Asking Questions as a Support for Resolution-Setting

With 2019 just a few days away, thoughts turn to resolutions or goals for the new year. January is a good time to help teachers pause and ponder their professional goals.  Asking questions can support reflection and encourage next steps in pursuing improvement efforts.  The series of questions below supports teachers’ self-initiated resolutions.

“What changes have you made to your practices so far this year?”

This question asks the teacher to mine her memory for successes, recognizing improvements that have already been made.

“How might these changes have affected student learning?”

This question moves the focus from teacher to learners, appropriately calling for evidence.

“How have these changes affected you?”

Asking this question encourages the teacher to consider which practices are sustainable.

“Where do you want students to be by the end of the year?”

This forward-thinking question asks teachers to take past successes and project their outcomes into the future.

“What might you have to do to get your students there?”

Building on the previous question, teachers are asked to brainstorm additional approaches that may be needed.

Make opportunities to meet one-on-one with teachers in January.  When you ask questions that encourage teachers to take stock of where they are and think about their goals, you help them recognize and prepare for success as the new year gets underway.

This week, you might want to take a look at:

Offers of wisdom from fictional characters that can inspire students’ New Year’s goal-setting:

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/work_in_progress/2016/12/10_offers_of_wisdom_from_ficti.html?cmp=eml-eb-popweek+12092016&M=57696637&U=

Asking students to self-assess their engagement:

https://studysites.corwin.com/highimpactinstruction/videos/vp2.1.htm

A podcast on mentoring new teachers to have effective guided-reading groups:

http://blog.stenhouse.com/archives/2018/05/10/mentoring-new-teachers-podcast-episode-iii-effective-guided-reading-groups/

Using design thinking in coaching:

https://blog.teachboost.com/design-thinking-approach-to-coaching

Supports for student-led discussions:

https://choiceliteracy.com/article/better-student-led-literature-discussions/

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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Another Layer of Knowing

I know two amazing math brains. They can both do calculus, applied mathematics, and whatever else it is that amazing math brains do.  They know their stuff. One of them is an amazing teacher. The other is not.

When one sits down with a student to tutor him through a difficult math problem, he prompts and supports and explains and leads his student into understanding.

When the other sits down with a student to tutor him through a difficult math problem, he demonstrates how to solve the problem. He gets frustrated and can’t understand why the student can’t do it, too, after the clear procedure he has provided.

I know two amazing math brains.  One is a teacher. The other is not.  It is clear that teaching requires more than simply knowing the content. The skills necessary to support a learner along the path to discovery go beyond content knowledge. Pedagogical knowledge supports good teaching.

Similarly, there is more to good coaching than knowing the content. Even being a good teacher, having pedagogical knowledge, is not enough. Another layer of skills is required. These complex relational skills make the difference between successful and unsuccessful coaching. A conceptual simple view of these skills is portrayed in the GIR Coaching Model.

 Through modeling, recommending, questioning, affirming, and praising, a coach supports a teacher’s growth.  Although some contend that content knowledge isn’t a prerequisite to coaching, In the GIR model, knowledge of both content and pedagogy are required all along the way. You supply the content and pedagogical knowledge, and the GIR model supplies a process to guide you.  Stages of the GIR model depend on your expert knowledge. To model, you must know the what and the how of the lesson you’ll be teaching. To recommend, you call on your knowledge of the content and your repertoire of effective teaching strategies. Similarly, content and pedagogical knowledge guide coaches in knowing which questions will lead to effective inquiry or specific insights for the teacher.  Content and pedagogical knowledge are also prerequisite to affirming and praising – we need to know what works in order to notice, name, and encourage it.

When coaching, bring with you all of your expertise in academic content and pedagogy. Let the GIR model guide you in putting it to good use as you support teachers.  The soft skills of coaching are the additional layer of knowing you need as an instructional leader.

This week, you might want to take a look at:

Tips on having influence that are just right for coaches:

http://jenniferabrams.com/what-not-to-do-if-you-want-to-be-more-influential/

Concept development using the four-fold strategy:

http://tpsconnect.org/2016/07/06/four-fold-concept-and-vocabulary-building-literacy-activity/

Try using it with primary source documents:

https://via.hypothes.is/http://tpsconnect.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/4-Fold-Strategy.pdf

A guide to Pinterest for educators:

https://rossieronline.usc.edu/pinterest-for-educators/

Free (recorded) webinar on coaching the coaches (no registration):

https://video.edweek.org/detail/video/5821978801001/webinar-coaching-the-coaches-how-districts-can-support-teacher-leaders?autoStart=true&cmp=eml-enl-vid-p6

Using reading response letters in middle grades:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=1435

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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Sustaining Change through Support Over Time

In recent weeks, I’ve posted about how to sustain changes that lead to improved student learning.  In order to stay the course in educational change, teachers need the opportunity to engage in ongoing, focused, challenging, professional learning.  Teachers’ professional learning can (and should) take many forms, however, sit-and-get is not one of them. Passive professional development experiences tend to result in more frustration than change.  Instead, teachers benefit from the opportunity to think and talk together, to try the new ideas they will be using, and to have time to plan for their revised instruction.

