And, I promise I will stop trying to convince you. Convincing doesn’t work, and it never has. And, it’s making us dumber. Convincing is a form of coercion. Power imposed. It seeks conquest of the others’ perspective (action), which usually only retrenches the others’ perspective (reaction). Think about a time when you knew someone was trying to convince you of something counter to your beliefs. How did you respond? I know my initial response is usually to defend and challenge, if for nothing else, the sport of it. In fact, I have never been convinced of anything, and, I bet, you haven't either. When it seems like we have been convinced, what has actually happened is that we have learned. Someone has shared a new perspective in a way that we could understand. They have provided new information that we were able to consume. They have posed a question that gave us a safe space to rethink our assumptions. They have done something that has enabled us to reflect on our positions in a way that alters them. Something has happened within us. They haven’t imposed it, forced it, or made it so. They haven’t convinced us. They have provided a prompt and/or an environment in which we could convince ourselves. This is teaching/learning. This is the open exchange of power. In a post-truth America, understanding this dynamic is even more critical. There will always be facts, “facts”, and “alternate facts” that will make any case on anything. We can always find someone on the Internet who agrees with us, or we can say it enough times in enough places that it appears so. This emboldens those who want to convince and bolsters the defense of those who won’t be convinced. The logical conclusion of this dynamic then is a stalemate, the end of teaching and learning, a perpetual confirmation bias arms race with the chilling effect of an intellectual Cold War. Stop convincing. Start teaching. Stop being convinced. Start learning. It’s critical to our relationships and fundamental to our democracy. You’ll never convince me otherwise.
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Those of us who are privileged wear our privilege like a feather; not like a feather in a cap or some showy accessory, but like a tiny feather left on our shoulder after we take off a down-filled winter coat. A feather we don’t notice, we didn’t put there, we don’t feel. A white feather. For us even to notice its presence requires a good look in the mirror (a mere glance typically won’t do it), or for someone to point it out for us. When we see it, this white feather, this privilege, we wonder who else noticed it. How long has it been there? Where did it come from? Why haven’t we noticed it before? Privilege is weightless for the privileged. Or, at least, privilege unnoticed, unnamed, or unaccepted is weightless for the privileged. Weightlessness is implicit to privilege because the weight of our privilege is being borne by those who aren’t. For them, our small, white, weightless feather carries the burdens of history, oppression, exclusion, and so much more. For them, the weight of our feather is often unbearable. So, what happens when we privileged start to understand this weight, even as we haven’t previously felt it or carried it for ourselves? When someone exposes our privilege, the weightlessness of that feather begins to change. When the social and cultural systems that have upheld our privilege and distributed its weight to others begin to evolve, that feather becomes a symbol of things we never knew or understood about ourselves. We feel embarrassed. Shamed. Confused. Indignant. Humbled. Angry. Lost. Defensive. The shifting of what was previously weightless can rattle the core identity of the white male who believes he is supposed to dominate politics, the boardroom, the factory floor, or household, but no longer feels so dominant. This shifting antagonizes and undermines the singularity of one religious narrative, creating space for other beliefs, valuing dialogue over dogma. It surfaces and challenges our judgment and pity of those less fortunate, those with disabilities, those with mental illness. Suddenly, this soft, feathery lightness of privilege rips violently at the meaning and history of our whiteness, maleness, faith, socio-economic status, gender identity, mental and physical abilities. It shakes our foundation, and we don’t typically like our foundation being shaken. After all, we are standing on it. And, when this happens, we privileged choose one of two paths forward: we grow and evolve given this enlightenment, rebuilding a broader and stronger foundation, or we retrench and defend our pre-enlightenment state and cling to our past, now fractured, foundation. The struggle between these two paths is real and is on display every day. Just watch the news. Listen to the political and economic discourse. Watch the rallies. Observe the angst in our own communities and schools. But, here’s the deal: denial of privilege is just that. It doesn’t make it not true. The feather is there. Most of us see it. And, yes, it is moving. The question is: will we privileged begin to shoulder its weight or use our privilege to continue to push that burden onto others? Many years ago, while drinking coffee and riffing in deep disillusionment on the state of the world, or our community, or our schools, or who-knows-what, my brother and I started satirically plotting a new leadership book on how to achieve truly soul-less leadership. Perhaps this exposes a bit about both our geekiness and our intensity! I ran across the notes from that conversation just the other day. As I read them, I didn’t laugh nearly as much as when we were talking. I didn’t laugh at all. Instead, I found them shockingly relevant, even more so than back then, perhaps tonight more than ever. Here are a few of our snarky and seemingly outlandish thoughts that were funny back then but more grounded in leadership, and specifically political, reality today; and thus terrifying: Attributes of Soul-less Leadership
Skills of Soul-less Leadership Externalization Blame Obfuscation Powerful communication of a powerless message Avoidance The Soul-less Leadership Loop The soul-less leader seeks a path to the self that is self-affirming. The soul-less leader seeks to lead to justify his own leadership. The soul-less leader seeks only insights that confirm the correctness of his own insights Today, I don’t want to be cynical or disillusioned. I try every day not to be. But, anyone paying attention, I assume, sees many, if not all, of these attributes on display every day in our local and national politics. So, for tonight, for this Presidential Debate, rather than make a cynical or disillusioned assumption, I will leave it as a question for each of us to ponder and observe: as the two people vying to lead our country debate and discuss their ideas, who will have the courage to show us their soul? Many years ago, I learned a training/facilitation protocol we simply call Comfort/Risk/Danger.
