Reflection of the Year

The year has been primarily about teaming and learning design. Both have been a huge success for Pounamu.

The team has been through many forced changes of mentors and every time the team have coped professionally and personally, by looking after each other. Tetli's growth in teaming has been down to her determination to succeed and through the support of the team. The loss of Rachel for a term was a blow, but we fortunate to have Amy who slotted in superbly and brought her own positive energy and honesty to Pounamu. Towards the end of the year was particularly difficult with Roanna finding life at school difficult, but again the team supported personally and professionally to ensure that she settled sooner rather than later.

The creation of the BPP's on teaming and powerful learning were integral to our success. By the end of term 2 there was a genuine trust within the team which was down to myself deliberately building relationships with team members and also strategically organising mentors to work together. Although Rachel's constant coaching for me around understanding and respecting the personal side of the team was essential. Even though I have improved and I am not convinced I would be able to bring her natural ability to a new team by myself. We complimented each other really well and we respected each other's strengths and weaknesses.

We are very proud of our 'Priorities.' For lots of reasons. It took a clear vision to keep us on track, we knew if we could create this - it would be a game changer for us. The entire term 2 was building the capacities of the students and then activating all the different types of priorities so they could complete them independently. Once we were clear with the why and finally had the how sorted, the creation of the clipboard and organiser was the final piece of the puzzle. By eventually jumping in and setting up priorities from the beginning opened a climate of possibilities. We have never looked back and are still tweaking it to perfection.

Joint Accountability (as a team)

Leadership Video - Jan Robertson

Jan talks about our everyday practice as leaders helps coach others and how we develop in other people the responsibility of taking ownership of their own development. She also talks about encouraging others to take accountability and develop creative thinkers through our own leadership practice. She discusses the idea of partnership as entering a relationship where we can step into the space of someone else and model that we are willing to have our beliefs challenged by hearing other people's perspectives. Show that we are willing to learn from the people we work with. 

Jan talks about the most important part of leadership is relationship and building strong relationships around us. She discuss the importance of modelling the mindset of avoiding the status quo and asking the question of what's possible here. 

After watching the video it made me realise that coaching is not confined to the scheduled coaching sessions where we discuss our goals and whether we achieved them or not. It is the everyday modelling around taking accountability of our kaizen. This idea kind of explained why we have been so successful this year.  Even though each mentor had their own kaizen focus, they were part of our team kaizen and we all took responsibility of them all! The everyday discussions around environment, engagement and student voice ensured that mentors were permanently thinking about them and asked to talk about them in one way or another - they couldn't escape them!

As a leader/coach, if it wasn't raised by a team member (it usually was!), I would model challenging our design to ensure we were using the environment effectively or can we improve our engagement in other areas of our learning. I/we were not putting up with the status quo. What epitomised this approach was our discussion for term 4, we could have easily seen the year out as we have achieved so much, but no... Tetli spoke about engaging students with mini-mentors, Roanna spoke about designing a quiet space with the students and Rachel was still wanting to collect more voice to ensure our priorities were supporting the students from their perspective. Fantastic. 

Coaching - Kaizen

"Coaching is an art, and it's far easier said than done. It takes courage to ask a question, rather than offer up advice, provide an answer, or unleash a solution. Giving another person the opportunity to find their own way, make their own mistakes, and create their own wisdom is both brave and vulnerable. (Brené Brown, author of Rising Strong and Daring Greatly)

This quote captures a lot of my development with coaching this year. Over time, particular questions got to the point and moved our discussions in a purposeful and honest way. Every mentor created their own journey with a little of turn here and there based on evidence in the habitat.

The key elements to our success was having the kaizen focused on what was needed for the habitat and that provided constant feedback on how effective there ideas or plans were. 'Necessity is the mother of invention' when the need for something becomes essential,' you are forced to find ways to achieve it. This was the definitely the case for all our kaizen. Many times there were tweaks and adjustments or even a complete new approach was needed because it was essential to meet a goal.

