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When teachers are viewed as leaders and co-creators of the needed support systems to use non-evaluative classroom observation data to strengthen instructional practice, the result is a commitment to and ownership of a scalable and sustainable process (Ryan Jackson, Bailey, Dilts-Pollack, Williams, & Waldroup, 2021; Hattie & Zierer, 2017; Ryan Jackson et al. 2018, 2021).

The research is clear - the quality of teachers' instructional practice in the classroom is the largest factor in closing long standing deficits and disparities in student outcomes (Harper, 2019; Hattie, 2003). Yet, few evidence-based practices and programs include a measure of instructional practice that is non-evaluative and provides prompt usable feedback for teacher teams to create their school-wide goals for instructional improvement (Allor & Stokes, 2017). To address this need, our team, in collaboration with several research and education partners, created the Observation Tool for Instructional Supports and Systems (OTISS).

A Brief History and Description of the OTISS

Why was the OTISS developed and what is the purpose?

The OTISS was developed in response to the need for a research-based observation measure of instruction that could be used with any practice, program, curriculum, or grade level. It was designed specifically to use when the selected evidence-based practice or program does not have a measure of fidelity or integrity. It was purposefully not designed for evaluation. Rather, we recommend using the OTISS to assess the quality of support systems needed to enhance teacher practice. For example, if school aggregated OTISS data are low on the OTISS item, "provides prompt and accurate feedback", then training and coaching supports are developed or strengthened to increase teacher skill and application of equitable feedback strategies in the classroom, so all students benefit.

What is the research basis of the OTISS?

The OTISS is comprised of seven items derived from Hattie's (2009) findings on factors that influence academic achievement. Inclusion criteria for OTISS items included teacher behaviors that would happen at any time during instruction (not time specific), would occur consistently during instruction (opportunity to be seen during a 10-minute observation), would happen at any grade level or content area (not content or grade-level specific), and were correlated with improving student achievement. The seven items in the OTISS have demonstrated a medium to high effect size (ES > .40: Hattie, 2009).

How is OTISS data collected?

Observers complete 10-minute observations and score each OTISS item as 2- fully observed, 1- partially observed, 0- not observed, or NA- no opportunity to observe. Each school co-creates the process for collection and use of the data that is entered and stored on the SISEP.org data platform for use by teams monthly. The school and the teachers determine how the data will be used. Some only use aggregate data to set school-wide goals. Other schools who have instructional coaches with trust and confidential working relationships with teachers may have requests from a teacher to share individual teacher data so the coach and the teacher, in confidence, can work on individual goals. Again, the OTISS was not designed for evaluation. All observers are trained and obtain inter-observer agreement to ensure unbiased observations and reliable data. We recommend that observers calibrate their scores at least once a year to ensure observations are consistent from classroom to classroom, school to school, and district to district.

How do teachers use the OTISS data?

Teacher teams, with the support of a coach, use aggregate data to identify their school-wide goals for improvement. A common process is for teachers to use videos of instruction (examples and non-examples) to study effective instructional practice using lesson study methodology (Murata, 2011). For example, teachers use an iterative process to design a lesson together, analyze effectiveness of delivery, and make needed improvements in the design, and then cycle again. As teachers improve instruction, the variance in instructional practice from teacher to teacher should be reduced, resulting in equitable access to effective instruction by students from teacher to teacher and school to school.

How do implementation teams use the OTISS data?

Teams at the school and district level (inclusive of teacher, coach, specialist, and leaders with decision making authority who champion the work) analyze data monthly to identify a problem and solution, set a goal and measure of effectiveness, and develop a plan and timeline that identifies the people responsible for actionable items. They use an effective team meeting protocol in Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycles and easy to access implementation and outcome data; see an example from Kentucky. Using a linked teaming structure, teacher teams identify barriers (e.g., need for increased funding for coaches to provide modeling in the classroom) and school and district teams deliver the supports and resources required by school staff and teachers (e.g., guaranteed, protected time for coaching).

"The lack of predicted outcomes in large scale studies point to lack of attention to providing implementation supports for fidelity of the use of innovations as the problem... Fidelity matters when attempting to improve outcomes and the investment must be made in Implementation Teams who have the expertise to improve fidelity and, therefore, outcomes" (Fixsen, Van Dyke, & Blase, 2019, p. 10 & 11).

Let's look further at what we are hearing and learning from our users of the OTISS.

Examples from Practice

Leaders in the Commonwealth of Kentucky are mission driven. Their focus is to evaluate the support systems provided to teachers to facilitate implementation of practices with a high degree of fidelity, improve outcomes, and close persistent education gaps (Ryan Jackson & Waldroup, 2018). To accomplish this goal they started small, in four diverse district contexts (e.g., large urban, suburban, and small rural) to develop buy-in for the collection and use of instructional observation data for improvement using the Observational Tool for Instructional Supports and Systems (OTISS; Fixsen et al, 2020). Their purpose for adopting use of the OTISS was two-fold:

1. So that teachers have non-evaluative observation data to use and identify their school-wide goals for improvement, and

2. so that implementation teams have data to use in Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles to critically evaluate their systems of training and coaching teachers identify as critical to meeting their schoolwide instructional goals.

Listen to the SISEP podcast episodes on the OTISS to learn how teachers are supported to use OTISS for continuous improvement in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Teachers, coaches, and executive leaders in the Commonwealth share specific examples of how they use the OTISS and Kentucky's mathematics observation measure. The podcast series provides exemplars of how to close the research to practice gap and how Kentucky integrates the sciences of implementation and improvement. The National Implementation Research Network and Kentucky were honored by the Carnegie Foundation for Quality in Continuous Improvement in 2019.

Related Resources

Fidelity Assessment: AI Hub Module 7 defines fidelity assessment as indicators of doing what is intended. This definition requires a) knowing what is intended, and b) having some way of knowing the extent to which a person did what was intended. When evidence-based approaches or other effective innovations are being used in education, fidelity assessments measure the presence and strength of an innovation as it is used in daily practice.

Communication Protocol and Linking Teams: AI Hub Lesson 9 describes, to be effective and include all appropriate levels, communication must be strategically planned and consciously monitored. This lesson introduces you to a tool for creating a plan for communication between linked teams.

The PDSA Cycle: AI Hub Lesson 6 describes how to employ and document the key components in each Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Cycle phase and identify the importance of utilizing iterative PDSA cycles.

References

Allor, J., & Stokes, L. (2017). Measuring treatment fidelity with reliability and validity across a program of intervention research: Practical and theoretical considerations. In V. Roberts, S. Vaughn, S. N. Beretvas, & V. Wong (Eds.), Treatment fidelity in studies of educational intervention (pp. 138-155). Routledge.

Fixsen, D. L., Van Dyke, M., & Blase, K. A. (2019). Implementation science: Fidelity predictions and outcomes. Active Implementation Research Network. www.activeimplementation.org/resources.

Fixsen, D. L., Ward, C. S., Ryan Jackson, K., & Chaparro, E. (2020). Observation Tool for Instructional Supports and Systems (OTISS): Walk through and observation form. State Implementation and Scaling-up of Evidence-based Practices Center, National Implementation Research Network, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Harper, F. K. (2019). A qualitative metasynthesis of teaching mathematics for social justice in action: Pitfalls and promises of practice. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 50(3), 268-310. https://doi.org/10.5951/jresematheduc.50.3.0268

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning. Routledge.

Hattie, J., & Zierer, K. (2017). 10 Mindframes for visible learning: Teaching for success. Routledge.

McColskey-Leary, C. (2021, September 29). Implementation champions as a strategy to build capacity. State Implementation and Scaling-Up of Evidence-Based Practices Center.

Murata, A. (2011). Introduction: Conceptual overview of lesson study. In L. C. Hart, A. S. Alston, & A. Murata (Eds.), Lesson study research and practice in mathematics education (pp. 1-12). Springer.

SISEP Center (2021, January 30). Equity in implementation: Leveraging initial implementation to challenge systemic inequities [eNote]. State Implementation and Scaling-Up of Evidence-Based Practices Center.

Ryan Jackson, K., Fixsen, D., Ward, C., Waldroup, A., & Sullivan, V. (2018). Accomplishing effective and durable change to support improved student outcomes [White Paper]. National Implementation Research Network, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Ryan Jackson, K., Gau, J., Smolkowski, K., & Ward, C. (2021). Improved mathematics outcomes using active implementation: Kentucky's effective and durable change [Brief]. National Implementation Research Network, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Ryan Jackson, K., Bailey, D., Dilts-Pollack, A., Williams, D., & Waldroup, A. (2021, October 19). Utilizing OTISS as a fidelity measurement (No. 16) [Audio podcast episode]. In Implementation Science for Educators. State Implementation and Scaling-Up of Evidence-Based Practices Center. https://anchor.fm/sisep-center/episodes/Tip-16-Utilizing-OTISS-as-a-Fide...

Ryan Jackson, K.M., & Waldroup, A. (2018). Improving by bringing together improvement and implementation science. Spotlight on Quality in Continuous Improvement, Carnegie Foundation, Washington D.C. https://www.carnegiefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Carnegie_S...

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Observational Tool for Instructional Supports and Systems: Empowering Teachers as Instructional Leaders

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When teachers are viewed as leaders and co-creators of the needed support systems to use non-evaluative classroom observation data to strengthen instructional practice, the result is a commitment to and ownership of a scalable and sustainable process (Ryan Jackson, Bailey, Dilts-Pollack, Williams, & Waldroup, 2021; Hattie & Zierer, 2017; Ryan Jackson et al.

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Search for EdWorkingPapers here by author, title, or keywords.

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Years of research indicate teachers who receive instructional coaching improve their quality of instruction and make gains in student achievement.

The Effect of Teacher Coaching on Instruction and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence was conducted by researchers Matthew A. Kraft, associate professor at Brown University, and David Blazar, assistant professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. The 60 studies examined were randomized controlled trials focused on students' standardized test scores and measures of teachers' instructional practices as rated by outside observers.

The researchers found instructional coaching had a greater impact on instruction than almost all school-based interventions including student incentives, teacher pre-service training, merit-based pay, general professional development, data-driven instruction, and extended learning time. In fact, they determined the quality of teachers' instruction improves by as much or even more than the difference in effectiveness between a new teacher and one with five to 10 years of experience. Similarly, student performance improved with instructional coaching regardless of whether a teacher was a novice or veteran.

Instructional coaching versus traditional professional development

School districts spend a large amount of money on professional development (PD) programs. Teachers attend these sessions after school, on weekends, and during the summer. Despite the widespread use of these types of programs, the typical PD program can be too generic to meet teachers' needs, leaving room for improvement and rarely showing a positive impact on student outcomes.

To personalize PD, school districts have started to hire instructional coaches to help teachers develop their expertise. Instructional coaching occurs during classroom instruction where instructional coaches observe teachers, model teach, provide feedback, and engage in meaningful discussion with teachers about their lessons and student learning. Instructional coaches can provide support in lesson planning and facilitate collaboration among teachers. The integration of coaching activities in a teacher's day-to-day activities at the campus is much more effective than traditional PD workshop sessions.

Staffing considerations

Researchers Kraft and Blazar did find a catch-large-scale coaching programs are less effective than smaller ones. This is consistent with theory of diminishing effects as programs are taken to scale. "The challenge of recruiting, developing, and supporting a larger staff of coaches is hard for districts to do," Kraft said.

Districts may benefit with starting small, involving teachers who have a desire and motivation to participate, and tailoring coaching to individual needs. Larger programs requiring mandatory participation that are not individualized may be less effective especially if the teachers are not invested in the coaching process. However, it's important to note that even larger coaching programs had meaningful and statistically significant impacts on student achievement.

Staffing instructional coaches who are able to build relationships with teachers, understand good teaching practices, have experience with adult learners, and know how to use data are some of the skills associated with effective coaches, according to the New Teacher Center, an organization which helps districts implement coaching and induction programs. A sample job description outlining these required skills and responsibilities is available to HR Services members in the Model Job Descriptions. Using a job description will help coaches and teachers have a clear understanding of the role and purpose of instructional coaches. An additional consideration is how many teachers one instructional coach can effectively support at one time. Districts may want to limit the ratio of teachers to instructional coaches as well as leverage technology to take advantage of virtual coaching. Research found there was little difference in the effectiveness of coaching programs online versus face-to-face. The use of technology allows feedback from a virtual coach minimizing the increase in personnel costs. This solution has become particularly popular with rural districts.

Staffing instructional coaches is costly. Districts will need to rethink how they are spending their professional development funds and perhaps reallocate some money for staffing and training instructional coaches. Also, creating a culture in which teachers are open to feedback and buy into the instructional coaching model is necessary for a program to be successful.

Impact on teacher practices and student learning

Having an effective teacher providing quality instruction in every classroom greatly impacts student learning. Providing more personalized support to teachers through instructional coaching can help increase the number of effective teachers in the classroom. Instructional coaching programs have the potential to improve practices in a way that many teacher professional development programs have not been able to do.
Cheryl Hoover is an HR consultant at TASB HR Services. Send Cheryl an email at cheryl.hoover@tasb.org.
Stay up to date with all the latest HR news and trends by joining the HRX mailing list!

Tagged: "Employee performance", Hiring, "Job descriptions", "Professional development"

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Years of research indicate teachers who receive instructional coaching improve their quality of instruction and make gains in student achievement. The Effect of Teacher Coaching on Instruction and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence was conducted by researchers Matthew A. Kraft, associate professor at Brown University, and David Blazar, assistant professor at the University of Maryland, College Park.

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3 Ways to Shore Up Teachers’ Confidence After the First Weeks of School - ASCD

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A national survey provides ideas on how PD can be more aligned to teachers' needs-even during a pandemic.

Over the past couple of months, educators all around the world have quickly come up to speed on how to accomplish distance learning. We moved just as quickly from thinking about this need as a stopgap solution, what A.J. Juliani calls emergency remote learning, to thinking more about best practices and the need to create a muscle memory of good distance learning pedagogy-a model we're likely to use for a while.

Not only have we adopted tools to help our students learn remotely, but we also adapted to the professional development onslaught meant to help us learn how to be flexible, engaging, and standards-based while teaching students at a distance.

Rethinking Professional Development

We've all been stuck in stale PD sessions, sitting there during a sit-and-get and checking our email over and over and over. At this time, as we're rethinking so much else, we have a chance to rethink PD. Lack of engagement cripples learning, whether we're talking about students or teachers. And when we learn online, the need to focus on engagement is even higher than when we're face-to-face.

All of this work has prompted me to take another look at the results of a teacher engagement survey I conducted earlier this school year. I've been intrigued by the impact of engagement on learners for some time now. As a once disengaged student myself-one who nevertheless decided to become an educator-I've focused on engagement when working on curriculum design, implementation, and PD. In 2017, I did a nationwide survey of students in sixth to 12th grade to learn just what strategies students find most engaging, research I shared in Just Ask Us: Kids Speak Out on Student Engagement. In 2018-19, I surveyed teachers about what strategies engaged them the most and helped them learn most effectively.

I want to share some of the major takeaways from this teacher engagement survey, looking through the lens of our current reality. I hope this might help schools and districts plan more engaging learning opportunities for teachers, administrators, and staff, both online and off.

Survey Findings

The respondents in my survey are teachers working in different schooling models: traditional public schools, charter schools, private schools, and home schools. They teach across grades from pre-K to 12th; a few work in higher education. I focused my survey questions on when, where, and how educators like to learn.

Some of the findings:

When asked where they prefer to learn, over 25 percent responded that they preferred to learn at home, and 30 percent preferred to attend a conference. Another third said they preferred traditional PD sessions, either off-site or at school.

When asked when they like to learn, about 75 percent said that they preferred times outside of the school day.

When asked how they liked to learn, more than a third of respondents selected asynchronous methods like webinars, independent reading, and Twitter.

Taken together, these results indicate that most current PD doesn't take teachers' preferences into account. Sending teachers to conferences is common, but many prefer to learn in other places. Likewise PD offered during school hours neglects those who are looking to learn during other times.

Connections to Student Engagement

It's important to note that teachers need not wonder what lures students to learn-both groups share preferred strategies, so there's a direct alignment between them. In both of my surveys, groups agreed on many of the same strategies.

Here are three of the higher-ranking engagement strategies for both teachers and students:

Provide access to technology and present information visually,

Make it meaningful, and

Let us talk and collaborate.

Note: Even though our preferred engagement strategies align with those of students, when planning lessons we need to keep our differences in mind as well-particularly differences in our developmental maturity and literacy levels. You may have a high tolerance for text on a slide deck, but to a student that may look like a wall of text that becomes an obstacle to learning. And while you might be able to focus on online content for 45 minutes, remember that even a high schooler in AP classes might drift after 20.

Ultimately, engagement strategies are as important as content standards-or perhaps even more important-when we're pursuing depth of learning.

How Can We Improve Professional Development?

The answers on my teacher engagement survey give me some ideas for how to improve PD. Since respondents were split between preferring to go to conferences and preferring to learn at home, we can draw from what they like about conferences even in times like these when travel is not an option.

Honor the structure of a formal conference by scheduling sessions and workshops using class codes and video conferencing links focused on different topics.

Include a brief keynote speech to unify participants with a grounding concept, and offer a way for teachers to have informal conversations.

Provide PD that is essential and boiled down to its essence-keep it focused on what's most impactful and meaningful. Teachers' attention spans are not infinite.

Bake in time for teachers to collaborate and talk with each other. Use breakout rooms and set up collaborative documents, slide decks, and platforms so all teachers can work together-both synchronously and asynchronously.

Ensure that slide decks are more image-based than text-based. A page of nothing but bullet points or sentences is about as engaging as a five-paragraph essay.

Provide hands-on learning and learning-by-doing opportunities using tools like Nearpod, Pear Deck, or Edpuzzle.

The real takeaway is that this list can be used not only with adult learners but with our students as well. Think about what engages you as a learner-odds are, it will engage your students too.

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Focusing on Teacher Engagement to Improve Professional Development

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A national survey provides ideas on how PD can be more aligned to teachers' needs-even during a pandemic. Over the past couple of months, educators all around the world have quickly come up to speed on how to accomplish distance learning. We moved just as quickly from thinking about this need as a stopgap solution, what A.J.

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In Brief

The Problem

Leaders know that low employee engagement is a sign of lost value-it's clearly something they want to fix. But most of them don't know how, so they provide random perks, hoping those will move the needle.

The Solution

It's much more effective to create a culture of trust. Neuroscience research shows that you can do this through eight key management behaviors that stimulate the production of oxytocin, a brain chemical that facilitates teamwork.

The Payoff

By fostering organizational trust, you can increase employees' productivity and energy levels, improve collaboration, and cultivate a happier, more loyal workforce.

Companies are twisting themselves into knots to empower and challenge their employees. They're anxious about the sad state of engagement, and rightly so, given the value they're losing. Consider Gallup's meta-analysis of decades' worth of data: It shows that high engagement-defined largely as having a strong connection with one's work and colleagues, feeling like a real contributor, and enjoying ample chances to learn-consistently leads to positive outcomes for both individuals and organizations. The rewards include higher productivity, better-quality products, and increased profitability.

A version of this article appeared in the January-February 2017 issue (pp.84-90) of Harvard Business Review.

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Managers have tried various strategies and perks to boost employee engagement-all with little impact on long-term retention and performance. But now, neuroscience offers some answers. Through his research on the brain chemical oxytocin-shown to facilitate collaboration and teamwork-Zak has developed a framework for creating a culture of trust and building a happier, more loyal, and more productive workforce.

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By Michael Moody and Jason Stricker

Instructional coaching has gained a lot of attention in recent years - and for good reason. The unique balance of support and pressure coaches can provide teachers has the potential to spur growth and impact student achievement unlike any other form of professional development.

Too often, however, we see coaching efforts within schools fall flat and fail to yield real improvement in teachers' practices.

While every initiative faces its own challenges and unpredictable obstacles, we know that in order to be effective, coaching must be aligned to a clear vision for teaching and learning with shared expectations. As Harvard professor and researcher Richard Elmore put it, "Many educators are not sure what to look for when they open a door [to a classroom] and what to do with what they see. One of the greatest barriers to school improvement is the lack of an agreed-upon definition of high-quality instruction."

But our experience has shown that when it comes to the success or failure of instructional coaching efforts, it isn't just about knowing what great instruction looks like - it's also about knowing what great coaching looks like.

Seeing the need for great coaching

In most schools, high expectations have been set for coaching initiatives, yet implementation has not been systematic or strategic. Just as with teaching, not all coaching strategies are effective in every context, nor is there a definite skill set that makes a coach qualified for the role. Most coaches are selected based on their experience and success as a teacher, however great teachers are not automatically great coaches. It takes intentional training that only some ever receive. As a result, the content and quality of coaching interactions can vary drastically - even within the same building.

As explained in Inspired Instructional Coaching, though coaches are often at the forefront of improvement initiatives, their effectiveness is ultimately dependent upon the structures and standards put in place by school leaders - and the extent to which their alignment to expectations is supported and monitored.

Our experience partnering with districts and schools to increase coaches' impact has pointed to a clear need to operationalize systems and calibrate around a shared vision for great coaching.

Here are four big reasons why:

1. Consistent messaging to teachers.

According to research from the Measures of Effective Teaching Project, inaccurate, misaligned, and/or inconsistent feedback can actually have negative consequences on teachers' practices. Considering that in any given school, teachers may receive feedback from principals, coaches, peers, and external observers, mixed messaging and inconsistent levels of support are unfortunately very common. But in a system that is calibrated around a single vision, feedback is coherent and complementary, regardless of who provides it. Training and norming coaches around not only instructional priorities and specific strategies, but also setting high standards for actionable feedback and productive relationships, can help to ensure that all teachers have access to consistent and equally high quality support.

2. Trajectory of continuous growth.

When thoughtful and intentional coaching systems are in place with consistent messaging over time, a trajectory of growth is reinforced for both teachers and coaches. Coaches can provide scaffolded support for teachers to systematically work towards goals, and coaches can engage in more meaningful collaboration with one another to improve their own practices. What's more, as coaching processes become more engrained and teachers can count on coaches for consistently high quality support, the potential of each session to positively impact performance increases.
3. Connected and aligned systems.
According to a report from the National Center for Educational Achievement, a non-negotiable characteristic of high performing schools is that all processes - instructional, administrative, or otherwise - work together. When structures are thoughtfully designed and implemented with fidelity, instructional coaching can work to support any initiative and build momentum towards the school's larger goals for teaching and learning.

Without a doubt, the ability to prioritize and focus on specific initiatives is a hallmark of effective school leaders. Given that many educators around the country are suffering from what's been termed "initiative fatigue," it is imperative that we start to adopt a mindset of less is more. By ensuring that coaching works with existing efforts and towards a narrow set of shared goals for teaching and learning, school leaders can strengthen existing initiatives instead of creating new ones.

Seeing it in action

The benefits of aligning systems to a central vision of great coaching are clear - but how to make it happen in a school is not always so simple.

Leaders must be deliberate and direct in defining expectations for instructional coaching and execute with unwavering focus. It's also essential that they generate buy-in from the entire school community to ensure shared dedication to the work, as well as accountability for its success.

Fortunately, the process for calibrating coaches does not differ much from that of norming observers. Initial training should orient coaches to the vision, and ongoing norming exercises must be conducted to ensure sustained alignment.

And while there are clear benefits to using classroom video for coaching sessions, the technology can be used by coaches to calibrate their feedback, reflect on their practices, and collaborate with peers. According to research from the Best Foot Forward Project, video can help routinize coaching and act as a springboard for increased inter-rater reliability.
Dr. Michael Moody
It's well understood that in order to improve teaching and learning, there must be a shared understanding of high quality instruction - and a strategic approach to following through with it. The same is true for coaching. Before the benefits of instructional coaching can be truly realized, educators must know what great coaching really looks like.
Jason Stricker
Dr. Michael Moody is a co-founder and CEO of Insight Education Group. Dedicating his career to ensuring every student gets a great education, Michael has extensive experience throughout the field. His work as a classroom teacher, school and district administrator, and consultant have provided him with the foundation necessary to understand first‐hand the needs of students, teachers and educational leaders. You can follow him on Twitter at @drmichaelmoody.

Jason Stricker is a co‐founder and the president of Insight Education Group. With extensive experience in education as a teacher, staff developer, and consultant for UCLA's education reform program, Jason brings to his work a deep understanding of organizational change and its impact on stakeholders at all levels. You can follow him on Twitter at @stricktlyjason.

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Calibrating Coaches: 4 Reasons to Foster Great Instructional Coaching (Opinion)

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By Michael Moody and Jason Stricker Instructional coaching has gained a lot of attention in recent years - and for good reason. The unique balance of support and pressure coaches can provide teachers has the potential to spur growth and impact student achievement unlike any other form of professional development.

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When I started out as a professional developer, I wasn't very good. My biggest problem wasn't my large folder of overheads or my limited presentation skills, it was the way I approached my audience. I assumed teachers would see how compelling the research was that I presented and then simply do what I told them they should do. When they didn't embrace my ideas, I labeled them as resistant.

During my presentations, however, I couldn't shake my suspicion that I was the problem, not the teachers. To better understand why my workshops were failing, I read authors from a wide variety of fields-and I changed my approach to PD. Eventually I completely flipped my approach. Instead of telling teachers what they should do, I saw myself as a facilitator creating the conditions for dialogue. Instead of seeing myself as an expert, I saw myself as a partner.

I have summarized what I've learned about partnership in seven principles: equality, choice, voice, dialogue, reflection, praxis, and reciprocity. I've found that when I ground presentations in these principles, as opposed to a directive approach, teachers are more likely to be engaged, to learn, to enjoy learning, and to implement what they are learning.

Those partnership principles [see sidebar below] are now a central part of the professional development my colleagues and I deliver and describe to educators. But we are finding that knowledge of the partnership principles doesn't inevitably translate into action. Most troubling for me, personally, is that even I fail to act consistently with the principles. Seeing the gap between what I believe and what I do has led me to think more deeply about what it means to truly approach others from the partnership perspective. To help me, and others, translate the partnership principles into action, I have developed questions anyone can ask themselves so that they can move closer to living out these principles.

Equality: "Do I interrupt or moralistically judge others?" When we embrace the principle of equality, we recognize the value and dignity of others. One small but important way we live out this principle during conversation is that we let others speak without interrupting them. Speakers usually interrupt to take control, to put themselves in a superior position; interrupting is a power move. If I see others as equals, I need to let them speak.

When we moralistically judge others, we aren't just discerning a clear picture of reality (as we see it), we are implying or stating that others are bad people-"lazy," "selfish," "clueless," and so on. Moralistically judging others violates the principle of equality since judgment, by definition, comes from a place of superiority.

Choice: "Can I let go of control?" Let's stop talking about "buy-in." A partnership conversation is not one where I try to get you to do what I have decided you need to do. A partnership conversation is a free interchange between equals where each person's ideas, thoughts, and beliefs are valued, and where both partners have the courage to be shaped by each other.

Voice:"Do others know I think their opinions are important?" When we act on the principle of voice, others know that they have been heard. Internally, we need to focus on what others say, listening without assumptions. Externally, we need to put away our devices and communicate nonverbally, make eye contact, have an open stance, not complete someone's sentences, and so on, so that others know they have been heard. Honoring the principle of voice means respectfully communicating that we think their ideas are important.

Dialogue: "Do I see others' strengths? Do I want what's best for them and am I open to being shaped by them?" The best writing I've read about creating the conditions for dialogue is in Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Dialogue, Freire writes, requires humility, faith, and love. By humility, he means that we open ourselves to others' opinions and let go of the need to be right. By faith, he means that we see others' strengths and competencies. By love, he means that we have others' best interests at heart. When these three conditions exist, trust will follow, and trust is necessary for any meaningful partnership.

Reflection: "Do I avoid giving advice?" Generating ideas and solving problems are very pleasurable experiences. Many of us love to do all that thinking, even if we're doing it for other people. We often find it a real struggle not to jump in and tell others exactly what we know is best for them. Unfortunately, when we gift others with our wisdom, we take away their opportunity to solve their own problems, thereby violating their opportunity to think for themselves.

Praxis: "Does our professional development allow sufficient time for necessary adaptations?" The term praxis, as I use it, describes learning experiences that involve real-life applications of learning. Professional development grounded in the principle of praxis is designed so that a learner learns new knowledge through applying that knowledge. Real learning happens in real life.

Reciprocity: "Do I want and expect to learn from others?" One of the rewards of the partnership approach is the chance to learn from others. However, to learn from others, we need, first, to believe that others have something to teach us and, second, to embrace the chance to learn from them. In some ways reciprocity is the quintessential partnership principle. When we open ourselves to others, our world gets bigger, and somehow, because we're open to learning, we often have more influence on others as well.

In aiming for partnership relationships, we need to ask ourselves, "Am I treating myself like a partner?" We likely won't snap our fingers and completely change the way we interact with others. I haven't-and I've been writing about partnership for decades. The partnership principles provide a vision for interaction; and day to day, reflecting on our beliefs and actions, we will move closer to that vision. But we shouldn't feel devastated when we struggle as a partner. Treat yourself with self-compassion, the way you would treat a friend. If we are going to treat others as partners, we should do the same to ourselves.

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For deep professional learning, create the conditions for dialogue.

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Teachers learn a lot from each other, so we have a few tips for collaborating more effectively.

Educators often say that education is frustratingly isolating. And if you talk with them about collaboration, you quickly learn that they know it can be a powerful tool to improve teaching and learning-and many feel a growing expectation to collaborate.

Reducing the isolation starts with the recognition that collaboration is a learned skill. Educators can begin to learn it by focusing on five key aspects.

Collaboration Requires Trust

As you think about potential collaborative partners, connect with someone committed to improving teaching and learning. Whether you're working with a longtime friend or someone new, work on building trust into the relationship. There are two steps to building trust.

Create a safe environment: Like Becky Putzier, a librarian at the Bertchi School in Seattle, you may find it challenging just getting to the point where you can collaborate with another teacher. She recognizes that "educators are good at creating safe spaces for students to learn, but they don't always do the same for teachers." Her first step was to find out what was going on in her learning partner's life and classroom. Putzier believes that if she hadn't created this safe space, "I wouldn't have been able to talk about professional issues."

Show respect: Annie Tremonte, a coach in the Renton School District in Washington State, says that "respecting the ideas, opinions, and perspectives of your learning partner fosters a natural, productive relationship between peers." Using norms such as "presume positive intentions" can help the two of you create and maintain respect. When potential differences surface, use this norm by asking your peer to explain their thinking and how their approach reaches your shared goals. This opens the discussion instead of letting emotions shut it down.

Collaboration Should Focus on Student Learning

Whether they're co-planning a learning activity or debriefing after observing a peer, successful collaborators discuss student learning, not the teachers. Following this norm keeps the conversation safe by anchoring it on the students, and it provides an avenue to talk about changes needed to meet student needs.

Collaboration Must Be Manageable

The demands for change in schools may seem overwhelming to some educators, so avoid adding to the problem-instead work to keep change manageable. If your learning partner believes you're pushing for too much change, they may stay with current practices or end the collaboration.

Nicole Tanner, an elementary school peer coach in the Richland 2 School District in South Carolina, reminds us, "You don't have to jump the whole distance the first time." Instead, she suggests setting small, achievable, intermediate goals. Keeping it manageable meant that Tanner's learning partner "was excited about small successes and wanted to continue to collaborate. Small steps eventually build up."

Luis Melo, an elementary school teacher and peer coach in the Flagstaff Unified Schools in Arizona, keeps change manageable by "going slow to go fast." Moving slowly while reaching intermediate goals, Melo says, "gives you more security that what you are doing is working. Eventually these slower first steps mean you can move faster toward your goals."

Collaboration Should Be Supportive

Supportive collaborators understand the value of learning with and from each other. When co-planning learning activities with peers, Tyler Abernathy, a peer coach at a middle school in the Richland 2 district, says that he "listens carefully, engaging in give-and-take discussions, sharing your own ideas, getting other ideas, and building on both sets of ideas." The result of this kind of collaboration, Tanner says, "is a really nice mosaic."

You may find an answer on how to be supportive in your classroom. When a student needs assistance, do you give them the answer or help them develop the skills and strategies needed to solve their question? If you use the second approach, you have a proven strategy for supporting peers. Instead of advocating for a solution, educators successful at collaboration find that inquiry helps peers answer the issues they are facing, and develop their capacity to improve teaching and learning.

Successful use of inquiry relies on effective communication skills like listening and asking probing questions. Coaches can help you develop these skills, and you can also use resources like the Pocket Guide to Probing Questions to learn and practice them on your own.

Collaboration Should Consider Peers' Privacy

No one involved in collaboration wants to see any of their failings aired in public or to have their learning partner share something that is used in a formal teacher evaluation. But we need to challenge our ideas on privacy if we want to see collaboration influence learning across our schools.

If the results of your collaboration help students learn, work with your learning partner to define what you want to share, and with what audience. Melo says his school's Friday "Dare to Share" sessions, where teachers explain what they're doing to improve student achievement, creates a "friendly environment that encourages learning from each other."

You may want to start by sharing at a team meeting. But don't stop there. Blog about your work, participate in discussions on social media, and share at conferences. We all face the same challenges, so make your work public to help others.

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Teachers learn a lot from each other, so we have a few tips for collaborating more effectively. Educators often say that education is frustratingly isolating. And if you talk with them about collaboration, you quickly learn that they know it can be a powerful tool to improve teaching and learning-and many feel a growing expectation to collaborate.

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As schedules fill up in the new school year, the practice of meeting as teacher teams can be tough to fit into the day.

But there's tremendous value in establishing a consistent, structured routine of grade- or subject-focused meetings-especially when schools plan and carve out time for it. When teachers meet as teams, writes consultant Elisa B. MacDonald for ASCD, they learn to "cultivate diverse perspectives, ground disagreement in text-based ideas (not personal attacks), promote intentional data use, and focus team meetings on what collaboration is ultimately about-improving student learning."

There's no need to make it overly complicated: By keeping the work lean and focused on just a few discrete areas, teachers can benefit in spite of time constraints. "It's enough to start with small, intentional moves to gradually build a culture of trust," writes MacDonald, a former teacher and literacy coach. "In time your team will view reading together, observing one another teach, and looking at student work together not only as practices you do in meetings, but as healthy collaborative habits that transform learning."

Here are three strategies MacDonald recommends for getting the most out of teacher teams:
1. Read and Listen Together
While reading by yourself is beneficial, discussing articles, videos, and podcasts with colleagues provides a rich opportunity for team members to broaden their thinking and deepen their understanding of the content as they hear new ideas and challenge their own perspectives.

If your school doesn't set time aside for PD or collaborative team reading, start off with "short, engaging texts"-MacDonald suggests a relatable cartoon, a controversial quote, or an inspirational excerpt from a podcast-then build up to longer texts and book studies as the year progresses and teachers' schedules allow. "Soon your colleagues will expect to engage in text-based discussions in your meetings," she says.

In lieu of using text-based discussion protocols, such as the four A's or the final word, which MacDonald notes can feel "time-consuming or restrictive," a well-formulated prompt can help structure a thoughtful conversation and encourage quality, relevant responses. When school DEI director Osamagbe Osagie's team read the article "Growing up Black in All the Wrong Places," for example, she asked her team: "Given this article's provocative title, what will it take for us to create a world that is comfortable and safe for individuals who are Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and multiracial to grow and thrive in?" MacDonald writes.
2. Observe Colleagues in Classrooms
In high-performing schools, teachers often visit colleagues' classrooms for peer observation, a practice MacDonald compares to the difference between "seeing a movie with friends, catching a bite afterwards, and talking about what you saw together" versus seeing the same movie alone.

When team leaders establish clear goals for classroom visit, it helps keep the process streamlined and prevents team members from being overwhelmed by the variety of ideas they encounter.

Establish a clear objective for each observation: First visits can be unstructured, but subsequent visits should include clear guidance about what to look out for, and should connect to whatever the team is learning about, MacDonald says.

Be specific about goals: Though your team may collaboratively write or review an entire lesson plan together, it's fine to demo just a portion of it for the team to examine together, MacDonald explains.

Identify how to gather data: "Guided by your purpose, decide what data your team will collect to help your team debrief afterward," MacDonald writes. You might agree to record audio of student group discussions or take photos of completed student work.

Mix it up: Plan to observe both live and pre-recorded lessons as well as "dry demos," where a teacher presents a lesson to colleagues without students in the room. This exercise reduces stress for the presenting teacher-they can start over or stop at any point in the process-while providing an opportunity to practice strategies before bringing them into the classroom.

3. Examine Student Work
If you can't routinely visit other teachers' classrooms, regularly evaluating student work as a team is a valuable exercise. On a rotating basis, each member can bring in student work samples that are:

Authentic: Sample work should reflect a genuine issue or challenge for the presenting teacher(s).

Relevant: Submitting samples that are relevant to team inquiry and study goals ensures that the team benefits from the analysis.

Current: Use recent samples-from formative assessments, for instance-so that teachers can "reteach, intervene, or enrich when students need it," MacDonald advises.

While it may be tempting to "go big or go home" with team meetings, the realities of crammed teacher schedules can interrupt even the best intentions. Starting small-consider picking just one strategy to start-is worth the effort, MacDonald concludes. Strong teacher teams can sustain teachers, helping them connect to colleagues and feel supported-ultimately keeping educators engaged in the work and learning from each other.

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3 Habits of Highly Effective Teacher Teams

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As schedules fill up in the new school year, the practice of meeting as teacher teams can be tough to fit into the day. But there's tremendous value in establishing a consistent, structured routine of grade- or subject-focused meetings-especially when schools plan and carve out time for it.

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Protocols By Tag | New Protocols | Spanish Protocols | Portuguese Protocols | Protocols For Youth Engagement

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Schools have garnered a lot of attention of late. What to say to students, what not to say to students, the choice of textbooks, and school violence are just a few of the topics that educators see each day on social media feeds and in the news. While each issue is compelling, teachers may be left feeling overwhelmed, powerless, or wondering what to do next. Since most of us aren't in positions to make policies, the question becomes...

What can teachers do to maintain focus on teaching and learning?

Teachers can start by bolstering their own sense of efficacy. We can focus on what's occurring within our own classrooms, which reinforces our beliefs that we can positively impact student learning and well-being. This is self-efficacy. However, self-efficacy is the first step in a process that results in high levels of achievement for every student in the school.

Ensuring a school environment where socioeconomic status, current performance levels, or family background do not predict students' outcomes requires us to take our views of teaching and learning a step farther. There is a need to widen the aperture such that the focus includes the beliefs in one's individual abilities (self-efficacy) and extends to the pooled abilities that emerge when we operate as a collective. This is collective teacher efficacy.

Basically, collective teacher efficacy is a teacher team's shared belief that by working together, they foster high student achievement across a school in ways that individuals cannot. It's been well-documented that teams with a high sense of collective teacher efficacy have a strong likelihood of positively impacting student learning. In fact, collective teacher efficacy is the #1 influence on student learning (Hattie, n.d).

Collective teacher efficacy doesn't just happen. Rather, it occurs when particular conditions are established by teams of educators who set, collaborate towards, and attain shared goals related to teaching and learning. During this process, the team's sense of empowerment increases and stronger social cohesion between team members elicits a sense of collective teacher efficacy.

Understanding the definition of collective teacher efficacy is one thing, but educators often wonder how to make this happen with their teams, given the range of individuals we work with in schools. Collective efficacy doesn't just exist in education: it's everywhere. Think about your own family system: your extended family gathers for a 4 th of July celebration at your house. There's planning so that people know what to bring, whether it's the sides, drinks, and dessert, because you're going provide the hamburgers and hot dogs. However, people don't come to your house on the 4 th of July for the meal; they come for the experience. They come seeking deeper connections with each other. Enjoying burgers together is a bonus. What people remember will remain long after that day, and why they'll continue to gather, is because of the feelings they have while they're together.

It's the same way with our school teams, but often we don't plan for success. We may meet and discuss how our students did on a recent assessment, but we don't plan to deeply engage with each other to identify and address underlying issues and barriers that impede learning. In other words, it's like everyone shows up on the 4 th of July with a pasta salad. Instead of being proactive with planning and communication, we leave that experience to chance and react in the moment (often by running to the grocery store and being irritated by the long lines). The quality of our experience is impacted by our failure to plan and communicate.

Instead, we can make our time in PLC's more productive and efficient by planning for success. By being proactive, we enjoy the meeting experience more deeply and are more motivated to engage in the next one. And when we plan to identify and address student learning needs as a team, everyone has a better learning experience at school. A Collective Efficacy Cycle is one way educator teams can plan for success.

A Collective Efficacy Cycle is a process for addressing student learning needs that typically lasts 6-8 weeks. By engaging in this process, PLC+ Question #4: What Did We Learn Today? is addressed. The Cycle is composed of the following 5 steps:

Step 1: Identify a Common Challenge

The PLC+ team reviews student learning data, such as a pre-assessment, and determines a common challenge. The common challenge is the one mutual need that each teacher on the team commits to addressing throughout the cycle. This is powerful for two reasons: 1). teachers act right away by implementing a new strategy with students; and 2) they have something in common to discuss at each PLC+ meeting. These provide focus and direction for the PLC+ team.

Step 2: Build Knowledge and Skills

Based upon the common challenge, the PLC+ team builds their knowledge and skills as a collective. This means that in addition to discussing the common challenge, teachers also learn about and discuss the mutual strategy being implemented to address students' needs. Teams may read, watch a video, and/or think-aloud about an evidence-based strategy during their PLC+ time. Professional learning, such as this, is often more beneficial for teachers than a "one and done" PD event that feels removed from teachers' realities.

Step 3: Safe Practice

During the Safe Practice phase, PLC+ teams implement the mutually selected strategy in their classrooms multiple times. This gives each teacher several opportunities to practice the strategy, adjusting as necessary to ensure student learning. This phase is called Safe Practice so teachers can practice without fear that they'll be observed by an administrator or other colleagues. Teachers need many opportunities to practice because we don't get good at something by just trying it once or twice. Safe Practice typically lasts for two weeks and offers time for teachers to get comfortable implementing the strategy.

Step 4: Opening Up Practice

The next phase of the Collective Efficacy Cycle is called Opening Up Practice because we open our doors to teacher colleagues to observe the strategy in action. Observations are scheduled in advance so that the teacher being observed determines when the observation will occur and what feedback they're looking for. Importantly, we 'open up practice' with intention. During this phase, each teacher on the PLC+ team observes a colleague and is observed by a colleague. Again, when we proactively plan for success, we're more likely to ensure a good experience.

Step 5: Monitor, Measure and Modify

Throughout the Collective Efficacy Cycle, teachers monitor students' learning and actively remove barriers that hinder progress. In so doing, students and teachers feel successful. As the Cycle ends, teacher teams reflect upon their students' learning, as well as their own learning as individuals and as a team. A critical aspect of the Cycle that shouldn't be missed are the acknowledgements and celebrations of learning-at all levels. Teachers want to know that they've make a difference in the lives of their students-throughout the year, not just on Teacher Appreciation Day. By engaging in this process, we can link teachers' efforts to students' learning all year long.

Final Thoughts:

We're not advocating for teachers to work harder, because we believe we already work hard. Instead, we advocate for teachers to work smarter by planning for success. By proactively creating the conditions for efficient and effective PLC+ meetings, teacher teams increase the chances that collective teacher efficacy will emerge. The Collective Efficacy Cycle offers one way for teachers and schools to shift from isolated professional development events to creating cultures where professional learning is expected, received, and valued. In so doing, students benefit, and teams are able to answer PLC+ Question #4: What Did We Learn Today? By planning for success, students and teachers succeed.

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author: Toni Faddis, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey

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author: Stephanie Smith Budhai and Kristine Lewis Grant

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author: George Perry, Tiffiny Shockley Jackson, and Jaime Welborn

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author: Diane Sweeney, Leanna Harris, and Julie Steele

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The 5 Steps of a Collective Efficacy Cycle - Corwin Connect

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Schools have garnered a lot of attention of late. What to say to students, what not to say to students, the choice of textbooks, and school violence are just a few of the topics that educators see each day on social media feeds and in the news.

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Joshua Yeager is a servant leader who strives to be compassionate and loyal while holding a high level of integrity. With fifteen years of dedicated service in the areas of business, education, and leadership, he feels that now is the time to collaboratively be a catalyst of change by providing a hi…

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5 Reasons Why Virtual PD Works for Teachers

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Most schools are moving to some kind of virtual PD, but some educators are still hesitant. What makes for a great virtual PD session?

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NCTE - National Council of Teachers of English

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The Great Resignation may be the most impactful crisis facing public education today, and that's saying a lot. Exacerbated by the pandemic, the crisis has lasting impacts for students as schools have been forced to replace their experienced teachers due to the historically high rates of resignations and retirements.

We must recognize that teachers are the most important and impactful lever in public education. The research is unequivocal-a teacher has three times more impact on student achievement than any other school factor. Teachers engage students, nurture them, help prepare them for life beyond school, and positively impact the trajectory for generations of families to come. Thus, we should be less concerned about hiring teachers to fill vacancies and more concerned about retaining the teachers we do have.

The what: Current state of attrition

Before pinpointing how to retain teachers, we first need to look at the current state of attrition to understand the path forward. A simple search will pull up thousands of articles detailing the various reasons for teacher attrition: higher-paying private sector opportunities, lack of support and targeted resources, increasing initiatives, overload of tools, undue focus on data analysis that keeps teachers from doing their job, student behavior concerns, increased political tension, and the list goes on.

However, one thing most dedicated educators can attest to is that you don't become a teacher for the pay-you go into this profession to help kids. Most teachers are committed to this hard work because they are devoted to a greater mission of helping shape future generations of students to be upstanding citizens who contribute to their communities. So the likelihood of devoted teachers leaving the profession solely due to pay is highly unlikely.

According to an NCES Teacher Attrition and Mobility survey, here are the numbers of former educators who said the following factors were better in their new positions:

53%: General work conditions

49%: Opportunities for professional advancement or promotion,

46%: Opportunities for professional development

45%: Recognition and support from administrators and managers

A TNTP report found much of the same: three in four high-performing teachers with plans to leave their schools said they would stay if feedback and development, recognition, and responsibility and advancement improved.

The how: Give all teachers what they want and deserve.

To reverse the Great Resignation, we need to recognize and honor the concerns teachers have been voicing. There is no better time than the present-the influx of federal funds makes it possible. So, let's take what the research tells us and support teachers by creating learning cultures rooted in autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Autonomy
Give them back time and voice. And most importantly, give teachers agency and choice in their professional learning opportunities. What's painfully evident to many in the education sector is that teacher growth and development have become an exercise in box-checking with a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach.

No one wants to be told to simply "get better faster" and then be watched with a critical eye as they attempt to figure out exactly how to do that. Yet, leaders are doing the best they can with the information they have. When leaders have better data-informed insights, they can make mutually beneficial decisions. That leads to just-in-time, just-right support that empowers educators to successfully engage students at any level without being overwhelmed by information or initiatives. Teachers can then focus on what they do best and get the best out of every student.
Mastery
To mirror the learning model we know works and honors students, we must hifting from compliance-based teacher training and evaluation to an adaptive approach that starts with competency-based professional growth models and equitable, evidence-based, job-embedded coaching.

If we provide differentiated support to every teacher based on their individual goals-instead of the same training for all-we will be modeling for educators the equitable learning culture we model for learners. Preparing our teachers in this way further helps ensure that the minds and hearts of our youth are profoundly prepared to solve the challenges that face our world and that everyone has equal access to that future.
Purpose
It's undeniable that the teacher lever has been pulled more often than any other lever in the quest to enhance student outcomes. When the newest silver bullet is a program or technology, the teacher lever is pulled once more as the teacher is required to implement it.

More from DA: How satisfied are superintendents with a job that keeps getting harder?

As reported by 71% of teachers in a Quality of Worklife survey of 30,000 educators by the American Federation of Teachers, "Adoption of new initiatives without proper training or professional development" was identified as the most significant stress factor for educators-and cited as one of the most frequently named reasons for teachers leaving the profession.

It's important to note that education isn't at a loss for initiatives intended to help teachers and students improve. Ideas are everywhere, and educators are overwhelmed by the endless and expensive game of "Pick a Door" that often results. The crux is picking the right door and seeing that path through until true change is made. Strategically abandoning the things that aren't working-an overload of resources, initiatives, tools, programs, etc.-will allow teachers to refocus their time and energy on the things that are working, ultimately reducing stress and burnout.

The path forward

As Sir Ken Robinson said, "Let's remove the barriers to learning and stop doing anything that gets in the way." For hundreds of years, education culture has focused on what teachers should teach. But this old way of thinking ignores the reality that human change comes from learning. And everyone learns differently- administrators, teachers, and students deserve the unique support and resources they need to be their best selves.

What's needed now is a systemic change that creates agency, autonomy, and accelerated learning for everyone. When educators stop the endless pursuit of trying to get better the old way, they can embrace the type of change that creates an equitable learning culture and supports everyone's unique ability to learn and grow.
Shannon Buerk, who has 28 years of K-12 experience, is the founder and CEO of engage2learn.

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3 keys to creating learning cultures that support teacher retention

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The Great Resignation may be the most impactful crisis facing public education today, and that's saying a lot. Exacerbated by the pandemic, the crisis has lasting impacts for students as schools have been forced to replace their experienced teachers due to the historically high rates of resignations and retirements.

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Ashlee is a veteran teacher at a Title 1 elementary school. Despite the many challenges her students experience, her students meet or exceed grade-level growth goals. She holds a master's degree in curriculum and instruction, is consistently rated as a highly effective teacher, and has received a county "outstanding educator" award. She is compassionate. Kind. Creative. Intelligent.

And she's burning out-considering each day whether she wants to stay in education.

She also happens to be my wife.

I travel and present to educators all over the world about educator burnout, highlighting the research-based strategies that have helped me and tens of thousands of educators strengthen their well-being.

So why is my wife-a phenomenal teacher-burning out? She has access to a guy who can cite and teach ad nauseam the strategies that lead to increased gratitude, purpose, and joy. I can do a deep dive on why exercise, mindfulness, and forgiveness boost our physical and emotional health. I can help her spot every that arises and smite it with a research-based reframe. But it's not enough.

Because burnout isn't about the individual-it's about the organization. It is an issue of context, not character.

My wife is a testament to how educators and school leaders-myself included-have misunderstood burnout, placing the onus on teachers via "self-care solutions." If we really want to reduce burnout, though, it will take more than exercise routines, meditation apps, and free donuts in the staff lounge. More than cognitive reframes and mindfulness strategies. Much more.

Let's start with a better understanding of what leads to teacher burnout.

The Computer Analogy

For perspective, it's helpful to consider teacher burnout through the lens of a computer (see fig. 1), a concept I explore in greater depth in my forthcoming ASCD book, a guide for school leaders on reducing staff burnout and increasing retention. Obligatory caveat that teachers-humans-are much more complicated than computers (and can't be replaced by them). But this analogy helps us understand the many factors that play into a burned-out teacher.

