6 ways you can influence others

The most common question I’m asked by system administrators, principals, and teacher leaders is some variation of, “The people I work with are unwilling to change, and I don’t know what to do to get them to open their minds.”

Put another way, these leaders are interested in being more influential.

I respond that while countless articles and books have been written on that subject, and that there are no formulas, I can offer a few suggestions for their consideration.

1. Leaders can make demands. While demands are occasionally necessary, they only work in a very narrow set of circumstances, and their long-term effects are usually limited. Demands won’t work, of course, unless there are meaningful negative consequences that will be invoked for noncompliance.

2. Leaders can make requests. Motivation is increased when individuals feel that are choosing a course of action rather than being required to do it. That means that often the most direct and effective way to motivate others is simply to ask them to do something. The key is to invite, not to require. The energy created can be astounding, although it may take a while for members of demand-oriented cultures to believe that there will be no negative consequences for declining the request.

3. Leaders can delegate meaningful responsibilities and provide the necessary developmental experiences and support to enable success. Tapping the strengths and resources of others is a multiplier of leaders’ direct influence, particularly when distributing leadership improves the performance of teams within schools.

4. Leaders can engage in dialogue. Dialogue is most effective when participants listen carefully to one another as assumptions are surfaced and examined in the spirit of inquiry, not judgment. When those conditions are met, conversations move to deeper levels and participants slowly open their minds to new perspectives. In this way, leaders can initiate “crucial conversations” that respectfully perturb the status quo.

5. Leaders can share stories that illuminate important values, ideas, and practices. Because human beings are hardwired to listen to and be affected by stories, storytelling is often a way around emotional and cognitive resistance to new ideas and practices.

6. Leaders can provide novel experiences to promote breakthrough thinking in which everything about a subject is viewed in a fresh and more empowering way. Such experiences – like well-designed field trips for students – are only useful, however, when participants are appropriately prepared for them through dialogue and background reading and when extended opportunities are provided to reflect on the meaning and significance of the experience.

What would you add to my “starter list” of ideas to increase leaders’ influence?

How changing just one belief can help create schools in which everyone thrives

“You haven’t taught it until they’ve learned it.” – John Wooden

It seems like such a simple idea – that the teaching isn’t over until students have learned it.

And yet decade after decade we continue to hear some variation of the phrase, “I taught it, but they didn’t learn it.”

The professional development version of that statement is: “We inserviced them, but nothing’s changed.”

So, let me officially declare with the full weight and authority bestowed by a WordPress blog that:

• Teaching isn’t over until the students have learned it, and

• Professional learning hasn’t occurred until educators have changed their hearts, minds, and/or practices in ways that support the success of all students. 

Or, put another way, professional learning hasn’t occurred until all teachers and administrators believe what they haven’t believed, understand what they haven’t understood, say what they haven’t said, and do what they haven’t done, all with the intention of high levels of learning for all students in all classrooms.

Changing just that one belief will go a long way toward creating schools in which all young people and adults thrive and in which teaching, learning, and relationships are continuously improving.

Why it’s important for leaders to believe in teachers’ capacity for growth

Many school leaders believe that virtually all students can learn at higher levels given skillful teaching, time, and persistent effort.

But I’m not sure, however, that all leaders believe that virtually all teachers can learn to teach in ways that enable high levels of student learning.

Let me tell you a story:

Some years ago I was working with a group of 50 or so teacher leaders in a large U.S. city. I asked them a question I often asked in such settings: “How many of you believe that virtually all students can learn more than was previously expected of them and that it is their teachers’ responsibility to teach them?” Every hand in the room immediately went up.

My next question was one I had never asked before: “How many of you believe that virtually all teachers can learn how to teach in ways that enable higher levels of student learning?”

An unanticipated pandemonium broke out in the room as some participants vociferously expressed their confidence that they could prepare teachers to be more successful with all students while others complained loudly that my questions had unfairly lead them into a trap.

One teacher leader said, “How can we expect teachers to teach at high levels if we don’t believe we can successfully prepare them to do so?”