Another key element was the clarity of our vision and what we were trying to achieve. By having the Simon Sinek 'acid test' to compare it against kept the discussions on track. The honesty of the mentors was crucial, but also being able to trial things and reflect on them, they made their own mistakes and were quick to acknowledge them. Through discussion we both grew in the areas of the kaizen and we were able to have informed discussions which were crucially based on our agreed shared vision.

Also, a key element was accountability. The mentors agreed to meet every 4-5 weeks knowing their short term goals would be discussed. In most cases, every mentor made a small but decisive step forward. It became the norm and having three kaizen's moving us forward was incredible.

Kaizen Reflection Term 2

• Grow the capabilities (leadership, teaming and practice) of others through a clear coaching process
• Be an integral part of other mentor's teaching as inquiries (Roanna - environment, Tetli -engagement) through creating clear goals every 4-5 weeks

Key things implemented

Weekly timetabled kaizen meeting

Linking kaizen to Stonefields visit

Creating goals to be reviewed in 4-5 weeks

Crucial Conversations individually and collectively

What is my Desired Reality?

• To grow the capabilities of team members in leadership, teaming and practice
• My coaching process becomes clear and effective
What am I wanting to develop my own capacity on through this inquiry?

• Build knowledge around coaching techniques
• Develop skills/questioning around having difficult conversations
• To articulate my/our values and beliefs through coaching to inspire the team to bring them to life

Term 2 Team Reflection

As a team we have made a lot of changes and have made a lot of progress regarding our design for learning. We made a real shift towards creating purposeful agency so students can impact their learning. The use of deliberate scaffolding with clipboards and a organiser was crucial. Learning from watching Emma teach reading recovery ensured we do not lose sight of the importance of explicit teaching, in our case it was phonics and handwriting. The focus on finding out student's interests ensure they were engaged and this had a huge impact on them staying on task and completing them effectively with purpose (this was provided with a question).

The biggest concern was the complete lack of balance in my life. This has been by far the most challenging term in both teaching and leadership. It is incredibly hard to get the balance between teaching and leadership in the current Team Leader role. In fact, you can't. Without this flexibility, when the teaching becomes overwhelming, you can't control it as much as you want to without effecting the team and this leads to stress. This has lead me to rethink many things personally and professionally.

Mark Treadwell advises, we must focus on ourselves as much as the students. We must ensure mentors have a balance in life and our motivated to work. There are a few factors I can control and influence, and I will make attempt to make change to ensure I get balance as I will not be able to sustain my career at SPS.

Summary

Agency/Capacities - Bingo, Clipboard and organiser Explicit Teaching - observations with Emma Engagement - based on inerests, questioning Formative Assessment - Pebbles (awareness of goals?) Balance - students and team (us), setting up a nightmare, Relationships - WaRM preso came up often, important to us - can we design our learning to build on that (particulary with WAVE expectations (ie every two weeks - the thought of this terrifies me - something needs to be changed to make this doable and not a problem) Oral Language - Inner Voice develop self awareness - MT Use of Data - tracking reading (ensures our teaching is targeted) Looking after the environment - more agency for students and nature of learning has made this a challenge - but giving students time to pack away etc is vital - we cannot do it ourselves

Kaizen Question/Focus

What am I wanting to focus on?

• Grow the capabilities of others through a clear coaching process
• Be an integral part of other mentor's teaching as inquiries (Roanna - environment, Tetli -engagement) through creating clear goals every 4-5 weeks

What is my Desired Reality?

• To grow the capabilities of team members in leadership, teaming and practice
• My coaching process becomes clear and effective
What am I wanting to develop my own capacity on through this inquiry?

• Build knowledge around coaching techniques
• Develop skills/questioning around having difficult conversations
• To articulate my/our values and beliefs through coaching to inspire the team to bring them to life

Battling the 'Always On' Culture

I have had a terrible start to the term regarding disconnecting and looking after my well-being. I am particularly frustrated as I felt I had begun to create a decent balance of work and family. 

The article has really reminded me that I need to be more conscious of disconnecting on the weekend. I need to create a definitive time of disconnection, whether it be an entire day or separate my leadership reading to a Saturday - which, interestingly,  I particularly enjoy and not see that is a necessary disconnect? Is that wrong in regards of disconnecting? Is all of it purposeful?

