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Natural Leadership: the Power of We

May 16th, 2011

The opportunity to learn from a successful leader is worth its weight in gold. This past week, a team of educators with whom I work had a chance to visit a learning space that represents the impact of change agency within a large system.

Dr. Canterbury

After discussing what we would see in new learning spaces, we participated as a team in instructional “rounds” with a key leader in medical education to discuss innovations in the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia. Dr. Randy Canterbury serves as Associate Dean for Medical Education and he’s had direct responsibility for leading significant changes that, in essence, transformed the University’s medical education curriculum, pedagogy, learning resources, assessments, student work, and learning spaces. Teams of medical educators worked with him in designing new foundations for learning that transform the nature of medical education. They used a focus on Scientific Teaching (Jo Handelsman et al.) to inform research-driven decisions to make changes in educational practices and learning spaces. This work happened in a relatively “brief history of time.”

If you would like to learn more about the transformative work that’s occurred, I’ve written about specific changes in the School of Medicine at the Cooperative Catalyst and A Space for Learning. However, this post reflects upon leadership within the change process and what Dr. Canterbury describes as important for leaders to consider when making changes of significant magnitude in the work that occurs inside an organization. Here’s his perspective on change agency.

Be respectful of people. A respectful learning environment is an absolute necessity for success. All people need to respect all people, students, faculty, peer to peer, across the hierarchy.

Don’t be one who uses the words “I and me” a lot. “We and ours” are much more important because those bring us together. Little things like that become very important when working with colleagues.

You must have the ability to smile and wave, and continue to push. Be empathic and listen to people and their concerns. You must listen to naysayers – and in big changes you’ll find plenty of them. Validate their concerns without being steered off course.

Begin with Steven Covey’s “end in mind” and decide where you’re going and continue along that path. If you have moves from side to side in direction it should be because there’s a reason to move that way.

You’ll find hundreds of research studies on change process. There seems to be two types of change when it comes to ways you can change a big system. One is a gradual and transitional change in which you move things a little bit at a time and eventually you can get there, but it’s asymptotic. This doesn’t work so well in large systems. The other is a disruptive or transformational change that occurs with agility. When faced with the need to make radical changes, moving quickly gets ahead of resisters.

When you tear everything down you will get resistance from people whose work has occurred in the same way for decades or even a hundred years. This kind of change is distressing to people. People needed to hear “we really do need you. We need your expertise, but we’re reconfiguring and we want you to play with us, be a part of the team, and help us do this.”

Leadership support for change is essential “from the top.” Responsibility “from the top” also is critical. That means if a key team member doesn’t make the needed transition, the leader owns that. At the same time, the message must be that nobody is important enough to stop the team from making changes they need to make. Have backup systems for how you will get the work done. No one can hold you hostage then.

Tear down silos and get people working in teams. But, remember silos love to form. It’s amazing to see one of those things sitting out in a field someplace. You think that must have taken a lot of work to build those silos, but then they just drop out of the sky and there they are. You have to keep fighting against silos getting built.

Dr. Canterbury illustrates qualities of natural leadership in the work he has led to transform the last 100 years of medical education into 21^st century learning to “create physicians who serve patients well.” He realizes that change occurs best when a leader can relate with and to people he or she serves.

Natural leaders create compelling stories of why change is critical and those stories weave together observations, study, discussion, and data. Stories become a teaching tool that pulls people into the process of determining why change is needed, what’s possible, and how the community will work together to make changes together.

Natural leaders such as Dr. Canterbury engage community members in the change process by working across the hierarchy to gain people’s investment in the change, ensuring those in both positions of formal and informal leadership help facilitate the process. They care for community members throughout the change process, even those who resist change. Key to their success, natural leaders do not give up in the face of resistance, but rather work to ensure that resisters can’t hold the community “hostage” by creating barriers to change.

Learning Studio

In the School of Medicine, innovations didn’t occur as a result of a drawn out series of plans for incremental change. Rather, leaders used information to create dissonance about success of past practices that had been educational program traditions since Abraham Flexner brought structure to medical education. From this, the decision emerged to create disruptive innovation, literally and figuratively tearing down medical school walls. The success of these changes resulted from Dr. Canterbury’s work across the hierarchy to build ownership for the needed changes.

Natural leadership skills trump those of the scientific manager when it comes to leading for transformative change. Natural leadership skills predate the shift to scientific management advanced by Tyler in manufacturing and Cubberley in education.

There’s a place for elements of scientific management in the work we accomplish as leaders. However, I’ve come to believe that we need to learn from natural leaders and use what we learn to create a new curriculum of leadership that draws upon the knowledge and skills of those who lead naturally.

Dr. Canterbury attributes the medical school’s story of change to the power of a team of “we.” That’s an essential quality of natural leadership.