These opportunities can occur during released-time trainings and summer institutes. They can also be job-embedded, supported by instructional coaches and department heads.  Planning periods, PLC time, and faculty meetings can be oriented toward professional learning. 

During the first year after we created our shared vision for literacy instruction, our district kicked off the change process by bringing all administrators and literacy teachers together for a full day prior to the beginning of the school year.  Literacy coaches and other lead teachers met together frequently, and quarterly grade-level trainings focused on our implementation benchmarks. We charted our course together as we discussed what the new practices looked like in our classrooms. Trainings were also held at each building during faculty meetings, led by the coach or another instructional leader.  Collaboration time that focused on achieving our future vision was built into team meetings. In year two, similar experiences occurred, with three districtwide, grade-level, half-day trainings. The plan for year three focused on sustaining change and supporting flexibility.  Districtwide, this included a “Literacy Summit” in the fall, onsite support during calendared collaboration days, and optional lab visits to allow for observation and deep learning.

Active and purposeful professional learning for teachers supports educational change. When teachers work together toward clear goals, they “can find better ways to answer the learning needs of students.”* Effective professional development provides opportunities for collaboration, is focused on student learning, and is sustained over time.

Full Steam Ahead

During the literacy adoption in my district, there was a lot at stake, and I felt the burden of stewardship – for the funds we were spending, but, more importantly, for the students whose lives could be shaped by how these materials would be used.  It was a chance for change, and it seems that it worked.  Visiting classrooms, the difference was visible: powerful, engaging vocabulary instruction; common language so that kids were clear about learning targets, and a focus on meeting the needs of individual learners.  State test scores (all-important to district administrators) also showed significant increases – a needle that is hard to move in a large district.

In your school or district, communication, shared vision, and ongoing support can sustain change that makes a difference in students’ learning. As an instructional coach or team leader, your influence could make the difference. Set your sail on a steady course that is grounded in best practice and responsive to your local needs, and encourage those around you to do the same. Share the research about sustained change and the need to hold steady once a course is charted. You can assure that the latest innovation, if it’s a good one, is given a fair shake. Instead of focusing on the next new thing, teachers can be given the chance to do this thing right, whatever it is.  If we are stubbornly persistent, we will see the differences we are hoping for.

* Lieberman, A. & Wood, D. (2002). The National Writing Project. Educational Leadership, 59(6), 40-43.

This week, you might want to take a look at:

What makes professional development effective:

https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/effective-teacher-professional-development-report

Jim Knight tells principals how they can support coaching:

https://dennissparks.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/6-ways-principals-can-support-instructional-coaching/

The role of identity in learning:

https://www.edutopia.org/video/when-social-brain-misfires

When conferring is an interruption:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2516

And some beautiful images and music for inspiration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxHnRfhDmrk

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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Buoys for Stability to Sustain Change

In order to sustain change, we have to decide what is worth being consistent about. Every classroom has a different combination of learners who have unique needs and experiences.  Every classroom also has its unique collective culture: webs of relationships, ways of doing and caring, and shared experiences. Because of this variation, there are many, many things that must be left to teachers’ judgement.  What, then, is the focus of our change efforts?  What are the things about which we stand firm?

In previous posts, I’ve described a process for creating and maintaining shared vision through ongoing communication.  The things that we stay firm on are rooted in best practice and determined by common consent.  They chart our route to the hoped-for future.  Having common language about that work can be a rudder that provides stability as we move forward.  This common language is important for both teachers and students.  When we call things by the same name, we can be more certain that we are all moving in the same direction.

During the literacy adoption that I’ve described previously, we established common language for the way we were naming comprehension strategies and skills. From grade to grade and classroom to classroom, students and teachers knew what was being talked about. We also committed to being relentlessly consistentabout providing a balanced approach to literacy instruction, including small-group instruction, and using a research-based plan for vocabulary instruction.  Having common language about the things we are going to stay true to moves us more quickly to teaching them in more sophisticated ways. 

Teaching in more sophisticated ways means recognizing that effective teachers flexibly meet the needs of their students.  They know what they have committed to and why. They are responsive to what is going on in the classroom but all the while they are headed toward their goals, meandering as needed along the route.  

