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In his presentation entitled "Quality in organizations large and small" at the 2008 Working Forum for Multi-Site Organizations, Bob Siegel talked about taking strategic steps toward quality. One of these steps was to set up your definition of success. Siegel observed:

"It’s essential for your organization and for your people to ask and answer the question: How will we know when we get there?

• This ability to have people self-define their own points of success will increase their investment. At some level, we all work harder and more passionately when we’ve set out our own goals. Now, we truly own those goals.
• The process of having people discuss the details that actually operationalize a concept start to make it real for everyone. Now, it’s something that we as a group decided for ourselves, not another rule, regulation, or standard handed down to us. Again, we own it.
• Asking 'How will we know when we get there?' is a conversational way of getting to measurable objectives and benchmark setting through a more comfortable conversation. You still get to those important junctures, but the ease and comfort of the conversation makes everyone a contributor . . . and owner.
• Lastly, the final element of this step is asking the question; 'Okay, I think we’ve got it. Now, what could possibly screw it up?' This becomes a tremendously robust query at the (perceived) end of this defining quality conversation. Then you list all the things that can get in the way and begin to brainstorm ways of defeating each of these obstacles. What a powerful process for a planning group and its members to go through!"

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In a recent Exchange focus group of early childhood educators, one common concern expressed was the high cost of textbooks. To counter this, Exchange asked what if we put our most popular classroom resources on CD at a considerably reduced cost from the print version...and the response was a unanimous "Go for it." So today we are announcing our first textbook on CD — The Art of Leadership: Managing Early Childhood Organizations. Now individuals or training institutions have a choice -- they can buy the print version of Art of Leadership for $63 or the CD version for $38.

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