The Good and Bad of Competition

One of my favorite feeds is the Connected Principals site.  This site has lots of weekly ideas from prinicpals around North America.  The other day I came across a bit by Johnny Bevacqua, call Collaboration and Competition, and I was intrigued by Johnny's thoughts about the detriments of competition in a collaborative environment.

Competition without collaboration promotes closed systems.  It closes classroom doors and prevents innovation and new ideas.  A focus on competition can lead to an undermining of the common good, the narrowing a common vision and atrophy the growth within schools (and organizations).  Competition at all costs, can undermine the efforts between those who actually share a common purpose.

Leaders must be in tune to the emotions, confidence and needs of the people within the organization.  If trust is an issue on the campus, leaders must construct competition in a way that forces people to rely on one another rather than compete with one another.  If teams lack confidence, leaders can't create competitions where these same teams can be labeled losers at the end of the race.  When people are at different places in their knowledge and experience, results can't be the way to determine who wins.

Here are some thoughts that I have about competition.

Competition is BAD for the Organization when:

• Being THE Best is the Focus of the Competition
• The Result is the Gauge
• Losers are Labeled
• Bitterness and Resentment become the emotions of the competition
• Players become more isolated as a result.

Competition is GOOD for the Organization when:

• Being YOUR Best is the Focus of the Competition.
• Growth is the gauge.
• Everyone has the Opportunity to Win
• Satisfaction and Pride are the prevalent emotions of the competition.
• Players become closer and more supportive of one another.

Throughout my life, I have been one of the most competitive people that I know.  I always strived to be the best at what I do and as a result, winning built my confidence while losing fueled my passion to improve.  Here's the reality.  Not all people are motivated by losing.  In fact, they are turned off by being labeled a loser.  The agony of defeat drives people out the door.  Leaders can't assume that the mantra of friendly competition helps everyone grow.

As leaders reflect on their own motivation behind competition, they often overlook the discouragement that others find in it.  In their attempt to build people up, they unintentionally shut them off .  By taking time to know the emotional needs of the people within the organization, leaders can create competitive situations that bring people together and keep them focused on the ultimate goal, actualizing the mission of their work. 

In short, competition is good when everyone becomes better at what they do and closer to the organization.  Competition is bad when it alienates people for not being the best at getting better.

From "Great Job" to "Great Growth"

"Good job!"  "You did a great job!"  "Nice work!"  "Super effort!"  When's the last time you gave an employee one of these announcements of affirmation?  If you're a leader who likes to promote the positive, chances are you say this a lot.  Any why not?  After all, affirmation solidifies behavior, and recognition builds repetition.

But there is a downside to "Good Job!" Telling people that they did a good job loses its effect after a while. People come to expect it from leaders who say "Good Job" all the time.  Employees begin to wonder what makes the leader determine who does a good job and why they get a compliment. In time, they can end up focusing more on what the leader deems as the standard of high quality work. If certain people receive more kudos than others, resentment toward the leader will eventually develop over time.

 Here's the root of the problem.  Compliments are transactional responses. In other words, if I, the leader, think you do something pleasing to me, I need to pay you a compliment; thus a transaction has been completed.    However, if the employee works hard, and the leader doesn't see it or worse fails to compliment the effort, the employee will not be paid; and therefore, a transaction will not occur.  The employee will be led to believe that the leader doesn't value his work simply because he hasn't been paid a verbal compliment for his efforts.  The problem with this fixed mindset is that the focus from both parties is on recognizing effort and paying for it, rather than creating an environment where the focus is on continuous progress and growth through consistent efforts.

Transformational leadership is more about moving people forward than praising them for where they are. In other words, if leaders want to transform the workplace, they must stop employing the tactic of transactional compliments such as praising people solely based on singular, isolated actions. A mindset of continuous change requires leaders to exceed praise and utilize specific feedback that celebrates growth over time.  This happens when the leader acknowledges not only where someone currently is but how far they've come and where they will eventually be one day.  Hence, the leader focuses his feedback on growth instead of the job.

Here are 5 Ways Leaders can transform "Great Job" into "Great Growth"

Growth Feedback

Commenting on a person's performance over a period of time by showing specific areas of growth helps employees transform their behavior into more efficient and focused behavior. Nothing transforms mindsets better than showing people how far they have come in their work. They will focus their efforts on continuing the growth that they are making.

Reflective Questioning

Asking reflective questions gives the employee a chance to evaluate their own performance. This also gives the leader an opportunity to gauge if the employee has a false sense of confidence or expectations that are too high. Reflective questions also help the employee see their own strengths and find ways to fix their own problems. The purpose of reflective questioning is to guide people to rate their work and effectiveness.

