The Together Leader. Heyck-Merlin Maia

      Copyright © 2016 by Maia Heyck-Merlin. All rights reserved.

      Published by Jossey-Bass

      A Wiley Brand

      One Montgomery Street, Suite 1000, San Francisco, CA 94104-4594 – www.josseybass.com

      No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

      Permission is given for individual classroom teachers to reproduce the pages and illustrations for classroom use. Reproduction of these materials for an entire school system is strictly forbidden.

      Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Readers should be aware that Internet Web sites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read.

      Jossey-Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax 317-572-4002.

      Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. This material may be found on the author's website, www.thetogethergroup.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      978-1-118-98752-0 Paperback

      978-1-118-98753-7 ePub

      978-1-118-98754-4 ePDF

      Cover Design: Wiley

      Acknowledgments

      The Together Leader was a long time coming. And it would never have arrived without a ton of support. I certainly didn't invent the To-Do List, but I have been inspired and encouraged by many to share my own unique approach to Togetherness. Two Together and rapidly growing non-profits, Teach For America and Achievement First, collectively employed me for over a decade and let me observe, experiment and eventually train widely across both organizations while I was technically doing “other jobs.” So many people have invited me deep into their organizations, their schools, and even their homes to allow me to paint a rich picture of Together Leaders. And because of all of those observations, I've been able to curate and narrate effective practices back to you.

      To the thousands of Together Leader workshop and webinar participants: thank you for sharing your stories, results, and passion. Every time I deliver a workshop, I'm reminded why we need so many more mission-driven leaders fighting the good fight. I'm especially grateful to organizations that have welcomed me in to share so much about their people and practices: The Achievement Network, TNTP, KIPP, the Relay Graduate School of Education, YES Prep, Achievement First, The Ewing Marion Kauffman School, Teach For America, Citizen Schools, and more. There are countless other organizations mentioned within the book, but the ones listed here tolerated my e-mails, visits, questions, and more over countless years. And a huge thank-you to the leaders I've coached who agreed to open the doors and share their tools, mind-sets, and routines throughout this text. There are too many of you to list individually but just know I have a spreadsheet and I'm thanking you all profusely. You've dealt with my requests for interviews, requests for documents, and requests for more interviews with grace and enthusiasm.

      There are many pioneering authors on the topics of priorities, habits, rituals, energy, and productivity. To Tony Schwartz, Brigid Schulte, Tom Rath, Steven Covey, David Allen, David Levitan, and Laura Vanderkam: thank you for setting the stage, going first, doing the hefty research, and helping me apply your concepts to my particular sector.

      I'm so grateful to those who have been brave (or unfortunate) enough to lead me: Antoinette Bienemy and Jim Geiser, my two principals; Jerry Hauser, Nicole Baker Fulgham, and Jeff Wetzler, my managers at Teach For America; Dacia Toll and Doug McCurry, my co-bosses at Achievement First. Thanks for consistently modeling why a leader needs to be Together.

      Norman Atkins, Dan Konecky, Aaron Suffrin, the whole Relay GSE team, Jay Altman, and Mike Goldstein have always championed my work and served as wise mentors. I'm grateful to a team of professional supports, including Rusty Shelton and the entire team at Shelton Interactive, Lee Kirby, Nicole Garner, and Lee Weiner. We have been together for a long time now, and I'm grateful for your various areas of content expertise. Kate Gagnon and her wonderful team at Jossey-Bass supported this project from the very start. They joined me at workshops, refined the table of contents, ensured every ounce of text flowed smoothly and every image printed clearly.

      Many people donated their most precious resource (their time) to read entire copies of this book. Allie Rogovin, you are the epitome of a Together Leader. Thank you for being my first cold reader. Trusted advisors Scott McCue, Randall Lahann, Kim Marshall, and Giselle Wagner brought their collective decades of leadership experience to offer wise feedback in the book's earliest stages. Genna Weinstein and Kate McCabe: thank you for serving as such trusted thought partners and consistently replying to my spazzy text messages. I also want to thank Kate Berger, Shawn Mangar, Erica Williamson, Chris Hines, Ron Gubitz, Emily Stainer, Maggie Goldstein, Sean Precious, and Amanda Cahn for being ever-available on the bat-phone; fellow author Elena Aguilar for being a source of practical advice and constant cheerleading in the home stretch; and many thanks to the countless others, too many to name, who gave input on the initial table of contents.

      A big thanks to Shelby Lee Keefer and Evan Jenkins, who functioned as my work best friends while in graduate school and looking for acting work on Broadway, respectively, for handling social media, travel booking, and myriad other thankless tasks that kept us moving. A deep shout-out of gratitude goes out to Kendra Rowe Salas and her rotating cast of actors (including, occasionally, her husband!), who seamlessly handle every back-office part of my work, from project management to inventory to website to newsletters to accounting. Kendra, this book would not be possible without you doing so much to free up my brain to think and write. To Meghan Pierce, book production coordinator, researcher, fact checker, art logger, recipe sharer extraordinaire: thank you for handling my creativity with such flexibility and encouragement. You can make a spreadsheet, spot an inconsistency, and find a million solutions like no other. And to Marin Smith, my dear friend and colleague