we are to self-administer our schools without a single headmaster or intrusive government regulation.

 

Ongoing Review

The schools with strong governance are also well disciplined when it comes to reviewing their work. They have processes in place for ongoing review of events, activities, decisions and mandates. Evaluations take place routinely at year end, but they also take place in an ongoing way throughout the year. In this way the school experiences ongoing opportunities for improvement, and continuously strengthens its performance.

 

Communication and Trust

A reflection of this interest in continuous improvement is the practice of following up immediately whenever unhappiness or uneasiness is sensed. Schools with good governance ask promptly, “What is concerning you? How can it be better? What else is needed?” Their ability to ask the Parsifal question (“Brother, what ails thee?”) ensures that issues are addressed early on, long before they have the ability to poison relationships and derail important activity.

 

The social life and trust that is built up among community members through committee life pays great dividends here. Those who are feeling concern know that they can express their perceptions candidly, and rest assured that the human connections built up over time will help them weather the discomfort of temporary disagreements about what is best for the school and its students. Conversely, those who have been delegated responsibility in one area or another at the school understand that they have a responsibility to share with others information on the decisions they are making and the thinking that informed those decisions. This trust and two-way communication are critical factors in the school’s ability to use republican academies effectively.

 

The Collaborative Path

The schools with successful governance have done more than just create well documented administrative models. They have built into their very structure the collaborative approach that Steiner insisted was essential in building a unified center. Collaboration is emphasized everywhere. It is seen in the sharing of policy setting responsibilities between the Board and the College, and emphasized in the cooperative management structure of the leadership team. The active and extensive committee structure in the school again echoes the collaborative theme.

 

These successful schools have created structures that are workable and sustainable, and that permit meaningful amounts of time to be dedicated to group study and conversation. Out of this group study comes a shared imagination that gives direction and context to each small group, committee and individual at work for the school. It is as if the members of the school community are engaged in a large-scale paint by numbers project, each one very capable of performing his or her #1 or #2 task very well, and each comfortable in the knowledge that the shared imagination developed through their study and conversation will guide each part of the school in a coordinated effort without the control and interference of a hands-on direct superior or manager.

 

Good Governance: Wide Spread Happiness

Schools with good governance are recognizable by the broad level of happiness that exists with the form of its governance and with the individuals serving in various leadership roles. If the leaders of the school are happy but there is wide spread dissatisfaction in the faculty and parent community, the governance of the school is not strong and needs attention. Similarly, if the parents and faculty are happy with the school’s governance but the small group of individuals serving in leadership positions feels overburdened and unappreciated then governance problems still exist. In the end, broad happiness and satisfaction is the hallmark of a school with truly effective approaches to governance in its structure, policies and procedures.

Lynn Kern

2009

Lynn is currently the Administrator of the Highland Hall Waldorf School in Los Angeles. She has been a school consultant, member of the AWSNA board and school administrator for many years.

This essay by Lynn Kern was done as a part of the AWSNA Effective Practices Governance Module, part of the Effective Practices Project. People working in AWSNA affiliated schools may find the module on the AWSNA website WhyWaldorfWorks under the password protected school resources section. Check with your school administrator for the password.

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                  

 

Michael Soulé

Identity and Governance, An essay by Jon McAlice

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It is a rare school that does not struggle with questions of governance at some point in its life. Today, many schools find themselves in the midst of such struggles. To some extent, these struggles revolve around questions of authority, questions that at their worst spiral downward into struggles for power, or they reflect a loyalty to forms that have been handed down as appropriate for Waldorf Schools. In some cases, we recognize in these forms the inability to create and sustain viable structure out of a sense of the whole. At the center of all of them lies the question of the identity of Waldorf Education.

The question of identity has grown more pressing over the course of the last 15 years as the number of Waldorf schools has grown and as a new generation of teachers has moved into positions of responsibility within the schools. It has been accompanied by a concerted effort towards institutional stability and assimilation into the greater educational landscape. This push has embraced forms of school development and quality assurance that are ubiquitous in the mainstream, while making efforts to adapt them to the special situation of Waldorf education with its focus on individual learning. Although it has resulted in stronger institutional forms and a somewhat more professional face for Waldorf education, it has also exacerbated the increasingly existential question, “What is a Waldorf School.”

 

click here to read his article in full.

