The 7 C’s of Staff
Success: Building Strong Relationships
Dear Colleagues,
Happy Belated New Year !!!! With the holiday season and our transition
into a new year now passed. . . and at
least two weeks back to school, we now need to refocus our attention on our
students and their continued academic and behavioral progress.
To do this, my most-recent blogs have focused
on the critical processes that help schools and districts to maximize their
staff and other resources relative to student outcomes and success.
In my last blog on December 19th,
I asked:
Why are some schools more positive,
productive, and successful than other schools that have the “same” amount of
resources and supports?
In answering this question, I noted
that:
The
most successful schools grow, reinforce, and sustain a number of critical, underlying
organizational and staff-related processes that facilitate and produce success.
I then identified and discussed seven
essential organizational processes: the 7
C’s of Organizational Success.
These were:
·
Charting the Course
·
Collecting the
Supplies
·
Cruising with Purpose
·
Checking Coordinates
·
Correcting for Drift
·
Containing Crises
·
Celebrating the Voyage
_
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Extending the
Discussion: The Seven C’s of Staff Success
Complementing the 7 C’s of Organizational
Success are the 7 C’s of Staff
Success.
These (again) are process-related interactions
that directly impact the personal and interpersonal relationships among
staff members that anchor the productivity that drives school
success.
The 7 C’s of Staff Success include
the following:
·
Communication
·
Caring
·
Commitment
·
Collaboration
·
Consultation
·
Celebration
·
Consistency
Significantly, the 7 C’s are organized (see
the diagram below) in a way that demonstrates that they are all interdependent
with each other.
More specifically, Commitment and Consistency
are at the center of the processes. This
is because successful staff are committed to the consistent
demonstration of all of the other five interactions in everything that
they do.
Indeed, successful staff demonstrate high
and consistent levels of Communication, Caring, Collaboration,
Consultation, and Celebration.
But- - because they are interdependent- - each of these, when they
occur, loop back to enhance others in the process.
Thus, for example:
* Celebration increases the
probability of continued or enhanced Collaboration.
* Caring increases the probability of
continued or enhanced Communication.
* Consultation increases the
probability of continued or enhanced Celebration. . .
and
so on.
Below, we will expand on the 7 C’s by
defining and providing brief examples for each one.
_
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
#1: Communication
Communication involves formal and
informal, oral and written, explicit and implicit, person-to-person
interactions. In a school, these focus
on involving, teaching, reinforcing, sharing with, directing, or validating
individual or teams of staff who are working toward common goals.
There are two important dimensions of
communication.
The first dimension involves a
continuum from formal to informal communication. At one end of
this continuum are formal communications that officially document or
direct staff to do or accomplish specific things. Formal communications often come from, for
example, administrators, supervisors, or lead teachers who hold a level of
position, authority, or responsibility over others.
At the other end of the spectrum are informal
communications that occur on a collegial or personal level. Here, staff share information or perspectives,
regardless of their position, that simply keep others up-to-date or informed of
different situations or circumstances.
One significant
communication challenge is to know where a colleague is “coming from” along
this continuum. For example, what
happens when administrators are communicating on an informal or collegial
level, and yet their staff believe that- - because of their “positions of
authority”- - they are communicating on a formal or official level?
When this occurs, staff sometimes take their
administrator’s communication as an official position or directive- - when it
might simply be an opinion or request for input. Ultimately, this “misperception” may inhibit staff
participation in what was intended to be an open process of sharing and
collaboration.
_
_ _ _ _
The second
dimension of Communication involves the form of a
communication. In short, communication
can be verbal or written or non-verbal or symbolic.
Obviously, verbal or written
communication is apparent, available, and “out there” for analysis and
interpretation. Nonetheless, people respond
or react to verbal or written communication not just on the content of the
message, but on how it is delivered. That is, people respond to how
direct a message is, the words or wording that are used, and the emotionality
that they “read into” the message.
Non-verbal communication includes,
for example, the physical posture, the hand gestures, or the facial expressions
that accompany a verbal message.
Sometimes, the non-verbal gestures or facial expressions become more
important than the verbal message.
For example, if a school principal is
verbally describing a new district policy, but is non-verbally communicating
that “this is not really important,” how do staff interpret and respond to the
verbal message?
Similarly, if the same school principal is
asked a question about the new district policy, pauses for 10 seconds, and then
asks for the next question, how is that interpreted?
_
_ _ _ _
Symbolic communications typically
involve actions or the lack of an action.
This is embodied in the phrases that emphasize that:
“Actions
speak louder than words”
And
that people need to:
“Walk
the Walk or Walk the Talk. . . instead of just Talking the Talk.”
In
this latter area, while many of us make good-faith commitments that we are
later unable to honor (for all of the “right” reasons), some people make
commitments that they never intend to honor.