Figure 1. The Computer Analogy of Staff Well-Being

The Charger: Self-Care Strategies

One of the first efforts school leaders use to support staff well-being is promoting self-care. Exercise competitions, meditation websites, wellness workshops. This seems like the logical move: The teacher is burning out, so fix the teacher. But asking teachers to fix their burnout is like asking a seed to grow better when the soil is dry and the sun is nowhere to be found.

Of course, we shouldn't ignore the importance of self-care: Educators benefit when they use research-based practices to improve their well-being (Mielke, 2019). We need energy and motivation just to "turn on" our skills.

However, self-care is like the charger and battery of a computer: A teacher can practice all the self-care strategies in the world-be fully charged-but energy will be zapped if the hardware is damaged or too much software is running simultaneously. Our experience with holiday and summer breaks points to this: If we recharge when we're away from work but quickly lose energy without another break on the horizon (think "February Funk"), then working conditions are driving burnout-not a lack of self-care strategies. Put differently, we have to address the systems, policies, and conditions that "drain batteries" so quickly and reliably. We have to look at the software and hardware.

Software: Curricula, Programs, Initiatives, Expectations

Running too much software at once is a surefire way to crash or slow a computer. If we want to avoid draining the battery on our computers or phones, we close out programs we're not using-or even delete the ones that are no longer serving a purpose. We also know that the fewer programs we have running, the better the performance on each one-whether we're talking about computers or educators. The key questions school leaders should ask are: How many programs are we running at a time? How inefficient are our systems because we're running too much at once?

Work overload is the biggest cause of emotional exhaustion, the first major dimension of burnout (Maslach & Leiter, 2014). I've seen this process unfold with my wife. She recently showed me all the scripted curriculum guides she has to use in her elementary school-seven in total, three brand new. Her day is mapped out nearly to the minute, with a note from administration reading, "You won't have time for a scheduled snack, so try to build one in with your students while they work." In my wife's words, "I feel like I have no time to do the things that made me love teaching."

Unfortunately, too many schools try to fix problems by doing more with more, rather than more with less.

Hardware: Efficacy, Skills, Strengths

OK, maybe you have to run a few initiatives at the same time to try to make gains. If so, you'll need to boost the hardware to keep up with the energy and focus demands. Just as improving computer hardware takes more time and expense than adding software and programs, improving the hardware of educators is a deeper commitment. It takes high-quality coaching, feedback, and positive support.

Along with emotional exhaustion, inefficacy is another major dimension of burnout (Maslach & Leiter, 2014). Building efficacy requires more than confidence-boosting mantras like, "You got this!" and "We value you!" It requires mastery experiences: Competence attained through high-quality professional development and timely, constructive feedback in safe, supportive environments. If we want teachers to persevere through challenges, we need to create conditions that build efficacy: that involves coaching, time, and support.

WIFI: Human Relationships, Connectedness

Just as we value technology to connect to the outside world-to learn, to transmit, to bond-high-quality teaching requires connection. And this means authentic, positive human relationships between every stakeholder-staff, administration, students, and community members. Cynicism (often called "depersonalization") is the third and final dimension of burnout (Maslach & Leiter, 2014). It involves negativity and pessimism, particularly involving people. Education is a highly social endeavor; when relationships are strained or cultures are toxic, the whole system suffers. Of course, we can use computers without WIFI, but our work and access might be impeded. Similarly, teachers can teach without strong connections, but their motivation and performance are vastly diminished.

Troubleshooting the System Failures

When a computer is broken, we look beyond just its battery or the charger to diagnose and resolve the issues. Likewise, let's look beyond self-care strategies to reduce teacher burnout and increase retention. Here are a few key moves school leaders can make.

Tip #1: Run System Diagnostics

The most important place to start with burnout is assessing its causes. Engage a "curiosity mindset" and seek a better sense of what's driving burnout: Is it exhaustion from too many initiatives (software)? The need for greater skills and capacity (hardware)? A lack of opportunity to build positive connections with students and colleagues (WIFI)?

To get high-quality feedback from staff, use high-quality questions to survey staff (e.g., Don't just ask, "What's stressing you out right now?"). Thankfully, validated measures already exist for these surveys, such as Mind Garden's Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and Areas of Worklife Survey (AWS). These assessments help identify the extent of burnout within an organization and its central causes. (Here's a to try.)

Too often we use self-care as a solution because we don't know the true cause of burnout. Ask what your staff's experience is with their working conditions. Listen to their answers. Practice getting "un-defensive." And work collaboratively on ways to make your school a place where people thrive.

Tip #2: Reboot the CPU

If you've ever experienced a computer crashing in the middle of a project or task, you know how devastating it can be: Memory is lost, programs need to reload, or the system itself might require a massive reboot or new hardware. Educators crash whenever there is an intense threat to their safety and security. School safety threats, a screaming parent, seeing a colleague let go-all of these can cause a crash. When these things happen, prioritize the CPU.

Tip #3: Close Out Software

As a part of our school improvement process, our district took inventory of all the initiatives we've started in the last few years. The number? Forty. That's right. Forty initiatives for a school district of 150 certified teaching staff. There are diminishing returns to adding new things without freeing up time and effort to do existing things really well (something our school improvement team realized looking at our district's list). As school leaders, we should ask ourselves, are we doing too many things with mediocrity rather than a few things with excellence?

One of the best ways to reduce initiative fatigue is to focus on practices instead of programs. Before implementing any new initiative-or as you evaluate existing initiatives-work with your team on these questions:

What is the desired outcome of the program/initiative?

What 3-5 practices would we see as evidence of implementation?

What do staff members gain by implementing these practices?

What roadblocks might stall the habituation of these practices?

Through this process, you might realize that (a) you don't need a new program, (b) you already have the skills and people necessary to achieve the desired outcome, and/or (c) previous programs aren't necessary and you can discontinue them in service of coaching-mastering existing practices rather than adopting packaged programs.

Tip #4: Invest in New Hardware

You don't have to know much about computers to know that swapping out the hardware is a big investment that takes time and expertise. It's not as simple as, say, downloading a new app. Building teacher efficacy is the same: If we want teachers to have greater skills to tackle initiatives or the challenges of teaching, we need to devote ample time and resources to help them be successful. We do this via high-quality coaching.

Skill-building requires more than sporadic check-ins with administrators during evaluations. No matter how sophisticated your current coaching systems are, look for ways to bolster them.

Make coaching non-evaluative. "Coaching" is a four-letter word in many schools because it is used as a response to poor evaluations. Draw a clear line in the sand that coaching roles and experiences will have nothing to do with evaluative conversations. When an administrator has concerns over a teacher's performance, bring the coach in only after the administrator and teacher have agreed upon an instructional goal. Develop policies of confidentiality between coaches and coachees.

Investing in new hardware takes time and energy. However, if we invest in practices and skills-and we close out other "software" that burdens our time and energy-we help our staff develop the efficacy and skills needed to handle new challenges. We foster collaborative, confident communities. And we show our staff that we value people over programs.

Systems Built to Thrive

The past few years have challenged us beyond what self-care strategies can fix. Pandemic teaching put a strain on our efficacy and skills. Initiatives stopped, restarted, and got added to our plates as we scrambled to teach in this new era. Our connectedness took hits as distances grew physically (with remote schooling) and emotionally (with political divides).

Yet, these past few years have pushed us to help our systems work at their best. Let's also help our staff work at their best. Let's revamp our organizations to reduce the conditions of burnout. For the sake of our students. For the sake of our colleagues. For the sake of amazing teachers like my wife.

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Ashlee is a veteran teacher at a Title 1 elementary school. Despite the many challenges her students experience, her students meet or exceed grade-level growth goals. She holds a master's degree in curriculum and instruction, is consistently rated as a highly effective teacher, and has received a county "outstanding educator" award.

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Abstract

The Competence-Supportive Coaching Model

The Takeaway

To improve the confidence of struggling novice teachers, focus on one high-leverage action step at a time.

Credit: Shutterstock

Abstract

The Competence-Supportive Coaching Model

The Takeaway

Years ago, I coached a novice early-childhood teacher who was struggling. Let's call her Liz. She was committed to being a lifelong educator and was hungry for feedback. And yet, her classroom lacked structure to the point that it bordered on chaos-students were rolling around on the floor, many were in tears, and they were generally without direction. She simply did not have the necessary confidence or technical and relational skills to establish a successful learning environment. Her principal, aware of the teacher's own concerns not only for the learning but also for the safety of her students, invited me in to help. As a turnaround coach, I knew we had a long road ahead.

Sisyphus, a figure of Greek mythology, was eternally condemned to roll a boulder up a hill, only to have that boulder roll down again each time he reached the top. This is what it used to feel like for me when coaching struggling novice teachers. Each year there were new teachers. Each year we started from the bottom. I saw new teachers come in without the skills to create a highly successful learning environment for students. As a result, as the teachers struggled, their students suffered. After years of seeing this same scenario unfold, I started to field-test different coaching methodologies beyond the "reflective conversations" that dominated the coaching literature at the time. Soon, I had amassed a wealth of practical coaching experience that supported more directiveness and was backed up by a solid foundation in self-determination theory.

Deci and Ryan's (2002) self-determination theory asserts that for someone to be motivated to learn and improve, three social conditions must exist: relationships (connection), autonomy (perceived control), and competence (mastery over environment). In my work with Liz, I had already built a trusting relationship; she knew I was in her corner. Relationships: Check. We also discussed a course of action based on what she saw as her biggest needs. Autonomy: Check. Now we had to tackle competence.

The Competence-Supportive Coaching Model

The aptly named Competence-Supportive Coaching Model was created by Deci and Ryan to address issues of teacher competence by developing narrow sets of skills through practice rather than a simple reflective conversation.

The model includes the following features:

Co-analysis: The coach and teacher analyze specific evidence gathered in the classroom to identify a narrow, high-leverage action step that will increase the teacher's efficacy.

Modeling: The coach models the action step and defines the key elements of the action step.

Direct practice: The teacher practices the specified action step, and the coach offers feedback to ensure that the teacher has mastered the action step and can translate it into the classroom.

In other words, this coaching approach is highly directive, focusing on building a concrete set of skills that teachers can replicate in order to experience mastery.

1. How to Implement Co-Analysis

Coaches must be skilled at gathering evidence in the classroom to support the action step that will be identified with the teacher. This can include direct quotes from teachers and students, timestamps of events in the classroom, student work evidence, quantitative evidence, or other relevant data. Coaches also need to be adept at utilizing this evidence-called "low inference notes"-to assist the teacher through co-analysis to develop their own narrow, high-leverage action step.

Here are a couple of action step examples, along with non-examples that will be less effective:

Action Step Examples and Non-Examples

Example

Non-Example

Classroom Management

Every time you release students to independent practice or group work, deliberately scan the room for off-task behavior: 1) Stand at the corner of the room so that you can see all students. 2) Choose 3-4 "hot spots" to scan constantly. 3) "Be seen looking": crane your neck to appear to be seeing all corners of the room.

Manage your classroom more effectively

Rigor and Planning

Every time a student makes an error, use a universal prompt: 1) State the student's incorrect response using a neutral tone. 2) Ask 2-3 students to agree or disagree with a student's response. 3) Stamp the correct answer.

Plan lessons aligned to the standards

Regardless of their years of experience in the classroom, many teachers have a tendency to get lost in the weeds and become overwhelmed when trying to make improvements, which can leave them feeling paralyzed. Performing co-analysis works by narrowing the scope to a specific problem, so that the coach and teacher can focus on a single solution that will have an impact. In Liz's case, she saw only chaos and students not meeting expectations. But the co-analysis process helped us discover that when she gave directions in a specific way, more than 85 percent of her students responded favorably.

2. How to Use Modeling

After analyzing the evidence and clearly defining the problem, the coach must break down the action step. The coach demonstrates how to do the action step, defines the key elements, and may also present commonly encountered errors. This modeling can be done in-person or could be presented through a video or an exemplar plan. With Liz, I modeled the tone she used in her directions when students responded favorably and compared it with the tone she used when they did not. I showed her where to stand and what to say when giving her directions, based on evidence I'd gathered from the observation. It helped to be clear and direct with Liz to leave no room for confusion-she saw exactly how posture and words make a huge difference.

3. How to Approach Direct Practice

The most important part of the Competence-Supportive Coaching Model is practice, practice, practice. Although it can be awkward, adults sometimes have to role-play. Yep. I said role-play.

Teachers practice the identified action step, and the coach immediately offers feedback. Although it can be awkward to watch an adult practice a skill in a one-on-one setting, it is vital to practice to achieve mastery.

Liz and I practiced a few times without students present. We role-played how she would give directions, focusing on her tone, body language, and words. After she role-played it a couple of times, we practiced the same direction skill with increased complexity.

Teachers practice the identified action step, and the coach immediately offers feedback.

"Let's play this out," I said. "You have now given the direction with your firm tone and squaring up to the class. Now, practice it again, but this time I am not going to respond right away. I want you to repeat your direction to me specifically. Focus on your tone and body language." She practiced this scenario and I gave her immediate feedback addressing only the tone and body language when directed toward a specific student. Slowly, Liz gained more confidence with me and, eventually, gained the same confidence when teaching directly to students.

The Takeaway

Changing the teaching practice to promote permanent habits is a challenge, and there is often much to tackle. In the case of Liz's classroom-where students lacked structure, safety, and rigor-it was difficult as a coach to know what to prioritize. But I knew that tackling Liz's feelings of incompetence would be essential for her long-term development as a successful educator. By leveraging the Competence-Supportive Coaching Model and taking on one narrow, high-leverage action step per coaching session (at least once a week), we chipped away at big issues as Liz steadily gained confidence.

By the end of our semester together, not only did she believe in her ability to positively impact student behavior and learning, but she also began to see the living proof of it as students grew academically. Had I taken a more passive approach (not using modeling or repetition) than a directive approach, Liz likely would not have made it through the school year, let alone have remained in the classroom today.

The Competence-Supportive Coaching Model accelerates teachers' development because it specifically addresses some of the most pressing psychological and technical needs within the learning environment. Instructional leaders must provide support or seek out excellent coaching for teachers, early and often, so these teachers can successfully persist in the classroom and positively impact students' lives for the better.

ASCD is dedicated to professional growth and well-being.

Let's put your vision into action.

ASCD empowers educators to achieve excellence in learning, teaching, and leading so that every child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

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A Three-Step Coaching Model to Help Teachers Grow - ASCD

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Abstract The Competence-Supportive Coaching Model The Takeaway To improve the confidence of struggling novice teachers, focus on one high-leverage action step at a time. Credit: Shutterstock Abstract The Competence-Supportive Coaching Model The Takeaway Years ago, I coached a novice early-childhood teacher who was struggling. Let's call her Liz.

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Matt Gibson spends a lot of his time thinking about how people learn. As a fifth grade math teacher and instructional coach in New Orleans, Gibson has become increasingly interested in effective teaching informed by cognitive science—otherwise known as learning science—and how it can help teachers improve their practice.

That’s thanks in large part to Gibson’s participation as a coaching fellow at the Louisiana Resource Center for Educators. The center is a member of the Deans for Impact “Learning by Scientific Design” Network, a collaborative of 10 educator-preparation programs—some at colleges of education, others at alternative certification institutions—that work from a simple premise: knowing how to teach should begin with understanding how people learn.

The network set out to redesign coursework and clinical experiences to ensure future teachers were better equipped to apply learning science principles to their practice. Now in its third year, its mission has expanded beyond pre-service teachers to include better coaching and support for novice teachers once they're in the classroom as part of the practicum or student-teaching phase of their program.

The team at Deans for Impact has seen firsthand how novice teachers can improve by working alongside high-quality instructional coaches to hone their skills with learning science in mind. Through real-world examples and videos, let’s explore what happens when instructional coaches like Matt Gibson use learning science to help a novice teacher grow.

A Coach’s Journey

Deans for Impact workshops begin by building coaches’ understanding of learning science principles and associated “teacher actions” (i.e. the subsequent moves teachers make), which they then apply to their own instructional coaching.

When we asked Gibson about this experience, he recalled how he was introduced early on to the idea of engaging students in effortful thinking: a teacher action grounded in the learning science principle that the more deeply we think about an idea, the more likely we are to retain that information in our long-term memory and be able to retrieve it at a later date.

Principles like these have implications for the instructional choices educators make, and for Gibson it was no different. For instance, he had long known that higher-order questions mattered for student learning, but now he knew why: because those are the questions that prompt students to think effortfully about content, which means that information will be more likely to stick.

Connecting these dots began to change the expectations Gibson had of novice teachers and of himself—a process he described as playing out in parallel:

“Just as I saw teachers do a lot of thinking for students, I realized I was doing a lot of thinking for teachers when I coached them,” Gibson told us in an interview. “So I started to consider ways I could ask teachers to think effortfully about what I was asking them to implement—something as simple as, ‘What impact will this have on student thinking?’”

The Science of Coaching in Action

With effortful thinking questions like these fresh in his mind, Gibson set about working with a novice teacher completing his training at the Louisiana Resource Center for Educators named Michael Murry. Gibson’s aim was to help Murry think more deeply about his instructional decision-making—a process that was to be grounded in learning science.

What follows is a series of excerpts from an actual coaching session between Gibson and Murry. You’ll first read excerpts from an interview we conducted with Gibson about what was going on in his head as a coach at each moment in the session; you’ll then have the chance to see through the videos how he applied learning science to the choices he made along the way—setting an example for Murry to use in his teaching.

Click each image to see the excerpts and videos.

The All-Important ‘Aha!’

From here, Gibson and Murry entered the rehearsal phase of the process, practicing questions that would direct students to think effortfully about the right content, and preparing Murry to reteach the lesson with that in mind.

Refining one’s practice in this way is a crucial coaching step—but it can only happen once conceptual understanding has been established or shifted. To use Gibson’s term, these are the “Aha!” moments you look out for as a coach—that instant when you see someone making sense of something critical to their approach for the first time.

Murry’s “Aha!” occurred the moment he moved the site of thought away from himself as teacher and instead considered what it would take for his students to engage in effortful thinking. He summed up this shift through a useful metaphor: “It’s like the expression, ‘You can lead a horse to water…’ You can lead a student to the answer but they will only fully understand an idea when they think about and experience it for themselves. As my coach, Matt helped me to think about my practice in that way, which helped me to do the same for my students.”

This is what it means to apply a learning science lens to what goes on in classrooms. To understand how learning happens is to grasp both the “what” and the “why” of teaching and learning. As Gibson told us, “Even after 13 years in the classroom, learning about learning science principles really changed me as a coach and as a teacher. It gave a name and a rationale to a lot of things I had already thought about. It allowed me to put it all together and say, ‘OK. That’s why we do this.’”

Matt Gibson’s journey into learning science gave him fresh eyes with which to see the richness of his practice. As a result, he is now able to help a new generation of teachers like Michael Murry to do the same.

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The Science of Coaching Teachers - EdSurge News

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What happens when we apply an understanding of how people learn to the way we coach novice teachers?

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Supporting New Teachers Through Holistic Mentorship

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Basing mentorship on key practices in adult learning allows mentors to provide comprehensive support.

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Dacher Keltner On our first episode of The Science of Happiness back in 2018, people reflected on three good things that happened to them each day.

Voices Sunny days. No stress. Music, usually. I only had enough money to pay for 16 minutes of my parking meter and I didn't get a ticket.

Dacher Keltner The Three Good Things practice gives us a small break in the day to focus on gratitude. Kind of like a lunch break or a coffee break, but instead a Happiness Break.

I'm Dacher Keltner. Welcome to Happiness Break, a new series by The Science of Happiness, produced by UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center and PRX.

On each episode, we'll guide you through exercises to help you cultivate kindness, forgiveness, joy, resilience, and all the other emotions and ways of being that help us craft happier lives. We also look at the research behind why these practices are effective, all in about five minutes or so. A little break in your day.

It'll air on alternating weeks from The Science of Happiness, so we'll return with another Science of Happiness episode next week.

Now let's turn to Three Good Things. And remember, we're going to try it together right here, right now.

What I love about this practice is it can help you appreciate the good in the day-to-day. You know, so often we take the positive stuff in our lives for granted. We just let it pass us by without really enjoying it. By paying closer attention to it, we can get out of the habit of ruminating on the negative.

You know, this practice has been lab-tested dozens of times since it was created by psychologist Martin Seligman a couple of decades ago. And studies, for example, by Seligman and Steen find that doing this practice gives you a boost in happiness. Six months later, Sonja Lyubomirsky and her colleagues have found that doing this practice leads you to feel more connected to the people around you.

There's other work showing that it boosts optimism and that it really helps people like nurses and really high-stress jobs feel less burnout. It's one of our most successful practices in this landscape of happiness practices.

You can follow along wherever you are, but if you're able to grab a pen and paper to jot down your thoughts, that would help. Okay. Are you ready? Let's get started.

First. Take a deep breath. And as you exhale, try to let go of whatever's on your mind right now. Take a few more big breaths just like that. For this exercise, you typically list any good things that happen to you that day and write about why they happened. But for our Happiness Break, I'm going to give you some prompts.

Start by noticing how you feel right now in this moment. How do you feel? Try not to judge it. Just tune in and notice.

Let your breath settle back into its natural rhythm and think back to this morning. Where did you wake up? What's the first thing you did? Maybe you stretched a little, had a cup of coffee. What did you eat or drink? Start to retrace all the steps of your day.

And as you keep moving forward in time, retracing what you did and where you went. Think about the things you saw throughout your day. If you just woke up, think about yesterday.

What was the most beautiful or amazing or interesting thing you saw all day? What are you grateful for seeing today? That's your first good thing.

If you have a pen and paper, write it down. Describe it in as much detail as possible, or just say it out loud or even inside your head. I'll give you a moment and feel free to press pause at any point if you need more time.

Whatever you're remembering, take these moments to really appreciate it in as much detail as you can and try to remember how that thing made you feel at the time, and then notice how you feel now reflecting back on it.

Next, for whatever you wrote down, think about what caused that good thing. What had to happen for that thing to come to be. For example, when I see my wonderful daughters, I think how lucky I am to have met my wife Molly, over 40 years ago.

Now for your next good thing, look back through your day again. But this time, think about all the sounds you heard. Did anything you heard today soothe you? surprise you? make you laugh or smile? Did you get to listen to one of your favorite songs or did anybody say anything to you that made you feel really good?

Pick one sound you heard today that you're grateful for and that's good thing number two.

Start to picture what was happening at the time you heard it in as much detail as possible and write about it if you can. How did it make you feel? And once again, think about how that thing came to be. Why did you hear that sound? What caused you to hear it? And that's part two.

Now for good thing number three.

Think back through your day. What's the best thing that you experienced today or one of them?

When you've got it, try to remember in as much detail as possible and write it out if you can. What were you seeing? What were you hearing? Was anyone else there? And how did you feel?

What do you think caused that good thing to happen? Run through it in your mind or on paper. Why did that thing come to be?

That's it. You just did the Three Good Things practice. How are you feeling now?

You know, we're all working so hard right now and there's so much stress. And I hope our Happiness Break and doing Three Good Things just gave you a moment of reflection to think about what is good in life and what we're grateful for, and that it brought you a bit of contentment and some ease.

I'm Dacher Keltner. Thanks for joining our Happiness Break. We'll be back next week with another episode of The Science of Happiness.

If you want more tips on how to do the Three Good Things practice, or want to learn more about the research behind it, check out our show notes wherever you're listening to this podcast.

You can also find this and other happiness practices at www.ggia.berkeley.edu.

What were some good things that happened to you today? What did you think about? Share with us by emailing HappinessPod [a]t Berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #HappinessPod. Happiness Break is a production of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center and PRX.

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Happiness Break: A 10-Minute Guided Practice

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Dacher Keltner On our first episode of The Science of Happiness back in 2018, people reflected on three good things that happened to them each day. Voices Sunny days. No stress. Music, usually. I only had enough money to pay for 16 minutes of my parking meter and I didn't get a ticket.

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Communication is one of the most basic functions of living. In managerial situations, it can help make good decisions, think out well-conceived plans, establish a sound organisation structure, and create good relationships with colleagues. Communication is essential for achieving managerial and organisational effectiveness. Good communication helps employees become more involved in their work and helps them to develop a better understanding of their role. Clear, precise and timely communication of information also prevents the occurrence of organisational problems.

Without communication, employees will not be aware of what their co-workers are doing, will not have any idea about what their goals are, and will not be able to assess their performance. Managers will not be able to give instructions to their subordinates and management will not receive the information it requires to develop plans and make decisions. Thus communication acts as the nervous system for any organisation.

Metis

The ancient idea of Metis and the Art of Practical Intelligence was born in Greece. Metis was seen as most suitable to situations that were fluid, dynamic, fast moving, uncertain and contrary (Freedman: 2013). Cultivating and generating an ability to adapt to constantly changing events with sufficient flexibility is seen as paramount to this philosophy, just as we have had to do throughout Covid-19 lockdowns. Practical intelligence allows for the display of forethought, speed and a capacity for trickery and deception. All of these qualities are required in the use of strategic intelligence.

Persuasion, the ability to use rhetoric and the proper use of language, was also tantamount to an effective strategy. The Greek Pericles reminded Protagoras that those with "knowledge but without the power to express it, might as well have had no ideas at all" and therefore, at the heart of all effective strategies, is the ability to communicate strategically and persuasively to achieve one's ends. Leveraging the behavioural effects of language by using what we call injunctive and performative language (Spencer-Brown: 1967), we can create amazing effects to promote change, define solutions or inhibit unwanted behaviours.

Effective strategies usually involve:

Empathy for the opponents' or allies' situation-enough to have influence.

Some outstanding capability or strength-enough to impress or intimidate others.

The ability to build effective relationships and coalitions.

An understanding of how to communicate effectively at a personal and organisational level.

Communication

Persuasive communication and the use of verbal and non-verbal aspects of communication are paramount to any effective professional or personal endeavour. Understanding the belief and value system of others and adapting to their unique communication style and form are essential elements of a strategic approach to life. It is the deliberate and conscious use of persuasive communication as the main vehicle for change that separates the strategic approach from others and will constitute the success or failure of a strategy. At an interpersonal level, we must pay attention to both the verbal and non-verbal aspects of communication.

Important non-verbal aspects of consultation:

First impression, which should be high impact.

Good eye contact.

Body space, posture, and body language.

Important verbal aspects:

Evocation of specific emotions through dialogue.

The strategic dialogue-a suggestive and evocative form of communication.

Use of metaphor, story, etc.

Business impact

Research at the Human Dynamics - MIT Media Lab in the U.S. has shown that 90% of the impact business executives have during a presentation has little to do with what was being said. A Harvard psychologist, Nailini Ambady (1993), has shown that we can judge people's personal traits in less than six seconds, even when relying on a video clip that has no sound (Yeung: 2011).

These and many other studies have repeatedly shown the effect body language has on how people judge and relate to us (Cialdini: 2006). Non-verbal aspects of our communication amplify or reduce the effects of the words we use therefore non-verbal communication should normally take precedence over verbal. Eye contact between people should also be seen as a communicational phenomenon that can help to establish a meaningful relationship.

Eye Contact

Burnett and Motowidlo (1998), found in their study on manager candidates at interview (by using a measure of four non-verbal behaviours), that good eye contact was one behaviour that predicted a positive outcome. Babies from the very earliest stage of development can be seen to seek out positive eye contact with their carer and it has a significant effect on their development. Through research in neuroscience, we can see that eye contact activates parts of the brain that have to do with attraction (Duhigg: 2011) and this is significant when we are seeking to be influential. Our desire and need for effective eye contact are hardwired into us. One Canadian study (Hemsley and Doob: 1978) revealed that in criminal cases, jurors were more likely to convict an accused person of a crime if they failed to hold the prosecutor's gaze for long enough.

Avoiding Folklore

Contrary to popular belief, being too assertive or overly confident in our eye contact can actually avoid creating a warm or effective relationship. Through the continual and subtle vacillation and alternation of eye contact between the eye and other parts of a person's face and body, we can allow the client to experience a more comfortable interaction and may create a more effective and warm exchange. This will be even more powerfully felt in the initial meeting and early stages of the relationship. The contrary is also true, in that as the relationship evolves, we must not make the client feel that we cannot fix our eyes on them or that they cannot capture our gaze either as this will have the opposite effect, as we have already mentioned. Humans are hardwired for eye contact and although it is important, it must be managed based on the objective and the phase of the relationship in consultation.

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Communication is one of the most basic functions of living. In managerial situations, it can help make good decisions, think out well-conceived plans, establish a sound organisation structure, and create good relationships with colleagues. Communication is essential for achieving managerial and organisational effectiveness.

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Zhu Xiao-Mei is one of my favorite classical pianists. What I love about the way she performs is that she commits to deeply understanding every piece she plays so she can uncover its fundamental beauty, then communicates that beauty so clearly that listeners are deeply moved by her playing. Her goal as an artist, she says, is to work "tirelessly, with no other goal than the truth of the music … I never force it or try to grasp its meaning too quickly. I do this until I experience love for each passage and note, until I reach a state of natural and intuitive understanding" (Zhu, 2012).

Zhu Xiao-Mei's in-depth approach stands in contrast to the way many of us operate in the modern world. We surf the web, skim books, speed date, and "like" or "block" friends with the swipe of a finger. If this tendency toward the superficial spills over into how we support children's—and adults'—learning, it can have serious consequences. If those leading PD lack a deep understanding of the strategies and ideas they share, for example, their explanations will be shallow and inadequate. Teachers won't learn what they need to, to implement strategies effectively—so students won't benefit from the changes teachers are trying to make. Everyone suffers when we stay on the surface.

Avoid "Shiny Object Syndrome"

We stay on the surface in learning for many reasons. Going deep may not seem like it's worth the effort, especially when we're asked to learn more strategies than anyone has time to. Often, we don't go deep because the children and adults we support have many urgent and important needs; we feel we need to learn so many things to help them that we never have the time to truly understand what we're learning. And in some settings, coaches and other educational leaders are exclusively rewarded for immediate action, leaving little time for the reflection required for deep understanding.

Some of us stay on the surface because we're drawn to new ideas before we develop an in-depth understanding of whatever it is we just recently learned. There is even a word for the tendency to be attracted to the new or novel: neophilia. Our work environments are also victims of neophilia. School leaders are often drawn to the next new thing, and educators may find themselves pushed to learn about new strategies and ideas before they've absorbed the previous new thing—then they are asked to drop that new thing when another one comes along. Management consultants call this "shiny object syndrome." Leadership changes can exacerbate this tendency.

In addition, because leaders must save time and money, they may feel they have to opt for overview workshops rather than deeper professional development, like coaching. Workshops are valuable because they can give educators an awareness of practices (I lead them all the time), but they rarely provide the deep support needed for real change in professional practice. Too often, PD is too much information, presented too superficially, when what people really need is someone who helps them implement practices in their classrooms. And when funds are limited, they shouldn't be spent on PD that doesn't lead to change.

Commit to Looking Deeper

We don't have to live on the surface. The most powerful step we can take toward deeper understanding of ideas and strategies in teaching may be to simply commit to looking deeper. Here are five strategies that can help us keep that commitment:

Identify priorities. The biggest barrier for individuals and organizations is trying to do so many things that nothing gets the focused attention it deserves. People need to make time to focus on what matters most for their learning. For example, I suggest coaches focus on getting comfortable with the basics and proficiently implementing a simple, three-stage coaching cycle (Knight et al., 2020)—to ensure that their coaching has an unmistakably positive impact on student learning and well-being.

Say no to some demands on your time. Not every "no" needs to be justified, but thanking others for inviting us to collaborate and explaining why we can't do so makes it easier for others to accept a negative response: "I'm honored you feel I have something to contribute to your committee, but I'm knee-deep in writing our instructional playbook now and need to focus my attention on that task." Saying no to your supervisor can be especially complex. I suggest coaches sit down with their supervisor with a list of tasks, asking which tasks absolutely need to be done and which are optional, and what percentage of time should be dedicated to each task. Administrators can also support deep learning by proactively ensuring that coaches have the time they need to learn what they need to learn.

The most powerful step we can take toward deeper understanding of ideas and strategies in teaching may be to simply commit to looking deeper.

Jim Knight

Make it real. Coaches can deepen their knowledge of strategies by creating "instructional playbooks" of 15–20 of the highest-impact teaching strategies they share with teachers, including a one-page summary and checklist for each strategy. They can encourage teachers to deepen their knowledge by experimenting with these strategies in real-life situations (Knight et al., 2020).

Adopt a learner's mindset.

We must ensure that our preconceptions—and sense of our own expertise—don't interfere with our learning. I suggest we adopt a learner's mindset, setting aside our preconceived notions and felt truths, to open ourselves to what others are willing to teach us. Sōtō Zen monk Shunryū Suzuki's description of a "beginner's mind" comes close to describing what I mean. He writes, "In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few" (Suzuki, 2020).

Be courageous.

A final barrier to going deep may be doubt about our own abilities. Researchers in psychology have pointed to imposter syndrome, a tendency to doubt our abilities and feel we don't deserve our accomplishments. If we feel like imposters, we may resist asking questions and seeking help from mentors for fear of being exposed. However, the best way to ensure that we aren't imposters is to have the courage to ask questions and learn from others.

As coaches and professional developers, we may not "experience love" for each strategy and idea we share in the way Zhu Xiao-Mei experiences love for each note she plays. But deeper knowledge will lead to better PD and better teaching. Real learning only comes from real depth.

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The Learning Zone / The Life-Changing Magic of Going In-Depth - ASCD

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Zhu Xiao-Mei is one of my favorite classical pianists. What I love about the way she performs is that she commits to deeply understanding every piece she plays so she can uncover its fundamental beauty, then communicates that beauty so clearly that listeners are deeply moved by her playing. Her goal

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Teaching at any level can often be a solitary occupation. Even with a classroom full of students, teachers often work in isolation from peers. Teachers rarely receive instruction on how to work with co-teachers or teacher assistants in their pre-service teacher education programs. Therefore, it is often difficult or awkward for teachers to ask for help or effectively collaborate with others. Instructors often don't know how to accept help from the instructional coaches, even when they would like to.

Educational practice is shifting from isolating practice to collaborative efforts, and creating healthy and productive team dynamics is often a challenge. Instructional coaches can positively impact these relationships, but the trust must be in place for it to occur. Even in systems where working with a coach is expected, building those initial relationships can be challenging.

Instructional coaches, instructional designers, and even assigned co-teachers often struggle to establish working relationships with individual classroom teachers. Librarians regularly complain that they spend more time clearing jams from printers instead of assisting students with reference questions. However, clearing that paper jam can help the student see the librarian as a resource. In the same way, the instructional designer might start to build a relationship by helping an instructor properly format hanging indents for a research paper. One instructional coach started building a positive relationship by making copies for classroom teacher. Just like the proverbial salesman who had to get a foot in the door, sometimes the first step is a small one.

Just as teachers rarely learn about collaborating with others in their classroom, instructional coaches and others of their stripe are often trained to focus on analyzing student learning data or the technical skills. However, that is only one facet of the coaching role. Gathering and analyzing data is an important aspect of instructional improvement, but it is rarely successful as the first facet.

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Steven M. Baule, Ed.D., Ph.D., Faculty Member, Winona State University & Natalie Ulloa, Instructional Coach, Grades 8-12

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How to build relationships with instructional coaches

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Teaching at any level can often be a solitary occupation. Even with a classroom full of students, teachers often work in isolation from peers. Teachers rarely receive instruction on how to work with co-teachers or teacher assistants in their pre-service teacher education programs. Therefore, it is often difficult or awkward for teachers to ask for help or effectively collaborate with others.

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Are you as good at things as you think you are? How good are you at managing money? What about reading people's emotions? How healthy are you compared to other people you know? Are you better than average at grammar? Knowing how competent we are and how are skill stack up against other people's is more than a self-esteem boost. It helps us figure out when we can forge ahead on our own decisions and instincts and when we need, instead, to seek out advice. But psychological research suggests that we're not very good at evaluating ourselves accurately. In fact, we frequently overestimate our own abilities. Researchers have a name for this phenomena, the Dunning-Kruger effect. This effect explains why more than 100 studies have shown that people display illusory superiority. We judge ourselves as better than others to a degree that violates the laws of math. When software engineers at two companies were asked to rate their performance, 32% of the engineers at one company and 42% at the other put themselves in the top 5%. In another study, 88% of American drivers described themselves as having above average driving skills. These aren't isolated findings. On average, people tend to rate themselves better than most in disciplines ranging from health, leadership skills, ethics, and beyond. What's particularly interesting is that those with the least ability are often the most likely to overrate their skills to the greatest extent. People measurably poor at logical reasoning, grammar, financial knowledge, math, emotional intelligence, running medical lab tests, and chess all tend to rate their expertise almost as favorably as actual experts do. So who's most vulnerable to this delusion? Sadly, all of us because we all have pockets of incompetence we don't recognize. But why? When psychologists Dunning and Kruger first described the effect in 1999, they argued that people lacking knowledge and skill in particular areas suffer a double curse. First, they make mistakes and reach poor decisions. But second, those same knowledge gaps also prevent them from catching their errors. In other words, poor performers lack the very expertise needed to recognize how badly they're doing. For example, when the researchers studied participants in a college debate tournament, the bottom 25% of teams in preliminary rounds lost nearly four out of every five matches. But they thought they were winning almost 60%. WIthout a strong grasp of the rules of debate, the students simply couldn't recognize when or how often their arguments broke down. The Dunning-Kruger effect isn't a question of ego blinding us to our weaknesses. People usually do admit their deficits once they can spot them. In one study, students who had initially done badly on a logic quiz and then took a mini course on logic were quite willing to label their original performances as awful. That may be why people with a moderate amount of experience or expertise often have less confidence in their abilities. They know enough to know that there's a lot they don't know. Meanwhile, experts tend to be aware of just how knowledgeable they are. But they often make a different mistake: they assume that everyone else is knowledgeable, too. The result is that people, whether they're inept or highly skilled, are often caught in a bubble of inaccurate self-perception. When they're unskilled, they can't see their own faults. When they're exceptionally competent, they don't perceive how unusual their abilities are. So if the Dunning-Kruger effect is invisible to those experiencing it, what can you do to find out how good you actually are at various things? First, ask for feedback from other people, and consider it, even if it's hard to hear. Second, and more important, keep learning. The more knowledgeable we become, the less likely we are to have invisible holes in our competence. Perhaps it all boils down to that old proverb: When arguing with a fool, first make sure the other person isn't doing the same thing.

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David Dunning: Why incompetent people think they're amazing

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How good are you with money? What about reading people's emotions? How healthy are you, compared to other people you know? Knowing how our skills stack up against others is useful in many ways. But psychological research suggests that we're not very good at evaluating ourselves accurately.

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All of you know your advice monster.

Somebody starts telling you about something. Even though you don't really know the situation or the people involved and you certainly don't have the full context, after about 10 seconds your advice monster is like, "Oh, oh, oh, I've got something to say here."

I caught up with a friend of mine a while ago. She's smart, she's brilliant, and she's talented.

After we did the usual warm-up chitchat, she looked at me and said, "Michael, you're a good guy. I need your advice."
My advice monster was delighted.
She started telling me what was going on, and I started to pretend to listen because, quite frankly, my advice monster already knew exactly what I wanted to tell her.

Finally, she finished so I was able to share my brilliant advice - and make no mistake it was brilliant. But my advice went nowhere; my advice monster had sabotaged the conversation.

The problem isn't with giving advice. Instead, the problem is when giving advice becomes our default response.

There are three ways that advice giving goes bad:

First, we're often solving the wrong problem. We get seduced into thinking the first challenge that shows up is the real challenge - but it almost never is.

Second, our advice is not nearly as good as we think it is. If you're thinking to yourself, "No, no. My advice is magnificent," I suggest you watch a video on cognitive bias. It will explain we think we're amazing at things even though we aren't.

Third, if you have an advice monster - and if I can be clear, we all have an advice monster - holding the responsibility of having to have all the answers and save the person and save the day is exhausting, frustrating, and overwhelming. And for the person who's on the receiving end of your advice monster, they're getting the message that they can't figure this out by themselves, which cuts away at their sense of confidence and autonomy.

We're constantly feeding our advice monsters, and they're insatiable. As soon as somebody starts talking, your advice monster looms up and goes "Oh, I'm going to add some value to this conversation, yes I am!" You need to learn to tame your advice monster, and in order to tame it, you have to understand it.

As it turns out, your advice monster has three different personas:

I call the first persona "Tell It." Tell It is the loudest of the three, it's convinced you the only way that you can add value is to have all the answers. Because if you don't have all the answers, then you fail.

The second persona is subtle; it's called "Save It." Save It has put its arm around you and said, "Your only job is to rescue everybody - don't let anybody stumble, struggle or have a difficult time. If anybody struggles at all, you fail." Parents might recognize that one.

The third of the personas - and the sneakiest of the three - is "Control It." Control It has convinced you the only way you win is to maintain control at all times. If anybody else takes over control, even just a little bit, then you (and they) will definitely fail.

Now there's something that connects all three of these personas. In that moment when your advice monster is speaking, it's saying that you are better than the other person and that they're not good enough. But it's not only the other person that is diminished; you are, too. You've lost that connection to your humanity, to your empathy, to your compassion, and to your sense of vulnerability.

To tame your advice monster, what you want to do is replace your advice-giving habit with a new habit: Staying curious. It's as simple - and as difficult - as that.

Questions are the kindling of curiosity. Let me share with you the three questions that I wish I'd asked my friend when she said she wanted my advice:
The first question: "What is the real challenge here for you?"
This recognizes that neither of you know what's going on at the start of a conversation. It repositions you to help the other person find the really important issue, not provide them with a fast, wrong answer.
The second question: "What else?"
This holds the insight that the first answer your friend will give you is never their only answer and it's rarely their best answer. This will help you go deeper and further on any question you ask.
The third question: "What do you want?"
It's a difficult question, but it's so powerful. When a person can get clear on what they want, it becomes their foundation for action. When they know what they want, they get to step towards that with autonomy and confidence.

When you're able to stay curious, you begin to empower people not by giving them the answer but by helping them find their own answer, and not by rescuing them but by helping them find their own path.

This article was adapted from a TEDxUniversityofNevada talk. Watch it here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Bungay Stanier is the founder of Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that helps organizations transform from advice-driven to curiosity-led. He is also the author of the bestselling book The Coaching Habit. Before founding Box of Crayons, Michael held senior positions in the corporate, consultancy and agency worlds. He has lived and worked in Australia, the UK, the US and Canada.
This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It's part of the "How to Be a Better Human" series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

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Somebody starts telling you about something. Even though you don't really know the situation or the people involved and you certainly don't have the full context, after about 10 seconds your advice monster is like, "Oh, oh, oh, I've got something to say here." I caught up with a friend of mine a while ago.

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How to have better, deeper conversations

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It’s happened to all of us. You’re sitting down for dinner with an old friend to catch up. You’re in the middle of sharing an anecdote when their phone dings. Their eyes shift to the screen, and th…

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Free Resource: Communication Profile PDFs » Instructional Coaching Group

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In order to successfully do something, like coach a perfectionist teacher, you need knowledge and skill-and your own emotional intelligence. I've written about this concept (the Gaps) here and here. So in order to coach a perfectionist teacher, you've got to know what perfectionism is, and then you need some skills to respond to this tendency, and then you need awareness of your own emotional experience in coaching a perfectionist. Therefore, because this is a big topic to unpack, this is the first of three blogs on coaching the perfectionist teacher. The next two blogs will come out this week!

What Is Perfectionism?

At the heart of perfectionism is a belief that, in order to be loved and accepted, we must strive to act and be the best all the time. Our very worth as a human being is tied to our perfection. The pursuit of perfection consumes a great deal of time and energy because every time we feel shame, blame, or criticism, our response is, I wasn't perfect enough. So let me be more perfect next time.

Perfectionists:

Get upset when someone else or life in general doesn't measure up to how they think things "should" be

Have uncompromising rules about how things should or must be

Blame themselves and others for things that aren't under their control or the control of others

Think in black-and-white terms

Quickly discount positives

Are relentlessly hard on others and on themselves and hold rigidly high and unrealistic standards

Use the word should a lot

Claim they're "not a perfectionist"-they just have high standards

Is Perfectionism an Emotion?

Perfectionism is not actually considered to be an emotion but, rather, a dysfunctional emotional tendency. It is one of the most challenging emotional tendencies to confront, but, left unchecked, it can be physically and emotionally damaging. Perfectionism has been associated with increased stress, physical health problems, mental-health issues, and a high risk of burnout.

If you suspect you're a perfectionist, it's worth getting some professional support to uncover the roots of this tendency. Perfectionism is about self-worth, and many perfectionists had childhood experiences that led them to doubt their self-worth.

The Dangers of Perfectionism

Here is why perfectionism is so dangerous: There is no such thing as perfect, at least among humans. We make mistakes, and without mistakes, we would have little chance to learn or grow or adapt to new situations. So perfectionists are always striving for the impossible, and when they inevitably fail, they experience a surge of difficult emotions-shame, inadequacy, fear, anger. These hurt the perfectionists as well as those around them.

Perfectionism shouldn't be confused with a commitment to excellence and a strong work ethic. You can have tremendous energy, conscientiousness, and persistence and not be a perfectionist. Perfectionism is about seeking external validation, whereas healthy striving is all about internal drive. A healthy striver has high expectations and commits to a task while also making mistakes and knowing that those mistakes don't indicate a personal flaw. A perfectionist's sense of self-worth is overly tied to external praise and accomplishments.

Perfectionism is not a protective shield; rather, it stops someone from being seen. Brené Brown is an expert on perfectionism, and I highly recommend her TED Talk, books, and speeches.

Part 2 of this series: Eleven Strategies to Coach the Perfectionist Teacher!

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How to Coach the Perfectionist Teacher: Understanding Perfectionism (Part 1) (Opinion)

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In order to successfully do something, like coach a perfectionist teacher, you need knowledge and skill-and your own emotional intelligence. I've written about this concept (the Gaps) here and here. So in order to coach a perfectionist teacher, you've got to know what perfectionism is, and then you need some skills to respond to this tendency, and then you need awareness of your own emotional experience in coaching a perfectionist.

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When Vivek Murthy was chosen to be the nation's 19th surgeon general in 2014, he anticipated, as he explains in his book Together (2020), that he would direct his attention to concerns like obesity, tobacco-related diseases, mental illness, or other frequently discussed health issues. To ensure he was addressing the top health concerns, Murthy conducted a listening tour across the country. When he asked people to talk about their health, he repeatedly heard about one topic he hadn't expected. "Loneliness," Murthy writes, "ran like a dark thread through many of the more obvious issues that people brought to my attention, like addiction, violence, anxiety, and depression" (p. xv).

In Together, Murthy reveals the scale of the loneliness problem by sharing some statistics. In a 2018 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 22 percent of U.S. adults said they "often or always feel lonely." An AARP study (Frank, 2018) using UCLA's loneliness scale reported that one out of three American adults over the age of 45 are lonely.

Studies from several other countries show that pervasive loneliness isn't confined to the United States. All these studies were done before the pandemic, but I think we can safely assume that loneliness hasn't gone down since COVID-19 arrived. What these statistics imply is that the next time you sit in a meeting with a small group of fellow educators, at least three and maybe more of the people gathered feel chronically alone.

One antidote to loneliness is connection through conversation. It's as true for K-12 educators as anyone that a single conversation can help you feel heard and seen, breathe life into your existence, and show you that you aren't alone. That's why I've spent much of my professional life studying and writing about communication, particularly in my book Better Conversations (Corwin, 2015).

Conversation is especially important in schools-even more so during the pandemic, which has brought with it so much uncertainty and forced isolation. The quality of the conversations that occur in schools can profoundly affect children and adults. Indeed, the best way to improve what happens in schools, might be to improve the way we talk with both children and adults.

But there's a problem: Many of us want to be better communicators, but again and again we fall back into old habits that thwart real communication. We know what we should do, we just don't do it. I often fall into this trap myself.

To better understand how people might persist in changes toward having deeper exchanges, I established the Life-Giving Conversations Project at the Instructional Coaching Group. We study what happens when people try to adopt simple, life-giving communication habits. The project is just starting, but I'm confident we have identified one habit that can radically improve anyone's conversations. What is that habit? Put away your phone.

To realize why this is central, consider what Sherry Turkle, an expert on how technology affects personal relationships and interactions, says in Reclaiming Conversation (2015). Turkle acknowledges that technology has many advantages, but also describes the negative impact addictive use of a smartphone can have:

We are somehow more lonely than before ... our children are less empathetic than they should be for their age, and ... it seems nearly impossible to have an uninterrupted conversation at a family dinner. We catch ourselves not looking into the eyes of our children or taking the time to talk with them just to have a few more hits of our email. (p. 12)

I've been studying conversations with a small group of dedicated adults who've been putting their phones away on a regular basis just to see what difference it makes. Every day, my research partners and I identify when we will put our phones away. At the end of the day, we write a few notes in a journal to record what went well and what we'll do differently the next day.

Everyone involved is finding that putting away our phones seems to be making a big difference. We're having deeper, better, more joyful and more important conversations. At home or at work, in casual friendships or committed relationships, stepping away from your phone can transform surface interactions into conversations that build authentic connection.

But while putting the phone away is an easy physical task, for many people, it's still not easy to do. Many of us struggle to go five minutes without glancing at our phone. If the phone bings or buzzes, trying to ignore it can feel like sitting beside warm, chocolate chip cookies when we're dieting; it's hard to resist just one look. One look becomes a short check for texts, and then email, and, well, just a few minutes on Instagram-and suddenly our conversation is over.

Fortunately, there are a few simple things you can do to make it easier to adopt this new conversation-enhancing habit:

We'll never completely get rid of our smartphones-and we shouldn't. Having a video communication system; the world's largest library of books, music, and videos; and access to millions of apps and games on a pocket-sized device is a wonder. We'd be silly not to use such devices. However, if administrators, coaches, and teachers just put their phones away during important conversations, they could experience the kind of connection that can help others-and themselves-feel less alone. Given the scale of the loneliness crisis, this habit might seem trivial, but I believe it can transform your relationships. I'm hoping it will transform mine.

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The Learning Zone / One Habit that Improves Conversation Skills - ASCD

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When Vivek Murthy was chosen to be the nation's 19th surgeon general in 2014, he anticipated, as he explains in his book Together (2020), that he would direct his attention to concerns like obesity, tobacco-related diseases, mental illness, or other frequently discussed health issues. To ensure he w

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"Thanks for the feedback."
This phrase can be expressed with gratitude and appreciation, or, uttered with disdain and contempt. What makes the difference?

Feedback is a constant in our lives from birth. It can be both formal and informal, and can take the form of evaluations, coaching, grading, criticisms and advice, relating to our work, relationships, parenting, appearance, or schooling. We know that feedback is essential, however, we often dread it, and can even dismiss it. Receiving feedback is so crucial, yet so challenging.