 

 

This article by Jon McAlice, teacher, consultant and author, outlines a creative view of the basic issues of governance in a Waldorf school. Jon expands on these ideas in his book Engaged Community. Click here to read a review of Jon's book. and 

Michael Soulé

More Governance Resources

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More Governance Resources

We mentioned above the importance of understanding the differences between management and governance. There are a number of good articles about these differences but this one seems to make it simple enough and useful enough to provide insights when we want to understand governance in a deeper way.

 

Another good article on Management and Governance by Dianna Bell outlines simply and clearly the difference between what she terms Watchdog (advisory), trustee and pilot (management) types of boards. In her helpful description she encourages boards to be self reflective and to find ways to assess what model of function is appropriate, given the organizations particular history and current dynamics.

 

There are a number of resources that are focused on the idea of the organization as a living entity and that point to the helpful insights that can be found when considering the organic processes in an organization from comparing them to the life processes in the human being. These are ones in our resource collection that are worth reviewing in the light of understanding governance. One in particular that is the most extensive practical guide to working with these ideas, is the book “School as a Living Entity” by Rea Gill that describes her work to transform the governance of two different schools.

 

Another brilliant and practical work is the book “Transforming People and Organizations: The Seven Steps of Spiritual Development” by Margrete van der Brink.

 

There are three governance models that have grown outside of the Waldorf school movement but that are of importance to our work, not because they might be adopted, but because in each of them, inspired thinkers have attempted to take a deeper look at the ways organizations can organize themselves to create the highest degree of freedom in the working of the individuals and groups along with the highest degree of collaboration.

 

One is the Policy Governance work of John and Miriam Carver. Here is an article that outlines the basic ideas behind Policy Governance. There are a number of schools that have adopted, with varying success, the Policy Governance Model.

 

The second model is called Sociocracy or Dynamic Governance and was developed over the last century through research and application in the Netherlands. Sociocracy provides a new imagination and set of operating principles that focus on helping an organization become self managing throughout its structure.

 

A newer model that grew out of Sociocracy is called Holocracy, and we have included a resource that outlines the basic premises of this governance approach. Holocracy is an innovative model that embraces self regulation in a refreshing way by establishing very clear and rigid practices designed to empower and support the work of individuals throughout an organization.

 

Lastly, we would point again to the book “Reinventing Organizations” by Frederic Laloux that outlines research into the shifting paradigm in organizations toward collaborative models of self governance. The background he outlines about the shifting consciousness behind more collaborative organizations very much aligns with the social insights of Rudolf Steiner from 100 years ago.

 

Michael Soulé

Enlivening Spaces by Michael Soule

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What do you do when your work space gets messy or cluttered? Are there times when you find yourself unable to concentrate at work? How we tend to the spaces around us has a definite effect on our ability to think and to work and on how other people feel and experience our space. Cleaner, more tidy, better organized, more beautiful spaces invite something different not only from others but from ourselves.

Here are a few tips on how to bring a focus to the spaces around you. Here also is an article by Linda Thomas who cleaned the Goetheanum in Switzerland for years and the insights she gained about the power of training our consciousness on details of our spaces.

The Spirit in Spaces

When I get going too fast at work (every May in fact!), it becomes difficult to keep my desk and the spaces around me tidy. Things piles up faster than I can put them into their place, or create new places for ones that need places. I am aware of an increasing tension when this happens. As some point I find it necessary to take a few hours to bring everything back into order. Everyone has their own relationship to this cycle – some are more able to do it in a regular rhythm – and others whenever it is needed. I was reminded of the dynamics of this recently when studying some material on the nature and life of the elementals in relation to working with my garden.

Linda Thomas, who cleaned the Goetheanum for many years, wrote a lovely article about the spirit of cleaning. It is not just about having neat and clean spaces. The cleanliness and orderliness is important and necessary, but not sufficient for maintaining a living space around us that supports our work in a healthy way. Enlivened space requires awareness and consciousness.

It has only been a generation or so since people had a living relationship to what were often referred to as “little people” around them – the spirit of the house or garden or farm (Tompten or House Gnomes). A few people are still sensitive to these beings, but generally the life of these beings (referred to by Rudolf Steiner as useful elemental beings) has been relegated to superstition.