For these individuals, their (in)actions speak louder than their words,
and their symbolic communication reflects their priorities and, sometimes, how
much we can trust them.
_ _ _ _ _
In
summary, Communication is an essential component of the personal and
interpersonal success of a school’s staff.
Sometimes, a communication is clear, but misinterpreted. Sometimes, it is unclear, and not
clarified.
Thus,
communication is an interactive, two-way process. For it to “work,” the words, meaning, and
intent of the speaker must be accurately understood by the listener.
But
it is complicated. Sometimes:
*
It’s not WHAT we say, but HOW we say it.
Moreover:
*
The ABSENCE of a communication often IS a communication.
_
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
#2: Caring
Caring involves the interest,
recognition, understanding, validation, support, and reinforcement that we give
to others in the personal, interpersonal, relationship-oriented, professional,
and/or spiritual areas of their lives.
Underlying Caring is motivation. When we care about someone- - whether on a
personal or professional level- - we are motivated to support, sponsor,
invest, or interact with them.
But Caring is a behavior. If we do not see it, feel it, experience it,
or believe it, we do not necessarily know that someone cares for us.
At a more functional level, there are
multiple “targets” for caring. Moreover,
caring (like communication) occurs on a spectrum.
Relative to targets, school staff can
care about different people: (a) themselves, (b) their students, (c)
their colleagues, (c) their school, and/or (d) their district or
community.
They can also care about different processes:
(a) relationships and interactions, (b) fairness and equity, (c) effort and
productivity, and/or (d) outcomes and accomplishments.
Clearly, people care about these targets in
different ways, at different times, to different degrees, and in different
amounts.
_
_ _ _ _
Relative to the continuum, people can
care too much or too little.
When they care too little. . . this could be
negative or neutral. Negative caring
typically results in motivations and actions that personally or interpersonally
“hurt” someone or that undermine a plan or initiative.
In contrast, when someone is “neutral” relative
to “caring” about something, they either are totally unaware of the person or
process (it’s “not on their radar”), or it is just not a priority for them
(it’s flying “under their radar”).
At the other end of the spectrum, when staff
care too much about something, this also can be unhealthy or
counterproductive. Indeed, when staff
care too much, they become so wedded to a person or process that they lose their
objectivity, and their motivation and actions become obsessed, excessive, or
extreme.
For example, when we personally care
too much about colleagues, we may be more likely to miss, ignore, enable, or unconditionally
accept their professional weaknesses, missteps, or even maliciousness.
Similarly, when staff care too much about
themselves, then their motivation, decisions, and actions relative to
students or colleagues become selfish, indifferent, or callous.
_
_ _ _ _
In
summary, staff in successful schools care about each other on a personal,
interpersonal, and professional level.
Thus, from the very beginning, schools need to hire staff who care, and
then they need to consistently nurture, reinforce, and sustain “the caring” to
support the mission, goals, and outcomes of the school.
But,
just as in life, there is a “balance” or “happy medium” to all of this
Caring. Too much or too little of any
of the 7 C’s creates an imbalance that often undercuts or undermines
student, staff, and school success.
The
challenge is how to find, maintain, and sustain balance in a sometimes
unbalanced student, staff, and school world.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
#3: Commitment
Commitment involves a dedication to a
school’s ideals and beliefs, goals and objectives, and plans and programs that
support students and families, colleagues and co-workers, organizations and systems,
and communities and society. Commitment involves
both attitudes and behavior. It is
long-standing in nature, and it endures through good times and bad.
Collectively in schools, effective and
consistent Communication creates trust; while balanced and sustained Caring
results in staff who are motivated to the mission, goals, and outcomes of the
school.
Both of these elements facilitate
commitment- - for individual staff, as well as for small (e.g., grade level
teams) and large (e.g., across a school or district) groups of staff.
But once staff commitment is initially
established, it needs to be generalized across all of the other 7 C’s.
And so, schools must be committed to
effective Communication, and sincere and authentic Caring in order to build
and sustain Commitment. . . and then to the reinforcement of staff’s
commitment to Collaboration, Consultation, Celebration, and Consistency.
_
_ _ _ _
Beyond this, rather than get into a lot of
additional “detail” regarding Commitment, let’s “listen” to the wisdom of
others:
* Tony Robbins said: “The only limit to your
impact is your imagination and commitment.”
* Peter Drucker: “Unless commitment is made,
there are only promises and hopes, but no plans.”
* Mario Andretti: “Desire is the key to
motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of
your goal- - a commitment to excellence- - that will enable you to attain the
success you seek.”
* Margaret Thatcher: “You may have to fight
a battle more than once to win it.”
* Jim Collins: “The kind of commitment I
find among the best performers across virtually every field is a single-minded
passion for what they do, (and) an unwavering desire for excellence in the way
they think and the way they work.”
