Rapid Teamwork

[00:01] SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, director of the Principal Center and champion of high performance instructional leadership, Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:15] SPEAKER_01:

I am your host, Justin Bader, and I'm thrilled to be joined today by Sean Glaze. Sean is the author of Rapid Teamwork and the founder of Great Results Team Building, which is certainly something that we need help with in education.

[00:29] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:31] SPEAKER_01:

Sean, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:33] SPEAKER_02:

Thank you for having me, Justin. Pleasure to be here to share with your audience.

[00:36] SPEAKER_01:

Well, tell us a little bit about what you do to help organizations of all kinds build better teams, because we certainly pay some attention to this issue. In education, we often think of it more as a professional learning community approach or something specific to a particular initiative or a way of working together. But take us into the work that you do more broadly with teams and organizations of all kinds.

[01:01] SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. Let me give you a little bit of background to give your audience an idea of how I got to where I am, and that will hopefully give them an idea of why I am now doing what I do and why I feel so strongly about it. My background isn't corporate. I actually spent 20 years in high school literature classrooms and locker rooms, learning to motivate and inspire and hopefully impact people to be more coachable and obviously to be better teammates. I am today a team building facilitator and speaker, but it's in those high school classrooms and locker rooms where I taught literature and coach basketball that provide a lot of the lessons and the insights that through some of the experiential learning activities and through some of the stories I share on the platform, hopefully help me to share with other groups what took me a lot longer than I'd like to admit to learn myself.

[01:49] SPEAKER_01:

Well, and that's great if that outside experience can kind of serve as a mirror to reflect those lessons that maybe you developed within schools, but yet that maybe we haven't internalized across the profession yet. Yeah. So as you work with organizations of all different kinds, maybe including schools and companies, what are some of the biggest challenges that you see or that you encounter, uh, around teams? Uh, because again, we have, you know, we have these ideas about collaboration that we want to happen. Um, but, but writ broadly, uh, what are, what are some of the key challenges around teamwork that you see?

[02:23] SPEAKER_02:

That's a great question. And whether it is principals with their staffs or whether it is managers with their staffs, I think that ultimately, and this is the reason for having written the leadership parable rapid teamwork that you mentioned earlier, I think there is a tremendous difference between a group and a team. And what I wanted to do in the book and what hopefully I do at many of the events that I facilitate is to help people to not only become more aware of the differences between what constitutes a group, which is a number of people together in proximity, and a team who really share a compelling common goal and share a connection and have expectations that have been defined and hold each other accountable and are able to celebrate and toast along the way. I think that in terms of education, just like in terms of athletics or in terms of corporate other organizations,

[03:17]

wearing the same uniform or working in the same office doesn't necessarily make you a team. And so it's been tremendous to be able to share with principals and administrators and managers and coaches throughout the country, some of the keys that I think help to connect people so there is that sense of cohesiveness that you want to build into a culture.

[03:36] SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And I think that's something that continues to perplex and vex us because we think, well, we all share a common goal of helping our students succeed. We all share maybe a common curriculum at a grade level and a common set of expectations about what students need to learn from us before they need to move on to the next grade. or the next course in our department, and yet there's still this norm in our profession that's reinforced and symbolized by the walls and the door that we work behind. I think one of the challenges of treating our work as teamwork is that on a day-to-day basis you know we're mostly alone with our students every group of you know of students is working kind of with one teacher at a time in i would say the the vast majority of schools and certainly not all and certainly not in all classrooms but um what do you think about this this issue of uh of

[04:30]

Seeing it as teamwork, even if we're working in parallel and for a lot of the day, at least, in isolation, how can we turn that more into a team? As I think Todd Whitaker says, or maybe it's Rick Dufour says, independent contractors united by a common parking lot.

[04:48] SPEAKER_02:

I like that. No, and I think that's tremendous in terms of the challenge that principals and people in schools face. is how do you turn teachers into collaborating teammates? Because the single greatest tragedy of the educational system, and I certainly was a part of that and had tremendous people around me that helped to pour into me and give me some of the tools and resources and encouragement that I needed, but the single greatest tragedy I think that occurs in schools is you have unbelievably talented and enthusiastic people who have amazing intentions, who sometimes go into a room and close the door and end up fighting the battle alone and they don't feel the support, they don't get the encouragement and the resources sometimes that are right across the hall or right next to them or somewhere there in the school and take advantage of the relationships that are available but not necessarily always focused on.

