EdFix Episode 19: Bringing an MBA Mindset to Education

TRANSCRIPT

TITILOLA HARLEY:
You can only make a decision as good as the information you have in front of you. And so what we are able to do is bring a breadth of information that they wouldn't always be able to use to factor into their decisions.

MICHAEL J. FEUER:
Welcome to EdFix. I'm Michael Feuer, the Dean of the Graduate School of Education and Human Development, your host for our wonderful podcast called EdFix - your source for insights about the practice and promise of education. And we are so happy to welcome Titilola Harley. Titilola, or Titi as she goes by is the CEO and founder of the Harley Consulting Group.

MICHAEL J. FEUER:
And very interestingly began her career in education from the business side of things, with a degree in business from the George Washington University, and also an undergraduate degree from here. And it's a very special pleasure to have Titi with us, in part because I know our listeners are going to be eager to hear some updates about where we think we are in the world of building bridges between the folks who think about business concepts and management of organizations and public education, which I believe it is fair to say is Titi's main passion, at least these days. So welcome Titi, nice to have you with us.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
Wonderful to be here. Thank you.

MICHAEL J. FEUER:
Let me start with a little bit of a teaser here. What's a nice MBA doing something as complicated as education?

TITILOLA HARLEY:
Sure. Well, I think it's safe to say that I've always had a passion for education. My mom for a period of time was a school administrator. And so I've always kind of been around schools, obviously in school and got to college, decided to go to business school and became interested in consulting because I think I was attracted to the idea of being able to work on a project and then have that end and do something completely different. And consulting does afford you that opportunity. And I actually applied also to kind of couple it with my interest in education to Teach For America.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
But not being a US citizen, I learned that unfortunately, I couldn't participate in that program. And so I kind of put my ideas about being able to be in the education space aside, but graduated from my MBA program here at GW at a time when no one was getting jobs right around 2009, when it was a really rough time for everyone and ended up getting a job at DC Public Schools as a business analyst.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
So I was back in the education space, which was really exciting, but the function of my role was working around data and helping to take information that we were gathering from the schools to help figure out where we are and where we needed to go. And that sort of just completely revealed to me that even though I care about business and business principles and thinking about sort of uninteresting things to some like data analysis and how to manage people, the only way I could invest the amount of time that one invests in their day jobs is if it was about something I cared about. And luckily I was able to partner those two things. So that's kind of how it all came together.

MICHAEL J. FEUER:
You are originally from Nigeria.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
That's right.

MICHAEL J. FEUER:
I think it would be fun to hear more about that.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
Sure. So I'm actually half Nigerian, half British. My British father moved to Nigeria and there met my mother who incidentally had spent most of her formative years in the UK. So it is actually funny that they ended up meeting in Nigeria, but I was born and raised there. I had a pretty interesting educational experience in that the Nigerian education system is based on the British system because it was a former British Colony.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
So I started my early elementary years at a British school. And then at about, at about third grade, moved into the American school and so change completely from a British curriculum to an American curriculum. And it was a change for me, certainly, but I think also for my family, my parents, because they understood what it looked like to go to school in the British way. And it looks pretty different. And ended up also then going to the American high school in Nigeria, which was a boarding school, a missionary boarding school.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
And the path forward was just for students who wanted to go into higher... end up in college university. Most of them were heading to the US and so I had to then navigate applying to colleges and taking my SATs. And in that way, now that I think back, we definitely had a certain degree of privilege, but I was a first-generation US college goer because my parents just could offer no support with how to navigate getting into school in America and what it even looked like to go to college in America.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
And it was an interesting time because I didn't have the benefit being thousands of miles away in another continent to visit schools and so on. So I was primarily looking at brochures I got sent after taking my PSATs, made a decision that actually coming to GW, I think was one of the most life changing in a positive way decisions that I made.

MICHAEL J. FEUER:
Your clients, do you find that they would prefer you to just say yay or nay, yes or no, up or down, do this, do that as if there were a definitive evidentiary standard to support those kinds of claims? And how do you manage them when you know that the things are really pretty complicated and that your clients want answers, do you see what I'm getting at?

