Empowering To Pull Together
This past week during our 3D Leadership gatherings a theme kept coming out about empowerment and having everyone pulling together. We talked about this and that empowerment does not just mean making sure everyone is doing something. So many times we, as leaders, fall into the trap of getting wrapped up in our own things and we forget that true empowerment means making sure everyone understands the vision, is pulling in the same direction, and have had the skills developed to do the right things and do things right. There must be a common language and a common approach, which helps to communicate the goals and objectives and create a winning culture, with increased teamwork and ensures that we are all pulling in the same direction.
I believe in a more distributed leadership model. This model secures team members’ full participation in the organization’s or school’s decision-making processes, promotes meaningful collaboration and harmonious work relations, generates passion for accomplishing goals, and boosts student and teacher productivity. I was reminded of how powerful this is in Gem #8 entitled “People Tend To Support What They Create” in 52 Leadership Gems: Practical and Quick Insights For Leading Others by John Parker Stewart. In this lesson Stewart reminded us that creation is a pervasive instinct for we humans. So, we naturally become much more engaged when we have a part in creation of programs, processes, procedures, and policies. I really believe this is why I loved teaching so much. This is what it is like in an effective classroom with students. It should be that way in a well run school or organization too.
Done properly, team members take leading roles, assume responsibility, and act independently as individuals or groups. The thing I really like about a more distributed model is that it promotes the staff’s full participation in key decision-making and implementation processes and also makes them accountable. But, it does require us, as the leader to serve as both chief coordinator and evaluator of processes and results. In other words, we need to be in the boat rowing 🚣♀️ too.
How can you help your team become involved in decision making and creation?
Leading Like Billy Graham
With the passing of the great leader, Billy Graham, this week I feel compelled to reflect on what made him a great leader. It just so happened I was in Charlotte, North Carolina working with school leaders and teachers this week and had the opportunity to go to the Billy Graham Library, pay my respects, and reminisce about growing up with Billy Graham on our television set.
I grew up watching Billy Graham while sitting beside my dad on the couch in our living room. Growing up in a rural Christian home, we could relate to the teachings of this North Carolina man who, as his daughter has described him, was always a farmer at heart. Little did I know at the time I was witnessing one of the greatest leaders that would ever walk the earth (besides Jesus, of course) for 99 years. Also, little did I know he was teaching me to lead like Jesus.
It has been said that there are three very important questions that leaders must answer:
- Who am I?
- Who do I want to be?
- How do I make a difference in the greater world and bring influence to others?
Certainly, Billy Graham modeled answering these three leadership questions for us. There was never any doubt who Billy Graham was. He believed in Jesus, told the stories of Jesus, and that was who he was. He led with integrity because who he was on the outside was who he was on the inside, period. That was who he was and who he wanted to be. Bottom line: he wanted everyone to know Jesus, and that was that. As we would say today, “drop the mic!”
Furthermore, as a believer in the idea that leadership is influence, I am not sure you could name me anyone else who has influenced more people in a life span, other than Jesus of course. This morning as I was studying the day’s tweets, I came across one from Billy Graham’s daughter, Anne Graham Lotz. She had written a tribute to her dad, “Daddy Is Home.” Needless to say, I was inspired. Click here to read it, because you’ll be inspired too.
A sentence Anne wrote in the statement really stood out to me. She said, “While he may be physically absent and his voice silent, I am confident that his message will continue to reverberate throughout the generations to come.” Wow! If leadership is influence, then this says it all. Even after passing, Billy Graham’s influence of changing the world and influencing others lives on. Powerful!
“While he may be physically absent and his voice silent, I am confident that his message will continue to reverberate throughout the generations to come. My prayer on this day of his move to Our Father’s House is that his death will be a rallying cry. That tens of thousands of pastors, teachers, evangelists, and ordinary men and women will rise up to take his place. That they will take up his message like a baton being passed in a relay race and faithfully pass it on to those with whom they come in contact. Because Daddy’s message is God’s message. And it’s a message of genuine hope for the future, of love for the present, of forgiveness for the past.” ~ Anne Graham Lotz
We all look for leaders who can appreciate our vulnerability and inspire us, understand us, support us, and guide us through looming chaos. We are inspired and influenced when this happens. As leaders, we need to understand who we are, why we are doing something, and be clear about about our own core values and goals when applying our skills of influence. That way, influence comes from a place of authenticity and has the greatest impact. Remember, to be truly influential, we need to be the same person on the outside that we are on the inside.
