Five Mistakes that Killed a Once-Great School and How You Can Avoid Them

With thanks to Kevin Roose for his article, How the Blackberry Died:  Five Mistakes That Killed a Once-Great Device.

Blackberry Academy was founded in 1962 and serves students in grades 7-12. For years, Blackberry was a good educational option for families who valued small classes and were disappointed in the sliding test scores at the public schools. Five years ago, during COVID, a new superintendent of the local public school system was hired. Within two years, she had appointed new principals to each of the local schools in the district. Significant changes have been afoot at these schools and families are taking notice. In addition, a micro-school opened three years ago that includes a la carte options for grades 7-12. This micro-school has now enrolled 100 full-time and 75 part-time students about half of which are home schoolers and the other half are a mix of public school and Blackberry students. A Russian Math franchise has opened, an arts center offering a wide array of enrichment courses will open next month, and an after school STEAM center has now opened in the old town Grange Hall and parents are flocking there with their children. Eight years ago, Blackberry Academy enrolled 540 students. That number dropped to 460 this school year and for 2025-2026 the Academy is projecting an enrollment of 430. The Academy’s CFO is projecting a considerable deficit next year.

Blackberry Academy … where did it go wrong and how does it find its way back?

1. The Academy has an identity crisis.
   There isn’t clear alignment on what the school is all about. Ask 20 different people what the school stands for and you’ll get 20 different answers. The Academy hasn’t actually shut its doors. Instead, it’s what my colleague Ross Peters would call a “Zombie School — a directionless facsimile of its former” self. It “abandoned strategy and has been making choices that look more like those of a B-movie Zombie, flailing outstretched arms and moving toward the next shiny object that captures its attention.” This was happening before COVID and too many at the Academy are blaming issues on COVID when really COVID is simply exacerbated long simmering problems. 
   
   Takeaways:
   
   For many schools, strategy that made sense in a pre-COVID context, no longer does. The world is now simply a different place and schools need to deal with the new realities. Major changes on the political front, AI becoming more and more powerful, and a flood of new options for alternative learning opportunities, means schools are swimming in different currents than they were five years ago. It’s time to take stock, acknowledge the current approach isn’t working and plot a different course. What you may find is that you aren’t equipped to head in the preferred direction right away. Schools that build their change management muscles will come out ahead. Changes are likely needed to staffing, program, culture, systems (or putting systems in place), communications, and governance, to name but a few. This amount of change can seem overwhelming if not impossible. It doesn’t have to be. To deliver on your winning aspirations for your school you will need to make a set of integrated choices. So systems thinking is important.
    
2. The Academy didn’t play well with others. 
   The Academy valued its independence so highly that it didn’t see how this independence was causing it to become more and more insular. While the public school prioritized looking outward —they collaborated with other schools, joined networks, communities of practice, and professional cohorts, as well as took on joint projects—the Academy didn’t move much beyond its gates nor did it invite others in.
   
   

   Takeaways:

   Blackberry didn’t understand that in this Age of Acceleration, information and wisdom is increasingly emergent and action must be taken before certainty can be established. When dealing with imperfect and emerging information, collaborating with others reduces the risk for all involved and it allows schools that work together to leapfrog ahead of those who do not collaborate. This is especially true of smaller schools with limited endowments.

   Many schools don’t have departments large enough to support idea hunting, curricular reimagination, and the build-out of those ideas. This is where partnering with one or more similarly situated schools or learning organizations can be very helpful.

3. The Academy does not have the courage to shut down programs, processes, initiatives, or courses that don’t deliver even though the cost of maintaining them is completely out of proportion to their usefulness. 
   The reasons are legion. No one wants to take on the burden of dealing with upset faculty, parents, students, or alums. The Academy has no mechanisms or tools to determine if something is working well enough to keep it. There is a lack of institutional research. There are no clear standards for adding new requirements or moving from a pilot to something school-wide and permanent. The result is that a tremendous amount of time and energy is devoted to things that have outlived their usefulness or may have never delivered on them in the first place. Over the years, more and more things have been added, resulting in a school community buried in white elephants and dinosaurs. The atmosphere is permeated by exhaustion and pockmarked by something my colleague David Torcoletti calls “islands of resentment”. (He and I have, on more than one occasion, reflected on the ubiquity of these islands in independent schools.)
   
   
   Takeaways:
   
   Exhaustion and resentment poison the healthy and prevent an institution from thriving. So, helping your school evolve into something simpler and more agile is important. But be aware that people often cling to the old way of doing things because they really cannot envision a different and better way. This is where painting a clear picture can help and if you need help painting that picture, then get it. Call in help.
   