TITILOLA HARLEY:
Oh, absolutely. And I think that is core to... as a consultant, how you choose to approach work. So consultants are hired because there is a problem that the people within the organizations are struggling to answer. And so it feels like the easy answer was bring in some consultants. They'll tell us the answer and we don't have to grapple with this anymore. And as a consultant, you have to have some credibility and instill that confidence in them that you will add value to this.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
So oftentimes my clients are looking for me to tell them, this is the answer you've been looking for. You're welcome now, go forth and do it. And the reality is, as we know if any of these things were easy to answer, I don't think they'd be any consultants. It would be people like you said, selling the solutions and keeping it moving.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
But what I personally, as a consultant, the way that I choose to approach my work is I know I have a skill set and I have expertise that I know is valuable because I've had the benefit of working in tons of different environments, tons of different places, geographically within the education space that the average educational leader, educator just hasn't had the benefit. I've literally worked in all the different regions of the US. I have international experience from my background. And so I can bring to bear examples and an understanding of when they try this, this is what it looks like here when this context, so you may not want to go down that road because this is what I've seen, or you may choose to, but you're not doing it without the knowledge of.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
And so that's what I feel I am bringing, that I know oftentimes clients will value even if I'm not able to tell them, and I'm deliberate about not telling them this is the answer. And I think generally people are dubious of consultants because of that reputation where it's like, why do you think you know everything. You've never taught in my school. You've never dealt with my very unique situation and circumstances. So the goal, honestly, to come in here and then think that you know the answer is often off putting for people. So I think when I come in transparent, clear on what it is that I know I can bring to the table, what it is that I'm willing to learn, because there's always that piece of you need to come in and learn something about your context, but then able to help them think differently and bring in an outside perspective.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
I think that's a place that allows them to feel comfortable with the knowledge that I'm not here with a readymade answer for them. And most places are looking for something somewhat customized, not everything... some things have a right, a black and white way to do things, to do things well. But oftentimes we have to take into account all of the unique aspects that that client is dealing with and grappling with. And so that's what then allows us to add value, as opposed to just say here, here's your answer go forth. And in fact, what has kept me in consulting is that I care a lot about implementation. So a lot of consultants also get a bad rap because they get called in and then they produce this beautiful report or PowerPoint that has such gorgeous images and we love the graphs. And then they say, okay, thank you so much, here's our invoice goodbye, good luck.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
And for a minute, the client is super excited because look, we got it, it's in these 45 pages. And then Monday comes and now we have to do the things in those 45 pages. And that's where now we realize it's a lot messier than that. We didn't take into account that the schools you were going to do with this with or not, we're now grappling with a natural disaster in our community. So that's completely changed what everybody cares about or all kinds of things that just happen in day to day real life. And so the work that we do at Harley Consulting Group and that I care most about is walking alongside the client. So we will come in, we will help to diagnose what the issues are. And from our experience, oftentimes we're able to see that you hired us to do this thing, but what you don't know is this is a symptom of this other thing.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
Let's tackle that. And let's try these things that you may not have tried before. And let's see what that looks like, Oh, this is not yielding the results we want. Let's go back to the drawing board before it gets too late. And we spent a year and tens of thousands of dollars, a hundred thousand dollars going down that road, let's reevaluate. Let's try tweaking it this way and that way. And I just think that sort of staying with the client to kind of take whatever the solution is, but actually turn it into something that's happening on the ground.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
I think that's where there's value. And also you're building the capacity. I never feel successful if I've created a situation where now I have a job for life, because if I want it to be full-time in the space that these people are in, then I would be, but I want them to be able to do it on their own. And I don't feel like as a consultant, my job is to make myself sort of indispensable. So helping also to kind of push people and stretch them so that they can see how to take whatever is now we've realized is working and be able to do it independently I think is also a place where they think, okay, this is fine. Well, she didn't come with the exact answer, but she gave us the answer we needed for our context.

MICHAEL J. FEUER:
Something about the American education system and in fact about American democracy, which is sort of interesting is this demand for external advice. So you are not internal to the DC Public Schools. You are viewed as an outsider and for whatever reason, that has some special purchase-

TITILOLA HARLEY:
Absolutely.