Leadership Algorithms
This past Tuesday I facilitated a gathering of our South Carolina 3D Leadership Program cohort. The through line was “Your Leadership Toy Box.” The idea was to use toys to discover ways to be focused leaders. At the beginning of the gathering I had each participant grab a toy and answer the question of how the toy they chose represented leadership. Participants were given 10 minutes to prepare a response in any format they chose. Needless to say, the responses were awesome, inspiring, and most importantly – FUN!
One of the toys chosen was a Rubik’s Cube. As was the plan, this toy caused a lot of reflection, and even more for me after the participant reported out. Click below to watch the video of her presentation: Leadership Algorithms. It’s awesome!
Her reflection really got me to thinking about leadership and education. I thought about how this game reveals lessons that we all face as educators and leaders. Every year, we encounter and solve challenges that must be addressed on several levels, just as the Rubik’s Cube must be solved side by side and layer by layer. Every day teachers make decisions before, during, and after classroom lessons to successfully engage students and lead the learning process, maneuvering through numerous machinations to address diverse learning styles and skills. This is what teacher leaders do. School leaders must search for ways to enable continual school improvement, which requires school leaders to study, plan, implement, analyze, react, and adjust throughout the decision-making and implementation processes. These are the same skills and actions necessary to conquer the Rubik’s Cube.
So what did we learn from the Rubik’s Cube algorithms? Leadership requires us to step back from time to time and re-assess the situation in order to move forward. Successful leaders are continually convening the team to assess and re-assess processes in order to improve. We also learned that making one twist of the cube leads to multiple changes on the cube. When we make changes as leaders, we have to understand there is a ripple effect that affects the team and the organization. Leadership is so much like the Rubik’s Cube because to be a successful leader, we must think several moves ahead of the one we are actually working on. In talking to those who have solved the Rubik’s Cube, they tell me you have to think ahead and there are algorithms. What is your leadership algorithm?
What Do You Think?
Governor Eric Holcomb
I had the opportunity to meet with an impressive group of community leaders this past Friday. As we continue to work through the guidance and implementation of our new Indiana Graduation Pathways, of which I chaired the panel that created this policy, we are working very hard to learn from the groups in the state that have been doing this work already and successfully. The Community Education Coalition and Economic Opportunities through Education (EcO) Network in southeast Indiana is one such group that brings educators, manufacturing leaders, workforce, and community-based organizations together to coordinate and align educational program offerings for students to successfully connect with well-paying manufacturing occupations.
Last year, the Indiana State Board of Education was charged with establishing graduation pathways per HEA 1003. The goal was to create an educated and talented workforce able not just to meet the needs of business and higher education, but also have students able to succeed in all post-secondary endeavors. To account for the rapidly changing, global economy, every K-12 student needs to be given the tools to succeed in some form of quality post-secondary education and training, including an industry recognized certificate program, an associate’s degree program, or a bachelor’s degree program. Every student should graduate from high school with 1) a broad awareness of and engagement with individual career interests and associated career options, 2) a strong foundation of academic and technical skills, and 3) demonstrable employability skills that lead directly to meaningful opportunities for post-secondary education, training, and gainful employment. During the process of our panel convenings we did a lot of asking, “What do you think?” Now, thanks to the Community Education Coalition we are able to continue to ask “what do you think?” as we work through making sure schools are able to put the pathways in place for students. We are so grateful that they put the event together last week that included Governor Eric Holcomb, State Legislators and Policy Makers, business and industry leaders, higher education leaders, K-12 school leaders, and most importantly students. There was a lot of question asking and learning going on.
