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?

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.

Leadership 180: Have simple, clear plans

[T]here is evidence that schools are well served by one-page plans that are clearly focused and simple enough that every participant in the process understand his or her role in executing the plan.  —Douglas Reeves

Leaders’ clarity about goals and the methods the school community will employ for their achievement is essential to the success of school improvement plans. The realization of important district and school outcomes is dependent on leaders’ ability to articulate those goals in clear and compelling language and describe the actions they and others will take to achieve them. In turn, leaders ask those with whom they work to describe in clear, concrete language the outcomes they will pursue and the actions they will take that fit their unique roles and responsibilities.

Today I will take a moment to express in simple, everyday terms an important outcome and the next action I and others will take to achieve it. I will check my clarity by describing the plan to others and asking them to paraphrase it in their own words. 

[This “meditation” is one of 180 (one for every day of the traditional school year) provided in Leadership 180: Daily Meditations on School Leadership. It is my most recent and I think best book, available as a Kindle book for $14.39, which is just 8 cents per day as a source of professional learning and encouragement in developing valuable new habits.]

 

My night with Pamela Anderson

 A friend told me that he thought the best way to expand my blog readership would be to more frequently write about celebrities and sex. Hence the title of this post.

Now, technically, I didn’t spend the night with Pamela Anderson. More precisely we shared an airport security line at 6 a.m. for about 10 minutes. And, technically, it wasn’t just me and Pamela. She also had a bodyguard and even at that early hour fans were taking photographs. (That’s the celebrity part.)

But, nonetheless, I could tell that Pamela was attracted to me because every time I smiled she subtly moved in the direction of her bodyguard as a way, I assume, to protect herself against the strong desire she was feeling.  (That’s the sex part.)

If this experimental post attracts fewer readers than normal, I might conclude:

• Pamela Anderson is old news, and/or

• Such an extremely improbable event was of no interest to busy readers.

If this post attracts more readers, I might conclude:

• The improbability of such an event proved irresistible to readers who wanted to know the rest of the story, or

• Educators are indeed more interested in celebrities and sex than blogs titled, for instance, “Doing what we’ve never done,” although some readers might have thought it a better title for this post.

If celebrities and sex proves appealing, I promise that in the not too far distant future I will disclose for the first time the full contents of a personal letter to me from Dolly Parton which she signed,

“Love,

Dolly”

But enough about that for now.

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 stretch goals over modest, achievable targets

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 “stretch goals” and modest, achievable outcomes.

A stretch goal, as its name implies, is so ambitious that its achievement almost always requires individuals to leave their comfort zones to make deep changes in their beliefs, understanding, and/or habits.

Like all big goals, stretch goals are achieved through many small daily actions over time.

Modest, achievable goals are attractive because most people prefer almost certain  success to the risk of failure inherent in stretch goals.

In addition, modest, achievable goals typically allow us to work within the comfort of our current beliefs, understandings, and practices.

Stretch goals have several benefits:

• Because stretch goals are almost always by their very nature inspirational, they create energy and bring out the best in ourselves and the school community.

• Because of the significant changes demanded by stretch goals, they typically produce outcomes that far exceed those originally thought possible.

• Because stretch goals are achieved through the accumulation of countless daily actions, they offer many en route milestones, each of which provides an opportunity to celebrate progress.

Stretch goals are risky, and they are demanding. But they also hold out the prospect of possibilities that far exceed those we usually imagine.

That prospect makes the pursuit of stretch goals worth the risk, particularly when students are the beneficiaries of our extraordinary efforts.

 

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.]

6 choices that can have a profound effect on the school community

When people make a fundamental choice to be true to what is highest in them, or when they make a choice to fulfill a purpose in their life, they can easily accomplish many changes that seem impossible work improbable in the past. – Robert Fritz

Educators can make hundreds of decisions a day, some of them about incredibly important things.

Fortunately, making a few fundamental choices in critical areas can simplify and ease the process of making those decisions.

Here are a few examples:

Choose integrity over expediency: Integrity requires that we speak our truth (with a lower-case “t”) and keep our promises when it might be easier not to do so. Expediency only requires that we do what is easiest at the moment.

Choose healthy skepticism over cynicism: Healthy skepticism requires that educators bring a finely-honed critical intellect to their study of professional literature and to problem-solving and decision-making within the school community. Cynicism only requires that we reflexively dismiss new ideas and the views of others.

Choose hopefulness over resignation: Hopefulness requires that we seek possibility where others see only constraints. Resignation only requires that we surrender to the inevitable challenges faced when we do important work.

Choose considered judgment over raw opinion: Considered judgment requires that we carefully consider the complexity of the problems we face and weigh the possible intended and unintended consequences of alternative solutions.  Raw opinion only requires that we respond with the first thought that comes to our minds and defend it with strong emotion.

Choose stretch goals over modest, but achievable targets: Stretch goals require that we commit ourselves to outcomes we do not know how to achieve with the understanding that their attainment are likely to require deep changes and continuous improvement in ourselves and the school community. Modest, but achievable targets only require that we work within the safety and comfort of our current beliefs, understandings, and practices.

Choose continuous improvement over “good enough”: Continuous improvement requires that we unceasingly seek more effective and efficient ways to achieve important goals. “Good enough” only requires that that we unquestioningly accept the limitations of our current beliefs, understandings, and practices.

I will explore these fundamental choices in greater depth in upcoming posts.

Can you think of other fundamental choices of equal weight that I have missed?