Still everyone I know has had some experience of the life or spirit of things in their surrounding – including the mechanical or electronic tools that we use frequently in modern life. In the understanding of those who can perceive spiritual realities, the elementals are quite real, very active and in every material forms (from plants to inanimate objects), and have an effect on our capacity for doing good work in specific space. There are specific ways that we can work with these elemental beings to create positive and healthy spaces around us.

Here are a few suggestions. These practices not only make our spaces feel better, but also make it possible to be more energetic, productive and healthy, and in the olden language, please the spirits of the house, so that they can be more helpful.

Stay focused and productive. The life in a space is permeated with the quality of meaningful activity in it. This is ideally done through loving the work you do.

Make your space beautiful. The ambiance of a space is enlivened and inviting when it is beautiful and orderly. Not only is it important to add beauty to a space, but to appreciate the beauty that lives in each thing – even the little things one might overlook – a pen, a paper clip etc.

Appreciate the change in seasons and make it part of your work environment. The outer conditions of nature are an important factor in any space. Historically, the activity of house gnomes were very tied to the seasons and the more in tune with the season a space is, the more possible it is that the forces active in the seasons can flow into our work.

Keep positivity in your soul mood. Cheerfulness lights up a space in very important ways.

Fill your space with gratitude and inwardly express your appreciation for the gifts of the things around you. Keep a sense of wonder for the things you use every day.

Clean up your office with consciousness and feel more alive when you go home for the day, for the weekend, or for the summer.

-Michael Soule-

Click here to read the Linda Thomas article, Chaos in Spaces.

Michael Soulé

Principles of a Learning Organization, Five Disciplines, Senge

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Summary of the Five Disciplines of a Learning Organization by Rea Gill

Detailed in The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge (1994)

 

1 Systems Thinking

 

Senge (1994) describes systems thinking as a “discipline that involves approaching problem solving and addressing issues, not by focusing on isolated events or parts of the whole but rather by looking at the patterns and events as interrelated parts that effect and are affected by each other and that collectively make up a unified and inseparable whole .” (p .7)

 

2 Personal Mastery

 

“Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our [the members of the organization’s] personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively .” (p .7)

 

3 Mental Models

 

“Mental models” are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures

or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action …

 

The discipline of working with mental models starts with turning the mirror inward, learning to unearth our internal pictures of the world, to bring them to the surface and hold them rigorously to scrutiny . It also includes the ability to carry on “learningful” conversations that balance inquiry and advocacy, where people expose their own thinking effectively and make that thinking open to the influence of others . (pp .8–9)

 

4 Shared Vision

 

The practice of shared vision involves the skills of unearthing shared “pictures of the

future” that foster genuine commitment and enrollment rather than compliance .

 

 

Team Learning

 

The discipline of team learning starts with “dialogue,” the capacity of members of a team to suspend assumptions and enter into a genuine “thinking together .” … The discipline of dialogue also involves learning how to recognize the patterns of interaction in teams that undermine learning . The patterns of defensiveness are often deeply engrained in how a team operates . If unrecognized, they undermine learning . If recognized and surfaced creatively, they can actually accelerate learning . (pp .7–10)

 

 

From  A School as a Living Entity by Rea Gill

Michael Soulé

Basic Principles of a Living Organization, by Rea Gill

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Basic Principles of a Living Organization by Rea Gill

 

 

There are two major challenges to the ongoing creative activity of an evolving organization, much like there are two elements to managing our individual lives. We have to deal within each moment and each day with what is living growing and evolving immediately before us and widely around us. We also must look at the present moment in relationship to the whole of our life and our life in the whole of culture and humanity’s evolution.

 

It is actually easier to perceive and understand the form, processes and evolution of a human being than it is an organization. The principles of human development are a part of us and as educators, it is something we have trained ourselves to perceive and that we continue to develop with our colleagues every day. We experience theses principles through our life. In our organizations, especially in schools, the principles of organizational development can also be evident but because organizations are social creations involving numerous people and have greater levels of complexity, it is harder to see and work with the processes that guide our organizations. Whereas in education, though we have classes and a student body we are a part of, students stand before us as objective reality and we are outside them. With a school, it is harder to see the whole life of the organism as we do not stand outside it in the same way. As teachers, we know it can be helpful at times to try to enter into the beingness of the student to gain insight about their nature. As social creators, it is equally as helpful to try to step outside the organization to gain perspective.

 

Once we step outside, we take a step towards becoming social scientists.