During our literacy adoption, we wanted to be sure the meandering didn’t take us off course, so we created benchmarks that acted as buoys to guide our journey.  These included “classroom environment benchmarks” that were easy to check off our to-do lists: things like posting strategy charts, having a room set-up that supported small-group instruction, and making sure everyone had created logins for online resources.  We also had instructional benchmarks like “Students actively reading and writing at least 50% of literacy instruction time,” “Majority of teacher questions are open-ended,” and “Opportunities for purposeful student-to-student talk.”  These instructional benchmarks were points of stability on our flexible path. They were checkpoints along our journey to the hoped-for future.

As you lead teachers through the process of change (which is an ongoing part of education), what will you be relentlessly consistent about? What will be the buoys that mark your journey?  Thinking together about these important questions will increase your collective capacity and increase the likelihood that you will sustain change long enough to see the results you are hoping for.

This week, you might want to take a look at: 

Ideas for what mentor texts do – and you might consider expanding these ideas to what mentors do:

https://ccira.blog/2018/09/11/mentor-texts-to-engage-and-empower-our-students/

Coaching heavy:

https://blog.teachboost.com/permission-to-coach-heavy

Writing and inquiry for cultural context in history:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2588

Seeing the world through a child’s eyes. This website has videos, simulations, and information that help you get the picture of what it’s like for children who struggle (personalizable by age and area of need):

https://www.understood.org/en/tools/through-your-childs-eyes

Grouping to increase eye contact increases learning:

https://www.edutopia.org/video/what-social-brain

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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Agile Coach Basics - Online Mini Book

I have been posting pieces of my Agile Coach Basics mini-book, which was initially developed for my ICP-ACC Agile Coaching workshop. This post ties them all together with an introduction as well as a list of all of the posts so that you can skip any posts you've already read. Enjoy!

Coaching in an Agile Environment
When I first understood the value of Agile, I wanted to share it with everyone. I did free webinars, wrote blog entries, spoke at conferences, joined and then ran the Agile New England meetup in the Boston area, and did everything I could to spread the word. I took the approach of teaching and sharing my experience. When people shared their difficulties in implementing Agile, I was brimming with enthusiasm to help. I leapt into problem solving mode and explained what I thought they should do. But then I started to notice that my directives often led to objections and more questions. I began to realize that in order to really solve other people’s issues I would need to actually be them, which is impossible.

Soon after this realization, I read Lyssa Adkin’s book “Coaching Agile Teams” which introduced me to a different way to think about Agile Coaching. And since that time I’ve done a lot more reading, had the privilege of interacting with a wide spectrum of Agile coaches professionally and at conferences, and worked with dozens of teams and organizations seeing what works and what doesn’t when helping others become more Agile. From these experiences I’ve come to understand that people get a tremendous amount of value out of the process of coaching itself, completely separate from any increase in Agile knowledge or ability that I may also impart to them. I have learned just how powerful and valuable the process of coaching can be, especially when carefully integrated with mentoring, teaching, and facilitating.

Agile Coach Basics Table of Contents
What is an Agile Coach?
Emotional Intelligence 
Neutrality - Coach as Mirror
Multi-spectrum Awareness - Presence and Observation
Coaching - a Coaching Conversation
Coaching Questions
What Does an Agile Coach Do All Day? Part 1
What Does an Agile Coach Do All Day? Part 2
People Do What They Desire to Do - ADKAR
Feedback and Advice
Using Your Intuition

Stay tuned for additional sections.

Feedback and Advice

As an Agile Coach, a large component of what you do is to provide feedback and advice in some way shape or form. And, in order to stay in sync with those that you coach, you are of course open to feedback and advice on your coaching. Feedback and advice are very similar. In both cases you are providing information which you believe the recipient is unaware of. This brings up one of the first issues with providing feedback and advice; while you may think that the other person is unware of the information you wish to provide, they may actually be very aware of it. Here are a few reasons why people ignore the information that others provide to them:

• The information seems wrong or doesn’t make sense to them
• They haven’t figured out how to act on the information
• They are aware that some people feel they should do something differently but they aren’t interested in doing it
• They don’t care enough about the issue to make a change

In the case of feedback, the recipient is often unaware of the impact they are having on others. In the case of advice, the missing information may be given as part of feedback or it may be expressly requested by the recipient. Feedback usually starts with an observation, advice may not. With feedback, there may or may not be suggested next steps included. In the case of advice, suggested next steps are the advice.