[05:47] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I think we can be such a resource for each other just to be able to ask for advice, to be able to ask for support And I remember a time when I was really struggling as a first-year teacher with just a class that was way over my head, not academically, but just in terms of student behavior. I just really had, it was seventh grade, so nothing was too hard on the academic side, but boy, I was not prepared. And I remember just when I finally got to that point where I could admit to my colleagues that I needed help and just to see them come in and offer some advice and offer some support and to give the look to some students who behaved in their class but weren't behaving in my class. And I think that's just one of many possible ways that we can help each other. Yeah, so I think one thing that we try to do, or we idealize at least, if we don't always get to do it, is this idea of going out on some sort of experience that's outside of school, you know, doing an off-site, doing a retreat.

[06:46]

We actually have one here in town. There's a great retreat center here in Heber Springs, and a lot of companies come in, bring their teams, and do that development. And you've actually written this book kind of as a parable about that type of situation. Is that right?

[07:02] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, the story itself, and it is a parable that shares hopefully some lessons and some insights and some actionable takeaways for the reader in the midst of a story of a leadership management group that has been struggling. And one of the things that I share in the book and that I share in my events, Justin, is something that you touched on, which is whether it is in a corporate organization or certainly in schools in terms of a curriculum or a corset of competencies that we share as a goal. John Maxwell says, leadership is influence. And I think that at its core, he is unbelievably right on target. Well, for many people, I think there's a misconception about team building because there is absolutely a value in spending time together. I think there's a value in building connections and having a good time.

[07:51]

I think the difference between team bonding and team building is is that where bonding gives you the chance to build a little bit of relationship and to get to know one another and create a little bit of rapport, team building takes that a step further and says, okay, let's not just connect to the goal. Let's connect to each other. Let's make sure that we can establish some expectations and build some accountability and feedback conversations into those relationships and be able to eventually celebrate together. So the story itself is based upon the acronym of building great teams and the five ingredients that are required to do that and the steps that you can take as a leader to shorten that learning curve, so to speak, so that you can get from we have a shared curriculum and a set of goals that we share to go a whole lot deeper. Because I think that the mistake that I made early on for a lot longer than I'd like to admit as both a teacher and a coach is I focused on strategy.

[08:45]

I focused on curriculum. I focused upon content, which is tremendously important. But I think that I had my head in the sand and neglected to my teams and to my students' detriment and sometimes to my colleagues' detriment as well, neglected the relationship aspect that allows you to set and hold those expectations and to have those feedback conversations. One of my favorite quotes by Andy Stanley is, rules without relationships lead to rebellion. And I think that you certainly sometimes see that in classrooms between teachers and students, but you also see that sometimes between administration and teachers and between teachers and one another. And again, I think that one of the greatest things that hopefully the book offers, but the events that I share as well, is the opportunity for a group of people to come together and not just agree upon a goal, which is that first step, but to build some of the relationships and recognize how the clerics

[09:43]

Expectations and clear accountability and in those toasts and celebrations along the way create a far better, more positive, more focused culture.

[09:51] SPEAKER_01:

That's powerful. I think back to an interview and some offline conversations I've had with my friend Jane Kesey, who's an expert in polarity management. And one of the polarities that she identifies and is kind of a classical polarity for teams is task orientation versus kind of a relationship orientation. You know, are we focused on just getting the work done or are we focused more on on maintaining those relationships, having a good rapport. And it's not that we necessarily have to pick one or the other, and it's not just that we have to balance them, it's that we have to, in any polarity, we have to try to get the upsides of both and the downsides of neither. And that's one thing I really like about the polarity management work of Dr. Barry Johnson.

[10:36]

And I wonder if we're thinking as a principal about a staff, we've got the professional development days available to us. We've got a lot that we've got to do on those days. Most of it is task-oriented, at least that's given to us. The district office never says, you know, just spend a couple of days, rent some canoes, bond. Here's the money to do that and catering. No, it's stacks and stacks of things that just have to get done.

[11:10]

And I think we tend to be fairly lean budget-wise in education and extremely lean time-wise. So what are some ways that we can... you know, maintain that, that task orientation that we kind of need to just, you know, to, to fit everything in and yet, um, you know, respect the need to, to work on relationships and to, to bond people together. Um, or, or do we need to just say, Hey, this is just bonding time.

[11:35]

We're going to do zero work. I mean, we tend to think about things like that. You know, we have a holiday party and really there's no work getting done at a holiday party. It's just bonding, but I don't know. How do you see that playing out for us?

