A focus on the ways we treat each other provides a powerful doorway to developing shared norms grounded in social-ethical values, and to the co-construction of mutual agreements on which they are based. Such norms are now commonplace in most schools and educational workplaces that we know.
However, constructing shared norms is one thing: bringing them to life in your school is quite another. Norms work only when they are lived in action, rather than simply posted visually on school walls.
A new school year offers the perfect opportunity to revisit, reflect on, and review your school’s current norms and values. This is particularly important when you have new team members, to involve and uncover their thinking for common understandings and shared commitment.
If your purpose is to bring norms back into people’s consciousness at the start of the year, the following excerpt offers a practical and meaningful way to involve all staff in this.
Strategy one, Observe and enhance existing norms, achieves the purpose of bringing whole team norms back to front of mind in a personalised and relevant way.
If your purpose, however, is to have team members more intensively reflect on, analyse, and review existing norms, then consider using the questions in Strategy two to engage staff in dialogue and discussion.
Whilst there are many ways to uncover thinking and record ideas in partnerships or small teams, a Gallery Poster Walk is one that works particularly well in partnerships because it’s relatively self-paced, raises energy by requiring physical movement from large poster to poster, and gathers quite a lot of data in a relatively short time.
Prepare ahead of time
Step 1 |
Introduce the purpose ’How we treat each and work together is at the core of our relationships and team effectiveness, so our intention now is to review our school norms to see what worked for us last year, and what changes (if any) we might need to make as we undertake a whole new year together. Taking this time will bring our norms back to front of mind again and offer our new members of staff the chance to become familiar with them and contribute their valuable insights.’ |
Step 2 |
Explain the process Take your group through each of the five questions and the related tasks on posters; clarify as needed, and explain the Gallery Poster Walk: |
Step 3 |
Form partnerships: undertake the Gallery Walk Form partnerships: match any new team member with someone who is already familiar with school norms so they can help with any questions and clarifications a new member may have. Encourage partnerships to manage their time so they can complete each poster. Monitor group progress in case you need to alter or extend the time a little. |
Step 4 |
De-brief the learning; consider next steps Time permitting, review the results on each poster, encouraging questions, comments, and clarifications between and from partnerships. Consider organising a small voluntary group to take away and analyse data on the posters, bringing back to the whole group what they have identified and present recommended next steps. |
Whilst ongoing attention to your learning culture is integral to daily leadership work, the start of a new school year is an especially important time to do so. This blog post focuses on one aspect, that of revisiting and reviewing your school team’s existing norms.
Additional strategies around the construction and use of shared norms and agreements can be found in Learning Culture for Learning Impact (2020), along with other aspects critical to the growth, development, and maintenance of your learning culture.
In this book you will find…
David and I wish you and your team and workplace community a positive start to the 2023 school year. May it be a safe, healthy and highly successful learning year for all.
]]>Chances are that your eyes were first drawn to the line that was different, demonstrating that your primitive brain is still alive and well deep within you. Noticing what was different or ‘out of order’ back in hunter-gatherer days was essential to one’s survival because that difference often represented threat, such as the approach of a sabre-toothed tiger!
Although times and contexts have changed, our brain is still (thankfully) geared to noticing threat. What we need to be careful of is that we don’t confuse difference and diversity with threat.
This is why, during important professional conversations, we can tend to notice and go straight to where there is disagreement, particularly when strong emotion is involved. Working to establish common ground first focuses emotions positively, increases relational trust and fosters mutual understanding and purpose. This is what keeps people working together to resolve disagreement.
As you can see from this overview, ‘Build common ground’ is one of nine key Learning Talk capabilities.
In building common ground, deep listening occurs so that all perspectives are surfaced and acknowledged to uncover what is held in common. This provides the foundation from which to further explore agreement, identify disagreement through respectful inquiry and dialogue, and work for resolution.
The common language built during this time is particularly important to shared understandings and the successful navigation of important conversations. If common understandings are simply assumed rather than explicitly clarified and unpacked, the conversation proceeds on faulty ground.
Of the several ways to build common ground, finding a shared goal can be particularly powerful when people have differing views. *Robinson (2009) in Dalton (2016) suggests asking:
‘What do we both want as an outcome and what do we both want to avoid?’
