Lessons Learned: Shaping Relationships and the Culture of the Workplace - Rilegato

"Few topics are more important than how school leaders can shape relationships and improve the culture of the workplace. In Lessons Learned, Roland Barth distills a lifetime of craft knowledge acquired both on the sea and in schools to provide readers with the guidance and wisdom that only such a reflective and insightful mind can provide. Barth advocates truth telling, and this wonderful book offers that rare and significant gift to its readers."

"School leaders will find treasures of wisdom in this profound, yet entertaining, easy to read, and witty account of Roland Barth's life as an educator and sailor, and his ability to connect the two experiences. The importance of creating a productive work culture through positive relationships remains Roland Barth's main message to educators. In Lessons Learned, he skillfully uses the navigation metaphor to draw simple, yet profound lessons rooted in his experience as a teacher, principal, and sailor."

"Lessons Learned is an insightful, funny, moving look at commonalties between life at sea and life in the schoolhouse. Using his head and heart, Roland Barth applies the many lessons learned from sailing (Cruising Rules) to the work of school leadership (Working Rules). Combining the two challenging practices makes for much shared wisdom and serious fun."

"If you’re curious about how to strengthen and sustain relationships in life, you’ll relish Lessons Learned. If you are a school leader who wants to build strong organizational culture, you’ll find it essential."

"Barth reminds us that relationship building is still key to creating and sustaining high performing schools. In this way, he walks the reader through the many practical strategies educators can―and must―use to grapple with the continuous adaptive challenges inherent in learning communities."

"Whether a sailor or a school administrator, on a boat or in a boardroom, out to sea or ashore, Barth’s Lessons Learned is a powerful guide for defining the types of interpersonal relationships needed to bring about success."

"Barth has mined his own experiences for a wonderful collection of tales that use open-water sailing as a powerful metaphor for work and life. By turns witty, entertaining, instructive and poignant, Barth’s stories will get you thinking, and the 'working rules' salted throughout the book will help you navigate the deceptive shoals and powerful tides we all have to deal with at work."

"I found myself wanting to steal all his quotes and rules, and fill them in with my own stories. He left me making New Year’s resolutions and then laughing at myself. Roland Barth turns reflective craftsmanship into a revealing and wonderful venture, as he scans deeply over and under troubled waters, and comes up each time with a new way to see an old dilemma."

"Roland Barth’s Lessons Learned is a revelation about 'school' and those who practice it. To read it, every cruising rule, working rule and scene, is to be inspired, heartened, startled, delighted. Barth talks to us with astounding candor and humor and astuteness."

Founding Director, Harvard Principals' Center.

Roland S. Barth is a consultant to schools, school systems, state departments of education, universities, foundations, and businesses in the United States and abroad. After receiving his AB degree from Princeton University and master’s and doctoral degrees in Education from Harvard University, he served as a public school teacher and principal for fifteen years in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and California. Barth received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1976, and joined the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for thirteen years. He serves as a trustee of Hurricane Island Outward Bound School, a member of the board of Micro-Society Inc., chairman of the Board of the Principal Residency Network, and a member of the Board of Editorial Advisors of the Phi Delta Kappan.