Conversation As A Series Of Interruptions
Recently, I heard conversation described as a series of interruptions. As I reflected on the comment, I realized it is true. That is why it is so important to actively listen and be adaptable and flexible in our communication styles. We also need to be open to unexpected changes in the conversation. Very rarely are conversations smooth and uninterrupted exchanges of ideas between two people or groups of people. Have you ever been in a conversation that has had frequent interruptions, whether intentional or unintentional, that disrupted the flow of conversation and cause communication breakdowns? I have people I talk to on the phone that this really happens a lot with. The other person is either trying to multitask with something that is noisy, begins talking to others, or their Bluetooth gets out of range of their phone. The interruptions can also take other forms, like side comments, digressive remarks, questions, or even silence.
We need to strive to not be the ones causing the interruptions mentioned above. But that certainly does not keep us from being in conversations like that. Even with the occasional interruption, or veering of topic (I’m known for that), conversations can still be productive and meaningful if participants are listening attentively and actively navigate the conversation effectively; staying focused on their goals for the conversation.
Boom! Hang On Tight! Oooooh So Close! Woohoo! Go Enjoy Your Time!
“Boom! Hang on tight! Oooooh so close! Woohoo! And… Go Enjoy your time!” were all descriptors I was receiving on my phone last night in Murray, Kentucky. We were at Mister B’s Pizza and Wings. Because of the need for physical distancing this great restaurant has an app that tells you where you are in the seating process. Once we gave them our number, a text was sent with a link to our personalized app. It gives you how many parties are ahead of you and an approximate time for seating. Genius, right? It also gave us the menu so we could be thinking about that.
I loved the descriptors along the way:
- Boom! Let me know we were in the system and to click on the app
- Hang On Tight! Meant we had one party ahead of us.
- Ooh So Close! Meant we were next.
- Woohoo! Was our text telling us they were ready for us.
- Go Enjoy Your Time! The app’s message telling us they were ready to seat us.
Now, I know some of you are saying, “Big deal, Byron! Other restaurants do that too.” I get it. Others use QR codes to go to their menu, but I just thought the descriptors and the design of the app was cool. It may have also been the fact that we were eating at my son’s favorite go to place (data shows he can eat 15 Mister B’s famous buffalo wings in one minute – I guess there was a contest) in the home of Murray State University.
My point here really is just how far we’ve come during this, as of today, 155 day journey of the COVID-19 Global Pandemic. Business have adapted and created new ways, including our experience I described above, to enhance the customer experience; while at the same time doing their best to keep us safe. Those of us in the education world are constantly navigated the fluidity of school no longer being a place. And, individuals and families are making adjustments we never dreamed of.
I believe we need to take a moment and acknowledge and appreciate some of the great things that have been done during these 155 days, such as:
- Telephone befriending services to keep communities together
- Supermarkets, banks, and other businesses offering “elderly/senior only” times for shopping.
- We’ve become comfortable having virtual gatherings where we can come together globally without the expense and fuss of travel (I had the opportunity to spend and hour and a half with neighbors from 42 different countries, recently). We wouldn’t have even thought of that a few years ago.
- Finally, leaders are realizing working remotely can be effective. Let’s face it, big egos are the only reason for fancy buildings, offices, and “places” to work in many cases.
- Our abilities to provide professional development have improved greatly – the way we time them out, delivery, access to more people, et cetera.
- Creative money raising events
- Creative virtual concerts with some of our favorite artists. Some great artists, like Mark Tremonti, send out regular clips of personal recorded music with a message. In some ways we can feel closer to these artists than ever before.
- A chance to break routine and restructure our lives. We’ve gotten back to do some of the things we want to do, but never had the time to.
- We have learned to access culture without having to travel.
- Demand has made the internet providers make improvements; along with all technology providers.
- Educators have been allowed to be, and have risen to the challenge I might add, creative.