Let’s put this question into a concrete and practical context, where a teacher has thought about this question ahead of time and is meeting with a parent to talk about her son’s behaviour in class.
By establishing what they both want as an outcome and what they both want to avoid, Tanya and Benita identify important common ground and understandings to work from.
Notice Tanya’s careful use of paraphrasing to uncover and make these explicit. Importantly, Tanya doesn’t use either-or ‘but’ thinking, that is, she doesn’t say ‘I want us to help Jack but I want to avoid…’ Rather her use of ‘and’ builds connections in a subtle way.
As you reflect on instances where building common ground might be important in your own professional conversation setting, here are some additional scaffolds to consider using:
It sounds like we see the issue the same way…
We see the problem differently, and we both want to do something about it…
We’re interpreting the cause of this differently and we both believe the issue needs to be addressed…
We both agree that we want… and we want to avoid…
We both want a positive result, and we have different ideas of how to get there…
For additional strategies that show you how to:
In this first blog for 2021, I’d like to introduce to you my great New Zealand colleague, Roz Miller. Roz is an experienced principal and leadership adviser, who was able to effectively show a group of beginning principals how to address on the hardest conversations of all to have: ‘the elephant in the room.’
Sitting down with six beginning principals for their regular PLG meeting, Roz Miller quietly placed a small, beautifully carved elephant in the middle of the table… and waited…
‘What’s this elephant about?’ mused one.
‘Oh, I know’ said another ‘It’s the elephant in the room – the things we don’t talk about or want to bring up.’
Roz agreed that indeed it was, highlighting from their Agenda: ‘Our main focus today is to look at the conversations that matter – important conversations that need to be addressed, those we struggle with and why we let them go without addressing them.’
The brainstorm that followed uncovered many reasons why we don’t address them, such as:
‘Well, you know how tough my school is – if a teacher ‘walks’ I might not get anyone to replace them.’
‘I don’t know how to retain everyone’s mana and address the issue in front of them.’
‘Pleasing people gets in the way – I don’t want to upset the relationship.’
‘I ask myself: Is it going to be worth it?’
As key themes emerged, leaders agreed a major one was not feeling confident about knowing how to have the conversations in a way that addressed the issue and maintained positive relationships.
Roz invited leaders to review Focus on four types of conversations from the perspective of those most difficult to address:
1. Conversations focused on improving student learning | 2. Conversations focused on adult learning and teaching practice |
3. Conversations to move whole school priorities and work forward | 4. Conversations to address required growth |
Dalton, Joan, 2016 Learning Talk: important conversations at work, p5 for details of these conversations.
NB Additionally you can access full details in this blog Important conversations - using foundational art of inquiry skills for success.
As principals reviewed the conversations, all agreed that Conversations to address required growth can be the hardest to deal with. Roz then shared an example from her work as a principal where this kind of conversation was called for:
I walked into a year 8 classroom during silent reading time to see most students – including the teacher – silently reading while five students were engaging in unsafe, disruptive behaviour. The teacher was seemingly unaware of what was happening.
I intervened enough to settle those students back with their books, and simply said to the teacher: ‘I need to see you in my office at the beginning of lunchtime. As I walked back to my office, I knew what I needed to do, and the five steps I would use.
As Roz continued her story, leaders followed a visual of the five steps…
Step 1 |
Prepare and plan well I found the template with the practical process steps on it, spent 10 minutes scripting Step 2, had a quick practice, and I was ready. Here’s how I began… |
Step 2 |
Begin the conversation: say how you see things Name the concern Focus on evidence in context Clarify importance: impact and consequences Identify your contribution (if any) |
Step 3 |
Invite and listen to the other person’s perspective ‘Barbara, this issue is critical to fulfilling the duty of care we have to all students. Talk to me about what’s been happening…’ |
Step 4 |
Open the conversation for mutual negotiation and resolution As our conversation proceeded, I asked Barbara what she understood about her moral duty of care to be, what she had tried so far and might try - I was wanting to find out what she expected from her students during a time of silent reading. |
Step 5 |
Follow up We made a time to check in and follow up, which I did. Her team leader and I each spent more time in her classroom, supporting her over the next month in finding and using some pro-active and positive strategies that worked. |
This practical example helped school leaders see how Roz included and handled each of the five steps, and then Roz used the same steps to role model with a principal a genuine issue he wanted to address. As a group, they unpacked what Roz DID do, and what she DIDN’T do, and shared instances where they might be able to use this process.