Giving and receiving feedback are some of life's most difficult conversations. Have you ever noticed this? When we give feedback, we observe that the receiver isn't good at receiving it. When we receive feedback, we observe that the giver isn't good at giving it. So the problem with feedback lies with the other person, doesn't it? These perceptions are common, yet through their research, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen (Thanks for the Feedback, 2014) found that the key person in a feedback conversation is not the giver, it is actually the receiver. The ability to receive feedback well is a skill that can be cultivated--and given that we can't avoid receiving feedback, it is a necessary skill.

There are barriers to receiving feedback well, triggers that will interfere with our ability to engage in a feedback conversation skillfully and thoughtfully. There are three main triggers that block feedback: Truth Triggers, Relationship Triggers, and Identity Triggers. Each is set off for a different reason and each provokes a different set of reactions and responses.

Truth Triggers are set off by the content of the feedback itself--we believe it's not helpful or simply untrue. In response, we can feel irritated, resentful, or wronged. Truth triggers make it hard to see--see the type of feedback; see what the giver means, and see ourselves clearly. Seeing the type of feedback means we need to work out the giver's purpose. Are we getting appreciation (thanks), coaching (how to improve), or evaluation (how you add value)? Seeing what the giver means requires us to understand their perspective and we may need further clarification to help us interpret their view--to look through a "tell me more" lens. Seeing ourselves clearly takes vulnerability and a willingness to see our blind spots, which is challenging! We need to be open to discovering how we come across to others. I was recently told by a colleague that I come across as standoffish to new people. What I know to be insecurity and reserve, others perceive as formal, distant, and even unfriendly. It was quite confronting to hear, and I had to acknowledge that how I see myself didn't align with how others see me.

Relationship Triggers are set off by something about the person who is giving the feedback, or how we feel we are treated by that person. Maybe we think the person lacks credibility or is untrustworthy; we could feel they don't appreciate or are blaming us. We are often more triggered by who is giving us feedback than by the feedback itself. I can attest that a damaged relationship increases the challenge of receiving feedback well. I find myself either begrudgingly accepting the feedback, but then essentially disregarding it regardless of its validity, or reacting emotionally to the feedback instead of responding rationally. In order to overcome relationship triggers, we need to separate the what from the who. If we switch the focus from their feedback to us, to our feedback to them, the one "who" overrides the "what" and the original feedback is blocked. We also need to identify the relationship system and understand the dynamic, and how each person contributes to the problems within the relationship. Again, vulnerability is vital in order to take responsibility for the role we play and be willing to discover the changes we can make.

Identity Triggers are set off when we feel the feedback is threatening, we're off balance and our defense mechanisms kick in. Identity is the story we tell ourselves about who we are--so when we receive feedback that disputes this story, we react. We need to understand the common biological wiring patterns and our own temperament to gain insight into why you react as you do, and why others don't react the way you expect them to. Identity triggers are by far my greatest barrier to receiving feedback. A journey of self-reflection has helped me understand my wiring and reactions when my identity is threatened.As a people-pleaser, with a healthy dose of over-achiever and perfectionism (driven by shame), a regular part of my thought patterns for most of my life has revolved around questioning if I was good enough--my self-worth. Did I do enough? Did I do it right? What if I make a mistake? Do I deserve this? Am I worth it? With all of these culminating in the big, shame-driven driven question: what will people think? This is the perfect combination, when fueled by emotion, for the story I tell myself about what feedback means to become distorted. Feedback about how I can improve in one aspect of my teaching can become 'they think I'm a bad teacher. An observation that a student was off task can become "they think I have poor behavior management." I'm positive neither of these scenarios is true, yet I have a tendency to respond by exaggerating the words from the giver. We need to work to correct our distorted thinking and see feedback at the actual size. Being able to keep feedback in perspective allows us to engage and learn from it. Cultivating a growth identity, where we understand that our identity story traits aren't fixed, helps us see feedback as valuable input for learning and growing.

After reading this, it may appear that ensuring a feedback conversation is successful is the sole responsibility of the person receiving the feedback. We all know this is not true, and there are many skills required to effectively give feedback. The message here for those giving feedback is that being aware of, and open to understanding, feedback triggers is just as important for givers as well as receivers of feedback. Know the person you are giving feedback to, what are their ways of knowing; how do they prefer to receive feedback; what type of feedback are they asking for? In an education setting, whether it be within an instructional or collegial coaching cycle, or as part of an evaluation process, have a pre-coaching and/or evaluation meeting and make finding this out a part of the conversation. Creating a culture where feedback is sought after, welcomed and taken on board, and not simply endured because it has to be, can be transformative and have a profound impact on all stakeholders.

So the next time you say, "Thanks for the feedback," how do you mean it?

Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts , Brene Brown, 2018

Lead Like a PIRATE: Make School Amazing for Your Students and Staff, Shelley Burgess and Beth Houf, 2017

Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, 2014

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"Thanks for the feedback." This phrase can be expressed with gratitude and appreciation, or, uttered with disdain and contempt. What makes the difference? Feedback is a constant in our lives from birth. It can be both formal and informal, and can take the form of evaluations, coaching, grading, criticisms and advice, relating to our work, relationships, parenting, appearance, or schooling.

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It's easiest to broker touchy conversations when evaluation is not part of the picture - when the coach is not in a formal evaluative role of teachers and when the principal is not the evaluator for the coach. Of course, there are many instances when one or both of these are not the case, and these require even more caution and care.Let me offer an example and some possible steps forward: One problem you may be recognizing is teacher burnout. Although teacher attrition is a longstanding concern, the post-pandemic climate has resulted in an exodus of teachers from the profession. If plans for next year seem out of step with teachers' stamina, it may be worth offering your perspective to the principal. But you'll want to carefully consider both if and how to broach the topic.

Coaches sometimes act in the tenuous but valuable role of liaison, connecting teachers and administrators in ways that increase success. When something is amiss, serving as a liaison requires careful consideration. If you are aware of a situation that may need attention, you'll want to think carefully about whether there's a part you should play in this process. Relationships are the foundation of coaching, and liaising may put relationships at risk. First, ask yourself:
· Would my administrator want to be aware of this concern?

· Are there things the principal could potentially do about it?

Even if the answer to the second question is, "No," it might still be helpful to have the discussion. If the answer to both questions is "Yes," you As an instructional coach, you are always thinking about what's best for kids. That's the bottom line. And as a liaison, you also consider what's best for teachers and administrators. Ultimately, supporting both administrators and teachers is in the best interest of students.may be the right one to broach the topic.

Discussing touchy topics can strain relationships, so the conversation better be worth potential tension, and a positive outcome should seem tenable. Be sure you think about:

· : Ask yourself, "What Confidentiality can I say without breaching confidences? What should I avoid saying so that I don't cast a teacher in a potentially negative light? Make general statements without naming names, but phrase things in a way that doesn't leave the principal wondering, "Who said that?"

· Positive presentation Cast teachers in a favorable light. In the example of overburdened teachers, for example, be sure to emphasize how hard teachers are working, offering specific examples.

· Positive assumptions : Go into the conversations with the attitude that both the principal and the teachers are doing their best and want everyone involved to be satisfied with the outcome. You'll want to make sure your own positive assumptions are evidence as well.

· : The liaison role is all about trust. You are willing to consider this conversation because you care. The trust you have built through previous interactions makes the role of liaison possible.

With these characteristics of the situation in mind, decide whether the discussion you are contemplating is worth the risk. If the chance for a favorable outcome seems high, plan for the conversation. Considering different approaches and anticipating possible responses will help you feel more confidence and increase the potential for success.

Remember all the coaching moves in the GIR model (model, recommend, question, affirm, and praise)? Your skill with some of these moves can come in handy as you talk with an administrator about a touchy topic.You might want to start with Next you might be ready to broach the topic you've been worrying about. It's helpful if you can Next, you might If it feels right, you might even Notice how the sequence outlined above moves in the opposite order of the way we think about moves in the GIR model. When approaching a school leader, it can help to lay some groundwork that acknowledges their decision-making role.If you chose to play the role of liaison, contemplate how the administrator might react to your insights and ideas and what you can do to increase the odds that they will be well-received. How will you temper the conversation to ensure that you abide by the ancient principle, "First, do no harm"?
praise. You can acknowledge how hard the principal is working, with specific evidence. For example, that appeal to the school board for funds to repair the playground really paid off. Maybe the principal took on an extra school fundraiser requested by the PTO, and you saw her sorting orders and counting cash herself - that was a lot of extra time! Or you noticed how she scrambled to make sure classes were covered when three teachers were out and no subs were available. If praise is sincere and specific, it sets a positive tone. connect it first to your own work. In the example about overburdened teachers, you might say, "I've noticed that teachers have a lot on their plates right now, and there are some new initiatives being rolled out in the fall. I'm worried that teachers may not have the energy for coaching." Making connections to your own needs gives a context for why you are bringing up the topic. It doesn't point a finger at teachers. What might your principal say when you pause after this connection? Think it through. ask a question that encourages the principal to brainstorm some things that could be done or changed. In the overburdened teacher scenario, you might say something like, "Teachers are going to have a lot of plates to spin in the fall. There's the state's expectations for PLC work, the new district reading curriculum that will include lots of trainings, and the focus on inclusion from SpEd. Do you think there's anything that could be taken off their plates? make a recommendation about the situation, asking, "Would you mind if I suggest something?"

This week, you might want to take a look at:
Prioritizing educators' well-being:

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It's easiest to broker touchy conversations when evaluation is not part of the picture - when the coach is not in a formal evaluative role of teachers and when the principal is not the evaluator for the coach.

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How to become a better listener, according to science

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How well and frequently you listen to others is a better predictor of your leadership potential than your actual intelligence or personality.

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Learning Forward provides hundreds of resources for instructional coaches around the globe.

On this page you will find some of our most popular articles, blogs, webinars, and tools, all designed for you to download and use in your daily practice.

Scroll down to search through coaching-specific resources to find answers to your most pressing challenges, or click here to search for other topics in addition to coaching.

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Learning Forward provides hundreds of resources for instructional coaches around the globe. On this page you will find some of our most popular articles, blogs, webinars, and tools, all designed for you to download and use in your daily practice.

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Years of research indicate teachers who receive instructional coaching improve their quality of instruction and make gains in student achievement.

The Effect of Teacher Coaching on Instruction and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence was conducted by researchers Matthew A. Kraft, associate professor at Brown University, and David Blazar, assistant professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. The 60 studies examined were randomized controlled trials focused on students' standardized test scores and measures of teachers' instructional practices as rated by outside observers.

The researchers found instructional coaching had a greater impact on instruction than almost all school-based interventions including student incentives, teacher pre-service training, merit-based pay, general professional development, data-driven instruction, and extended learning time. In fact, they determined the quality of teachers' instruction improves by as much or even more than the difference in effectiveness between a new teacher and one with five to 10 years of experience. Similarly, student performance improved with instructional coaching regardless of whether a teacher was a novice or veteran.

Instructional coaching versus traditional professional development

School districts spend a large amount of money on professional development (PD) programs. Teachers attend these sessions after school, on weekends, and during the summer. Despite the widespread use of these types of programs, the typical PD program can be too generic to meet teachers' needs, leaving room for improvement and rarely showing a positive impact on student outcomes.

To personalize PD, school districts have started to hire instructional coaches to help teachers develop their expertise. Instructional coaching occurs during classroom instruction where instructional coaches observe teachers, model teach, provide feedback, and engage in meaningful discussion with teachers about their lessons and student learning. Instructional coaches can provide support in lesson planning and facilitate collaboration among teachers. The integration of coaching activities in a teacher's day-to-day activities at the campus is much more effective than traditional PD workshop sessions.

Staffing considerations

Researchers Kraft and Blazar did find a catch-large-scale coaching programs are less effective than smaller ones. This is consistent with theory of diminishing effects as programs are taken to scale. "The challenge of recruiting, developing, and supporting a larger staff of coaches is hard for districts to do," Kraft said.

Districts may benefit with starting small, involving teachers who have a desire and motivation to participate, and tailoring coaching to individual needs. Larger programs requiring mandatory participation that are not individualized may be less effective especially if the teachers are not invested in the coaching process. However, it's important to note that even larger coaching programs had meaningful and statistically significant impacts on student achievement.

Staffing instructional coaches who are able to build relationships with teachers, understand good teaching practices, have experience with adult learners, and know how to use data are some of the skills associated with effective coaches, according to the New Teacher Center, an organization which helps districts implement coaching and induction programs. A sample job description outlining these required skills and responsibilities is available to HR Services members in the Model Job Descriptions. Using a job description will help coaches and teachers have a clear understanding of the role and purpose of instructional coaches. An additional consideration is how many teachers one instructional coach can effectively support at one time. Districts may want to limit the ratio of teachers to instructional coaches as well as leverage technology to take advantage of virtual coaching. Research found there was little difference in the effectiveness of coaching programs online versus face-to-face. The use of technology allows feedback from a virtual coach minimizing the increase in personnel costs. This solution has become particularly popular with rural districts.

Staffing instructional coaches is costly. Districts will need to rethink how they are spending their professional development funds and perhaps reallocate some money for staffing and training instructional coaches. Also, creating a culture in which teachers are open to feedback and buy into the instructional coaching model is necessary for a program to be successful.

Impact on teacher practices and student learning

Having an effective teacher providing quality instruction in every classroom greatly impacts student learning. Providing more personalized support to teachers through instructional coaching can help increase the number of effective teachers in the classroom. Instructional coaching programs have the potential to improve practices in a way that many teacher professional development programs have not been able to do.
Cheryl Hoover is an HR consultant at TASB HR Services. Send Cheryl an email at cheryl.hoover@tasb.org.
Stay up to date with all the latest HR news and trends by joining the HRX mailing list!

Tagged: "Employee performance", Hiring, "Job descriptions", "Professional development"

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Years of research indicate teachers who receive instructional coaching improve their quality of instruction and make gains in student achievement. The Effect of Teacher Coaching on Instruction and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence was conducted by researchers Matthew A. Kraft, associate professor at Brown University, and David Blazar, assistant professor at the University of Maryland, College Park.

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During this time of teacher shortages, it is tempting to leave instructional coaching vacancies unfilled in favor of placing-or keeping-those promising experienced candidates in classrooms. Especially now, when pulling teachers out of their classrooms for professional learning is no longer a viable option, instructional coaching is even more critical to meeting the learning needs of both teachers and students. The better option is to fill your coaching positions and accelerate improvement that benefits both novice and experienced teachers.

Research indicates that all teachers can benefit from coaching, both novice and experienced (Killion & Harrison, p.3). Coaching improves instructional practices in ways that other professional development cannot and research links those improvements to student outcomes (Hover, 2020).

''Coaching improves instructional practices in ways that other professional development cannot & research links those improvements to student outcomes (Hover, 2020).'' Click To Tweet
Novice teachers gain confidence & competency
New teachers benefit from support in contextualizing preservice classroom learning into the complex environment of a classroom where they must manage multiple priorities at once (student relationships, cultural awareness, classroom management, and student safety, to name just a few)-while still responsively conveying content to learners. Bambrick-Santoyo (p. 3) notes, "If we don't invest in the development of today's teachers, we're putting a greater-than-ever proportion of our students at an unacceptable disadvantage. And first-year teacher development is paramount because it not only ensures that these educators will be more focused, confident, and capable, but also guarantees consistent student achievement from year to year." Providing high-quality instructional coaching to new teachers ensures their effectiveness will increase rapidly and steadily-far faster than without coaching.

In particular, a coach offers a novice teacher insight gleaned from the coach's own experience with both classroom management and content expertise. Kraft and Blazar (2018, p. 71) note research shows "Teachers with strong behavior-management skills and the ability to deliver cognitively demanding, error-free content produce substantively and substantially larger student-achievement gains than other teachers without these skills." That means students, even those sitting in a teacher's very first classroom, will benefit from coach's contribution to the novice's accelerated improvement. In short, novice teachers will become better, faster, with coaching.
Master teachers pull from experience
Experienced teachers, too, benefit from coaching. When an instructional coach works with an experienced teacher, they use reflective questioning to help that teacher call forward their own hard-won experience and use it to better anticipate and inform instructional planning and delivery for this year's students (Greene, 2018). They can support teachers in bringing data and experience together to understand where unfinished learning lurks and how it might impact a student's trajectory toward mastery of new content. They can also help experienced teachers anticipate common misconceptions students might develop during the learning of new content and consider how best to recognize them quickly and help students to address mistaken understandings before the material shows up on a test. Coaches support experienced teachers by helping them bring all their experience and expertise into conversation with the data available in order to plan proactively for the success of all learners.

Many experienced teachers firmly believe that an instructional day away from their students is time lost. These master teachers expect that coaches are available to partner with them in their own classrooms during instruction, where the real learning-for both adults and students-takes place. We've long had research documenting that job-embedded professional learning is highly effective at increasing implementation of new learning and creating instructional change (Croft et al.2010). Instructional coaching has an essential role to play in meeting the learning needs of both teachers and students. Leaving a coaching position unfilled now is a missed opportunity to support high-quality collaborative professional learning and foster an organizational culture of continuous learning. Intentionally hiring and using instructional coaches will mitigate the effects of teacher shortages and lack of professional learning time.

''Leaving a coaching position unfilled now is a missed opportunity to support high-quality collaborative professional learning & foster an organizational culture of continuous learning.'' @SharronHelmke Click To Tweet

Sources

Bambrick-Santoyo, P. (n.d.) How to Effectively Coach New Teachers and why First Year Support is Critical to Everyone's Success. Jossey-Bass Learn. https://www.wiley.com/learn/jossey-bass/pdf/how-to-effectively-coach%20new-teachers.pdf

Croft, A., Coggshall, J.G., Dollan, M., Powers, E., Killion, J. (April 2020). Job-Embedded Professional Development: What It Is, Who Is Responsible, and How to Get It Done Well. https://learningforward.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/job-embedded-professional-development.pdf

Greene, K. (1 March, 2018). A Coach for Every Teacher. ASCD https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/a-coach-for-every-teacher

Hoover, C. (29 May, 2020). The Impact of Instructional Coaches. TASB https://www.tasb.org/services/hr-services/hrx/recruiting-and-hiring/the-impact-of-instructional-coaches.aspx#:~:text=The%20researchers%20found%20instructional%20coaching,instruction%2C%20and%20extended%20learning%20time

Killion, J. and Harrison, C. Taking the Lead: New Roles for Teachers and School-based Coaches. Ohio: Learning Forward, 2017.

Kraft, M.A., and Blazar, D. (2018). Taking Teacher Coaching to Scale: Can personalized training become standard practice?Education Next, 18(4), 68-74.

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Why Now Is Exactly The Time You Should Be Hiring Instructional Coaches | Learning Forward

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During this time of teacher shortages, it is tempting to leave instructional coaching vacancies unfilled in favor of placing-or keeping-those promising experienced candidates in classrooms. Especially now, when pulling teachers out of their classrooms for professional learning is no longer a viable option, instructional coaching is even more critical to meeting the learning needs of both teachers and students.

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Abstract

Stress or Success?

Easing Burnout Symptoms

How Teachers Become Efficacious

Tools for Guidance

As education leaders reimagine schooling, they are in a propitious moment to create better systems of support.

Credit: Copyright (c) 2017 garetsworkshop/Shutterstock. No use without permission.

Abstract

Stress or Success?

Easing Burnout Symptoms

How Teachers Become Efficacious

Tools for Guidance

I started teaching when I was 21 years old. I grew up in a town of 11,000 people, with an almost entirely white population. As a child, I considered where, not if, I would go to college and joined Teach for America as soon as I graduated. I had a desire to improve the world and narrow the education system's existing opportunity gaps.

But I soon realized just how unprepared I was to manage a classroom, much less one in which many students' academic and social-emotional needs had been chronically underserved and whose cultural norms were different from my own. On my first day of teaching high school in the fall, one of my students took a picture of my butt and the class roared. I had no idea how to respond. In the weeks and months that followed, students regularly made inappropriate comments, ignored me, and put their heads down on their desks. I felt in over my head. My confidence-and my sense of efficacy-evaporated.

Stress or Success?

Being in a job that you're failing at with no clear path to improvement feels like being lost at sea without a lifeline. These feelings are especially pronounced in stressful situations when you have little experienced or observed success to lean on (and teaching consistently ranks among the most stressful professions ). My mindset became one of survival.

I spent my time blindly executing suggestions my school and Teach for America put before me. I wrote lesson plans in a prescribed format, put an agenda on the board every morning, and attempted to conference with kids in the hall when they behaved inappropriately. I tried to create systems to make success visible; my weekly "hot list," where I listed top performers on the previous week's assessments, was a success, but most efforts failed.

I stood at the door during class changes and tried to find ways to get kids out of their seats (like turning worksheets into scavenger hunts). And, of course, I was supposed to assess, grade, and track performance data, all of which I instinctively did in the style that I had observed from my own teachers growing up-one that primarily evaluated rote memorization and focused on performance, as opposed to growth.

I'd like to say I recognized early that my tactics weren't working for most of my students, who simply disengaged from my teacher-centered approach and from the assignments that lacked relevance to their lives. I'd like to say I reassessed priorities and considered my cultural background and the community needs. But I didn't. I plowed along for two years, clinging to small wins, and feeling exhausted, unsuccessful, and frustrated by mentors and coaches who tended to flip requests for help back on me ("What do you think you should do differently?").

In my second year, I remember listening to the REM song, "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and nodding to the lyric ". . .withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy." I still cared deeply about addressing the systemic inequities in education, but I had withdrawn emotionally from the day-to-day work of teaching. I was disgusted with the grueling demands and the weak support I received and also with myself. By my second year of teaching, I left the classroom.

Easing Burnout Symptoms

I began a career in education research in large part to understand what happened during those early teaching years. What should I have done differently? How could the school system have supported me better? Should I have been there at all? If not, who should have been there, and how could education systems have helped them to be successful?

These are big questions, with complex answers. But often nestled in the middle of those answers is teachers' sense of self-efficacy, or teachers' "judgment of his or her capabilities to bring about desired outcomes of student engagement and learning, even among those students who may be difficult or unmotivated" (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001, p. 783).

Conceptual frameworks describing the inputs and outcomes of teacher self-efficacy tend to have bidirectional arrows. That is, scholars recognize that teachers' self-efficacy is complex and necessitates a combination of factors. External stressors, social supports, and teachers' emotional stress responses all influence their self-efficacy, which in turn influences job satisfaction, engagement, and burnout. Teachers with a strong sense of self-efficacy tend to be more engaged and satisfied with their work and less inclined to leave the teaching profession (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2016). Teacher self-efficacy is also linked to student achievement, motivation, and students' own sense of efficacy (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). In short, research makes clear that teacher self-efficacy is positively associated with desirable outcomes for schools.

But teacher self-efficacy tends to have cyclical relationships with other desired outcomes. Self-efficacy leads to success and success supports self-efficacy. So, teachers often find themselves in one of two feedback loops: 1) success that both feeds and is fed by positive beliefs about their ability to succeed, or 2) struggle paired with negative beliefs about their ability to succeed. With 41 percent of teachers leaving the profession in their first five years of teaching (Ingersoll et al., 2018) and particularly large numbers of teachers considering leaving the profession during the COVID-19 pandemic (Zamarro et al., 2021), it's clear that education leaders need to actively position more teachers to develop a sense of efficacy early in their careers.

How Teachers Become Efficacious

This begs the question: How does a teacher become efficacious and successful? The most powerful source of self-efficacy is mastery experience, or having experienced success in the past (Bandura, 1986, 1997). The second is vicarious experience, or observing and learning about others' successes. Some individuals will have had the life experience, education, and intuition to meet early success, even absent intentional systemic supports. But most new teachers will not. Without school-embedded supports, underprepared teachers are likely to cling to, and frantically attempt to replicate, whatever small successes they encounter, however isolated those successes may be from meaningful impact.

So, although teacher efficacy can sound very individualistic and intrapersonal in practice, it results from a combination of experience, mindset, actions, environment, and systems of support. Given this, it's no surprise that collective teacher efficacy, or teachers' belief that the faculty as a whole can have a positive effect on students, has produced effect sizes that are shockingly large (Eells, 2011).Teacher self-efficacy does not emerge solely from good faith, and weak self-efficacy does not mean that a teacher is not capable. Nurturing teacher efficacy requires intentionally constructed systems of support.

The data on the rates at which teachers burn out illustrate that relying on individual initiative is insufficient. When I was teaching, my friend Rob-a master teacher at my school-invited me to observe his class. He was opening a door for me to develop my teacher self-efficacy by having a vicarious experience. But I didn't take him up on the offer. Peer observation wasn't the norm in my school, and I worried that going into his classroom would be disruptive or that the kids would ask questions about why I was there and needed help.

Moreover, Rob and I taught on the same schedule, so observing him required me to find someone to cover my class. I needed more than Rob's kind offer; I needed peer accountability, encouragement, and aligned school-level supports (for example, a clear way to get class coverage during peer observations) to pull me out of my slump.

Tools for Guidance

Administrators approaches' to fostering collective efficacy nearly always have some common traits: they leverage clear collective visions and goals and use data-driven cycles of continuous improvement, trusting relationships, authentic communication, and empowered teachers to reach those goals. Given the complexity of these approaches, collective efficacy requires intentional design and ongoing maintenance from school and district leaders.

To nurture collective efficacy, school leaders can take a few concrete steps. First, they can clearly set and consistently reinforce schoolwide goals and priorities that unite the staff in a meaningful mission that goes beyond test scores or a statement on a banner. For example, a school may prioritize strong staff-student relationships and set a goal of having every student in the school know at least one school staff member they feel comfortable reaching out to in a difficult situation.

Additionally, administrators can support collective efficacy by carving out time for staff to engage in ongoing, embedded, and collaborative professional learning that supports their priorities and goals. Notably, the school where I taught used professional learning communities, which I valued because they provided the opportunity for me to share ideas and build relationships with my colleagues. But the meetings largely stood in isolation from school-level goals, guidance, and supports. The meetings helped me build relationships with my colleagues and to see that I could learn from them, but didn't provide systems and supports with which to do so.

School-level systems integrated with PLCs-for example, regularly scheduled time to build relationships with administrators and regularly communicate team challenges, concerns, and ideas to them-could have made PLC meetings more effective and driven collective efficacy.

As education leaders reimagine schooling in the wake of a pandemic and establish new schedules, structures, and priorities, they are in a propitious moment to create systems to support collective efficacy. Leaders may, for example, create new systems to regularly solicit staff and community feedback using approaches like surveys and focus groups, then thoughtfully respond to what they hear; build intentional time into school schedules for staff relationship-building, sharing, and collaboration; and normalize public practice through supports like structured peer observation and learning walks. The pandemic has created an especially acute need for connection and open listening. This moment of transition presents an opportunity to reimagine how schools can support these needs.

The stakes are high. Chronic feelings of isolation and defeat lead to burnout and teacher turnover, or worse, a school full of burnt-out teachers. And teachers have just experienced two years of increased isolation, stress, and work hours (Diliberti et al., 2021). To serve their communities well, school leaders must prioritize taking ownership over their collective mindsets and ways of work. Indeed, research has demonstrated that doing so is the most expedient path to school success.

References

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman.

Diliberti, M.K., Schwartz, H.L., & Grant, D. (2021). Stress topped the reasons why public school teachers quit, even before COVID-19 (Report No. RR-A1121-2). Rand Corporation.

Eells, R. (2011). Meta-analysis of the relationship between collective teacher efficacy and student achievement (Accession No. 3469968.) [Doctoral dissertation, Loyola University Chicago]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Ingersoll, R. M., Merrill, E., Stuckey, D., & Collins, G. (2018). Seven trends: The transformation of the teaching force (CPRE Research Reports). Consortium for Policy Research in Education, University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/cpre_researchreports/108/

Skaalvik, E.M., & Skaalvik, S. (2016). Teacher stress and teacher self-efficacy as predictors of engagement, emotional exhaustion, and motivation to leave the teaching profession. Creative Education, 7(13), p. 1785-1799. Retrieved from https://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2016.713182

Tschannen-Moran, M., & Hoy, A.W. (2001). Teacher efficacy: capturing an elusive construct. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(7), p. 783-805.

Zamarro, G., Camp, A., Fuchsman, D., & McGee, J. B. (2021). Understanding how COVID-19 has Changed Teachers' Chances of Remaining in the Classroom. Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

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Nurturing Collective Efficacy in Changing Times - ASCD

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I started teaching when I was 21 years old. I grew up in a town of 11,000 people, with an almost entirely white population. As a child, I considered where, not if, I would go to college and joined Teach for America as soon as I graduated.

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Find new ideas and classic advice on strategy, innovation and leadership, for global leaders from the world’s best business and management experts.

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Professional Development + Video = A Simple Equation for Effective Teacher Learning - Edthena

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Teacher learning is easier than ever with video. Press ‘play’ with these ideas and insights about professional development from Doug Fisher.

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Elena Aguilar on what coaching can unpack | #PLtogether

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Evaluating vs. Coaching Teachers... Do You Know the Difference? - #PLtogether - powered by Edthena - Professional Development for Distanced Teaching

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Are you truly coaching teachers or just evaluating them? Watch this interview to find out the difference.

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In part 3 of this 4-part interview, Center for School Transformation CAO & Professor Megan Tschannen-Moran talks about compassionate communication with teachers and how to meet their needs with empathy.

Watch the interview video on compassionate communication above, or read the interview transcript below.

Compassionate communication: Are you correcting or connecting?

- Welcome to another PL Together Lounge Talk. I'm Adam Geller, founder and CEO of Edthena, the video coaching platform that helps you streamline feedback to teachers. Today, we're talking with Megan Tschannen-Moran. She's a professor at William and Mary, and also has experience as a founding principal of an elementary school in Chicago. Megan, thanks so much for joining us.

- So glad to be here, thanks Adam.

- Well, I want to talk a little bit more. You've written books about coaching and coaching models, and I know one of the things that you write about is this idea of compassionate communication. So maybe let's start. I think it was on maybe a poster or a blog post that you had, it was the game of who's right verse the realm of possibilities. So what does compassion communication, but what does that phrase mean and how should I be internalizing that to kind of changing my behavior?

- Well, our model of empathy in our coaching model really is grounded in the work of Marshall Rosenberg and the process that he called non-violent communication. And there was a history how he came to call it that. But yeah, it's a process that I have come to value a great deal in my own personal life and sharing it with others. And I think it has proven to be a really powerful part of our coaching model. So extending empathy, especially when we're inviting people to tippy toe into unknown territory, which is what learning is involved, and sometimes that goes great and sometimes it's a little scary and sometimes it doesn't go so great. And so we as coaches can come alongside of the people we're coaching through all those ups and downs, through all of us, but if we're not attuned to how people are feeling about it, and then the underlying needs that are attached to those feelings, then we're really missing a big part of the coaching project. So to come back to your question about playing the game of who's right, that goes back to an insight from Marshall Rosenberg and he said, we all know how to play the game of who's right, it's the game where everybody loses. And so that's when we get into a space of judging other people this is right, this is wrong, this was inappropriate, you are rude. She's crazy, whatever. If we get into that kind of space, we're in a space of disconnection from the other person. And very likely as we engage with them with the kind of thinking that they're somehow wrong or bad or crazy or sick for the strategies that they're implementing that we're not enjoying. We put them into a space of defensiveness. So job one just got, let me defend my honor. And I'm not that interested now in a joint project of coming together with you in connection to open up the realm of possibility, figuring out what's a win-win situation look like if we're kind of at loggerheads with each other, or how can we move our collective work of the school forward? So what we want to do is to create a space where we're in connection. So the sort of first phase of the empathy process is if we are engaging with somebody that we're aware has stimulated some emotions and feelings for us, we have a choice to either connect or correct. And if we're correct, we're moving into that game of who's right. But if we choose to connect, we're going to choose to follow the path of empathy, figuring out what's going on with them. As coaches, what we say, the self-empathy is something we're gonna do on our own time, that's private. But if we're feeling really annoyed with this person, if we can't get past that, we're probably not gonna be an effective coach for them. So we need to figure out what's going on. Or as I mentioned, if we see a teacher in observation and things that just make us cringe going on, we need to have some self-empathy. Like that was really painful to watch that. And my heart's going out to these students who are not being well-served perhaps or whatever it is, but in coaching, our job is really just to be attentive to what's going on with the person we're coaching. So we need to deal with that on our own time, and then show up to our coaching, ready to really be empathic to try to figure out what are the feelings that are going on with this person? What are the underlying needs that are provoking those emotions, those feelings, and how can we move forward? So my husband, I collaborated with my husband in writing our evocative coaching book because he was trained as a business and life coach. And when we started having coaches in schools like wow, there's this whole body of knowledge of professional business and life coaches. And we should use it, but we didn't seem like we were tapping into that body of knowledge at all. We've just like, started from scratch and just missed a lot of the wisdom is there. But when he was starting, he was involved in his coach training. One of the principles of coaching was people are doing the best they can. And my response was, no they're not, like people don't just get a pass, like that's not right. You gotta do better, but as we work together in this model, and we had some discussions about this, I really came to the belief that people really are doing the best they can, that if the strategies that they are engaged in to get their needs met are so inadequate and so ineffective. Why would anybody do that? So if I desperately want help and support of my colleagues, but the only way I know how to ask is to say you idiot, what's wrong with you? Then I've diminished to almost zero, the likelihood that I'm gonna get that kind of help and support that I desperately need. So Marshall Rosenberg called that a tragic expression of an unmet need, when we're communicating in ways that are just really, really ineffective, but we can honor the underlying need because that's something we all share, those are universal. So if I can get to there, then I can have empathy even for somebody whose behavior I'm really not enjoying.

- Well, there was a good reminder there to assume the best. So I can imagine coaches hearing this being reminded of this, agreeing with you, but thinking, but that's hard to do. Do you have any tools that can help me think about the language or think about the why behind some of the things that I'm hearing or the emotions. And so I think there's a related tool that I want to ask you to tell us about, which is your compassionate communication guide. So what is that and how might it be helpful for the coaches thinking good idea, but help me as with some tactical support get better at this.

- And so it's a four-page brochure that I designed. It's my depiction from my learning of this nonviolent communication or compassionate communication process, tipping my hat to Marshall Rosenberg. But so the first page is just the sort of the roadmap to either choosing the game of who's right, that pathway of correct, versus the pathway that leads to the opening the realm of possibility through exploring feelings and needs. And on the inside, there are lists on one page of feeling words and there's two columns. One is the kinds of feelings that we might have when our needs are not being met. So these are more uncomfortable feelings. And then the second column is feelings when our needs are met. And so both go back to the tie of our needs. So the underlying premise of this model is that all behavior is motivated by underlying needs. And so we really honor whatever feelings are coming up because they get our attention, they get us to pay attention to the realm of needs. So I think of that as like the little light on your dashboard of you're sort of driving around along daydreaming or whatever, and suddenly it goes ding and you go, oh my gosh, I'm almost out of gas. And I better cook up a strategy to get some gas into my car, or I'm not gonna get to my destination. So if I suddenly realized I got a knot in my stomach or my face is turning red or my fists are clenched, we can just be glad for that. Even though it's an uncomfortable feeling, but it's like wow, something's going on in the realm of needs. And so our needs are depicted not as Maslow's hierarchy, which is popular, but doesn't have a lot of research support behind it. And instead, we call it the wheel of needs, which is arranged around five continuums that we see as being in creative tension with each other. So we never meet all of our needs simultaneously, but we want to have a rhythm between them, for example, work and rest. We don't work and rest at the same time, but if we have a good rhythm between the two of them, we're not trying to balance, it's just I spent this many minutes working and this many resting, but then we have a rhythm that contributes to vitality. So we also have safety and challenge. So Maslow says a lot of schemes about we need safety. Yes, we do, but all safety all the time is just boring. We also need some challenge. We need to sort of walk a little bit on the wild side, try out some new things, get some learning and growth.

- Well, if the coaches out there are interested in the challenge of building some more skills and capacity in this area and are interested in that resource you just were mentioning, they can head to schooltransformation.com, it's available on your website. So having looked at it, it's easy to access and colorful and it's definitely worth checking out. Megan, we need to take a quick break and we'll continue the conversation shortly. If you're wondering what we're going to talk about next, or what we've talked about before this, or who else I've talked to, head to pltogether.org for the rest of this conversation, as well as many more. Megan, thanks so much for joining us.

- Thanks so much, Adam.
For more interviews with education leaders about compassionate communication and other insights, check out all of our PLtogether Lounge Talks.

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Compassionate Communication is about Connecting with Teachers - #PLtogether - powered by Edthena - Professional Development for Distanced Teaching

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In part 3 of this 4-part interview, Center for School Transformation CAO & Professor Megan Tschannen-Moran talks about compassionate communication with teachers and how to meet their needs with empathy. Watch the interview video on compassionate communication above, or read the interview transcript below. - Welcome to another PL Together Lounge Talk.

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In part 4 of this 4-part interview, Center for School Transformation CAO & Professor Megan Tschannen-Moran talks about how coaches can grow by using their own coaching moves on themselves.

Watch the interview video on teacher coaching above, or read the interview transcript below.

"Yes, but" and other common pitfalls in teacher coaching

- Welcome to another PL together lounge talk. I'm Adam Geller, founder and CEO of Edthena, the video collaboration platform that helps you streamline feedback to teachers. Today, we're talking with Megan Chonamoran. She's a professor at William and Mary, and also the author of several books, including Evocative Coaching, transforming schools one conversation at a time. Megan, thanks so much for joining us.

- Thanks so much for inviting me.

- We've talked about evocative coaching together. We've talked about compassionate communication. These are the tools that in the processes that coaches can implement, but fundamentally they're about helping the teachers, helping the educators grow. Let's talk about helping the coaches grow because I mean, certainly too, it's not as simple as saying, oh, I'm going to do it, just like it's not as simple as a teacher saying, oh yeah, I'm going to do it. Right? So how, how do you talk with coaches about how they should start thinking about getting better?

- Yeah, well really I invite them to use the same process that we've outlined in the evocative coaching model for turning inward, for looking at doing their own self-reflection so starting out by paying attention to their own story, you know, we can learn a lot by paying attention, listening to ourselves and the ways that hopefully we've gained some skills in listening to the teachers that we're working with. But, so what's our story? What are the stories we're telling ourselves and are those stories serving us or do we need to shift those stories somehow and then giving ourselves some, some empathy by using the same process of compassionate communication to look inward and like, what's up with me? What's going on? What needs are being well-served, well met, for me currently in return, maybe are, are her calling to me needing a little bit more attention?

- Well, I was going to ask you, so I'm imagining being a coach and you know, maybe I'm feeling empowered to lead myself through the cycle. Maybe I'm lucky. And I have a coach, but take me more into the, to the work of the reflection, if you will. I mean, I think coaches are well-versed when it comes to, you know, what, how do we help teachers identify is instruction successful and leading students to the right outcomes, right? There's a, it's not as simple as a toolkit, but there are some things that we're familiar with looking for. So what could or should a coach be looking for if they start observing their coaching conversations?

- So primarily they would be looking to see if the goals of coaching are being met, which is how they cooked up motivation and movement. So is, are the teachers feeling energized about the project or professional learning? Are they wanting to move forward? And then are we actually seeing some improvement, some growth for them? And we also can just ask the people that we're coaching, like what's been meaningful about our work together. What would you wish for, you know, if we could adapt it a little bit? What, what might that look for look like? And we have some, some tools as well. So yeah, we have observation tools for in the classroom, what levels of questioning or student engagement or student thinking, but we also can have some self observation tools. Like, who's doing all the talking? Like just tracking the minutes of who's, who's using up this airtime. And if we discover that we are doing way more talking than teachers doing, then likely, we're taking too much ownership and responsibility and we were depriving the teacher of that. So that might be something that we want to design and experiment for ourselves about how we change that. We might look at the coaching behaviors, just some tally marks. So there's, there's some ways that we can practice our craft on ourselves in order to improve our craft.

- I liked how I was as hearing, instead of the observing for teacher talk time, you're observing for coach talk time, the same, the same issue of balance within the lesson, as well as within the coaching cycle. So, you know, as you've supported coaches in developing their skills in evocative coaching and, and becoming better, I mean, are there places that you would guide someone who's learning this process or practicing this process to advise them that like, Hey, these are the areas that are often stickier, you know, to help guide that inward reflection. I mean, are there, I don't want to say it as the common pitfalls, right? But are there places where it's hard and so you could help them know where to look?

- We actually do identify six, what we call coaching traps. And so these are common pitfalls. If you want to put it that way, but ways that we can get off track as coaches and end up getting in the way interfering with the coaching project. And so those are things like the fix it trap that we were taking too much responsibility and we're getting a whole series of yes, but. Yes, but. Yes, but. Or the hurry, hurry trap, like, because we in schools live with constant state of time poverty. There's never enough time. And so are we sort of getting in there like nipping at the teacher's heels to like, let's go down with it. We gotta get you better right now. And so, and, and again, just cooking up some resistance with the person feels like, Hey, wait, you didn't hear me. You know, we don't have this trust. We're not a connection. So we've raced through the no fault turn at the beginning in order to roll up our sleeves and get busy. And, and we're not being successful because the person doesn't trust us, we haven't created the rapport necessary to invite them to take risks. And so they're putting in the, put them into just a compliance orientation. Well, tell me what to do and I'll do it. So, so just being aware of those, those kinds of things can, can help us to, to become aware and to grow in our own craft.

- Maybe, you know, take us into, and of course, no, no coaching project as you call it. No coaching project is the same. And whether your coach is looking inward or is supported, no two are the same, but maybe take us a little bit through an example of the design prototyping experiment laying out phase for a coach, because I feel like maybe having a little bit of an example, there could be helpful for the coach who is committed to that self-reflection process, but may not have seen many models of how coaches can get better.

- Right. Right. Well, and one thing I will say when you mentioned, maybe you're lucky and you have a coach that maybe the resources provided for you, but even if not, I would encourage people to find a peer coach because that also can be very, very valuable in helping you to move through and to create some accountability for, for the projects that you design in your experimental design. So whether you're doing this on your own, or you're doing it with your coach, the design process starts with articulating a hypothesis. So you might think, oh dear, I have noticed I'm doing way more of the talking. So my hypothesis is, if I talk less, if I make more space for silence, then the teacher is going to get more engaged in the coaching project process. And so then, okay. So how would I test that? How would I know? And so I would say, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use this coaching template with three people. You know, we want to lay it out as specific as we can. I'm going to maybe videotape my coaching session so that I can, mark that. I'm gonna ask for feedback about that. I'm gonna maybe tell the person I'm, I'm coaching that this is my project that I'm, that I'm trying to grow so that I'm modeling ongoing professional learning and growth, and then ask them how I'm doing. So we would lay out what's my experiment. What are the strategies? What are the steps that I'm going to engage in? And then part of the coaching model and how will I know if I get better? So what will be the evidence if I, if I've gotten better in that? And then there there's the confidence ruler, which says, how likely am I actually going to do to implement this? So this, whether we're designing an experiment with the teacher or our own coaching experiment saying on a scale of one to 10, how likely it is, we'll actually do that. So we can ask ourselves that, you know, it may be real flowery, like sounds great. Like this would be great, but am I really gonna do it? Like, and maybe not. And so we're looking on that scale of one to 10 is at least a seven. So we want at least a seven out of 10 of the confidence that I think I can do this. If it's, if we get less than seven, we ask two follow up questions first, why didn't you pick a lower number? And we asked that because then we get the person to talk about, well, I do have this capability, I have this much confidence. So if I've said a five or six, we say, why didn't you pick a three? Like, well, I, I think I can do part of it. And then we can, that gets us talking about, well, why not? You know, what, what would it take to get it up to a seven? So that's our second question. And so, so we can, again, self-reflect, or we can work with our coach to, to either decrease the level of challenge, you know, through that conversation about what would, why not a lower number we may have identified. Here's the sticking point. Here's the part I feel kind of worried about, or we can get more resource. So what I think I could do that if you, you observed it, you were physically present, or if I could talk to you for the five minutes before I was going into this coaching conversation with this challenging teacher, so, and then, and then have the follow-up, how did you grow story? So that's where there's some accountability. And we look at what's the evidence that, that you've made some progress.

- And I hear echoes there of the evocative coaching templates. And for those that are listening to this thinking, oh yeah, I, I could commit to this model of incremental growth and incremental change. Well, make sure you go learn more at www.schooltransformation.com, which is Megan's website, where she's got lots of information about the coaching cycle. Megan, thank you so much for this insight and this reminder that not only can teachers change, but coaches can change and that, that change is incremental, right? Like you don't have to commit to the end goal right away. You commit to how you progress toward that goal. So thank you for that reminder. And for those of you watching this, or you've been shared this video by a colleague, and you're wondering what else, Megan and I have talked about head to PLtogether.org for the rest of this conversation, as well as many more. Megan, thanks so much for joining us to be part of PL together.

- Thank you so much, Adam. I really enjoyed it.
For more interviews with education leaders about teacher coaching and other insights, check out all of our PLtogether Lounge Talks.

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Coaches, Improve Your Teacher Coaching Skills - #PLtogether - powered by Edthena - Professional Development for Distanced Teaching

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In part 4 of this 4-part interview, Center for School Transformation CAO & Professor Megan Tschannen-Moran talks about how coaches can grow by using their own coaching moves on themselves. Watch the interview video on teacher coaching above, or read the interview transcript below. - Welcome to another PL together lounge talk.

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Valerie Minor, Professional Development and Mentoring Coordinator at Keller ISD in Keller, Texas, shares the one thing she wants all education leaders to know and it's about adult learning theory.

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One Thing: Ground Teacher PD in Adult Learning Theory - #PLtogether - powered by Edthena - Professional Development for Distanced Teaching

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Valerie Minor, Professional Development and Mentoring Coordinator at Keller ISD in Keller, Texas, shares the one thing she wants all education leaders to know and it's about adult learning theory.

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Curated Resources - #PLtogether - powered by Edthena - Professional Development for Distanced Teaching

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Expert curated resources for distanced teaching and distanced learning during coronavirus. Support students at home and teachers virtually.

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Should schools scrap lesson observations?

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Lesson observations have come under heavy fire in recent years as an inaccurate way of measuring teacher performance, yet they persist in most schools in various guises. Grainne Hallahan asks whether the time has come to finally rule them out completely

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This week I'm talking with Michael Bungay Stanier, author of six books, including The Coaching Habit and The Advice Trap. We talk about taming our Advice Monsters - you know, that insatiable thing that fuels our need to offer advice and answers when curiosity and good questions are way more powerful. We also share a very vulnerable, impromptu role play, where I ask him for help on a real issue that I'm struggling with at work, and he models incredible coaching and curiosity.

Michael Bungay Stanier helps people be a force for change. He's best known for his book The Coaching Habit which has sold close to a million copies and has thousands of 5-star reviews online. His latest book The Advice Trap focuses on what it takes to tame your Advice Monster. He founded Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that helps organizations move from advice-driven to curiosity-led. They've trained hundreds of thousands of managers to be more coach-like and their clients range from Microsoft to Gucci. He left Australia about 30 years ago to be a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University-where his only significant achievement was falling in love with a Canadian-which is why he now lives in Toronto, having spent time in London and Boston.

Follow Michael

Brené Brown: Hi everyone, I'm Brené Brown. And this is the Dare To Lead podcast. This week, I am talking to my friend, Michael Bungay Stanier, author of six books including The Coaching Habit and The Advice Trap. I have to tell you, I really just... pause and go get both of these books, The Coaching Habit, and The Advice Trap, read them back to back, they are so practical, tactical, gritty, on the ground, do something different, 20 minutes after you're done reading them. We're going to get into it, we're going to talk about the advice-giving monster that's inside all of us that when people say, "Hey, I need some help," or like, "Here's exactly what you should do and why." Why our advice is probably not that great and how we can be not just better leaders, but better people, if we can stay a little bit curious a little bit longer. Ask good questions. I love this episode and unprepared, but always willing, I asked Michael to do a hard role play with me around a real issue that I'm grappling with in my role as a leader, a tough issue. It is very vulnerable on both of our parts, but we just jumped right in. So enjoy the episode.

BB: Before we jump into the episode, let me tell you a little bit about Michael. As I mentioned earlier, he is the author of six books, he's best known for The Coaching Habit, which was a best-selling coaching book, and it's really a classic in the field to be honest. He was a Rhodes Scholar, and he wants everyone to know that he plays the ukulele, badly. He is Australian and he lives in Toronto, Canada. Let's jump in.

BB: Hello, Michael.

Michael Bungay Stanier: Brené, how are you doing?

BB: You know what, it's a really good question before I just say, "I'm doing great." Let me think about it for reals. I'm actually doing pretty okay, today. Let me tell you about this book, The Advice Trap that you wrote. Ouch. Let me say ouch, and thank you.

MBS: Well, I'm curious to know why you went ouch. What struck a chord for you?

BB: I have an advice monster for sure. I took the quiz. So, before we even get into that in my ouch and my thank you. Tell us your story. So, were you born in Australia?

MBS: I was so. I grew up in Australia, went to high school here, I grew up in Canberra, Australia's little known national capital. And honestly, Brené, I had a pretty fantastic childhood. I have brilliant parents, two great brothers, I was really happy in school, went to high school here, took a year out, went to England where I worked as a teacher in a school, which was a mind-opening experience, but trying to set the stage for me in terms of awakening a desire to be a teacher in my life, and then came back to Canberra and did what's known as an art's law degree here.

MBS: So, in Australia, a Law degree is an undergraduate degree, and I love my arts degree, it was in literature, so that's kind of a love of mine. Law, honestly, a bit brutal, I was not a good law student, struggling my way through it, but it's kind of my "backup plan." The saving grace that stopped me from being a lawyer because I would have been an unhappy and largely incompetent lawyer was two things. First of all, I won a Rhodes Scholarship, that was going to take me to Oxford. Secondly, the killer blow in my law degree was I ended up being sued by one of my law school professors for defamation. I was like, "Okay." Well, I didn't need any other clues, that was clue enough, that this was not going to be the right career for me.

BB: The universe wanted to make sure you were clear on this.

MBS: Yeah. You're like, "Right. Message received," heading over to Oxford to study. I wasn't totally sure why I was being a Rhodes Scholar, other than my dad is English, and he had gone to Oxford because he had brought up in Oxford, so he went as a local boy. And at 14, a teacher said to me, "So, what do you want to do when you grow up?" And I'm like, "I don't know, maybe go to Oxford University," is the only thing I knew. And he went, "Wow, you have to be a Rhodes Scholar for that." I went, "Okay, I don't know what that means, but noted."

MBS: And that somehow came to pass, and then the brilliant thing that happened at Oxford was I met my wife, Marcella, and fell in love with her. So, sort of hustling back to Australia, she's Canadian, so we lived in England for a while, States for a while. Got tired of living in Boston, so we decided to move to Canada. We weren't quite sure where to move Brené, so we went to our local pub and we had a couple of beers, and then we each wrote the name of three cities we'd like to move to on the back of a beer coaster. On the count of three, we flipped it over. Toronto made both Beer coasters. So, we decided Toronto was going to be the end destination.