The partners and facilitators of the Community Education Coalition and EcO initiatives have learned to make inquiry a habit of mind, thereby initiating a long-term commitment to continual improvement and growth. This coalition has developed an outstanding process that uses the questions of “who?, why?, what?, and how?” in order to identify key community issues. You can bet the four words of, “What do you think? are asked in this process. Essential to the success of this process was collaboration with colleagues across different disciplines for clarifying their questions and for understanding and analyzing the data they collected. For example, data like: high school graduation rate, education attainment growth, STEM enrollment growth rate, GDP per capita, employment growth, and average annual wages are used as outcomes to measure success.
This data is then able to be used by stakeholders to answer the questions of “who?, why?, what?, and how?” and the question of: What do you think? We are reminded of how important these four words are in Gem #7 entitled “Four Magic Words: ‘What do you think’” in 52 Leadership Gems: Practical and Quick Insights For Leading Others by John Parker Stewart. In this lesson Stewart reminds us that leaders often fall into the trap of assuming they have the right answer. I am also reminded of the teaching of one of my heroes in community work, Peter Block, who believes that effective leaders are not problem solvers, but conveners of communities of people to solve issues.
“Using these four inclusive words [What do you think?] is evidence of an effective and healthy leader who actively listens to the input of the members of the team.” ~ John Parker Stewart
All research is messy and recursive; and it has been my experience that collaborative inquiry is more so because no one knows the end. You are not starting with answers, but with questions. Throughout the process, partners reflect on what is being observed and found out. The stakeholders may change direction, ask new questions, challenge the inconsistencies they discover, seek new perspectives, and fill gaps in their information. During our gathering on Friday we were reminded over and over that the process of connecting the stakeholders is more important than looking at programs. It would be very hard to replicate programs in all parts of the state, but it would not be hard to replicate the process of deciding what programs are needed and developing programs specific to each area. It is all about bringing collaboration to scale.
To do this we must remember to ask the pertinent questions, listen, and ask “what do you think?”
The Servant Leadership: Self-Esteem Connection
The Servant Leadership: Self-Esteem Connection
By Ken Blanchard
Originally Appeared on the Ken Blanchard Companies Blog
Servant leadership is best described as an others-focused form of leadership. It’s not an easy model to follow for leaders who believe in commanding and controlling their people—but it is easy for leaders with high self-esteem. Such people have no problem giving credit to others. They have no problem listening to other people for ideas. They have no problem building other people up. They don’t see praising others as a threat to themselves in any way. People with high self-esteem buy into the ancient Chinese philosophy of Lao Tzu:
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists; when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, ‘We did it ourselves.’”
Leaders who place themselves in the center of the universe and think everything must rotate around them are really covering up not-okay feelings about themselves. This is an ego problem that manifests as either fear or false pride. When you don’t feel good about yourself, you have two choices. You can either hide and hope nobody notices you, or you can overcompensate and go out and try to control your environment. I think people who feel the need to control their environment are just scared little kids inside.
I learned from the late Norman Vincent Peale that the best leaders combine a healthy self-acceptance with humility. Norman liked to say, “Leaders with humility don’t think less of themselves—they just think about themselves less.” To me, this approach sounds like a great way to begin for an aspiring servant leader.
Coaching and Self-Esteem
To me, servant leadership is a good way to describe the role that managers are expected to play today to help their people win. Judging and evaluating people erodes their self-esteem, but servant leadership builds self-esteem and encourages individual growth while attaining the organization’s objectives.
Servant leadership is something people need. Leaders need to support and help individuals in the organization to win. The days of the manager being judge, jury, and critic are over. Today, a manager needs to be a cheerleader, facilitator, and listener. Managers who are servant leaders are the ones most likely to achieve both lasting relationships and great results.
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More about Ken Blanchard
Ken Blanchard is a best-selling business author with over 21 million books sold. His newest book, Servant Leadership in Action, is being released on March 6. Ken is also hosting a free Servant Leadership in Action Livecast on February 28 featuring more than 20 authors, CEOs, and thought leaders speaking on the topic. Learn more here!
