Founding principal turned entrepreneur Dr. LaShawnna Harris opened a New York City public school with 220 kindergartners and ran the operations flawlessly. Her appointment still stalled, because systems were never the part she needed to master.
In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with LaShawnna, founder of sharEDtalent, to talk about the gap between technical excellence and the relationships that decide whether you get to stay in the room.
LaShawnna is a Queens girl who took the bus across the bridge to Monsignor Scanlan in the Bronx and landed at RPI planning to be an engineer. She switched to management and had her daughter as a sophomore. She graduated into a job market that closed on 9/11, with an interview at the World Trade Center scheduled for the week after. An ad for the New York City Teaching Fellows put her in a Bronx classroom by September.
By 2010 she was a founding principal in Corona with no grievances and a school she describes as rocking and rolling. Her appointment was held up anyway. A network leader told her to work on the people things. A superintendent suggested she bring donuts.
Six months before her defense, she threw out her dissertation and wrote a new one on race socialization, trust, and how Black entrepreneurs mobilize social capital. That research is the foundation of her work now, designing Impact Labs where leaders and entrepreneurs solve problems together instead of trading business cards.
Tune in to hear why LaShawnna says the answer is already in your network, and what it costs to never make the ask.
Chapters:
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03:10 Dr. LaShawnna Harris from a Queens block to engineering at RPI
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08:38 Switching to management so she would not fail out of RPI
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10:57 A police officer with a barbershop and a mother who sewed
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13:48 Crying in a closet as a first year teacher
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18:13 Opening a school with 220 kindergartners in Corona
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20:28 The appointment that stalled, and the advice to bring donuts
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22:50 Social capital was not a thing to her in 2010
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25:32 Founding sharEDtalent to connect schools with the help they need
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33:32 Rewriting her whole dissertation six months before the defense
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38:19 Redesigning the ed conference so people actually solve problems together
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49:11 The Ronderings question: make the ask, slow does not mean no
Links:
Reach out to Dr. LaShawnna Harris to learn more about sharEDtalent and the Impact Labs she runs for leaders and entrepreneurs who want to get clear, test ideas, and build the relationships their work depends on.
Episode 106