 

Here are basic principles related to the school as a living entity with thoughts on how the ideas can be practically helpful:

 

The school is a living entity:

Just like our approach to the nurturing of the students in our care, it changes things to think of the school, not as a problem to solve, but as a mystery that is unfolding. Once we start to see the school as a set of problems to be solved, it is easy to forget that it is the wholeness of the being that must be the place of our attention. Diagnosing and trying to solve school problems is similar to diagnosing and trying to change the behavior of the students. We need to consider the whole being. It is much more effective to look at the constitution and development of the student or the school. The use of metaphors is most helpful in this realm. How would you describe your organization if it were a person? How would you draw a picture of your organization as a landscape? Often a creative approach helps reveal insights about the quality and nature of the whole school.

 

The school has a biography

The founding gesture and impulse of the school, much like the conditions around the birth of a child, provide a signature to understand and provide insights into the unfolding life of the being. Every beginning has three basic elements: parents (or founders), family heredity (or culture), and the individuality/or vision. It is important for those in leadership positions in an organization to regularly reconnect with the founding (celebrate founder’s day, recognize founders, retell the founding story) for the signature of the organization will be discernable and shared. In addition, the significant turning points in life whether they are accidents or growth opportunities, have an effect on the growing being. So too do the major events in an organizations life: major crises, conflicts and cultural shifts. I have worked with a number of schools where the lack of resolution or healing of a past crisis was actually holding the community back, and where a conscious effort towards healing/resolution/understanding allowed the community to move forward with more trust and unity. Annually, there are times when a review of the year and how it fits into the ongoing biography can yield insights into its next steps in development.

 

The school grows and develops through phases in relationship to social laws

While each school is a unique endeavor, (not like a franchise that is intended to be exactly like its siblings) the school moves through phases that can be observed and understood. The character of these phases is both general and uniquely connected to one institution. A good description of the phases and their qualities, challenges and opportunities, is offered in Chris Schaefer’s Phases of School Development posted in this newsletter. A school, like any organization, is a social creation made by people that follows social laws. (It may be creative but in the end not helpful to try to depict the relationship between the years of a humans life and the organizations life. It often become too conceptual and leads people away from a deeper observation and understanding of the organization’s life and of the underlying social laws that govern its growth and development.)

 

The school is a social organism made by people.

The founders of the school and their ongoing relationship to the school has a profound impact on the unfolding life of the institution. The relationship between founders and organization and its challenges is well documented in non-profit literature. But the school also grows gradually through the gifts of those who are involved over time. As a social creation, it is important to understand that the entire organism changes (to a greater or lessor degree) with the addition of one new member. As teachers we know this is true in our classes – the addition of one child changes the entire configuration of the class in subtle or not subtle ways. With this imagination, it becomes more important how we incorporate (orient, invite and socialize) people into the organization and how we support and encourage their development and participation in the organization. As organizations grow in size, it is helpful to consider forming a group or organ that has as one of its primary responsibilities the incorporation of new families in to the school.

 

The school has body, soul and spirit

All three aspects of the being of the school need attention and behind each aspect there are principles that are uniquely important – it has physical structures and resources needing to be sustained; it has people and relationships woven into a community and culture needing to be nurtured; and it has ideas, principles, policies and processes that need conscious attention, ongoing renewal and re-creation. It is important in the ongoing renewal of the organization that the spiritual dimension is attended to regularly – a little in each meeting through developing a culture of inspiration, and more fully annually in reviewing the mission and vision. Staying connected to the vision is key to organizational harmony.

 

The school is part of its environment and the greater culture

Like any being, the school is an integral part of its environment and has an ecological importance. The health of the organism is related to the quality of the relationships it has with the world around it. How an organization participates and takes an interest in the community out of which it was born contributes much to its success. Unfortunately, this aspect of board work is quite often the one most frequently moved aside to deal with more pressing issues.

 

The school has a physiology

The school’s physiology includes a physical form and substance, a set of processes connected to its life in the world, organs for supporting the processes, a set of ideas and principles that continually shape and recreate it and a purpose/individuality that guides it. And all of these elements of the physiology are created by people and thus reflect social ideals. Torin Finser explores these relationships and qualities in depth in his book, “Organizational Integrity.”