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Posted in 21st century skills, administration, assessment, Authentic engagement, Authentic learning, Collaboration, critical thinking, cross-disciplinary thinking, Curriculum, disruption, educational reform, focus, How People Learn, Leadership, multi-disciplinary thinking, Pedagogy, Professional Development, SOL, Sphere of Influence, Uncategorized, YES

Tags: Abraham Flexner change agency Covey Randy Canterbury UVA medical school

Civil Discourse: It’s Common Sense

January 9th, 2011

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

U.S. Declaration of Independence

Events occur, as did the mass shooting in Arizona this past weekend, that remind us a culture of civility does not come without explicit teaching in the home, our schools, and every community in this nation. While we don’t know all the facts or motivating factors, serious discourse among citizens from all walks of life has led many to reflect this weekend upon the vitriol that dominates the political rhetoric of our nation. We know that this rhetoric influences and cues a culture of disrespect.

However, parents, educators, and leaders from all sectors of a community possess the potential to form a powerful teaching team to help young people learn the art of civil discourse, especially when holding a dissenting opinion or when confronted by others who hold different beliefs or perspectives. The hallmark of this great nation has been our inalienable right to a liberty that includes being able to speak our piece without fear of imprisonment, retribution from our government, or loss of life or liberty at the hands of those who may not agree with us.

“ Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

1st Amendment, Bill of Rights Ratified June 21, 1788

Our nation’s powerful words, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, define a set of beliefs in us: the American people. We believe ourselves to be models for freedom throughout the world. We believe ourselves to be a people who will defend the rights of others, even when we disagree with them. In protecting that right for some, we protect that right for all of us.

I believe the vast majority of Americans value civil discourse because the language of respect helps us weave together the fabric of America’s communities. Civil discourse is the hallmark of adults who care enough to state their opinions publicly and boldly- but with respect. Civil discourse represents the best of communities of responsibility, whether in the real world or in a virtual network. In responsible communities, people care enough to speak up. They also understand their behavior determines the community’s culture that will be created and honed over time.

We are a nation facing critical issues politically, socially, and economically. Such times create emotions of fear, anger, and frustration. Those emotions spill over into our communities and tear at the fabric of responsibility that’s essential for its members to feel safe. We have become used to hearing and reading daily attacks both publicly and anonymously at the national, state, and local levels. These attacks have lowered the bar for any standard of civil discourse representative of opinions on both sides of political and social aisles.

However, we are a nation that’s grounded in hope and perhaps we can get back there if we can see our way to work together. There’s a bipartisan movement afoot in Utah to establish a cultural shift towards civility. For several months, my friend and colleague Dave Doty,(@canyonsdave) superintendent of Canyons District in Utah, and I’ve been discussing a need for more positive models of civil discourse in every area of society. It appears that he lives in one state that has leaders willing to do something about it.

We, who have responsibility for raising and teaching children, must consciously and consistently model a language of respect even when we disagree with each other. We need to teach our children that dissent and respect can occur in the same sentence. But, civility isn’t solely an issue of public schooling. We educators are part of the solution, but we aren’t the only solution. Civility begins in the home. It’s modeled in the community. And, it must be supported by everyone; religious leaders, political leaders, and arts and entertainment leaders. Media personalities need to step up to the plate and take responsibility for shifting the culture, too. If we don’t all do our part, then shame on us for talking the talk of civility for a few days without walking the walk for the long haul.

Do we want a nation where people can confidently speak up and share different opinions? Do we want schools where children can confidently engage in discourse about different perspectives from their peers and others? Do we want communities where people confidently consider a diversity of perspectives from other citizens? If so, we all need to start leading from in front for civility. Everywhere. All the time.

Thank you, Utah, for setting a tone that leads the way.

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Posted in Forum for Education and Democracy, Pam Moran, reason, School Community, Sphere of Influence, Uncategorized

Tags: Constitution Dave Doty Declaration of Independence First Amendment Utah Civility and Community 2011

The Teaching Story: August 2010

August 22nd, 2010

We educators teach learners that stories have a beginning, middle and end. We also know that each annual cycle of our career takes the form of a story, too. Many of us look forward to writing a new story each year-creating fresh learning plans, developing new relationships, redesigning our learning spaces to gain different perspective upon learning. On the flip side, some of us change so little over the course of our careers that we seem to simply repeat the same story over and over; almost as if stuck in the movie Groundhog Day. What leads teachers to choose one or the other of these two career pathways? Years ago, I worked on a little writing project to ask and answer the question: what motivates some teachers to continue evolving practice over the course of their career? After hours of listening to and transcribing audio tapes, a few specific themes emerged from these teachers’ reflections on their practice- or artwork- as one teacher labeled it.