Talking with Roz about the success of this session, I asked her to reflect on the value of using the ‘elephant in the room’ object to introduce the topic of important conversations:
Roz: I work with this group of leaders regularly, and I knew that there were some issues they were concerned about that were not being addressed or resolved. I think the elephant prompted them to think about conversations they weren’t having that they knew they needed to have. And maybe the physical object of the elephant was actually permission-giving to sharing why.
Once we uncovered those reasons, we then could address them with a process and a template that I have found hugely useful as a principal and in my leadership work with others.
Inquiring further, I asked Roz to reflect on the value of this kind of process:
Roz: The process gives you practical how-to’s and steps to use – without any structure this kind of conversation can take on a life of its own, and we don’t end up with what we want, which is improvement in a situation.
The process helps you to understand each other, to see commonalities in thinking and to unearth differences in perceptions and perspectives, which paves the way for working toward constructive agreement and resolution.
The leaders in our group could see its practical value and felt they would have had much more success with past important conversations had they used it. They could also see how essential non-judgment and art of inquiry skills are, and practice, to achieving success.
They now want to learn more, so they’ve gone away to further explore your book 5, Joan, Learning Talk: Important conversations at work.
Dalton, Joan 2016 Learning Talk: important conversations at work, p56 |
The learning improvements you achieve in your school or workplace are only as good as the quality and focus of the conversations that take place among your team/s. As you look at these four major types of important conversations, you can see they are key to improving learning outcomes for student and adult learners alike:
1. Conversations focused on improving student learning | 2. Conversations focused on adult learning and teaching practice |
For example:
|
For example:
|
3. Conversations to move whole school priorities and work forward | 4. Conversations to address required growth |
For example:
|
For example:
|
Dalton, Joan, 2016 Learning Talk: important conversations at work, p5.
Whether you're engaging with a parent who has concerns about their child’s learning, with team members who expect you to solve their problems for them, or holding people accountable for their behaviour, any important learning conversation requires care, self-awareness, rigour and skilful Learning Talk.
These topics were among the common challenges raised by school leaders who regularly meet in an online zoom space to connect, share, and learn together through the New Zealand Leaders’ Connect organisation. They wanted to know how to engage in such important conversations and invited me to share my thinking in a one hour online zoom professional learning session.
Such conversations are complex, and when I thought hard about how I could maximise leaders’ learning in such a short time, I decided to focus on three foundations that underpin every important conversation you have:
Important learning conversations: three key foundations
When you combine…
During the zoom session with leaders, and with the support of my great colleague Dr Cheryl Doig, we actively modelled for leaders what such conversations might look like, with opportunities for reflection and collegial conversation to stimulate thinking about application to one’s own setting.
The good news is that this session was recorded, and we are delighted to make it available to you (warts and all) for your use:
While you can use this for your individual learning, it offers a very practical resource for your team as you work to build and strengthen their Learning Talk capabilities. To that end we have included on screen, at the pause points, the questions we used for small group reflection and dialogue at the appropriate break out discussion times.
And since teams need to know what the Learning Talk capabilities are, and have access to practical scaffolds to practise the skills, you are welcome to download the PDF from our blog Practising Learning Talk skills: a practical gift.
The Learning Talk series (Books 1-5) and our recently released publication, Learning Culture for Learning Impact, provide additional comprehensive resources to support your work in building capabilities to engage in important conversations for successful outcomes.
Testimonials colleagues have recently passed on: reproduced with writers’ permission
Dear David, I found the text in the new book organised in a way that made it super easy to read and go back and forth between concepts depending on what I needed at the time. The examples of scenarios, discussion points, steps and sentence starters reinforced what I was reading, and I loved the parrot of purpose at the beginning of each chapter explaining why the upcoming information was important. In short, this is going to be a text that I will continually refer back to as an aspiring leader.