 

A school learns as it grows

Over time, a school can take its experiences and learn from them, turning the lessons in to institutional wisdom. The wisdom lives both in the individuals and in the policies and procedures established. Like all life, the challenges that come from the future as opportunities for change test our core beliefs. It is very helpful for the community to commit to articulating their core beliefs/values and to regularly come back to renew and evolve them. The way that the school gathers its wisdom has a significant affect on the parents and the students of the community.

It has a lifespan

An organization’s lifespan is affected by the initial purpose and the changing nature of the culture. Ecologically if there is no longer a need for or support for the organism, then the organism cannot continue. This is important to keep our eyes on as we look into the future and explore aspects of sustainability. We already see a change in the culture of education since 2000. From 1980-2000 almost 100 new schools were founded. Since 2000 there have been, in North America, relatively few.

 

Principle Notes
Every organization is a social creation with a unique purpose The ongoing role of founders has a significant effect on organization.
Every organization has a biography The biography of an organization does not follow the life phases of a person. It has unique patterns and transition points.
There are social laws that govern the life of organizations
An organization is born out of its surrounding community Its relationship with the community determines to a great degree how strong its roots are.
An organization grow, lives and learns in relations to its leadership
It has a physiology of structures, ideas, principles, and processes
An organization has a relationship to the threefold nature of social life
An organization expresses healthy or not so healthy effects.
It grows and learns through mistakes and crisis It experiences the equivalent of inflammation (heat) and Sclerosis (hardening, or being overly fixed) Both sclerosis and inflammation are important aspects of its healthy life. 

 

Michael Soulé

Chaos in Life: Cleaning and Caring by Linda Thomas

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This article was published in the British journal, Kindling. Contact information is at the end of the article.

 

 

Chaos in everyday life – about cleaning and caring

Linda Thomas

When it comes to housekeeping, the concepts of disorder and chaos often get confused. In our households, order is often related to a certain regularity and clarity. I call a room orderly, when everything is in its place and I can easily orientate myself and find my way around without fuss. However, as soon as I start working in the room, or the children start playing around in it, the order very soon turns into disorder. Order seems to have this special quality of merging into disorder without much effort, yet the opposite never occurs. I have to consciously intervene in order to re-establish the lost order.

In the Kabbalah, the story of Creation tells us that God withdrew Himself, thus producing a void. The chaos that arose within this void formed the substance from which the world was then created.

In our homes, we very often face chaos. The mere fact that we have countless ways and means, in which we can structure our daily lives, puts us face to face with chaos. We have the opportunity of purposefully re-establishing order and structure where formlessness and haphazardness have taken over.

When I clean, I do not simply want to remove dirt, I consciously try to create space for something new. Removing dust and dirt, results in a void – this void I put at the disposal of helping spiritual beings who are linked to the place I am cleaning, that something new and positive may come about.

About fourteen years ago, I started an ecological cleaning company, in order to be able to finance the Waldorf School tuition for my children. In the very beginning, I was not only the “boss”, I was the only employee and also apprentice. I had so much to learn, not only about the right equipment and cleaning agents; it was important to learn how to conserve my strength, how to protect myself, and most of all, I wanted to learn how to respect the space of other people.

The attitude that we have, regarding the work we do, is of the utmost importance. If we are unable to lead the meditative spiritual life we wish to lead, we can try to find a spiritual attitude towards everything we do in our daily lives. In other words, if you are not able to do what you love, you should try to love what you do. Things that repeat themselves constantly either turn into routine, which can have a very dulling effect; or you can try to make an exercise of awareness out of the most menial task, and already you are starting on your spiritual path.

I found an anecdote I heard a long time ago, very helpful in this regard. In a monastery, there lived a monk who was quite simple and all the menial tasks were given to him, such as washing the dishes, sweeping and scrubbing the floors and so on. He did not mind this, did all his chores lovingly while always pronouncing little prayers while doing his work. “Dear God, as I wash this dish, please send one of Your angels to wash my heart and make it pure” or “Dear God, as I clean this floor, please send one of Your angels to help me, that every person who walks on this floor, may be touched by his presence.” For every chore, he had a prayer and he continued working in this way for a great many years. The legend says that one morning as he woke up, he was enlightened and people came from very far to listen to his wisdom.