As Shotover, thankfully, does not have an Email culture - my 'addiction' is SLACK, Twitter, Facebook regarding education. I have myself wasting time wandering in and out of articles without any real purpose when there is a lot more things I should be getting on with.  I have been pleased with how I have cut out Twitter, I feel a lot better and more focused and productive - but I can do better. 

Cognitive Overload can lead to becoming distracted and be drawn to things that we prefer for a short fix, rather than putting our time into more productive areas. I have definitely find myself avoiding deeper thinking work and justifying work with simpler tasks. I have found myself doing a lot more housework? :) It is a distraction as an avoidance of a deeper thinking work.

"But people prefer reading an email to thinking about a problem more deeply. We don’t have the reflex anymore to spend three of four hours on one project. It is a constant distraction.”

In most cases, we are in the position to be able to manage our work schedule, but can teachers manage this successfully without any support? Teaching in a flexible learning environment is incredibly complex and there is a lot more to contend with than teaching in a single cell. Scheduling 'technical' tasks requires management skills which can be taught and develop quickly, 'adaptive' tasks are the opposite. Every adaptive problem requires a new solution and an approach, as much as we try to find one, we can not deal with it in an efficient systematic way. You can have a framework with questions etc, but they are totally dependent on knowing people and background etc. Ultimately, they always take time and it will have unknown variable (s) and can be incredibly frustrating. This adds another variable of frustration which leads people to not want to deal with the problem in an efficient way ie give it the time to be fully dealt with. In our environment we have to deal with both issues of dealing with management work as well as relationship work. Tony Burkin described it as 'relentless' and he is spot on, particularly in relation to the daily 'adaptive' problems we have.

As a team leader, it is essential the management side of our habitat is totally sorted and under control for all mentors. It is something we can manage and ensure its one thing less to worry due to the daily 'adaptive' problems. If you add to problems that are already there it can lead to cognitive overload and mentors becoming stuck. 

Action: Spend more meeting time on the management problems ie Communicating Learning and gathering data for OTJ's.

Action: Teaming skills will be dealt with during mentor meetings and a short time in our team meeting too.

Current and Desired Reality

My desired reality is to be an effective coach through having a clear and purposeful process. My current reality is that I do not know the team's goals, HBDI, beliefs and values. The process needs to be understood and made clear to my team. Coaching requires the support of reading and where do I find it. My steps are to get to know the team by meeting regularly and finding out/creating purposeful goals.  My second step is to create and execute a process which ensures our meetings are effective with clear steps and measurable goals. My third step is to build my own knowledge around reading to support my meetings, where relevant, when I can. I can also encourage others to use reading and share with the team too.

Coaching Phase 1

Now the mentors have a clear idea of what their inquiry is I will begin to meet with them using the visual aid of coaching process ie Aim, Reality and Action.

I am currently reading 'Extraordinary Leadership in Australia & New Zealand' from cover to cover as I have delved into it many times without reading it in its entirety.

Great Leaders are Great Learners

Leadership is an observable pattern of practices and behaviours and a definable set of skills and abilities. And any skill can be learned, strengthened, honed and enhanced. What's required - is the willingness to get better. Great leaders are great learners. Open to new information and new ideas, not afraid to experiment and to make mistakes.

Sustained effort, practice, a tolerance for discomfort and good coaching required. You have to deliberately and consciously practice, practice and practice. What do you practice?

After working through Aim, Reality and Action, I also want the mentor to have something they are working in Leadership Pipeline 2 in regards to teaming, with the idea they consciously practice it.

I am not convinced that some members of the team will naturally team and it will require some discomfort with other members practicing elements of teaming. As well as their own teaching as inquiry, we will identify an aspect of teaming to work on, from a leadership perspective, and ask them to 'practice it.'