I know we all want the Pandemic to be over, but I believe we need to take a moment and celebrate the accomplishments from around the world. This has given us a chance to grow and improve in so many ways as a global community. Let’s not ever fully go back to the way it was 155 days ago – let’s keep the improvement momentum going and strengthen our community. Let’s keep asking, “What can we create together?” Perhaps the biggest positive emerging from this crisis, though, is the realization that we humans are capable of global, collective action. If the stakes are high enough, we can take on these challenges together and, most importantly of all, rapidly abandon business as usual. I would love to hear about other positives you believe should be added to the list.
Mingling At High Tables
Indiana State Fair
This will be a little different type of post for me, but fits with my belief that the physical environment is just as important to a gathering of any type to the formation of a community as the facilitation or the invites. I love high tables. I love to go to events that have tables. I love to host gatherings that have high tables. There are many advantages to to using high top tables that are many times referred to as bar tables, cocktail tables, pub tables, or bistro tables.
If you want to encourage people to mingle, meet and start conversations with others, then high top tables might be the best choice. The big advantage I see is the ability to have an infinite sized group standing around them. With low tables the group size is very fixed. Think about it; if you are at a gathering with low tables and a table only had four chairs and all four are occupied you go to another table. It is awkward, unless you are asked, to pull up a chair. Even more awkward to stand next to the table and talk with everyone else sitting.
Besides allowing more people to huddle around them, the high tables create a more intimate space for attendees to gather close for engaging conversations that encourage involvement of all. I love the encouragement of people to converse with each other and huddle closer together.
I am so obsessed with high tables that for our son’s graduation party, which was held in one of our barns, I made sure we had an area for high tables. We had the barn set up for seating for 100 people, but then had an area for high tables. Amazingly, those tables had a large group around them for the duration of the five hour gathering. It was an interesting dynamic, some around those high tables stayed almost the whole time and others came and went. I couldn’t help but watch those who gravitated to the regular table and chairs would sit, eat, and visit for a while and then gravitate to the high tables. I also noticed my son moving throughout the high tables and enjoying all the conversations. At the time the party ended we still had a large group of guests huddled around those high tables.
Then, we could one of the high table and chairs set to our county fair and Indiana State Fair where we were showing dairy cows. We are know for always having peanuts and snacks out for anyone to share. We were amazed at the amount of friends and new acquaintances the high table brought into our show camp. We had such a great time visiting and became believers in the power of mingling at high tables.
Calgary Stampede: Invented Tradition & Cultural Phenomenon
One of the events I have wanted to attend for a long time is the Calgary Stampede. Yesterday that dream came true for my family and I. I had to come to Calgary, Alberta, Canada and speak at a research conference this week; so we decided we would make this our family vacation and get here in time to experience the Calgary Stampede. What an experience it was!
I also had the unexpected surprise of having a Smithbilt hat box at the hotel waiting on me when I got the hotel. I had been presented with the iconic Smithbilt Hats, Inc. White Hat representing friendship. This tradition was started in 1950 by Calgary Mayor Don MacKay. I wore it proudly all day at the Calgary Stampede, and will wear my White Hat of friendship proudly all week. Actually, I wear a cowboy hat every day back home on the farm.
To start off with we were able to walk out of our hotel, step across the street and get right on the Calgary Transit System’s, CTrain. Fifteen minutes, and Ten stops later we were exiting the CTrain and walking across the street to Stampede Park. This was just about as easy as it gets. I am a huge believer it public transit transportation and this experience to and from Stampede Park validated this. The CTrain cars were super clean and comfortable. We are looking forward to making use of this system throughout the week. Calgary had one of the earliest transit systems in North American and it is evident they have done it right.
Now, back to the Stampede! We were immediately greeted and made to feel welcome by the Calgary Stampede International Agriculture and Agri-Food Committee. We discussed the agriculture industries in our countries and we were given access to the hospitality area that we visited during the day and met many new friends from around the world. The Stampede is an ideal vehicle through which respect for a locally-grounded tradition can be integrated with the active promotion of the values it embodies. Specifically, these include western hospitality, commitment to community, pride of place, and integrity. This committee of the Calgary Stampede is getting it right for agriculture.