When working with a team, the protocol helps them, based loosely around whatever it is they are trying to accomplish and what kind of work it entails, to share what things put them as individuals in the comfort zone, the risk zone, or the danger zone. For instance, some team members will be totally comfortable with public speaking; for others, it feels dangerous. For some, crunching numbers is comfortable; for others, it would be a risk. Some find conflict dangerous; some find it risky. And, we all know those who are a little too comfortable with it. But, we need speakers; we need numbers people; we need people who create, manage, and support effective conflict. And, we cannot afford for those skill sets to reside with one person or in one department. It’s too easy for them to get marginalized, or to go away completely. Some element of each has to be part of a broader culture. So, as the protocol helps demonstrate, building an effective team cannot just be about capitalizing on what everyone is already good at (i.e. what puts them in the comfort zone). Creating a team is about learning how to support a pervasive element of risk. Humans learn better when there is some level of risk. In the risk zone, we are stretching, challenging ourselves, and actively asking questions and seeking solutions. When we are comfortable, on the other hand, we are surrounded by what we already know. We aren’t actively learning. When we are in danger, we aren’t learning either (social, emotional, and professional danger; not just physical). Fight or flight kicks in. We shut down, seek relief, and avoid (or project our danger onto others). After starting in education, Zeumo has now pivoted to be a mobile solution for hospital communications. As we line up our new sites and support the teams who are rolling it out, Comfort/Risk/Danger are in play for all involved. How do we launch a new product in a new market in a way that doesn’t put those of us at Zeumo in danger? How do we support each other’s risk in advancing the product, learning from our early clients, and lining up future sales? How do we offer a new mobile communication technology for hospitals that doesn’t put physicians, nurses, or hospital administration in danger? How do we best support them as they address their own systemic communication challenges? How do we help improve communications and communication workflows as risk, not as danger? How do we articulate, and present through our product, sufficient value and ease of use that adoption seems obvious and the learning curve is relatively flat? The problem of communication in hospitals is clear and has been identified and acknowledged by every leader we have spoken with: too many channels; too much noise; too little strategy. The challenge of implementation, assuming the technology works (which it does), largely rests in the culture of learning in the hospital and facilitated by hospital leadership. To create such a culture, to be such a leader, and to leverage new technologies – to be a learning organization – is just risky. “If you don’t feel you fit in, then you’re not going to stay around.” These were the simple words offered by Tim Shriver at a dropout prevention conference I attended earlier this year. And, while Tim is known for his work with Special Olympics more broadly and specifically with Project UNIFY as it relates to inclusive education, his statement captures something fundamentally human. It applies to teams, schools, neighborhoods, and workplaces. It basically applies wherever more than one person is gathered. So, what does it mean to fit in? 1. You understand the rules and norms and feel a part of them. Every group, community, or even ad hoc gathering of people has rules and norms that guide and inform its function and purpose. Some are stated. Some are not. Almost all are culturally informed and guided by experiences (or lack thereof) of race, class, gender, physical and intellectual ability, and many other variables. Unless you are explicitly part of creating norms (or at least have the opportunity to understand and accept them explicitly), there’s a good chance you won’t feel a part of them. 2. Your strengths are as present as your weaknesses. You can see and articulate both what value you add to a group and what things you know you need to work on. You receive (and learn how to process) feedback from others accordingly. Alternately, you can identify the strengths of others without jealousy and their weaknesses without judgment. 3. You feel accepted for who you are. You don’t have to be like others, but instead your differences are acknowledged, accepted, and celebrated. Our differences are our common connection. NOTE: Acceptance should not be confused with its committed-but-less-invested cousin tolerance. 4. Your opinions matter. Your opinion does not have to be acted upon or even accepted as correct all the time. You just need to know someone listens to you and shows you that they take what you say seriously, whether they agree with it or not. 5. You have the same opportunities as others around you – opportunities that match your interests and abilities. As I have written before, presenting an opportunity doesn’t make it an opportunity. We all need the support, tools, and pathways to claim opportunities for them to feel like real opportunities to us. 6. You can fail successfully. I really don’t want to pontificate here about how failure is required for success. But, you do need to know you can “fail forward” and understand, and know that others understand, that this is what it means to be human. 