[11:45] SPEAKER_02:

I think that that was certainly my challenge and one of the reasons that I'm such an advocate now for team building and experiential learning and opportunities to build some of that rapport that for so many years I thought was unnecessary, Justin. I think that, you know, you mentioned the polarity. I absolutely would agree it's not an either or, although I think early in my career, both coaching and teaching, I ended up defining that emotional side or relational side as not necessary. Let's get through the content. Let's make sure we're working on the skills. Let's make sure we're doing these things that are the bulleted list of important things that the county, that the state, that other people mandate as important.

[12:23] SPEAKER_01:

No fluffy stuff.

[12:24] SPEAKER_02:

Exactly. And that's how I certainly saw it because I had had what I would define as a waste of time experience when I was a younger teacher that was under the umbrella title of team building. And I think that there is a huge misconception sometimes about what it should entail and what sometimes it has entailed. And as I mentioned, I think that there is a value in teachers spending time together, but I think that principals and school leaders can absolutely be intentional. And I'd like to share maybe just a couple of quick ideas and hopefully again, reading the book would be wonderful, love for your audience to be able to share that with their staff as well. But as far as a couple of things that they can implement immediately and maybe begin to move forward and weave in some of the experiential and some of the emotional and relational aspects into their faculty, I think would be really, really powerful.

[13:15]

And the first is you're going to have faculty meetings. You're going to have sometimes a morning faculty meeting or sometimes an afternoon get together or on those days, even when it's the staff development day and you've got them there in the cafeteria or in the gym or in the auditorium. In my classes, I was very slow to incorporate and implement a seating chart because I wanted kids to have a chance to be where they wanted to be. And if there was an issue, you could deal with it. And I think as a more mature teacher, I saw not just the value in having that to begin with, but then moving people around so that they had an opportunity to sit next to others and build a classroom community. And one of the key takeaways from that, I think for principals is when they have an opportunity to have that entire staff together, they know who on their staff needs to build better connections.

[14:05]

Maybe that's all the second grade teachers. Maybe that's the second and the third grade teachers. Maybe that's the American literature teachers. And while it takes a little bit of time to organize this, if there is an opportunity to, at our next faculty meeting, we're going to have name cards and we'll actually have assigned seats for our faculty and then give them five minutes to have a conversation with somebody that they've not had the opportunity to build a connection with. And I think that in that five to 10 minutes, you build such a greater sense of community among your staff and if you do that throughout the year, that's one simple thing you can add to what are already necessary and required meetings that gives the people on your staff a chance to meet and talk with and build a foundational relationship with somebody that then opens the door to collaborative conversations.

[14:53] SPEAKER_01:

Well, I love how that's purposeful about the relationship component, because I can recall specific times when I would ask people to move, you know, mid-faculty meetings so that for a task related reason, they could be seated, you know, with their team or, you know, with some particular group of people that they would need to discuss something with. But you're saying we shouldn't just reserve that for the task oriented things. We should purposefully build in relational time within that, you know, that team that maybe typically is doing more task oriented work.

[15:22] SPEAKER_02:

And how can you weave it in so that it is a lot more seamless than, again, I think sometimes it ends up being. And I think you do well what you do often. And the very first time you do it with a staff, it may be uncomfortable. But I think that they are certainly going to appreciate the opportunity to meet someone and spend a moment with someone that then opens the door to those conversations that are going to be incredibly valuable. Because if I don't have a relationship with the person down the hall from me, I'm far less likely to share information or to request ideas or to offer some type of guidance or support or encouragement when that is something that could strengthen the experience that our students then go through.

[16:02] SPEAKER_01:

Well, I love that idea of relationships as kind of facilitating communication and not just being a matter of kind of being grumpy with each other or not, but about accessing the information that we need, accessing support. And I think that's really at the heart of my... Definition of an instructional leadership, which is which is growing more broad from, you know, instructional leadership as something that administrators take care of and engage in to something that everyone in the school is part of. And I've been working with some schools that are, you know, that are working on some things around decision making and involving more teachers in decision making or at least being more purposeful about how that works.

[16:43]

And one of the key resources that we realized, you know, it's not enough to just have a authority to make decisions. You also need information to make decisions. You know, having, having authority without information is, is not all that useful. Um, so I, I can definitely appreciate that, uh, you know, the value of, of that, uh, that rapport and that, that fluidity for, for sharing information. Uh, what's another of the, uh, recommendations that you share with us in the book that we can bring to, uh, to teamwork in schools?