2 generations of teachers; Ashley's retiree mom helping her set up kindergarten

Each year, just before school refreshes its cycle, I hear those teachers’ voices reminding me of their perspectives on the importance of the first day of school. These teachers, all recognized master teachers with years of teaching under their belts and with no intention of ever doing anything else, believed that the power of their successes was grounded in the relationships they began to build with young people in the first moment of the first day. One teacher said to me something akin to this, “When I began teaching, one of the old-timers advised me to not smile ‘til December.. I ignored that advice and think it was one of the best decisions of my career. How can you begin a positive relationship without smiling?” Another said in thinking about a mentor who helped her survive her very first day of school, “A teacher in the math department stepped in to help me with discipline early on. She became a mentor and critical friend for life. Every time I was failing to reach a student, we would talk. She would ask questions. I would think about different approaches. Eventually, I began to realize I owned the change that’s needed, not the learner. Sometime it’s about the relationship. Other times it’s about their needing a different learning strategy from me. Sometimes, they just need more time and – more of my time.”

These teachers engaged in professional careers grounded in efficacy. They believed they were capable of making a difference in every learner’s life and they never gave up on a young person, especially those who challenged them the most. Importantly, they all shared a professional power gained from finding and connecting to one or more critical friends with whom they bonded because of a commonly held belief in their own self-efficacy. They supported each other, listened to each other, pushed each other, and shared with each other. Often, they considered themselves to be part of an underground group of educators who stayed out of the fray of others’ criticizing conversations; not because there isn’t always something to criticize in a school but because they saw those discussions as debilitating to their work with young people. They held a viewpoint about their students and their work that could be labeled as “glass almost always full.”

Paragons of teaching? I don’t think so. Teachers aren’t perfect but I believe teachers who care and work hard are more the norm than the exception. As I walk schools and chat with teachers, step into their rooms, listen to their dreams for the first day and every day afterward with the learners they serve, I think the media, the politicians, and our communities often sell short the many professionals who teach their heart out, day in and out; living their careers inside and outside of work. These teachers know what’s worthy to learn and they put their energy into realizing that work to the greatest degree possible, even if means being a bit of a Neil Postman-like“subversive activity” teacher. They understand the importance of staying current and working to learn new skills. Despite being beleaguered professionally by back-to-school stories such as the recent teacher evaluation coverage of the LA Times, they work on new ideas for learning projects while on unpaid summer leave, rearrange their learning spaces over and over again before pre-service week, put a smile on their faces, and reach out to find the good in each learner who crosses the threshold into class on that first day of school. Our schools, our learners, and our teachers represent a different century of learning than the one Norman Rockwell captured when he painted Happy Birthday, Miss Jones, an image of what once was America’s quintessential teacher. However, today’s teachers still represent the best of what teachers have always been and always will be; educators who make a difference in the lives of the young people they serve.

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Posted in 21st century skills, narrative, Pam Moran, Sphere of Influence, Teacher Efficacy, teaching, voice

Integrated Living. Separated Learning? Part 1

June 26th, 2009

(This article, written by Jason Flom, is crossposted on Ecology of Education)

I marvel at my phone. It surfs the internet, finds my e-mail, lets me twitter, takes calls, and gets along well with my computer. It’s a calendar, a stopwatch, a newspaper, and a means of distracting my daughter when she needs distracting. It’s the height of integration (for now). So many systems amalgamated. So many advances in technology blended together.

Yet it serves as only a sign and symptom of a much larger trend: increasing connections.

We live in integrated worlds. Myriad spheres overlap and influence other spheres. As the layers and connections increase, so does the complexity and the reverberations of actions, both positive and negative. While many of use get pretty excited by the integrated nature of our technology, it is the interrelated systems of nations and cultures that pose the largest long term impact.

A short list of challenges in today’s world:

Climate change
The Great Recession
Rising extinction rates
Famine
Poverty
Access to potable water
Basic rights
Education for all

This list is by no means exhaustive or comprehensive. Social and environmental issues run the gambit from site specific challenges to global ramifications. We have about as much hope of cataloging them all as of convincing a 2 year old that whining is an ineffective method for achieving one’s goals.

What’s more, this list isn’t new. Most of these issues have followed (perhaps even pushed) humanity from the savannas of Africa to all corners of terra firma.

So, what’s the point?

The point is this: The complexity of these issues escalates exponentially as the connections and interactions between people and nations increase. Actions by one party potentially impacts others on a much grander scale than ever before. And as the networks grow, so do the effects of our decisions and our patterns of living. (An example of this theory in action: Iranian elections.)

Of course, in this case, the enabling keystone of expanded spheres of influence is technology, which has effectively flattened the world by decreasing the role of proximity as the necessary cornerstone for communication, collaboration, and conflict. (Technology has also exacerbated the divide between the haves and the have nots, but that is fodder for another post.)

The result is that our problems, as people of Earth, are now, more than ever, shared problems. Solutions to those problems cannot be found or enacted in isolation. Want to minimize global climate change? One must act locally and globally. Watching An Inconvenient Truth won’t be enough. Adjusting one’s consumer patterns can make a difference, but real change will happen when a mass of interconnected citizens who demand or create action. (Or a great calamity forces us to rethink.) Technology allows previously isolated groups to join together, for better or for worse, and drive change.

What does this have to do with education?

Everything.