Assignment+3.1

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 * Job Embedded Assignment 3.1-What’s Driving Our Organizational Culture**

The organizational culture at the CIU #10 is an interesting amalgam of varying disparate cultures. Very few Intermediate Unit staff members begin their professional careers as Intermediate Unit employees. Most begin professional life as a teacher in a school district either in Pennsylvania or surrounding states. Generally, unless devoted to Special Education, they have limited or no contact with Intermediate Units. Their loyalties and decision-making processes are limited to a building or a district. The change to working at an Intermediate Unit structure is immense, sometimes overwhelming. Instead of having a “loyalty” to a single small geographic area well represented by local individuals, the IU staff must represent a large geographic area that varies in size, population and wealth. This constituency is not well defined by a local geographic area, encompasses all different types of students/parents and doesn’t even have a football team! Unlike a local school district, the IU’s do not have a large local presence in day-to-day operations. The general public has no idea what an IU is let alone what it does. In fact, most teachers would also have no idea. But, the IU’s are charged with leading these same people into changes in curriculum and instruction while having absolutely no power to enforce these changes. This presents unique challenges and opportunities for leadership. We at the IU’s have taken different roads to this leadership role in different areas of the state. In some areas, the IU has become a powerful presence in organizing coalitions of local schools. They are rich with specialists that have a large presence within the local schools and are well funded by the collected local schools. In other areas, the IU has been unable to convince the local schools to work cooperatively with the result being “less than optimal”. We at the CIU#10 are in the latter category. What is “less than optimal” you may ask? Minimal budget, isolated headquarters and limited number of staff with multiple responsibilities attempting to accomplish the same objectives as the other IUs. This forms the basis for a very different type of decision making than the other IUs. But, surprisingly, it is not as large of a handicap as you might believe at first glance. The advantages of a small, isolated organization is that it is much flatter than it’s larger wealthier counterparts. Leadership is not isolated from the line staff as they often are in larger organizations. Decisions are done more cooperatively and implemented more quickly because there are not as many layers to push through. The lean nature of the organization allows for maximum flexibility. The culture of the CIU #10 is that “We do what needs done.”. Each frontline staff member has great flexibility in their decision-making and rapid response from higher levels. The top-level administrators see and talk to each other on a daily basis. Crisis items are dealt with quickly because they can be and need to be. There is no “other guy” to take care of things. We often say we have the same problems as larger IUs : the difference is just a matter of how many zeroes follow the problem. We talk about “opportunities” not “problems”. We are constantly on the lookout for new opportunities for funding and programs that we can offer to our schools. Our loyalties lie not just to the local school district where we live, but to all the districts large and small with the CIU.