Many memories of things my father and mother once said have come back to me. We are seven brothers and sisters, and one of my brothers often came to the breakfast table in a very bad mood. My dad used to ask: “Did you get out of bed with your left foot again?” Many years later, I turned this remark into an exercise. When I wake up in the morning, I try to put myself in the upright position straight away and then very consciously, I try to always put my right foot forward when I get out of bed, thus doing something positive to start my day.

I started doing things in this way, and after a certain time, I made a very important discovery. There exists a great difference between cleaning and caring. When we clean, we remove dirt, and the result of cleaning sometimes does not even last five minutes. At the Goetheanum, you have barely cleaned the hallway, and already someone walks over it, leaving footmarks everywhere. The same goes for parents with young children. For this very reason, many people consider cleaning a frustrating and unrewarding activity, a troublesome necessity.

Yet, we should try to do this task with our full awareness, with all our love. Once we learn to consciously penetrate each little corner with our fingertips, then cleaning takes on a nurturing aspect and becomes caring. And what is so wonderful about it, is that the result of caring, lasts considerably longer than the result of removing dirt! When we have taken special care of a room, the little bit of fresh dirt which is brought in, is barely disturbing, one can live with it. The radiation is totally different from areas where layers of dirt and grime have built up......Lately a new cleaning culture, which we should really try to prevent, is trying to establish itself. There is supposedly a spray for everything – you spray and you wipe away – not much water is needed! One does indeed remove a small quantity of dirt, but instead of caring for a surface, you leave a chemical layer behind, containing quantities of dissolved dirt.

While caring for a room, we do not only come into contact with the physical world. The whole atmosphere changes, the room is filled with light. Especially children react strongly to this transformation and they also seem to perceive the change directly. We once gave a big house around here a very thorough spring clean. Returning from school, the ten year old boy immediately wanted to know whether the walls had been painted, as the house seemed so bright and shiny.

Only we can decide how seriously we take this occupation. For me, caring for a space is very fundamental. Every living organism thrives on caring, be it a child, a plant, an organism like the Goetheanum, a school, our personal household and very important, our relationships. After a workshop, one of the participants told me about her experience of the healing influence conscious caring for household can have. She had been married for fifteen years and somewhere along the line the relationship got caught in a rut. Their barely five year old house was already neglected even though it was not even quite finished. No sooner had she started applying what she had learned in our course, did her husband also start finishing things around the house. Later he told her, that as soon as she started caring for the home again, he not only felt respected but he also felt that she was aware of him again.

Consciously caring for the home enhances our sense of perception and this is what enables us to release the elemental beings, thus creating space for something new. We are constantly surrounded by and in contact with elemental, as well as countless other invisible beings. We release the elemental beings by consciously perceiving that which surrounds us – when we remove dirt, wash our hair, air the room or light a candle. A totally different atmosphere is created when we leave the burned porridge pot overnight on the stove, or when we choose to ignore the specks of cream that remain on the wall after whipping it.

We release other elemental beings through diligence and gayety, through contentment and composure.

All elemental beings can not be treated in the same way. In a school where we cleaned, there was one room with a particularly bad smell. I tried everything to get rid of the smell: my ecological cleaning agents, chemical agents, with my steam-cleaner I tried to clear even the smallest crevice. Nothing helped, the smell remained. I then assumed that I was not kind enough to the room. With loving care I again went through the whole procedure, even singing whilst cleaning. As there was still no improvement, I accepted that I would have to learn to live with it. I few weeks later I arrived at the school feeling hot and tired, and as I opened the door to the room, the odour was so intense and seemed so aggressive that I became furious. I ripped the window open, stamped my foot on the floor, shouting: “I have enough of you! I AM HERE, and there is not enough room for all of us – get out!!” Like a fury I went through the room, angrily cleaning it from top to bottom. The odour was gone! A few months later a colleague took over the job and after explaining the attitude to have toward these beings, she also managed to keep them away.

The opposite of caring is neglect. I perceive neglect as something creeping. It starts in all those little corners we do not penetrate. It comes creeping from behind the cupboards, from under bed and behind the curtains where we find so many cobwebs.

Then most houses have certain drawers......There is the oven, the vent above the stove, the windowsills where we have our collections of stones and plants. By and by it seems to take over until we can no longer stand it. Then, like a flash we speed through the house in an attempt to put everything back in order.