BB: Oh, my God.

MBS: And my flight out of Boston and kind of wrapping up that and moving to this new city and this new job was on 9/11. So, everything went wrong. We finally made it across the border to Canada, but the job I had lined up had disappeared, and that catapulted me into starting my own business because I didn't know what else to do, and there weren't a whole lot of other jobs around. So, I started this company called Box of Crayons, which honestly, for the first number of years, my whole business plan was to try and find somebody with a pulse and a wallet and hope that they would pay me for something that I could do. But in the end, I found my hook, which was trying to make the skills of coaching and curiosity be more accessible and more every day for regular people. And that's become the focus of Box of Crayons, and then the book writing has become part of the offset around that, which is, how do I make some of these skills, particularly around coaching, which can sometimes feel a bit exclusive and a bit HR-ey and a bit touchy-feely, I really want to democratize that, I want coaching to feel like it's something that it's an everyday skill for everyday people, because staying curious a little bit longer just opens up so many good things.

BB: God, I love the whole idea of staying curious a little bit longer, we're going to have a complete nerd out on curiosity, I'm sure before this conversation's over.

MBS: Brilliant.

BB: So, how long have you been running Box of Crayons?

MBS: Well, Box of Crayons is closing in on 20 years as a company, but I stepped away from being CEO of that two years ago. It's been one of the great learning moments of my life is handing over the role of CEO to a brilliant woman who I hired from behind the bar of my local pizzeria, and she's just brilliant. And so in three or four years, she's become CEO of Box of Crayons. So, now I watch Box of Crayons in admiration as Shannon and her team think about it and reinvent it and help make it a bigger, better place to be. So, yeah, 20 years at Box of Crayons and I still own it, but it's now run by other people, and I'm trying to reinvent who I am and how I show up in the world.

BB: That's powerful. And probably the universe put you right in front of me today, Michael. So, that's really good to hear. How would you describe to listeners what Box of Crayons does?

MBS: The way we talk about it now is we help organizations move from advice-driven to curiosity-led. And if people are then interested, because some people go, "I'm not interested in that conversation at all," and they move away, and I'm like, "That's great." But if they are interested then we get into a conversation about what curiosity brings and what it can open up. And for me, curiosity is a bit of a super power. I know you write about it in Rising Strong as well, but not only does it help drive business success because you get to spend time figuring out what you really need to focus on, what really matters. But honestly, it's a way of increasing humanity in organizations, Brené. If I'm banging a table, that's what I care about, because I want organizations to be places where people flourish.

MBS: And there's a way that the default of an organization is not to allow people to flourish, you have to work really hard against that.

BB: God, yeah.

MBS: And curiosity is a way that you bring the very best of people forward, you get to see them as human beings. You get to allow them to be themselves. So, if you're in an organization and you care about two things, a culture where people are engaged and flourishing and focus so that you're working on the stuff that really matters, then you've got a better chance of having a company that is really succeeding.

BB: It really does come down to culture and focus, doesn't it?

MBS: Yeah, culture and strategy, strategy and culture.

BB: Let's just jump right into the book. So the name of the book is The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever. I just think there's truth on the cover of that book.

MBS: Thank you.

BB: Especially it's so aligned with the work that we do around Dare To Lead. So, let's start with this question, "What goes wrong with advice giving?" So, I come to you, and I've actually come to you before for advice, and it's interesting because you just ask me 30 questions and I didn't even know at the end of it what I was really calling you about, as it turns out, but... So, I come to you and I'm like, "Hey, Michael, I need some advice."

MBS: Yeah. Well, first of all, every part of my body wants to give you advice, in fact, my memory of when you called up for the conversation, my memory of it is I just gave you a whole lot of bad advice and that makes me put my head in my hands and go, "Thank God she didn't follow any of that advice, it was probably lousy." But the first thing just to acknowledge, Brené, is like when somebody goes, "Hey, Michael, can you tell me about... Can you help me with... " There's just one part of you that just wants to do that so badly because, A, you've been trained all your life that that's what you do and B, you actually care about that other person and you want to help them. But there are three ways I think that advice giving can kind of go off the rails a little bit. First of all, you might be solving the wrong problem because so often the thing somebody comes to you as the challenge is not the real challenge, it's just the first thing they thought of, it's the symptoms.

MBS: It's the way they're talking about it right now. And so often you're working really hard to solve something that doesn't really matter or isn't the real problem. So, that's the first challenge, but even if, let's just say for the sake of argument, Brené, you really figure out what the real problem is. They come to you with a perfectly presented problem, "This is the thing I need to crack." Well, then the second challenge with advice giving is honestly, your advice just isn't as good as you think it is. There are so many cognitive biases that are wired to make you think you're a better driver and a better advice giver than you actually are. And the truth is not so much your advice is biased, slanted, prejudiced based on the last thing that you did, based on the first thing that you did, based on your own history, and it's really worth while you're thinking, "Maybe my advice isn't quite as powerful and as useful as I hope it would be."

BB: Is that true for those of us who think our advice is really, really good?

MBS: Possibly even more so. No... I mean, Brené, you got to admit, there are times when advice giving is really helpful. If I come to you and I go, "Hey, Brené, where are the tea bags? I need to make myself a cup of tea." And you go, "Michael, how are you feeling about tea?" That's just irritating. So, this is not saying advice is wrong, or you should never give advice at all. My mantra is, can you stay curious just a little bit longer? Can you slow down the rush to action and advice giving? Because you want to be able to give advice, that's a key part of how we work, just less often and less rapidly.

BB: Okay. So, if you think you're really, really good, like really good at advice giving you're probably... I read where it's really hard too, because if you assume that you're better than you are, and you go fast and furiously, the best case scenario is you're wasting people's time and resources, but the worst case scenario is you're pointing them in a really dangerous direction.

MBS: Yeah. And there's effectively those two problems with those first two challenges, which is A, you may be working on the wrong problem and B, your advice actually isn't as good as you think it is. Well, then it's just a whole kind of mélange of messiness there around wasting time, wasting effort, maybe doing something dangerous as a result of that. But all in all, it's certainly a waste of time, effort, money, energy, all of that.

BB: Okay, what's the third thing?

MBS: And I think this is the most powerful one, because we can all recover from wasting a bit of time trying to solve the wrong problem, we've all done that before.

MBS: The third is the impact on the other person, because even if you know what the problem is, and even if you have a stonkingly good idea, it's gold dust, it's a pearl of wisdom. The question you've got to ask yourself is, "What's the right leadership act right now?" And is it to give them the advice and get them going, and it might be, but more than you might realize, the leadership act is to hold the space for them to figure their stuff out themselves. Because there's something that happens, this work is inspired a lot by a writer called Ed Schein, who is just masterful around this and his series of book around helping, just wonderful, and curiosity. When you give somebody advice, you are one upping yourself against that other person, you're saying, "Look, I'm better, smarter, faster, more experienced, wiser, cleverer, younger, faster, slower," whatever it might be, you're saying.

MBS: But I am saying, "I'm better than you, I'm better than you." That's the hidden statement in this kind of reactive advice giving. And even if you think to yourself, "Look, they're probably not going to have as good an idea as I have," it still may be the right leadership act to have them come up with their own idea. Have them figure out what the real problem is. Because that's what empowerment is, that's when you help people increase their competence and their confidence and their self-sufficiency and their autonomy. And these are all things that you want in your life, not just if you're in an organization, but with your spouse and with your kids and with everybody. You want people to be more complete human beings around you. But we so often trade that short-term, I feel good because I've given them advice, for that longer term price that we pay.

BB: Yeah, I guess on the flip side of that, you talk about this too, on the flip side of making someone doubt their own competency, you also take on kind of this exhausting role of the fixer.

MBS: Exactly.

BB: You're the savior, you're the fixer of all things, your value in a relationship is about your ability to fix and solve. And one of the things we found in our research is, "God, does that get in the way of really good problem identification processes." We always talk about the Einstein quote, "If I had an hour to solve a deadly problem, I'd spend 55 minutes defining the problem and five minutes solving it."

MBS: Right. Exactly, right. There are these two dynamics, that go on, Brené, and you're pointing to both of them. One is the price you pay for actually not figuring out what the real problem is, so you're not actually working on the stuff that matters, and that's just a diminishing experience at a human level and at a team level and a business unit level and at an organizational level, because you're wasting time and you only get one kick at this can.

MBS: So when you read the research that says people are disengaged, it's like in part it's just because they're not making progress on anything that matters, but there's also just the human cost, which is if you're into that kind of rescuer, that fixer role, A, if you're on one side of it, it's exhausting, it's frustrating, you're trying to fix your life and their life and everybody else's life around you, and that's a hard row to hoe. But if you're also being fixed, then there's that diminishment of that... I mean, I love the model of the Karpman drama triangle, I don't know if you know that, Brené.

BB: No, say more.

MBS: It's got its roots in transactional analysis, which is the model that gives us things like adult-to-adult relationships and parent-child relationships, but Karpman, who is a student of the founder of Transactional Analysis, said that's a bit confusing and it's hard to go to your boss, "Hey, I think we have a parent-child relationship," that's weird. So he says, "Look, when things get dysfunctional and they always get dysfunctional, three different roles play out, there's the victim, there's the persecutor and there's the rescuer." Victim, persecutor, rescuer.

MBS: And you can find yourself bouncing around all three of those roles with a person, even in a single conversation, an interaction, you can be bouncing around all those roles. When you're in the Drama Triangle, you are in a reactive mode and you are not showing up as your best. Now, I've asked, honestly, tens of thousands of people, let's look at the Drama Triangle, which one do you think you play most often? And Brené, I reckon 90-95% of people self-identify as rescuers, the jumping it in, fix it, let me solve it. Let me make it better. Let's not fight. Let me take this on. And the challenge is with both, all three of these roles, there are prizes and punishments, there are wins and there are losses, and the wins are short-term, and they feel okay, but we all pay a bigger price for this, that rescuer role is ubiquitous. But here's the killer, the rescuer, if you're playing the rescuer role, you create victims. You create persecutors.

MBS: So, your frustration as a rescuer, as a fixer that, "Why can't they sort this out?" Well, you're part of that dynamic, you're actually driving that dynamic perhaps in that role.

BB: God, that makes sense. That's painful.

MBS: Exactly.

BB: That makes sense. It makes sense, it's almost like in order for me to spotlight what I think I'm good at, I need to force other people into these roles.

MBS: That's right. So we spend our lives being triggered into the Drama Triangle, and if you're lucky, you get wiser to it and you spend a little less time out of the Drama Triangle. I think it's a very human thing. I think we... Honestly, I suspect we spend our whole lives being sucked back into it. I'm back here living with my parents at the moment, and the Drama Triangle shows up all the time. All the time.

BB: For sure.

MBS: But it's part of the work I've been doing on myself over the years is going, I'm just trying to notice it, I'm just trying to notice when I'm sucked into it, I'm just trying to notice how I can get out of it faster and see if I can resist it a little bit longer.

BB: And there's so much reactivity in that role, and there's so much, God, just the old shit comes right up, the old patterns come right up.

MBS: Absolutely.

BB: That's important to understand. I have to say, just to pull back a little bit, the advice-giving monster that you call it, it's a pretty insatiable dude. It's so seductive. Advice giving is so seductive.

MBS: Yeah. It makes us feel better. We like giving advice because it makes us feel good, it makes us feel smarter, it makes us feel in control, it makes us feel that we're the people who are serving everybody around us, it strokes a lot of ego.

BB: Yeah, and in a world that feels so uncertain and vulnerable and volatile, it does grant you a little bit of control. I kept thinking about a quote from Anne Lamott when I was reading the book, and this is from the 12 Step rooms, I've heard this in AA a million times, that help is the sunny side of control.

MBS: Right.

BB: And so it does give you a sense of power, but I think it's not power with and power to or empowerment, I think advice giving gone awry is very much power over.

MBS: I agree, Brené. And I think that's a key distinction you're making, because I want people not to hear what we're saying is, "Never give advice," because it doesn't work in reality. It's advice giving gone astray. It's reactive advice-giving.

MBS: Here's what I really... I saw a study years ago about how GPs on average will interrupt their patient within the first 17 seconds of a conversation. And I always thought, "That gives GPs a bad name," because I think it's human. I think most of us interrupt people within about 20 seconds, I go, "Okay, I get it, Brené. Let me just tell you what I think you should do here."

BB: Oh my God, yeah, it's not just the doctors, it's not just the general practitioners, right?

MBS: Right. It is a very human thing to go, "Look, I'm trying to help, I'm feeling the pressure of time, I've got an answer that's showing up in my head right away, and I think the best way of being helpful is to tell you that solution that I've come up with in my head." And it might be, but just not yet, just slow it down, stay curious a little bit longer.

MBS: But as you say in Rising Strong, Brené, that act of curiosity is an act of vulnerability. Because when you stay curious, it means that you step into a place of ambiguity for a little bit longer, where you're like, I'm not totally sure what's happening here, I'm not totally sure who has control, I'm not totally sure if I'm being a helpful, valuable, or important person in this conversation. I'm not sure where this conversation is going. The act of empowerment, which is what curiosity is, empowerment means also giving over power.

BB: That's right.

MBS: You're giving the other person power, and everybody kind of nods their head in agreement in theory around empowerment, but the act of stepping away from power and going, "I could be the star here, I could be in the spotlight, but I'm stepping away from the spotlight and allowing that person to step forward, to take control, to take ownership," that is hard. And I think that's part of the powerful work of leadership.

BB: To use the language from our research, stepping away and believing that curiosity between two people and thought partnership brings the most power, that's definitely daring leadership where the kind of ego-driven let me solve this is definitely armored leadership, because I think advice giving can be armor too.

MBS: I think it is. I absolutely think it is. I think the advice monster is a metaphor, another way of coming at some of the great research you've done around armored leadership versus daring leadership, which is when you're in advice-giving mode, you're protected, you have status, you have authority, you have control, and all of those are characteristics of armored leadership.

BB: Tell me about tell it, save it, control it.

MBS: Right. The origin of The Advice Trap book came from The Coaching Habit. So, The Coaching Habit was the book I published five years ago, and turned out to be a big hit, much to my surprise and delight, because I'd spent three years trying to get it published with a regular publisher. They kept turning it down, so eventually I self-published and it went on to have this great success. So, not only was that satisfying, I also felt deeply smug about that.

BB: Amen. As someone who self-published their first book, Amen Brother.

MBS: Yeah. Exactly. I get messages all the time about people going, "You know what? That's really helpful. That's really practical, it's changed the way that I show up with my team or with my kids or with my spouse." And I also have got messages from people going, "I like it, but I'm finding it really hard to actually put it into action, to put it into play. Why is it so difficult? Because it seems so easy." It's like, can you just stay curious a little bit longer. How hard is that? Well, it's hard for lots of us, it's actually hard. And even though in The Coaching Habit book, I'm like it's just seven questions, if you can just bring these seven questions into your working life, that's going to make a difference. Tell me, why is this so hard? When everybody gets this in theory, why is it so hard in practice?

BB: Do we want to pause here before we ask that question and go through the seven questions.

MBS: Oh, sure.

BB: Because I've got both books in front of me, do we want to just do a pause because I think people are listening in, and I'm thinking as you're walking or driving to work or on the bus, both of these books are incredible companion books, and I think you should start with The Coaching Habit. So, give us a little primer on that and those seven questions, if you don't mind, Michael.

MBS: Yeah, absolutely. So, as I was writing The Coaching Habit, I was like, "Questions are King." If you want to be curious, you've got to have a bank of questions, and so I spent years collecting good questions. And then I'm like, "Okay, what are the best questions and what are the most essential questions?" And it took me some years to figure out what I thought were seven key questions that, not for every situation, but for many situations, can find a place. So, if you're listening to this, I wouldn't worry about trying to remember all of these questions, because if you can take one or two of these questions that feels most relevant and most powerful for you and go, "Maybe I'll try that," that would be my recommendation. But let me go through them.

MBS: Number one is the KickStart question, the Kickstart question is, what's on your mind? What's on your mind? It's a really simple question, but its power is that it accelerates you into an interesting conversation. One of the key reasons people resist this whole idea of coaching or being more coach-like is like, "I don't have time for that. It takes too long." The assumption is that coaching has to take 30 or 40 minutes or an hour and everyone's like, "I'm so busy. That's never going to happen." And I'm like, "You're right. That will never happen." You've got to get into the meat-y stuff fast. And what's on your mind says, "Look, the power's with you, you tell me what you think is most important for us to talk about, but don't tell me everything or anything. Let's get into it. What's on your mind? What are you excited about or worried about or anxious about, or needs to get looked at right away to make this conversation most helpful for you? So, what's on your mind?

MBS: And then there's what I would call the best coaching question in the world, and I know that's slightly hyperbolic, but that's my style, slightly hyperbolic. And the best coaching question in the world is the awe question. And awe is awesome but it's also an acronym for And What Else. If people are going to take one question away, Brené, this might be it, because and what else recognizes that their first answer is not their only answer, and it's rarely their best answer. So, when you ask a question and they come back with an answer, honestly, your advice monster goes nuts, you're like, "Great, we've got a question, we've got an answer, let's get going on this." But and what else is a very, very powerful question to help you stay curious a little bit longer, so that's the second question, and what else? The third question is the focus question, and the focus question is, what's the real challenge here for you?

MBS: And Brené, I expand this a little bit in The Advice Trap because I just found that this was an unlocking question for so many people, and it gets to this heart of, "How do we solve the right problems around here?" And it recognizes that the first challenge that somebody brings to you is rarely the real challenge. And the way this question is constructed matters, because you could say, what's the challenge? And that's an okay question. When you go, What's the real challenge? It amps it up. It gets to the heart of it. It starts going, "You need to think this through. There's more than one thing going on here. What's the real challenge here?" But Brené, when you add those last two words, What's the real challenge here for you?

BB: For you. Yeah.

MBS: There's something magical that happens because the spotlight swings from the problem to the person solving the problem and now what's happening is they're going, "How am I part of the system? What's hard about this for me? How am I going to figure this out for me?"

MBS: And what you find when you start adding for you onto the end of questions, people make progress on the challenge at hand, but they also learn and they also grow and they also expand their capacity and their capabilities. So, what's the real challenge here for you is a really powerful question. Then there's a foundation question, so the foundation question, which I think is the hardest question, the hardest question to answer anyway, and it is simply, "What do you want? What do you want?"

BB: That's such a tough question. It's such a tough question to be asked. Because a lot of times what I'll say, if I called you and say, "Hey Michael, I need some advice." And we get all the way to this question. And you say, "Brené, what is it that you really want? What do you want?" I'm going to say, "I don't know, can you tell me what I should want? Can you tell me?" because so few people ask that question.

MBS: Yeah. I almost call it the goldfish question because when you ask that question, often people start making that little guppy thing with their mouth and their eyes pop open, because they're like... You can feel their brain slightly exploding.

BB: It's true.

MBS: Because they're like, "Yeah, what do I want?" I learned this question actually, Brené... I know your background is in grounded research and spending lots of time talking to people. I have a weirdly different but similar background, is that my first job was in the world of new product development and innovation. I played a tiny, tiny role in helping to invent stuffed crust pizza for Pizza Hut, which by the way, which is when I knew I had to get out of that job because I did not want that to be the high point of my entire career.

BB: My kids would say thank you, and you've already peaked.

MBS: Already peaked. So, I'm on the gradual downhill slide here, I'm leaning to that. But asking that question, "What Do You Want?" was always the thing that created silence and introspection and power in the room. And so too now, it's like a really opening question because actually when people get clear on what they want, everything opens up.

BB: No, things fall off, don't they? Things fall away.

MBS: Yeah. As an aside, I have a belief around people giving feedback, which is like a sister or cousin to this whole idea of coaching, and people find it hard to give feedback because it's risky and it's dangerous and it's personal and all of those things. And I think that's true. I also think that often people resist giving feedback because they don't know what they want to ask for. And I think if you want to give somebody feedback, if you can get clear on the request you want to make, the rest of what needs to be said in that feedback conversation becomes much clearer and the conversation becomes much easier to step into, so that "What do I want?" is really powerful.

BB: I think that's right, because a lot of times the focus is, what did they do wrong? And I've seen this even with my kids, there's like, "But I don't understand what it is that if I stop doing this, I get it. But what is it that you want me to do?" And then you're just kind of standing there thinking, "God, I have not thought this through."

MBS: Right. And if you haven't thought it through, the feedback can feel more like a punishment or a shaming or a diminishment, rather than an understanding of where you stand now and an understanding of where you might want to get to. And now we can have a conversation, even a coaching conversation about how to get there. The fifth question, a really good for helping to tame your advice monster and the question, this is a lazy question, which I know is a kind of provocative title, but the lazy question is, "So, how can I help?" Or a slightly blunter version is, "What do you want from me?" Here's how it might show up, Brené. Somebody comes into your office or through your Zoom screen these days and go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they're coming at you, and you can feel the hunger, that desire to leap in and fix things and solve it and try and help out and be a good person in their lives, and rather than resisting that, one of the most powerful things you can say is like, "Wow, Brené, there's a ton going on for you. How can I help? Or what do you want from me here?"

BB: We have a very similar question that has been really life-changing for me, which is, "Tell me what support looks like."

MBS: That's great.

BB: Because so many times people say, "I have no idea. I'm just losing my shit, actually, I don't know what support looks like."

MBS: And sometimes I go, "I just needed you to hear that."

BB: Amen.

MBS: In which case, you can go, "Brilliant, well, I think our work here is done," and you've just saved yourself for like three hours of some intervention that was not required.

BB: It's true.

MBS: You're actually able to go, "Brilliant, I'm glad you got that off your chest. Now, I've got stuff to do, go away."

BB: It's interesting too in terms of ownership and power, because when I ask someone, tell me what support looks like for you right now, it really puts some power and ownership in them getting really clear, I think probably at least 50% of the time when I ask that people will say. "I have not thought about that. Just talking about it is helpful, but can I give it some thought?"

MBS: Right.

BB: I'm like, Absolutely.

MBS: Effectively, you're asking them, "What do you want?" So it comes back to that earlier question, which is, this is great, I understand the struggle, I'm empathetic for how hard this is for you, but unless you can tell me what you want, I'm reluctant to move because, A, what I come up with might not be the right thing and B, I've got plenty to do. So, I don't want to be spending time incorrectly serving you and supporting you when I could be doing my own stuff. And then as soon as you come back and let me know what support looks like, then we can have a conversation about whether that's something I can help you with, or somebody else could help you with.

BB: That's right.

MBS: I also love, Brené, this is one of the things I really admire about you is your commitment to de-center yourself from the conversation. I'm projecting a whole bunch, but when I go into your website, I really notice that there's not a kind of huge Brené Brown photo at the heart of your website, I feel like the very message you put out in the world is, what does support look like? Not, I'm Brené Brown, the hero of the show. And I love that you use that question in your every day work because it really feels that's the message that you put out to the world and how you serve the world as well.

BB: Thank you, I appreciate it. It's definitely something that I have to stay super aware of all the time because ironically I'm uncomfortable with vulnerability, and so I like the control that advice giving gives me, I can be very almost Machiavellian in that. And as the oldest of four, I also can find value in being the fixer, so it is definitely intentional.

MBS: Yeah, I'm the oldest of three, so I suspect I have a similar path.

BB: Yeah. Are we on number...

MBS: Two more questions. Number six is the strategic question, and the question is, if you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to? And the power of this is, it forces choice. In some ways, the act of strategy is simply the courage to make choices, the thing is saying yes to what you want to say yes to, but also the courage to say no to the things you want to say yes to.

BB: That's right.

MBS: And that's why many organizations, maybe even most organizations have too many KPIs and OKRs and all of that sort of stuff, but just in life, that courage to say, "This is what I'm saying yes to, and here's the opportunity cost. And I'm acknowledging it and I'm still willing to say yes." So, it really forces your understanding of the equation rather than what many of us do it just keep adding yeses to our lives, so it's just even more overwhelming and we're falling short even more of the commitments that we might make.

BB: I know nothing about this. Nothing.

MBS: I know, you may have heard of SOS, the shiny object syndrome. I have the shiny object syndrome as well, so we've got all these structures built around me so that my team would be terrified any time I was on a long airplane trip, because I'd come back going, "Hey, I got some ideas." They're like, "Oh my God, this is not what we want to do here."

BB: I don't have SOS. I'm pretty good with the shiny object, but I have like STWS, save the world syndrome.

MBS: Oh yeah.

BB: And any time I'm on an international flight, I'm sitting in the room with Barrett right now who's not only my chief of staff but my sister and she is laughing her ass off because when I get off of a long flight, anything over four hours, I'm like, "We're starting all over. This project, it's going to take us six months." They're like, "No, that'll take three years, it'll cost $100,000. No, it'll cost $2 million." I'm like, "But somewhere over the Atlantic, God spoke to me." And they're like, "Okay, alright." So, I have the save the world syndrome, and it's terrible. I wrote The Daring Way curriculum on a flight home from Sydney, and then we're going to train people. This is when I called you for advice, by the way. And so they should give us some melatonin or something and knock us out before we get on those long flights, Michael, it's not safe.

MBS: Well, you're over the Atlantic and God's speaking to you, God's speaking to Barrett going, "Be warned. She's coming, prepare your defenses now."

BB: Now, she goes with me now, and she's like, "Let's watch movies together."

MBS: That's great. Let me give you the final question. It's the learning question.

BB: Yeah.

MBS: If you are committed to the people in your life, whether it's an organization or beyond an organization, to help them be the best versions of themselves, one of the most powerful ways you can think of yourself is as a teacher, somebody to help get people to be smarter. And to do that, you've kind of got to understand how people learn and they don't really learn when you give them advice, kind of goes in one ear and pretty much out the other ear. Think of all the advice you've forgotten over the years, because that's happening to your advice as well.

MBS: It doesn't even really happen when they do the stuff, a little bit, it does, but not so much. The moment of learning is when you create a moment of space to reflect back on what just happened and to extract the learning. So, the learning question, which you can ask at the end of almost anything, at the end of a workshop, at the end of a meeting, at the end of a podcast, is "What was most useful or most valuable for you here? What was most useful and most valuable for you?" And the power of it, if you're in conversation with somebody, the power of it, Brené, is A, you have them take away what was helpful, so they have to do the work to embed the inside in their own brain, but then what's also great about it is you get feedback really, you hear what was most useful or most valuable, because there's sometimes, you've probably had this, I've certainly had this. I've had meetings where I was like, "God, that was useless. I was utterly hopeless in that whole meeting, I don't think I did anything that contributed at all. I just dragged us down every time I opened my mouth." But if you ask the question, "What was most useful and most valuable?," it is almost always surprising as to what lands. And that in a bigger meeting, different things land for different people.

BB: Yeah, it's a great question. We ask it just very routinely, any time we're getting feedback on trainings that we're doing in organizations, "What was useful? What meant the most to you?" And not five things, just one thing.

MBS: Yeah, what was most useful is a forcing function that helps people, not just give a bit of a bland canned answer.

BB: Okay, so tell me how these seven questions are related to tell it, save it, and control it, which are the three types of advice giving monsters, right?

MBS: That's right. Yeah, some people took those seven questions and went, "I got them, I'm using them. I love it. This is awesome, things are different. Boom, fantastic." Some people go, "Ah, I've got the seven questions, I've printed them out, I've tattooed one on my forearm, it still doesn't work, I still forget to ask questions. Why is that so hard?" And the starting point, Brené, is understanding how change works, so I'll do this really quickly, but I think there's two types of change, there's easy change, and there's hard change. Easy change, we're all masters at, we do it all the time, you figure out something needs to be different, you learn a bit, you practice a bit, you adjust things a bit, you do it a bit more, and then you get to a level of mastery. So, we're doing that on a kind of daily basis. A new phone, you learn how to figure that out, you have to figure out how to do Zoom calls, you figure that out, you're cooking a new recipe, you figure that out, so easy change, you've got.

MBS: Hard change is a thing that we all bump up all the time and you're like, "Why can't I crack this?" And it's the performance review you get every six months or every year, and they say, "Hey, Michael, you know how we wanted you to be a better communicator, you still kind of suck at communicating," and I'm like, "I know, and I don't know why because I've done the course and I watched the TED Talk and I've listened to podcasts, and I've bought 16 books and even read some of them, I can't seem to crack it." And what hard change requires is you needing to understand what you get from carrying on your current behavior, what are the prizes of not changing. And those are often unspoken, and what I try to do with the advice monster is I try to articulate three different ways that we have short-term wins from giving advice. So, the three advice monsters are tell it, save it, and control it.

MBS: So tell it, definitely the loudest of the three advice monsters. Tell it has convinced you that the only way that you really add value is to have all the answers. You need to have all the answers to all the things all the time. Now, there are some obvious short-term wins to that, you feel the smart person, people come to you for advice, they look up to you, even though you're kind of getting on, you're still "adding value" to there, "you still get a place at the table," all of that short term stuff. You feel in control, but of course there's a price that gets paid for that, which we've kind of talked about, your advice isn't that great. You're solving the wrong problem, you're disempowering other people. But you have to see the wins not wins, hashtag, or the short term ego-driven benefits to start understanding the choices that you're making. So, that's tell it. Save it, a little more subtle, and we kind of talked a bit about this with the fixer and the rescuer, but save it is I've got my arm around you and I'm saying, "Hey look, your job is to make sure that nobody ever struggles or stumbles or falls or finds it difficult or has a hard time, you've got to protect everybody all the time."

MBS: Your job is to rescue to everybody. And just as we said before, there's a way that that actually feels great in a short-term, look at you, the noble martyr, bleeding out to save the world, and look how grateful people are, you think that you're coming to help them out. And by the way, look how many fingers you've got in how many other people's pie, isn't that great? So, that is the short-term ego stuff, but there's a price you pay, we've talked about disempowerment, we've talked about how rescuers create victims and rescuers create persecutors, and then control it. Control it is like, "Look, the only way you win is you keep your hands on the steering wheel, don't let anybody else in, there's no leaning in around here," it's like you make sure you control it from the start through the middle to the end. Don't give up control of this conversation, of this situation.

MBS: And of course, the short-term wins are pretty obvious, which are you're in control, you're the boss, people do what you say, you minimize randomness, you minimize chaos, but the price that gets paid is disempowerment, exhaustion. And also just not ever allowing the kind of the serendipity of life in the future to come in and change the way that you work.

BB: I've got tell it with control rising.

MBS: For me, it's control it, with save it rising. I've kind of learned to slow down on my advice just because I've got such a long track record of giving people terrible advice, you being one of those people, Brené, but those other ones I'm still seeing showing up on a pretty regular basis.

BB: I have to say that you gave me great advice on that call. I mean, you did, you asked me a bunch of questions, and then I do remember you asking me a question that we haven't talked about today, but I remember you saying something like, "What is your greatest fear or concern if you move forward in this direction?" I think is what you asked me. It was a really good question. And I think I said, "The degradation of the work, every circle it's removed from me."

MBS: Yeah, exactly.

BB: And you said, "In my experience, that can and will happen."

MBS: Exactly, that's right.

BB: But I did it until it did happen, but you did ask me a lot of questions, you didn't launch into a tell it or you certainly weren't controlling it or saving me. But you did share your personal experience with me, but you did ask me what my fear was, and I didn't even know what my fear was until you asked me that, so it was helpful.

MBS: Thank you.

BB: Yeah, so here's the thing, taming the advice monster is all about, can you stay curious a little bit longer? I thought in our last time together before we get to rapid fire, I would like your advice on something, and so I'm wondering if we can role play that.

MBS: Sure.

BB: Would you be willing to do that with me?

MBS: Totally. Tell me what's on your mind.

BB: I hold a million pieces of context and connective tissue about what's going on across the organization, and not sharing it is getting in people's way of doing great work, and it's making people feel less connected in what they do every day to the bigger picture.

MBS: Yeah.

BB: I don't know how to fix it.

MBS: No, and that feels like a hard thing, I feel that myself, so I totally get that. What's the challenge for you, in this, do you think, Brené?

BB: Honestly. I thought I was going to say time. But I don't think that's the challenge and I don't know if I can articulate the challenge well. It's the energy it takes to translate what makes total sense to me and is perfectly connected and in context, to articulate that in words to other people. It's like it's almost an energy issue as much as a time issue, does that make sense?

MBS: It totally does. So, you've got, I think maybe even two things there, one is just the energy it takes, second is the articulation of it as well, and they're kind of connected. What else is a challenge here for you, do you think?

BB: This is a challenge, at least feels like a challenge to me. I think my primary role at this point in our organization is context and connective tissue and adding color and helping people understand how a million different things that we're doing fit together, and I'm failing at it.

MBS: Right.

BB: I'm just not doing it. And then I can get resentful because people don't understand the bigger picture.

MBS: Right. Damn it, can't you just read my mind?

BB: Yes, that's it.

MBS: Do a mind meld?

BB: Yes, the mind meld, I need a mind meld.

MBS: That by the way is not my advice, because I'm not sure how to pull that off.

BB: Yeah, but if it was, that'd be good.

MBS: Yeah, it would be good. Those are all real things. Is there anything else here that feels like a challenge for you, Brené?

BB: I have a real expectation that everyone in the company stops for what we call the five Cs, which is context, connective tissue, color, cost, and consequence and I'm not modeling what. I want people to do.

MBS: Got it.

BB: And they don't even have the data to do it if it's not starting with me.

MBS: Oh, I hear you. So, look, all of those feel really real, if there was one of them that feels most real at the moment, there's energy, there's articulation, there's the time, this kind of sense of failure for them, but also the sense of struggling to role model it yourself. Is there one of those that feels kind of most hot for you right now, most important?

BB: I'm thinking. This should be a primary part of my job, what am I doing every day that's not allowing me the time and energy to do it?

MBS: So, what's the challenge for you in finding the time to do this? Or the challenge for making this a primary part of your job.

BB: A lack of discipline, around prioritizing.

MBS: Yeah.

BB: Okay, well.

MBS: Anything else?

BB: No. No, that's hard, that's hard. I wonder how much harder we're all working because we're not prioritizing the time to do that, so that's hard. Yeah, it's discipline.

MBS: It's interesting the distinction between time and discipline, and they can maybe be the same, but they could be different as well.

BB: Yeah.

MBS: If I pause for a moment, Brené, and I go look, part of what's happening here is you got to a place and an insight around discipline for you, and part of how the conversation has shifted is it started off by going, "This isn't happening within this organization," and now the for you questions have helped you go, "But it's my discipline around this." If we had more time or we could do it, if you'd like, I could go, "So what's the challenge for you in finding the discipline to do this?" And you can see that we can just keep going a little bit further around here.

BB: Yeah, no, I think... Yeah, I mean, that's the question I'm going to leave this conversation with is, "What is the discipline? What would it look like? And what's the cost?" I mean, time is finite. And so I think it's left me with a very different question than when I started actually, because I thought you were going to give me an acronym.

MBS: Right.

BB: I thought you were going to say, "No. What you need to do is there's a great hack where you start meetings with, you stand on your head and spit nickels. And then if you do that twice in a row, then everybody already knows the context." I thought you were going to give me a hack, but it...

MBS: I have that hack, Brené, but I see that as my competitive advantage over you, so there's no way I'm sharing that with you.

BB: I have to say that one of the things that I find so interesting about your work and about this whole, can you stay curious a little bit longer, is how effing generous it feels on the receiving end of someone asking thought-provoking compelling questions that most of the world doesn't give a shit about asking you.

MBS: Yeah.

BB: Do you know what I mean?

MBS: I do, and also, I hope... And people listening may have seen this, is just also the generosity of allowing silence to be there.

BB: Oh yeah.

MBS: Because silence makes lots of people uncomfortable, it makes me uncomfortable. Honestly, I'm sitting here sweating slightly after that conversation, because there was silence, but I've just learned that one of the most generous acts you can do is just give people three minutes of thinking time. Just about in a maybe three or five minute conversation, and it was just time for you to figure stuff out in your own brain, and me chipping in with stuff just dilutes that, diminishes that. And so my job is just to sit there and try and feel the discomfort of your silence, and the discomfort of me going, "Oh my God, I do this, too. I have some ideas, I have some things that I've tried around this," so wanting to give advice, but going, it just doesn't really serve the other person.

BB: No, because I think. I think I need to grapple with time and energy and discipline.

MBS: Of the seven questions we talked about, the question I'd ask you to sit with is, "So what do you want?"

[pause]

BB: Yeah, that's... I don't know. The first answer that came to my head, I know you're going to be like, "Huh," if you were my therapist, I could say this but I'll talk to my therapist about this tomorrow morning, I would say "To play pickleball and rest."

MBS: Right. And do you know you have an obsession with Pickleball at the moment, so I get that. So that's interesting, isn't it? Because that suddenly becomes another conversation.

BB: Yeah.

MBS: And one that fits in the context of, how do I help connection and context work across a diverse company with a ton of different initiatives going, people being busy and committed and working hard, and there's a hunger you have for pickleball and rest, and then you can go, "Okay, man, that's a great answer." What's the challenge for you here then, in creating context and finding pickleball and rest?

BB: I'm looking at Barrett who's sitting with me who's just grinning like, "Don't look over here, stay focused on the podcast," like I don't know, but I think that is the... I think it would lead me to thinking that... I don't know. I'm really going to have to think about it, Michael, because it's a question where probably coming out of COVID, I'm tired, and I need some down time because I haven't had time off in a really long time. And I think I need to be thoughtful about the highest and best use of my time, what can I and only I do, and what are things that I'm doing that I should be trusting other people to do? And what's getting in the way there, and now we're right in my personal shit.

MBS: Exactly, and it's a much more interesting conversation than, "Here's a quick acronym on how to communicate context differently."

BB: I'm going to go with door B, the acronym.

MBS: Okay look I appreciate you even doing this and role modeling it for people, it's really powerful for people listening in.

BB: Yeah, the role modeling is so helpful for me when I hear other people do it. In case you're wondering, I didn't make up this problem and I didn't make up the, what do I want, pickleball and a nap.

MBS: No.

BB: So, I think it's important to understand, and I just have to say that the word that just keeps coming to me is I don't leave normally when people give me advice feeling deeply grateful, and I was the... This has a real servant leadership feel to it, it has a real generosity feel. And I can feel just not hear, but I can feel the subtext of you trust me to be able to not just identify what my challenges are, but you trust me to know the answers better than anyone else, given the space and thought partnership to do that.

MBS: Yeah, I do. And I also want to know that you and anybody who I work with, I don't want you to feel like you're walking this alone. I just want to walk beside you rather than in front of you, and you may not actually have all of the answers, and that's fine. But if you figure out what the right question is, then getting the answers is actually much more helpful. If there's something here and you kind of land on, this is the nut we've got to crack. Now, you're getting advice about something that really matters, so you can go to Barrett, you can go, "Barrett, help me with this. Let's think about this, you're a trusted resource you're my Chief of Staff, give me your suggestions and thoughts around that." But because you're now working on the thing that matters most, the advice when it shows up is going to be advice that lands.

MBS: Now, if I was Barrett and you guys said, "Barrett, we've got the problem now, this is great, what should we do?" If I was Barrett, I'd be going, "Brené, we do have the problem. What do you reckon, what's your first ideas on how we should solve this?" And you'll have some for sure. And then Barrett will go, "And what else could you do?" And you'll have some more and then Barrett will go "Brilliant, what else could you do?" And you're like, "I've got this idea as well," and then Barrett might go, "These are all great. I've got a couple of ideas as well."

MBS: So there's a way that she can bring advice and contribute, but it's still allowing the other person to hold the weight and responsibility of their own life. And if you can contribute to that while still allowing them to keep holding that precious object, then that is something that nourishes everybody.

BB: That's really good, man. It is so good. I love reading these two books together. So, The Coaching Habit first, and then The Advice Trap, this is really good, Michael, and I'm so grateful that you jumped into this role play. I know we didn't talk about it ahead of time, but it's interesting because you didn't have to have prep because you didn't have to have answers, you just had to have some genuine care and affection for me, and a willingness to listen and ask questions and get curious.

MBS: That's right.

BB: I think we all have that. I think if we don't care for or have a connection with the people we lead, we probably shouldn't be leading them.

MBS: I love that episode you just recorded, which is around if you don't have affection for the other person, you can't lead them, I thought that was really powerful to hear.

BB: No, because holding space is no joke.

MBS: Yeah, yeah.

BB: Alright, you ready for the rapid fire questions?

MBS: Totally.

BB: I should say number one, how do I share context without using...

MBS: I see what you're doing there, Brené, I see it.

BB: Okay, I'm just bullshitting you. Okay, you ready? Number one...

MBS: Yes.

BB: Fill in the blank. Vulnerability is...

MBS: Just a terrible idea, and everybody should stop listening to Brené immediately about... No, I'm kidding. I've been thinking about it. It's a phrase from a song, it's like "Beyond the breakers, it's a deeper water calling you on."

BB: God. It is the deep water, isn't it? Beautiful. Okay, what is something that people often get wrong about you?

MBS: In my small circle of people who I really care about and who know me, unfortunately, they don't get much wrong about me, I wish they did, but they see me all too clearly. And then outside that, I don't really know and I don't really think about it too much because it's like people make stuff up and sometimes it's right and sometimes it's not... And that's all okay, I can't do much about it.

BB: Amen. Okay, this is a funny question, given that we're talking about The Advice Trap, what's one piece of leadership advice that you've been given that's really remarkable, so remarkable in fact that you need to share it with us or so shitty that you need to warn us about it?

MBS: The piece of leadership advice that was most powerful that I heard was a boss of mine saying, "Michael, you are a force for good." And what I take from that is, it was a moment of feeling very seen and seen in a way that I couldn't yet see myself, and kind of calling me forward to that, so that ability to speak to who somebody is rather than what they're doing or what they've done, is a really powerful leadership act.

BB: Amen. Okay, what is the hard leadership lesson that the universe just keeps putting in front of you that you have to keep learning and relearning and unlearning and relearning?

MBS: I listened to your interview with Neil Pasricha in his 3 Books podcast. One of the phrases that you talked about was, "You've learned to be kind, not nice." And I love that in part because kind has an etymology, a root around family, and is a way of a commitment at that level... And I've just had to learn that... I'm still learning endlessly that lesson, which is, I just don't like conflict a whole lot, and when things aren't going that well, my preference is just to go, "La La La La La" with my fingers in my ears, and hope that it's somehow magically resolves itself. And I'm just trying to be more and more courageous about naming the thing that's not working, and with a spirit of generosity going, "We need to do something here."

BB: I love that. Okay, what's one thing that you're really excited about right now?

MBS: There's a lot of things I'm quite excited about. Right at this very moment, I've just submitted the second draft of the next book, which is called How To Start, and it actually doesn't suck too much...

BB: Oh, God, yes.

MBS: Second drafts normally suck worse than first drafts...

BB: Yes.

MBS: But actually I'm like, "You know what? I can feel the shape of this book." I feel like it's got an arc to it and a story to it, and leanness to it. So I'm pretty excited about that.

BB: I love that feeling. I love that feeling when you're like, "There's a book inside this book, I see it."

[chuckle]

MBS: Exactly. There's a lot of hacking away yet to go and polishing and sanding, but there's some there there.

BB: There's some there there. Well, we can't wait to read it.

MBS: Yeah.

BB: Okay, tell me one thing you're deeply grateful for right now.

MBS: It's just such a freaking miracle that I exist in this planet at this time, it really is... I'm not a religious person, but I can't help but think... There's a book by a guy called Bill Bryson it's A Short History of Nearly Everything. It's about science.

BB: Oh yeah...

MBS: And I love it because in part it just speaks to how ridiculous it is that Earth exists... I mean, so here's a random thing, I'm grateful for the moon. Why am I grateful for the moon? Well, it's beautiful, for sure, but how moon is the biggest moon in our solar system. It's massive compared to all the other moons against all the other planets. Why does that even matter? Well, the Moon is what keeps the Earth's axis stable. Why does that matter? Because if it didn't have a stable axis, we wouldn't have seasons, if we didn't have seasons, we wouldn't have civilization because we couldn't grow food and we couldn't have cities and we couldn't end up being on a podcast with Brené Brown. So there are so many things that are just like ridiculously unlikely, and yet they've happened, and I'm grateful for basically all of that.

BB: God, a sense of wonder is a really powerful thing, isn't it?

MBS: Yeah. Yeah.

BB: Okay, we asked you for five songs that you can't live without...

MBS: Yes.

BB: So we can put your mini mix tape up on Spotify...

MBS: Yes.

BB: Here are your songs, "Picture in a Frame," by Tom Waits, "Boots of Spanish Leather," which was originally sung by Bob Dylan, but you like the version by The Lumineers, "Deeper Water," by Paul Kelly, "Sweet Dreams," by Annie Lennox, and "Kiss" by Prince. In one sentence, what does this mini mix tape say about you?

MBS: Well, you might say that I stop listening to new music after about 1984, but...

[laughter]

MBS: Which is embarrassing, but here's what I think it says, it says about me that love is about knowing what to hold on to and knowing what to let go of, and dancing.

BB: And dancing. Michael, thank you so much for being on the podcast, and thank you for dancing with me in this role play, and thank you for helping us understand our advice monster, and maybe what's driving it and some tools to shift from... "I got this because I need to have it, because it fulfills a need in me" to "Staying curious a little bit longer."

MBS: Thank you, Brené.

[music]

BB: Okay. What about this role play? What's on your mind? I mean, let me tell you, I'm going to do things different. After this conversation, I'm going to think about things. I have a big ass advice monster, big, big, and it's not a... You don't have to be Freud to think, "Wow, it can be very dangerous for me because I can sometimes see my value based on how much advice I can give and not helpful, I want to be known for my great questions, not my great answers." So I loved this episode, you can find Michael online at boxofcrayons.biz on Facebook, and Michael Bungay Stanier on LinkedIn. His websites are nbs.works and boxofcrayons.com. He leads a program called The Year of Living Brilliantly, a 52-week no-cost program with 52 diverse teachers with two to six minute videos each week, we'll include all this information and how you can find him on our episode page on brenébrown.com. Just a reminder that all of our episodes, both podcasts have episode pages on brenébrown.com where you can download links, resources, and grab transcripts, thanks for being here and thanks for bearing witness to my vulnerable role play.

BB: Now you know what I'm struggling with, which I think, don't, I guess this is not new news. I guess this is really not new news, I think I tell you pretty much what I'm struggling with. Alright, awkward, brave, and kind in solidarity always, I'll see y'all next time.

[music]

BB: The Dare to Lead podcast is a Spotify original from Parcast. It's hosted by me, Brené Brown, produced by Max Cutler, Kristen Acevedo, Carleigh Madden, and by Weird Lucy Productions, sound design by Kristen Acevedo and Andy Waits. And the music is by The Suffers.

[music]

© 2021 Brené Brown Education and Research Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

Brown, B. (Host). (2021, April 26). Brené with Michael Bungay Stanier on The Advice Trap and Staying Curious Just a Little Longer. [Audio podcast episode]. In Dare to Lead with Brené Brown. Parcast Network. https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-with-michael-bungay-stanier-on-the-advice-trap-and-staying-curious-just-a-little-longer/

Brené Brown: Hi everyone, I'm Brené Brown. And this is the Dare To Lead podcast. This week, I am talking to my friend, Michael Bungay Stanier, author of six books including The Coaching Habit and The Advice Trap. I have to tell you, I really just... pause and go get both of these books, The Coaching Habit, and The Advice Trap, read them back to back, they are so practical, tactical, gritty, on the ground, do something different, 20 minutes after you're done reading them. We're going to get into it, we're going to talk about the advice-giving monster that's inside all of us that when people say, "Hey, I need some help," or like, "Here's exactly what you should do and why." Why our advice is probably not that great and how we can be not just better leaders, but better people, if we can stay a little bit curious a little bit longer. Ask good questions. I love this episode and unprepared, but always willing, I asked Michael to do a hard role play with me around a real issue that I'm grappling with in my role as a leader, a tough issue. It is very vulnerable on both of our parts, but we just jumped right in. So enjoy the episode.

BB: Before we jump into the episode, let me tell you a little bit about Michael. As I mentioned earlier, he is the author of six books, he's best known for The Coaching Habit, which was a best-selling coaching book, and it's really a classic in the field to be honest. He was a Rhodes Scholar, and he wants everyone to know that he plays the ukulele, badly. He is Australian and he lives in Toronto, Canada. Let's jump in.

BB: Hello, Michael.

Michael Bungay Stanier: Brené, how are you doing?

BB: You know what, it's a really good question before I just say, "I'm doing great." Let me think about it for reals. I'm actually doing pretty okay, today. Let me tell you about this book, The Advice Trap that you wrote. Ouch. Let me say ouch, and thank you.

MBS: Well, I'm curious to know why you went ouch. What struck a chord for you?

BB: I have an advice monster for sure. I took the quiz. So, before we even get into that in my ouch and my thank you. Tell us your story. So, were you born in Australia?

MBS: I was so. I grew up in Australia, went to high school here, I grew up in Canberra, Australia's little known national capital. And honestly, Brené, I had a pretty fantastic childhood. I have brilliant parents, two great brothers, I was really happy in school, went to high school here, took a year out, went to England where I worked as a teacher in a school, which was a mind-opening experience, but trying to set the stage for me in terms of awakening a desire to be a teacher in my life, and then came back to Canberra and did what's known as an art's law degree here.

MBS: So, in Australia, a Law degree is an undergraduate degree, and I love my arts degree, it was in literature, so that's kind of a love of mine. Law, honestly, a bit brutal, I was not a good law student, struggling my way through it, but it's kind of my "backup plan." The saving grace that stopped me from being a lawyer because I would have been an unhappy and largely incompetent lawyer was two things. First of all, I won a Rhodes Scholarship, that was going to take me to Oxford. Secondly, the killer blow in my law degree was I ended up being sued by one of my law school professors for defamation. I was like, "Okay." Well, I didn't need any other clues, that was clue enough, that this was not going to be the right career for me.

BB: The universe wanted to make sure you were clear on this.

MBS: Yeah. You're like, "Right. Message received," heading over to Oxford to study. I wasn't totally sure why I was being a Rhodes Scholar, other than my dad is English, and he had gone to Oxford because he had brought up in Oxford, so he went as a local boy. And at 14, a teacher said to me, "So, what do you want to do when you grow up?" And I'm like, "I don't know, maybe go to Oxford University," is the only thing I knew. And he went, "Wow, you have to be a Rhodes Scholar for that." I went, "Okay, I don't know what that means, but noted."

MBS: And that somehow came to pass, and then the brilliant thing that happened at Oxford was I met my wife, Marcella, and fell in love with her. So, sort of hustling back to Australia, she's Canadian, so we lived in England for a while, States for a while. Got tired of living in Boston, so we decided to move to Canada. We weren't quite sure where to move Brené, so we went to our local pub and we had a couple of beers, and then we each wrote the name of three cities we'd like to move to on the back of a beer coaster. On the count of three, we flipped it over. Toronto made both Beer coasters. So, we decided Toronto was going to be the end destination.