Achievement vs Success

vs

Achievement vs Success

(from Start with Why - Simon Sinek)

Many people who achieve great success don't always feel it. Success and achievement are not the same thing. Achievement is something you reach or attain, like a goal. It is something tangible, clearly defined and measurable - ie National Standards. Success, in contrast, is a feeling or a state of being - ie seeing the students applying/using their new knowledge in a way that fits our 'Powerful Learning' model? Achievement comes when you are pursue and attain WHAT you want. Success comes when you are clear in pursuit of WHY you want it. The former is motivated by tangible factors while the latter by something deeper in the brain. Achievements, WHAT we do, serve as the milestones to indicate we are on the right path. We need both. Our BPP for powerful learning - ensure our WHY and WHAT are aligned. Hold ourselves accountable to HOW we do it and WHAT serves as the tangible proof of what we believe. Personally, what does it look like when we achieve 'success'? When do you believe, you will feel success? The achievement is tangible and clear. Action: Create a statement for our belief/why...

This was a successful discussion where we ended up creating a belief for Powerful Learning based around one word - Purpose. We wanted to be able to articulate with others our belief and felt having one word would help us begin a conversation and use examples around the habitat. Here is our current BPP on Powerful Learning...

The Point of Difference

During my state of play with Ben he asked me the question of why Coronet reached a 9/10 for teaming. I subsequently listed lots of hows and whats ie high trust, leadership opportunities, clarity and purpose of what we do. I left the meeting with that question ringing in my ears as I felt I haven't answered the question very well - I struggled to answer something that was so important it bothered me greatly.

As I am reading Start with the 'Why - How great leaders inspire everyone to take action' by Simon Sinek this question continuously bounces around my head and I now have more clarity.

The reason we were successful was because the majority of the team bought into the why ie our vision was to create an environment where 'We set students up for success.' Both Rachel and I were driven by that vision and every decision we made was put through the 'celery test' ie will this decision/change help the students to succeed. Will this change set students up for success?

Our early decisions to focus on students reading skills as many were below what we expected had to be addressed but at the same time we identified that to succeed we had to focus on our teaming. We all had a wide range of skills and knowledge to offer which meant were not afraid to admit that we didn't have the skills and knowledge to meet those needs, but Rachel did. We followed her lead, high trust, and we made a difference. It was a team effort based on using the teams strengths and working together. Through that experience we built trust by working towards a clear vision.

There were many other factors too such as the modelling of sweep the sheds - hugely important. However, I want to put out something challenging and essential to the success of future teaming. Team leaders need mentors who believe in their vision and bring it to life. Mentors should have the choice to join a team leader's vision ie at the end of the year they meet the team leader and put a case forward of how they believe in this vision and what their understanding looks like.

This year has not been as successful due to a mentor having different beliefs and if they were in a different habitat with the right vision that aligns with their values and beliefs it would bring the best of the mentors and students.

I believe we need to challenge the process of leadership creating the teams and, at least, include the mentors and team leaders in the creation of teams based around the vision of the leaders. You could argue that those visions would/should be similar - walk around each habitat and you will clearly see and feel a very different team. The point of difference? Vision.

Understanding My HBDI Profile

Awhile back Tetli shared a fantastic HBDI app during a Smackdown and it provides tips on what to do when under pressure. As I have been under a lot of pressure lately, I thought this would be a valuable time to look at the tips.

The biggest shift in my profile whilst under pressure is the relational goes out and experimental goes in.

My profile says that 'more pressure for me is when others emotions shut others down.'  It says to take time-out to compose yourself before coming back to the situation.  Interestingly, I did take a break from the situation and spoke to others for support, which definitely helped me approach the problem in a positive and carefully constructed way with great results.  

'I can create more pressure for myself with the need to talk it out which wastes time and distracts.' I found the conversations very helpful and essential to overcome the problem, but they were problem longer than needed and I may have had more than needed. Their tip is to try writing down your thoughts before communicating with others to allow clearer thinking. Fortunately, I always write notes for meetings via the agenda and the discussions helped bring clarity to my thinking. However, I could do this more often - its definitely a weakness of mine ie articulating my thinking.

After reading the notes for experimental, I was incredibly surprised. I believed the relational was the problem but the notes here could be more the reason for my stress.