[17:14] SPEAKER_02:

Well, I think in anything that you do, having a clear, compelling goal is one of the two things that create unity in any organization. I think the two things that really create energy and a sense of unity is a shared, compelling, common goal. And then a connection to those that I'm seeking to accomplish the goal with. So as a school. I know there are a number of schools that you've probably been in and certainly schools that I've taught at where the school's mission statement looks really good and framed on the wall, but if you were to walk down the hallway and ask a teacher, they can't tell you from their heart, why did I walk into my classroom today? What is it that I'm doing where I feel like I'm a small part of something more significant than myself?

[17:56]

And together as a school, we were accomplishing blank. So I think defining that compelling common goal is the first thing of what are we doing together. And then secondly, giving them a chance to connect with each other. And that's where some of the team building activities come in, because I think that it's not just enough to have those connections, but you want to make sure that they're relevant. And so that we're building these connections with the intent to accomplish those goals that we had agreed upon together. And I think that there is definitely a misconception sometimes about, and this is one that I actually carried with me For a number of years as well that misconception that team building is touchy feely or it's a waste of time.

[18:34]

And I think it certainly can be But I think that efficient is rarely effective when it comes to relationships. And so it's the job of a leader or administrator or a principal to make sure that you give people the time and opportunity. to be able to interact so you can build some of those bonds that, as I mentioned, that open the door to collaboration. Because if ultimately we want to have a collaborative culture, yes, you can set up the PLCs and give them, and those are certainly times where you get a chance to have a little bit more of a personal interaction with people in a relevant format. But I think the more relationship you can inspire among your staff, the more connected they are, the more invested they become in the goal they're trying to accomplish. I want to share one other thing, if that's fine, and hopefully your audience finds it valuable.

[19:25]

And this is, I think, something that is really helpful just to deal with internal objections. Because as a leader, one of the things that I used to tell myself and one of the things that I'm sure your principals tell themselves throughout the week is I just don't have enough time. And one of my favorite quotes, I believe it was Seth Godin who shared, you don't need more time, you need better priorities. And my priority was always getting down that bulleted list of things to do and curriculum to share and to make sure we got through this topic and this skill, etc. And I think that hopefully what Rapid Teamwork does and hopefully what some of the other things that I share on my website and on my blog are. offer is an encouragement for them to recognize and acknowledge the value and the power that comes with the connections and that it should be as you mentioned it should be that uh weaving in rather than the either or that sometimes we get caught up in very well said and that relationship i think between uh the speed of execution you know the speed with which we're able to accomplish great things as a school has so much to do with those relationships

[20:28] SPEAKER_01:

Well, Sean, thanks so much. It's been a pleasure to talk with you about rapid teamwork, five essential steps to transform any group into a great team. Thanks for joining us on principal center radio.

[20:38] SPEAKER_02:

It has been my pleasure, Justin. Thank you.

[20:40] SPEAKER_01:

And Sean, if people want to find more about your work, where can they locate you online?

[20:44] SPEAKER_02:

I am online at great results, team building.com. If they're interested in the book specifically, you can visit rapid teamwork.com and specifically to be able to find handouts and activities that you might want to implement with your staff. There are a number of do-it-yourself handouts and activities and ideas that you can find in my team toolbox, which you can actually access on my website as well.

[21:06] SPEAKER_00:

And now, Justin Bader on high-performance instructional leadership.

[21:11] SPEAKER_01:

So high-performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my conversation with Sean Glaze about team building? You know, I think it's exciting to do an off-site retreat. I think it's exciting to do those team building activities. But I was really impressed with the way Sean brought it down to, you know, the day-to-day work. How can we look at teams? the more task-oriented things that we have to do and make sure that within those we're setting aside time for the stuff that, you know, it's not fluffy stuff to help people connect, to help people build relationships because, you know, honestly that helps us get that key work done.

[21:47]

One thing I want to tell you a little bit more about since we touched on it in the interview is decision making and how to help your staff develop a decision making matrix. And we have a course within the High Performance Instructional Leadership Network called Deciding in Dialogue that's all about figuring out who makes what kind of decisions, how we can establish more trust, how we can establish communication and clarify who's supposed to be consulted and who's the decision maker for different types of situations. And if you're interested in learning more about that and the entire High Performance Instructional Leadership Network program, you can find out more at principalscenter.com slash leadership.

[22:25] Announcer:

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