Tara Morris, Grade Five Teacher, Sandringham PS, Victoria
Heya Mel, I have just read Joan’s new book cover to cover and cannot tell you how much my heart is singing!! OMG – it is amazing! The style that it is written in is fantastic, not too much – not too little and so easy to fit all the concepts together. It is everything that I have been ‘teaching’ over the years when growing leadership potential and developing effective teams (when I was at school, at tertiary and now in my facilitation work)… but so much better – so ‘Joan’ 😊 What a kindred spirit – I absolutely love it! I was bouncing up and down as I kept finding golden nuggets throughout – my poor wee brain was just exploding because everything so hits the mark! 😊 Anyhow, I just had to email you!
Dr Wendy Moore, Educational Consultant, Evaluation Associates, New Zealand
There’s an elephant in the room… coming!
My next blog will feature experienced New Zealand principal and leadership adviser Roz Miller, who showed a group of beginning principals how to use a practical process to address one of the hardest conversations of all to have: ‘the elephant in the room.’
My friend Erika has had a lot on her plate!
As principal of a large primary school, Erika has been dealing with an avalanche of Department of Education communications regarding Covid-19, rapidly changing school plans and procedures, and supporting staff as they engage in new ways of learning and teaching online. She has been in constant communication with parents and caregivers concerned about children’s school attendance and learning; she is working exceptionally hard to ensure the safe transition of student learners back to school. As part of this mosaic of pressures, Erika has also been supporting her parents through the untimely death of their best friend of 50 years, the special ‘auntie’ that had always been in her life.
Erika’s story is a fractal of the larger story that we, as educators, leaders and teachers, are currently experiencing. Unprecedented and challenging times call on our deep sense of heart to go the extra mile to lead, nourish and support those we work with and care about.
During this time, it is all too easy to expend all of our energy outwards. When we do this to the extent of ignoring our own needs, our own energy and well-being is depleted. We become overwhelmed and stressed. We end up on our survival seat, unable to care properly for ourselves or others.
Erika is a wise leader. She understands that in order to take care of others, she has to take care of herself. And like any quality leader, she understands that staff well-being and how they are able to satisfy their human needs at school is paramount to their effective functioning as people and professionals.
Take a look at this Human Needs framework. Based on and adapted from the work of William Glasser, it highlights the basic needs we are biologically driven to meet as part of our quest to make sense of the world in which we live. Beyond our survival needs, we continually seek to satisfy four major psychological needs – for belonging, empowerment, freedom/options, and enjoyment-challenge.
Reproduced from: Dalton, J. Learning Culture for Learning Impact: A Hands On Guide (2020)
Imagine you are sitting on a four-legged stool:
The flat part is your survival seat. The legs represent each of your four human needs. If one of these needs is not being adequately met, your stool becomes wonky and uncomfortable.
If two or three of your needs are not being met, it becomes incredibly challenging to maintain your balance. You have only your survival seat left, so you cling to that and hope to stay upright! Meeting your needs in balance helps your imaginary stool to support you firmly and well.
When we understand the human needs that drive our behaviour, we are able to reflect on and monitor these, and ensure we are satisfying them in positive, constructive ways.
How are my needs for belonging, empowerment, self-responsibility and enjoyment-challenge currently being met?
How balanced is my imaginary stool in supporting me to function productively and positively?
Which need/s do I need to pay more attention to, and what actions will I take to do that?
The Human Needs framework not only offers us a lens for personal reflection, it provides a practical team tool for ongoing reflection and improvement of the environment in which we lead, work and learn.
The physical and psychological environment you intentionally create plays a significant role in enabling adults to satisfy their human needs, and contributes markedly to teamwork, productivity and learning success.
This is important because if adults work within a culture or environment that blocks or doesn’t enable them to satisfy these human needs in positive ways, they may seek (as will student learners) to meet them in non-productive ways!
What you can do is actively involve your team in using the Human Needs framework as the window through which to reflect on these questions:
What currently exists in our workplace that enables our whole staff to satisfy their human needs in positive ways?
What do we need to pay more attention to, so we can work together to improve things?
What practical actions might (and then, will...) we take?
Not only will your team provide different perspectives and constructive feedback toward improving their adult learning culture, they are likely to feel valued, involved and empowered.
