Interview of Todd Vincent, November. 15, 2020

Todd Vincent is the headmaster of my high school.

Liam - Hey Mr. Vincent how are you

V:I'm doing well Liam, how about yourself?

L: I'm doing well too, the reason I'm calling is I have a project in one of my classes that's basically built around leadership and the assignment was to interview someone that we viewed as a leader and so I thought you were a perfect candidate for that position.

V: Thank you, it's my pleasure, I'm happy to help

L: Awesome, so I just have a bunch of questions and I know you're probably on a tight schedule right now so I'll just start getting through it. To start off, what part of your personal background and early life experiences lead you to think this was the role you wanted to take and the position you wanted to grow into?

V:Yea, thank you that's a great question, I think doing a lot of things is helpful, and we are all learning and getting better but it's definitely invaluable to follow so i appreciated that I had as many jobs as I can imagine. Like in high school and college, painting, working and scrapping,

Working at a gate house, waiting tables and I think all of that helps because it's all about people, and building rapour and relationships. So I think all of that adds up and if your lucky enough to get a shot at something and it makes sense I think you build on it.

L: Gotcha, do you feel like you were called into this position meaning was it something that felt natural or was it more something that you had to learn?

V: Definitely both, so one aspect would be, these are long journeys in some case, so this is my 35th year at this school and I never thought I would be in teaching or that I would choose to stay, and a lot of it just has to do with community, I just like the people and the opportunity to do a bunch of stuff and to your point, I started to teach and coach, then I worked different positions throughout the summer camp, then eventually every division, and there was a piece of those that was definitely a learning curve. Then the way we approach learning, I didn't go directly to grad school, I waited to see what career might be of interest, so I went after a few years of teaching, then you just continue your professional development and so each of those tracks leads to networking and getting to know people in different industries. Most recently I worked with some non profits, globally, and that helps to give perspective. So I definitely learned from the in house expertise that was available, I gained a lot through the education industry and went outside to look at other professions, and so the learning curve for me, whether its non profit or working in other industries in relation to how that works with our board or our parent body.

L: Gotcha, when you say in house do you mean mentors and stuff like that?

V: Yea definitely, I'm sure as you go about your music you'll see that we are constantly picking up mentors and learning from others. And the things that I have valued and appreciated is that mentors come at any stage of one's career, I'm learning a lot from all the kids, and if you pay attention you'll realize that you don't always learn from people in the faculty or positions of leadership but also from those who come in and out. For example, more recently during the back end of your time here, doors were getting opened for the school and all of that was about people coming in that brought something to the school like the MFA partnership or the Harvard Med partnership, all of those came in saying that they were just trying to help kids and those relationships end up being great.

L:Thats great, so how would you characterize your leadership skill and before I give you a chance to answer I just wanna say that from my perspective I always remembered you as a great speaker from doing the talks at chapel, and I remember you being very down to earth, I remember the time I got suspended from school and you came up to me and were like, these things happen we want to welcome you back and that really touch me in a special way, so how would you characterise your own leadership style.

V:That's great Liam Thank you, for me it was at summer camp when you were picking up an instrument, maybe on the early end, and then you guys were playing at lunch and you were just all over it with the kids and I admired the way you approached a lot of things and that you were just connecting to people and i guess your only as good as half a minute ago so you were constantly learning and getting better, and so when it comes to my style , I love the idea of empowering others to lead so if i'm doing my job your at the roof deck as camps being and your playing in your band and cutting CDs, and the same would be true if I hire well , If i let people grow, and do things, it gets better by the moment, and any idea I have it gets complimented beautifully if others are empowered to do things with it. So thats what Ive been working on, for another example, you just want so much for the kids whether its model UN or other things you just try to get people with the necessary skills and just let them run with it. And while you know this place is detail focused and can lead to micromanagement I still try to say the expectations are really high, you need to grind and deliver, but i want you to add your own flavor to it, i'm thinking of a few teacher, if they come in and are in training like Mr. Thors he can help run a department and also teach US politics i think thats great.