Got Experience?
Here’s a question for you: Are skills directly proportional to years of experience?
While I agree that experience will give you more expertise in subject matter, people skills, and well-roundedness—I believe that all these are not necessarily causal of years of experience. Nor do I believe years of experience always correlate with exceptional performance. So what’s my idea of proper experience? It’s having had enough time in the field to see the results caused by your own decisions and workflow. Actually, that can be done in a short amount of time. Conversely, I have known individuals with a great many years experience who really hadn’t grown or improved much. In my field of education, I have known new teachers with little experience in terms of years that were much more effective facilitators of learning than some teachers with many years experience.
This was the topic of Gem #6 entitled “27 Years Of Genuine Growth Or 1 Year Repeated 27 Time” in 52 Leadership Gems: Practical and Quick Insights For Leading Others by John Parker Stewart. In this lesson Stewart taught us that strong leaders seek new opportunities to continually develop and hone their skills. Weak leaders just keep doing the same things and embrace the status quo.
“Make each additional year in your work one of genuine learning and growth.” ~ John Parker Stewart
I view experience as the sum of a few factors: time working, experiences survived, the nature of the role and responsibilities, and potential lessons learned. Really, there is no magic number of years to this. It is about learning from your experience and the idea of continuing to practice and improve. It is not about the difference between experience and not enough experience, but about has it been the right experience. Then it really boils down to what have we been learning from the things we have been doing.
So, do you have x number of years experience, or x number of years doing the same thing over and over?
Four Causes of Unproductive Meetings and What to Do About Them
Four Causes of Unproductive Meetings and What to Do About Them
By Dick Axelrod
Originally published on dickaxe.cayenne.io
- Unclear Purpose
Meeting participants are unclear about the purpose of the meeting or what they want to accomplish. Before holding a meeting, ask yourself what you want to be different for yourself, the participants, and the organization as a result of holding this meeting. Make sure you share this purpose with the participants. If you are a meeting participant and don’t know or understand the purpose of the meeting ask, “What is the purpose of this meeting?” at the beginning of the meeting. Then ask yourself, “What can I contribute to make this meeting productive?”
- Unclear Roles
It is amazing to find out how many attend meetings where they don’t know why they are there or what is expected of them. We see many leaders who invite people to the meeting because they might provide a different perspective. However, these participants do not know that is what is expected of them. They attend the meeting not knowing why they are there and consequently feel the meeting is a waste of time.
- Decision-Makers Not Present
When the meeting participants are not empowered to make decisions, everyone feels their time is wasted. While participants may have fruitful discussions, they must then take their work product to the decision-makers who were not part of the discussion and who may not understand the reasons why recommendations are being made. This additional layer of bureaucracy wastes everyone’s time. Empowering meeting participants to make decisions or having decision-makers present will eliminate this added bureaucracy.
- Unclear Decision-Making Process
We have watched many groups flounder because the decision-making process is unclear. They don’t know whether they are being asked to learn about a decision that has already been made, provide the leader with feedback, or be part of the decision-making process. Clarifying the decision-making process prior to starting the discussion saves time and energy.
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More about Dick Axelrod
Dick and is wife Emily Axelrod are pioneers in creating employee involvement programs to effect large-scale organization change, and co-founded the Axelrod Group in 1981. Dick is also a lecturer in University of Chicago’s Masters in Threat and Response Management Program, and a faculty member in American University’s Masters in Organization Development program. Dick and Emily created the Conference Model®, an internationally recognized high-involvement change methodology.
Together, Emily and Dick are frequent keynote speakers and co-authors. Their latest book is Let’s Stop Meeting Like This: Tools to Save Time and Get More Done it outlines a flexible and adaptable system used to run truly productive meetings in all kinds of organizations―meetings where people create concrete plans, accomplish tasks, build connections, and move projects forward.