BB: Oh, my God.

MBS: And my flight out of Boston and kind of wrapping up that and moving to this new city and this new job was on 9/11. So, everything went wrong. We finally made it across the border to Canada, but the job I had lined up had disappeared, and that catapulted me into starting my own business because I didn't know what else to do, and there weren't a whole lot of other jobs around. So, I started this company called Box of Crayons, which honestly, for the first number of years, my whole business plan was to try and find somebody with a pulse and a wallet and hope that they would pay me for something that I could do. But in the end, I found my hook, which was trying to make the skills of coaching and curiosity be more accessible and more every day for regular people. And that's become the focus of Box of Crayons, and then the book writing has become part of the offset around that, which is, how do I make some of these skills, particularly around coaching, which can sometimes feel a bit exclusive and a bit HR-ey and a bit touchy-feely, I really want to democratize that, I want coaching to feel like it's something that it's an everyday skill for everyday people, because staying curious a little bit longer just opens up so many good things.

BB: God, I love the whole idea of staying curious a little bit longer, we're going to have a complete nerd out on curiosity, I'm sure before this conversation's over.

MBS: Brilliant.

BB: So, how long have you been running Box of Crayons?

MBS: Well, Box of Crayons is closing in on 20 years as a company, but I stepped away from being CEO of that two years ago. It's been one of the great learning moments of my life is handing over the role of CEO to a brilliant woman who I hired from behind the bar of my local pizzeria, and she's just brilliant. And so in three or four years, she's become CEO of Box of Crayons. So, now I watch Box of Crayons in admiration as Shannon and her team think about it and reinvent it and help make it a bigger, better place to be. So, yeah, 20 years at Box of Crayons and I still own it, but it's now run by other people, and I'm trying to reinvent who I am and how I show up in the world.

BB: That's powerful. And probably the universe put you right in front of me today, Michael. So, that's really good to hear. How would you describe to listeners what Box of Crayons does?

MBS: The way we talk about it now is we help organizations move from advice-driven to curiosity-led. And if people are then interested, because some people go, "I'm not interested in that conversation at all," and they move away, and I'm like, "That's great." But if they are interested then we get into a conversation about what curiosity brings and what it can open up. And for me, curiosity is a bit of a super power. I know you write about it in Rising Strong as well, but not only does it help drive business success because you get to spend time figuring out what you really need to focus on, what really matters. But honestly, it's a way of increasing humanity in organizations, Brené. If I'm banging a table, that's what I care about, because I want organizations to be places where people flourish.

MBS: And there's a way that the default of an organization is not to allow people to flourish, you have to work really hard against that.

BB: God, yeah.

MBS: And curiosity is a way that you bring the very best of people forward, you get to see them as human beings. You get to allow them to be themselves. So, if you're in an organization and you care about two things, a culture where people are engaged and flourishing and focus so that you're working on the stuff that really matters, then you've got a better chance of having a company that is really succeeding.

BB: It really does come down to culture and focus, doesn't it?

MBS: Yeah, culture and strategy, strategy and culture.

BB: Let's just jump right into the book. So the name of the book is The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever. I just think there's truth on the cover of that book.

MBS: Thank you.

BB: Especially it's so aligned with the work that we do around Dare To Lead. So, let's start with this question, "What goes wrong with advice giving?" So, I come to you, and I've actually come to you before for advice, and it's interesting because you just ask me 30 questions and I didn't even know at the end of it what I was really calling you about, as it turns out, but... So, I come to you and I'm like, "Hey, Michael, I need some advice."

MBS: Yeah. Well, first of all, every part of my body wants to give you advice, in fact, my memory of when you called up for the conversation, my memory of it is I just gave you a whole lot of bad advice and that makes me put my head in my hands and go, "Thank God she didn't follow any of that advice, it was probably lousy." But the first thing just to acknowledge, Brené, is like when somebody goes, "Hey, Michael, can you tell me about... Can you help me with... " There's just one part of you that just wants to do that so badly because, A, you've been trained all your life that that's what you do and B, you actually care about that other person and you want to help them. But there are three ways I think that advice giving can kind of go off the rails a little bit. First of all, you might be solving the wrong problem because so often the thing somebody comes to you as the challenge is not the real challenge, it's just the first thing they thought of, it's the symptoms.

MBS: It's the way they're talking about it right now. And so often you're working really hard to solve something that doesn't really matter or isn't the real problem. So, that's the first challenge, but even if, let's just say for the sake of argument, Brené, you really figure out what the real problem is. They come to you with a perfectly presented problem, "This is the thing I need to crack." Well, then the second challenge with advice giving is honestly, your advice just isn't as good as you think it is. There are so many cognitive biases that are wired to make you think you're a better driver and a better advice giver than you actually are. And the truth is not so much your advice is biased, slanted, prejudiced based on the last thing that you did, based on the first thing that you did, based on your own history, and it's really worth while you're thinking, "Maybe my advice isn't quite as powerful and as useful as I hope it would be."

BB: Is that true for those of us who think our advice is really, really good?

MBS: Possibly even more so. No... I mean, Brené, you got to admit, there are times when advice giving is really helpful. If I come to you and I go, "Hey, Brené, where are the tea bags? I need to make myself a cup of tea." And you go, "Michael, how are you feeling about tea?" That's just irritating. So, this is not saying advice is wrong, or you should never give advice at all. My mantra is, can you stay curious just a little bit longer? Can you slow down the rush to action and advice giving? Because you want to be able to give advice, that's a key part of how we work, just less often and less rapidly.

BB: Okay. So, if you think you're really, really good, like really good at advice giving you're probably... I read where it's really hard too, because if you assume that you're better than you are, and you go fast and furiously, the best case scenario is you're wasting people's time and resources, but the worst case scenario is you're pointing them in a really dangerous direction.

MBS: Yeah. And there's effectively those two problems with those first two challenges, which is A, you may be working on the wrong problem and B, your advice actually isn't as good as you think it is. Well, then it's just a whole kind of mélange of messiness there around wasting time, wasting effort, maybe doing something dangerous as a result of that. But all in all, it's certainly a waste of time, effort, money, energy, all of that.

BB: Okay, what's the third thing?

MBS: And I think this is the most powerful one, because we can all recover from wasting a bit of time trying to solve the wrong problem, we've all done that before.

MBS: The third is the impact on the other person, because even if you know what the problem is, and even if you have a stonkingly good idea, it's gold dust, it's a pearl of wisdom. The question you've got to ask yourself is, "What's the right leadership act right now?" And is it to give them the advice and get them going, and it might be, but more than you might realize, the leadership act is to hold the space for them to figure their stuff out themselves. Because there's something that happens, this work is inspired a lot by a writer called Ed Schein, who is just masterful around this and his series of book around helping, just wonderful, and curiosity. When you give somebody advice, you are one upping yourself against that other person, you're saying, "Look, I'm better, smarter, faster, more experienced, wiser, cleverer, younger, faster, slower," whatever it might be, you're saying.

MBS: But I am saying, "I'm better than you, I'm better than you." That's the hidden statement in this kind of reactive advice giving. And even if you think to yourself, "Look, they're probably not going to have as good an idea as I have," it still may be the right leadership act to have them come up with their own idea. Have them figure out what the real problem is. Because that's what empowerment is, that's when you help people increase their competence and their confidence and their self-sufficiency and their autonomy. And these are all things that you want in your life, not just if you're in an organization, but with your spouse and with your kids and with everybody. You want people to be more complete human beings around you. But we so often trade that short-term, I feel good because I've given them advice, for that longer term price that we pay.

BB: Yeah, I guess on the flip side of that, you talk about this too, on the flip side of making someone doubt their own competency, you also take on kind of this exhausting role of the fixer.

MBS: Exactly.

BB: You're the savior, you're the fixer of all things, your value in a relationship is about your ability to fix and solve. And one of the things we found in our research is, "God, does that get in the way of really good problem identification processes." We always talk about the Einstein quote, "If I had an hour to solve a deadly problem, I'd spend 55 minutes defining the problem and five minutes solving it."

MBS: Right. Exactly, right. There are these two dynamics, that go on, Brené, and you're pointing to both of them. One is the price you pay for actually not figuring out what the real problem is, so you're not actually working on the stuff that matters, and that's just a diminishing experience at a human level and at a team level and a business unit level and at an organizational level, because you're wasting time and you only get one kick at this can.

MBS: So when you read the research that says people are disengaged, it's like in part it's just because they're not making progress on anything that matters, but there's also just the human cost, which is if you're into that kind of rescuer, that fixer role, A, if you're on one side of it, it's exhausting, it's frustrating, you're trying to fix your life and their life and everybody else's life around you, and that's a hard row to hoe. But if you're also being fixed, then there's that diminishment of that... I mean, I love the model of the Karpman drama triangle, I don't know if you know that, Brené.

BB: No, say more.

MBS: It's got its roots in transactional analysis, which is the model that gives us things like adult-to-adult relationships and parent-child relationships, but Karpman, who is a student of the founder of Transactional Analysis, said that's a bit confusing and it's hard to go to your boss, "Hey, I think we have a parent-child relationship," that's weird. So he says, "Look, when things get dysfunctional and they always get dysfunctional, three different roles play out, there's the victim, there's the persecutor and there's the rescuer." Victim, persecutor, rescuer.

MBS: And you can find yourself bouncing around all three of those roles with a person, even in a single conversation, an interaction, you can be bouncing around all those roles. When you're in the Drama Triangle, you are in a reactive mode and you are not showing up as your best. Now, I've asked, honestly, tens of thousands of people, let's look at the Drama Triangle, which one do you think you play most often? And Brené, I reckon 90-95% of people self-identify as rescuers, the jumping it in, fix it, let me solve it. Let me make it better. Let's not fight. Let me take this on. And the challenge is with both, all three of these roles, there are prizes and punishments, there are wins and there are losses, and the wins are short-term, and they feel okay, but we all pay a bigger price for this, that rescuer role is ubiquitous. But here's the killer, the rescuer, if you're playing the rescuer role, you create victims. You create persecutors.

MBS: So, your frustration as a rescuer, as a fixer that, "Why can't they sort this out?" Well, you're part of that dynamic, you're actually driving that dynamic perhaps in that role.

BB: God, that makes sense. That's painful.

MBS: Exactly.

BB: That makes sense. It makes sense, it's almost like in order for me to spotlight what I think I'm good at, I need to force other people into these roles.

MBS: That's right. So we spend our lives being triggered into the Drama Triangle, and if you're lucky, you get wiser to it and you spend a little less time out of the Drama Triangle. I think it's a very human thing. I think we... Honestly, I suspect we spend our whole lives being sucked back into it. I'm back here living with my parents at the moment, and the Drama Triangle shows up all the time. All the time.

BB: For sure.

MBS: But it's part of the work I've been doing on myself over the years is going, I'm just trying to notice it, I'm just trying to notice when I'm sucked into it, I'm just trying to notice how I can get out of it faster and see if I can resist it a little bit longer.

BB: And there's so much reactivity in that role, and there's so much, God, just the old shit comes right up, the old patterns come right up.

MBS: Absolutely.

BB: That's important to understand. I have to say, just to pull back a little bit, the advice-giving monster that you call it, it's a pretty insatiable dude. It's so seductive. Advice giving is so seductive.

MBS: Yeah. It makes us feel better. We like giving advice because it makes us feel good, it makes us feel smarter, it makes us feel in control, it makes us feel that we're the people who are serving everybody around us, it strokes a lot of ego.

BB: Yeah, and in a world that feels so uncertain and vulnerable and volatile, it does grant you a little bit of control. I kept thinking about a quote from Anne Lamott when I was reading the book, and this is from the 12 Step rooms, I've heard this in AA a million times, that help is the sunny side of control.

MBS: Right.

BB: And so it does give you a sense of power, but I think it's not power with and power to or empowerment, I think advice giving gone awry is very much power over.

MBS: I agree, Brené. And I think that's a key distinction you're making, because I want people not to hear what we're saying is, "Never give advice," because it doesn't work in reality. It's advice giving gone astray. It's reactive advice-giving.

MBS: Here's what I really... I saw a study years ago about how GPs on average will interrupt their patient within the first 17 seconds of a conversation. And I always thought, "That gives GPs a bad name," because I think it's human. I think most of us interrupt people within about 20 seconds, I go, "Okay, I get it, Brené. Let me just tell you what I think you should do here."

BB: Oh my God, yeah, it's not just the doctors, it's not just the general practitioners, right?

MBS: Right. It is a very human thing to go, "Look, I'm trying to help, I'm feeling the pressure of time, I've got an answer that's showing up in my head right away, and I think the best way of being helpful is to tell you that solution that I've come up with in my head." And it might be, but just not yet, just slow it down, stay curious a little bit longer.

MBS: But as you say in Rising Strong, Brené, that act of curiosity is an act of vulnerability. Because when you stay curious, it means that you step into a place of ambiguity for a little bit longer, where you're like, I'm not totally sure what's happening here, I'm not totally sure who has control, I'm not totally sure if I'm being a helpful, valuable, or important person in this conversation. I'm not sure where this conversation is going. The act of empowerment, which is what curiosity is, empowerment means also giving over power.

BB: That's right.

MBS: You're giving the other person power, and everybody kind of nods their head in agreement in theory around empowerment, but the act of stepping away from power and going, "I could be the star here, I could be in the spotlight, but I'm stepping away from the spotlight and allowing that person to step forward, to take control, to take ownership," that is hard. And I think that's part of the powerful work of leadership.

BB: To use the language from our research, stepping away and believing that curiosity between two people and thought partnership brings the most power, that's definitely daring leadership where the kind of ego-driven let me solve this is definitely armored leadership, because I think advice giving can be armor too.

MBS: I think it is. I absolutely think it is. I think the advice monster is a metaphor, another way of coming at some of the great research you've done around armored leadership versus daring leadership, which is when you're in advice-giving mode, you're protected, you have status, you have authority, you have control, and all of those are characteristics of armored leadership.

BB: Tell me about tell it, save it, control it.

MBS: Right. The origin of The Advice Trap book came from The Coaching Habit. So, The Coaching Habit was the book I published five years ago, and turned out to be a big hit, much to my surprise and delight, because I'd spent three years trying to get it published with a regular publisher. They kept turning it down, so eventually I self-published and it went on to have this great success. So, not only was that satisfying, I also felt deeply smug about that.

BB: Amen. As someone who self-published their first book, Amen Brother.

MBS: Yeah. Exactly. I get messages all the time about people going, "You know what? That's really helpful. That's really practical, it's changed the way that I show up with my team or with my kids or with my spouse." And I also have got messages from people going, "I like it, but I'm finding it really hard to actually put it into action, to put it into play. Why is it so difficult? Because it seems so easy." It's like, can you just stay curious a little bit longer. How hard is that? Well, it's hard for lots of us, it's actually hard. And even though in The Coaching Habit book, I'm like it's just seven questions, if you can just bring these seven questions into your working life, that's going to make a difference. Tell me, why is this so hard? When everybody gets this in theory, why is it so hard in practice?

BB: Do we want to pause here before we ask that question and go through the seven questions.

MBS: Oh, sure.

BB: Because I've got both books in front of me, do we want to just do a pause because I think people are listening in, and I'm thinking as you're walking or driving to work or on the bus, both of these books are incredible companion books, and I think you should start with The Coaching Habit. So, give us a little primer on that and those seven questions, if you don't mind, Michael.

MBS: Yeah, absolutely. So, as I was writing The Coaching Habit, I was like, "Questions are King." If you want to be curious, you've got to have a bank of questions, and so I spent years collecting good questions. And then I'm like, "Okay, what are the best questions and what are the most essential questions?" And it took me some years to figure out what I thought were seven key questions that, not for every situation, but for many situations, can find a place. So, if you're listening to this, I wouldn't worry about trying to remember all of these questions, because if you can take one or two of these questions that feels most relevant and most powerful for you and go, "Maybe I'll try that," that would be my recommendation. But let me go through them.

MBS: Number one is the KickStart question, the Kickstart question is, what's on your mind? What's on your mind? It's a really simple question, but its power is that it accelerates you into an interesting conversation. One of the key reasons people resist this whole idea of coaching or being more coach-like is like, "I don't have time for that. It takes too long." The assumption is that coaching has to take 30 or 40 minutes or an hour and everyone's like, "I'm so busy. That's never going to happen." And I'm like, "You're right. That will never happen." You've got to get into the meat-y stuff fast. And what's on your mind says, "Look, the power's with you, you tell me what you think is most important for us to talk about, but don't tell me everything or anything. Let's get into it. What's on your mind? What are you excited about or worried about or anxious about, or needs to get looked at right away to make this conversation most helpful for you? So, what's on your mind?

MBS: And then there's what I would call the best coaching question in the world, and I know that's slightly hyperbolic, but that's my style, slightly hyperbolic. And the best coaching question in the world is the awe question. And awe is awesome but it's also an acronym for And What Else. If people are going to take one question away, Brené, this might be it, because and what else recognizes that their first answer is not their only answer, and it's rarely their best answer. So, when you ask a question and they come back with an answer, honestly, your advice monster goes nuts, you're like, "Great, we've got a question, we've got an answer, let's get going on this." But and what else is a very, very powerful question to help you stay curious a little bit longer, so that's the second question, and what else? The third question is the focus question, and the focus question is, what's the real challenge here for you?

MBS: And Brené, I expand this a little bit in The Advice Trap because I just found that this was an unlocking question for so many people, and it gets to this heart of, "How do we solve the right problems around here?" And it recognizes that the first challenge that somebody brings to you is rarely the real challenge. And the way this question is constructed matters, because you could say, what's the challenge? And that's an okay question. When you go, What's the real challenge? It amps it up. It gets to the heart of it. It starts going, "You need to think this through. There's more than one thing going on here. What's the real challenge here?" But Brené, when you add those last two words, What's the real challenge here for you?

BB: For you. Yeah.

MBS: There's something magical that happens because the spotlight swings from the problem to the person solving the problem and now what's happening is they're going, "How am I part of the system? What's hard about this for me? How am I going to figure this out for me?"

MBS: And what you find when you start adding for you onto the end of questions, people make progress on the challenge at hand, but they also learn and they also grow and they also expand their capacity and their capabilities. So, what's the real challenge here for you is a really powerful question. Then there's a foundation question, so the foundation question, which I think is the hardest question, the hardest question to answer anyway, and it is simply, "What do you want? What do you want?"

BB: That's such a tough question. It's such a tough question to be asked. Because a lot of times what I'll say, if I called you and say, "Hey Michael, I need some advice." And we get all the way to this question. And you say, "Brené, what is it that you really want? What do you want?" I'm going to say, "I don't know, can you tell me what I should want? Can you tell me?" because so few people ask that question.

MBS: Yeah. I almost call it the goldfish question because when you ask that question, often people start making that little guppy thing with their mouth and their eyes pop open, because they're like... You can feel their brain slightly exploding.

BB: It's true.

MBS: Because they're like, "Yeah, what do I want?" I learned this question actually, Brené... I know your background is in grounded research and spending lots of time talking to people. I have a weirdly different but similar background, is that my first job was in the world of new product development and innovation. I played a tiny, tiny role in helping to invent stuffed crust pizza for Pizza Hut, which by the way, which is when I knew I had to get out of that job because I did not want that to be the high point of my entire career.

BB: My kids would say thank you, and you've already peaked.

MBS: Already peaked. So, I'm on the gradual downhill slide here, I'm leaning to that. But asking that question, "What Do You Want?" was always the thing that created silence and introspection and power in the room. And so too now, it's like a really opening question because actually when people get clear on what they want, everything opens up.

BB: No, things fall off, don't they? Things fall away.

MBS: Yeah. As an aside, I have a belief around people giving feedback, which is like a sister or cousin to this whole idea of coaching, and people find it hard to give feedback because it's risky and it's dangerous and it's personal and all of those things. And I think that's true. I also think that often people resist giving feedback because they don't know what they want to ask for. And I think if you want to give somebody feedback, if you can get clear on the request you want to make, the rest of what needs to be said in that feedback conversation becomes much clearer and the conversation becomes much easier to step into, so that "What do I want?" is really powerful.

BB: I think that's right, because a lot of times the focus is, what did they do wrong? And I've seen this even with my kids, there's like, "But I don't understand what it is that if I stop doing this, I get it. But what is it that you want me to do?" And then you're just kind of standing there thinking, "God, I have not thought this through."

MBS: Right. And if you haven't thought it through, the feedback can feel more like a punishment or a shaming or a diminishment, rather than an understanding of where you stand now and an understanding of where you might want to get to. And now we can have a conversation, even a coaching conversation about how to get there. The fifth question, a really good for helping to tame your advice monster and the question, this is a lazy question, which I know is a kind of provocative title, but the lazy question is, "So, how can I help?" Or a slightly blunter version is, "What do you want from me?" Here's how it might show up, Brené. Somebody comes into your office or through your Zoom screen these days and go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they're coming at you, and you can feel the hunger, that desire to leap in and fix things and solve it and try and help out and be a good person in their lives, and rather than resisting that, one of the most powerful things you can say is like, "Wow, Brené, there's a ton going on for you. How can I help? Or what do you want from me here?"

BB: We have a very similar question that has been really life-changing for me, which is, "Tell me what support looks like."

MBS: That's great.

BB: Because so many times people say, "I have no idea. I'm just losing my shit, actually, I don't know what support looks like."

MBS: And sometimes I go, "I just needed you to hear that."

BB: Amen.

MBS: In which case, you can go, "Brilliant, well, I think our work here is done," and you've just saved yourself for like three hours of some intervention that was not required.

BB: It's true.

MBS: You're actually able to go, "Brilliant, I'm glad you got that off your chest. Now, I've got stuff to do, go away."

BB: It's interesting too in terms of ownership and power, because when I ask someone, tell me what support looks like for you right now, it really puts some power and ownership in them getting really clear, I think probably at least 50% of the time when I ask that people will say. "I have not thought about that. Just talking about it is helpful, but can I give it some thought?"

MBS: Right.

BB: I'm like, Absolutely.

MBS: Effectively, you're asking them, "What do you want?" So it comes back to that earlier question, which is, this is great, I understand the struggle, I'm empathetic for how hard this is for you, but unless you can tell me what you want, I'm reluctant to move because, A, what I come up with might not be the right thing and B, I've got plenty to do. So, I don't want to be spending time incorrectly serving you and supporting you when I could be doing my own stuff. And then as soon as you come back and let me know what support looks like, then we can have a conversation about whether that's something I can help you with, or somebody else could help you with.

BB: That's right.

MBS: I also love, Brené, this is one of the things I really admire about you is your commitment to de-center yourself from the conversation. I'm projecting a whole bunch, but when I go into your website, I really notice that there's not a kind of huge Brené Brown photo at the heart of your website, I feel like the very message you put out in the world is, what does support look like? Not, I'm Brené Brown, the hero of the show. And I love that you use that question in your every day work because it really feels that's the message that you put out to the world and how you serve the world as well.

BB: Thank you, I appreciate it. It's definitely something that I have to stay super aware of all the time because ironically I'm uncomfortable with vulnerability, and so I like the control that advice giving gives me, I can be very almost Machiavellian in that. And as the oldest of four, I also can find value in being the fixer, so it is definitely intentional.

MBS: Yeah, I'm the oldest of three, so I suspect I have a similar path.

BB: Yeah. Are we on number...

MBS: Two more questions. Number six is the strategic question, and the question is, if you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to? And the power of this is, it forces choice. In some ways, the act of strategy is simply the courage to make choices, the thing is saying yes to what you want to say yes to, but also the courage to say no to the things you want to say yes to.

BB: That's right.

MBS: And that's why many organizations, maybe even most organizations have too many KPIs and OKRs and all of that sort of stuff, but just in life, that courage to say, "This is what I'm saying yes to, and here's the opportunity cost. And I'm acknowledging it and I'm still willing to say yes." So, it really forces your understanding of the equation rather than what many of us do it just keep adding yeses to our lives, so it's just even more overwhelming and we're falling short even more of the commitments that we might make.

BB: I know nothing about this. Nothing.

MBS: I know, you may have heard of SOS, the shiny object syndrome. I have the shiny object syndrome as well, so we've got all these structures built around me so that my team would be terrified any time I was on a long airplane trip, because I'd come back going, "Hey, I got some ideas." They're like, "Oh my God, this is not what we want to do here."

BB: I don't have SOS. I'm pretty good with the shiny object, but I have like STWS, save the world syndrome.

MBS: Oh yeah.

BB: And any time I'm on an international flight, I'm sitting in the room with Barrett right now who's not only my chief of staff but my sister and she is laughing her ass off because when I get off of a long flight, anything over four hours, I'm like, "We're starting all over. This project, it's going to take us six months." They're like, "No, that'll take three years, it'll cost $100,000. No, it'll cost $2 million." I'm like, "But somewhere over the Atlantic, God spoke to me." And they're like, "Okay, alright." So, I have the save the world syndrome, and it's terrible. I wrote The Daring Way curriculum on a flight home from Sydney, and then we're going to train people. This is when I called you for advice, by the way. And so they should give us some melatonin or something and knock us out before we get on those long flights, Michael, it's not safe.

MBS: Well, you're over the Atlantic and God's speaking to you, God's speaking to Barrett going, "Be warned. She's coming, prepare your defenses now."

BB: Now, she goes with me now, and she's like, "Let's watch movies together."

MBS: That's great. Let me give you the final question. It's the learning question.

BB: Yeah.

MBS: If you are committed to the people in your life, whether it's an organization or beyond an organization, to help them be the best versions of themselves, one of the most powerful ways you can think of yourself is as a teacher, somebody to help get people to be smarter. And to do that, you've kind of got to understand how people learn and they don't really learn when you give them advice, kind of goes in one ear and pretty much out the other ear. Think of all the advice you've forgotten over the years, because that's happening to your advice as well.

MBS: It doesn't even really happen when they do the stuff, a little bit, it does, but not so much. The moment of learning is when you create a moment of space to reflect back on what just happened and to extract the learning. So, the learning question, which you can ask at the end of almost anything, at the end of a workshop, at the end of a meeting, at the end of a podcast, is "What was most useful or most valuable for you here? What was most useful and most valuable for you?" And the power of it, if you're in conversation with somebody, the power of it, Brené, is A, you have them take away what was helpful, so they have to do the work to embed the inside in their own brain, but then what's also great about it is you get feedback really, you hear what was most useful or most valuable, because there's sometimes, you've probably had this, I've certainly had this. I've had meetings where I was like, "God, that was useless. I was utterly hopeless in that whole meeting, I don't think I did anything that contributed at all. I just dragged us down every time I opened my mouth." But if you ask the question, "What was most useful and most valuable?," it is almost always surprising as to what lands. And that in a bigger meeting, different things land for different people.

BB: Yeah, it's a great question. We ask it just very routinely, any time we're getting feedback on trainings that we're doing in organizations, "What was useful? What meant the most to you?" And not five things, just one thing.

MBS: Yeah, what was most useful is a forcing function that helps people, not just give a bit of a bland canned answer.

BB: Okay, so tell me how these seven questions are related to tell it, save it, and control it, which are the three types of advice giving monsters, right?

MBS: That's right. Yeah, some people took those seven questions and went, "I got them, I'm using them. I love it. This is awesome, things are different. Boom, fantastic." Some people go, "Ah, I've got the seven questions, I've printed them out, I've tattooed one on my forearm, it still doesn't work, I still forget to ask questions. Why is that so hard?" And the starting point, Brené, is understanding how change works, so I'll do this really quickly, but I think there's two types of change, there's easy change, and there's hard change. Easy change, we're all masters at, we do it all the time, you figure out something needs to be different, you learn a bit, you practice a bit, you adjust things a bit, you do it a bit more, and then you get to a level of mastery. So, we're doing that on a kind of daily basis. A new phone, you learn how to figure that out, you have to figure out how to do Zoom calls, you figure that out, you're cooking a new recipe, you figure that out, so easy change, you've got.

MBS: Hard change is a thing that we all bump up all the time and you're like, "Why can't I crack this?" And it's the performance review you get every six months or every year, and they say, "Hey, Michael, you know how we wanted you to be a better communicator, you still kind of suck at communicating," and I'm like, "I know, and I don't know why because I've done the course and I watched the TED Talk and I've listened to podcasts, and I've bought 16 books and even read some of them, I can't seem to crack it." And what hard change requires is you needing to understand what you get from carrying on your current behavior, what are the prizes of not changing. And those are often unspoken, and what I try to do with the advice monster is I try to articulate three different ways that we have short-term wins from giving advice. So, the three advice monsters are tell it, save it, and control it.

MBS: So tell it, definitely the loudest of the three advice monsters. Tell it has convinced you that the only way that you really add value is to have all the answers. You need to have all the answers to all the things all the time. Now, there are some obvious short-term wins to that, you feel the smart person, people come to you for advice, they look up to you, even though you're kind of getting on, you're still "adding value" to there, "you still get a place at the table," all of that short term stuff. You feel in control, but of course there's a price that gets paid for that, which we've kind of talked about, your advice isn't that great. You're solving the wrong problem, you're disempowering other people. But you have to see the wins not wins, hashtag, or the short term ego-driven benefits to start understanding the choices that you're making. So, that's tell it. Save it, a little more subtle, and we kind of talked a bit about this with the fixer and the rescuer, but save it is I've got my arm around you and I'm saying, "Hey look, your job is to make sure that nobody ever struggles or stumbles or falls or finds it difficult or has a hard time, you've got to protect everybody all the time."

MBS: Your job is to rescue to everybody. And just as we said before, there's a way that that actually feels great in a short-term, look at you, the noble martyr, bleeding out to save the world, and look how grateful people are, you think that you're coming to help them out. And by the way, look how many fingers you've got in how many other people's pie, isn't that great? So, that is the short-term ego stuff, but there's a price you pay, we've talked about disempowerment, we've talked about how rescuers create victims and rescuers create persecutors, and then control it. Control it is like, "Look, the only way you win is you keep your hands on the steering wheel, don't let anybody else in, there's no leaning in around here," it's like you make sure you control it from the start through the middle to the end. Don't give up control of this conversation, of this situation.

MBS: And of course, the short-term wins are pretty obvious, which are you're in control, you're the boss, people do what you say, you minimize randomness, you minimize chaos, but the price that gets paid is disempowerment, exhaustion. And also just not ever allowing the kind of the serendipity of life in the future to come in and change the way that you work.

BB: I've got tell it with control rising.

MBS: For me, it's control it, with save it rising. I've kind of learned to slow down on my advice just because I've got such a long track record of giving people terrible advice, you being one of those people, Brené, but those other ones I'm still seeing showing up on a pretty regular basis.

BB: I have to say that you gave me great advice on that call. I mean, you did, you asked me a bunch of questions, and then I do remember you asking me a question that we haven't talked about today, but I remember you saying something like, "What is your greatest fear or concern if you move forward in this direction?" I think is what you asked me. It was a really good question. And I think I said, "The degradation of the work, every circle it's removed from me."

MBS: Yeah, exactly.

BB: And you said, "In my experience, that can and will happen."

MBS: Exactly, that's right.

BB: But I did it until it did happen, but you did ask me a lot of questions, you didn't launch into a tell it or you certainly weren't controlling it or saving me. But you did share your personal experience with me, but you did ask me what my fear was, and I didn't even know what my fear was until you asked me that, so it was helpful.

MBS: Thank you.

BB: Yeah, so here's the thing, taming the advice monster is all about, can you stay curious a little bit longer? I thought in our last time together before we get to rapid fire, I would like your advice on something, and so I'm wondering if we can role play that.

MBS: Sure.

BB: Would you be willing to do that with me?

MBS: Totally. Tell me what's on your mind.

BB: I hold a million pieces of context and connective tissue about what's going on across the organization, and not sharing it is getting in people's way of doing great work, and it's making people feel less connected in what they do every day to the bigger picture.

MBS: Yeah.

BB: I don't know how to fix it.

MBS: No, and that feels like a hard thing, I feel that myself, so I totally get that. What's the challenge for you, in this, do you think, Brené?

BB: Honestly. I thought I was going to say time. But I don't think that's the challenge and I don't know if I can articulate the challenge well. It's the energy it takes to translate what makes total sense to me and is perfectly connected and in context, to articulate that in words to other people. It's like it's almost an energy issue as much as a time issue, does that make sense?

MBS: It totally does. So, you've got, I think maybe even two things there, one is just the energy it takes, second is the articulation of it as well, and they're kind of connected. What else is a challenge here for you, do you think?

BB: This is a challenge, at least feels like a challenge to me. I think my primary role at this point in our organization is context and connective tissue and adding color and helping people understand how a million different things that we're doing fit together, and I'm failing at it.

MBS: Right.

BB: I'm just not doing it. And then I can get resentful because people don't understand the bigger picture.

MBS: Right. Damn it, can't you just read my mind?

BB: Yes, that's it.

MBS: Do a mind meld?

BB: Yes, the mind meld, I need a mind meld.

MBS: That by the way is not my advice, because I'm not sure how to pull that off.

BB: Yeah, but if it was, that'd be good.

MBS: Yeah, it would be good. Those are all real things. Is there anything else here that feels like a challenge for you, Brené?

BB: I have a real expectation that everyone in the company stops for what we call the five Cs, which is context, connective tissue, color, cost, and consequence and I'm not modeling what. I want people to do.

MBS: Got it.

BB: And they don't even have the data to do it if it's not starting with me.

MBS: Oh, I hear you. So, look, all of those feel really real, if there was one of them that feels most real at the moment, there's energy, there's articulation, there's the time, this kind of sense of failure for them, but also the sense of struggling to role model it yourself. Is there one of those that feels kind of most hot for you right now, most important?

BB: I'm thinking. This should be a primary part of my job, what am I doing every day that's not allowing me the time and energy to do it?

MBS: So, what's the challenge for you in finding the time to do this? Or the challenge for making this a primary part of your job.

BB: A lack of discipline, around prioritizing.

MBS: Yeah.

BB: Okay, well.

MBS: Anything else?

BB: No. No, that's hard, that's hard. I wonder how much harder we're all working because we're not prioritizing the time to do that, so that's hard. Yeah, it's discipline.

MBS: It's interesting the distinction between time and discipline, and they can maybe be the same, but they could be different as well.

BB: Yeah.

MBS: If I pause for a moment, Brené, and I go look, part of what's happening here is you got to a place and an insight around discipline for you, and part of how the conversation has shifted is it started off by going, "This isn't happening within this organization," and now the for you questions have helped you go, "But it's my discipline around this." If we had more time or we could do it, if you'd like, I could go, "So what's the challenge for you in finding the discipline to do this?" And you can see that we can just keep going a little bit further around here.

BB: Yeah, no, I think... Yeah, I mean, that's the question I'm going to leave this conversation with is, "What is the discipline? What would it look like? And what's the cost?" I mean, time is finite. And so I think it's left me with a very different question than when I started actually, because I thought you were going to give me an acronym.

MBS: Right.

BB: I thought you were going to say, "No. What you need to do is there's a great hack where you start meetings with, you stand on your head and spit nickels. And then if you do that twice in a row, then everybody already knows the context." I thought you were going to give me a hack, but it...

MBS: I have that hack, Brené, but I see that as my competitive advantage over you, so there's no way I'm sharing that with you.

BB: I have to say that one of the things that I find so interesting about your work and about this whole, can you stay curious a little bit longer, is how effing generous it feels on the receiving end of someone asking thought-provoking compelling questions that most of the world doesn't give a shit about asking you.

MBS: Yeah.

BB: Do you know what I mean?

MBS: I do, and also, I hope... And people listening may have seen this, is just also the generosity of allowing silence to be there.

BB: Oh yeah.

MBS: Because silence makes lots of people uncomfortable, it makes me uncomfortable. Honestly, I'm sitting here sweating slightly after that conversation, because there was silence, but I've just learned that one of the most generous acts you can do is just give people three minutes of thinking time. Just about in a maybe three or five minute conversation, and it was just time for you to figure stuff out in your own brain, and me chipping in with stuff just dilutes that, diminishes that. And so my job is just to sit there and try and feel the discomfort of your silence, and the discomfort of me going, "Oh my God, I do this, too. I have some ideas, I have some things that I've tried around this," so wanting to give advice, but going, it just doesn't really serve the other person.

BB: No, because I think. I think I need to grapple with time and energy and discipline.

MBS: Of the seven questions we talked about, the question I'd ask you to sit with is, "So what do you want?"

[pause]

BB: Yeah, that's... I don't know. The first answer that came to my head, I know you're going to be like, "Huh," if you were my therapist, I could say this but I'll talk to my therapist about this tomorrow morning, I would say "To play pickleball and rest."

MBS: Right. And do you know you have an obsession with Pickleball at the moment, so I get that. So that's interesting, isn't it? Because that suddenly becomes another conversation.

BB: Yeah.

MBS: And one that fits in the context of, how do I help connection and context work across a diverse company with a ton of different initiatives going, people being busy and committed and working hard, and there's a hunger you have for pickleball and rest, and then you can go, "Okay, man, that's a great answer." What's the challenge for you here then, in creating context and finding pickleball and rest?

BB: I'm looking at Barrett who's sitting with me who's just grinning like, "Don't look over here, stay focused on the podcast," like I don't know, but I think that is the... I think it would lead me to thinking that... I don't know. I'm really going to have to think about it, Michael, because it's a question where probably coming out of COVID, I'm tired, and I need some down time because I haven't had time off in a really long time. And I think I need to be thoughtful about the highest and best use of my time, what can I and only I do, and what are things that I'm doing that I should be trusting other people to do? And what's getting in the way there, and now we're right in my personal shit.

MBS: Exactly, and it's a much more interesting conversation than, "Here's a quick acronym on how to communicate context differently."

BB: I'm going to go with door B, the acronym.

MBS: Okay look I appreciate you even doing this and role modeling it for people, it's really powerful for people listening in.

BB: Yeah, the role modeling is so helpful for me when I hear other people do it. In case you're wondering, I didn't make up this problem and I didn't make up the, what do I want, pickleball and a nap.

MBS: No.

BB: So, I think it's important to understand, and I just have to say that the word that just keeps coming to me is I don't leave normally when people give me advice feeling deeply grateful, and I was the... This has a real servant leadership feel to it, it has a real generosity feel. And I can feel just not hear, but I can feel the subtext of you trust me to be able to not just identify what my challenges are, but you trust me to know the answers better than anyone else, given the space and thought partnership to do that.

MBS: Yeah, I do. And I also want to know that you and anybody who I work with, I don't want you to feel like you're walking this alone. I just want to walk beside you rather than in front of you, and you may not actually have all of the answers, and that's fine. But if you figure out what the right question is, then getting the answers is actually much more helpful. If there's something here and you kind of land on, this is the nut we've got to crack. Now, you're getting advice about something that really matters, so you can go to Barrett, you can go, "Barrett, help me with this. Let's think about this, you're a trusted resource you're my Chief of Staff, give me your suggestions and thoughts around that." But because you're now working on the thing that matters most, the advice when it shows up is going to be advice that lands.

MBS: Now, if I was Barrett and you guys said, "Barrett, we've got the problem now, this is great, what should we do?" If I was Barrett, I'd be going, "Brené, we do have the problem. What do you reckon, what's your first ideas on how we should solve this?" And you'll have some for sure. And then Barrett will go, "And what else could you do?" And you'll have some more and then Barrett will go "Brilliant, what else could you do?" And you're like, "I've got this idea as well," and then Barrett might go, "These are all great. I've got a couple of ideas as well."

MBS: So there's a way that she can bring advice and contribute, but it's still allowing the other person to hold the weight and responsibility of their own life. And if you can contribute to that while still allowing them to keep holding that precious object, then that is something that nourishes everybody.

BB: That's really good, man. It is so good. I love reading these two books together. So, The Coaching Habit first, and then The Advice Trap, this is really good, Michael, and I'm so grateful that you jumped into this role play. I know we didn't talk about it ahead of time, but it's interesting because you didn't have to have prep because you didn't have to have answers, you just had to have some genuine care and affection for me, and a willingness to listen and ask questions and get curious.

MBS: That's right.

BB: I think we all have that. I think if we don't care for or have a connection with the people we lead, we probably shouldn't be leading them.

MBS: I love that episode you just recorded, which is around if you don't have affection for the other person, you can't lead them, I thought that was really powerful to hear.

BB: No, because holding space is no joke.

MBS: Yeah, yeah.

BB: Alright, you ready for the rapid fire questions?

MBS: Totally.

BB: I should say number one, how do I share context without using...

MBS: I see what you're doing there, Brené, I see it.

BB: Okay, I'm just bullshitting you. Okay, you ready? Number one...

MBS: Yes.

BB: Fill in the blank. Vulnerability is...

MBS: Just a terrible idea, and everybody should stop listening to Brené immediately about... No, I'm kidding. I've been thinking about it. It's a phrase from a song, it's like "Beyond the breakers, it's a deeper water calling you on."

BB: God. It is the deep water, isn't it? Beautiful. Okay, what is something that people often get wrong about you?

MBS: In my small circle of people who I really care about and who know me, unfortunately, they don't get much wrong about me, I wish they did, but they see me all too clearly. And then outside that, I don't really know and I don't really think about it too much because it's like people make stuff up and sometimes it's right and sometimes it's not... And that's all okay, I can't do much about it.

BB: Amen. Okay, this is a funny question, given that we're talking about The Advice Trap, what's one piece of leadership advice that you've been given that's really remarkable, so remarkable in fact that you need to share it with us or so shitty that you need to warn us about it?

MBS: The piece of leadership advice that was most powerful that I heard was a boss of mine saying, "Michael, you are a force for good." And what I take from that is, it was a moment of feeling very seen and seen in a way that I couldn't yet see myself, and kind of calling me forward to that, so that ability to speak to who somebody is rather than what they're doing or what they've done, is a really powerful leadership act.

BB: Amen. Okay, what is the hard leadership lesson that the universe just keeps putting in front of you that you have to keep learning and relearning and unlearning and relearning?

MBS: I listened to your interview with Neil Pasricha in his 3 Books podcast. One of the phrases that you talked about was, "You've learned to be kind, not nice." And I love that in part because kind has an etymology, a root around family, and is a way of a commitment at that level... And I've just had to learn that... I'm still learning endlessly that lesson, which is, I just don't like conflict a whole lot, and when things aren't going that well, my preference is just to go, "La La La La La" with my fingers in my ears, and hope that it's somehow magically resolves itself. And I'm just trying to be more and more courageous about naming the thing that's not working, and with a spirit of generosity going, "We need to do something here."

BB: I love that. Okay, what's one thing that you're really excited about right now?

MBS: There's a lot of things I'm quite excited about. Right at this very moment, I've just submitted the second draft of the next book, which is called How To Start, and it actually doesn't suck too much...

BB: Oh, God, yes.

MBS: Second drafts normally suck worse than first drafts...

BB: Yes.

MBS: But actually I'm like, "You know what? I can feel the shape of this book." I feel like it's got an arc to it and a story to it, and leanness to it. So I'm pretty excited about that.

BB: I love that feeling. I love that feeling when you're like, "There's a book inside this book, I see it."

[chuckle]

MBS: Exactly. There's a lot of hacking away yet to go and polishing and sanding, but there's some there there.

BB: There's some there there. Well, we can't wait to read it.

MBS: Yeah.

BB: Okay, tell me one thing you're deeply grateful for right now.

MBS: It's just such a freaking miracle that I exist in this planet at this time, it really is... I'm not a religious person, but I can't help but think... There's a book by a guy called Bill Bryson it's A Short History of Nearly Everything. It's about science.

BB: Oh yeah...

MBS: And I love it because in part it just speaks to how ridiculous it is that Earth exists... I mean, so here's a random thing, I'm grateful for the moon. Why am I grateful for the moon? Well, it's beautiful, for sure, but how moon is the biggest moon in our solar system. It's massive compared to all the other moons against all the other planets. Why does that even matter? Well, the Moon is what keeps the Earth's axis stable. Why does that matter? Because if it didn't have a stable axis, we wouldn't have seasons, if we didn't have seasons, we wouldn't have civilization because we couldn't grow food and we couldn't have cities and we couldn't end up being on a podcast with Brené Brown. So there are so many things that are just like ridiculously unlikely, and yet they've happened, and I'm grateful for basically all of that.

BB: God, a sense of wonder is a really powerful thing, isn't it?

MBS: Yeah. Yeah.

BB: Okay, we asked you for five songs that you can't live without...

MBS: Yes.

BB: So we can put your mini mix tape up on Spotify...

MBS: Yes.

BB: Here are your songs, "Picture in a Frame," by Tom Waits, "Boots of Spanish Leather," which was originally sung by Bob Dylan, but you like the version by The Lumineers, "Deeper Water," by Paul Kelly, "Sweet Dreams," by Annie Lennox, and "Kiss" by Prince. In one sentence, what does this mini mix tape say about you?

MBS: Well, you might say that I stop listening to new music after about 1984, but...

[laughter]

MBS: Which is embarrassing, but here's what I think it says, it says about me that love is about knowing what to hold on to and knowing what to let go of, and dancing.

BB: And dancing. Michael, thank you so much for being on the podcast, and thank you for dancing with me in this role play, and thank you for helping us understand our advice monster, and maybe what's driving it and some tools to shift from... "I got this because I need to have it, because it fulfills a need in me" to "Staying curious a little bit longer."

MBS: Thank you, Brené.

[music]

BB: Okay. What about this role play? What's on your mind? I mean, let me tell you, I'm going to do things different. After this conversation, I'm going to think about things. I have a big ass advice monster, big, big, and it's not a... You don't have to be Freud to think, "Wow, it can be very dangerous for me because I can sometimes see my value based on how much advice I can give and not helpful, I want to be known for my great questions, not my great answers." So I loved this episode, you can find Michael online at boxofcrayons.biz on Facebook, and Michael Bungay Stanier on LinkedIn. His websites are nbs.works and boxofcrayons.com. He leads a program called The Year of Living Brilliantly, a 52-week no-cost program with 52 diverse teachers with two to six minute videos each week, we'll include all this information and how you can find him on our episode page on brenébrown.com. Just a reminder that all of our episodes, both podcasts have episode pages on brenébrown.com where you can download links, resources, and grab transcripts, thanks for being here and thanks for bearing witness to my vulnerable role play.

BB: Now you know what I'm struggling with, which I think, don't, I guess this is not new news. I guess this is really not new news, I think I tell you pretty much what I'm struggling with. Alright, awkward, brave, and kind in solidarity always, I'll see y'all next time.

[music]

BB: The Dare to Lead podcast is a Spotify original from Parcast. It's hosted by me, Brené Brown, produced by Max Cutler, Kristen Acevedo, Carleigh Madden, and by Weird Lucy Productions, sound design by Kristen Acevedo and Andy Waits. And the music is by The Suffers.

[music]

© 2021 Brené Brown Education and Research Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

Dare to Lead Podcast with Dr. Laurie Santos

Dare to Lead Podcast with James Clear

Dare to Lead Podcast with James Clear

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Brené with Michael Bungay Stanier on The Advice Trap and Staying Curious Just a Little Longer

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This week I'm talking with Michael Bungay Stanier, author of six books, including The Coaching Habit and The Advice Trap. We talk about taming our Advice Monsters - you know, that insatiable thing that fuels our need to offer advice and answers when curiosity and good questions are way more powerful.

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An Evening with Robert Kegan and Immunity to Change

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"Listening to someone really well is an incalculable gift. It is an immeasurable gift. Listening is really hard!"
Elena Aguilar

This is a Behind the Design episode in which Elena pulls back the curtain to provide expert advice on holding spaces for transformation. Today she's sharing the strategy you need for coaching clients who are experiencing strong emotions.

This episode is for you if:

You're looking to strengthen your coaching practice

You are tempted to go into fix-it mode when your client is struggling

You don't know what to do when a client becomes emotional

Mentioned in this episode:
The Art of Coaching 101 : The foundational workshop for becoming a Transformational Coach

Receive weekly wisdom and tools from Elena delivered to your inbox! Sign up at https://subscriber.brightmorningteam.com/resources

by becoming a Friend of the Show

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Episode 87: Behind the Design: Coaching Strong Emotions - Bright Morning

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This is a Behind the Design episode in which Elena pulls back the curtain to provide expert advice on holding spaces for transformation. Today she's sharing the strategy you need for coaching clients who are experiencing strong emotions.

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Coaching for Equity Demands Deeper Dialogue - ASCD

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"We can't teach what we don't know, and we can't lead where we won't go."-Malcolm X These times of social unrest lead to conversations about social justice. Although this discourse is essential for our education system, individuals sometimes engage more for appearances than a sincere desire for grow

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I' ve been a psychology professor since 2012. In the past six years, I've witnessed students of all ages procrastinate on papers, skip presentation days, miss assignments, and let due dates fly by. I've seen promising prospective grad students fail to get applications in on time; I've watched PhD candidates take months or years revising a single dissertation draft; I once had a student who enrolled in the same class of mine two semesters in a row, and never turned in anything either time.

I don't think laziness was ever at fault.

Ever.

In fact, I don't believe that laziness exists.

I'm a social psychologist, so I'm interested primarily in the situational and contextual factors that drive human behavior. When you're seeking to predict or explain a person's actions, looking at the social norms, and the person's context, is usually a pretty safe bet. Situational constraints typically predict behavior far better than personality, intelligence, or other individual-level traits.

So when I see a student failing to complete assignments, missing deadlines, or not delivering results in other aspects of their life, I'm moved to ask: what are the situational factors holding this student back? What needs are currently not being met?And, when it comes to behavioral "laziness," I'm especially moved to ask: what are the barriers to action that I can't see?

There are always barriers. Recognizing those barriers- and viewing them as legitimate - is often the first step to breaking "lazy" behavior patterns.

It's really helpful to respond to a person's ineffective behavior with curiosity rather than judgment. I learned this from a friend of mine, the writer and activist Kimberly Longhofer (who publishes under the name Mik Everett). Kim is passionate about the acceptance and accommodation of disabled people and homeless people. Their writing about both subjects is some of the most illuminating, bias-busting work I've ever encountered. Part of that is because Kim is brilliant, but it's also because at various points in their life, Kim has been both disabled and homeless.

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I've been a psychology professor since 2012. I've witnessed students of all ages procrastinate on papers, skip presentation days, and miss assignments. None of them were lazy. Ever.

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Gallup Report -- State Of Americas Schools.pdf

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Seven Trends-The Transformation of the Teaching Force 2018.pdf

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Abstract

Stress or Success?

Easing Burnout Symptoms

How Teachers Become Efficacious

Tools for Guidance

As education leaders reimagine schooling, they are in a propitious moment to create better systems of support.

Credit: Copyright (c) 2017 garetsworkshop/Shutterstock. No use without permission.

Abstract

Stress or Success?

Easing Burnout Symptoms

How Teachers Become Efficacious

Tools for Guidance

I started teaching when I was 21 years old. I grew up in a town of 11,000 people, with an almost entirely white population. As a child, I considered where, not if, I would go to college and joined Teach for America as soon as I graduated. I had a desire to improve the world and narrow the education system's existing opportunity gaps.