Then it was off to Elbow River River Camp to take part in the morning flag raising ritual. This was an incredible experience of learning cultures of the Siksika, Piikani, Kainai, Tsuut′ina, and Stoney Nakoda First Nations. It was great to connect with Indigenous culture and experience First Nations culture through stories, art, tipi life and culture, and other events. This was an incredible learning experience for my family and I. While some outsiders have claimed that native culture as being commercialized, the Calgary Stampede has actually proved to be an important factor in preserving it. 
It was then off to see the sites; go to the Junior Steer Classic, check out all the exhibits, walk the Midway, and check out all the food options for some lunch. It was all pretty overwhelming. The Stampede is truly an invented tradition – an activity that is accepted by the public as having a particularly long and resonant history and as representing something essential about a nation’s character, values, and identity. The Stampede symbolizes the ideals of rural collective purpose, sociability, and community. These invented traditions develop from the need to reconcile the constantly changing nature of our world with our desire for stability. The Stampede presents new values or shows us how old values apply to new situations.
One of my favorites was the Blacksmith Showcase. This was a great way to experience and learn what blacksmithing is all about. This was found in the Country Trail of the Agriculture Zone. We learned so much and even got to watch as a blacksmith made the hat pictured here for us.
Then came the signature event: The Calgary Stampede Rodeo. Little did I know we were going to be part of the richest rodeo and see the championship culmination of the week. One million dollars in prizes with $100,000 to the winners in each of the six events: calf roping, bare back bronc riding, steer wrestling, barrel racing, saddle bronc riding, and bull riding. Additionally, it was awesome to hear the Calgary Stampede Show Band perform at the rodeo. This is an incredible youth program that gives these young adults great experiences throughout the year to perform and gain leadership experience.
The day ended with the awesome GMC Rangeland Derby Chuckwagon Races, more looking around, visiting with our new international friends, and an awesome fireworks show. Needless to say, we did not want to leave. My family and I rated the Calgary Stampede as one of the best events we have ever been to. It might be the first multi-day event (10 days) event I have ever been to where you would not have known it was the last day, unless you were told. I have always said that a person going to the last day of an event should get the same great experience as the person who attended on the first day. I would argue that the Stampede has evolved into a cultural phenomenon. As my family and I found out, the stampede is not simply attended; it is experienced. It is clear when going through the city of Calgary that the Stampede is by and of the citizens of Calgary. It is also for the world. Starting with the parade, then the fireworks display, midway, stage shows, rodeo, agricultural exhibits that “edutain”, and Elbow River Camp, the Calgary Stampede is the best visual cornucopia I have ever experienced. Well done, my new friends!
Scaling Partnerships In Education & Telling Our Story
I’m so sad to be sitting at the airport because I hate leaving Harvard University. I always learn so much from my friends at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. As always, my thinking as stretched, what I thought I knew challenged, and new creative and innovative ideas developed. As Dr. Mandy Savitz-Romer said last Sunday, “You may not leave here with complete closure, but with new questions.” That is learning at its best! My description for my learning this week is that I have been “coached up!”
Today’s learning was just as great as the rest of the week. I loved doing a case study on a partnership with the Nike Innovation Fund for improving Oregon student success. Dr. Monica Higgins did a great job of facilitating the case study and I learned a great deal about scaling the impact of public private partnerships. This learning was followed up by a great session by Dr. Irvin Scott on story telling and its importance to teaching and leadership.
As I have done all week in Thriving Students, Developing & Supporting Our Students: Future Identity Versus No Future Identity, and Changing The Narrative For Our Students, I compiled a top 20 list of the things I learned today. Here is my list:
- It’s not just if we do partnerships, it’s how we do partnerships.
- Partnerships should match the core values or mission of the partners.