Here’s a simple example. One day, I made a mistake in buttoning up my shirt and I hadn’t looked in the mirror before heading to work. I got a couple of funny looks from co-workers before one kind soul let me know that my shirt needed some adjustment and suggested that I look in a mirror. In this case, pointing out that there was an issue was all that was needed. Looking in the mirror I could see quite plainly that I had made a mistake buttoning my shirt.
Let’s map this out:

Knowledge gap: I didn’t know my shirt was mis-buttoned
Observation: “your shirt is not buttoned properly”
Impact: looking unprofessional
Potential next steps: re-button the shirt properly

In the case of advice, it may be that a person knows that they are missing some information and are looking for ideas and options for next steps. Here’s an example involving advice. A manager approaches the Agile Coach for a team and says “I thought the whole idea of Agile was that the team would make more decisions on their own, but they still ask my opinion on decisions that I think they should make on their own. Do you have any advice?”

Let’s assume that the coach takes the manager through a whole coaching conversation and the need for advice remains and that it maps out like this:

Knowledge gap: the manager can’t see that they continue to countermand many of the decisions that the team tries to make on its own
Observation: “Last week the team decided to release, but you told them you didn’t think the customer wanted a new release, so they didn’t release.”
Impact: “Right after that happened, as they were about to make another decision, one team member said they should ask you what you thought before making the decision.”
Potential next steps: “One option to consider is to let them make more decisions, even if it isn’t what you would do, unless you think a decision would create a major problem.”

When making an observation as part of giving feedback or advice, remember to make the observation in a neutral way.

Feedback Tips
Here are some tips for maximizing the chance of feedback being well received.

• Opt-in – ask for permission or respond to a request
• Timely – provide feedback and/or advice in as timely a fashion as circumstances permit
• Safe - in an appropriate environment with a chance for interaction – not a “drive-by”
• Credible – limit yourself to areas where the receiver sees you as credible
• Good will – make sure the feedback and/or advice is sincere and intended for the recipient’s benefit
• Conversational – rather than focusing on a piece of feedback, consider starting a conversation on the topic in general. It may turn out that the recipient is already aware of the topic and is looking for ideas.

Receiving Feedback
All feedback can be useful feedback. Even if an observation feels wrong, hurtful, or ill-intentioned, there may be information in the feedback that you can use. Just because information was delivered poorly doesn’t mean it is useless.

The first step in getting value out of feedback is to just receive it. You don’t have to agree with it to acknowledge it. For instance, rather than saying “that doesn’t make any sense to me” you could try saying something like “I hear what you are saying.” If you feel your emotions rising, consider saying something like “that’s a lot for me to absorb. Let me think about it and I may follow up with you.” You don’t have to respond right away.

You can use most of the ideas about giving feedback in reverse. If someone says something that feels like a judgement, you can ask for a specific example.

Even if the feedback doesn’t make any sense, there may be something for you to learn. Look for patterns in what multiple people say to you over time. See if you can find somebody you trust to help you make sense of the feedback you are receiving.

Next: Using Your Intuition

What is an Agile Coach?

There are many definitions of Agile Coach out there. One view is that an Agile Coach is an expert in all things Agile, or an expert in a particular area of Agile such as Scrum, Kanban, SAFe or some other methodology. Here is my definition, based on the ICAgile view of Agile Coaching:

Agile Coach: a servant leader that guides people as individuals, part of a team, and people at all levels of an organization towards greater levels of Agility using the skills of Coaching, Mentoring, Teaching, and Facilitating.

And here are my definitions of Coaching, Mentoring, Teaching, and Facilitating:

Coaching – using skills from professional coaching as part of a coaching conversation to help others identify and explore issues and then help them choose a path forward and commit to it. The skills from professional coaching include Emotional Intelligence, listening, presence, asking questions, and feedback. In this mode, the coach does not use any subject matter expertise, even if they are a subject matter expert in any topics that arise.

Mentoring – providing information, feedback, advice, options, examples, and illustrative experience as part of a mentoring conversation based on the mentee’s free choice. Similar to coaching, with the key difference being that the mentee has explicitly asked for mentoring and the mentor is a credible expert in the skill or role. Mentoring applies when a person has already received teaching in a skill or role.

Teaching – providing learners with new knowledge and skills and providing an environment for the learner to confirm that they have acquired the new knowledge or skill.

Facilitation – using specific tools and skills to help an individual or group efficiently discover, explore, and choose options for producing a specific outcome or set of outcomes, without directly contributing or allowing one’s own preferences or biases influence the outcomes.

Next: Emotional Intelligence and the Case of the Self-Conscious Scrum Master

People Do What They Desire to Do

A good word for an Agile Coach is “catalyst.” According to Merriam Webster, one of the definitions of catalyst is “an agent that provokes or speeds significant change or action.” The main idea of coach as catalyst is that you are helping to bring about changes that might happen anyway, but are more likely to happen with the addition of your insight, inspiration, and ability to shine a flashlight on potential areas for improvement. Your influence will increase the likelihood and pace of change.