7. Your effort is respected even if your outcomes are not perfect. In honor of Tim Shriver and Eunice Kennedy Shriver who coined it, I’ll share the motto of Special Olympics: “Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.” 8. You can banter. Banter is something often not understood by someone outside of a group. So, the ability to talk nonsense, laugh at old jokes, verbally spar with others in good fun, and just riff on ideas and conversations can prove that the most meaningless content can generate the most meaningful connections. So, as leaders, whether we want to retain students in our schools, talented employees in our office, or valued members in our communities, we need to start with processes, policies, and practices that help them fit in. In business, and increasingly in philanthropy and other areas, we want to know the return on investment (ROI) when we consider a new technology, a new practice, or even a new policy. And, in some cases, this is an easy measure and a direct correlation. A new piece of equipment purchased saves X amount of time, increasing productivity and/or decreasing costs by Y dollars. Wise leaders understand, however, that returns aren’t always that direct. Investing in products or services that enhance a company’s culture or improve its communication requires a broader understanding of “return” and typically requires a different time horizon and calculus for measurement. Employee retention, talent recruitment, employee affinity and resulting productivity, trust in your company, quick access to organizational knowledge, less time wasted managing emails resulting in lower employee stress, organizational goodwill: these returns are often difficult to put a dollar value on, or to correlate to a singular investment or action by the company. Yet, their benefits impact nearly every interaction within our company every day, and ultimately find their way to the bottom line. They build the workplace, not just the work. Good leaders know these kinds of returns are critical to company success. And, focusing on them may just require a different question: what is the consequence of NOT investing? What are the hidden costs when we fail to invest in culture? What are the efficiencies we will never know if we choose not to invest in better communication? What are the wasteful work-arounds we cannot even see but that are already in place as a result of our failure to invest? Explicit returns on investment in culture and communication are often nebulous, and the fact that they cannot be clearly defined too often means we don’t invest in them. It’s a self-reinforcing loop that cuts at the heart of our companies and challenges our leadership, our productivity, and impacts our bottom line. While writing this blog, I came across an article in the New York Times that included the following quote: “(In our research) We often ask senior leaders a simple question: If your employees feel more energized, valued, focused and purposeful, do they perform better? Not surprisingly, the answer is almost always “Yes.” Next we ask, “So how much do you invest in meeting those needs?” An uncomfortable silence typically ensues.” The article goes in depth in exploring this contradiction of acknowledged value and persistent lack of investment. Although long, it’s definitely worth a read. At the most basic level, however, I think we need to start by changing the question, or at least asking another question. Instead of only asking about the ROI, we also need to ask about the consequence of not investing (CNI). Every year, my family watches the Music City Marathon from our front porch. It’s humbling and inspiring to watch 5000 strangers pass you by, 20 miles in with 6 more to go. I always tell people I am not a runner, so part of me thinks these 5000 people are crazy. On the other hand, watching them makes me question my “I am not a runner” statement in the first place. Watching these “runners” pass for hours, you realize there is no such thing as “a runner.” These are just people. These are people challenging themselves. These are people reaching for a goal. It’s a 90-pound, 70-year-old woman, and a 270-pound, 20-year-old man. It’s a graceful Kenyan, and a rickety man with scoliosis. It’s the parents pushing their physically disabled children in strollers, and a fallen soldier’s Mom running in boots. It’s a survivor “running for a cure,” and a loved one running in memory. Some take long strides, some shuffle. Some have bodies that remain still and calm. Others seem held loosely together by thread, body parts clacking and crashing with every stride. Some ignore our cheers; some are in a zone; some cheer back. As with most of my experiences, I wondered if there were a lesson to learn here about education, about community, about life. Surely, there is a metaphor in this profound example of human endurance. Surely, there is a reason that watching this marathon is so emotional. Here’s what I’ve got: Each has his own motivation. Whether we are talking about marathons, relationships, education, or careers, we are all motivated by something – and our motivation is unique to us. Even those we deem “unmotivated” are simply motivated to do nothing. Either way it is motivation. And, if we want