But I soon realized just how unprepared I was to manage a classroom, much less one in which many students' academic and social-emotional needs had been chronically underserved and whose cultural norms were different from my own. On my first day of teaching high school in the fall, one of my students took a picture of my butt and the class roared. I had no idea how to respond. In the weeks and months that followed, students regularly made inappropriate comments, ignored me, and put their heads down on their desks. I felt in over my head. My confidence-and my sense of efficacy-evaporated.

Stress or Success?

Being in a job that you're failing at with no clear path to improvement feels like being lost at sea without a lifeline. These feelings are especially pronounced in stressful situations when you have little experienced or observed success to lean on (and teaching consistently ranks among the most stressful professions ). My mindset became one of survival.

I spent my time blindly executing suggestions my school and Teach for America put before me. I wrote lesson plans in a prescribed format, put an agenda on the board every morning, and attempted to conference with kids in the hall when they behaved inappropriately. I tried to create systems to make success visible; my weekly "hot list," where I listed top performers on the previous week's assessments, was a success, but most efforts failed.

I stood at the door during class changes and tried to find ways to get kids out of their seats (like turning worksheets into scavenger hunts). And, of course, I was supposed to assess, grade, and track performance data, all of which I instinctively did in the style that I had observed from my own teachers growing up-one that primarily evaluated rote memorization and focused on performance, as opposed to growth.

I'd like to say I recognized early that my tactics weren't working for most of my students, who simply disengaged from my teacher-centered approach and from the assignments that lacked relevance to their lives. I'd like to say I reassessed priorities and considered my cultural background and the community needs. But I didn't. I plowed along for two years, clinging to small wins, and feeling exhausted, unsuccessful, and frustrated by mentors and coaches who tended to flip requests for help back on me ("What do you think you should do differently?").

In my second year, I remember listening to the REM song, "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and nodding to the lyric ". . .withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy." I still cared deeply about addressing the systemic inequities in education, but I had withdrawn emotionally from the day-to-day work of teaching. I was disgusted with the grueling demands and the weak support I received and also with myself. By my second year of teaching, I left the classroom.

Easing Burnout Symptoms

I began a career in education research in large part to understand what happened during those early teaching years. What should I have done differently? How could the school system have supported me better? Should I have been there at all? If not, who should have been there, and how could education systems have helped them to be successful?

These are big questions, with complex answers. But often nestled in the middle of those answers is teachers' sense of self-efficacy, or teachers' "judgment of his or her capabilities to bring about desired outcomes of student engagement and learning, even among those students who may be difficult or unmotivated" (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001, p. 783).

Conceptual frameworks describing the inputs and outcomes of teacher self-efficacy tend to have bidirectional arrows. That is, scholars recognize that teachers' self-efficacy is complex and necessitates a combination of factors. External stressors, social supports, and teachers' emotional stress responses all influence their self-efficacy, which in turn influences job satisfaction, engagement, and burnout. Teachers with a strong sense of self-efficacy tend to be more engaged and satisfied with their work and less inclined to leave the teaching profession (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2016). Teacher self-efficacy is also linked to student achievement, motivation, and students' own sense of efficacy (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). In short, research makes clear that teacher self-efficacy is positively associated with desirable outcomes for schools.

But teacher self-efficacy tends to have cyclical relationships with other desired outcomes. Self-efficacy leads to success and success supports self-efficacy. So, teachers often find themselves in one of two feedback loops: 1) success that both feeds and is fed by positive beliefs about their ability to succeed, or 2) struggle paired with negative beliefs about their ability to succeed. With 41 percent of teachers leaving the profession in their first five years of teaching (Ingersoll et al., 2018) and particularly large numbers of teachers considering leaving the profession during the COVID-19 pandemic (Zamarro et al., 2021), it's clear that education leaders need to actively position more teachers to develop a sense of efficacy early in their careers.

How Teachers Become Efficacious

This begs the question: How does a teacher become efficacious and successful? The most powerful source of self-efficacy is mastery experience, or having experienced success in the past (Bandura, 1986, 1997). The second is vicarious experience, or observing and learning about others' successes. Some individuals will have had the life experience, education, and intuition to meet early success, even absent intentional systemic supports. But most new teachers will not. Without school-embedded supports, underprepared teachers are likely to cling to, and frantically attempt to replicate, whatever small successes they encounter, however isolated those successes may be from meaningful impact.

So, although teacher efficacy can sound very individualistic and intrapersonal in practice, it results from a combination of experience, mindset, actions, environment, and systems of support. Given this, it's no surprise that collective teacher efficacy, or teachers' belief that the faculty as a whole can have a positive effect on students, has produced effect sizes that are shockingly large (Eells, 2011).Teacher self-efficacy does not emerge solely from good faith, and weak self-efficacy does not mean that a teacher is not capable. Nurturing teacher efficacy requires intentionally constructed systems of support.

The data on the rates at which teachers burn out illustrate that relying on individual initiative is insufficient. When I was teaching, my friend Rob-a master teacher at my school-invited me to observe his class. He was opening a door for me to develop my teacher self-efficacy by having a vicarious experience. But I didn't take him up on the offer. Peer observation wasn't the norm in my school, and I worried that going into his classroom would be disruptive or that the kids would ask questions about why I was there and needed help.

Moreover, Rob and I taught on the same schedule, so observing him required me to find someone to cover my class. I needed more than Rob's kind offer; I needed peer accountability, encouragement, and aligned school-level supports (for example, a clear way to get class coverage during peer observations) to pull me out of my slump.

Tools for Guidance

Administrators approaches' to fostering collective efficacy nearly always have some common traits: they leverage clear collective visions and goals and use data-driven cycles of continuous improvement, trusting relationships, authentic communication, and empowered teachers to reach those goals. Given the complexity of these approaches, collective efficacy requires intentional design and ongoing maintenance from school and district leaders.

To nurture collective efficacy, school leaders can take a few concrete steps. First, they can clearly set and consistently reinforce schoolwide goals and priorities that unite the staff in a meaningful mission that goes beyond test scores or a statement on a banner. For example, a school may prioritize strong staff-student relationships and set a goal of having every student in the school know at least one school staff member they feel comfortable reaching out to in a difficult situation.

Additionally, administrators can support collective efficacy by carving out time for staff to engage in ongoing, embedded, and collaborative professional learning that supports their priorities and goals. Notably, the school where I taught used professional learning communities, which I valued because they provided the opportunity for me to share ideas and build relationships with my colleagues. But the meetings largely stood in isolation from school-level goals, guidance, and supports. The meetings helped me build relationships with my colleagues and to see that I could learn from them, but didn't provide systems and supports with which to do so.

School-level systems integrated with PLCs-for example, regularly scheduled time to build relationships with administrators and regularly communicate team challenges, concerns, and ideas to them-could have made PLC meetings more effective and driven collective efficacy.

As education leaders reimagine schooling in the wake of a pandemic and establish new schedules, structures, and priorities, they are in a propitious moment to create systems to support collective efficacy. Leaders may, for example, create new systems to regularly solicit staff and community feedback using approaches like surveys and focus groups, then thoughtfully respond to what they hear; build intentional time into school schedules for staff relationship-building, sharing, and collaboration; and normalize public practice through supports like structured peer observation and learning walks. The pandemic has created an especially acute need for connection and open listening. This moment of transition presents an opportunity to reimagine how schools can support these needs.

The stakes are high. Chronic feelings of isolation and defeat lead to burnout and teacher turnover, or worse, a school full of burnt-out teachers. And teachers have just experienced two years of increased isolation, stress, and work hours (Diliberti et al., 2021). To serve their communities well, school leaders must prioritize taking ownership over their collective mindsets and ways of work. Indeed, research has demonstrated that doing so is the most expedient path to school success.

References

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman.

Diliberti, M.K., Schwartz, H.L., & Grant, D. (2021). Stress topped the reasons why public school teachers quit, even before COVID-19 (Report No. RR-A1121-2). Rand Corporation.

Eells, R. (2011). Meta-analysis of the relationship between collective teacher efficacy and student achievement (Accession No. 3469968.) [Doctoral dissertation, Loyola University Chicago]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Ingersoll, R. M., Merrill, E., Stuckey, D., & Collins, G. (2018). Seven trends: The transformation of the teaching force (CPRE Research Reports). Consortium for Policy Research in Education, University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/cpre_researchreports/108/

Skaalvik, E.M., & Skaalvik, S. (2016). Teacher stress and teacher self-efficacy as predictors of engagement, emotional exhaustion, and motivation to leave the teaching profession. Creative Education, 7(13), p. 1785-1799. Retrieved from https://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2016.713182

Tschannen-Moran, M., & Hoy, A.W. (2001). Teacher efficacy: capturing an elusive construct. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(7), p. 783-805.

Zamarro, G., Camp, A., Fuchsman, D., & McGee, J. B. (2021). Understanding how COVID-19 has Changed Teachers' Chances of Remaining in the Classroom. Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

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Nurturing Collective Efficacy in Changing Times - ASCD

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I started teaching when I was 21 years old. I grew up in a town of 11,000 people, with an almost entirely white population. As a child, I considered where, not if, I would go to college and joined Teach for America as soon as I graduated.

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Instructional Coaching for Implementing Visible Learning A Model for Translating Research into Practice Knight

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Vol. 77

No. 3

Abstract

What Teacher Autonomy Isn't

Fostering Self-Determination

Responsible Accountability

An Example of Responsible Accountability

The Complexity of Teaching

Feedback as Dialogue

Questions of Fidelity

Real Choices

To foster improvement and responsible accountability, instructional coaches must honor teachers' choices and discretion.

Abstract

What Teacher Autonomy Isn't

Fostering Self-Determination

Responsible Accountability

An Example of Responsible Accountability

The Complexity of Teaching

Feedback as Dialogue

Questions of Fidelity

Real Choices

"When [people] cannot choose, [they] cease to be [people]." -Anthony Burgess

Instructional coaches often feel intense pressure to promote change. Like most everyone else in education, coaches want students to succeed, and they frequently measure their success by whether they drive changes that improve students' learning and well-being. This pressure to move the needle can lead coaches and administrators to take a directive approach to coaching-telling teachers what they've done right and wrong and what they must do to improve. But in fact, as research has shown and as I've found in my own work on coaching, this is not the way to help teachers flourish.

Indeed, after studying coaching for more than 20 years, I have concluded that recognizing and honoring teacher autonomy is an essential and fundamental part of effective coaching.

What Teacher Autonomy Isn't

Before discussing why autonomy is essential, it is important to recognize what autonomy is not. In any organization, there are non-negotiables that must be adhered to-rare is the school where a teacher can say "I'm not much of a morning person; I think I'll start teaching at noon." And choosing to be unprofessional in conduct should not be a choice available to anyone involved in educating our children. No one in a school is free to bully students, be a toxic force on teams, or decide that they no longer need to improve. Fortunately, such unprofessional behavior is rare, but when it exists, it needs to be dealt with directly by administrators. Refraining from upholding professional standards of acceptable teaching is not a matter of honoring autonomy.

But genuine autonomy is a key aspect of coaching work, one that can be complex and challenging for coaches to manage. Indeed, when coaches and leaders recognize the importance of autonomy, they may need to rethink many traditional elements of professional development, including accountability, feedback, and fidelity.

Fostering Self-Determination

An ever-increasing body of research shows that professionals are rarely motivated when they have little autonomy. Researchers have illuminated why autonomy is essential for motivation and why exclusively top-down approaches to change are almost always guaranteed to fail (Amabile et al., 1996; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Pink, 2009; Seligman, 2012).

Edward Deci and Richard Ryan (2000) synthesized their decades of research on motivation into what they referred to as Self-Determination Theory. They proposed that people have three innate human needs-competence, autonomy, and relatedness-that will increase motivation when met and decrease motivation when not met. That is, people will feel motivated when they (a) are competent at what they do, (b) have a large measure of control over their lives, and (c) are engaged in positive relationships. The opposite is also true: When people are controlled and told what to do, aren't in situations where they can increase their competence, and aren't experiencing positive relationships, their motivation will decrease, and they will be "crushed" (p. 68). Research in education has firmly established that this dynamic applies to teachers (Sparks & Malkus, 2015).

Despite evidence of the importance of autonomy, however, research suggests that autonomy is decreasing in schools. One survey-based study found that teachers' perceptions of their autonomy decreased significantly from 2003 to 2012 (Sparks & Malkus, 2015). Close to one in four teachers reported they had no control or only minor control over the books they used, the content they taught, teaching techniques, student evaluation, student discipline, or the amount of homework they gave students.

Coaches must work to change this dynamic. If we want engaged and motivated teachers, we need to ensure that they have significant choices about what they do, including having the right to say no to particular proposals. Choices are the way we define our own humanity-who we are-so stripping away people's right to choose is dehumanizing (Block, 1993).

When professionals are told what to do and given no choice, the best possible outcome is likely compliance-and compliance is not enough to do the complex work needed in our schools. As Daniel Pink writes in Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (2009):

Living a satisfying life requires more than simply meeting the demands of those in control. Yet in our offices and classrooms, we have way too much compliance and way too little engagement. The former might get you through the day, but only the latter will get you through the night. (p.112)

Responsible Accountability

One obstacle to honoring teachers' autonomy, in my view, is that school leaders and policymakers often misunderstand the role of accountability. Usually, the term is used to describe how educators are obligated to do something for some external reason. It's common, for example, to hear that teachers' professional learning must be driven by adherence to a mandated instructional program or initiative. Or that teachers must be told what to work on based on school or district priorities.

I refer to such understandings of accountability as irresponsible accountability. This kind of accountability places all the responsibility for decision making outside the teacher. Such an approach is bound to fail. People are rarely motivated by others' goals, and a one-size-fits-all model of change rarely provides helpful solutions for the individual complexities of each unique classroom.

Recently, at a coaching workshop I conducted in Kansas, an instructional coach from Texas painted a vivid picture of what irresponsible accountability can look like in schools. She told us about an interaction that took place when her principal went to talk with a teacher about her students' low test scores. When the principal raised the issue, the teacher pointed out that she was implementing the program the district had told her to implement. "I did everything I was told to do, and I did it with fidelity," she said. "If my students aren't doing well, I'm not the problem-it's your program."

Responsible accountability is different. When educators are responsibly accountable, their professional learning is driven by what they have determined will have an impact on their students' learning. In this way, they are accountable to the improvement process-and to students, parents, other stakeholders, and the profession of teaching. Responsible accountability entails a genuine individual commitment to learning and growth.

An Example of Responsible Accountability

Instructional coaching, done well, should foster responsible accountability. During coaching, teachers should have a great deal of autonomy even though they are learning with a coach. For instance, a coach using the impact cycle (Knight, 2018), with stages for identifying, learning, and improving, might video record a lesson and provide the teacher with some suggestions to better interpret what the video reveals.

Following this, the coach and teacher usually have a coaching conversation to identify a goal that the teacher really cares about and that will have an unmistakably positive impact on student learning or well-being. Once a goal is set, they identify a teaching strategy the teacher will implement in an attempt to hit the goal.

During the learning stage, the coach and teacher collaborate to prepare the teacher to implement the new strategy effectively. This often involves the coach explaining the strategy and the teacher modifying it to better meet her students' needs. Often the teacher watches the coach, another teacher, or a video to better understand the strategy before implementing it. Finally, during the improving stage, the teacher, in partnership with the coach, makes adaptations until the goal is met.

Let's look at how this might play out for an individual teacher. Imagine a teacher who views a video recording of her lesson and sees that only 5 of her 31 students responded to the questions she asked. In conversation with her coach, she might decide to set a goal of increasing the number of students responding to questions during each lesson to 20. Once she has set the goal, she and the coach can discuss various strategies she might use to meet it. For example, she might try thinking prompts, effective questions, or a cooperative-learning approach such as think, pair, share (Knight, 2013). She or the coach could videotape her lessons to monitor her progress. As long as she remains committed to her goal, she can keep partnering with the coach to identify strategies or refine what she is implementing until she hits her goal.

This is professional learning that is undeniably accountable-measurable changes will occur that will mean real improvements for students. However, this type of professional learning also involves a high degree of autonomy: The teacher, with support from the coach, observes her own lesson, sets her own goal, adapts the teaching strategies she implements, monitors progress, and determines when she has hit the goal.

The Complexity of Teaching

School leaders and coaches must also understand that teaching is not something that can be boiled down to a set of prescriptive steps. Its complexity requires independent decision making and self-directed growth.

In a groundbreaking study published in 2002, researchers Sholom Glouberman and Brenda Zimmerman broke down the complexity levels of different work tasks. They identified three different types of tasks: simple, complicated, and complex. A simple task, like baking a cake, involves a set of steps that will produce the same results each time when the steps are followed. A complicated task, Glouberman and Zimmerman argued, like putting a person on the moon, involves much more intricate work, but it still involves formulas and steps that should produce predictable outcomes. A complex task, like raising a 3-year old, cannot be broken down into a set of steps because every day and every child is different.

Leadership experts Alexander Grashow, Ronald Heifetz, and Marty Linsky (2009) have described the kinds of challenges presented by simple and complicated tasks as technical challenges. Such challenges "have known solutions that can be implemented by current know-how. They can be resolved through the application of authoritative expertise" (p.19). By contrast, the kinds of challenges presented by complex tasks are adaptive challenges:

Adaptive challenges can only be addressed through changes in people's priorities, beliefs, habits, and loyalties. Making progress requires going beyond any authoritative expertise to mobilize discovery, shedding certain entrenched ways, tolerating losses, and generating new ideas to thrive anew. (p. 19)

If raising one child is complex, then educating and inspiring a room full of children must be considered dauntingly complex, and certainly anyone who has taught recognizes how many variables are at play in the classroom. Much of teaching, in other words, requires adaptability, meaning that discretion and personal discovery are essential to success, and that one-size-fits-all solutions or external dictates will only hamstring progress.

To be sure, technical solutions are appropriate for simple and complicated classroom tasks like organizing a seating chart or teaching some basic procedures. But much of teaching is complex work, and technical solutions will not suffice. Indeed, Heifetz, Grashow, and Linsky write that "the most common failure in leadership is produced by treating adaptive challenges as if they were technical problems" (p. 19).

Feedback as Dialogue

When people describe what coaches do, one of the chief tasks they identify is giving feedback. However, as Buckingham and Goodall (2019) recently argued in the Harvard Business Review, many people's understanding of feedback is completely backwards. For many of us, feedback "is about telling people what we think of their performance and how they should do it better." But, as Buckingham and Goodall explain, "The research is clear: Telling people what we think of their performance doesn't help them thrive and excel, and telling people how we think they should improve actually hinders learning."

Buckingham and Goodall identify three fundamental flaws in the prevailing understanding of how to provide feedback. First, we are not very good at rating others' performance. Our evaluations of other people, they maintain, have more to do with ourselves than with those we are observing. Second, simply telling others how they fall short actually inhibits, rather than encourages, learning. Buckingham and Goodall present compelling research showing that hearing criticism shifts people into survival mode, thereby "impairing" learning. "Learning," the authors write, "rests on our grasp of what we're doing well, not on what we're doing poorly, and certainly not on someone else's sense of what we're doing poorly." And third, excellence isn't reducible to universal and simple explanations. As Buckingham and Goodall explain:

Since excellence is idiosyncratic and cannot be learned by studying failure, we can never help another person succeed by holding her performance up against a prefabricated model of excellence, giving her feedback on where she misses the model, and telling her to plug the gaps.

What does this mean in connection with instructional coaching? First, the lesson (again) is that honoring the autonomy of teachers in coaching is essential if feedback is to lead to improved practice. Rather than telling teachers what they like and dislike about a lesson, coaches should structure conversations with teachers as dialogues between two equal partners, where both members of the conversation are heard and where both parties' opinions count.

Second, as education authors like William Sommers, Parker Palmer, and Robert Garmston have pointed out, effective dialogue is often enabled through a third point for conversation that takes the focus off the coach and teacher and directs it toward whatever the two are exploring together. This increases the teacher's role in the feedback process. Two powerful "third points" are student work and video recordings of teachers' lessons.

Third, coaching conversations are more effective when they are nonjudgmental. This doesn't mean that coaches shouldn't share what they think; instead, they should share their thoughts provisionally and with the humility appropriate for any conversation about what happens in a classroom.

Questions of Fidelity

A final argument often given for top-down professional learning is that effective teaching practices must be implemented with fidelity, so coaches need to ensure that teachers are proceeding as prescribed. This point of view is easy to justify in theory. If teachers don't teach evidence-based practices with fidelity, the thinking is, they won't get results. Therefore, coaches need to make sure teachers implement teaching practices the way research says they were meant to be implemented.

Unfortunately, too narrow a focus on fidelity can actually stand in the way of quality instruction. Without question, instructional coaches need to partner with teachers to provide the supports that empower teachers to implement new practices in ways that get results. But it's the results that matter, not the fidelity to process. By results I mean positive changes in student learning and well-being. Fidelity of implementation doesn't mean much if there aren't positive changes for students.

One of the problems with fidelity is that asking teachers to implement exactly what a script says, exactly as the script says, treats teachers like workers on an assembly line rather than professionals. An overemphasis on fidelity could lead to teachers doing every move on a checklist but teaching without passion or engagement, or even teaching in ways that fail to promote student learning.

A second, more important issue is that teaching is too complex to conform to a one-size-fits-all model. A fidelity approach embodies the idea that solutions to instructional challenges are technical-when, in reality, they must be adaptive.

To be sure, instructional coaches need to be deeply versed in the practices they share, and they should be highly skilled at finding precise, easy-to-understand explanations for those practices. However, they need to present information in a way that allows the teacher to do the thinking. When explaining a teaching practice, an effective instructional coach might say, "Here's what the research says. However, do we need to adapt this at all so it will work for you and your students? What do you think about this approach?" When, for the sake of fidelity, coaches tell teachers what to do without honoring their thoughts and opinions, they are crushing motivation and inviting resistance.

Finally, coaching should be a goal-directed process, as opposed to an exercise in micromanagement. Only an effectively executed practice will lead to positive results for students. So rather than telling teachers exactly what to do, instructional coaches should engage teachers in reflective conversations about what they think might work in their classrooms. By treating teachers like professionals, instructional coaches have a much better chance of enabling high-quality teaching and better student learning-and isn't that the whole point?

Real Choices

When school leaders and coaches dismiss the importance of teacher autonomy, they usually do so because they are so concerned about students' needs that they just can't feel at ease giving up control. But as we've seen, a rigid emphasis on accountability and control ultimately hampers teacher development. External mandates and top-down coaching typically fail-because ultimately they are disempowering and dehumanizing and fail to address the complexity of the classroom. A better option is to infuse coaching with autonomy. When teachers have real choices, when they are engaged in coaching that is responsibly accountable, then real student growth is possible.

Reflect & Discuss

➛ Can you think of a time in your school or district when a "directive approach" to coaching or PD had a counterproductive effect on teachers? How could the training have been done differently?

➛ Can you describe examples of "responsible accountability" in your school? What conditions helped create them?

➛ What could you change in your coaching or supervision to better honor teachers' autonomy? How comfortable are you about making that change?

References

Glouberman, S., & Zimmerman, B. (2002, July). Complicated and complex systems: What would successful reform of Medicare look like? Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada. Discussion Paper No. 8.

Sparks, D., & Malkus, N. (2015). "Public school teacher autonomy in the classroom across school years 2003-04, 2007-08, and 2011-12. Stats in brief. NCES 2015-089." National Center for Education Statistics.

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Why Teacher Autonomy Is Central to Coaching Success

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To foster improvement and responsible accountability, instructional coaches must honor teachers' choices and discretion.

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Learning and internalizing something new, like a coaching skill or a teaching strategy, is-like most of life-more complex than it first appears. In most cases, we do not go to a workshop or watch a webinar and suddenly find ourselves acting in completely new ways. Change takes time, and the movement toward proficiency is often messy and unpredictable.

For that reason, those of us who support educators who are implementing innovations 1 will provide much better support when we understand what the journey to proficient implementation really entails. To that end, I describe here a model for understanding stages of implementation and suggestions for principals and professional developers like coaches to consider as they support teachers moving from one stage to the next.

The Stages of Implementation

Two teams of researchers have especially shaped the way I understand the stages people move through as they learn and change. I've been influenced by Prochaska, Norcross, and DiClemente (1994), who describe change as involving non-linear movement through six stages (pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination), and Gene Hall and Shirley Hord's (2015) eight "Levels of Use," part of their 2019 Concerns-Based Adoption Model (non-use, orientation, preparation, mechanical use, routine use, refinement, integration, and renewal).

To develop my own understanding of implementation, I've found it helpful to combine my experience studying change with these models. In the process, I've come up with my own five stages of implementation: (1) Non-Use, (2) Awareness, (3) Mechanical, (4) Routine, and (5) Proficient. A clearer understanding of these stages of implementation, especially what hinders and helps people as they move from one stage to the next, should lead to better professional development-leading to better teaching practice and, consequently, better learning and lives for students.

Non-Use

People are in this stage when they are not carrying out an innovation because they're either unable or unwilling to implement it. They may be unable to implement an innovation simply because they don't know about it, having missed the workshop or skipped the webinar. Educators can also be in the non-use stage because they either actively or passively resist the new learning. Individuals who actively resist learning are very clear that they choose to not implement something that's been suggested for them, perhaps because it conflicts with their professional goals or values. Those who passively resist quietly choose not to implement a strategy for reasons they choose not to articulate.

Awareness

People are at the awareness stage when they know something about an innovation, are not resistant, but also aren't implementing it. Often, educators in this stage have a little knowledge about an innovation but are unclear how to put that new knowledge into practice. And the longer people go without implementing a strategy, the less likely they are to ever implement it. For example, teachers might attend a workshop on restorative justice and be excited about implementing it in their classroom. But as time passes, they will remember less and less about the approach and consequently be less likely to implement it.

Workshops help people develop an awareness of an innovation, but they sometimes provide too much abstract information and too little detailed, practical guidance on how to implement the new practice. In my experience, it only takes about three days to forget most of what was learned in a workshop. However it happens, during the awareness stage, people talk about change, but don't do anything differently.

Mechanical

During the mechanical stage, people start to implement an innovation, but they often feel awkward carrying it out because they have to remember a lot of new information in order to change what they're doing. The mechanical stage can feel like walking through a field of deep, wet snow: messy, slow, uncomfortable, and tiring. A teacher who is implementing Fisher and Frey's gradual release model (2008), for example, may struggle with the focus lesson when they model their thinking. They may tell students what they are doing rather than transparently demonstrate their thinking, or they may involve students in discussion too quickly before they have finished modeling.

Additionally, the first time we implement an innovation is usually not our best performance, and it might not immediately yield the desired results. Since the new strategy may not improve student learning or well-being at first, and since implementing something new can feel clumsy, it's not surprising educators often decide to return to their old, comfortable ways of teaching.

Routine

During the routine stage of implementation, people start to become comfortable with aspects of the new strategy or skill they are learning. This can feel reassuring after the struggles of the mechanical stage. Feeling comfortable, people may be tempted to implement the innovation in a structured, quick, and easy to remember way. Once they are confident of some aspect of what they are learning, such as using the identify questions from the impact cycle (Knight, 2017), teachers may be hesitant to move beyond their comfortable, routine use ("I've just gotten comfortable with this skill, why would I want to modify it?")

A risk of routine implementation is false clarity. According to Fullan (2001), false clarity "occurs when change is interpreted in an oversimplified way; that is, the proposed change has more to it than people perceive or realize" (p. 77). When we have false clarity, we know less than we think we do. We aren't implementing an innovation as effectively as we think we are. That means we probably aren't having the impact that we desire.

Innovations ultimately need to be adapted to respond to the unique strengths and needs of teachers and students. However, change just for the sake of change probably isn't the best strategy. The best outcomes occur when educators make informed, intentional adaptations-informed because the educator deeply understands the principles and nuances of innovations (which often comes from coaching and diverse experiences) and intentional, because educators use their knowledge to make good decisions about how to adapt strategies for better student outcomes. This kind of modification of an innovation is really only possible during the proficient stage.

Proficient

When people arrive at the proficient stage, they have developed a deep understanding of the knowledge or skills they are learning, and consequently a deep understanding of how they can and should modify an innovation to provide personalized support. They can adapt the innovation to the specific needs of the situation at hand. Coaches who have reached the proficient stage in their questioning skills, for example, are able to ask the right question at the right time to facilitate a collaborating teacher's reflection or planning. They can do this because they have read about questioning, practiced questioning, and used questioning in many coaching conversations.

As another example, teachers who are proficient at giving one-to-one feedback are able, in a very short period of time, to communicate to individual students what they have done well, pinpoint where each student needs to improve, and communicate the right amount of personalized information so each student can move forward. What works for one student won't necessarily work for the next student, and a proficient teacher will be able to personalize one-to-one feedback so that it works best for each student.

Observing a proficient performer, it can appear that he or she effortlessly modifies an innovation so that it's more effective. That "effortlessness," however, is the product of learning, practice, and experimentation over time. It takes a lot of work to look like you're carrying out an innovation effortlessly.

Supporting Movement from One Stage to the Next

Naturally, those working to support teachers in improving their practice or in trying a key innovation want to help teachers move to more sophisticated stages of using that innovation. Here are some approaches leaders and professional developers can try to make this happen.

Moving Beyond Resistance

When people are actively or passively resistant, blaming them for resisting usually doesn't improve the situation. A better strategy is to try and figure out why people aren't embracing an innovation. A leader might nonjudgmentally ask hesitant teachers what worries them about the innovation or what they object to, perhaps by exploring some common reasons teachers balk at an innovation:

Are teachers resisting because they don't think the strategy will work for their students?

Are teachers resisting because of an ideological difference? (For instance, if a teacher with a constructivist philosophy is asked to use direct instruction?)

Is the leader's approach to change creating the resistance? (For example, have we not given teachers a voice in what happens in their classroom, or failed to acknowledge others' knowledge and status as we proposed ideas?)

Is this innovation threatening people's identity?

Does the school's history of professional development suggest people should have low expectations for this new innovation?

When we take the courageous step of understanding why teachers resist, we can change our approach to one that's more likely to lead to mutual understanding than to resistance. If teachers report that they don't have enough voice in decision making, we can make adjustments to ensure teachers have the chance to give meaningful, authentic input. If teachers don't think a strategy will work, the first step should be to try and ascertain whether or not they are correct. If a teacher considers a reading program insufficiently challenging for students, for example, administrators should try to understand clearly other teachers' experiences with the materials. Perhaps, rather than being resistant, the teacher is actually sharing important information. With each question, our approach should be to listen first, acknowledge that we've heard what was said, and respond appropriately.

In reality, resistance is more often produced by a system or change agents' approach to change than it is by a resistant individual's personal characteristics. If a large number of people are resisting within a system, the people probably aren't the problem. An overly simplistic top-down approach that doesn't recognize the importance of teacher autonomy (Knight, 2019) almost always produces either apathy or resistance. A one-way model of change, in which experts put out ideas for teachers to implement and fail to take into account teacher knowledge, rarely succeeds. Systems will be more effective if they gather and act on what teachers are learning during the implementation process.

Movement forward in an organization, like movement forward for a person, is messy and nonlinear. The coherence that results from empowering, meaningful conversations with teachers in schools takes time. However, not taking the time to involve teachers in decisions and plans is even more inefficient, since it seldom leads to high-quality implementation.

Getting to Proof

One reason people resist moving through the stages of implementation is that they aren't convinced that a proposed change will be worth the effort. No matter how big an "effect size" research shows for the innovation, people usually aren't convinced it will work until they see it make a difference for their students. This creates a catch-22: People don't like to implement a new strategy unless they have seen it be effective, but they can't experience its effectiveness unless they try it. As Joseph Grenny and colleagues (2013) explain:

The most common tool we use to change other's expectations is the use of verbal persuasion ... [but] ... When it comes to resistant problems, verbal persuasion rarely works. Verbal persuasion often comes across as an attack. It can feel like nagging or manipulation. ... The great persuader is personal experience. With persistent problems, it's best to give verbal persuasion a rest and try to help people experience the world as you experience it. (p. 51)

In my work studying coaching for the past two decades, I have found, paradoxically, that the best way to get teachers to implement an innovation and become proficient with it is to turn the focus away from the innovation and toward students. When educators see that a new strategy is making a difference in students' lives, they're much more likely to keep using that strategy. Seeing an innovation as a means to an end rather than the end itself increases the likelihood that the innovation will be implemented effectively.

Using student-focused goals related to achievement or engagement as the focus for professional learning also increases the likelihood of high-quality implementation because student goals are objective standards. For instance, to hit a goal of 95 percent of students getting 100 percent on a single-factor rubric for sentence writing, a teacher will need to effectively implement the strategy associated with that aspect of sentence writing. With this goal in place, coaches can be less directive about ensuring high-quality implementation. The goal takes care of that because the only way a goal will be hit is if the innovation is used effectively.

Overcoming Fear and Perfectionism

Even though it's widely accepted that people need to step out of their comfort zones to get better, most of us hesitate to put ourselves in situations where we feel out of control. Moving from one stage of implementation to another is a bit like a trapeze artist letting go of one trapeze to grab the hands of a fellow aerialist. No wonder people hesitate before moving to the next stage.

Perfectionists will especially find it difficult to move forward. As Brené Brown has written, "perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it's the thing that's really preventing us from being seen and taking flight" (2010, p. 56). Perfectionism can keep us from messing up, but it can also keep us from growing. If you don't try something until you're sure you can do it perfectly, you might never try.

Professional developers can make it easier for people to step out of their comfort zones and move beyond perfectionism by providing sustained, meaningful support for professional learning. This often involves clear explanations, demonstration (in person, through video, or by visiting another teacher's class), and ongoing conversations about how innovations or implementation can be modified to meet individual students' needs. To decrease fear, intentionally affirm teachers rather than critically judging them and create a psychologically safe place for coaching conversations.

Onward to Action

Talking about change can feel like something is actually happening, even though, as the Chinese proverb says, "Talk doesn't cook rice." But the only way professional development can have a positive effect on students' learning and well-being is if that new knowledge is translated into action. When we recognize the stages people generally go through to become proficient, we can see what steps to take to make it more likely that real implementation occurs.

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Moving from Talk to Action in Professional Learning - ASCD

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Learning and internalizing something new, like a coaching skill or a teaching strategy, is-like most of life-more complex than it first appears. In most cases, we do not go to a workshop or watch a webinar and suddenly find ourselves acting in completely new ways.

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Much of my life, personally and professionally, has been dedicated to answering one question: What does it take to really change? Over the years, through my research and that of others, I've identified several important strategies for bringing about real and lasting change. For example, real change doesn't happen until we apply new ideas in real life. Real change is usually propelled forward by an emotionally compelling goal (Heath & Heath, 2010), and people are more likely to stay motivated to change if they monitor their progress (Amabile & Kramer, 2011).

But before we can implement any of these change strategies, there's one prerequisite: If we want to make changes that make a difference and last, we must start by getting a clear picture of reality.

Seeing the present reality clearly helps us identify the highest-leverage changes we should make, the actions we should take to achieve our goals. Perhaps more important, having a clear picture -including of our strengths and shortcomings in teaching practice-is essential to even want to bring about change. People usually aren't motivated to change unless they see a gap between where they are and where they want to be.

That Ubiquitous Avoidance

But while a clear picture of reality helps us clarify what we need to do and why, avoiding reality is a near-universal human tendency. Most of us avoid reality at least some of the time because we want to believe that we are competent, good people. Seeing life in its naked brutality can just be too difficult. This is especially true with actions regarding equity because buried within our defense mechanisms is the fear that we might not be as good of a person as we think; we may treat one group of kids less fairly or tune out injustices. So, we often use defense mechanisms to protect ourselves, justifying our behaviors by rationalizing, avoiding unpleasant data by denial and minimization, and shirking accepting responsibility by blaming others.

Often such defense mechanisms are actually helpful and healthy. Change experts Prochaska, DiClemente, and Norcross explain that "without the protection of these 'mental shields' we would be bombarded constantly by undesirable feelings and external threats, both real and imagined. Defensive reactions allow us to avoid, temporarily at least, what we cannot confront, and let us get on with our lives" (Prochaska, Norcross, & DiClemente, 1994, p. 82). So, defense mechanisms protect our emotional state. Unfortunately, if we never address them, they can make it hard for us to change.

Most of us also struggle to see reality clearly because our view of reality is obscured by perceptual errors like confirmation bias and habituation. Confirmation bias is our tendency to seek out data that confirm our preconceived notions. Habituation involves getting so used to whatever we're experiencing that we stop noticing or wondering about key aspects of that experience, like why kids from certain groups are so often in certain classes. The combined impact of defensiveness and perceptual errors is that most of us don't really know what it looks like when we do what we do as educators. This is a huge barrier to change! Fortunately, we can take actions to determine what's really unfolding.

Getting to Reality

Record Yourself

There's a reason why almost every middle and high school football team in the United States watches game film: it shows them what they're really doing on the field. Likewise, a video recording of yourself delivering a lesson, talking with a child, etc. cuts through defense mechanisms and perceptual errors. It shows your tone, how much time you spend with various kids, and so on-and consequently helps identify what you need to change. I highly recommend educators take and watch video of themselves in all kinds of contexts, including in the classroom, presenting, coaching, or during meetings to see how you lead and collaborate.

In schools, video can be an especially important tool for creating equitable classrooms. Video reveals how you interact with each student and may clue you in to subtle biases in your actions or how your classroom is set up.

Ask Those You Interact With

Asking those you interact with as an educator to describe their experiences in class/at school helps you get a clearer picture of your own behavior and its effects. Teachers and coaches learn a lot when they ask students to describe their learning, how engaged they feel in class, or the connection or lack thereof they feel with their school. Administrators and coaches benefit from meeting one-to-one with others in the school to seek feedback.

Instructional coaches can help with feedback seeking. For example, Bill Sommers-a former principal and now a coach for administrators who I've worked with-has adapted Marshall Goldsmith's Stakeholder Coaching method. Sommers begins his coaching by interviewing people who are affected by an administrator's actions (often those a leader notes that he or she has the most contact with), then synthesizes this interview data and shares the results with the administrator. A focus for coaching often surfaces.

Listen to Understand

It's easy to listen to people when they share positive information about us-("Please, tell me more!"). It's a lot harder to listen when they share negative information. Our defensiveness can keep us from hearing important information that could help us see what's truly happening and move closer to our goals. I know I've damaged relationships that would have remained sounder if I'd done a better job of putting my defensiveness aside and just listened. We don't have to agree with what others say, but we should at least hear them out before we start to disagree.

When we really listen, we communicate to others that we value their opinions and expertise. For leaders, this is crucial. The teams where the most learning occurs are those where everyone feels free to share their ideas-whether positive or critical. This atmosphere won't exist when leaders silence people before they have a chance to share their ideas.

The Story of Our Lives

Getting a clear picture of reality, then, is an essential strategy for us professionally, and I think also personally. A life well-lived is a changing, growing life. I will never be the perfect version of myself. But I can be a little bit better-a better husband, parent, grandparent, and a better coach, leader, professional developer, or teacher. Learning, adapting, and setting goals is a big part of writing the story of my life. To write that story, I need a clear picture of reality.

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The Learning Zone / To Change, Start Where You (Really) Are - ASCD

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Much of my life, personally and professionally, has been dedicated to answering one question: What does it take to really change? Over the years, through my research and that of others, I've identified several important strategies for bringing about real and lasting change. For example, real change

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Educational Leadership received the following letter in response to Rashaida Melvin and Lauren Vargas's article "Four Myths on Coaching and Efficacy " in the November 2021 issue.

In their article, Rashaida Melvin and Lauren Vargas make a reasoned case for choreographed "technical" coaching (coaching around a body of knowledge-in this case, teacher effectiveness). Yet we think several major flaws or misunderstandings in the article give a distorted view of the reflective strategies of cognitive coaching.

The authors state that one myth is "Teachers must change their minds before changing their actions" and they quote Jim Knight's definition that "cognitive coaching is predicated on the assumption that behaviors change after our beliefs change."

Teachers are complex thinking, feeling, and behaving human beings performing in one of the most complex and stressful of situations-the classroom. The assumption that simply telling teachers what to do differently will bring about lasting and transferable change, without aligning those new behaviors with the teacher's thoughts, feelings, values, and belief systems, is seriously flawed.

In Myth # 3, "Teachers grow the most when they arrive at the answers themselves," the authors argue that, in their work with teachers, instructional leaders often rely too heavily on reflective practices, encouraging journeys of "self-discovery" rather than a focus on "actual effectiveness in the classroom."

But each question in a structured reflective conversation in cognitive coaching is part of a larger purpose: First, to make sure that what the teacher recalls about the lesson or situation is accurate, that there is evidence of goal attainment for the lesson, and to discuss insights about future endeavors to improve student attainment and teacher competencies. Second, to reflect on the coaching process itself, so this process might be internalized in the self-directed skill set of the teacher.

In these conversations, teachers also have a chance to reflect aloud on their own behavior and student responses. They thereby gain a deeper understanding about how their perceptions and thinking inform their choices. There are many micro-reasons why teachers may fail to engage all kids. By surfacing these reasons and talking them through, the teacher begins to change not only their behavior, but also their thinking and feelings about how to manage the complexities of a classroom.

The key question is: Should coaches assume their identity as the source of change (a fixer of faulty practice) or as a catalyst (a thought partner for growth)? Thought partners think through something together, which builds an openness to be vulnerable and to authentically grow. Of course, any competent coach will offer a teacher alternative moves when they are mishandling a situation. The difference is in making the teacher, rather than the coach, the centerpiece of their conversation.

In choreographed coaching, coaching is a catalyst to support teachers' changes in their actions and practices in the classroom before addressing growth in their mindsets. Similar to the brain science you mentioned, as well as research on culture and the brain , the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of teachers are far from ignored in choreographed coaching, but they are typically engaged while or after making intentional changes to classroom practices. This is far from "simply telling teachers what they should be doing," as you said.

In our experience coaching hundreds of coaches across the country, when coaches use a cognitive model of coaching they do address a teacher's thoughts and feelings, but little practical change translates to the classroom very quickly―and when working with our nation's most vulnerable students, they cannot afford to wait for a teacher's mindset to align with transformational actions. In choreographed coaching, as teachers see the impact of changes in their actions on improving learning and engagement for children, the coach then facilitates much richer discussions of emotions, beliefs, and biases. Both action and mindset are important, but the order of addressing them matters.

Choreographed coaching is named to reflect the feedback and training that the most skilled professional dancers (or musicians or professional athletes) receive from a choreographer (or coach). We believe instructional coaching should reflect this same respect and professionalism that others at the top of their field receive. Teachers are wonderfully complex and navigate incredibly complex situations daily. Not to mention, they are responsible for our most valuable resource: our children. As such, they deserve coaching that builds capacity, knowledge, skill, will, and reflection.

With this in mind, we see the key question as: How do instructional coaches best act as a catalyst, deliberately and urgently, for teacher growth to help every child thrive in school every day? Kids are in classrooms today where school is leaving their needs unmet or even causing them harm. An even greater challenge is added by the teaching and staffing shortages in schools, especially in high poverty districts , and this is forecasted to continue into the foreseeable future. In developing, training, and supporting teachers, we can hardly afford to take the longest route to help teachers reach their full potential. Instead, we recommend "choreographing" teachers' success in the classroom to support the quality of education that every child receives every day.

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Educational Leadership received the following letter in response to Rashaida Melvin and Lauren Vargas's article "Four Myths on Coaching and Efficacy" in the November 2021 issue. Letter from Arthur L. Costa and Robert Garmston: In their article, Rashaida Melvin and Lauren Vargas make a reasoned case

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7 Steps to Facilitate Effective One-to-One Support for Teachers

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7 Steps to Facilitate Effective One-to-One Support for Teachers

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An old adage says, "The first step in making a difference is believing that you can." In education, we refer to that belief as teacher efficacy. Among teacher qualities that contribute to success with students, teacher efficacy has been shown to be one of the most powerful (Kim & Seo, 2018). Still, few educators today know the precise nature of teacher efficacy, the history of the concept's development, how it's measured, or how teacher efficacy can be improved.

Locus of Control

For decades, researchers have been fascinated by the effects of individuals' perceptions of their personal influence on the world around them. Psychologists label this "attribution theory" because it describes the degree to which people believe they can affect and are responsible for different aspects of their lives.

One of the earliest attribution theorists was Julian Rotter, who noted in the 1950s and 60s that people tend to believe that control of events in their lives resides either internally within them, or externally with others or the situation. He labeled this tendency "locus of control" (Rotter, 1966). Individuals with internal locus of control believe in their personal ability to direct themselves and influence situations. They tend to be highly motivated and success-oriented. People with external locus of control, by contrast, believe that what happens around them and the actions of others are things they cannot influence. Events in their life are determined by forces over which they have little control, or are due to chance or luck. They generally see things as happening to them and tend to be more passive and accepting.

However, Rotter theorized that individuals have a spectrum of locus of control beliefs, and few people perceive they have a wholly internal or external locus of control. Instead, most people have a balance of views that varies depending on the situation. For example, some may be more internal in their beliefs at home but more external in their work lives.

In the early 1970s, Bernard Weiner and his colleagues (1971) added the dimension of stability to Rotter's theory and applied their new model to educators. They proposed that the attributions both teachers and students make about why a learner does well or stumbles academically include ability (which reflects an internal locus of control and is stable or fixed), effort (internal/unstable or alterable), task difficulty (external/stable or fixed), or luck (external/unstable).

To clarify how these kinds of attributions often play out, consider how a teacher might explain students' poor performance on an assessment, and whether she credits ability, effort, task challenge, or luck:

I don't know how to teach those concepts very well (internal, stable).

I didn't spend enough time planning my lessons for this particular unit (internal, unstable).

The assessment was too hard for my students (external, stable).

Students were having a bad day (external, unstable).

The teacher with the best prospects for improvement clearly would be one who attributes the result to internal and unstable, alterable factors related to effort, rather than to the lack of ability or external factors associated with the students.

Enter Teacher Efficacy

Applications of attribution theory in education grew throughout the 1970s, leading to the concept of teacher efficacy, which refers to the internal attributions of teachers for student outcomes (Barfield & Burlingame, 1974). Interest skyrocketed, however, in 1977 when the Rand Corporation's Change Agent Study of federally funded programs intended to introduce and support innovative practices in public schools identified teacher efficacy as the most powerful variable in predicting program implementation success (Berman & McLaughlin, 1977).

Rand researchers defined teacher efficacy as "the extent to which the teacher believes he or she has the capacity to affect student performance" (McLaughlin & Marsh, 1978, p. 84). They measured teacher efficacy by asking teachers to rate their agreement with just two statements: "When it comes right down to it, a teacher really can't do much because most of a student's motivation and performance depends on his or her home environment" and "If I try really hard, I can get through to even the most difficult or unmotivated students." Numerous subsequent investigations confirmed the strong relationship between teachers' sense of efficacy and students' performance at all levels of education (Ashton, 1984; Guskey, 1987).

Can We Improve Teacher Efficacy?

Most efforts to enhance teacher efficacy are based on the social learning theory of Albert Bandura (1986), who proposed four major sources of efficacy perceptions: mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal and social persuasion, and emotional and physiological states. Among these, mastery experiences have consistently proven the most powerful for teacher efficacy (Usher & Pajares, 2008). In other words, teachers' personal experiences of success or lack of success strongly shape their efficacy beliefs. By contrast, efficacy beliefs are only modestly changed by watching others, logical persuasion, or emotional circumstances. Real change comes through what teachers experience with their students in their classrooms.

An early study on the implementation of mastery learning provided an excellent example (Guskey, 1984). Mastery learning refers to an instructional strategy developed by Benjamin Bloom (1968) to better individualize learning within group-based classrooms through the use of regular formative assessments paired with specific feedback and corrective procedures (Guskey, 2020a). In this study, more than 100 teachers volunteered to participate in a professional learning program based on mastery learning. Half of the teachers were randomly selected to take part in initial professional learning activities; the other half served as a comparison (control) group and didn't receive any professional learning. For various reasons, some of those who participated in the professional learning were unable to implement the strategies in their classes. Among those who did implement mastery learning strategies, most saw improvements in their students' learning outcomes, but some did not.

This yielded four comparison groups: teachers who implemented the strategies and experienced improved student outcomes; those who implemented the strategies but saw little or no improvement; those who participated in the professional learning but never tried the strategies; and those who didn't receive the professional learning.

Comparisons among these groups using pre- and post-treatment measures on the Responsibility for Student Achievement scale (an instrument I developed in 1981 and an early proxy for teacher efficacy) showed that only teachers who saw improvements in students' learning expressed a significant increase in teacher efficacy. That is, engagement in professional learning and implementing new strategies alone made little difference. Change in teacher efficacy was primarily a result-rather than a cause -of measurable increases in student learning. What mattered was the mastery experience of teachers seeing their students doing better as a result of their efforts (Guskey, 2020b).

The Challenge: Helping Teachers to Mastery

Teacher efficacy theory and research continue to evolve. Just as the concepts of locus of control and responsibility for student achievement were broadened to yield teacher efficacy, adaptations of teacher efficacy are evident in many modern conceptions of teacher effectiveness. For example, Carol Dweck (2006) describes "growth mindset" as "based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts, your strategies, and help from others. . . . Everyone can change and grow through application and experience" (p. 7). These characteristics strikingly resemble aspects of internal locus of control and positive teacher efficacy.

Similarly, Albert Bandura's (2001) description of "agency"-"To be an agent is to intentionally make things happen by one's actions. Agency embodies the endowments, belief systems, self-regulatory capabilities, and distributed structures and functions through which personal influence is exercised" (p. 2)-aligns with an internal locus of control and positive teacher efficacy.

Still, the challenge before us remains how to cultivate and enhance teachers' sense of efficacy, growth mindset, or agency. Consistent research evidence shows that to do that, we must focus on changing teachers' experience. We must support teachers in using strategies that improve students' performance and help them gather trustworthy evidence on those improvements (Guskey, 2021). In particular, we must try to create situations where teachers can realize their actions have an important, positive influence on their students' learning. Instead of trying to change teachers' attitudes and beliefs directly, we must change the experiences that shape those attitudes and beliefs. Specifically, we must provide teachers with mastery experiences.

To do that, school leaders and those involved in offering professional learning must do two things. First, we need to engage teachers in professional learning experiences that focus on evidence-based practices. Instead of trusting the opinions of celebrity consultants or the topics trending on Twitter, we need to ensure the strategies we focus on in professional learning have been thoroughly tested and are backed by solid research showing their impact on student learning in contexts like our own.

Second, we need to establish procedures through which teachers can gain regular and specific feedback on how their actions are affecting their students. Teachers must see explicit evidence from their students in their classrooms that the changes make a difference. That evidence must come quickly, and it must be evidence that teachers trust. The mastery learning study described earlier provided that evidence through the use of regular formative assessments. But such evidence could also include improved daily work, indicators of increased learner confidence, better written assignments, or enhanced engagement in class lessons-as long as it allows teachers to see the positive effects of their efforts.