The Human Needs focus in this blog offers a tiny snapshot from my forthcoming new book, Learning Culture for Learning Impact: A Hands On Guide.
The core purpose of schools is learning, and the improvement and transformation of student learning and well-being. How well we achieve this purpose depends significantly on the culture we intentionally create for the adults who lead, teach and influence these learners.
Designed to support busy school, team and aspirant leaders, and those who work with schools, this book contains a wealth of practical strategies, processes and protocols that show you how to build a learning-focused, collaborative culture with your greatest resource for learning impact – people.
Expected publication is end of June, available then from our online store.
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A VERY long time ... |
Memories came flooding back of the first day of school, and a four and a half year old boy walking into the prep classroom, looking up at me as I greeted him, saying ‘I can read the newspaper.’
It turned out that not only could Neil read the newspaper, he was a great thinker and learner. What a challenge to meet in one’s second year of teaching, when most of the other prep children had just arrived in Australia by boat from Greece or Italy.
As I strove to address Neil’s learning needs, (not very successfully as I now reflect), a lifelong interest in individual differences and diversity was born, leading several years later to a post-graduate degree in Special Education and a thesis in Giftedness.
We often think about the impact we have, and want to have, on the student learners we teach. I wonder how often we think of the impact they have on us, and what we have to learn from them.
Not only did I learn from Neil the importance of recognising and building on from where all children were in their learning, I learned about the importance of retaining a sense of humour:
I remember one day saying to the preps: ‘If you want to be packed up in time for the bell, you’ll have to pull your socks up!’ He looked at me and quietly said with a knowing smile: ‘Mrs Dalton, haven’t you noticed - some of the kids aren’t wearing socks.’ |
As your 2020 school year gets underway: (whether you lead student or adult learners)
I’d love to hear about the impact learners have had on you, and what you’ve learned from them.
This personal story is intended to begin what I anticipate will be regular Blogs during 2020. My next Blog will share something of my forthcoming new book, Learning Culture for Learning Impact, which is now with the wonderful NZ Design Team @ Smartwork Creative, who no doubt will bring it to life as they’ve done with my series of Learning Talk books. |
Our company, Hands On Educational Consultancy, has formed a collaborative partnership with Evaluation Associates, a highly respected professional organisation in New Zealand.
If you are a New Zealander, you may already be well aware of the outstanding work they do to make a real difference for student learning. If you are an Australian who knows our work, then you will know we would only form a partnership with people of the highest calibre.
One of those people is Mel Stopford, a wonderful colleague we have worked professionally with over several years. I am delighted to be working with her again in what I believe is a significant professional learning opportunity for 2018.
Although the face-to-face components of the program are to be held in New Zealand, there may be ways we can serve Australian teams well during follow-up and personalised ongoing coaching.
Take a look at the information included below, and if you would like to inquire further, contact us at:
Mel Stopford | Joan Dalton |
---|---|
m.stopford@evaluate.co.nz | handsed@ozemail.com.au |
Register before December 1 2017.
]]>This morning I went for a walk along the river at the bottom of our property. Swollen after recent heavy rains, little eddies gently swirled around the banks where the platypus play. The grasses and bushes stretched themselves to the sun, raindrops glistening on their foliage. A wedge-tail eagle circled silently overhead and kookaburras sat patiently, hoping to capture a frog or two for breakfast.
And in the quiet of nature, I stopped, and paused... and revelled in the day.
My heart rate slowed. I breathed deeply. I felt calm and joyful on the inside, fully conscious in the moment. Refreshed, I continued on my walk.
At a time when daily pressures urge us to do more and more, faster and faster, to be connected to the world 24/7, we generally recognise that taking time to pause is a precious and necessary gift to our health, our sleep, and our energy levels.
Most of us take time to pause in a variety of ways, and for varying lengths of time. What we don't always recognise is the gift that pausing brings to our conversations, with multiple benefits for you, for those you are talking with, and for the topic or issue at hand.