- Partnerships are great ways for industry to understand education and for education to understand industry.
- It is very important to analyze both sides of all partnerships.
- Partnerships are a psychological contract.
- Everything’s not always explicit (context, risks, et cetera).
- In partnerships everything is not always spelled out.
- Move partnerships from individual to individual to organization to organization. This plays to sustainability.
- Open communication is key to partnerships, even when things go wrong.
- Agenda items versus surface level just for show.
- Eliminate hidden targets in partnerships
- Partnerships need an exit strategy so the innovation can be sustained without the partner.
- Partnerships should be mutually beneficial, with beneficial up for debate.
- In partnerships:
- Make implicit explicit
- Have clarity of roles and limitations
- Have flexibility built in
- Have mutual goals, timelines, and milestones
- Is the voice of the student heard in the partnership?
- You never want to scale until you know you have something that works.
- Need to decide to scale deep or scale out.
- Everyone has a story of how they got where they are. What is your trajectory?
- We need to be warm demanders for our students.
- We need to give an academic press to our students.
- You can’t lead if you don’t read.
- Why story/narrative in leadership?
- Stories are fundamentally human…
- Stories build connection…critical for leaders…
- Stories bring data alive…
- Stories capture what is possible…
As Leaders, We Create The Weather
How do you show up? Think about this: do you show up sunny and bright or stormy and cloudy? Bottom line: if you show up as sunshine it will be a shiny happy day for the team. If you show up as a thunderstorm, however, it will be a rough ride. Either way, unlike the weather outside, you have the ability to influence the weather of your organization.
If you don’t believe this think about if you have ever worked with someone who you need to ask others what kind of mood he or she is in before talking to him or her. If you’ve experienced this then you have experienced leaders controlling the weather.
Therefore, we need to be intentional about the weather systems we create. Think about about the extremes: blizzards, hurricanes, extreme heat, or tornadoes. Then think about that sunny day with a calm breeze and moderate temperatures. Which of these weather patterns would you want to be creating?
Your teams and organizations will take their cues from you and whatever weather pattern you are projecting. If your outlook is sunny and bright, the organization is sunny and bright. If your outlook is full of storm clouds, the weather in the organization will be pretty much the same.
Next time you are with your team or people, imagine you are the weather map behind the meteorologist on television and she is about to give the weather report. If you take this moment of being mindful, it will help you to calm any storm fronts and bring sunshine and calm breezes to your organization.
Don’t forget, you are your organization’s meteorologist. As leaders, we create the weather. What kind of impacts do your weather systems have on your organization?
Durability of Expectations
In a meeting I was a part of this week we developed a phrase that has caused me to do a lot of thinking: “Durability of expectations.” Our work was in the context of thinking about student success, outcomes, and what the profile of an Indiana high school graduate should look like. I like to combine all of this and talk about student success outcomes. Success looks different for all students and some students have not really had an opportunity to have success modeled for them or even know what success can look like. I have often said that it is ludicrous, in some cases, to ask our students what they want to be or do in life because they have not had the opportunity learn what all is out there. That is why I believe it is so important to make sure we are doing a great job of career exposure, career exploration, and career navigation for all students. We need to career coach our kids.
Success: “Knowing what one wants in the world and knowing how to get it.” ~ Dr. Felice Kaufman
We must make sure we are giving our students the opportunity to innovate, be creative, and take risks. This will help them to persevere, adapt, and develop a growth mindset and begin to understand lifelong learning. We need to help our kids understand what is out there and that getting where they want to go will be a non-linear process in many cases. Most of the career paths those of us in the baby boomer age are characterized of having relative stability. The career paths for today’s students are now times of discovery, restlessness, and exploration. The last I read, boomers will switch jobs 11 times during our lifetime, but millenials and younger will not only switch careers but change entire career trajectories. Therefore, the modern career trajectory isn’t necessarily a climb to a destination, but rather a continuum.