Seeing the Difference

When it comes to teacher efficacy, a more accurate adage might be, "The first step in believing you can make a difference is seeing that you can." Personal experience shapes attitudes and beliefs. Teachers who see that their actions make an important difference for students not only develop an enhanced sense of teacher efficacy, they also become more open to new ideas to further boost their effectiveness. Knowing that what they do matters, they look for ways to get even better. Focusing on evidence-based practices and designing procedures for teachers to gain meaningful evidence about their positive effects on students is clearly the key to cultivating teacher efficacy-and bringing about significant and sustained improvement in education.

Copyright © 2021 Thomas R. Guskey

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The Past and Future of Teacher Efficacy - ASCD

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An old adage says, "The first step in making a difference is believing that you can." In education, we refer to that belief as teacher efficacy. Among teacher qualities that contribute to success with students, teacher efficacy has been shown to be one of the most powerful (Kim & Seo, 2018).

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Abstract

Mattering Interpersonally

Mattering Intrapersonally

Mattering Externally

Make It Matter

When teachers feel valued, their sense of purpose and efficacy increases.

Social-emotional learning

Credit: ALEKSEY-MARTYNYUK/iSTOCK

Abstract

Mattering Interpersonally

Mattering Intrapersonally

Mattering Externally

Make It Matter

People are the backbone of education, yet the challenges in recent years, coupled with frequent external criticism, has defined the teaching profession more as a problem to be managed rather than a calling to be celebrated. Books and articles attempt to address teacher disillusionment and dissatisfaction. Educators have applied influential approaches to their work from books such as Grit by Angela Duckworth (Scribner, 2016), Find Your Why by Simon Sinek (Portfolio, 2017), and Mindset by Carol Dweck (Random House, 2006). But even with the value of these powerful research-to-practice considerations, progress is slow. What if there was something else-a different framework available to identify how teachers can find more teaching satisfaction and enjoyment?

As both practitioners and scholars interested in teacher well-being, we believe that the concept of "mattering" holds the key to collective efficacy in schools. Mattering is the feeling that our actions are significant and we would be missed if we were gone. It is the belief that another person cares about what we want, think, and do, and is concerned with our fate. Elliott et al. (2004) stated that mattering is "the perception that, to some degree and in a variety of ways, we are a significant part of the world around us" (p. 339). It's been shown that a sense of mattering leads to lower stress, while a lack of mattering leads to depression (Taylor & Turner, 2001).

In both our individual and collective research, we've found that mattering strikes at the heart of what teachers today want and need. Shelly's work has identified eight foundational elements of mattering for K-12 teachers, divided into three key areas-interpersonal, intrapersonal, and external-as depicted in Figure 1 (Wilfong, 2021). As a follow up to this research, both of us found a significant relationship between mattering and teachers' sense of collective teacher efficacy (Wilfong & Donlan, 2021). Additionally, our study found a significant relationship between mattering and self-efficacy, change, culture, and organizational health. Understanding these elements of mattering is critical to understanding how leaders can provide an environment where teachers matter, feel more satisfied, and are less likely to leave the profession. Leaders can also help teachers develop a sense of mattering in one another. And teachers can gauge their own sense of mattering to identify what is missing in their own careers and to fill those gaps.

Mattering Interpersonally

Mattering interpersonally involves feelings or interactions with others and includes the following components:

Community

Community is job-focused camaraderie that creates energy and a sense of belonging. One question school leaders and teachers should ask themselves is, Does community exist in our professional learning communities? While student achievement is at the forefront of most PLC work, at times we must put aside our laser-like focus on the students and focus more on whether the adults in the equation feel they matter. For decades, leadership has encouraged teachers to open doors and work together. This is more important now than ever before, because community can enhance the effectiveness of a PLC. It is the force that creates energy and belonging within the group.

Building community in a school requires deliberate actions to ensure success. School leaders who encourage faculty to spend time with data analysis and instructional planning are on the right path; however, they must also allow faculty to spend quality time focused on themselves, connecting and encouraging each other. They can reduce or consolidate training mandates that take away valuable community-building time or offer administrative coverage so teachers can visit each other's classrooms and experience together the joy of students.

Authenticity

School districts that have a clear mission and live their core values can help teachers with authenticity, defined for our purposes as the ability to be the same person at work and at home. Authenticity happens when the institution and individual are aligned, and teachers feel comfortable "being themselves" around others. Of all the elements of mattering, this one can be the hardest to enact because it often requires a shift in school culture and staff attitudes and a willingness among school leaders to implement change.

When districts and schools clearly articulate and implement their vision, teachers can determine if they can be their authentic selves within that structure. This requires school leaders to offer "truth in advertising," especially during the hiring process, with core values at the forefront of transparent decision-making processes, so that teachers can determine if they are the right fit for the school.

Of course, some element of code-switching between one's private and professional life will always be necessary; however, excessive code-switching during the day can take a toll on educators (McCluney et al., 2019). Teaching is emotionally and physically draining without layering in the need to act differently to fit in-or to take on the burden of addressing such issues with administration when leaders aren't aware of their own unconscious biases.

When teachers see the work environment of a school as one where they cannot be their authentic selves, either school leaders did not cast the right talent or they misrepresented their school and expected teachers to assimilate once hired. Schools need to allow teachers some freedom in structuring their classroom climates, but also, within reason, in how they present themselves professionally and personally in terms of appearance and behavior. For newcomers, it helps if principals and teacher leaders message clearly that the school intends to become more like the new teachers rather than expecting the new teachers to become like the school.

Flow

When we enjoy an activity to the point of losing track of time, we experience flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 2009). Flow will most likely happen when we have a balance between our skills and the challenge at hand. To improve flow in teachers' work, school leaders can identify needed skills for the challenges at hand and provide teachers with meaningful professional development to improve those skills.

If teachers do not feel they have the skills necessary to teach certain things, it can be stressful-even tortuous. Time does not "fly by"; it stands still (and not in a good way). When the skill level matches the challenge, however, teachers are more likely to embrace the activity and feel like what they are doing matters.

Mattering Intrapersonally

Mattering intrapersonally involves the internal feelings and actions of an individual and includes the following components:

Purpose

Fulfilling one's passion is key to overall life satisfaction. School leaders must honor teachers' individual passions-but first they must ask about what they are. Sometimes critical conversations are required. Some who pursue teaching careers realize after they start that the job is different from what they expected. Their purpose may be out of sync with the district and the profession. School leaders need to find ways to help these teachers reclaim their why, encourage a re-examination of their mission and passion, or counsel them to find other pursuits. Teachers who do not have a passion for teaching may be fine in their job at first; however, without a purpose, synced with the school's mission, their enthusiasm will wane over time. This lack of enthusiasm will assuredly negatively impact others.

Assimilation

Sometimes we must integrate necessary but unpleasant tasks (recess duty, lunch duty, common-area supervision, making phone calls home) with our own values to achieve a goal (building strong student relationships). This is assimilation. To feel like these tasks matter, teachers must understand why they are necessary for and important to the school's overall goals. If we are school leaders, we must share our perspective and ask teachers for their input.

It goes deeper than just stating that a task has a beneficial outcome. Leaders must connect the dots between task and outcome. A principal can explain to teachers why recess duty is important; however, this does not engender assimilation. Instead, principals should demonstrate through story how teacher interactions with students outside of the classroom can build even stronger relationships in the classroom. Fewer student behavior problems translate to more time and energy in teaching and learning. Connect that how and why.

Mattering Externally

Finally, the third category-mattering externally-involves areas over which the individual teacher often has little direct control and includes the following components:

Job Crafting

Job crafting is the ability to make changes to the work environment to meet individual needs. School leaders who hire well and trust and empower their employees can support job crafting. Administrators need to openly discuss the concept of job crafting with teachers and explicitly create conditions that incentivize a teacher to job craft. Can you allow teachers to choose between a PC or a Mac computer? Or create PLC agendas to fit the needs of the individual groups instead of everyone using the same template? Can you support teachers' individual needs by allowing them to tweak their start and end times as long as those times do not interfere with a staff meeting or other duties? If school leaders have clear guard rails on expectations yet allow for a wide highway of innovation, job crafting can be a powerful tool for teachers while all stay focused on the overall goals of the organization.

Stability

Knowing your job is secure and not likely to change radically is an essential component of mattering. School leaders who reduce staff through retirement attrition and plan for population shifts rather than resorting to forced layoffs or shifts in school or grade-level assignments can help teachers feel stable in their positions. Teachers should also feel enough confidence in this stability to believe they can advocate for fair evaluation systems and other changes to the system. This type of security can lead to a teacher's sense of mattering and work to improve schools and processes over the long run.

Compensation

Finally, to be effective, confident, and happy in their jobs, teachers must have fair and equitable compensation. In 2017, the wage discrepancy between teachers and other professions was more than 18 percent based on experience and education (Allegretto & Mishel, 2018). School leaders can look for ways to cut costs in other areas to lead to more funds for salaries-and they should make sure to ask teachers and staff for ideas and suggestions, because invariably those closest to the classroom can offer key information on resources that are needed and those that are squandered.

We understand that salary schedules and compensation models are often set as part of district-level collective bargaining agreements. This creates a formalized process within which mattering through adequate compensation can be addressed with each negotiations cycle. Savvy negotiators on all sides may agree that one's total compensation package transcends the value of a paycheck, and it could hypothetically include free or low-cost health clinics, mental health services, and/or a robust wellness program that would add the additional benefit of a reduction in health insurance costs. School leaders may have little control over the amount of funds available; however, they can continually identify creative solutions to stretch the budget and work together on things that matter.

Make It Matter

For all the discussion surrounding teacher wellness, stress levels, and career satisfaction, little improvement in those areas has occurred in recent years. Teachers want to feel they matter, both individually and as part of a larger team that has the capacity to make a difference. Teachers also want to feel they are significant to others in meaningful ways.

When teachers understand the construct and elements of mattering, they can also identify which pieces may be missing in their careers and pursue remedies to increase their job satisfaction. This can have direct and tangential influences on teaching, learning, whole-educator care, and student success-and that, perhaps, is what truly matters in the end.

Reflect and Discuss

➛ Which components of mattering do you most identify with?

➛ Are there any of the components of mattering that you think are lacking in your job or self? How might you work to develop them or advocate for yourself?

➛ How do you think a teacher's sense of mattering can help or hinder a student's learning experience?

References

Allegretto, S. A., & Mishel, L. (2018).The teacher pay penalty has hit a new high: Trends in the teacher wage and compensation gaps through 2017. Economic Policy Institute.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2009). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper Row.

Elliott, G., Kao, S., & Grant, A. (2004). Mattering: Empirical validation of a social-psychological concept. Self and Identity, 3(4), 339-354.

McCluney, C. L., Robotham, K., Lee, S., Smith, R., & Durkee, M. (2019, Nov 15). The costs of code-switching. Harvard Business Review.

Taylor, J., & Turner, R. (2001). A longitudinal study of the role and significance of mattering to others for depressive symptoms. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 42(3), 310-325.

Wilfong, R. S. (2021). The foundational elements of mattering for K-12 teachers. [Doctoral dissertation, Indiana State University]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Wilfong, R. S., & Donlan, R. (2021, unpublished). Does mattering matter? Perceptions of whether I matter as a teacher and connections to individual and collective teacher efficacy, perspectives on change, school culture, and organizational health.

ASCD is a community dedicated to educators' professional growth and well-being.

Let us help you put your vision into action.

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How Mattering Matters for Educators - ASCD

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People are the backbone of education, yet the challenges in recent years, coupled with frequent external criticism, has defined the teaching profession more as a problem to be managed rather than a calling to be celebrated. Books and articles attempt to address teacher disillusionment and dissatisfa

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The idea that teachers stop getting better after their first few years on the job has become widely accepted by both policymakers and the public. Philanthropist and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates popularized the notion in a 2009 TED Talk when he said " once somebody has taught for three years, their teaching quality does not change thereafter." He argued that teacher effectiveness should be measured and good teachers rewarded.

That teachers stop improving after three years was, perhaps, an overly simplistic exaggeration but it was based on sound research at the time. In a 2004 paper, economist Jonah Rockoff, now at Columbia Business School, tracked how teachers improved over their careers and noticed that teachers were getting better at their jobs by leaps and bounds at first, as measured by their ability to raise their students' achievement test scores. But then, their effectiveness or productivity plateaued after three to 10 years on the job. For example, student achievement in their classrooms might increase by the same 50 points every year. The annual jump in their students' test scores didn't grow larger. Other researchers, including Stanford University's Eric Hanushek, found the same.

But now, a new nonprofit organization that seeks to improve teaching, the Research Partnership for Professional Learning, says the conventional wisdom that veteran teachers stop getting better is one of several myths about teaching. The organization says that several groups of researchers have since found that teachers continue to improve, albeit at a slower rate, well into their mid careers.

"It's not true that teachers stop improving," said John Papay, an associate professor of education and economics at Brown University. "The science has evolved."

Papay cited his own 2015 study with Matt Kraft, along with a 2017 study of middle school teachers in North Carolina and a 2011 study of elementary and middle school teacher s. These analyses all found that teachers continue to improve beyond their first five years. Papay and Kraft calculated that teachers increased student performance by about half as much between their 5th and 15th year on the job as they did during the first five years of their career. The data are unclear after year 15.

Using test scores to measure teacher quality can be controversial. Papay also looked atother measures ofhow well teachers teach, such as ratings of their ability to ask probing questions, generate vibrant classroom discussions and handle students' mistakes and confusion. Again, Papay found that more seasoned teachers were continuing to improve at their profession beyond the first five years of their career. Old dogs do appear to learn new tricks.

The debate over whether teachers get better with experience has had big implications. It has prompted the public to question union pay schedules. Why pay teachers more who've been on the job longer if they're no better than a third-year teacher? It has encouraged school systems to fire "bad" teachers because ineffective teachers were thought to be unlikely to improve. It has also been a way of justifying high turnover in the field. If there's no added value to veteran teachers, why bother to hang on to them, or invest more in them? Maybe it's okay if thousands of teachers leave the profession every year if we can replace them with loads of new ones who learn the job fast.

So, how is it that highly regarded quantitative researchers could be coming to such different conclusions when they add up the numbers?

It turns out that it's really complicated to calculate how much teachers improve every year. It's simple enough to look up their students' test scores and see how much they've gone up. But it's unclear how much of the test score gain we can attribute to a teacher. Imagine a teacher who had a classroom of struggling students one year followed by a classroom of high achievers the next year. The bright, motivated students might learn more no matter who their teacher was; it would be misleading to say this teacher had improved.

Many other things can affect student test scores from year to year, such as unexpected snow days or natural disasters. We wouldn't want to say that most teachers in America became worse at their jobs in 2020 and 2021 because test scores declined during the pandemic. Other changes, such as switching to a new curriculum, can affect test scores too. Broader population changes at the school also complicate the math. If a city is gentrifying, the test scores in a teacher's classroom might rise a lot because test scores are generally higher in richer neighborhoods. Higher test scores, in this case, would probably not be a signthat the teacher is getting a lot better at teaching.

Economists need to make assumptions when they try to disentangle how much of the classroom's test score gain should be attributed to the teacher and how much should be attributed to all the other stuff that's going on. In Rockoff's influential 2004 paper, he assumed that there were diminishing returns to job experience. It's a reasonable assumption, given that we all have a steep learning curve when we first learn something new and then annual improvements are smaller as we refine our practice. In Rockoff's data, annual improvements were so tiny by a teacher's 10th year that he effectively assumed that teachers stopped improving any more and plateaued. Arguably, Rockoff assumed what he was trying to study.

When Papay and other economists relaxed the assumptions about how much teachers typically improve each year, they found that teachers tended to get better and better well into their mid careers. But they had to make other assumptions. For example, Papay assumed that new teachers start at the same starting line every year. That is, the cohort of rookie teachers in 2001 were just as effective as the cohort of rookie teachers in 2009. That might not be true if teacher preparation programs have improved.

I emailed Jonah Rockoff to see if he agrees that the science has evolved and that teachers improve throughout their careers. He told me that he still stands by his 2004 analysis and he generally sees a consensus among researchers, not a debate. According to his reading of the research, everyone is finding thesame patterns: student achievement increases the most during the early part of a teacher's career and tends to plateau after 10 years of experience. Whether teachers plateau or continue to improve at a very sluggish pace isn't a meaningful difference to him.

Papay agrees that the story is "nuanced" and that mid-career teachers aren't showing "tremendous improvement."

"It's not like teachers continue to improve at the same rate that they do early in their career," Papay said. "It's more modest."

Regardless of whether teachers plateau or slowly improve, the more interesting policy question is whether there are better ways to help teachers improve throughout their careers. Papay and other scholars are trying to pinpoint the kinds of working conditions and on-the-job training that help teachers flourish. For example, Papay is finding promise in pairing teachers together to learn from each other and Kraft has studied whether every teacher should have a coach.

Just because inexperienced teachers are improving the fastest also doesn't mean that professional development should be targeted at them. Rockoff thinks it might be "too early in their careers" for them to get much out of some types of training.

And most importantly, teachers late in their careers might be improving student outcomes in ways that test scores - or even classroom observations - cannot capture. They might inspire students to go to college or to become scientists or artists some day. That's an impact that's priceless but harder to measure.

This story about teacher improvement was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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PROOF POINTS: Debunking the myth that teachers stop improving after five years

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The idea that teachers stop getting better after their first few years on the job has become widely accepted by both policymakers and the public. Philanthropist and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates popularized the notion in a 2009 TED Talk when he said " once somebody has taught for three years, their teaching quality does not change thereafter." He argued that teacher effectiveness should be measured and good teachers rewarded.

That teachers stop improving after three years was, perhaps, an overly simplistic exaggeration but it was based on sound research at the time. In a 2004 paper, economist Jonah Rockoff, now at Columbia Business School, tracked how teachers improved over their careers and noticed that teachers were getting better at their jobs by leaps and bounds at first, as measured by their ability to raise their students' achievement test scores. But then, their effectiveness or productivity plateaued after three to 10 years on the job. For example, student achievement in their classrooms might increase by the same 50 points every year. The annual jump in their students' test scores didn't grow larger. Other researchers, including Stanford University's Eric Hanushek, found the same.

But now, a new nonprofit organization that seeks to improve teaching, the Research Partnership for Professional Learning, says the conventional wisdom that veteran teachers stop getting better is one of several myths about teaching. The organization says that several groups of researchers have since found that teachers continue to improve, albeit at a slower rate, well into their mid careers.

"It's not true that teachers stop improving," said John Papay, an associate professor of education and economics at Brown University. "The science has evolved."

Papay cited his own 2015 study with Matt Kraft, along with a 2017 study of middle school teachers in North Carolina and a 2011 study of elementary and middle school teacher s. These analyses all found that teachers continue to improve beyond their first five years. Papay and Kraft calculated that teachers increased student performance by about half as much between their 5th and 15th year on the job as they did during the first five years of their career. The data are unclear after year 15.

Using test scores to measure teacher quality can be controversial. Papay also looked atother measures ofhow well teachers teach, such as ratings of their ability to ask probing questions, generate vibrant classroom discussions and handle students' mistakes and confusion. Again, Papay found that more seasoned teachers were continuing to improve at their profession beyond the first five years of their career. Old dogs do appear to learn new tricks.

The debate over whether teachers get better with experience has had big implications. It has prompted the public to question union pay schedules. Why pay teachers more who've been on the job longer if they're no better than a third-year teacher? It has encouraged school systems to fire "bad" teachers because ineffective teachers were thought to be unlikely to improve. It has also been a way of justifying high turnover in the field. If there's no added value to veteran teachers, why bother to hang on to them, or invest more in them? Maybe it's okay if thousands of teachers leave the profession every year if we can replace them with loads of new ones who learn the job fast.

So, how is it that highly regarded quantitative researchers could be coming to such different conclusions when they add up the numbers?

It turns out that it's really complicated to calculate how much teachers improve every year. It's simple enough to look up their students' test scores and see how much they've gone up. But it's unclear how much of the test score gain we can attribute to a teacher. Imagine a teacher who had a classroom of struggling students one year followed by a classroom of high achievers the next year. The bright, motivated students might learn more no matter who their teacher was; it would be misleading to say this teacher had improved.

Many other things can affect student test scores from year to year, such as unexpected snow days or natural disasters. We wouldn't want to say that most teachers in America became worse at their jobs in 2020 and 2021 because test scores declined during the pandemic. Other changes, such as switching to a new curriculum, can affect test scores too. Broader population changes at the school also complicate the math. If a city is gentrifying, the test scores in a teacher's classroom might rise a lot because test scores are generally higher in richer neighborhoods. Higher test scores, in this case, would probably not be a signthat the teacher is getting a lot better at teaching.

Economists need to make assumptions when they try to disentangle how much of the classroom's test score gain should be attributed to the teacher and how much should be attributed to all the other stuff that's going on. In Rockoff's influential 2004 paper, he assumed that there were diminishing returns to job experience. It's a reasonable assumption, given that we all have a steep learning curve when we first learn something new and then annual improvements are smaller as we refine our practice. In Rockoff's data, annual improvements were so tiny by a teacher's 10th year that he effectively assumed that teachers stopped improving any more and plateaued. Arguably, Rockoff assumed what he was trying to study.

When Papay and other economists relaxed the assumptions about how much teachers typically improve each year, they found that teachers tended to get better and better well into their mid careers. But they had to make other assumptions. For example, Papay assumed that new teachers start at the same starting line every year. That is, the cohort of rookie teachers in 2001 were just as effective as the cohort of rookie teachers in 2009. That might not be true if teacher preparation programs have improved.

I emailed Jonah Rockoff to see if he agrees that the science has evolved and that teachers improve throughout their careers. He told me that he still stands by his 2004 analysis and he generally sees a consensus among researchers, not a debate. According to his reading of the research, everyone is finding thesame patterns: student achievement increases the most during the early part of a teacher's career and tends to plateau after 10 years of experience. Whether teachers plateau or continue to improve at a very sluggish pace isn't a meaningful difference to him.

Papay agrees that the story is "nuanced" and that mid-career teachers aren't showing "tremendous improvement."

"It's not like teachers continue to improve at the same rate that they do early in their career," Papay said. "It's more modest."

Regardless of whether teachers plateau or slowly improve, the more interesting policy question is whether there are better ways to help teachers improve throughout their careers. Papay and other scholars are trying to pinpoint the kinds of working conditions and on-the-job training that help teachers flourish. For example, Papay is finding promise in pairing teachers together to learn from each other and Kraft has studied whether every teacher should have a coach.

Just because inexperienced teachers are improving the fastest also doesn't mean that professional development should be targeted at them. Rockoff thinks it might be "too early in their careers" for them to get much out of some types of training.

And most importantly, teachers late in their careers might be improving student outcomes in ways that test scores - or even classroom observations - cannot capture. They might inspire students to go to college or to become scientists or artists some day. That's an impact that's priceless but harder to measure.

This story about teacher improvement was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
PROOF POINTS: Debunking the myth that teachers stop improving after five years

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Get important education news and analysis delivered straight to your inbox The idea that teachers stop getting better after their first few years on the job has become widely accepted by both policymakers and the public.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Just like athletes become stronger under the guidance of a good coach, so do teachers. There are many ways to design a coaching program, but the general idea is that a veteran educator observes a teacher in the classroom and then gives constructive feedback on issues ranging from managing student misbehavior to framing open-ended questions that push students to think harder. The teacher then tries to incorporate what the coach suggests and the cycle of observation and feedback repeats. The number of sessions and frequency vary.

Researchers began rigorously studying coaching in the late 1990s and have been ramping up in the past 10 years to see how well coaching works and if coaching programs are any better than the kind of training seminars that teachers typically attend to further their "professional development." Now, a team of researchers has come to a frustrating conclusion: coaching can help but no one has figured out how to successfully expand coaching programs so that they reach many teachers.

"We see coaching is less effective as the programs get larger," said Matthew Kraft, a professor at Brown University. "It raises real questions on whether coaching should be scaled to be for everyone."

Kraft began his research into coaching along with classmate David Blazar when they were students the Harvard Graduate School of Education. They were perplexed by the results of a study they were working on in New Orleans, where teaching improved during the first year of coaching in 2011 but not so much in the second and third years. They wanted to understand what other coaching studies had found and if there were lessons for policymakers.

Kraft and Blazar, now at the University of Maryland, have been collecting every well-designed study on teacher coaching. They tallied up results from 60 programs and found that, on average, coaching greatly improved the quality of classroom instruction as measured by how outside observers evaluated teachers' performance and interaction with students. But the average improvement in students' academic achievement, as measured by reading or math assessments, was small. Their latest study, also co-authored by Dylan Hogan, was published last month in the Review of Educational Research.

The small academic bump may disappoint coaching proponents but it isn't all bad news. These small gains are better than what researchers have seen after teachers attend training seminars or summer workshops - which cost school systems millions of dollars every year. The increase in student achievement from coaching is on par with the gain researchers typically see from students of a veteran teacher with five to 10 years of experience compared to a novice teacher.

Kraft points out that it would be unrealistic to expect student achievement to improve as much as instructional quality. Coaching directly targets teaching practices, such as managing disruptions. That allows teachers to spend more classroom time on academics but the connection to student achievement can often be indirect.

As researchers drilled down into the results, they noticed that some programs showed much better results than others, both for instructional quality and student achievement. Surprisingly, the benefits of coaching didn't improve with the number of sessions. In some cases, coaches met with teachers as few as three or four times. In other cases, it was 15 sessions. "The quality of the feedback may be more important than actual quantity," said Kraft.

Focus matters, the researchers found. Coaching everything a teacher does at once was not as effective as using coaching to reinforce a new curriculum or a specific teaching technique. Summer workshops with follow-up coaching appears to be "particularly potent," said Kraft.

Another interesting result: smaller programs work better. For example, one study of a low-income middle school in California randomly assigned eight teachers to weekly coaching sessions. The coaches specifically worked on helping teachers to express their internal thought processes aloud, while they are reading, so that students could grasp how to be active, critical readers. All the teachers had attended numerous professional development sessions to improve reading at the school. But students of the coached teachers had much larger reading gains.

By contrast, a large statewide Florida coaching program had inconsistent and small results in a 2010 RAND Education study.

As coaching programs get larger, Kraft noticed several common implementation problems. The first is that coaching quality deteriorates. Small coaching programs are often developed by academic researchers who do the coaching themselves or train a small corps of teachers to coach in a specific way. It becomes harder and harder to find great coaches and have them stick to a coaching protocol in an expanded program.

A second problem is enthusiasm. In small, successful programs, researchers found that the teachers liked the coaching process and wanted to improve their teaching techniques. When coaching becomes mandated across a whole educational system, not every teacher is open to hearing critical feedback and changing.

A third problem is scheduling. It's hard to find mutually convenient times for teachers and coaches to meet. As the numbers of teachers who need coaching grows, so does the scheduling nightmare.

What should be done? Kraft says that one option is to limit who gets coaching and not attempt to provide it for all teachers.

Kraft is more enthusiastic about developing peer coaching instead of relying on expert coaches. With the peer approach, teachers at each school would rotate between mentor and mentee roles with teachers taking the lead in areas that they are relatively more adept at, based on their teacher evaluations. For example, a teacher who is really good at discipline could observe colleagues and give feedback in that area. Another teacher could take the lead in the best way to teach fractions. "I think there's untapped potential in every school," said Kraft, who began his career as an eighth-grade English teacher. "It's less about finding individual experts than about tapping expertise across a teaching staff."

Technology might be an answer as well. Kraft is currently studying whether expert teachers can coach more teachers by eliminating the logistics of in-person observations and feedback sessions. Mounting cameras in the classroom to videotape lessons would allow a coach to review footage at leisure and provide feedback later by video conference. Whether this will be as effective as in-person coaching is unknown. Other models also include earpieces where expert teachers whisper suggestions to a teacher while he or she is teaching, just like a television news producer guides an anchorman on the evening news.

One thing is clear: The best way to improve education in the United States may be to help our 3.6 million public school teachers become better at their jobs. Unfortunately, the research evidence on how to do this is disappointing.

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Just like athletes become stronger under the guidance of a good coach, so do teachers. There are many ways to design a coaching program, but the general idea is that a veteran educator observes a teacher in the classroom and then gives constructive feedback on issues ranging from managing student misbehavior to framing open-ended questions that push students to think harder.

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Julie Rine Holderbaum is a high school English teacher in Minerva, Ohio, who is now in her 26th year of teaching. One recent day, she said, she went home after teaching and found herself thinking this: "All I did all day today was question every single step I took. And then I realized that pretty much every day was like that - nonstop."

So she sat down to write about it, and in the following post, she gives a glimpse into a teacher's brain on a typical school day. Spoiler alert: It's exhausting.

Holderbaum told me in an email:

"It saddens me that so many of us are living this exhausting life, but I found out I am certainly not alone in feeling like all I do is second-guess myself and analyze every move I make all day. I don't want to come across as someone who hates her job. All I ever wanted to be was a teacher. I never had a Plan B.

"The job has just changed so much over the years. It was never easy, but it wasn't quite this mentally exhausting. The questions I asked myself about how to best present information were intellectually challenging in the past, but I liked that challenge. Now it feels like the kids need so much more from us than academic lessons, and it places more importance on every move a teacher makes. Despite having to provide so much more than academics to our kids, we are still judged by the standardized tests and the data they provide."

Read the piece with the 117 questions she asked herself that day, and at the end I list some subjects she said she thought about but didn't include. She published this on the Ohio Education Association website and gave me permission to use it.

Is Michael acting off today? Is he tired or just depressed? Should I pull him out into the hall and ask him if he's okay or would it be worse to draw attention to him? Should I call home? Have his grades been slipping? Did he do the assignment that was due for me today?

Does Becky have her cellphone in her lap? Why isn't it in the slot with the others? Is it worth calling her out on it? Right now or later, privately? Either way, do I want to risk setting her off when she's been doing so well and we seem to be forging a tentative relationship? Is it a big deal if she isn't actually using it? Has she been using it and I just haven't seen it happen?

Why isn't the Chromecast working? Why would it work last period and not this period? Is the Internet down?

Why are we either freezing or frying? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to regulate the heat in our own rooms?

Will I be accused of teaching divisive concepts if I lead a discussion about why we are not going to say the n-word out loud when we read "Of Mice and Men"? Will the kids go home and tell their parents what we talked about? Do kids still do that? Do parents still ask? Is this book worth the battle it might lead to or should I just teach "Fahrenheit 451" instead? Wouldn't that be ironic? Isn't this exactly what those who scream about critical race theory being taught want? For teachers to fear the repercussions and give in to temptation to just teach "safe" material instead? So that the status quo will keep on keeping on and generations of kids will continue to grow up in the dark about so much of the ugly side of America's history? Is it worth the fight this might bring? Well, it's obviously worth the fight, but am I mentally and emotionally up for this battle, this year especially?

More important, will my Black students be uncomfortable if their White teacher leads this discussion in class? I know enough not to ask a Black student to speak on behalf of an entire race, but would it be okay to privately ask a Black student how they would feel about this book or that sort of discussion?

Should I grade these 45 quick 10-point responses first or 25 longer essays? Go back and forth between the two? Am I fair to every student when I don't grade an assignment all at once? Do I grade the first essays harder or easier than the last ones?

Why do I feel guilty when I take points off for not capitalizing "I" or proper nouns? Why don't they click on the squiggly lines and fix their typos/spelling/grammar errors when the computer is literally marking them for them? Why are they still making these basic mistakes when we have gone over them so many times? Do they just not care about their grades? Do they even go back and read my comments and look at why they lost points? Is this an academic issue or a motivation issue or a self-worth issue? Do we need to do more lessons on catching these mistakes, or do I need to talk with them about the importance of the impression of themselves they put out into the world? Is it unfair for a student to earn a C for a grade when the content of their work is probably at a B or even an A level, but their spelling and grammar mistakes are so ubiquitous and egregious that they lose points on every assignment? Is it asking too much of them to CLICK ON THE DANG SQUIGGLY LINES?

Am I becoming the old cranky English teacher who nitpicks and loses sight of the big picture? Am I too tired for this job? Am I becoming too cynical? Are my standards too high? Haven't I lowered them since I began teaching all those years ago, though? Should I have?

School superintendent asks: 'Who would want to be a teacher right now?'

Should I work through lunch or head to the workroom? Will I feel better if I have a half-hour of adult conversation or if I get more of these papers graded? Do I need to make any hard copies of the handout for next period? Did I remember to upload the video and Google doc to Google Classroom for the kids who are absent?

Is that yelling in the hallway? What's going on? Did one of you just call the other a b----?

Why are the kids behaving like this this year? Is it covid-related? Or just the stress of covid-19 plus all the other division and dissension in society that we are all contending with?

Does that kid who just smiled at me and said "Hey, Ms. H!" have any idea how much I needed that friendly smile right now?

Why is the office calling down that long list of kids? Are they getting quarantined and sent home? Wait, they don't have to stay home anymore, but they have to wear masks now, right? Will we get a list of kids who are supposed to be wearing masks for two weeks? How will I keep track of that? How many more times can I say "pull your mask up over your nose" before I start inserting curse words into that sentence?

Do I have time to run to the bathroom between classes? Risk someone being in the single-stall teacher bathroom or go to the student bathroom further away? Is that crying in the next stall? Hey, are you all right? Do you need to talk? Which class do you have right now? Can I walk you down to the guidance office? (Will my class of freshmen be okay if I get there a little late?)

Can we settle down and get started, please? Where is your Chromebook? Why isn't it charged? Where is your charger? Why haven't you borrowed one from the library then?

Is this email for real? Are they kidding with this? Another meeting? A new book study? This year of all years? Don't we have enough to do? Can't they just give us more time to plan or collaborate with each other on the ACTUAL work that needs done?

Am I getting sick or am I just exhausted? Is my throat sore from talking so much today or because I'm coming down with something? Will they be able to find a sub if I stay home tomorrow? What am I teaching tomorrow? Is it something I can adapt easily for a sub or will I need to come up with something new? How much will that impact my plans for the rest of the week? (Why can't I be more of a Type B teacher?) Isn't it just easier to suck it up and go to school with a cold? But what if it's covid-19?

Is that an email from a parent? Do I have the energy to deal with that tonight? Why are they emailing me so late?

Where is that info about the poetry contest? When was the deadline? How did I not know until now what a great writer Jane is? Is it too late for her to enter the contest?

Oh no, Michael didn't do the assignment; is it too late to call home tonight or should I wait and call from school tomorrow? Do his parents work during the day? Do they support his use of he/him pronouns? Do I need to refer to him as Michelle when I talk to them?

Why am I watching the news? Is the legislature seriously going to try to pass that? Do they have any clue how that will impact teaching and learning? Why do the people with the power to address some of the problems always seem to arrive at "solutions" without asking educators for feedback? Don't they realize that only leads to more issues?

Oh my God, another one? How many school shootings does that make this year?

Are all teachers as overwhelmed and exhausted as I am?

Does anyone care what teachers are going through in this country?

When is someone going to do something about it?

Imagine a class with 25 kids - and all of their parents insist on telling the teacher what to teach

Here are some of the things that Holderbaum did not include above but said she thought of that same day: Questions I ask myself during taking attendance or while presenting a lesson, what I ask when I'm planning lessons that has to do with special ed students and changing a lesson plan to make it more covid-19 safe (for example, no more group escape boxes, instead online individual escape rooms), questions I ask about individual students and what I know about their home lives, etc.

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Perspective | A teacher's brain on a typical school day

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Julie Rine Holderbaum is a high school English teacher in Minerva, Ohio, who is now in her 26th year of teaching. One recent day, she said, she went home after teaching and found herself thinking this: "All I did all day today was question every single step I took.

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Our client, the 2,000-person IT division of an investment bank, had a problem: Employees were leaving at alarming rates. The line we heard over and over again from the people we interviewed: "It's easier to talk to a headhunter about my career than my own manager."

So the division went on a feedback campaign. They spent more than $1 million with a consulting firm to develop rigorous, customized competency models. They trained managers to evaluate employee performance (based on dozens of relevant competencies), and give employees feedback about their developmental gaps and opportunities.

None of it helped. Two years later, 50% of managers were still not completing performance reviews, the reviews that were done had little impact on performance, and turnover remained undesirably high. Which was all entirely predictable. Because feedback rarely, if ever, achieves its desired objectives.

What's the Point of Feedback?

Over the past 30 years, companies have been so focused on creating cultures of feedback, that we've forgotten why we're doing it in the first place.

The objective of feedback is to help people improve performance. We want people to up their game. To live up to their potential. To contribute powerfully to their teams. To interact effectively with colleagues. We want our organizations to become places where people can skillfully and candidly communicate with one another in the service of their growth and improved performance. Those are all worthy goals.

But here's the thing: Telling people they are missing the mark is not the same as helping them hit the mark.

In fact, it often has the opposite effect. Richard Boyatzis and his team have found that negative feedback ("Here's what you're doing wrong") reduces engagement in 360 feedback conversations and suppresses exploration of future goals and desires.

And calling it "constructive" feedback doesn't fool anyone. In their 2019 HBR article " The Feedback Fallacy," Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall marshal overwhelming evidence that focusing on shortcomings and weaknesses doesn't help the recipient of the feedback get better.

Which makes complete sense when you think about it. Of all forms of communication, feedback is perhaps the hardest to give and receive. The giver has to criticize, which might hurt someone's feelings - so they avoid having the conversation in the first place. And if the conversation does occur, the recipient is likely to feel shame, hearing some version of "You're not good enough, and you need to change."

And people will do just about anything to avoid feeling shame, including denying the problem (no problem = no shame) or blaming it on someone else (not my fault = no shame). Even when someone appears to respond positively and "maturely" to feedback, they're often inwardly in fight-or-flight mode.

But what about positive feedback, which highlights what they did well? It's a form of criticism; if I can approve of your behavior here, I can also disapprove of your behavior there. Plus, focusing on positives won't necessarily address weaknesses that are getting in the way of performance.

So if feedback doesn't help people up their game, then what does? In our book, You Can Change Other People, we share a four-step process.

How to Build a Culture of High Performance

Step 1: Shift from critic to ally.

No one wants to talk to a critic. Everyone wants to talk to an ally. When you're someone's ally, you display caring for them, confidence in them, and commitment to them. In your presence, they drop shame and defensiveness, and instead focus on becoming better.

So how can you clearly communicate that you're an ally and not a critic? Here's a three-step formula:

1. Empathize. If they're struggling, acknowledge how hard or frustrating or annoying or painful that must be.

2. Express confidence. Let them know you believe in their ability to handle the challenge they're facing.

3. Ask permission. Ask them if they would be willing to think with you about the situation.

Imagine a colleague is struggling as a team leader and engaging poorly with a disruptive team member. Initiating an "ally" conversation can be as simple as: "That sounds really frustrating. And I know you can handle it. Would you like to think it through together?"

Step 2: Identify an energizing outcome.

Once they've said "yes," it's tempting to go back into the problem - the frustrating past. ("Let's talk about that disruptive team member.") But don't go there. Not yet.

Instead, focus on the energizing future they want to create. One that is bigger than their problem. Ask them: "What is the outcome you're going for?" Allow them to articulate what they're trying to achieve, for themselves and for the organization. ("I'd love to create a high-performing team, one in which we communicate, collaborate, and even conflict, productively.") Help them get to an outcome that is positive, clear, and meaningful.

Step 3: Discover a hidden opportunity.

When you're both clear about the outcome they want, then you can revisit the problem. But this time, instead of trying to "solve" it, you're asking, "How can this problem help us achieve the energizing outcome?" How might it be a good thing? A chance to practice a new behavior in service of an important value or goal? An opportunity to address a larger issue that underlies this one?

In the case of our struggling team leader, after some brainstorming, you may discover that the person characterized as "disruptive" is actually the only one on the team willing to engage in conflict to raise important issues. Without them, elephants in the room remain unaddressed. In other words, with a little coaching on style, the disruptive person can be the key to the team's high performance.

Step 4: Create a level-10 plan.

In this step, you guide them to brainstorm ways of capitalizing on that opportunity, and choosing and committing to a plan of action to achieve it. The term "level-10" plan means that when we ask, "On a scale of 1-10, how confident are you that you will execute this plan?," the answer is a resounding 10.

Our struggling leader's level-10 plan could be scheduling a conversation with the disruptive team member, as an ally, in order to help them contribute positively to the team.

What's important isn't that the plan succeeds, but that they follow through on taking a new action, assessing the results, and continually moving forward.

Our client, the investment bank, proved the efficacy of this process. Unwanted turnover went down to 3%, which was their target. As managers changed the tone and focus of their conversations, performance review completion went from 50% to 95%. And those results were sustained for 15 years (when we stopped keeping track). That's because the culture shifted, as employees and managers engaged in positive, productive, performance-enhancing conversations.

Feedback, skillfully delivered, can be a tool to help people identify their blind spots and opportunities for growth. But only when it's embedded in a true process of growth and development.

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Feedback Isn't Enough to Help Your Employees Grow

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Our client, the 2,000-person IT division of an investment bank, had a problem: Employees were leaving at alarming rates. The line we heard over and over again from the people we interviewed: "It's easier to talk to a headhunter about my career than my own manager." So the division went on a feedback campaign.

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The Integrity  of Coaching with the FFT Clusters

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Vol. 79 No. 3 Abstract The Myths of Efficacy Myth #1: Teacher DEI training makes schools more equitable. Myth #2: Teachers must change their minds before changing their actions. Myth #3: Teachers grow the most when they arrive at the answers themselves. Myth #4: Teacher growth is a long and slow process.

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The importance of individual teachers has emerged in sharp focus over the past decade, with compelling evidence that teachers have large effects on a range of student outcomes. Wide variability in teacher effectiveness, both across and within schools, highlights the persistent challenge of providing students with access to high-quality teachers. However, traditional efforts to increase teacher quality through professional development (PD) have been largely ineffective. That may be changing, as a new form of PD, teacher coaching, has emerged to disrupt the PD industry.

Historically, PD has been dominated by daylong seminars that took teachers out of the classroom and delivered the same tips and tricks to an entire department, grade level, or school. But as research has found, these programs to have little or no effect on teacher quality. Some training has shifted to a customized, smaller-scale approach: instructional coaching, whereby an expert mentor works one-to-one with teachers to provide a steady stream of feedback and suggest new techniques based on frequent classroom observations. By the 2015‒16 school year, 27 percent of public K‒12 schools reported having a reading coach on staff, 18 percent had a math coach, and 24 percent had a general instructional coach, according to the National Teacher and Principal Survey.

Researchers have studied individualized coaching programs for decades, but only began to evaluate their effects using randomized control trials in the last dozen years. We set out to examine what this growing literature now says about the efficacy of teacher coaching as a development tool. Does one-to-one coaching help teachers get better? If so, how powerful a strategy might this be to improve teacher practice and student outcomes?

Our analysis of results from across 60 studies found that coaching works. With coaching, the quality of teachers' instruction improves by as much as-or more than-the difference in effectiveness between a novice and a teacher with five to 10 years of experience, a more positive estimated effect than traditional PD and most other school-based interventions. However, larger coaching programs are less effective than smaller ones, raising questions about whether coaching can be brought to scale in a way that preserves its impact.
Teacher Development Gets Personal
Public school systems in the United States spend billions of dollars annually on PD to help teachers meet the diverse needs of their students-with limited results. Most PD remains of the "sit and get" variety: one-off workshops delivered to large groups, with little obvious connection to the needs of individual teachers or classrooms. Rigorous studies find that PD programs more often than not fail to produce systematic changes in teachers' instructional practice, much less improvements in student achievement, especially when implemented at scale.

Yet expectations for teachers have grown in recent years, as states have adopted new college- and career-ready standards and as education agencies increasingly emphasize the importance of balancing expert content delivery with nurturing the social-emotional skills that are also important for students' lifelong success. Taken together, teachers' expected roles range from content expert, curriculum developer, and pedagogue, to social worker, psychologist, mentor, and motivator. Every teacher has dimensions of this interrelated skill set on which they can improve-a complex and dynamic reality reflected in the one-to-one coaching model, which seeks to align the support provided to individual teachers to their unique challenges and needs.

Most teacher-coaching programs share several key features, but no one set of features defines all coaching models. In our review of the literature, we encountered multiple, sometimes conflicting, definitions of teacher coaching. Some envision coaching as a form of implementation support to ensure that new teaching practices or teaching materials-often introduced in an initial group training session-are executed with fidelity. Others see coaching as a tool that enables teachers to learn and apply new pedagogical practices to support student learning. The role of the coach may be performed by a range of personnel, including administrators, master teachers, curriculum designers, external experts, and other classroom teachers.

Synthesizing this body of theoretical work, we characterize coaching as an observation and feedback cycle in which coaches model research-based practices and work with teachers to incorporate these practices into their classrooms. In contrast to traditional PD, coaching is intended to be individualized, time-intensive, sustained over the course of a semester or year, context-specific, and focused on discrete skills. Coaches engage in a sustained professional dialogue with teachers focused on developing skills to enhance their classroom practice; ideally, the specific skills targeted for development differ based on individual teacher needs.
Examining the Teacher Coaching Literature
As researchers, we have worked to develop and evaluate several coaching programs, including the MATCH Teacher Coaching program operated by the eponymous Boston charter-management organization and the Mathematical Quality of Instruction Coaching program developed by Heather Hill and colleagues at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The results of these studies were encouraging, particularly with respect to the degree to which the programs generated noticeable changes in teachers' practice. Yet studies of discrete programs cannot, on their own, speak to the efficacy of coaching as a new model for teacher professional development. To address that broader question, we sought to synthesize results across the full body of research on instructional coaching programs.

We conducted a meta-analysis of the literature on coaching by collecting, coding, and analyzing the findings across all rigorous evaluations of teacher coaching in developed countries published through 2017. This first enabled us to estimate the average effect of all coaching programs-or at least all those that have been subjected to rigorous evaluation-on teacher practice and student achievement. We also used the same information to determine whether coaching programs with certain characteristics produce stronger results.

A meta-analysis is only as good as the underlying studies it aggregates. Ours includes only randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental research designs that could credibly isolate the effect of coaching. We further restricted our review to studies that focus on two key outcome measures that we see as critical components in the theory of action linking coaching to increased student skill: measures of teachers' instructional practice as rated by outside observers and direct measures of student achievement on standardized assessments.

In total, we identified 60 studies on teacher coaching that met these requirements. It is remarkable that such a rich set of empirical research has emerged over the last decade given that a landmark review in 2007 looking at all research on teacher PD found only nine studies that supported causal inferences.

In order to draw comparisons and synthesize the studies' findings, we rescaled their results to effect size units that measure the change in outcomes due to the coaching program in standard deviations-that is, relative to how much the relevant outcome varies across the teachers or students in the study sample. We also coded studies to track unique elements of the coaching models such as their size, their focus on content or teaching skill, whether they are paired with workshops or curriculum materials, and whether they were delivered in person or via videoconference platforms.
Does Teacher Coaching Work?
Teacher coaching has large positive effects on both instructional practice and student achievement (see Figure 1). On average, coaching improves the quality of teachers' instruction and its effects on student achievement by 0.49 standard deviations and 0.18 standard deviations, respectively. For both outcomes, the magnitude of the effect of coaching is comparable to or exceeds the largest published estimates of the difference in performance between a novice teacher and an experienced veteran. Our estimates of the effectiveness of teacher coaching as assessed on these two outcome measures also compare favorably when contrasted with the larger body of literature on teacher PD, as well as most other school-based interventions.

These findings may come as a surprise given researchers' general inability to identify characteristics that differentiate highly effective from ineffective teachers. However, one exception to the disappointingly weak relationships between teachers' skill and their observable characteristics like certification, licensure, or even content knowledge is the quality of teachers' classroom practice. Teachers with strong behavior-management skills and the ability to deliver cognitively demanding, error-free content produce substantively and substantially larger student-achievement gains than other teachers without these skills. It should perhaps not be a surprise, then, that teacher coaching is able to improve student outcomes because of the interventions' specific attention to teachers' core classroom practices.

Even so, our analyses suggest that noticeably improving student achievement likely requires large improvements in teachers' instructional practice; the observed improvement in instructional practice due to coaching is significantly larger than the resulting impact on student outcomes (see Figure 2). This may explain why other PD programs such as generalized workshops, which may produce more moderate improvements on intermediate outcomes such as teacher knowledge or classroom practice, do not have similar effects on student outcomes.

Teacher coaching is a rare model of PD that has been shown to improve teacher practice to the degree required to impact student-achievement outcomes. However, even here, relatively large improvements for teachers turn into much more moderate gains for students.
Taking Coaching to Scale
Although these findings demonstrate the potential of coaching as a development tool, questions remain about the features of effective coaching programs and the feasibility of providing coaching more broadly. Do schools have enough expert teachers who can serve as coaches across content areas? If not, where might schools find coaches? Will PD budgets support the relatively high costs of implementing coaching with fidelity?

Our analysis of the relationship between various program characteristics and their impacts is able to address some of these questions. Surprisingly, we find little evidence that coaching "dosage"-that is, the number of times teachers and coaches meet-is associated with the effectiveness of a given coaching program. We interpret this descriptive finding to mean that, when comparing across coaching programs, quality matters more than quantity. Coaching models that build in frequent observation and feedback cycles are not uniformly better; other program elements such as coach quality matter, too. We speculate, however, that for an individual coaching program of fixed quality, it is likely better to have more coaching cycles, not fewer.

Further, we find little difference in the effectiveness of coaching programs delivered online versus face to face. This suggests that schools that lack in-house coaches are still able to implement coaching programs through the use of digital video recorders to capture instruction and online videoconferencing to interact with coaches. Although this technology is not cheap, the cost of these tools has dropped rapidly in recent years, and the technology could support both teacher PD and evaluation efforts.

These findings show the potential feasibility of expanding teacher coaching across schools and districts, but other results show how difficult maintaining program fidelity may be. Looking at the size of coaching programs, we find that the average effectiveness of the coaching program declines as the number of teachers involved increases, suggesting the difficulty of successfully taking such programs to scale. Our analyses of both instruction and achievement depict a clear negative relationship between program size and program effects, consistent with a theory of diminishing effects as programs are scaled up.

We see similar patterns when we test more formally for evidence of potential scale-up implementation challenges by comparing effect sizes between two types of studies: those with fewer than 100 teachers and those with 100 teachers or more (see Figure 3). The average effects in larger studies are only one-third to one-half as large as large as those found in smaller studies. Additional analyses confirm that these differential results are not driven by a pattern in which studies of smaller coaching programs with small or no effects are less likely to be published because of their limited precision.
Key Considerations for Scaling Up
In our view, the growing body of research on teacher coaching provides strong evidence of its effectiveness as a development tool. However, our meta-analysis also raises difficult questions about whether and how to implement coaching programs at scale. Several factors likely contribute to the diminishing returns to coaching as the size of programs increases, including coach quality, financial constraints, standardization, and teacher engagement and school climate.