_
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
#4: Collaboration
Collaboration
occurs when school staff work as teammates in well-functioning teams, and
successfully:
* Plan, implement, evaluate, and celebrate projects together;
* Establish the commitment and
consensus to succeed;
* Use data, problem-solving, and negotiation to resolve differences; and
* “Agree to disagree” when problem-solving is not completely successful-
- keeping disagreements on a professional, not personal, level.
Critically, Collaboration is different from cooperation.
Cooperation typically occurs when dyads or groups of staff agree
on specific group goals, and then work together to attain those goals.
But some work group members may not support the group’s goals. When this occurs, these individuals may “opt
out” and refuse to participate in group activities. . . or they may be “pushed
out” of the group and not allowed to participate.
Thus, when a work group has a disagreement or conflict, cooperation
becomes conditional. Moreover, the group
tends to shift to an area of agreement- - because they want to avoid or they do
not have the skills or capacity to resolve the conflict.
_ _ _ _ _
Collaboration, in contrast, occurs when team members are able to
work together both when there are agreed-upon team goals, as well as when
there are individual or team differences and disagreements.
Thus, collaboration involves the willingness and ability:
* To take on different roles for the good of the team (e.g., sometimes
“leading” and sometimes “following”);
* To positively recognize and reinforce team member and team strengths;
* To critically evaluate, provide feedback, and directly resolve team
member and team weaknesses; and
* To function so that the “team is more valued than the sum of its
individual members.”
As alluded to above, work groups often cooperate, while teams
typically collaborate.
Significantly, school staff are often initially organized in work groups
and given tasks to complete. And, while
they are given the time to accomplish the tasks, they are rarely given the
expectation, time, support, or resources to help them evolve into teams.
In successful schools, there is an explicit goal and expectation that
all school work groups will ultimately become fully functioning teams. Clearly, this takes both administrative and
staff commitment and collaboration. And
it only occurs by attending to and implementing all seven of the 7 C’s.
_ _ _ _ _
To summarize this section, think about the ways that Mark Sanborn
differentiates between Work Groups and Teams:
* Teams are internally motivated; Work Groups are externally motivated
* Teams focus on a shared agenda; Work Group members focus on a personal
agenda
* Teams are innovative, and members change roles to meet team goals;
Work Groups are static, and member roles are fixed
* Teams share leadership and work from the middle; Work Groups have
leaders who work from the top down
* Teams have self-starters; Work Groups have kick-starters
* Team members recognize that individual success means team success;
Work Group members only care about individual success
* Team members are interdependent; Work group members are either
independent or dependent
* Team members enjoy working with their colleagues; Work group members
tolerate working with their colleagues
* Teams have a sense of urgency that facilitates performance; Work
groups focus on deadlines, and they underperform when under pressure
* Teams thrive on challenge and focus on success; Work groups avoid
risks and work to avoid failure
_
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
#5: Consultation
Consultation involves the recognition
that- - when school staff do not have the understanding, knowledge, skill,
confidence, objectivity, or interpersonal capacity to address a need, meet a
goal, or solve a problem, they must have the willingness to find, listen to,
and accept assistance from colleagues, supervisors, or other experts who can
help them.
By way of analogy: When doctors are unsure about a patient’s
symptoms or diagnosis, or when they simply need some reassurance on a
challenging case, they get a “consult” or a “second opinion.” This is an expected part of the “culture of the
medical profession.”
Indeed, if a doctor did not do this, and
his/her patient died, all of us would be thinking about medical malpractice.
Unfortunately, however, in many schools, in
the presence of a student or staff challenge, asking for a consult or second
opinion is often considered an admission of weakness or incompetence.
And so, many teachers or administrators
literally or figuratively “close their door,” rationalize or deny the problem,
and continue to implement the same approaches that are not working. After all, they are thinking (and I am being
somewhat sarcastic here), “The school year is eventually going to end, and the
problem will be someone else’s.”
But (again, by way of analogy). . . if the
consultation is avoided, the student or staff member’s problem is not solved,
and this harms his or her future, shouldn’t that represent educational
malpractice?
_
_ _ _ _
The “bottom line” is that we need to make
sure that the culture and practices of every school in our country focus on
staff improvement, growth, excellence, and life-long learning; and that they
explicitly support the mantra:
“If you don’t know, you get a consult.”
_
_ _ _ _
One way to reinforce this mantra involves
the development of “Consultant Resource Directories” at the school,
district, and community levels. These
Directories present brief professional biographies of everyone, for example, in
a school- - specifically describing the areas of expertise where they are
available to consult with others.
We have done this in schools across the
country by asking school (and other) staff to complete a simple two-page
questionnaire describing: their formal
degrees and areas of certification or specialization; their formal areas of
in-service training and professional development; their academic, behavioral,
or other areas of experience and expertise; and their special skills, talents,
or hobbies.