A striking example of this happened on an engagement where I had the opportunity to kick things off with a series of interviews with the leadership. I always ask just two questions in discovery interviews: “what do you see as the issues and what do you see as potential solutions?” This always brings up lots of useful information. In this case, those interviews involved a series of statements that formed a chain. I heard “I’d really like to do A for the Agile effort, but I need B first” and from another leader “I’d really like to do B for the Agile effort, but I need C first.” All I had to do was to observe to the group during the follow-on workshop that between the 8 of them, they each needed something that one of the others was willing to do. The result was an amazing start to their Agile Journey and today, a few years after that workshop, they are now a mature and thriving Agile organization.

The ADKAR Change Management Tool
A useful tool for being a catalyst is ADKAR. ADKAR is an “individual” change model. That is, it is a useful framework when working at the individual level as opposed to the organizational level. It can be used with any number of individuals, but when trying to make changes at the departmental, division, or organizational levels, it is best to combine ADKAR with something like the Kotter change model.

ADKAR is an acronym for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement. The main idea of the model is that people are more likely to make a lasting change when they are aware of the need for the change, they themselves desire to make the change, they have the knowledge of how to make the change, and they are reinforced (supported) in their journey to make the change until they have gained the ability to make the change.

There is always something that an individual or group wants to do and will do with the right support, you just have to help them find it. By thinking of yourself as a catalyst, you can help surface those potential changes using ADKAR. It is important to remember not to look for things that others want to do that align with what you want to do or to push others towards things you think they should want to do. You are working to find and accelerate the potential that is already there.

Coach Past Your Involvement
Acting as a catalyst reinforces the idea that the changes that will encounter the least resistance and stick are the ones that people want to do, choose to do, and actually take steps to implement. Changes that people undertake that require constant propping up, by you or others, aren’t real changes, they are temporary detours and people will revert back to their old ways when the props are removed. By thinking about what will stick when you are not present and being a servant leader by focusing on what others want, you are also more likely to avoid influencing others with your own preferences, biases, and personal point of view.

Use ADKAR as a Guide
Raising awareness, increasing knowledge, getting organizational support (reinforcement), and finding ways to give people the time to grow their skills (ability) all increase a person’s desire to implement a change. By leaning on ADKAR, next steps will become more obvious to everyone. If there are things that you are aware of that your coachees are not, work to gently raise their awareness. If you start leading people down a path that they don’t see, you will encounter strong resistance. Resistance is a good indicator that you are on the wrong path. You may feel like you know what needs to be done, but if a coachee doesn’t see what you see or doesn’t choose to take a certain action, then it isn’t the right path for them to take, no matter how much it seems like the right path in general.

Building Ability Requires Support ( aka Reinforcement )
Let’s say there is a team that has become aware of the connection between lack of well factored code and supporting unit tests and quality issues. They have a desire to learn how to do Test Driven Development, but they have very little knowledge or ability to do TDD. They believe that they will increase their velocity by increasing quality if they start practicing TDD. They believe that if they hire a TDD coach for a month they will be able to double their velocity, but that their velocity will be unpredictable while they are learning. The team proposes the TDD coach to their manager and the manager approves. They now have the support to build the ability to work in a new way. Without that support, it is unlikely that any effort by the team to learn and apply TDD would stick.

Next: Feedback and Advice

Multispectrum Awareness

As a coach, you are most effective when you are completely tuned in to and focused on what is going on with others while self-managing your own emotions and behavior. Two important aspects of being fully tuned in are presence and active observation.

Presence
When your attention is focused on the here and now, you are “present.” When your attention wanders away, you are distracted. When you are distracted, you will miss valuable information.

You don’t need to be present all the time. It is perfectly fine to daydream or let your mind wander. But when you are facilitating a meeting, teaching a workshop, or coaching someone, it is vitally important that you be 100% present.

Here are some things you can do to become more present:

• Breath in normally, then exhale slowly
• Sit calmly for a moment doing nothing. Notice what is going through your mind
• If something is distracting you, take action to remove the distraction. For example, make a note, set a reminder, or do whatever you need to do to get any internal distractions “out of your system.”
• Look around you and think about where you are
• Think about why you are doing whatever you are doing. In the case of reading this, why are you reading it?
• Focus on the here and now and let everything else fade away

Active Observation
Active observation is the act of observing everything in the environment in a neutral and intentional way. Rather than observing events, making judgements, and then remembering and replaying those judgements, active observation focuses on observing what happened as literally as possible and without judgement.