Coach quality: A fundamental challenge to scaling up coaching programs is finding enough expert coaches able to deliver these services. After all, coaches are the intervention. Most of the studies we examine had only a handful of coaches, many of whom were key program staff or even program developers. Scaling up from a small corps of coaches to a large staff requires new systems for recruiting, selecting, and training coaches. These systems are still largely underdeveloped in most contexts. Research that seeks to understand the characteristics and skills of effective coaches (such as teaching/coaching experience, content knowledge, and rapport with teachers) can aid in the development of these systems.

Financial constraints: Teacher coaching is a relatively expensive form of PD due to the large personnel costs of hiring coaches who meet with teachers on a regular basis. There are very few economies of scale available when the primary intervention is one-to-one interaction. Efforts to scale up coaching often lead to programmatic changes to cut costs, such as having coaches meet less frequently with each teacher or even coaching teachers in small groups. While we do not have definitive evidence on the effect of these adaptations, we suspect that they may decrease the efficacy of coaching as a PD tool.

Standardization: Scaling up coaching can require building more formal sets of systems and structures to ensure program fidelity, which may have the unintended consequence of constraining a coach's ability to tailor her approach to the individual needs of each teacher. Because coaching is by definition differentiated, we see a need for program developers to think critically about how they can implement organizational structures and systems that provide scaffolded supports to individual coaches without restricting their judgment and flexibility.

Teacher engagement and school climate: Bringing coaching to scale likely would include a prescriptive approach, requiring teachers who may be hesitant or resistant to engage in the coaching process to take part. This may be understandable given an expanded emphasis on linking scores from classroom observation rubrics to high-stakes job decisions. However, coaching is unlikely to be successful without teachers' openness to feedback and willingness to adapt their practice. Here, school leaders have a key role to play in creating a culture of trust and respect among administrators and staff in order to ease teachers' concerns and increase their willingness to actively engage.
Looking Ahead
We see real potential for coaching programs to innovate and address many of these challenges. As an inherently customizable intervention, coaching may be well suited to meeting a variety of teacher-development needs. For example, new technologies are powering distance or virtual programs, which draw on coaches from afar to provide specialized development to teachers in small and rural districts who may not ordinarily be partnered with instructional experts in their specific grades and subject areas. Coaching also is being paired with computer-simulation-based student teaching, which allows teachers to teach a lesson, receive feedback, and immediately try it again. Finally, emerging peer coaching models present a promising approach to creating observation and feedback cycles that leverage expertise within a school building, by pairing up teachers with different strengths and weaknesses to observe each other's practice and provide suggestions.

As researchers and practitioners continue to develop and refine coaching programs, we encourage them to consider the delicate balance between efficiency and efficacy. Coaching in all forms is a resource-intensive intervention that requires fairly sizable investments, both in terms of money and staff. Expanding coaching will require policymakers and administrators to engage in critical conversations about how current expenditures on PD could be used more effectively. For example, one approach may be to reallocate some PD spending to provide high-cost but effective PD programs like coaching to schools or teachers most in need of support, rather than uniformly providing less-effective and less-expensive traditional PD for all schools and teachers.

Ultimately, strengthening the teacher workforce will require improving the classroom performance of individual teachers. Given the decades of investment in traditional PD for relatively small returns, policymakers and educators should support innovation in this sector. Coaching can provide a flexible blueprint for these efforts, but questions remain about the factors and local contexts that can influence its effectiveness. It remains to be seen whether coaching is best implemented as smaller-scale targeted programs tailored to local contexts, or if it can be taken to scale in a high-quality and cost-effective way.

Matthew A. Kraft is an associate professor of education and economics at Brown University. David Blazar is an assistant professor of education policy and economics at the University of Maryland, College Park. The full meta-analysis on which this article is based is available at the Review of Educational Research.

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The importance of individual teachers has emerged in sharp focus over the past decade, with compelling evidence that teachers have large effects on a range of student outcomes. Wide variability in teacher effectiveness, both across and within schools, highlights the persistent challenge of providing students with access to high-quality teachers.

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A Research-Informed Way to Support First-Year Teachers - ASCD

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As faculty in a teacher preparation program, one of our roles is to facilitate the process of shepherding the next generation of educators. Our interest is rooted in the growing trend of early-career teachers leaving the profession within the first five years (Sutcher et al., 2019). To combat high t

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Lee Ann Jung

There's a book by Chip and Dan Heath I read some years back: Made to Stick. I remember one story from the book, in particular, that changed the way I operate professionally. The authors detailed a key factor in Southwest Airlines' success in dominating a sizeable share of the flying market. In short, the airline planted a stake in the ground, or sky as it were, as "THE low-cost airline." They don't provide gourmet snacks or luxury onboard experiences, for example, because those would compete with their purpose. All of their decisions followed that purpose.

Making professional learning experiences stick in the long run assumes that the purpose of the PD is to implement some idea or practice in order to change student outcomes. Sure, it would be nice if the experience were entertaining, but leaving a professional learning experience having been entertained is not the measure of an "excellent" professional learning experience. Funny jokes, engaging activities, and stories that tug at the heartstrings enhance and help us consume meaningful content, but they aren't a replacement for the content.

Have you ever left a professional learning experience with an amazing presenter feeling warm and fuzzy-but then realized that there was no new actionable information? Leaving a keynote feeling inspired isn't the same as leaving with research-based, actionable information that can add to students' outcomes. Leaders have the responsibility to respond to teachers' call for more meaningful, "meaty" professional learning that responds to the needs teachers themselves identify.

If you've been active on Twitter, you've probably noticed the exasperation that many teachers feel toward consultants they deem are "educelebrities." As a consultant, I have to admit bristling at the term the first time I heard it, but then, I also got it. I can recount too many professional development days where there was no choice and no differentiation at a high-priced presenter's performance, wishing I could instead be working on something I really needed to be doing. (On the flip side, as an inclusion consultant, I can tell you that there is nothing worse than being hired to "fill a PD day," knowing that most people don't really want to be there and that your efforts may not have any real impact beyond the day's entertainment.)

But I've also had life-changing professional learning experiences that forever affected my practice. What is the difference between the two, and how do leaders select professional learning opportunities that make a difference in practice?

How do we get beyond "entertrainment?" Here are a few questions to ask when making your professional learning decisions:

What do we want to accomplish this year with professional learning?

What is your "ethos?" Think about the Southwest Airlines model: What is it you want to be known for? What initiative(s) have you identified, including the input of teachers and students, that you want to focus on this year? Your school community may decide, for example, that this year you are taking on the initiative of increasing equity in outcomes for your students. This is broad and allows you to explore and hone many components. This purpose is your starting point in selecting professional learning. Nothing superfluous to that purpose should be considered.

What resources do we already have in house to accomplish our purpose?

How can you as a leader guide your teachers to identify their strengths, help them further cultivate these, and support sharing of expertise? Some of the best professional learning in a school is accomplished by teachers visiting one another's classrooms and reflecting together with purpose. When we build a culture of professional learning within the building and systematize a process for learning from one another's best, we create a machine of continuous capacity building. One teacher may identify universal design for learning as a need, and a teacher or building leader connects that teacher to teachers who have identified universal design for learning as a strength. Leaders start this process by leading teams to identify the values and practices that are salient to the current mission of the school. This forms the structure for an expert database. Leaders work with teachers to select those who have particular expertise and strength within each areas in the database. Other teachers then pair with the in-house experts to gain mentorship and coaching to grow their practice. We learn from one another in professional learning communities.

If we need an external consultant, how should we use this person?

Once we have identified our strengths as a school, we can target those areas where we need external support. So often, when we think of professional development, we think of having a speaker for the day. But this is only one option-and an expensive one at that. Is spending thousands of dollars on a single-day required performance to the full faculty going to serve the purpose you have outlined? It depends on what that purpose is, but more often than not, the answer is "no." When we connect to external support, we want to make sure that support is integrated and is a relationship, rather than a single performance. Most of the time, an external consultant is best used to facilitate deeper, ongoing understanding and work shoulder-to-shoulder in solving implementation dilemmas. Consuming the content can happen via recorded video, books, or journal articles. Consultants should be skilled at learning about the individual context, culture, and climate of a school and assisting with the gritty implementation questions and practice.

Facilitated sessions are expensive, though, and leaders should expect more than a performance out of them. You are not only paying for the hours that a person facilitates, but their days or weeks in preparing. Frankly, if the session could have been recorded and your team get the same thing out of it-it SHOULD be a recording. Ask others who have used the consultant about their methods for engaging the participants. Is it all presentation with the only interaction as "turn and talk?" Does the consultant recycle the same slides and even jokes for years? Or does the person facilitate more of a dynamic work session that includes collaborative activities designed for processing or decision making and responds to the evolving needs of a group? Consultants should not only be experts in a content area but experts in facilitating active learning, processing, and action. Make sure your dollars are paying for excellent, responsive facilitation and a relationship, not simply an encore speaking performance that was largely designed a decade ago.

How should we differentiate?

For any given initiative, not everyone in the school has the same needs or preferences for the same types of support. Just as we expect teachers to differentiate instruction for students, we need to offer differentiation to our teachers. Teachers are experts in their craft, not freshmen in college. They can identify their needs and know how they learn best. Some may prefer a facilitated session, others by learning with others in book study, still others through engaging in online content or courses and reflection. Even within a single initiative, everyone doesn't have to sit in the same all-day session to hear the same message and be involved. Leaders can facilitate an understanding of group and individual preferences for a given initiative and mobilize resources to these multiple options, rather than dedicating all resources to a single-day presentation.

What is our system for ongoing consultation and coaching for this initiative?

Making complex change requires sustained engagement and is often best supported with ongoing coaching and consultation. Depending on the complexity and novelty of the new practice being implemented, a school may enlist external support for coaching and consultation. Even so, having on-the-ground coaching and consultation available for day-to-day work is a support that many teachers want and need. What is our system for using dedicated coaches as well as using teacher leaders as coaches to support the work? The work of Jim Knight, Bob Garmston, Art Costa, and Doreen Miori-Merola, among others, offer effective models of instructional and cognitive coaching for schools to consider integrating.

We would never evaluate the effectiveness of a lesson by how well the students enjoyed it, but rather the outcomes we want to achieve. Further, our teaching is more complex than a single lesson, but rather a complex web of our content and methods and transactions of learning between teacher and students. Similarly, the effectiveness of our professional learning isn't measured by how entertaining a one-day session is, but rather the outcomes on teaching practice and on student learning. Most initiatives are multi-year and include many methods of engagement, reflection, practice, and iteration.

Professional learning can be expensive, and leaders are charged with thinking about how to best spend those tightly budgeted dollars. In reality, although external consultants can add a lot, most of the learning and "stickiness" happens between consultant visits. This is when ideas are processed in context through dialogue, discussion, and day-to-day application. To make PD stick, we have to see professional learning as the much broader context within which any PD day or session fits. And for any of our initiatives, we need to make careful, outcome-focused decisions on the methods and people we select for both internal and external support. Otherwise, we may as well pop some popcorn and show an award-winning movie for our back-to-school PD day.

Lee Ann Jung (@leeannjung) is the CEO of Lead Inclusion and a clinical professor at San Diego State University. She consults with schools internationally in the areas of inclusion, universal design for learning, assessment and grading, and response to intervention.

More on This Topic: Leveraging What We Know for Better PD

ASCD Express, Vol. 16, No. 12. Copyright 2021 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.

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Lee Ann Jung There's a book by Chip and Dan Heath I read some years back: Made to Stick. I remember one story from the book, in particular, that changed the way I operate professionally. The authors detailed a key factor in Southwest Airlines' success in dominating a sizeable share of the flying market.

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Zachary Herrmann and Pam Grossman

Students deserve meaningful learning experiences-ones where they explore rich questions, engage in deep discussions, and problem-solve in collaborative ways. This ambitious vision for learning requires an equally ambitious vision for teaching. Teachers, who have generally not had these rich learning opportunities themselves, must learn how to support students to think critically, engage in the authentic practices of their discipline, and discuss and productively collaborate with each other. This is no small task, as studies of teacher learning have demonstrated (Hill, 2007).

Investments in professional development have often been seen as the policy instrument to achieve this more ambitious vision of learning. Unfortunately, we know that many formal efforts are ineffective at best and counter-productive at worst.

But we collectively also know quite a bit about what works and what doesn't when it comes to professional development. If teachers and leaders find a gap between their current professional development efforts and the types of learning experiences teachers need to learn and grow, they can assess whether they may be facing any of the following five challenges and use what we know to build more effective opportunities for teacher learning.

Challenge 1: PD Lacks an Ambitious Vision of Teaching and Learning.

Professional development efforts often introduce teaching practices, concepts, and routines without a full picture of how the pieces fit together to create a coherent whole. Individual PD must be grounded in a broader vision for teaching and learning, with frameworks for understanding how the intended knowledge, skills, and practices fit within a broader vision for student learning.

Schools that adopt an ambitious vision for teaching and learning, such as Complex Instruction or project-based learning, also adopt a clear focus for their professional development efforts. An instructional vision should include the goals a school has for student learning, as well as the teaching practices teachers use to support them, such as the driving goals and the core teaching practices of project-based learning.

An instructional vision establishes priorities and provides focus. For instance, if your school has an instructional vision that centers equity and inclusivity, then professional development efforts should directly support teachers to pursue that vision. Teachers might explore strategies to disrupt racist or sexist stereotypes about intelligence, participation routines that enable broader engagement from all students, and strategies to build stronger relationships with students. Professional learning must be designed in service of a broader instructional vision; it must be more than a hodgepodge of disconnected teacher tips and tricks.
Consider: What is the instructional vision that should drive our PD efforts? What are the practices and mindsets that support this vision?
Challenge 2: PD Fails to Cultivate Teacher Ownership.

Teachers feel more engaged when they have a sense of agency and autonomy over the learning process. Giving professionals ownership over their learning is a key principle derived from research on adult learning.

Professional development opportunities should support teachers to define their own development goals and work toward making progress on those goals. This can be done by allowing teachers to identify specific teaching practices they hope to develop, such as supporting students to collaborate, eliciting higher order thinking, or supporting students to reflect and revise.

In our PennPBL professional learning program, teachers identify and plan their own goals. For example, a teacher might decide to engage students in peer critique. To pursue this goal, the teacher could identify specific things to try in the classroom, such as co-creating an assessment rubric with students or conducting a "think aloud" where to model the peer critique process. After analyzing how each strategy went with colleagues, the teacher begins to surface what works, what challenges students encountered, and any new instructional dilemmas. These understandings form the basis for the next goal and plan.

When teachers are working on developing their practice together, they can make collective choices in the direction they want their professional learning to take. In a two-year professional development program for ELA teachers, we asked teachers to vote on the practices they most wanted to improve from the practices included in an observation protocol and then organized our PD efforts around those practices.
Consider: What opportunities do teachers have to define their own professional learning goals? How can you leverage observations or peer feedback to help identify areas for growth from which to choose?
Challenge 3: PD is Short, Sporadic, and Disconnected from the Classroom.

Though teachers wouldn't expect students to master sophisticated practices or develop deep understandings after a single workshop, some professional development efforts assume that approach will work for teachers. But effective PD takes time.

Rather than professional development efforts that rely on one-off workshops and seminars, effective PD connects a teacher's learning with their actual classroom practice over sustained periods of time. Oftentimes, this looks like teachers exploring a routine, practice, or strategy; trying it out in their own classroom; and then analyzing how it went. In doing so, teachers use their own classrooms as professional learning sites. By recording video of their teaching or gathering other classroom artifacts to analyze, teachers bridge the gap between professional development and their own teaching.

Teaching is complex and requires in-the-moment discretion. Teachers are constantly managing dilemmas, informed by the goals they have for students. Professional development that never incorporates real episodes of teaching is likely to lack the nuance and complexity teachers need to develop in meaningful ways. Even brief videos of teaching captured on a cell phone can provide a powerful source for learning. Ensuring that teachers follow all school policies and protect student privacy, they can record their teaching and analyze critical moments with their colleagues.

Imagine a science teacher is soliciting responses from the class, and one student responds with a common scientific misconception. How can the teacher respond? What should they consider? Brief videos such as these can help teachers explore common issues they face and practice strategies to nurture curiosity and a growth mindset-techniques that will develop students' mindsets as sense-makers and problem-solvers.
Consider: How do our PD efforts connect to make a sustained, classroom-connected, active learning experience for teachers? How do we design teaching schedules to make room for ongoing teacher learning?
Challenge 4: PD Is One-Size-Fits-All.

PD without differentiation fails to acknowledge the different learning needs teachers have. Professional development is most effective when it supports teachers to develop practices that are specific to their disciplines. Argumentation occurs in both science and mathematics, but these disciplines have different approaches and standards. Interpretation and inference have a place in both English Language Arts and history, but meaning-making in these disciplines involves different approaches. Teachers benefit when they have access to models of high-quality teaching within their disciplines, as well as opportunities to practice those approaches.

Even within a given subject area, teachers have vastly different needs. An accomplished teacher may need support with how to effectively intervene with student groups during collaborative projects, while a novice teacher may need practice on simpler collaborative routines, such as how to facilitate an effective think-pair-share.

To differentiate by teacher needs and interests, professional development efforts should require teachers to engage with their own practice, whether it be by establishing professional learning goals, defining problems of practice, or making instructional plans.
Consider: How is our PD responsive to teacher needs across disciplines and teacher developmental trajectories? How do we tailor professional development opportunities to address teachers at different stages of developing ambitious practices?
Challenge 5: PD Is Not Collaborative.

We know the powerful learning potential that comes with learning in community with peers. Yet, this professional capital is often underleveraged because PD efforts fail to engage teachers with one another in meaningful ways.

Most teachers face some similar problems of practice and stand to benefit from seeing each other teach (live or on video) and engaging in thoughtful analysis of how they interact with students or ensure equitable participation.

Teachers that have complementary strengths can serve as valuable resources for each other. A recent study in Tennessee showed that pairing teachers with different levels of skills in particular areas, as captured by classroom observations, led to improvements in both teacher practice and student learning. Importantly, the effort did not specify what teachers needed to work on together; teachers had the agency to decide how best to use their time.

Though schools may benefit from significant structural changes, such as creating schedules to allow common planning times, smaller interventions are also possible. For instance, a school can embrace "open classroom" policies where teachers invite their colleagues to drop in whenever they want. Other teachers may form "five-minute observation clubs," where they commit to dropping by each other's classrooms each week for brief observations and then debriefing over lunch.
Consider: How does our PD support productive collaboration among teachers? How can we pair teachers with differing expertise who can support each other in developing their practice?
An Ambitious Strategy

Ambitious learning for students requires ambitious learning for teachers. All too often, PD efforts ignore principles and research on adult learning for the sake of efficiency. Powerful professional development to support instruction takes time, attention to the demands of particular subject matters and grade levels, and differentiated support for teachers at different stages of developing their practice. If we want to create opportunities for purpose-driven, authentic, sustained, differentiated, and collaborative learning for students, we need to invest in equally rich chances for teacher learning.

Reference

Hill, H.C. (2007). Learning in the Teaching Workforce. The future of children, 17(1). Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ795882.pdf

Zachary Herrmann (@zachherrmann) serves as the executive director of the Center for Professional Learning at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (Penn GSE). Herrmann also serves on the professional faculty within the Teaching, Learning, and Leadership Division at Penn GSE and as the academic director for the Project-Based Learning Certificate Program.

Pam Grossman (@PamPennGSE) is the dean and George and Diane Weiss Professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and the Nomellini-Olivier Professor Emerita at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. A former high school English teacher and long-time teacher-educator, Grossman's research focuses on teacher learning across the career.

More on This Topic: For Sticky PD, Apply the Science of Learning

ASCD Express, Vol. 16, No. 12. Copyright 2021 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.

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Zachary Herrmann and Pam Grossman Students deserve meaningful learning experiences-ones where they explore rich questions, engage in deep discussions, and problem-solve in collaborative ways. This ambitious vision for learning requires an equally ambitious vision for teaching.

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The phrase "learning loss" has become as widespread as "you're on mute" in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. Commentators, politicians, parents, research firms, educational technology organizations and policymakers have decried how remote and hybrid learning during the pandemic caused students to fall further and further behind educationally.

These same individuals and organizations have promoted "solutions," such as getting students back in school as fast as possible, extending summer school, increasing the amount of time spent in school during the year and relying on parents to expand learning opportunities. Even President Biden's American Rescue Plan earmarked funding for summer enrichment and after-school programs to aid learning recovery. Many of these solutions are not only lacking in evidence, but also they leave out the most important influence on student learning-the teacher.

Decades of research have confirmed that teacher quality is "the most influential factor in students' educational outcomes," according to one study on the subject. Put simply, the teacher is the most important factor in how well a student does in school. Highly-qualified teachers influence student success both short and long term, and as teachers gain more years of experience, they are more likely to positively influence student outcomes beyond academic achievement, including reducing absences and disciplinary offenses.

Yet teachers have been leaving the profession at an alarming rate for quite some time. In a piece for Psychology Today called " The Teacher Burnout Epidemic," author and education expert Jenny Grant Rankin noted that approximately 15 percent of U.S. teachers leave the profession every year, more than 40 percent of teachers leave the profession within five years of starting, and a full two-thirds of the nation's best teachers end up leaving the profession for other careers. The Learning Policy Institute estimates that annual teacher shortages in the U.S. are higher than 100,000.

The loss of teachers to the profession has been exacerbated by the shift to emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, as teachers who were already stretched to their limits were faced with impossible work situations. Some doubled their workload by teaching in-person and remote students simultaneously with no extra support, while others had to determine whether losing their life to the COVID-19 virus was worth the risk of continuing to teach. The " An Anonymous Teacher Speaks " Padlet by shea martin, in which educators freely share their concerns without retribution, is fraught with examples of teachers feeling burned out, stressed out, undervalued, overworked and pushed to the brink of no return.

Teaching has been described as being "lonely in a crowded room." This sense of professional isolation has been deepened by the pandemic. Educators must seek to balance multiple and conflicting responsibilities in caring for and supporting students, collaborating with families, designing and delivering effective instruction, assessing student learning, managing classrooms and developing new ideas, all while reflecting and improving their practice as educators as they seamlessly move between in-person, remote, online and blended learning environments.

Even though scholars have repeatedly identified teacher quality as the most influential factor shaping student learning, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, most schools and districts did not focus on creating better support structures, improving working conditions and increasing professional growth opportunities to motivate teachers to stay. There was a clear mismatch between what education researchers have found to be true and what educational administrators and policymakers decided to do during the pandemic.

As a result, schools and districts across the U.S. have been scrambling to figure out how to get students back in-person as quickly as possible, while also facing teacher and substitute teacher shortages and early retirements from veteran teachers. Some states and districts have had to loosen the certification requirements for substitute teachers, while other states and districts asked college students to step in.

States, districts, and schools continue to focus on short-term fixes rather than long-term solutions. Reducing the certification requirements to hire more substitutes, recruiting college students to fill in, extending summer school, and increasing days and time spent in school during the traditional year will not truly address what was lost during the pandemic. The "teacher loss"-losing teachers to burnout, turnover and death or long-term symptoms from the COVID-19 pandemic-will negatively impact student learning for years to come.

However, it does not have to be this way. There are things that policymakers and educational administrators can do right now to reduce teacher loss, including increasing teacher pay, increasing teacher autonomy, giving teachers an opportunity to be part of the decisions that influence their work, hiring more professional staff (e.g., counselors, nurses, librarians, paraprofessionals) who can help address challenges teachers face, providing more support for professional growth, increasing stability in teacher job assignments, creating a more collegial and collaborative working environment, and working with teachers to identify ways to reduce job stress.

Schools can even be reimagined to function more like cooperatives that operate in a democratic fashion-giving teachers and students, in partnership with families and policymakers, opportunities to make decisions about day-to-day policies and practices.

However, while these recommendations are critical for moving in the right direction, they are missing an essential element-the valuing of teachers and the teaching profession. Teachers have become a scapegoat for all problems in education. They have been vilified by the media and public for going on strike to demand higher pay and refusing to return to unsafe classroom environments. They have become the victims of toxic positivity. This negativity and blame game must stop. The media and public must change the narrative.

Everyone, from parents and administrators to policymakers and the media, must work together to value the ideas and contributions of teachers and encourage the implementation of common sense reforms such as those proposed by the National Education Association. Valuing and supporting teachers seems to be the single best mechanism for addressing any academic losses and social-emotional traumas brought about by the pandemic.

In the end, learning loss is not the problem. Teacher loss is.

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The Real Solution to Learning Loss: Valuing Teachers and the Teaching Profession - EdSurge News

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The phrase "learning loss" has become as widespread as "you're on mute" in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. Commentators, politicians, parents, research firms, educational technology organizations and policymakers have decried how remote and hybrid learning during the pandemic caused students to fall further and further behind educationally.

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Andrea Rose Sachdeva and Liz Dawes Duraisingh

Much of the current conversation around the use of research in schools centers on research-driven approaches that bolster academic achievement for all students-a conversation influenced by the Every Student Succeeds Act and other district- and school-level efforts, such as Massachusetts' How Do We Know initiative. This conversation is certainly necessary, helping policymakers decide what to prioritize and fund in the pursuit of excellence and equity. There are also ongoing attempts to improve practitioner access to research findings by the federal What Works Clearinghouse, the W.T. Grant Foundation, and the Center for Research Use in Education, among others.

But making sure that schools are implementing 'tried and tested' approaches on the ground should not be the only conversation, in part because applying research findings is not straightforward. Carrie Conaway (2020) notes that there is often a gap between the statistical language found in research papers and the relational ways in which these findings are enacted. Meanwhile, the range of available options is unnecessarily and inappropriately restricted if we only trust research involving randomized controlled trials (Thomas, 2016).

An alternative approach is to consider how research findings can complement an inquiry-based approach to education, whether in individual classrooms or whole schools. This approach casts educators as drivers in finding, adapting, and critically evaluating research evidence that is relevant to their unique contexts.

Using Research Evidence to Support Inquiry-Driven Innovation

We have seen how an inquiry-based approach can play out through an initiative called Creating Communities of Innovation (CCI), a four-year research-practice partnership between Project Zero, a research center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and seven schools in the United Arab Emirates. The seven schools belong to the same network but variously implement British, Indian, International Baccalaureate, and U.S. curricula and work with differing budgets and student populations.

More than 50 school leaders and classroom teachers worked with the research team to bring an inquiry-based lens to their school contexts. They worked in small study groups, using research findings to inspire new practices or try out practices that had been developed or tested elsewhere. Educators collaborated for at least two years to pilot, implement, evaluate, and eventually scale their innovations. The CCI initiative also established a cross-school community in which participants could share ideas, exchange constructive feedback, and reflect together about the overall journey of bringing new ideas into practice.
Figure 1. Inquiry-Driven Innovation (Duraisingh & Sachdeva, 2021)
Engaging in this work yielded insights into how educators might strategically use research findings as part of an inquiry-driven approach to educational practice. We propose four ways that schools can get started on their own journey.

Proposal #1: Start from an Inquiry Stance

A helpful starting place for integrating research into practice involves taking what Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2009) call an inquiry stance-one which approaches questioning as "a worldview and a habit of mind" rather than a series of steps to achieve results.

For educators in our research cohort, this inquiry work took many forms and happened both individually and in study groups. It included learning to observe school contexts in new ways, planning and piloting new practices, collecting and examining data, and reflecting on learning. Educators said that it was particularly powerful to engage with our educator tool based on slow looking -a practice developed by our Project Zero colleague Shari Tishman (2018) that invites us to move beyond immediate impressions by taking the time to look carefully and intentionally (Dawes Duraisingh and Sachdeva, 2021).
Figure 2. Slow Looking (Tishman, 2018; Duraisingh & Sachdeva, 2021)
By taking a fresh look at familiar contexts, educators noticed things that they hadn't before. In one school, educators who intended to create a blended learning program realized through looking carefully at their students' online conversations that learners seemed unable to participate meaningfully in dialogues. These educators then used academic databases to search for research-based practices and articles about the thinking dispositions for digital environments that would be most helpful to their work.

At another school, educators who began by observing how faculty spent their workdays to consider how to use time more efficiently ended up focusing on students, who had a hard time articulating their thoughts and engaging in critical thinking. They pivoted to looking for research-based frameworks around critical thinking.

Proposal #2: Work With What You've Got

Educators can also use research findings in contextually sensitive ways by first identifying existing successful practices in their settings. Trends in educational ideas can feed an impulse to throw out the old in place of the new. Looking at what is already working well guards against the likelihood of initiative fatigue and encourages schools to both use and learn from previously tried strategies. Our cohort schools surfaced these assets in various ways, such as soliciting input from stakeholders across the community (e.g., learners, parents, educators, staff) and gathering data and documentation to examine the effects of existing practices.

In one school, educators created a new hybrid approach to interdisciplinary learning that melded their existing work in design thinking, design challenges around global issues, and Project Zero structures and protocols called thinking routines-simple protocols that learners use to routinize ways of thinking and habits of mind (Project Zero, n.d.)

One of the educators reflected, "Whatever new practices we have started have all come in from existing ones. We've looked at ways of improving the existing practices and then as an offshoot of them, something new comes up. So, we're not entirely going a new way."

Other schools with strong practices in place might consider how research could help them to upcycle materials, resources, or ideas from programs or curricula no longer in use. Even if last year's new science curriculum was not an overall success, were there some components that did work well that could be reused in a new program? Or, could research-backed practices in science education be incorporated into the existing curriculum? Simply having reflective conversations with learners and educators about the pros and cons of previous initiatives could be a powerful starting place.

Proposal #3: Support Local Ownership

School leaders can also consider ways to help educators assume ownership over research and to cultivate investment among the school community (Nichols, 2021). Two schools from the research cohort stand out in this regard. The first is an Indian curriculum school called GEMS Legacy School (previously called Kindergarten Starters) that chose to introduce ideas from early childhood centers in Reggio Emilia, Italy. One idea exposed students to "provocations"-materials and ideas designed to provoke curiosity and a desire to learn more (Wien, 2008). They also instituted other research-based practices from Reggio Emilia schools, including group learning, exhibiting student work, documenting young children's ideas, and supporting student-led projects (Project Zero and Reggio Children, 2001; Wien, 2008)-a dramatic departure from their teacher-centered classroom practices. Teachers recounted that, at first, they were preoccupied with accurate replication. But little by little, they became more confident in adapting the ideas to suit their own school.

In another example, Wellington International School (WIS) also took ownership over research-based ideas developed elsewhere. Educators developed what they called "WISical Thinking," a classroom tool designed to promote critical thinking. They took six tenets found in a nursing journal article-analysis, applying standards, categorizing, focused information seeking, reasoning, and predicting and transforming-and developed related "I can..." statements to help learners consider and self-assess their use of critical thinking (e.g., "I can identify a problem that needs to be solved."). They invited colleagues to tweak the tool to best suit their own subject areas and students, and they solicited feedback on how it was working (or not!) through evaluation surveys for the learners and educators involved in pilot testing.

By presenting the tool as a work in progress that could be modified and engaging others in the development process, the study group felt they built up broader investment in the tool-and the research that informed it.

Proposal #4: Investigate in Community

Working in communities to pool knowledge and research-based practices further supports educators to use research. At each participating school, the study groups brought together teachers from diverse academic subjects and with different levels of experience, as well as school administrators. As they implemented new ideas, educators sought feedback and advice from colleagues, parents, students, and staff through interviews, surveys, and focus groups.

The schools were also involved in a cross-school cohort that enabled educators to learn about others' research-based ideas and emerging innovations through in-person gatherings, workshops, online conversations, and video updates. In this way, each school benefitted from receiving reactions to their work and targeted advice about other practices or models that might help push their work forward.

The project liaison based in Dubai noticed an important and unexpected effect: Though lower-resourced schools in the network had historically "looked up" to the well-resourced schools to replicate what they were doing, schools in this project paid equal attention to one another regardless of financial resources or prestige. They were able to avoid the type of professional collaboration that practitioners can find inauthentic or forced, especially if used to implement policy (Datnow and Park, 2018). The community aspect of the work helps research-based approaches gain traction and investment across the schools involved.

Final Takeaways

Schools have a moral obligation to look to empirical research and research-backed educational models to provide the best learning outcomes for their students. However, students also deserve to work with educators who have the agency to creatively adapt the information in ways that respect and make use of their day-to-day knowledge. Educators also deserve to not be expected to do this work in isolation. If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is that new ideas are needed in education and that many approaches are more doable than we would have imagined little more than a year ago. Research findings are more powerful when used within an overall approach to practice that is built on inquiry, curiosity, and an investigative spirit. Much of the bedrock for this work is already in place in schools in existing people, practices, and relationships.

Author's note: The Creating Communities of Innovation project was funded by GEMS Education.

References

Cochran-Smith, M. and Lytle S.L. (2009). Inquiry as Stance: Practitioner research for the next generation. New York: Teachers College Press.

Conaway, C. (2020). Maximizing Research Use in the World We Actually Live In: Relationships, organizations, and interpretation. Education Finance and Policy, 15(1), pp. 1-10.

Datnow, A. & Park, V. (2018). Professional collaboration with purpose. Milton: Routledge.

Dawes Duraisingh, L. & Sachdeva, A. (2021). Inquiry-driven innovation: A practical guide to supporting school-based change. Jossey-Bass.

Project Zero. (n.d.). Visible Thinking. Retrieved from http://www.pz.harvard.edu/projects/visible-thinking

Project Zero and Reggio Children. (2001). Making Learning Visible: Children as Individual and Group Learners. Reggio Emilia, Italy: Reggio Children.

The Design-Based Research Collective. 2003. Design-based research: An emerging paradigm for educational inquiry." Educational Researcher, 32(1): 5-8.

Thomas, G. (2016). After the Gold Rush: Questioning the "Gold Standard" and Reappraising the Status of Experiment and Randomized Controlled Trials in Education. Harvard Educational Review, 3(86): 390-411.

Tishman, S. (2018). Slow Looking. New York, NY: Routledge.

Wien, C. A. (2008). Emergent curriculum in the primary classroom: interpreting the Reggio Emilia approach in schools. New York: Teachers College Press.

Andrea Rose Sachdeva is a senior project manager, specializing in research initiatives related to innovation, assessment, inquiry-based learning, and maker-centered learning. She is the co-author, with Liz Dawes Duraisingh, of Inquiry-Driven Innovation: A Practical Guide to Supporting School-Based Change (John Wiley & Sons, 2021).

Liz Dawes Duraisingh is a principal investigator at Project Zero and a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she leads qualitative, design-based research. She was previously a middle and high school history teacher.

ASCD Express, Vol. 16, No. 18. Copyright 2021 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.

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Reimagining the Role of Research in Schools

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Andrea Rose Sachdeva and Liz Dawes Duraisingh Much of the current conversation around the use of research in schools centers on research-driven approaches that bolster academic achievement for all students-a conversation influenced by the Every Student Succeeds Act and other district- and school-level efforts, such as Massachusetts' How Do We Know initiative.

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How can We Engage in More Impactful Coaching?

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Coaching is not new in schools. What began in the early 1980's as mentoring evolved into instructional coaching in the late 90's and early 2000's. One of the challenges for instructional coaches has always been how to ...

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As a leader, you want the people in your organization to trust you. And with good reason. In our coaching with leaders, we often see that trust is a leading indicator of whether others evaluate them positively or negatively. But creating that trust or, perhaps more importantly, reestablishing it when you've lost it isn't always that straightforward.

Fortunately, by looking at data from the 360 assessments of 87,000 leaders, we were able to identify three key clusters of items that are often the foundation for trust. We looked for correlations between the trust rating and all other items in the assessment and after selecting the 15 highest correlations, we performed a factor analysis that revealed these three elements. Further analysis showed that the majority of the variability in trust ratings could be explained by these three elements.

The Three Elements of Trust

By understanding the behaviors that underlie trust, leaders are better able to elevate the level of trust that others feel toward them. Here are the three elements.

Positive Relationships. Trust is in part based on the extent to which a leader is able to create positive relationships with other people and groups. To instill trust a leader must:

Stay in touch on the issues and concerns of others.

Balance results with concern for others.

Generate cooperation between others.

Resolve conflict with others.

Give honest feedback in a helpful way.

Good Judgement/Expertise. Another factor in whether people trust a leader is the extent to which a leader is well-informed and knowledgeable. They must understand the technical aspects of the work as well as have a depth of experience. This means:

They use good judgement when making decisions.

Others trust their ideas and opinions.

Others seek after their opinions.

Their knowledge and expertise make an important contribution to achieving results.

Can anticipate and respond quickly to problems.

Consistency. The final element of trust is the extent to which leaders walk their talk and do what they say they will do. People rate a leader high in trust if they:

Are a role model and set a good example.

Walk the talk.

Honor commitments and keep promises.

Follow through on commitments.

Are willing to go above and beyond what needs to be done.

We wanted to understand how these three elements interacted to create the likelihood that people would trust a leader. We created three indices for each element and since we had such a large dataset, we experimented with how performance on each of the dimensions impacted the overall trust score. In our study we found that if a leader scored at or above the 60 th percentile on all three factors, their overall trust score was at the 80 th percentile.

We compared high scores (above 60 th percentile) and low scores (below the 40 th percentile) to examine the impact these had on the three elements that enabled trust. Note that these levels are not extremely high or low. Basically, they are 10 percentile points above and below the norm. This is important because it means that being just above average on these skills can have a profound positive effect and, conversely, just being below average can destroy trust.

We also found that level of trust is highly correlated with how people rate a leader's overall leadership effectiveness. It has the strongest impact on the direct reports' and peer overall ratings. The manager's ratings and the engagement ratings were not as highly correlated, but all the differences are statistically significant.

Do You Need All Three Elements of Trust?

We were also curious to know if leaders needed to be skilled in all three elements to generate a high level of trust and whether any one element had the most significant impact on the trust rating. To gauge this, we created an experiment where we separated leaders into high and low levels on each of the three pillars and then measured the level of trust.

Intuitively we thought that consistency would be the most important element. Saying one thing and doing another seems like it would hurt trust the most. While our analysis showed that inconsistency does have a negative impact (trust went down 17 points), it was relationships that had the most substantial impact. When relationships were low and both judgment and consistency were high, trust went down 33 points. This may be because many leaders are seen as occasionally inconsistent. We all intend to do things that don't get done, but once a relationship is damaged or if it was never formed in the first place, it's difficult for people to trust.

We often tell people that they don't need to be perfect to be an excellent leader but when it comes to trust, all three of these elements need to be above average. Remember that, in our analysis, we set the bar fairly low: at the 60 th percentile. This is not a brilliant level of performance, barely above average.

We have regularly found in our research that if a leader has a preference for a particular skill, they are more likely to perform better at it. Think about which of these elements of trust you have a stronger preference for - and which you prefer least. Because you need to be above average on each, it is probably worth your time to focus on improving the latter.

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As a leader, you want the people in your organization to trust you. And with good reason. In our coaching with leaders, we often see that trust is a leading indicator of whether others evaluate them positively or negatively. But creating that trust or, perhaps more importantly, reestablishing it when you've lost it isn't always that straightforward.

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February 2021 | Volume 78 | Number 5
Making Professional Learning Stick Pages 16-21

Jim Knight

Two teams of researchers have especially shaped the way I understand the stages people move through as they learn and change. I've been influenced by Prochaska, Norcross, and DiClemente (1994), who describe change as involving non-linear movement through six stages (pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination), and Gene Hall and Shirley Hord's (2015) eight "Levels of Use," part of their 2019 Concerns-Based Adoption Model (non-use, orientation, preparation, mechanical use, routine use, refinement, integration, and renewal).

To develop my own understanding of implementation, I've found it helpful to combine my experience studying change with these models. In the process, I've come up with my own five stages of implementation: (1) Non-Use, (2) Awareness, (3) Mechanical, (4) Routine, and (5) Proficient. A clearer understanding of these stages of implementation, especially what hinders and helps people as they move from one stage to the next, should lead to better professional development-leading to better teaching practice and, consequently, better learning and lives for students.

Non-Use

People are in this stage when they are not carrying out an innovation because they're either unable or unwilling to implement it. They may be unable to implement an innovation simply because they don't know about it, having missed the workshop or skipped the webinar. Educators can also be in the non-use stage because they either actively or passively resist the new learning. Individuals who actively resist learning are very clear that they choose to not implement something that's been suggested for them, perhaps because it conflicts with their professional goals or values. Those who passively resist quietly choose not to implement a strategy for reasons they choose not to articulate.

Awareness

People are at the awareness stage when they know something about an innovation, are not resistant, but also aren't implementing it. Often, educators in this stage have a little knowledge about an innovation but are unclear how to put that new knowledge into practice. And the longer people go without implementing a strategy, the less likely they are to ever implement it. For example, teachers might attend a workshop on restorative justice and be excited about implementing it in their classroom. But as time passes, they will remember less and less about the approach and consequently be less likely to implement it.

Workshops help people develop an awareness of an innovation, but they sometimes provide too much abstract information and too little detailed, practical guidance on how to implement the new practice. In my experience, it only takes about three days to forget most of what was learned in a workshop. However it happens, during the awareness stage, people talk about change, but don't do anything differently.

Mechanical

During the mechanical stage, people start to implement an innovation, but they often feel awkward carrying it out because they have to remember a lot of new information in order to change what they're doing. The mechanical stage can feel like walking through a field of deep, wet snow: messy, slow, uncomfortable, and tiring. A teacher who is implementing Fisher and Frey's gradual release model (2008), for example, may struggle with the focus lesson when they model their thinking. They may tell students what they are doing rather than transparently demonstrate their thinking, or they may involve students in discussion too quickly before they have finished modeling.

Additionally, the first time we implement an innovation is usually not our best performance, and it might not immediately yield the desired results. Since the new strategy may not improve student learning or well-being at first, and since implementing something new can feel clumsy, it's not surprising educators often decide to return to their old, comfortable ways of teaching.

Routine

During the routine stage of implementation, people start to become comfortable with aspects of the new strategy or skill they are learning. This can feel reassuring after the struggles of the mechanical stage. Feeling comfortable, people may be tempted to implement the innovation in a structured, quick, and easy to remember way. Once they are confident of some aspect of what they are learning, such as using the identify questions from the impact cycle (Knight, 2017), teachers may be hesitant to move beyond their comfortable, routine use ("I've just gotten comfortable with this skill, why would I want to modify it?")

A risk of routine implementation is false clarity. According to Fullan (2001), false clarity "occurs when change is interpreted in an oversimplified way; that is, the proposed change has more to it than people perceive or realize" (p. 77). When we have false clarity, we know less than we think we do. We aren't implementing an innovation as effectively as we think we are. That means we probably aren't having the impact that we desire.

Innovations ultimately need to be adapted to respond to the unique strengths and needs of teachers and students. However, change just for the sake of change probably isn't the best strategy. The best outcomes occur when educators make informed, intentional adaptations-informed because the educator deeply understands the principles and nuances of innovations (which often comes from coaching and diverse experiences) and intentional, because educators use their knowledge to make good decisions about how to adapt strategies for better student outcomes. This kind of modification of an innovation is really only possible during the proficient stage.

Proficient

When people arrive at the proficient stage, they have developed a deep understanding of the knowledge or skills they are learning, and consequently a deep understanding of how they can and should modify an innovation to provide personalized support. They can adapt the innovation to the specific needs of the situation at hand. Coaches who have reached the proficient stage in their questioning skills, for example, are able to ask the right question at the right time to facilitate a collaborating teacher's reflection or planning. They can do this because they have read about questioning, practiced questioning, and used questioning in many coaching conversations.

As another example, teachers who are proficient at giving one-to-one feedback are able, in a very short period of time, to communicate to individual students what they have done well, pinpoint where each student needs to improve, and communicate the right amount of personalized information so each student can move forward. What works for one student won't necessarily work for the next student, and a proficient teacher will be able to personalize one-to-one feedback so that it works best for each student.

Observing a proficient performer, it can appear that he or she effortlessly modifies an innovation so that it's more effective. That "effortlessness," however, is the product of learning, practice, and experimentation over time. It takes a lot of work to look like you're carrying out an innovation effortlessly.

Supporting Movement from One Stage to the Next

Naturally, those working to support teachers in improving their practice or in trying a key innovation want to help teachers move to more sophisticated stages of using that innovation. Here are some approaches leaders and professional developers can try to make this happen.

Moving Beyond Resistance

When people are actively or passively resistant, blaming them for resisting usually doesn't improve the situation. A better strategy is to try and figure out why people aren't embracing an innovation. A leader might nonjudgmentally ask hesitant teachers what worries them about the innovation or what they object to, perhaps by exploring some common reasons teachers balk at an innovation:

Are teachers resisting because they don't think the strategy will work for their students?

Are teachers resisting because of an ideological difference? (For instance, if a teacher with a constructivist philosophy is asked to use direct instruction?)

Is the leader's approach to change creating the resistance? (For example, have we not given teachers a voice in what happens in their classroom, or failed to acknowledge others' knowledge and status as we proposed ideas?)

Is this innovation threatening people's identity?

Does the school's history of professional development suggest people should have low expectations for this new innovation?

When we take the courageous step of understanding why teachers resist, we can change our approach to one that's more likely to lead to mutual understanding than to resistance. If teachers report that they don't have enough voice in decision making, we can make adjustments to ensure teachers have the chance to give meaningful, authentic input. If teachers don't think a strategy will work, the first step should be to try and ascertain whether or not they are correct. If a teacher considers a reading program insufficiently challenging for students, for example, administrators should try to understand clearly other teachers' experiences with the materials. Perhaps, rather than being resistant, the teacher is actually sharing important information. With each question, our approach should be to listen first, acknowledge that we've heard what was said, and respond appropriately.

In reality, resistance is more often produced by a system or change agents' approach to change than it is by a resistant individual's personal characteristics. If a large number of people are resisting within a system, the people probably aren't the problem. An overly simplistic top-down approach that doesn't recognize the importance of teacher autonomy (Knight, 2019) almost always produces either apathy or resistance. A one-way model of change, in which experts put out ideas for teachers to implement and fail to take into account teacher knowledge, rarely succeeds. Systems will be more effective if they gather and act on what teachers are learning during the implementation process.

Movement forward in an organization, like movement forward for a person, is messy and nonlinear. The coherence that results from empowering, meaningful conversations with teachers in schools takes time. However, not taking the time to involve teachers in decisions and plans is even more inefficient, since it seldom leads to high-quality implementation.

Getting to Proof

One reason people resist moving through the stages of implementation is that they aren't convinced that a proposed change will be worth the effort. No matter how big an "effect size" research shows for the innovation, people usually aren't convinced it will work until they see it make a difference for their students. This creates a catch-22: People don't like to implement a new strategy unless they have seen it be effective, but they can't experience its effectiveness unless they try it. As Joseph Grenny and colleagues (2013) explain:

The most common tool we use to change other's expectations is the use of verbal persuasion ... [but] ... When it comes to resistant problems, verbal persuasion rarely works. Verbal persuasion often comes across as an attack. It can feel like nagging or manipulation. ... The great persuader is personal experience. With persistent problems, it's best to give verbal persuasion a rest and try to help people experience the world as you experience it. (p. 51)

In my work studying coaching for the past two decades, I have found, paradoxically, that the best way to get teachers to implement an innovation and become proficient with it is to turn the focus away from the innovation and toward students. When educators see that a new strategy is making a difference in students' lives, they're much more likely to keep using that strategy. Seeing an innovation as a means to an end rather than the end itself increases the likelihood that the innovation will be implemented effectively.

Using student-focused goals related to achievement or engagement as the focus for professional learning also increases the likelihood of high-quality implementation because student goals are objective standards. For instance, to hit a goal of 95 percent of students getting 100 percent on a single-factor rubric for sentence writing, a teacher will need to effectively implement the strategy associated with that aspect of sentence writing. With this goal in place, coaches can be less directive about ensuring high-quality implementation. The goal takes care of that because the only way a goal will be hit is if the innovation is used effectively.

Overcoming Fear and Perfectionism

Even though it's widely accepted that people need to step out of their comfort zones to get better, most of us hesitate to put ourselves in situations where we feel out of control. Moving from one stage of implementation to another is a bit like a trapeze artist letting go of one trapeze to grab the hands of a fellow aerialist. No wonder people hesitate before moving to the next stage.

Perfectionists will especially find it difficult to move forward. As Brené Brown has written, "perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it's the thing that's really preventing us from being seen and taking flight" (2010, p. 56). Perfectionism can keep us from messing up, but it can also keep us from growing. If you don't try something until you're sure you can do it perfectly, you might never try.

Professional developers can make it easier for people to step out of their comfort zones and move beyond perfectionism by providing sustained, meaningful support for professional learning. This often involves clear explanations, demonstration (in person, through video, or by visiting another teacher's class), and ongoing conversations about how innovations or implementation can be modified to meet individual students' needs. To decrease fear, intentionally affirm teachers rather than critically judging them and create a psychologically safe place for coaching conversations.

Onward to Action

Talking about change can feel like something is actually happening, even though, as the Chinese proverb says, "Talk doesn't cook rice." But the only way professional development can have a positive effect on students' learning and well-being is if that new knowledge is translated into action. When we recognize the stages people generally go through to become proficient, we can see what steps to take to make it more likely that real implementation occurs.

References

Brown, B. (2010). The gifts of imperfection: Let go of who you think you're supposed to be and embrace who you are. Center City, MN: Hazelden Publishing.

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2008). Better learning through structured teaching: A framework for gradual release of responsibility. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Fullan, M. (2001). The meaning of educational change (3rd ed.). New York: Penguin Group.

Grenny, J., Patterson, K., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2013). Influencer: The new science of leading change (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Hall, G. E., & Hord, S. M. (2015). Implementing change: Patterns, principles and potholes (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Knight, J. (2017). The impact cycle: What instructional coaches should do to foster powerful improvements in teaching. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Knight, J. (2019). Why teacher autonomy is central to coaching success. Educational Leadership, 77(3), 14-20.

Prochaska, J. O., Norcross, J., & DiClemente, C. (1994) Changing for good: A revolutionary six-step program for overcoming bad habits and moving your life positively forward. New York: Harper Collins.

Endnote

I use the generic term innovation to refer to a strategy, process, idea, technology, or some other innovation that professionals might learn to improve their practice.

Jim Knight is a senior partner at the Instructional Coaching Group and a senior research associate at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. His recent books are The Instructional Playbook: The Missing Link for Translating Research into Practice(ASCD, 2020) and The Impact Cycle: What Instructional Coaches Should Do to Foster Powerful Improvements in Teaching (Corwin, 2017). Follow him on Twitter.

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Moving from Talk to Action in Professional Learning

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February 2021 | Volume 78 | Number 5 Making Professional Learning Stick Pages 16-21 Jim Knight Two teams of researchers have especially shaped the way I understand the stages people move through as they learn and change.