Lead Like a Pirate; Chapter 4

Ask and Analyze

Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers. --Anthony Robbins

In this chapter, the authors (Beth Houf and Shelley Burgess) ask you to think about the questions that you need to ask of yourself and of your team in order to move forward. "Pirate leaders ask many thoughtful questions of themselves and of others, and they are skillful at analyzing all the data that comes at them."  Probing questions dig deep to get to the roots of any issue and as a team, your job then is to actively seek solutions.

Using John Maxwell's book, Good Leaders Ask Great Questions: Your Foundation for Successful Leadership, as a springboard the authors look at the 8 reasons that leaders ask intentional questions. "If we want to get out of ruts, engage students and staff members alike, spark innovation, and build a culture of inclusion and excitement - then we need to make sure we're asking the right types of questions."  Another quote that challenged my thinking was- "Good questions inform.  Great questions transform."  That is truth in my book!  

An example of a traditional question - "What strategies will you use to engage students in your lesson?"

An example of a transformed question - "What will you do during your lesson that will inspire students to bubble over with excitement when parents or friends ask them about what they did in school that day?"

An example of a traditional question - "What is the agenda for the next faculty meeting?"

An example of a transformed question - "How can we personalize professional development to create experiences that would get staff running into meetings, not out?"

After asking the questions, what do you do with the information?  We need to diagnose what's going on in our schools and in our classrooms.  We need to be able to determine whether our programs are working or not.  We need to USE or data.  "Asking, listening, analyzing, reflecting, and learning are all essential to your role as a leader."  

Ask yourself this... What kinds of questions do you ask your teams?  What do you do with that information?  How will we transform our schools and classrooms with this feedback? Are we actively a part of the process to create a better school, a dynamic school, a student centered school?  Ask yourself what YOU will do differently to engage the people around you.

My challenge to you is to think about some routine questions that you use with your team. How can you transform those questions to get better more meaningful answers, and finally DO SOMETHING with the information that you gather.  Make a change - no matter how small - to move your school from GOOD to GREAT! 

Lead Like a Pirate: Chapter 3 - Rapport

Rapport

Compass to Guide Your Teams to Greatness

If we want meaningful change, we have to make a connection to the heart before we can make a connection to the mind.  -- George Couros, The Innovators Mindset

In chapter 2, the authors discuss the importance of staff rapport.  Do not think that this is a small task that will not produce high yield results.  Pirate leaders make it a priority to build rapport and relationships.  "They do it with staff, parents, with students, with community members, with their colleagues, and with their administration.  They invest the time in getting to know people and determining their strengths and areas of growth potential."  Investing the time in getting to intimately know the people that matter in any organization will move mountains and garner TRUST in the stakeholders.  "Nothing leaders do matters without the trust of their teams."

As Stephen Covey states, "Without trust, we don't really collaborate; we merely coordinate or at best, cooperate.  It is trust that transforms a group of people into a team."  Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the PLC Institute in San Antonio, Texas.  (Great professional development by the way!)  During the Institute, teachers and administrators learned about the PLC process and how to go from good to great in our craft as teachers, leaders, and team members.  Every session talked about different aspects of the PLC process and how this process WILL grow your staff.  The focused message in every single session that I attended was that without RAPPORT and TRUST, high performing PLCs will not be possible.  To move schools forward teachers must become part of this process.  Teachers are the front line in education.  If we truly want what is best for ALL students, we have to unite on our campuses and share a vision that expects nothing less.  As I heard this past week, No mission statement says..  Some students will learn.  Our mission is for every child to make growth towards future ready skills and strategies. All means all - not most, or some- ALL.  How will we make that happen? Rapport is our first step.  

The old saying goes...  To gain trust , you must give trust.  The bottom line is rapport, relationship building and trust begins with you.  Are your ready to make a commitment to do the hard work?  Are you willing to listen with an open heart and an open mind?  "Real progress only comes from true commitment to a shared vision and through a culture built on trust."  How will you LEAD your team and help build rapport?  Lead Like a Pirate isn't about administrators being the one true leader on a campus.  Lead Like a Pirate challenges everyone to have a vested interest in their school and take the initiative to lead their teams and students to future greatness.

Staff retreats and socials will also help to create a rapport within our schools so that we are willing and able to have tough conversations in order to focus on student growth.  Teachers will have an opportunity to voice their ideas and ALL staff members will be part of the process of real change to help our students achieve at high levels.  "People, not programs, make a difference in children's lives."  We must lift up our people and create a real sense of buy-in because what WE  do matters. Our students deserve schools that work collaboratively and not "COBLABORATIVELY".  Just talking about ways to solve critical areas of need is NOT enough.  We must be ready to take action on the problems that we have within our schools.  

