The R Word

Reflecting on the team - I facilitated this process using the strategy suggested by Joan Dalton and David Anderson of https://www.leadingadultlearners.com/ - Start, Stop, Continue. To help frame this up for my team we looked at 'essential foundations' in groups of 3 and provided evidence of what we are doing well. It became apparent that the team 'know we are awesome' but we generally struggled in articulating why.

This has prompted me to reflect on what we are doing well more often - awesome teams don't just happen. What are we doing/contributing to be intentional about creating a high-trust team? If we start articulating what we are doing intentionally, then we will continue to keep doing those things that work. Some of the things our team committed to continue are:

• Conscious effort to get together once a month (social committee important)
• Casual conversations
• Using 7 norms of collaboration
• Investment of time in people
• Inclusion of all staff in planning (including ATs)
• Professional sharing with team members eg. 4MWT, Pecha Kucha
• Understanding trust facets.

The R Word - I received some really cool (meaning critical and thought provoking) feedback from my colleagues when I asked them the following: "Dear all, please help me critique my own practice by answering the following question. I would appreciate it if you left your name so that I can follow up with a conversation. The question is "What's one thing I am doing that you think get's in the way of my own effectiveness". Thank you in advance for your contribution to my growth.

I met with a few peer coaches to reflect on the different pieces of feedback I recieved. I find it useful and critical to analyze and interpret data so that next steps and ways to improve can be well thought through. The feedback I received in this cycle was profound in so many ways. The key messages that came through form the 8 contributions were (from my analysis): I am efficient and get things done, I prioritize relationships and people and I am effective in my role. There were suggestions to spend more time in the classrooms, give specific feedback, celebrate my successes and slow down. There was also a challenge to gift the people I work with the strategies I use in meetings (processes and protocol).

In my process of analysing and reflecting on my feedback I made a significant connection. Reliability is important to me (I knew this but had not yet realized how much this impacted on my actions and behaviors). While being reliable can be a positive thing, this can sometimes contradict my value of 'leading from behind'. I deeply value supporting and challenging people to be better versions of themselves and working myself out of a job. However, my values do not necessarily match my actions. If I am efficient and effective and do everything I am limiting others from having opportunities to lead from the front. I like to think I can be relied on and so subconsciously I am acting reliable and doing everything so people don't have an opportunity to be unreliable (let me down). I've just summarised hours of coaching into a paragraph but you get the idea. I have acted on this feedback almost immediately but have some work to do still.