Many mothers and fathers feel overwhelmed and under pressure to keep the house tidy and clean. A young mother once told me: “I have been working hard the whole day, and by the time I finally had the kitchen cleared after supper, nothing seem to have been done at all. We tried to reconstruct the day, and this it what it looked like: She intended cleaning the parents’ bathroom upstairs. Just as she wanted to start cleaning, she remembered that she used the cleaning agent to clean the basin in the laundry in the cellar three days ago. So down she went to the cellar, only to discover a very smelly cat-litter box right next to the washing machine. Of course that had to be cleaned and refilled immediately. She closed the soiled litter in a bag which was taken into the garage. There she discovered piles of old newspapers and other paper, which needed to be bundled for the paper recycling which was to be collected the following day. After looking for the string for a while, she remembered that her son and his friends used to it build a cable car in the attic. Up the stairs she went and fortunately, as a bonus, she found a pullover, which has been missing for several days, next to the string... By the time she had finally bundled all the paper, it was time to start preparing lunch. Then followed a dentist appointment and music lessons. That evening, when she finally stood in the bathroom to brush her teeth, she remembered that the cleaning agent was still in the laundry.

Often it is not the work we have done which tires us, the mere thought of all the things that still need doing really exhausts us.

I know that it is not always possible to plan things in advance, because there are always those unforeseen things that happen. Yet it can be a great help, once we have decided to do something specific, to prepare everything we will need for the task the evening before. The will is activated in a totally different way once we have made up our minds to do something and then sleep over it. The household should not be a compulsion. Men and women should be master of their household and not the other way round. Yet it is important that we do not try to fool ourselves. It is the way a task is fulfilled that distinguishes the maid from the princess.

The image of the equilateral triangle helps me a lot when it comes to balance. There is thinking, feeling, willing; you, partner, children; time for work, family and yourself. The only person that knows what that triangle looks like is you.

We so often say, “I must do this, I must do that, that absolutely needs to be done….says who? You say it and I say it. We are the ones who overtax ourselves with those high expectations and demands we set ourselves. Another reason for being overwhelmed is that we do not have enough faith in all those invisible helpers who surround us. There are angels, elemental beings, the spirits of our homes…..When we get up in the morning and greet the day, nothing prevents us from asking the angels to help us to at least spend part of our day in harmony. (Perhaps until 8am, just to ensure success!) When I was in Sunday school, the pastor told us that the angels up there in heaven are totally bored because they do not have enough to do. So many requests are addressed to them which they are not allowed to answer. And then all of a sudden there is a child, or in our case, an adult who stands by the window requesting help to create harmony in the home. FINALLY! We have something to do, they say, and rush in to help us!

Before I started being the housemother of the Goetheanum, I use to regularly stand in for the person who was responsible for cleaning the toilets. I used to start at 6 in the morning, cleaning 64 toilets every day, often singing to make the job easier. For cleaning the toilets, I have my own method. There is the daily care, and then the thorough cleaning once or when necessary twice a week. Then the toilet gets cleaned from top to bottom, the whole bit. This of course requires a little more time. As the bending, cleaning, turning, bending again use to make me quite dizzy, I decided to clean the toilets kneeling down. Once you kneel down in front of a toilet, something changes. It is quite subtle, there is a change in attitude, the way one perceives it, the way you do the work, the encounter with the elemental beings. Once the job is done, I have to get up again…..I tried to also change this into a conscious exercise of putting myself in the upright position. This experience was so rich and fulfilling, that even today, if I have the choice, I will rather clean 20 toilets than vacuum clean a carpet. I love this work also because I always consider it a special gift when I am able to use a toilet that is clean and well cared for.

Last year I was in Norway to give cleaning workshops. The morning courses were in English and in the afternoons they were repeated in German. The first afternoon a woman came to me and asked me if she could still participate, as she had not signed up for the course. She mentioned that she really considered it quite a cheek that someone had to come from Dornach to tell them how to clean. Yet when her husband came home from the course and announced that she had to wait with the dishing up as he first wanted to clean the toilet, she simply had to come and see who had caused such a miracle. Her husband had never cleaned a toilet before….

Once I start talking about cleaning, I can continue for hours. And it truly is a never-ending subject. How do we clean? With what do we clean? How can we learn to discover the deeper meaning of cleaning and learn to love it? How can we educate our children (and sometimes our partner!) to pay attention to the small things and to carry an action through to its end? For instance, how do we teach them that, after wiping the table clean, the cloth needs to be rinsed, wrung and hung out to dry, rather than just dropping it into a heap in the basin, still covered with butter and bread crumbs.

