INSPIRE
When your school culture is all about positivity and that magical mixture of love and high expectations, there needs to be a certain amount of healthy conflict to combat artificial harmony and ensure the forces of mediocrity aren’t winning.
In the last several years, our school has developed compelling and connected core values, vision, mission, and goals, but we have also found ourselves, at times, a bit “love-heavy” and unknowingly and with good intentions playing too nice.
Through some honest team self-reflection, analyzing various data points, and working through shared learning, we have reached a point of clarity that has helped us adjust back into the realm of “magic” in a very powerful way.
EMPOWER
As our teacher voice team was reading The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, we completed the team assessment activity and found the results confirmed what we suspected. We were really, really strong on the first three layers of the team pyramid (trust, conflict, and commitment) and our weakest area was in accountability, the need to avoid interpersonal discomfort preventing team members from holding each other accountable for their behaviors and performance.
The rich discussion and reflection that followed was solidified during a Solution Tree PLC training with Mandy Barrett, who shared a term her school uses when team members needed to hold one another accountable. After she shared the meaning of carefronting, immediately, we all looked around the room at each other, knowing this term fit our culture perfectly. Since then, we have been building our clarity and competency around this powerful skill called carefronting.
Are you curious when and how we carefront on our #TMGenius team? Here are some keys that we use to guide these courageous conversations.
🔑 Filter using your team’s core values and norms. Before you carefront, you’ll first want to ask yourself if this behavior truly goes against the core values and norms that have been established and agreed upon by your team. Not only does this help filter out what could be something small and not impactful (because if so, it isn’t worth your time and energy), but this will also help you attach your feedback to something that has a shared value.
🔑 Empathize and empower. This is combination shared by one of our team members, Kelly Savicki, is simple and powerful. By first truly listening and sharing in that emotion with your colleague, you’ll ensure they feel heard. Whatever their behavior, it is attached to needs and emotions they are having and no one who feels dismissed will be ready to hear feedback, much less be willing to change a behavior. But don’t stop there! Take the next, courageous step by empowering them. Push their thinking to a new perspective and help them seek a solution. This shared experience is impactful when you invest in and build their skills as a valued team member.
🔑 Speak belief. Have you heard the one phrase that can turn feedback that is tossed to the side into feedback that moves learning forward? Saying “I am giving you this feedback because I believe in you,” let’s your teammate know that there is a huge dose of “care” going into this carefrontation. When we value others and believe in the genius they bring to the table, defenses go down while trust and vulnerability increase.
🔑 Follow up. Now that you’ve had this important conversation, your work is not done. However you decide to do it (set a reminder in your calendar if you have to), make sure you find the time to circle back to this teammate, specifically about this topic. Even better, as you’re in the midst of carefronting, tell them you’re going to be following up. This holds them accountable by letting them know how valuable this is to the team and giving them a chance to learn and reflect with you in the future.
AMPLIFY
Creating and sustaining an effective team takes time, effort and lots of courage. Being willing and able to communicate in a way that supports the vision and goals of the team is paramount in how much the team will be able to accomplish. The discipline this requires is what sets those who live in the lanes of mediocrity, littered by tempting parking spots, to those truly committed to moving forward on a path to greatness.
How do you carefront those on your team? Together we are brilliant, so I’d love to connect! Tweet and tag me (@me1odystacy) or feel free to start a conversation by commenting below.
Culture of Belief 