Another said, looking at me, “You don’t understand the teachers we have here. They are often poorly prepared and unmotivated.”

A provocative and soul-searching conversation ensued as it shifted back and forth between those two broad perspective — “of course we can” and “it is unfair to expect us to be successful with these teachers” — in the same way that it might occur among teachers discussing their responsibility for the learning of all their students.

A year or so later one of the event’s organizers told me that discussion related to the issue of teacher leaders’ expectations for their colleagues arose in one form or another at many of their meetings that school year.

I was pleased to hear that because it is a critically important issue.

Just as it’s essential for principals and teacher leaders to believe that student learning can be improved by skillful teaching, it’s essential that principals and teacher leaders believe that through well-designed professional development and teamwork virtually all teachers can become effective, if not masterful.

Believing in the capacity of students to learn at higher levels without a parallel belief in the capacity of teachers to successfully teach them — given appropriate support — can only lead to frustration and failure.

Put another way: Leaders’ belief in teachers’ capacity to perform at higher levels + appropriate support = student success.

Do you agree with my assessment, or not?

Can I give you hope?

On some days I have mixed feelings about myself.

But on most days I appreciate that by nature and nurture I am a bit of a contrarian, meaning that I tend to see things a bit differently than most people. That certainly is true regarding a lot of what is considered “conventional wisdom.”

Recently as a hospice volunteer in a healthcare facility I saw a sign that said, “Give hope.”

The contrarian part of me immediately wondered if it is possible for one human being to give hope to another, and if so, under what conditions.

For instance, can I say to you, “You should be more hopeful,” or more simply, “Be hopeful,” and as a result you will think about the future in a new way?

Or, can I expect new attitudes by saying “Believe in the potential of all the students to learn more,” or “All of us can continuously improve what we do”?

In my experience, such expressions seldom produce the desired result.

But there are three things that I think can make a difference:

1. Be the qualities you seek.

• Be authentically hopeful.
• Embody continuous improvement in all aspects of your work and life and do so publicly, revealing both your successes and frustrations.
• Affirm through your words and actions your belief that all students can achieve at higher levels and that all teachers can develop the necessary skills to produce that learning.

2. Design structures that enable staff members to experience first hand the validity of a growth-oriented point of view in their daily work. 

• Organize all teachers into teams to increase the likelihood that they will be successful with all students.
• Have high expectations for team performance and provide the training necessary to ensure that performance.
• Provide time for regularly-scheduled team meetings.
• Establish processes for reporting team activities and accomplishments to other teams and to school leaders.

3. Celebrate “small wins” at every opportunity—one-to-one conversations, team and faculty meetings, and school-community events. When teachers and others are frequently reminded of the progress they have made that is often invisible to them on a day-to-day basis they become more energized and focused.

Can I give hope to you? I don’t think so, at least not in the way it is often meant.

But I can create an environment that increases the likelihood that you will experience possibility where previously you experienced none.

Creating those conditions, first in ourselves and then in the culture and structures of the school, is, I believe, a primary and fundamental responsibility of all school leaders.

Do you agree or disagree?

The amazing things you can accomplish in just 15 minutes a day

 A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules. —Anthony Trollope

“Frenetic activity” is an apt description of the lives of many educators. With some, it is even a badge of honor that demonstrates their commitment and work ethic.

For others, it is a commonly-offered explanation for why they aren’t doing the things they know are most important, things like talking with teachers or colleagues about instruction, thoroughly preparing for upcoming conversations and meetings, exercising, and so on.

Here a some things that can be done in 15 minutes or less than can make a substantial difference in the quality of your work and life:

• Make a brief, focused visit to a classroom followed by a short note to the teacher.

• Write in a journal to gain clarity about a problem or determine a course of action.

• Prepare a thank-you note for someone whose efforts you wish to recognize or a note of encouragement for someone whose spirits you would like to lift.

• Write a weekly blog for colleagues or the school community.

• Write a book a year. (Fifteen minutes a day could easily produce a couple of hundred pages of text in a year. You wouldn’t even have to know what it was about at the beginning; it’s direction would reveal itself after a few weeks.)