Pausing offers the talker and the listener/s space to 'hear' to understand, to process and to take a 'helicopter' view of what is being said, and perhaps what is not being said. When you consciously step outside yourself to *meta-reflect in this way, you are more able to monitor and direct the course of what is happening. (*See Book 5, Learning Talk: important conversations at work, pp 80-81)
Pausing to reclaim time to think and to breathe is especially important:
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These three common scenarios are intended as scaffolds to help you think about times when you have felt 'ambushed'. Use or adapt the suggestions for how you might respond to your own situation and context.
'I can be in my office, working at the computer on an important deadline, when someone will rush through the door, sit down and say 'Have you got a minute? I'm absolutely seething over Kate: she's done it again!' You might say: 'I don't right now because I have a 3pm deadline on this. You're upset, and we need to be able to talk calmly about the situation, so let's meet first thing tomorrow morning...' (Assertively and respectfully says 'no', explains why, pro-actively reminds person of need to be calm for conversation, and makes a time to meet.) |
'I'll be walking down the hallway on an important mission, and a team member will rush up and say 'I've got to talk to you urgently – we have to do something about..!' You might say: 'I know this is important to you, and it's too important for a rushed conversation – we need to sit down and allow due time to talk...what about meeting... suggests time'. (Acknowledges importance, need for proper time to be given, negotiates time.) |
'During meetings, we have one particular team member who will say 'I know it's not on the agenda, but we really need to make a decision about...' You might say: 'I need some time to think about this – let's put it on our *Unfinished Business chart for our next meeting.' (Assertively requests reflection time, acknowledges issue and signals intent to act) * This strategy helps to maximise and maintain focus of conversation and minimize distractions, so important during precious meeting time. |
Model the effective use of pause with these two practical strategies:
You can find more practical strategies and stories to help you use 'pause' effectively in Book 4, Learning Talk: develop the art of inquiry, pp 25-27.
Remember, what you pay conscious attention to, flourishes!
]]>I often share the story of a wonderful colleague who, working as a senior director with an Australian Department of Education, posted up charts with sentence scaffolds on the wall above her office door.
‘People would pop their head in the door to ask a question, or be having a conversation with me, and I’d pause... and look up... they would think I was thinking! In reality I was searching for an appropriate way to respond. Having these sentence starters has been a great way to work on my skills!’
Since consciously practising these skills makes a huge difference to their development, here is a Learning Talk resource I hope you will find of great practical use.
When Tim Fitzgerald was principal of Fitzroy High School in Melbourne, each of his adult team members kept an early version of this resource visible during their important team meetings. Everybody was practising; everybody learned and developed their skills.
How might you use this resource to practise and further develop your own skills, and those of the people you lead? I’d love you to share your ideas and strategies!
]]>It was early in the day, and the polling booth queue was short. Good, we thought – this won’t take long. We could clearly see official staff in their royal purple vests and lanyards, each playing their part to ensure things proceeded as planned.
Moving toward the voting station, my eyes couldn’t believe what was written on one official’s lanyard: Crowd queue controller. It got worse. Posting our ballot papers in the boxes provided, there was another official standing beside them, and yes, there it was on her lanyard: Ballot Box Guard.
Now, we live in a small country community - people know how to queue up and wait their turn, something I would say almost all Australians do pretty well. And no one voting that day was likely to plan a heist to run off with the two big Ballot boxes!
Those two words, ‘controller’ and ‘guard’, set off red flags for me, a reminder of times long gone when positional power and authority ruled the land, with the object of compliance from its people.
Accompanying questions flooded my mind.
√ If we accept that we live in democracy, in communities where voice, contribution, collaboration and personal and collective responsibility are its desired hallmarks, why on earth would people use words such as these?
√ If we understand that leadership today is one of influence, and influencing language has a profound impact on positive change and learning growth, why on earth would you use archaic language that only belongs now in specialized contexts such as a prison?
√ If we understand that every word we speak can enhance or diminish relationships, why is not more attention paid to the importance of congruence?
‘Words are not innocent’ said Dirk Kotze. (in Dalton 2010) ‘The language we use shapes the realities we live in and the realities we create.’
Paying conscious attention to our language and its impact is central to understanding, working with, and leading others. And yes, it’s a lifelong quest.
And yes, I can see we still have a lot of work to do in this regard, particularly as we seek to influence beyond education into the wider local and global community.
And yes, I reckon it’s a quest worth pursuing.
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