to engage them, relate to them, or educate them, we must tap their motivation. Each has his own style. Running, learning, or communicating, our “style” is a combination of our nature and our nurture. It is in some ways developed and managed by our motivation and our opportunities, and in other ways by things beyond our control or beneath our consciousness. So, if we want to relate to others, to love them, to learn with them, we must be open to their style. We must see style as part of who they are. Each has his own pace. We live in a do-more, be-more society and our culture tells us that winning is the goal. Winning, however, doesn’t have to be externally defined or culturally recognized. It can be individual and internal. Self-actualization comes when I can define what winning is for me. So, if we believe in each other and that each of us has purpose and power, we must broaden the parameters of success and celebrate each at his own pace. In a marathon of 5000 runners, there are 4999 losers, and none of them lost. In a variety of conversations, workshops, and planning sessions over the years, whether around technology adoption, organizational culture, or school climate, I have referenced the following change model out of Harvard: Change = Dissatisfaction x Vision x Plan Why is this simple model so powerful? At the most basic level: what happens when you have a zero for any of these elements? No change. It’s simple multiplication, but profound in that so many of our traditional change efforts are built on addition strategies. If we do this, and then we buy that, then it will add up to change. But, addition alone doesn’t generate real change. Change is multiplicative. The elements necessary for change are interdependent and are thus magnifiers of each other. So, why do we struggle to pull this simple multiplication together on some of our most persistent organizational, educational, and community issues? After all, we have built countless strategic, community, and organizational plans. We have crafted mission and vision statements for our organizations, collaborations, task forces, committees, and initiatives. We’ve brought in trainers, consultants, data wonks, and various other experts from out of town. We have invested millions to develop, implement, and evaluate new models and new technologies. The list goes on and on. No real change. Applying the Harvard Change Model to largely fruitless visioning and planning efforts, we are left only to reflect on our dissatisfaction. Now, it may seem ludicrous with all of the time, money, and effort we have invested into change to wonder if we are really dissatisfied. All those meetings…all that discussion…all those plans…the surveys…the focus groups…the new technologies…surely, all of that is proof we are dissatisfied, right? But is it? In expressing our dissatisfaction (and creating our visions and plans), we too often focus on the work of others. Or, perhaps, if we do focus on the real problem, we never do the ugly part of identifying how we individually are complicit. The “problem” then is this thing that just exists, but somehow isn’t created by us through our own choices and actions. We all join the chorus saying “something’s gotta change” with an implicit “but it’s not me”. So, if a critical mass is not truly dissatisfied with our own work (and not just the work of others) then the real dissatisfaction required to generate change doesn’t exist. There is only frustration, blame, and subsequent defensiveness (and a lot of failed visions and plans). If all of us who claim dissatisfaction, whatever the issue and wherever we work, actually changed our own practices, I wonder if it might add up to something? Years ago, while commiserating about limited access to higher education for low-wealth students, a colleague offered a thought: “Every system is perfectly designed to deliver the outcomes it delivers.” If you think on that for just a moment…(go ahead, do it!)…it’s both painfully obvious and painfully…well…painful. But, for anyone working to change the outcomes that are important to them in education, politics, justice, or otherwise, this simple statement tells us where our efforts must be directed: the systems that we have, advertently or inadvertently, designed to underperform (or to perform exceptionally toward outcomes we never intended). Under this premise, the school system that is struggling with dropouts is perfectly designed to generate those dropouts. The justice system that incarcerates men of color at dramatically higher rates than anyone else is perfectly designed to incarcerate men of color. The political system that generates corruption, gridlock, and weak candidates is perfectly designed to do just that. System performance is not the sum of its individual elements. It is the interrelated (systemic) performance of its elements. Systems get misaligned because we build and invest (or disinvest) in them element by element often over long periods of time, and amidst shifting values and visions. And, the more we address individual elements in isolation the more likely we are to create systemic dissonance (the type of boiling-frog dissonance we actually grow to accept). Within an organizational system, for example, perhaps we have rewritten our values statement, but our organizational structure is out-of-date or even arbitrary. We revisit our investments (budget, people, etc.), but align them