Active observation includes a full spectrum of inputs: what is being said, the emotional overtones, body language, movement, and interaction with others and the environment. Active observation also includes layering in the context of what’s happening, such as the influence of recent events on people’s current behavior. The hard part is tuning in across all parts of this spectrum of inputs at the same time.

One day, while attending the standup meeting of a new team, I was feeling frustrated. I was thinking about how terrible their standup was and could only think about how they must not have paid attention in training. I was wondering why they couldn’t do this basic ceremony when other teams that had been in the same training were doing just fine. Then somebody asked me a question and I realized I had no idea what the question was. I had lost my presence. I apologized and muddled my way through the rest of the standup.

When I was distracted and judging their behavior I was unable to see the two issues that were really going on. In order to really absorb as much information as possible and to understand what is happening around you it is important to develop the skills of Active Observation, Emotional Intelligence, and being present.

Active observation draws on and reinforces many other skills. Active observation makes it easier to understand another’s emotional state in order to better practice social awareness and self-management. And by practicing self-management, one is more likely to maintain a good rapport with the coachee(s) and to be more present. When we are truly in the moment the skills of Emotional Intelligence, Presence, and Active Observation build on each other holistically and become indistinguishable as separate skills.

The next day, I made a conscious effort to focus on what was actually being said and what was actually happening. I realized that everyone was doing a “readout” to me personally and most people seemed distracted when they weren’t reporting their status to me. Having them treat their coach as a project manager was a familiar problem and I knew how to handle that, but I wasn’t sure why folks were so distracted.

At the end of the meeting I gently mentioned that folks seemed distracted and I asked if there was something going on in general that I might not be aware of. I learned that there were actually two “teams” in this “team” and so half of the people were disinterested half of the time. That was another familiar problem that I knew how to solve. At least half of the job of being an Agile Coach is understanding what is going on. Active observation is a powerful tool for helping you get to the root of the problem.

Next: Coaching - A Coaching Conversation

Coach as Mirror - Keeping Your Own Opinion and Judgement Out

A foundational attribute of an Agile Coach is the ability to be neutral. Whether you are observing, thinking about what’s happening, or talking to another person, make sure you are thinking in terms of the coachee’s own values, goals, and vision. Make sure you are not filtering what you see, what you think, and what you say through your own preferences, biases, desires, and values.

Neutrality includes using descriptive language instead of judgmental language, using non-judgmental body language and tone, putting all decision making in the hands of those you are coaching, and holding back your own opinion unless it is specifically requested or given after an appropriate request for permission. It means that even when you have a strong opinion on a topic, you find a way to let it go rather than communicating through your tone and body language that you think things should be going in a different direction. Genuine neutrality is a tall order and takes time to master.

Think of it as a mirror. The coach is able to observe what is happening and then play back their observations in a way that the receivers see what the coach has observed instead of “seeing the coach.” Coachees can “see the coach” when they see the coach’s observations as tinged with the coach’s biases and not reflecting reality.

This is not a call to be an emotionless monotone non-human machine. Embodying neutrality while remaining human and personable makes it an even more difficult skill to master. Being aware of the need for neutrality and the value of neutrality is the first step towards mastering neutrality.

Here are some guidelines for being neutral that you can apply when observing, thinking, or talking with others. These examples assume that the information to support the neutral statements is available in order to make the neutral statements:

• Specific, measurable
• Instead of “the customer intent is more clear” try “the who and why in these stories is very clear”
• Instead of “the standup was way too long” try “the standup ran to an hour instead of the expected 15 minutes”
• Neutral, non-judgemental
• Instead of “I didn’t like their style” try “they spoke too fast for me and seemed upset”
• Instead of “I liked their approach” try “their specific examples helped me”
• Instead of thinking “that person hogged the floor” try “the group ran out of time”
• Avoid words and phrases such as “good,” “bad,” “wrong,” “off the mark”
• Avoid speculating on intentions
• Instead of “I know she doesn’t want to be here” try “I notice she showed up late”

Next: Multi-Spectrum Awareness - Presence and Observation

Creating Shared Vision: Back to the Future

In a recent post, I discussed the importance of sticking with an innovation for at least three years so that the benefits of the change would be noticeable and enduring.  An understanding of the current reality and ongoing communicationare required to create this kind of persistence.  Creating change that lasts also requires shared purpose and vision. 

Henry David Thoreau wrote, “It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?” (goodreads.com, 2018).  We define what we will be busy about, not by being visionaries ourselves as leaders, but by walking with others, so that together we create a picture of what we hope will be.