L: Who has been your greatest influence

V:I love that, I would say it depends on where I am, wherever you are in your development, those are the most important people. Obviously Mr Phinny, teachers coaches and especially my dad, he ran some businesses so we always had that entrepreneurial spirit, and to your first question, my mom grew up outside of detroit so she was a pick of work, very tough and she ran all the headstarts in the YWCA's so she was a social worker but she was running all the stuff in Inkster, just miles outside of detroit and that was crazy inspiring. My grandfather was minister so it all revolved around this idea that you serve others so from him as a minister and her as a social worker and my dad as an entrepreneur I think all this has helped with the flavor, your trying to help educationally but you also get to do some really amazing things like looking into investment, looking into your endowment, since youve been here weve done a lot of building, all of that and the learning curve, the previous head he was a mentor sorta back to this gentlemen Mr. Staltentall, Mr Phinny, bu then it was, there was a trustee member from HPS been a long time faculty member there, but he was a guru for nonprofit , for board administration so that was really good, most recently I've admired some people you'd be familiar like Mark Fusco, Jonathan Craft, like every sound bite from them is completely worth it. Everything that they share you just feel like your on your Mba again,

And then the other part I've enjoyed over the last few years is the architects we've worked with and there's a gentleman, the CEO of Delbruck and he's been unbelievable helping us finish the athletic project and the lower school, his name is Mike Fish and I knew him when he was a boy here so that's just awesome. He gets it done, he's got multimillion dollar projects, I knew him as a boy and he ends up becoming a mentor, just too add another flavor for this, I really admire the fact we were trying to get this project complete, we pushed in time to get it done before school was open, it ridiculous we were on budget and on time and we moved even faster. During Covid because we weren't on the boston line, we were able to stay brookline so we never shut it down, we had nurses coming in, it was very admirable

We didn't lose their months, we moved the date on him three times and what should've taken 2 years we finished in 13 months and he came in three weeks ahead of time. And so mentors are everywhere and its important to try and pay attention so you don't miss something, I do feel like a important part of this job is being engaged, and try a be around and watch what the experience really looks like because if your in your room or office you don't really see what's going on

L: yea that must have been very inspiring to watch the man you mentions growth and see him all along his journey, must have been very satisfying

V:yea that was really cool, you'll see his stuff when you come visit the school. He's everywhere, another example, this young guy, real go getter, he's a project manager, just got his masters and he's thirty so he worked his way up and at one point he was in charge of 150 guys, he's got em moving in sync and he's just getting it done. And there's such a sense of urgency and how that translates to us is that we're accountable, it's up to us, if we drop the ball the kids don't get what they need and that sticks with em. So I feel like from a faculty perspective, it's a long game and if we don't get them what they need they won't be able to be successful in the future whether its study habits or work ethic, the ability to write or problem solving so i feel like it's not just punching a clock if we don't serve well we've always done a disservice

L:yea I hear ya, so going back to something you mentioned earlier, you mentioned that it's such a big grind and you expect a lot from you employees, what are some tactics that you guys use to mitigate stress and how do you guys handle the pressure of being in such a demanding position,

V: Yea , sometime you just never know it really comes down to the individual

That you build up. These are pretty big places, so i do count on those that have their direct reports whether it's the division head or department head to build an infrastructure to be helpful. We try to make sure that we are paying attention I would say that our model is perhaps more challenging because we believe that the best way to get to know children is to be around them and do a lot, meaning that we ask teachers to do more than teach we ask them to coach to advise to drive buses and run clubs and so on so you find out very quickly if they are up for it. So maybe you get people that work camp or people who work at a boarding school, it shows up pretty quickly if the grind is a positive or a negative. I always took it as a positive, I loved that I could teach and skate and be on the field and if you're not in that mindset it could be a real downer. Things now are really crazy with the Covid right now there's a lot of fear and we made some tough decisions, and I learned a lot, like you need to stick with your decisions and not be wishy washy, so we decided to open camp when nobody else was open and we used the camp to pilot safety procedures and when school started we thought it was best for the kids to be in class in person so we didn't waiver. So to your point where it's helpful to them we try to have an infrastructure build in, where peers and support and help take things off of people's plates, and on the other side we do have a job to do and that opinion may not be as popular and its important to say if we don't do this service well why would anyone buy this product. While maybe some look at education as a different kind of structure but I see it as both. At a head you see it from the academic end but you also see it from the "what does it take" end. Even since you've been here, good for the school, we have a critical mass in the school with a size of 361 and it's still boutique so kids can lead in a different way .