We will need to offer solutions to our students that help them understand and give them the opportunity to skill, re-skill, and up-skill as they embark on their non-linear career paths. This is why I am such a believer that we must begin to identify the transferable skills our students. These skills, according to employers, hold much more weight than the traditional way of looking at academic records or even work history. Life is not linear, it is more like a Jungle Jim, so we need to make sure we are facilitating learning for our students that gives them the transferable skills to have durable expectations of what they can do. In other words, our students can have a lasting expectation that they have the skills to start and understand how to stay skilled to make the desired career moves that become available. Even if our students take a non-linear path in life, if they have credentials and transferable skills they will have what is needed to provide the on and off ramps to whatever career moves come available. This will give durability to the expectations our students have as they move through life and professional careers.
The old adage that you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards is true, but we need to give our students the ability to zigzag. By preparing students through career coaching, exploration, work based learning, and transferable skills and credentials we will add durability to the expectations of our students and their parents. We have an obligation to make sure our students are prepared to see and be prepared to seize the opportunities no matter how unconventional or surprising.
What’s In Your Leadership Toy Box?
A week ago I facilitated one of our 3D Leadership gatherings in Florida. We used a Leadership Toy Box through line and had the participants pick a toy at the beginning and describe what leadership traits the toy possessed and how they could use the toy for great leadership. From that discussion we came up with a great list of leadership traits to focus on:
Flexible- Big
- Supportive
- Balanced
- Resourceful
- Wise risk taking
- Celebrate
- Confident
- Results driven
- Perspective
- Approachable
- Resilient
- Humble
- Synergistic
- Listens
- Caring
- Vulnerable
- Encouraging
- Purposeful
- Empathetic
Pretty incredible list, don’t you think? If you aspire to lead, but fill effective leadership roles whose vision will inspire, these are the leadership skills to answer. There are many other leadership traits that could be listed here, but these are certainly traits that, if mastered, would make a pretty effective leader.
The trait that came up the most in all our discussions was flexibility. Flexible leaders are those who can modify their style or approach to leadership in response to uncertain or unpredictable circumstances. Flexible leaders have the ability to change their plans to match the reality of the situation. This flexibility can be helpful when pushing through change. Dr. Ron Heifetz, Harvard University, was the first to define the distinctive theory of adaptive leadership. Adaptive leadership is about mobilizing others to make progress addressing the gap between the way things currently are and the desired state you are striving toward. Additionally, adaptive leadership is a way of reading the situation and understanding what is needed to work with others.
To fully get our minds wrapped around this we need to recognize there are two types of opportunities (challenges): technical and adaptive. With a technical opportunity there is an exact answer that is already known. Adaptive opportunities involve a human component and multiple viewpoints, opinions, attitudes, or diverse set of stakeholders. I believe if a leader takes the 20 items from above and applies them to an adaptive challenge she would be well served and in a position to lead effectively. This is why I am such a believer in creating an open environment for learning about leadership. It enabled the discussions, which started with toys, to get to learning about 20 skills for developing as a leader. What traits/skills would you add to the list?
Leading With Natural Self-Expression
Apple 🍎 Instead Of Potato 🥔
Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head are great examples to use as models for leadership development activities. The idea for the original Mr. Potato Head came from a Brooklyn-born toy inventor by the name of George Lerner. He developed the idea of pronged like body parts that could be pinned into fruits, and vegetables. He sold the idea to Hasbro toys in 1952 and they developed his idea into Mr. Potato Head which sold for 98 cents. We love using Mr. & Mrs. Potato Heads as a model to use during our first gathering of each cohort of our Noble Education Initiative 3D Leadership Program. I am also proud we are one of the largest distributors for Hasbro of Mr. & Mrs. Potato Heads. Pretty cool to get pallets of these great toys delivered.
Our sixth President, John Quincy Adams, said, “if your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you’re a leader.” I would like to change this and say, “If you have been inspired to dream more, learn more, and become more, you’ve been engaged in a 3D Leadership gathering.” This is how I always feel, and I believe the attendees do too, after one of our 3D Leadership gatherings.