• Determine your intentions for a meeting or conversation and sketch out a back-of-the-envelope plan. The clarity produced in even a few minutes of focused attention can change the direction and outcome of an event.

• Cease outward activity to be mindful of your breathing, feelings, and surroundings. Even a minute or two of such focused attention can make a substantial difference in your mood and stress level.

• Exercise. In 15 minutes you can walk a mile.

• Have a conversation with a colleague, family member, or friend. Spend a good share of that time listening deeply to the words and meaning of those with whom you are interacting.

• Develop an important and perhaps even life-changing new habit. Any of the above, for example, could become a valuable habit in just a few weeks.

I encourage you to identify one or two activities appropriate to you and your setting that in just a few minutes a day can make a difference for you and others.

And, in truth, we all have 15 minutes a day that could be spared to improve the quality of our work and lives.

What suggestions do you have for other worthwhile “15-minute activities”?

How bad things can happen to good people who lack emotional intelligence

School and school system leaders are far more likely to get into difficulty because of low social and emotional intelligence than because of deficiencies in their technical knowledge. At least that’s my observation.

Here’s why they get into trouble:

• Because these leaders often have a high need to control people and situations, they are unlikely to trust others or to delegate.

• Because of a lack of trust and poor interpersonal skills, these leaders seldom have supportive relationships with others and therefore are unlikely to value the development of such relationships within the school community.

• Because these leaders don’t know how to manage or express their feelings in appropriate and proportionate ways, they are likely to be angry, anxious, and/or cynical. Those feelings, in turn, are amplified across the school community and create what some experts call a “slow-death spiral,” which depletes energy and diminishes hope for a better future.

• Because these leaders are unable to accurately sense and respond to the feelings of others, their relationships are likely to be tumultuous and superficial and viewed as means to an end rather than as worthy ends in themselves to be nurtured and valued.

• And because leaders with low social and emotional intelligence have limited self awareness, they are unlikely to see any of the above in themselves.

Do you agree, or not?

 

How just six words can make a big difference

Ernest Hemingway may or may not have written the first six-word novel: For sale: Baby shoes, never worn. Other writers took up the challenge.

Then came six-word memoirs. My favorite: Not quite what I was planning.

NPR’s “race-card project” asks listeners to “distill your thoughts, experiences or observations about race into one sentence that only has six words.” 

Workers have expressed their six-word views about their jobs. A favorite: He led by example. How refreshing. 

School communities benefit when principals and teacher leaders can concisely sum up important ideas in six words. When leaders take the time to engage in the demanding intellectual process of distilling their ideas, they are more effective and influential.

A few years back I coined the term “six-word leadership tool” to capture the ideas expressed in my blog posts and elsewhere. Here are a few with links to the posts they summarize:

Hopefulness connects and strengthens school communities.

Choose mindful skepticism over mindless cynicism.

Make integrity a core school value.

Pause to support learning and relationships.

Develop the habits of “positive deviants.”

Here are two “six-word leadership tools” that I created for this post:

• Express important ideas clearly and concisely.

• To influence, have proverb-like clarity.

What six-word expressions sum up your views regarding leadership, teaching, and/or learning or an important aspect of them?

How “SUCCESS” can increase your influence

Successful leaders are influential. That means they are able to create energy in the school community around a common set of beliefs, ideas, and practices without directing, threatening, or manipulating others.

A primary quality of those leaders is their intellectual clarity and their ability to communicate that clarity concisely and precisely.

An effective leadership tool for creating and communicating that clarity are the “six principles of sticky ideas” described by Chip Heath and Dan Heath in their book, Made to Stick.

The Heaths use the acronym SUCCESS to capture the six principles:

Simplicty: To find the core of an idea, we must be masters of exclusion, the Heaths say. “Saying something short is not the mission—sound bites are not the idea,” they write. “Proverbs are ideal. We must create ideas that are both simple and profound… a one-sentence statement so profound that an individual could spend a lifetime learning to follow it.”