L:So you mentioned balancing between that business and academic side, when you're kind thinking in that business mode, you mentioned that you need to be on it and not wishy washy, what are some keys to making those difficult decisions.

V:so definitely market share, I'm from Michigan so it's so different from New England, but this is a saturated market, and ya know this is just my take, but we need to differentiate ourselves, I think we did that through the summer. We want to be a sort of renaissance school, that's why we want kids being engaged in all sorts of things and that might be a little different, that's why in the lower school your playing nine sports, doing fine arts, performing arts, and so we've decided to not be all things to all people, I think that's pretty cool, so we said we are what we are, why chase certain things, so we do have a dress code, we stay single sex in the lower school, we did some stuff that was pretty bold at the time, like going co ed in the high school given that history, we gonna grow the school, were gonna have pre k - 12 on one campus,

Were gonna look at the boston market, we gonna go rogue on somethings were we dont want to be completely bought in and that has to do with ya know football join the evergreen league but being in another league for other sports, deciding to go D1 for hockey, we belong to professional arms of schools where they allow us to build networks. We also want to stand on our own, os it comes down to where is our market share look, we compete against everybody, and then how does our funnel look and the most important thing back to the student is that you deliver and people get what they though they purchased

L:yea, I'm really in admiration of how the school has the confidence to say we're gonna do what we think is best, we're gonna do what we think is best, we're gonna carve the school we want it to be carved. I think that's a very key part of being a leader and being successful in general. So how would you measure success and how do you learn from certain failure that you may have.

V:Thanks these questions are really helpful for me as well, success for us all comes down to the children and how they are doing. We want graduates to feel they were served well and for our friendships to last for decades. One thing I admire about the school and the board is that every trustee meeting we have is all about kids. How are we doing well? How can we get better? And we aren't afraid to fail, if we blow we say we blew it and dont waste any time.

So I think that's a really good thing and the market will really tell you how you fared. Were up 240 students and in 5 years we raised and spent 40 million dollars and did not take on any debt. We built stuff for the kids that are here now. That's amazing, we didnt take 5-6 years, we did it incredibly fast and we are measured by our success by seeing how you guys are doing and how you guys are feeling. Not just how you do professionally, but what kind of citizen you are, did we help foster your independence and creativity. I think it's really tricky business because your report card comes in waves, good or bad it's something that never ends.

And people are gonna think back and think that place was awful. So you never know on that part to ,i'm pretty biased but when it comes to education, i don't think that there's a more important thing that one could be doing right now with everything going on and were all proud of the fact that you all can have a backbone and stand from the hard and that your fearless and can make decisions.

L: That's great, I can definitely say that you and school have left a great legacy in my families mind and have helped teach us many valuable life skills. What do you want your legacy to be?

V:I actually haven't thought about this, I'm not very concerned about my legacy, it's like stewardship and so its so just not about me, and going back to my leadership style my leadership style, the one i think about late at night, the one I think about late at night is I couldn't care less about anything coming my way, if I could stay behind the scenes and let someone else blossom, that's what gets me fired up, I have no interest in having anything connected to me so i look forward to that hand off. I hope the legacy would be that the next set of leaders does a really nice job and that the school continues to be as strong as it was when it was handed to me.

L:Awesome, Mr Vincent I just want to say a huge thanks for doing this, I learned a ton and I'm glad you took the time to do this.

V:Of Coarse Liam, I hope we can remain in touch in the future, I learned a lot as well, have a good rest of your day

L:You too, thanks