This past week was no exception. I was in Florida and at the last gathering I facilitated in Apollo Beach, Florida one of our teachers redid the configuration of his Mr. Potato Head and really inspired the group and myself. He took an apple from the table (we always have fruit available for eating) and used it as the body instead of the provided plastic potato.
His explanation is what blew us away. He told us he not want to be constrained as a leader by using only the standard, provided pieces. He did not want to be constrained by the pre-made holes for the then pieces to be placed – with the apple, he could put them anywhere. The key to what he was saying was “constraint.” I love that he realized he needed to break the shackles of what has always been done. He did not want to be constrained by the “standard” Mr. Potato Head design. He had not let himself be constrained and took chances to run with an idea that allowed for maximum success.
When we do not let ourselves become constrained by the standard ways that things have always been done, or the way things have always been thought about then our personal way of being and acting will result naturally in our being our best. This is really an ontological approach to leadership. Personally, I want to be a part of developing leaders that leaves the individuals actually being leaders by exercising leadership effectively as their natural self-expression.
By thinking about natural self-expression, I want participants to understand we all have a way of being and acting in any leadership situation that is a spontaneous and intuitive effective response to what we are dealing with. We also want leaders whose world view is not constrained by what already exists and uses symbols and ideas to foster meaningful change. I believe our young teacher leader was exhibiting these leadership dispositions.
Leadership development should always be future oriented. We need to continue to think outside the normal pieces provided in the standard package and look for ways to develop our own effective natural self-expression leadership skills.
Collaboration
The following is an excerpt from The 9 Dimensions of Conscious Success.
Collaboration
By David Nielson
There is a notion that Edison was a master inventor who wore a lab coat and sat in his lab all day working alone and coming up with amazing inventions. This is far from the truth; in addition to being a great inventor, he was also a master collaborator.
Edison brought in hundreds of collaborators to help create prototypes and commercialize his inventions—people such as investors, engineers, and others to help him develop and promote the products. This led to creating more than 200 companies. In 1890, Edition established the Edison Electric Company, bringing together his various businesses.
When Edison heard that Alexander Graham Bell was going to commercialize his phonograph and cylinders, Edison knew it would make his technology yesterday’s news. He did not tackle this problem alone; he gathered a team, and for three days they worked on a technology that would jump over Bell’s—and they succeeded.
The thing about entrepreneurs is they are fantastic at creating ideas, but they sometimes fall short by not following through and implementing the ideas. That is one of the reasons why they have to learn to collaborate with others.
“Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.,
The Poet at the Breakfast Table
There are many other examples in history. Consider the teams that worked on putting a man on the moon. It took hundreds of a variety of people and talents to build the craft. They needed all sorts of engineers to figure out the trajectory, communications, and more to take a team into space, fly them to the moon, land and then walk on the moon, return to the craft, fly back to Earth, and finally safely land. It required tremendous collaboration to make that happen.
A great movie, Hidden Figures, emphasizes the critical role of three women doing very important math and technical work to support astronaut John Glenn’s flight, without which the flight would not have been possible. Again, great collaboration to accomplish
a common goal—a common purpose.
About David Nielson
David Nielson brings over four decades of corporate, Fortune 500, and private consulting experience in organizational change management, leadership development, and training. David has helped guide large-scale change initiatives and business strategy driven by ERP, mergers, restructuring, and the need for cultural change. He’s been a featured and frequent speaker at PMI, Project World, Chief Executive Network, Management Resources Association, TEC, IABC, Training Director’s Forum, and the Alliance of Organizational Systems Designers.
David has worked around the world delivering training and consulting Services. In all those years, those countries, those clients; David has observed, learned and collected great experiences and teaching points. David decided to work on a way to “give back.” His latest book, The 9 Dimensions of Conscious Success helps readers identify their definition of purpose professionally and personally to achieve conscious success.
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