Unexpectedness: Getting people to pay attention sometimes requires the element of surprise. To that end, “We need to violate people’s expectations. We need to be counterintuitive,” they write. In addition, they point out that it’s important to generate interest and curiosity by “…systematically ‘opening gaps’ in their knowledge—and then filling those gaps.”

Concreteness: To make ideas clear, the Heaths say, “We must explain our ideas in terms of human actions, in terms of sensory information… Naturally sticky ideas are full of concrete images… Speaking concretely is the only way to ensure that our idea will mean the same thing to everyone in our audience.”

Credibility: Credibility is established, the Heaths say, when people can test out the ideas  based on their own experiences. “We need ways to help people test our ideas for themselves—a ‘try before you buy’ philosophy for the world of ideas.”

Emotions: “How do we get people to care about our ideas?,” the Heaths ask. “We make them feel something.”

Stories: Stories are the means by which all of the other elements are tied together in a coherent whole. A story, the Heaths say, “… provides simulation (knowledge about how to act) and inspiration (motivation to act).”

These six elements are not a formula, but rather factors to consider when seeking to influence.

They remind us that we are most influential when we speak and write with proverb-like clarity; tell stories that illustrate our ideas, elicit emotion, and include the element of surprise; and provide concrete details that describe and pique curiosity.

Leaders may benefit from developing a checklist based on these six principles to help them prepare for important meetings and conversations. I’ll have more to say tomorrow about the value, power, and use of checklists.

Choose continuous improvement over “good enough”

Successful leadership can sometimes be reduced to a small number of fundamental choices. Once those choices are made, they guide decisions and behavior in dozens of situations each week.

One of those choices is between continuous improvement and “good enough.”

Individuals and organizations are either improving or declining. They cannot sustain a steady state of performance for an extended period of time.

Continuous improvement is based on the assumption that is possible and desirable to find more effective and efficient ways to achieve important goals. It requires improving the processes of teaching or leadership and the acquisition of skills that improve both the quality of instruction and its outcomes.

The attitude of “good enough” views the status quo as either desirable or inevitable. It is closely linked to resignation in that individuals may believe that meaningful improvement is impossible.

“Good enough” asks us to do nothing more than accept the limitations of our current beliefs, understandings, and practices.

Continuous improvement has several benefits: 

• Students and the broader school community benefit with improved learning and stronger, more supportive relationships.

• When educators are successful, they feel energized, which fuels further improvement.

• School communities that are continuously improving are appealing places to learn, teach, and lead.

Conversely, when an attitude of “good enough” becomes embedded in the belief system of the culture, it limits the life chances of students and creates a slow-death spiral of energy within the school community.

In that sense, choosing continuous improvement is a moral imperative.

Choose “considered judgment” over “raw opinion”

Successful leadership can sometimes be reduced to a small number of fundamental choices. Once those choices are made, they guide decisions and behavior in dozens of situations each week.

One of those choices is between “considered judgement” and “raw opinion.”

“Considered judgment” means that we carefully consider the complexity of the problems we face and weigh the possible intended and unintended consequences of alternative solutions.

Considered judgment is often achieved when groups slow down the problem-solving process to fully understand the problem, consider the costs and benefits of various possible solutions, and choose the best-possible course of action.

“Raw opinion” means responding to problems with the first idea that comes to mind, which often then leads to defending that point of view with strong emotion. Many social and professional conversations, unfortunately, consist of individuals sharing and defending  raw opinions regarding poorly-defined problems and vaguely-understood solutions.

Considered judgment offers several benefits:

• Because decision making is slowed down and issues are fully explored, participants are able to make informed commitments to a course of action, commitments which are more likely to be long-term.

• Because decision making is transparent, trust is increased.

• Because important decisions are carefully considered, resources are far more likely to be invested wisely.

Considered judgment is demanding. It asks participants to be open to and explore alternative points of view. It requires that they thoughtfully weigh evidence and seek consensus on a course of action.

But when school communities understand the benefits of considered judgment and use various problem-finding tools and decision-making protocols to support their work, students will be the beneficiaries.

[A note to readers: My blog will be taking an Easter-week break and will resume on Tuesday, April 9, 2013.]