Examples of Exceptional Work

Highlighting and giving specific feedback on examples of the employee's exceptional work builds tremendous confidence. Nothing builds a sense of efficacy better than the leader showing an employee a piece of their own excellent work and then highlighting why their work is tremendous.  This tells the employee specifically what quality of work you want them to continue.

Affirmation Connected to Areas of Weakness

Some people do some things really great and other things not so well. Find opportunities to connect strategies within  the employee's strengths to their areas of weakness. For example, "if you had done this weakness in the same way that you did the strength, you could possibly get better results".  This feedback affirms the employee's strengths while defining how the employee can improve their deficits. 

Thoughts to Think About (yes, the redundancy is necessary)

Another great way to transform people into a mindset of constant transformation is to affirm excellent work by giving them a question that challenges their great work to become even bigger and better. Asking people how they would make changes to their work when they do it again affirms quality while challenging growth.  This challenge by affirmation also tells the employee that you have a lot of confidence in their abilities and the growth they are making . 

Good, Better, Best

The word good affirms the present. Better is a step up from good, but by comparing yesterday to today, it solidifies the status quo for tomorrow. Best is the only goal of a transformational mindset.  If we want every member of the organization to be their best, each member must constantly know their performance every day without the leader's input and strive to improve. This will happen when leaders create the conditions for employees and leaders to work interdependently to evaluate one another's progress over time.  From there they must seek out new ways to more effectively and efficiently give their very best performance each and every day. Good is never good enough and never will be good enough, so let's create a mindset where we collectively evaluate our work in this way: 

Good, Better, Best

Never let it rest,

Until our good is better 

And better is the best. 

Confronting our Can'ts

Very few words can terminate one's ability. All too often in education when we fail to achieve our intended result, we rush to believe that the task is impossible. We jump to rash diagnoses such as:

• He can't read. 
• She can't sit still and focus. 
• They can't multiply. 
• These kids can't write. 

Even worse, when we allow thoughts like these to enter our minds, we automatically disable the belief in ourselves to close the gap. We say things like:

• I can't teach him.
• I can't reach her.
• We can't truly help all kids. 

And when these statements enter our minds and leave our lips, they become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Now, let's analyze the statements above for a second and synthesize the word, can't. Do we really believe so little in our own abilities to educate kids that we honestly embrace the thought that these kids can't learn to read, write, sit still and multiply?  Even worse, do we allow these statements to condemn these kids to the lower bar of expectations? 

Can't is such a crippling word. It halts progress. It preserves the status quo. It allows opportunities to never actualize because not only have our beliefs disabled our own abilities. We have crippled all hope for kids who in reality presently struggle with learning.

So here is what I recommend.

 If Can't is such a powerful word, let's use it to our advantage. How about we all rise up and use these 4 strategies to cripple the naysayers and hope-killers. 

1. Cancel Can't from your Language all Together. 

Our thoughts become our words. Our words become our actions.  Our actions become our habit, and our habits become our character. If we refuse to allow can't to enter our thoughts, it will never be allowed into our responses to difficult situations. 

2.  Analyze the Can't 

People say can't when they don't know what to do. In most cases, what they really mean is the following: this kid struggles with something, and I don't know what to do for him. Leaders, who believe in the power of can, help Can'ters identify the point at which they don't know how to respond.  Then, they help them develop a plan to address the problem. 

3. Nullify Can't with a Can't of your Own

Negative people drive me crazy. Can't seems to roll out of their mouth at every difficult turn. Leaders must step up and tell them that Can't will not be a part of our system. Can'ters can not be allowed to use their disabling attitudes to hold us back, impede our efforts and stifle progress any longer. 

Can We Do This?

Yes we can.  Of course, kids are behind. Sure, they lack behavioral controls, and yes, they don't know how to do things. That's why they come to school. They come because they can't, and they are counting on you and me to turn their Can't into a resounding Can. It won't happen until we transform their Disabler of Can't into an Enabler of Can. 

Can't never could and never will help a kid. So what can you do about it?

Leadership Lessons from a Parked Car

Today, I am sitting in my wife's nice car. It has all the bells and whistles. It is sleek and comfortable just like the commercial promised it would be. But here's the deal. No matter how elegant my car is, it alone can't get me from point A to B. 

Here is my Point

The latest and greatest tools don't achieve results. The newest resource will not improve your current reality. The latest gadget can give you a greater sense of confidence or status, but it won't get the job done. At the end of the day, there is only one way that tools make substantial change. You have to take your tool out of park and put it into drive. 

So how can we put our tools in gear?

Dedicate Time 

If you want a tool to help your organization, you have to engage others in meaningful study about the tool and understand how it must be used to improve results.