   Some aspects of this work are akin to cleaning out the attic or basement of the house grandma and grandpa lived in for 60 years. No one really wants to take on this work and the mere act of unpacking the boxes is going to bring up memories and feelings. Nostalgia. Loss. Grief. The way to start is one room at a time. Success in cleaning out one area can give you the confidence and fuel the resolve to move onto more areas.
    
   You may also want to consider a playful approach to get the muscles warmed up. “What if” exercises, alternative scenario building, and futures simulations can all help your community become more comfortable with change. Getting people into the habit of intentional evolution and renewal is half the battle.
   
   Another muscle that needs building is institutional research, something that seems a mountain too high to climb for too many schools. We have some advice on how to build out an institutional research function. I can’t stress enough the importance of building this capacity. Too many schools are making too many decisions based on anecdotal information. Sometimes schools know they have problems or weaknesses, but because they haven’t measured them, they don’t appreciate their risks. Resources are put against things that should be terminated while other areas are being underfunded. Time matters. Making poor investments year after year leaves you with fewer resources to invest in those things that can secure a thriving future.
   
   
   
4.  The Academy was comically inept about staying abreast of changes in the world.
   Blackberry Academy believes that a great school does not bend to fads and hence is what would be called a slow adopter. Over the years it made minimal investments in technology and professional development for faculty. When COVID arrived, the switch to remote teaching was frightening. This change was hard for most schools, but was particularly challenging for the Academy. 
   
   The Head of School didn’t appreciate that what worked in the past wasn’t going to lead the school into a thriving future. As the School’s financial position became weaker and weaker, the Head of School and the Board leaned into hope as a strategy. They refused to look the facts in the face.
   
   Takeaways:
   
   One of the metaphors we often use with schools we are working with is looking down the path as far as possible since if you look down at the rock or tree in front of you, the chances of flying over the bars is great. Unfortunately, we have far too many schools close to flying over the handlebars because they are not looking down the path.
   
   Looking down the path has to be a skill employed by every leader in your school – division or department head. Institutional research and good data analytics should be informing your admissions operations and strategy and retention plans. We know dramatically more now about learning science than we did 10 years ago, but it’s astonishing how many schools cling to old and debunked methods. We know more about student assessment and faculty professional growth, yet fail to act. Maintaining the status quo results in a sclerotic culture that reinforces mediocrity as the standard. Simply put, families don’t want to pay for mediocrity and once they start to sniff that it is there in the hallways, they will go in search of fresh air.
   
   One thing that can help school is to develop idea hunting systems. (My friend Andy Boynton, Dean of the Carroll School of Management at Boston College and author of The Idea Hunter and I meet regularly to share ideas.) Without idea hunting, your school cannot be prepared for multiple futures, which is the only way to ensure sustainability and resiliency.
   
   Families are now used to things they were not used to before – online learning, learning pods, home schooling, home delivery, purchasing many more things a la carte, working from home, personalized service, and trying things in new ways. Their appetite for things remaining the same as before has been reduced. Disruption opportunities are in the air whether from the school down the street or from alternative education providers who may arrive in person or virtually.
   
   
   
5. The Academy had too many of the wrong leaders in place and didn’t recognize the real leaders in the faculty. 
   The Academy has a seasoned group of leaders – Head of School, division heads, head staff, administrators, and department heads. The problem is that too many of them acted as managers and not as leaders of their functional area. Too many waited for direction from the Head of School – for the Head to be the one looking down the road of their functional area – when what was needed were leaders who could idea hunt, thoughtfully assess situations, plot a strategic course, propose solutions, get others to move, and communicate quickly, clearly, and often. 
   
   With faculty hiring season upon us, it behooves schools to hire strategically. Yes, COVID is now in our rear view mirror, but the next crisis is lying in wait and we need to be preparing for it now. Who do you need to be on your team to move gracefully with an uncertain and volatile future? We all need teammates who are oriented to a progress cultures and every school needs some carefully selected mischief makers who are able to be the provocateurs who prompt us to change our ways. If you are approaching hiring as simply replacement, then you are hiring in a way that ensures you will stay on the same old path. Every single hire is strategic–not just senior leadership–which leads us back to mistake #1: it’s essential to know who you are and where you want to go. From there, you then can focus on hiring the right people who will play significant roles in moving the entire endeavor forward. It’s hiring for purpose, and people who feel that their work is purposeful are more engaged and they stay longer.

In 2008, Blackberry (the device) had a 50% market share and six years later it was under 1%. There are cautionary tales all around us if we simply look. The world is not going back to the old normal – pre-COVID or even possibly pre-DOGE. We have, in the words of Yeats, “been changed, changed utterly.” We can live in fear, anxiety and paralysis, or we – in concert with others – can courageously walk through the fear and build something new and better. The first step is to pick up the hammer. At first it might feel heavy, but once you get practice using it – you get those muscles built up – you’ll be surprised at just what you and your community can do.