MICHAEL J. FEUER:
Compared to the people who are in the system, who are often called upon to advise one another, good enough. But now there's this other thing that somebody from the outside and there's this tension because you're asked for your advice, and then you're also given the impression, well, wait a second, who are you to tell us what to do? You haven't even been in these school. Very interesting set of tensions that you've had to navigate already in your career.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
I would agree. I think that oftentimes we tell our clients, we are the outsiders. So for the difficult things that need to happen, because change at any level is hard. People, we by nature like our routine and what we've always done, and we can be the fall guys in a way that it would not be wise for an internal person to, because they have to be there and they have to be supporting the individuals who are going through the change. And so you can blame it on the consultants. We always say, but at the same time, I think that that external perspective is important for every aspect, for the individuals who are making the decisions because I think that oftentimes you can only make a decision as good as the information you have in front of you. And so what we are able to do is bring a breadth of information that they wouldn't always be able to use to factor into their decisions.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
And we can be thoughtful then in a way that they may not have even the space to, because people in education are working really hard. And well there not a lot of people who are sitting around with hours in the day to contemplate, let me do some research into what's happening in the Hawaii context or in this other context. And so you are able to sort of get that without having that time available to you quickly. But at the same time, there's some important things about an organization and people that are not the emphasis of an education in education. Things like thinking about having a strategy around work that you're doing, having an end destination we're all trying to get to, being thoughtful about the steps we're going to take to get there and the accountability that's necessary, being thoughtful about how you're going to measure how well you're getting to that place.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
And those are things that are necessary in any context, not just education, but I think oftentimes we sort of go headlong into something, some reform action or so on, and it's an afterthought like, well, how are we going to do that? Or, well, what does this mean for the teachers? We thought about what it means for the principals and what does this mean for the people in the classrooms? And, oh, well, how do we know that it's doing what we said it was going to do? We've spent all this money and all the PR says it's going to result in this. Do we know that? And being thoughtful upfront about some of those things. And I think that's oftentimes where we find a lot of our work lives kind of helping with that very uninteresting sort of, not the cool part of what people's day jobs are, but at the very necessary part of it.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
And it's fascinating because again, that benefit of the various context, the benefit of the knowing that yes, every classroom is different, but there are things teachers are struggling with all over. And so there are places that are made better in roads and others. And let me bring you some of that versus you having to kind of hit your head against the wall and figuring out yourself. So, I've been doing it for a little while now. Initially I missed being the real content expert. Like when I was at DCPS in the office of special ed, I knew how to navigate the special ed space in DC. And you couldn't come and tell me much that I didn't know. And then you become a consultant and all of a sudden you don't know everything and you don't have the context. And so you sometimes you miss being that subject matter expertise in that space. But I like to believe that the opportunity to impact and benefit more people with what I've been able to learn helps me feel better about that inability to kind of go deep in a lot of places.

MICHAEL J. FEUER:
Let me pivot now, because you've been involved in a complicated public school system, such as DC, you've been involved in issues related to special ed, and you come at this with the advantage of a degree in business. I think that's an advantage in some ways, because it gives you a way to think about these things that are different from the way people who've just been studying theories of pedagogy might go about thinking about this. But if somebody stopped you on the street and said, so what are the three most important things that the American education system should be worried about for the next decade? Where should we put the pennies and our piggybank? What should we be investing in?

TITILOLA HARLEY:
That is a great million dollar question. The first thing that came to mind when you said that is a lot of the work that I do, regardless honestly, what we're brought in to do. If it's with an education agency of some sort, we go in to talk to teachers. That stakeholder engagement is really key for many, many reasons, primarily to really understand what's happening because teachers are at the frontline of education. And also to ensure that in some space we can ensure and be honest when we say to teachers that your voices were considered, which is always going to be a necessary piece if you expect them to get behind whatever easy or difficult change you're trying to push. And so I think that really credence should be given to the voice of teachers, more time taken to incorporate that. And it seems like a basic thing, but it happens much less frequently than I think people are willing to admit.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
So figuring out a way to ensure that that is the foundation for whatever changed from because they're seeing the problems in their faces every single day and on a child to child basis, they are coming up with their own solutions and trying this. And did it make a difference? And nope, I got to try something different tomorrow that then maybe we can think about how to scale to figure out what are the more systemic and systematic solutions that we can find. I also think that we have to think about ways to bridge this gap between the community and our educational system.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
And that looks very different in different ways, but I think there's a way that the community has to work alongside schools because the things that are impacting our students and especially the most vulnerable are bigger than what the schools can solve by themselves. And oftentimes what's put at the foot of schools to address are not really issues that they can address. And so I think being much more thoughtful about bringing the community and educational agency schools together to figure out how to solve some of these things that will then result in improvements for our students in the school settings. And as far as the third...