The pressure makes you feel mentally stuck, with a few obviously unsatisfactory ideas. This was so true, I wasn't only stuck - I was completely concreted in!  During one of more frustrated meetings I definitely articulated that I couldn't think of anything else, it was blockage to everything else I needed to do.  The recommendation is to take a break, a walk  or seek out a friend to shift your mindset away from the details at hand. I certainly 'seeked' out professional support, but maybe I should have 'seeked' out more personal support. Maybe this could be a strategy I use more often, talking with fellow professionals actually, in many cases, compounds the stress. Talking with someone not connected with the school will help me gain a more rounded perspective and shift my thinking away. Doesn't help living with teacher!

Therapy!

I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the Education industry. I am particularly frustrated with the lack of clarity and direction to Senior Leadership. My pathway was clear in the UK and with every school in New Zealand being a separate entity, its incredibly hard to know what to do next to ensure a step into Senior Leadership.  

Every school I have been to I have quickly adapted to the vision of the school and done everything I can to put myself in a position to move on. Unfortunately, this approach is not the way to go. New appointments for Leadership tends to come from outside the school based on an unknown criteria/agenda. 

More importantly, this frustration is compounded massively by the insane amount of research and articles shared via social media. It's incredibly frustrating as you constantly looking around and hearing how amazing other schools are being based on practices or understandings you are not doing and I feel I am falling behind.

However, Simon Sinek has put my mind at rest. :)

"Put simply, best practice are not always best. It is not just WHAT or HOW you do things that matters, what matters more is that WHAT and HOW you do things is consistent with your WHY? Only then will your practices indeed be best.

There is nothing inherently wrong with looking to others to learn what they do, the challenge is knowing what practices or advice to follow. Simple test to find out exactly WHAT and HOW is right for you - Celery test.

Ideas - M&Ms, rice milk, Oreo, Celery - WHY - healthy - filters decision.

With a WHY clearly stated in an organisation, anyone within the organisation can make a decision as clearly and as accurately as the founder. A WHY provides the clear filter for decision-making."

I am going to focus on the 'Why' at SPS and not worry about what is happening around NZ, I can only influence the environment I work in and there is plenty to become immersed into here! My leadership capabilities and knowledge has taken a new direction at SPS and I am certainly growing, which is all I can ask for.  Action: turn off social media around Education. 

Readings, readings and more readings!

During the summer I thoroughly enjoyed reading a variety of books on leadership, so much so it has become a daily habit. All the books were so good that I have taken an incredible amount of notes and will over the year refer back to them and blog about them. Why?

My Current reality is that I have understood the benefit of reading about leadership and it is certainly helping me articulate my thoughts and understandings around the decisions I make. My Desired Reality is to 'action' this research/reading.  I am determined to articulate the 'why' as best as I can, and using these readings has helped me greatly.

For example, there has been a huge discussion around aligning our values as a team and also understanding my own! I used the Trust Matters quote as a lead into our discussion around our teaming BPP.

"Trust matters. Trust comes from being a part of a culture or organisation with a common set of values and beliefs. Trust is maintained when the values and beliefs are actively managed. No clarity, discipline and consistency- trust starts to break down. You must work actively to remind everyone Why we do things. We need to hold everyone accountable to the values and guiding principles. It's not enough to just write them on the wall - that's passive." 'Start with the Why' - Simon Sinek Let's discuss our 'Teaming BPP' and quickly discuss how we are getting on..."

Also, to help explain the why it is important we get the 'core' of students learning right ie reading, writing and maths. By securing the students progress in these areas will give us the platform to take risks knowing that we have the 'net.'  Emergence of Trust Trapeze will not attempt a totally new death-defying leap without first trying it with a net below. Besides it's obvious advantage of catching you if you fall, the net also provides a psychological benefit. Knowing it is there gives the trapeze artist the confidence to try something he's never done before. Remove the net and only do safe tricks. The more he trusts the quality of the net - the more he will take personal risks to make the act better. They must trust that their leaders provide a net - practical or emotional. There is a big difference between jumping out of a plane with a parachute on and jumping without one. Both produce extraordinary experiences, but only one increases the likelihood of being able to try again another time.