Plus + / Delta Δ
One of the tools I learned from my work in the Advanced Educational Leadership Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education was how to do a Plus + / Delta Δ session at the end of a convening. I appreciated learning this from Dr. Liz City from Harvard University. She does this at the end of any convening or class I have been involved with. I have found this to be one of the greatest way to really find out what has gone well and what has not.
Here is how it works: At the end of the day or session we put up a board and put a + and a Δ on it. Then open it up to the group to give the positives from the day and the areas of improvement needed. I have found it to be a much more valuable experience if I do not start with positives or negatives and then switch to the other. The way I run the session both +s and Δs can be given together and not in any order. This way of doing it allows for pluses to be thought of when thinking about a delta and visa versa. As the discussion ensues all comments recorded in writing up on a foam board (see blog post picture).
I really believe this model does a couple of important things for the convened community. One big thing this process does is help to bring trust. Nothing can be off the table to bring up. More importantly, once a delta is on the table it is up to the leader/facilitator to make adjustments for the next convener. Or, if it is a plus, how do I, as facilitator continue to make sure this is a plus in the future. The second thing I believe happens using this way of collecting feedback is the depth of the information received and the amount of information. Let’s face it, getting surveys back is tough.
Furthermore, let me give you an example of the great information that a +/Δ session can give at the conclusion of a convening this past weekend. I always have butcher paper and crayons on the tables for participants to take notes, draw, doodle or whatever helps them learn. This convening was no different. The group of teacher leaders and school leaders I was working with were very much into graphic recording, both on the tables and when reporting out from small group work (see inset photos).
During the Plus / Delta session a participant said, “I have one that is both a plus and delta.” I said, “Great, lets talk about it.” She went on to say, “I really like the butcher paper and I took lots notes and made graphic. I really consider it a big plus.” She went on to say, “However, I wish we could use our doodles, notes, and graphics in a more intentional way.” I asked, “What do you mean by that and how could we do that?” The participant said, “Maybe we could do a gallery walk at different times during the day and reflect on the work of our fellow participants.” How cool was that! Participants taking ownership of making a convening designed for them better. It doesn’t get any better than that! I would argue that we would have never got to that level of discussion in a survey. Needless to say, we will build in intentional activities to learn from the butcher paper captured work of our participants. Exciting stuff!
I would encourage you to find your Pluses + and Deltas Δ.
How to Make Your Next Meeting as Engaging as a Video Game
How to Make Your Next Meeting as Engaging as a Video Game
By Dick Axelrod
Originally published on dickaxe.cayenne.io
Have you ever tried to pry a child from a video game? Not easy, is it? That is because game designers embed core engagement principles into every game.
Quarrel®, a combination of Risk® and Scrabble®, is a good example. In Quarrel® you play against a variety of characters of varying levels of skill. Examples are: Caprice, who is not very smart; Damien, who is of average intelligence; and the super bright Helena, to name a few. Depending on the level of the game, you can play against one to four opponents who possess varying skills. Each round pits you against another opponent who must spell words containing up to eight letters. You gain territory if you win a match, and lose territory if you lose a match. There are numerous messages that let you know how well you are doing throughout the match. There are other more sophisticated features to the game, but the basics give us insight into why the game is so engaging:
- It is challenging. Participants must take a random set of letters and make words of a specific length within a specific time limit. Participants must also strategize about how to take over the most territory as well as how to play against opponents of varying skill.
- It invites people to participate. The audio and visual aspects of the game make the game easy to play and encourage participation.
- It provides feedback. The game provides immediate feedback about how well you are doing compared to others, and rates your word IQ.
- It builds interest through variety and drama. The game is intriguing because you are not always playing against the same players. There is a sense of drama because you are never sure of the outcome.
- It supports learning. One of the unique features of the game is that it provides dictionary definitions of words that you and your opponents play. If you want to practice by playing the same game again with different moves, you can do that as well.
- It brings closure to the work. Games have a specific beginning and end. You know when you start, you know when it is over, and you know how well you did.
What if your next meeting was one where:
- There was challenge to be met
- Participants felt invited to participate?