This reminds me of another anecdote. A few years ago I was asked to give a lecture about my work here in the Goetheanum. The day before the lecture, an elderly gentleman phoned me to tell me how happy he was to hear that I was going to talk about something as practical as cleaning. He personally knew Hanny Geck (who helped Rudolf Steiner with the carving of the Representative of Man) and she had told him this story: Whenever Rudolf Steiner was called away from his work on the statue, he would always sweep up all the woodcarvings and chips lying on the floor and place them in the garbage can. Although she had often offered to do this, he insisted on doing it himself. One day she asked him why he took the trouble to sweep up everything even if he had to leave for only a few minutes. His answer was something like this: “While I am working, everything I work with is part of my working material and I am master of the situation. As soon as I stop working and leave the studio, everything that lies on the floor is garbage and therefore belongs in the garbage can, because the beings who feel at home in garbage, are not the kind of beings we want around when working artistically.

Finally I would like to tell you about an experience which showed me, that we should never underestimate the importance of lovingly caring for our surroundings, and the opportunity it can give us to create space for something new. These are the precious moments that enable us to constructively contribute towards peace and renewal.

I was requested to do a thorough cleaning of a home for juvenile delinquents because they were planning an open door day. As I was shocked by the state of extreme neglect and filth the house was in, I wanted to know who was responsible for the upkeep of the place. “The youths” replied the educator. “But who teaches them how to do it?” “The educators do that”. I then wanted to know if there was an area that was cleaned by the educators, and he showed me the rest quarters for the people in charge of the nightshift. Of course this was no better and I told him so. It annoyed him slightly and he wanted to know whether I wanted the job or not. I said that I was very eager to do it, but not with my own employees. My offer to come with all my equipment and material, but to clean with the youths and educators, came as a bit of a surprise. As this had never been done, he had to consult with the board first. I incidentally mentioned that the charge would be Fr. 3000.-if I came with my employees and Fr. 600- if I came on my own. The offer was accepted but then I had yet another condition. Because I have never worked with youths and I am neither a pedagogue nor an educator, I believed that I would need the support of their guardian angels. Therefore I wanted to meet the youths and learn their names before working with them. I was invited to have breakfast with them.

There were ten young boys aged 13 to 18 living in this house, and as five of them spent weekends with their family at a time, the work was planned for two weekends. The house has three stories and the whole stairwell was painted with the most horrific, demonic pictures in black and very bright colours.

Our job was to clean windows, heaters, doors, floors, showers and toilets. Yet once they started, they wanted to clean everything. They started removing posters and stickers from their walls and wardrobes. One boy even took his whole bed apart and in the process found a whole pile of missing clothes. Another wanted me to show him how he could clean his hi-fi set “ecologically”……Of course they could not work without music, and some music it was! To me it sounded like a mixture of an express train and a machine gun. The boy who chose the music actually told me it filled him with energy, although I could not see a trace of it. He wanted to know what I like listening to and I told him that I still liked listening to some of the old sixties’ music that I listened to when I was his age. All of a sudden I heard Cat Stevens’ “Morning has broken” and it sounded like a symphony in comparison to the earlier “noise”. I was even able to convince him that it was easier to clean a window to the rhythm of “Morning has broken” than to the “tu-dum, tu-dum, tu-dum” we heard before.

There was a wonderful working atmosphere and we managed to get a lot done.

Upon my return the following Saturday, the most wonderful surprise awaited me. The five boys who had cleaned with me, asked permission to take Monday off and with their own money they bought paint and repainted the stairwell from top to bottom, thoroughly covering the walls with white paint. But they did not leave it at that. The complete surface was covered with naïve childlike pictures - houses with green doors, pink curtains and smoking chimneys.

Trees covered with red apples and cherries. There were daffodils and tulips and children flying kites under a beaming sun. There were even birds, butterflies and tiny little snails crawling in the grass.

These “tough”, severely socially damaged young people felt the need to create a world of beauty and harmony on those walls, filling void, the space created though their own efforts.

 

 

Kindling, the Journal of the Early Childhood Group, Steiner Schools Fellowship

3 Church Lane, Balsham

Cambridge CB1 6DS

Tel/Fax: 01223 890988

E mail: JanniSteinerEY@aol.com