Envisioning possibilities together energizes action and creates collective commitment for the long haul. We need to know our destination.  Choosing the future doesn’t mean selecting from the paths that are already before us – it means creating that path.

When my district started working on a literacy adoption, representatives from schools and stakeholder groups got together to define hopes and dreams about literacy learning.  We used a process that has become my favorite for visioning work, the Back to the Future protocol.  We started by dreaming big – what would literacy learning look like in our schools in five years? But here’s the trick: We spoke as if it already was. Using the present tense, we said things like, “Students are sitting around the room with books in their hands and they are so engaged that they don’t look up when someone walks into the room.”  On a chart labeled “Future,” we wrote: Students are engaged in independent reading.  We continued our visioning, filling in the Future chart with descriptions of things as they could be, describing them as if they already were.

Then we came back to the present.  On our “Present” chart, we described the existing state of literacy learning. We drew on the data about current proficiency levels and our own experiences in the classroom to describe our current reality.  It was not quite as rosy as the hoped-for future.  Putting a blank chart between our “Present” and our “Future,” we detailed our “Path,” what it would take to get from the realistic present we’d described to the future we pictured.  The details in our plan convinced us that our dreams could be realities.

To create a shared vision, we keep communicating with all the people who care about the change: teachers, administrators, parents, and students. We want everyone to be part of creating the picture of what the future will be like.  So, we talk about hopes and dreams.  We project ourselves into a hoped-for future.  When we imagine ourselves and our students living and acting in that potential future, we gain insights about what it will take to achieve that goal. When we are clear and spend real time in that future place (if only in our minds), we people the place with ideas that can become realities.

This week, you might want to take a look at:

An administrator’s view on why coaches are important:

https://dennissparks.wordpress.com/2018/09/19/using-instructional-coaches-effectively/

A great list of novels in verse:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=406

The social brain is the gateway to learning (and social context vs. online learning):

https://www.edutopia.org/video/what-social-brain

Coaching about when to use open and closed questions:

https://studysites.corwin.com/highimpactinstruction/videos/v6.1.htm

Teaching tips for adding diverse texts for reading and writing:

https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/trtr.1759?author_access_token=et4KN73P5MzraPnrGcZ6T04keas67K9QMdWULTWMo8N2-YZG8OMSPZ-N9ZTpkuEeUTVa5ZIabqtU8XgQ4Y_bvwfQi5GGPoKbVIWtvvj-_bROb2FAEQsfkQBy5lkLBfP4&

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The Case of the Self-Conscious Scrum Master

As an Agile Coach your success depends on helping others succeed. Sharing your Agile expertise will help them achieve their goals, but first you will need to leverage your interpersonal skills in order to uncover and understand their goals and motivations.

The better your interpersonal skills, the more successful you will be as an Agile Coach. We all have some level of skill with the various interpersonal skills needed as an Agile Coach. A good starting place for further mastery is to review these skills and employ them intentionally as you interact with others.

Emotional Intelligence

One of the most important set of interpersonal skills are the four skills of Emotional Intelligence. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to successfully navigate the muddy waters of human emotions. That includes self-awareness of your own emotional state, social awareness of the emotional state of others, self-management of your own emotional state, and creating and maintaining good relationships.

An interesting experience I had when working with a manager illustrates the four parts of emotional intelligence. This particular manager was also the Scrum Master for the team that he managed. He invited me to his standup, but was very self-conscious about it. He said “I know it isn’t the best idea to have a Scrum Master that is also a manager, but I think it is working out ok.” I acknowledged what he said, but didn’t add my opinion.

Social Awareness
This is awareness of what is going on with others. The surface level of social awareness is fairly straightforward, though it requires intention. By simply paying attention to other people’s words, tone, and body language, one can get a decent sense of how they are feeling and how they are reacting to whatever is happening.

The manager ran his standup like a staff meeting. He would call on each person, comment on what they said, and then offer “suggestions” that were clearly more than suggestions. The level of engagement from the team was close to non-existent. More than once people had facial expressions and body language that expressed feelings of disappointment and disapproval.

After the meeting, in private, the manager turned to me and said “that was horrible, wasn’t it?” I told him that from a purely process perspective, the standup meeting had served most of its purpose and asked him what made him say what he said. He shared his observations of the team member reactions during the meeting, which matched my own observations.

Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is a combination of paying attention to what is going on in our heads and considering how our emotional state and behavior play a part in the emotional state and behavior of others.

I asked the manager about why he might have been running the standup as he was and his understanding of what a good standup looks like. He demonstrated a remarkable amount of self-awareness about how his behavior had impacted the team and had a good understanding of self-organization. He just hadn’t had an opportunity to see the difference between what he hoped for and what was actually happening.