The information from these questionnaires are
then organized, electronically on a school’s shared drive or in hard-copy form,
into a Consultant Resource Directory with two sections.
Section I has all of the completed staff
questionnaires, organized by grade level (or departments) and teachers, special
teachers (e.g., music, art, PE, media, computers), support or related services
staff (e.g., special education teachers, academic instructional consultants,
counselors, school psychologists, nurses, etc.), and administrators.
Section II is organized by specific
instructional or intervention skill areas- - for example, phonetic decoding
interventions, cooperative learning strategies and techniques, ways to motivate
students. In each area, there is a list
of all of the teachers who are willing and able to consult with other colleagues.
With these Directories, teachers and others
have a ready resource that they can use when they need a consultation on a
specific student problem. This not only
reinforces the mantra above, but it also encourages staff to share their
expertise on behalf of their students and colleagues.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
#6: Celebration
Celebration involves the formal or
informal, intrinsic or extrinsic, individual or collective, and random or
planned observances that acknowledge the accomplishment of short- and long-term
student, staff, and school goals.
While celebrating individual achievements is
important, successful schools spend more time celebrating group and team
successes.
But. . . the celebrations should focus both
on the tangible and measurable outcomes that have defined school success during
the past ten years (notably student achievement and proficiency, and staff
competence and effectiveness), as well as the process outcomes that
facilitate that success (notably the 7 C’s).
Said another way: Schools and districts need to celebrate not
just the successful end of the journey, but the processes that occur to make
every step of the journey successful.
_
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
#7: Consistency
Finally, Consistency - - along with
Commitment- - is the “glue” that makes the 7 C’s work.
Consistency involves staff members’
continuous dedication, focus, and acts of Communication, Caring, Commitment,
Collaboration, Consultation, and Celebration.
Consistency occurs across time, people, settings, situations, and
circumstances.
And. . . as with communication, consistency
breeds trust. And with trust,
consistency becomes easier and easier.
_
_ _ _ _
Conversely, inconsistency undercuts
motivation, and this negatively impacts staff’s commitment to and
implementation of the 7 C’s.
For example, persistently inconsistent
communication often results in staff frustration. Over time, this frustration results (along a
continuum) where some staff become angry, aggressive, and act out; while other
staff become anxious, withdrawn, and check out.
Similarly, persistently inconsistent staff
collaboration often results where some staff would rather work alone, while
other staff refuse to work at all- - because they are unwilling to take the
sole responsibility for an assigned task.
_
_ _ _ _
Successful schools are committed to
fairness, equity, and consistency. While
this is clearly a process, without this process, schools will be hard-pressed
to accomplish their products.
_
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Summary
According to Sanborn, “A Team is a highly communicative group of people with
different backgrounds, skills, and abilities with a common purpose who are
working together to achieve clearly defined goals.”
In order for schools to be
successful, they need to have a number of different teams- - working different
parts of the school and schooling process.
But in order to have successful teams, school staff (and teams) need to
understand and practice the 7 C’s.
While this is not always easy,
it is always necessary.
On an organizational
level, we discussed the 7 C’s of Organizational Success in our
December 19th blog:
·
Charting the Course
·
Collecting the
Supplies
·
Cruising with Purpose
·
Checking Coordinates
·
Correcting for Drift
·
Containing Crises
·
Celebrating the Voyage
On a staff level today, we discussed
the 7 C’s of Staff Success:
·
Communication
·
Caring
·
Commitment
·
Collaboration
·
Consultation
·
Celebration
·
Consistency
_
_ _ _ _
Each set of these 7 C’s provides a blueprint
toward success.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Do not go where
the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
There are times when the path we are on
simply is not getting us to our destination.
When this occurs, we need to re-consult our map and re-chart our course
(the 7 Organizational C’s), and then move on to blaze a new trail.
But to do this and accomplish our mission,
we need to focus on the people who are “talking the talk, and then walking the
walk.” They need to plan and work as a
team (the 7 Staff C’s). . . otherwise, the new trail will not be
successfully blazed, and the organization may end up worse than when it
started.
_
_ _ _ _
This is the time of year when many schools
and districts- - at the organizational level- - are already planning and
budgeting for next year. For you, I hope
the 7 Organizational C’s can provide wisdom, insight, and guidance.
Concurrently, we still have about half a
year to accomplish all of our academic and behavioral goals in the classrooms
and at our grade- and instructional team-levels. For you, I hope the 7 Staff C’s will
reinforce the collaborative processes that already exist, and provide a
blueprint to close the gaps that still remain.
Know that I remain committed to helping you
accomplish either your organizational (strategic planning) or classroom
instruction goals (especially for academically struggling and/or behaviorally
challenging students). Let me know how I
can help. I spend almost 200 days
nationwide working in schools and districts.
I would be happy to “add value” to the good work you are already
accomplishing.
Best,
Howie
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