MICHAEL J. FEUER:
Well, why you're thinking about the third, on this business of community and engagement and connectivity, if we had the money, there would be some pretty simple things we could try. Such as having a full time, mental health counselor onsite in schools where otherwise the teachers find themselves confronted with absolutely monumentally, difficult challenges that kids bring. They bring baggage and most of it doesn't fit into the overhead bin and the teachers are left there trying to keep the aisles clear and they have a lot of things. So counseling, [crosstalk 00:18:49] even the medical attention at the school level, kids who have trouble reading, it turns out some of them is because their eyeglasses don't work anymore. So that would be for starters, let's at least get that working right. Is that sort of what you have in mind?

TITILOLA HARLEY:
Yeah, and these are all sort of fall within the spectrum. Exactly what I'm talking about because what happens is schools want to help their students. And so they feel then with their limited resources, now they have to figure out a way within the confines of their walls to provide and offer this. And maybe we'll get our school nursery. When in fact that like you said, is not something that is core to what the school should be providing. So how do we partner with the organizations in our community that also care about these same cohort of kids to bring in that so that it's not feeling as the one we're in this by ourselves. And like you said, the implications for everybody, just the mental strain on a teacher, outside of just their jobs of educating kids needs to be alleviated in some way, shape or form.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
And it just can't happen if you're looking to only the school budget, only the school leadership, only these adults in this building or even in this district, I think it needs to go broader. And in my travels, I've just seen some unique ways that that's happening and people are benefiting and it's complicated because the more people you get in a room to start thinking about something is hard and complicated. And everybody's got their different interests, but then when you see it work, the benefits just far outweigh some, I think the challenges of getting to that place.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
So yeah, those are two really good examples. And especially because I spend a lot of time thinking about our most vulnerable students that tend to be students of color and low income students and what they and their families are grappling with and the challenges that they have are really big, hairy things that the schools are at the front lines of because that's where these kids are for the vast majority of the day, but the schools should not expect it to address and cannot address on their own.

MICHAEL J. FEUER:
Okay. So that's it, you did come up with the three.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
You know what? I think we'll call that three.

MICHAEL J. FEUER:
I think for starters that works for me. If we were to spend the next decade really focusing on number one, the culture and the cultivation and the standing of teachers, which would lead to at least in part number two, which is giving teachers the benefit of other kinds of community support so that what the teachers are mostly supposed to be doing, they would be able to do and others would help out. So there you have a second piece of this. And then the third, which as you know, I couldn't agree more if we don't pay more attention to the disadvantaged, we will all turn around one day and say, what were we thinking?

TITILOLA HARLEY:
Absolutely.

MICHAEL J. FEUER:
So ladies and gentlemen, listeners of EdFix, you'll hear it now because someday Titilola Harley will be secretary of education and you will have met her here on EdFix first. I can't thank you enough.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
That's very kind of you.

MICHAEL J. FEUER:
This has been fascinating. And I just want to wish you continued success in all of this, and you make us very proud because among other things you do have these initials GW after your name.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
I do.

MICHAEL J. FEUER:
And that's terrific.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
Thank you for the opportunity and for everything you do for our next generation of educational leaders.

MICHAEL J. FEUER:
If you've enjoyed this episode, you can subscribe to our EdFix Podcast on iTunes and Spotify and iHeart Radio, Player FM or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And we hope you will do that. We also have a website edfixpodcast.com. And just as an acknowledgement with great thanks and admiration to our executive director, producer, technological guru, and wizard of studio Touran Waters. It's a pleasure. Thank you again, Titi.

TITILOLA HARLEY:
Thank you so much.

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