Realize that People Matter

It's people not products that get results. If you have weak people and strong tools, you will always get weak results. In the end your people matter.

Inspect for Fidelity

Tools that are not implemented appropriately will not work.  If you want your tools to work properly, you might want to read the directions on the box and ensure that they are followed.  

Value Effort

In order for a tool to work, it needs someone to use it correctly. If you've spent all this money on a new tool, you might want to invest your time in sincerely recognizing the efforts of the very people who devote their time in becoming proficient operators of the tool. 

Embrace Failure

Anytime you implement a new resource, people will make mistakes trying it out. Leaders must create a culture that embraces mistakes during the implementation of a new resource.  Failure is a natural part of experimentation and creativity.  Leaders who fail to embrace failure will ensure the tool's failure all together. 

My car is great, and I like it. At the end of the day it is a completely useless tool until I crank it up and put the transmission in drive. Resources and tools are no different. Absent of a proficient and productive driver, a resource is just another car sitting in the parking lot. It may look attractive, but it is completely unproductive.  Resources that work have competent people that jump into the driver's seat and steer the tool down the road of hard work. 

Drivers Make the Difference 

 There are whole lot of organizations with a whole lot less resources but still get better results.  The difference isn't the number of cars in the garage, but the number of committed people in the house. 

How well do you drive the resources in your organization? 

4 Benefits of Blogging

As I wrap up my first year of having a weekly blog, I'd like to share my thoughts.  First let me say that I hated writing as a student.  The pure punishment of penmanship coupled by the brutality of bleeding red papers from the teacher fueled my awful anxiety of placing my thoughts on paper.  Don't get me wrong.  I loved all of my English teachers.  They taught me a lot, but it just never clicked for me.

My problem was simple.  My writing had no muse.  There was nothing that I was completely obsessed with enough for me to write about it.  After being in education for 17 years, 11 of which I served in leadership positions, something hit me.  I wanted to tell my story.

So I began my journey on Twitter in February 2012.  I came across an educator named Bill Ferriter, @plugusin.  (If you haven't discovered him, you are missing out.)  After participating in several chats, reading Bill's blog and discovering others just like me who were sharing their thoughts, I became inspired to write my first blog, Are You Counting the Days or Making the Days Count?. 

The exhilaration of pressing the publish button for the first time is one of the scarier things that I have done.  What if people don't like it?  What if my thoughts are misunderstood or sound unintelligent?  After surviving the first published blog, a sense of confidence was discovered.  I can write.  I can put something out there that people will read.  So after doing the same thing week after week, I have become more comfortable sharing, but I have also grown tremendously and it is because I have embraced these 4 benefits to blogging.

Build Belief in your Thoughts & Ideas

Nothing builds your belief in your thoughts and ideas better than writing them down on paper and publishing them for the world to see.  Through editing and revising your craft, your ideas are massaged to the point that they truly embody your philosophy.  The other side of that thought is that once you publish your thoughts on the world wide web, you have cemented those same thoughts in your mind.

Learn from your Viewership

Feedback is the key to building your blog.  Knowing what your viewers like is important so you can write better pieces for your audience.  I love that Blogger shows my page views by the hour, day, week, month and all-time.  I can see the pageviews of each post, and that tells me how much each post resounded with my audience.  I use this data to refine my craft and find ways to improve as a writer and thinker.

Opportunities for Feedback & Affirmation

Nothing is more affirming than having someone leave a comment on your blog.  It tells me that my words meant enough, that an anonymous person had to add their thoughts to mine.  How cool is that?  Also, it has been awesome when people tweet and share my blog posts through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.  When people share my thoughts through their own personal site, affirmation abounds in my mind.

Geography Lessons

I have found places that I never knew existed.  From the Isle of Man to the Northern Mariana Islands, my words have been viewed on every continent except Antarctica (obviously).  While the USA views my thoughts the most, I am amazed that the countries of Canada, UK, Russia, France, Germany, Australia, India, Turkey and Jordan make up my Top 10 pageviews by country.  It is so awesome to know that my words are impacting places and people that are beyond my realm of reality.

So Why Should You Blog?
Why would you not share your thoughts?  Why not solidify your thinking?  What's the worst that could happen?  At worst, not many people will read your blog.  At  best, you could write a post that could go viral!  But at the very best, you will grow in your confidence about your beliefs and improve in your own capacity as a leader, thinker and person.

Collaboration like an Assembly Line

An assembly line is a very useful tool. It brings parts together to create a final product. The interesting thing about them  is that productive assembly lines are not created overnight. In some cases they take years to build to the point where they are completely efficient and maximize productivity. 