This year one of my goals is to build rapport on the schools that I serve.  Simply taking time to talk and more importantly listen will go a long way towards building rapport.  Technology (which is incredibly efficient) can not take the place of face to face interactions.  I would love to use technology in a different way this year.  It will be my goal to celebrate WSISD schools.  We should tell our school's story, not a state test or a letter on our building.  We should show our parents and community the powerful learning that is occurring every day within our schools.  What better way to celebrate what our schools are doing well than to share our success stories in photos and videos each day.  We will show the learning, the talk, and the artifacts that prove our students are having critical conversations and creating quality work that continuously pushes their thinking!?

Chapter 2 provides suggestions on what a school might do in order to begin the crucial conversations that create a sense of rapport and eventually trust.  The challenge for this week is to think about some procedures or practices to have in place that will help move your staff to a rapport rich campus.

As always, I invite you to share your thoughts, ideas, and artifacts here and in the Lead Like a Pirate Community on Twitter.  #LeadLAP

Lead Like a Pirate - Chapter 2: Immersion

Chapter 2: Immersion  

"Hope on its own doesn't create change.  Action does."

As an educator I have had an opportunity to work with several schools in numerous districts. I have seen well-intentioned leaders that focus on tasks that do not support long term goals and real change within their schools.  Like Shelley Burgess drives home in Chapter 2, "If you want to transform what is happening in your school or district, you have to immerse yourself in the work that has the highest impact on increasing student learning and building a rich, powerful and positive climate."

I have had an opportunity to work with high achieving, well functioning teams during my years as an educator.  What did those schools look like, sound like?  In those schools, teams had one goal in mind - student success.  Student success could be academic, but in these schools, we looked at the total child.  We took the time to find student strengths and used those strengths to build on their individual weaknesses.  Every child had an "I.E.P." in these schools.  We worked together to build a culture in which we ALL knew OUR students. We planned together.  We created interventions to support student growth together.  We met with vertical teams to better understand where OUR students had been and where OUR students were going.  As a staff, we understood the importance of early literacy instruction and put our strongest teachers in those roles to help our youngest students build a strong foundation.  We supported one another by creating transparent classrooms in which any teacher, administrator or parent was free to walk in at any time and leave feedback to help us grow in our craft.  I loved that environment.  The positives outweighed the hard work, and (yes, often the long hours) that it took to create this environment.  When negativity tried to creep in, we asked for solutions instead of "whining" about WHY our students could not perform as expected.  We adopted a culture of growth over grades and educated our parents on this concept.  All teachers in this type of environment had a VITAL leadership role.  Teachers led professional development, student groups/clubs, curriculum writing, social gatherings, etc. The leadership on these campuses was shared.  We all had an equal part in continuing the hard work that needed to be done.  PLCs were an important part of our campus culture. Our teachers led those PLCs and totally bought into the "brand" of our school.  If our PLC time was interrupted, we made time after school to continue our conversations because they were TOO IMPORTANT to not have.

I have also been on a campus where negativity was king.  Teachers often complained about not having time to do the things that had been identified as important for our students' success.  I heard excuses that our kids were somehow "different" from other kids at other schools.  Our kids were less motivated.  Our kids had terrible home lives and very little parent support.  In reality, our kids WERE far behind other kids in other schools within the same district.  The negativity was strong in this school.  The sad thing is that these teams didn't even recognize that they were being negative.  As a positive teacher coming from a high performing campus, I began to get sucked into that negativity.  I'm not going to lie. I started to feel that our kids were often unmotivated and unable to make the gains that they needed to in order to be academically successful.  I started to feel just like the teachers on my campus.  The teachers on my team often got to school just before their students and left as soon as they were able to.  Planning consisted of - Jenny "did" the math plan. I "did" the reading/writing plan. Mike "did" the science/social studies plan, and we would "get" them on the Sunday before we taught on Monday. Talk about a lack of immersion and a lack of focus on how to build a culture that REALLY puts our kids first.  Our kids were not making progress because WE were too focused on what our students couldn't do, how little time we had to "teach" all our standards, and how behind our kids were.  It was a vicious cycle.  All the efforts on this campus were simply towards SURVIVAL.  Oh, we had dreams too -  We might dream about the next year when we MIGHT get a group of students with a little more understanding of the standards, when we MIGHT get a group that was motivated, and that we MIGHT even have a group with parents that actually supported the education of their kids. Thank goodness THAT campus also had a new leader come on board.  Her leadership, drive, and positivity lifted me up immediately.  It was amazing the change the campus made when challenged to immerse themselves in quality team partnerships. When we became vested in our students and we took charge of OUR actions and immersed ourselves in the work that HAD to be done, we saw the MAGIC start to happen for our students. It was a pretty easy process for me to switch back to the leader that I had been on my high performing campus. I realized that I was part of the problem.  It was much more difficult for teachers with a fixed mindset that perpetually set up road blocks to hinder our growth as a campus.  Ultimately, those teachers found new places to spread their negativity on new campuses.  The biggest change I saw on my campus in the end was student growth and campus accountability for that growth.  Students were more committed to their own learning. They were engaged and we saw a marked decrease in student misbehavior.  It IS amazing when you sprinkle positivity on your campus, how the shared hard work becomes less daunting and manageable.