with our organizational structure rather than our strategy (this is my new definition of bureaucracy, by the way). We clarify and document our desired outcomes, but we maintain old strategies that have lost relevance in a changing environment. We improve our product or service delivery, but never invest in our human capital pipeline to support and sustain it. When we see systemic failure, we cannot blame the system without owning our role in it. We cannot claim that our part of the system is working, and it’s everyone else’s that’s broken. We cannot do fragmented and narrow work and believe it will add up to a healthy system. It won’t. If we are going to create the system that is perfectly designed to deliver the outcomes we actually want, we need to design, invest, and lead systemically. It seems educators, reformers, and advocates everywhere are committed to the idea of “data-driven decision-making.” Presumably, this term and its popularity are outgrowths of increased visibility and accountability in public education along with the rapid growth of the role of data in other parts of our lives. And, let’s be honest: it sounds good. It makes us feel secure. It sounds really smart. And, if done well it probably could be transformative. In order for data-driven decision-making to have much meaning, however, we need to maintain a critical eye and keep asking questions (let’s at least try to keep it from being pure jargon anyway): DATA … what’s data and what’s not data? The brands that survey us and track our online and buying patterns never really ask if the data they see can be verified by a nationally recognized higher education institution. It doesn’t matter. It’s data, and they use it for what it is. In education, we need to get the idea of data out of the clouds (only data wonks understand it), out of institutional paradigms (data-driven and evidence-based are not synonymous), and demystify it a bit (every interaction with another human is full of data points). Data isn’t just delivered to us from the researchers or the “data people” at central office. We don’t need a published report or a study to have and use data. When we talk to a student and ask what she is interested in, what her concerns are, how she is feeling: that’s data. We just need to ask. If you ask 30 students at your school if they have been bullied in the last month and 15 say yes, you have data that suggests a bullying problem – University X doesn’t need to confirm it. DATA … WITH PEOPLE … Is the data merely accessible or is it actually consumable? In its current state, data in education feels too complex, distant, and obtuse. I am a reasonably educated guy, and when I look at some of the data and spreadsheets that actually get shared from time to time with students and parents and even with teachers more frequently, my eyes go crossed. And, when I think about indicators like school climate that might actually be helpful in real-time, there’s no good data being captured. Because it makes sense in a database – or to someone building a database – doesn’t mean data makes sense in the hands of those who are supposed to interpret and use it. Because we can report on it annually as a school system or community and say “yep, we track that” or dig it out occasionally for a grant means little to its usefulness in our daily work. In fact, data that is six clicks deep in a database or learning management system should probably not even be considered available to most users. It’s not consumable anyway. Data-driven decisions start with our ability to process data in terms we understand and in the context of decisions and actions we actually control. DATA…WITH PEOPLE…WITH DECISIONS TO MAKE Who are the deciders and what do they get to decide? As you might guess from my previous writing and work, I wonder, in particular, where our students are in this conversation. In my experience, students generally don’t have much say on important issues in their schools (I am being gentle here). So, obviously, school data isn’t something we discuss with them. Instead, we treat students merely as data providers not data users. Meanwhile, they collect and analyze data everyday and in every interaction and use it to make important personal and relational decisions. But, there is a challenge here for teachers and other staff too. Most teachers I talk with view data as more of a tool of external accountability than professional process and continuous improvement. And, often the data they are accountable for reflect variables they have little-to-no control over, particularly in the short term. So basically, 1.) they have access to data that doesn’t relate to their actual realm of decision-making; and/or, 2.) they are trying to make decisions (and someone wants the data that supports it) and they don’t have it. But, if data-driven decision-making is critical to the improvement of schools and development of communities, shouldn’t it be critical (available, consumable, and relevant to decision-making) across all stakeholders? If the range of consumable data, data usage, and the related (or unrelated) decision-making processes are narrow, unclear, or inconsistent, then we can be pretty sure our data-driven outcomes will be as well. Like anything else, the data on data-driven decision-making will likely reflect the quality of implementation not the idea itself. |
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