Successful collaborative teams operate in a systemic fashion similar to an assembly line. They  create common instruction, aligned assessments, targeted intervention and engaging enrichments. Bringing all of the resources, experiences and understandings together can be a difficult challenge. When teams come together, they initially struggle with the concept of putting all the pieces together to generate a powerful product.   

Photo courtesy of www.diytrade.com

Teams are faced with questions like:

• What do we talk about when we come together? 
• Which resource do we start with first? 
• Who's responsible for doing what?  

The questions go on and on until collaborative teams stop before they ever start. But before teams start building the assembly line of automaticity, there are some very important first steps that they should take before they begin to collaborate.

How can teams function like an efficient assembly-line of learning?

1.  Agree on a common purpose and product
Every member must agree on what their mission is for coming together and what product will be created as a result of coming together.  Every assembly line has a purpose for existing and it spits out a common product.  Teams who fail to do this step will run into trouble later.

2. Clarify Norms
Once teams agree on why they exist and what they must create when they come together, they need some general guidelines for working together to maximize efficiency and manage time wisely.  Creating team norms gives the assembly line guidance for working and behaving together.

3. Distribute responsibilities based on expertise & interest
All members of a team should divide the work and share the load.  The best way to accomplish this task is to tap into the expertise and interests of the members of the team.  Their specific affinities will help give the team its own unique flavor that will help them add meaning to their work.

4. Create your assembly line in a logical progression aligned to your purpose and product
No two assembly lines are the same, but they do have a common progression for creating the common product.  The common product always starts with understanding the standard.  From there, teams can discuss instruction, assessment, intervention and enrichment in an order that best suits the team.

5. Tinker with your assembly-line to remove inefficient steps
Once teams begin the assembly line of collaboration, team members should continually look for ways to make the collaborative process more efficient and effective.  Removing time-wasting activities is crucial to make the collaborative process more meaningful to all members.

6. Reflect

Teams often fail to stop and see how they are doing.  Total Quality Management is a tool that business managers employ to make a better product by engaging workers in a reflection of their roles and the result of their collective efforts.  Reflection helps the team perform better by analyzing the individual efforts of every member.

Assembly Lines

The rise and fall of manufacturers boiled down to the success of the product and its ability to generate a profit.  In collaborative teams, success boils down to one thing and that is student success.  If students are not being successful, the team needs to analyze its work to identify what actions are failing to shore up student learning.  If students are being successful, teams should identify how they can make their work even more effective.  In short, the most collaborative teams create assembly lines of automaticity, efficiency and most important, proficiency.  

Leading Challenge before Change

Everyone talks about change. They say change is coming or change is here. Change agents preach we must change in order to improve. Well if that's the case, then why do so many people avoid it?

Change is not the problem. The fact of the matter is that before we can change, we must first accept the challenge to change. In order to make change, we must challenge the status quo. Literally speaking, change is embedded in the challenge 

So How do We Challenge?

Courage

First, we must have the courage to stand against the tyranny of tepid growth. Being the first person to make a stand is difficult; therefore, courage is the gatekeeper to change. 

Humility

People don't follow a person, but they will join a cause if they believe the change will make their environment a better place. Challenges that fail are often the result of a person's decision to make the challenge more about themselves than the necessity to adapt. Humility is required to make change. 

Arouse Interest

Generating support for change can be difficult. Successful change agents define how the world could be better if we all pulled together. In order for change to be initiated, leaders must peak the interest of others. 

Live with the Pain

Starting to make change hurts. It is uncomfortable and makes those implementing change want to stop. Change agents understand that pain is a challenge in and of itself, and that no change can occur without first enduring the pain.

#NoPainNoGain

Listen to Barriers

There is always something standing in the way. Barriers abound. People are frustrated. Look for them, and listen to what's being said. These obstacles are opportunities to turn risk into reward, and listening is the only way to make it happen. 

Engage Critics

Critics are at every turn. Do not turn them away. At first sight, they can be seen as negative naysayers, but by engaging them, leaders use their feedback to identify what parts of the change are difficult to comprehend. Critics often can't see the vision of the change, and the leader must translate his vision. 

Negate Naysayers

Naysayers and critics are two different creatures. Naysayers don't want to change while critics critique your steps throughout the change. Once you determine that a person complains for the sake of complaining and they offer no real solutions, drop them and move on. They're wasting your time. 

Goal Setting

No change occurs with a wish or a whim. Short term and long term goals are critical to ensure that leaders meet the challenge of making change. Change takes time and without goals sustained change never occurs. 

Evaluate Progress

Once goals are set, they must be monitored. Remember, what gets measured gets done. Checking progress helps leaders gauge the effectiveness of their change and the leader's own leadership in making it happen. 

I leave you with this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that sums up the challenge within change better than anything I've said. I hope you accept the challenge before the change. 

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