As has been widely reported, the teachers in Chicago are on strike. The teacher's union, some 25,000 strong, is demanding that laid-off teachers be given the first opportunity for new opening and for an evaluation system that does not rely as heavily upon student results. They're also upset about the calls for a longer school day and a longer school year. Of course, at the end of the day, neither the administration or the teacher's union will "win" this one. Only the students stand to lose, and here's why.

Every morning, I run through Emory University. The evolution of this institution over time has been incredible. From a small Methodist college in a small town in Georgia, Emory has emerged as a major international university in the largest city in the southeast. The undergraduate, law, medical, and business schools attract students from literally around the world, and speakers like the Dalai Lama and President Carter have spoken at the university.

Well, it is the last week of June, and that means for most organizations, they are looking at the end of the quarter or even the end of the fiscal year. If you are in a for-profit organization, that means you are pushing for sales, invoices, and collections. In nonprofits, fundraising is extremely busy as is the quest to spend budget (if you are a use it or lose it organization). So, what is so special about this week, and why is it so crazy?

Jamie Dimon's testimony this week about how JP Morgan Chase ended up losing over $2B due to bad decisions compounded by bad decisions got me thinking about risk, risk management, and incentives. And how, at the end of the day, it's the incentives that matter.

For private sector organizations, it's usually pretty easy to figure out the ultimate measure of success -- it's usually some proxy for profitability -- either earnings per share, revenue growth, or share of market. But for the clients we work with, it's often a bit harder. While we can usually define the strategic objective pretty clearly, it's harder to define the measure behind it.

In light of the two conferences--Managing for Performance and the Mission-Driven Management Summit-- Ascendant held last week and the discussions around performance management in our education systems as well as the nonprofit and government sectors, I was surprised to read an article about new steps New York State is taking in today's Wall Street Journal, "State to Target Cheating by Teachers."

According to the article, "the day after state lawmakers approved a measure under which student scores on state tests will count for up to 40% of teachers' annual evaluations," they created "an investigative unit to combat cheating by aiding local districts and probing the most egregious cases."

Outcome-oriented philanthropy, the focus on achieving tangible strategic results as a result of philanthropic contributions, has become a dominant topic in the mission-driven arena. Outcomes, outcomes, outcomes..... This renewed focus on results is laudable. But we have to be careful not to focus on outcomes at the exclusion of all else.

Peel back almost any case study of a failed organization, and you'll see, more than anything else, an example of a failure of alignment. Alignment, at its simplest, is the entire organization working towards a common goal. It seems so simple, but in practice is really difficult to achieve. Why is this? Is it just some perverse quirk of human nature? Or can alignment happen?

A recent survey by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Scholastic found that America's teachers are open to the idea of being held accountable for their students' progress through multiple measures. Bill and Melinda Gates describe those findings and the work their foundation is doing to help teachers improve their craft in an article in the Saturday, October 22, Wall Street Journal.

They make some great points about the difficulty in developing measures of the profession, or "craft" of teaching. "We have all known terrific teachers," the Gates' write. "You watch them at work for 10 minutes and you can tell how thoroughly they've mastered the craft. But nobody has been able to identify what, precisely, makes them so outstanding."

A recent debate stirred up by a Wall Street Journal sports article got me to thinking about the importance of choosing measures to determine the impact performance is having on your organization.

To summarize the article from Aug. 13, "The Obvious MVP ... in 1991," for you, it argued that the New York Yankees' Curtis Granderson would be the favorite for the American League's Most Valuable Player (MVP) award if it were 1991 because he was tied for first in runs batted in (RBI), second in home runs, led the league in triples, and even had 22 stolen bases. However, over the last 20 years, the major statistics (measures) by which MVP voters gauge a baseball player's value have shifted, largely due to the Sabermetrics movement led by Bill James and Billy Beane.