Self-Management
Self-management is taking advantage of being in the moment by changing your own behavior based on your social awareness and your self-awareness. When you see somebody reacting in an unexpected way, your self-awareness kicks in and you consider how your behavior may have had a part in that reaction and then take steps to change your behavior.

The next day, the manager explained to his team that he wanted them to run the standup on their own and his only requirement was that they finish in 15 minutes and leave follow-up for after that initial 15 minutes. It took them a few tries to take advantage of their new found freedom, but soon they were sharing with each other and suggesting follow-up actions. I didn’t see any eye-rolls in that meeting and their engagement was through the roof compared to the previous standup. I could see the manager catching himself a few times, but his desire to “have a real Scrum team” won out and he only interjected when the team was getting off track.

Relationship Management
Relationship management is what gives emotional intelligence its full potential. Practicing self-awareness, social awareness, and self-management can help to create and maintain good relationships, and good relationships reinforce self-awareness, social awareness, and self-management. To put it simply, the higher your EQ, the better your relationships will be and the better your relationships are, the more people will share with you about their internal emotional state and the more people will help you when your EQ is failing you in the moment.

In the case of the Scrum Master manager, the EQ that he demonstrated in the second standup had an immediate effect on his relationships with his team. I could tell from earlier 1-1 conversations with team members that they already appreciated him as a manager. In listening to their conversations with him after the second standup it was clear that his actions of involving an Agile Coach and making adjustments that they appreciated were just the latest reasons for appreciating him.

The Key to Emotional Intelligence
I’m not saying that just by being present I usually get the kind of result that occurred with the manager. It was his personal interest in doing the right thing that made him hyper self-conscious. It is that heightened awareness that I want to highlight. By consciously paying attention to others he was able to realize that something needed to change.

The key to emotional intelligence is to be in the same frame of mind as the manager. Practice reminding yourself during any interaction with others to ask the following questions until it becomes second nature:

• How am I feeling and behaving?
• How are others feeling and behaving?
• How are my feelings and behavior affecting others?
• How are other people's feelings and behavior affecting me?
• Based on the above, should I do something differently in order to create better outcomes?
• Am I acting in a way that is good for all of the relationships involved?

Next: Coach As Mirror - Neutrality

Making Tracks for Change

In a recent post, I discussed the importance of sticking with an innovation for at least three years so that the benefits of the change will be noticeable and ongoing.  Continuous communication is required to create this kind of persistence.  It’s also important to recognize that change that lasts is built on a deep understanding of our current reality.

Too often, schools completely alter their course rather than making minor corrections that can result in major improvement. Imagine a train leaving town and taking a branch off of the original track. Initially, there are only a few feet between the old track and the new – but the further and further the train is from the branch in the tracks, the more those tracks diverge. This image demonstrates how even small pedagogical changes, if they are maintained, can result in significant improvement.

Rather than making drastic course corrections, appropriate adjustments are suggested through careful data analysis.  We can look at standardized test scores from a variety of perspectives.  What does it tell us about advanced students? About those who are below proficient? What can we learn about traditionally underserved populations?  To get a more complete picture, we should take a look at all kinds of data, not just standardized test scores. Samples of student work provide insight. Observations verify, clarify, or refute data from other sources and give us new questions to ask.  Surveying people who care can give us data about specific practices. Deep data dives help schools understand and develop their own capacity.

When my district was preparing to upgrade our literacy curriculum, we noted the progress students were making in schools that had guided reading groups. Knowing that some schools didn’t have access to books appropriate for guided reading, we put this on our wish list for things to change. Knowing what was working at some schools helped to guide our vision for change.

In education, we are always looking to improve.  We want to do better for all our students. Finding a balance between new ideas that may be successful in the future and expansion of practices that have been successful in the past supports improvement and creates sustainability. When decisions about change are guided by many kinds of data, we are able to identify both areas where change is needed and things that are working that should have ongoing support. Small course changes based on our understanding of our current reality can lead us to the future we’ve envisioned.

This week, you might want to take a look at:

Classroom arrangements and the social brain:

https://www.edutopia.org/video/social-classroom

Thought-provoking ideas about what reading is and how we can help students grasp that idea:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2044

Ways to support the development of executive functions:

https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/partnering-with-childs-school/instructional-strategies/at-a-glance-classroom-accommodations-for-executive-functioning-issues

ABC’s of Effective Coaching:

https://twowritingteachers.org/2018/08/02/the-abcs-of-literacy-coaching-reminders-for-the-start-of-a-great-year/

Protocols for student-led discussions:

http://lindsayannlearning.com/student-led-discussion-strategies/

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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