- Feedback occurred so that participants knew how close they were to meeting the challenge
- Interest was built through variety and drama: new people, new ways of working, new settings
- Learning occurred: participants left smarter than when they entered
- Closure occurred through clear decisions, assignments
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More about Dick Axelrod
Dick and is wife Emily Axelrod are pioneers in creating employee involvement programs to effect large-scale organization change, and co-founded the Axelrod Group in 1981. Dick is also a lecturer in University of Chicago’s Masters in Threat and Response Management Program, and a faculty member in American University’s Masters in Organization Development program. Dick and Emily created the Conference Model®, an internationally recognized high-involvement change methodology.
Together, Emily and Dick are frequent keynote speakers and co-authors. Their latest book is Let’s Stop Meeting Like This: Tools to Save Time and Get More Done it outlines a flexible and adaptable system used to run truly productive meetings in all kinds of organizations―meetings where people create concrete plans, accomplish tasks, build connections, and move projects forward.
Explore Heuristically
This past weekend at the kickoff of our Indy 3D Leadership Program for education leadership we did a session on norm building for our learning journey. I had put together a few example norms to get the juices flowing. One of the examples was #9. Explore Heuristically. This caused quite the discussion. Of course, that was my intent!
I have to give credit where credit is due on the thought of exploring heuristically. This came from my good friend and great graphic facilitator, Mike Fleisch. Everything he does as a facilitator is heuristic and I really respect that about him and have learned a lot from him on how to let learning happen organically.
The participants were working in groups, so of course the first thing was for the groups to define heuristic. This really gave them pause and made them think, because here are of some of the definitions:
- Any approach to problem solving, learning, or discovery that employs a practical method not guaranteed to be optimal or perfect (Wikipedia).
- Often enough the search ends in no overt positive conclusion (Dictionary.com).
- Describing an approach to learning by trying without necessarily having an organized hypothesis or way of proving that the results proved or disproved the hypothesis. That is, “seat-of-the-pants” or “trial-by-error” learning (WhatIs.com).
Now let’s dig a little deeper. It is really deriving an answer from experience. In other words, enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves. So, wouldn’t it make sense to learn heuristically when in a group, from the experience of everyone in the group. This gives us the chance to explore the possibilities rather than a set of rules. Leadership learning developed by most organizations seems to be one where system developed provisions over-shadows individuals taking personal responsibility for their leadership learning. I believe we must endeavor to create a balance between organization and individual agendas, with the pendulum swung more toward the individual side. Amazingly, we talk a lot about differentiating and individualization of education for our students but we don’t do a very good job of it with adults. Furthermore, it has been my experience that adults really like to learn in the same way we learned when we were kids. Therefore, we should create more leadership learning models that make use of heuristic pedagogy and tools.
Let me share an example of an activity I used this past weekend. Participants were given a Mr. or Mrs. Potato Head kit and told to build a model that represented and answered the question: Who Am I As A Leader Today? After giving participants time to think through create their models we then got in a circle and went around and had everyone explain why they built their model the way they did. Mr. and Mrs. Potato Heads are great to use for model building because of the many pieces and infinite ways to build them. Needless to say it was inspiring. Here are a few of examples of what was said:
To me this was a great model of heuristic learning. I designed this model building activity as a starting point only, intended to help leaders identify the state of their current knowledge about leadership as well as their future professional development needs. The Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head models were used to show his or her current leadership knowledge profile and the knowledge fields on which he or she will need to focus their learning in the future. Heuristically, the Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head model building guided discovery and investigation. This allowed participants a rare chance for reflection. This reflection allowed participants to learn things about themselves and for themselves.
As opposed to traditional learning which usually employs facts, theories and postulations, heuristic learning involves testing, doing, practice, trying, and listening to others’ experiences. One of my heroes, Thomas Edison, was the ideal role model of learning heuristically. You all know the famous story of how Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb after 1000s of unsuccessful attempts. In fact we have all heard the quote from Edison when he said, “I have not failed 1000 times, but I have discovered 1000 ways how not to invent the light bulb.” Are you exploring heuristically? Better yet, how are you helping others explore heuristically?
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