The challenge for Chapter 2 is to take the CALENDAR CHALLENGE.  Think about how you spend your time in school.  Are you part of a high functioning campus or is your school more like the campus that I described above?  Use a calendar (paper or online) and make a list for each day of something that you are going to immerse your team in that will bring about positive changes to your team and to your campus.  Think about ways that you can LEAD out for your team.  Think about how your positivity can change the mindset of those negative team mates.  Think about how you will immerse yourself in the work that has the highest impact on increasing student learning and building a rich, powerful and positive climate.  Anyone can be a leader.  You don't have to have an Instructional Lead title or an Operational Lead title to lead out.  You just have to have a willingness to do the hard work in a positive way that will transform the lives of the students you teach.    You have it in you! Do it!  And remember this, "Hope doesn't create change.  Action does."  

Think about these things and feel free to leave me a comment.  It gets really lonely writing a blog.  You wonder if you are doing a good job.  You wonder if anyone is really reading it.  Let me know!

A Little Summer Reading - Lead Like A Pirate

My goal in writing this blog is to get my team excited about the new 2017-18 school year. What better way to bring enthusiasm and excitement for a new beginning than to do a little professional reading! 

My first read of summer is Lead Like a Pirate by Shelley Burgess and Beth Houf.  This may be my first read of the summer, but it is fast becoming a favorite.  I am finding that this little treasure is hard to put down.  My plan is to do a book study of this gem and break down the book on this blog.  Hopefully, my thoughts will inspire other educators to pick it up and read it.  We all need a little inspiration over the summer.  We need that pick me up that spurs us onto our next great adventure with kids.  Praise for Lead Like a Pirate has been overwhelming. Edu-Giants such as Todd Whitaker, Todd Nesloney, and George Couros have endorsed this book.  The book reads like a personal story of how Beth and Shelley built and led their "crews" on a journey of self exploration to create a climate in which each crew member felt they were a valued and essential part of their ship.  The book is sprinkled with inspiration, encouragement, and advice to help bring out the leader in every educator.

In chapter one, readers are challenged to LEAD Like a Pirate. Specifically, the author's talk about PASSION in chapter one.  What is passion in education?  What does it sound like? What does it look like?  What are you passionate about and how will that help you lead others to find their passions?  In the book the authors discuss their passions.

I suppose that beginning with ME is always the right place to begin this study...  

My Passions

• I am passionate about a school's climate and culture.  I believe that a school should be a place where all stakeholders understand the impact of being positive, have a relentless sense of urgency on improving student achievement (of all kinds), and promotes a sense of shared responsibility.
• I am passionate that every school have a body of concerned people that BELIEVE that our students are worth our efforts.  I believe that our students are capable and WILL grow if we find our student's strengths and grow them.
• I believe in teachers and their ability to reach our students.  I believe that it is the teacher that matters, not the programs or the resources given.  It is the teacher that will grow our students.
• I am passionate about collaboration.  I truly believe that none of us alone have the answers, but all of us, together, will find the answers.
• I believe that as educators we all have strengths, and if we foster those strengths and create a new leadership hierarchy, we will do incredible work with our students.

My question to you is this...

• What are you passionate about in education?
• How will you use your powers of leadership to help our staff?
• Why is passion an important part of our school culture?
• How will you show your passion in the 2017-18 school year?
• Does your principal know your passions?

Please feel free to comment below.  I hope that you will join me on my pirate journey.  I look forward to learning to and with you as we travel the rocky waves in Lead Like a Pirate.