In a series of posts based on Berkley and INSEAD professor Morten T. Hansen, book Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid The Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results, I described the four major barriers to collaboration that Professional Learning Communities and schools face.
“The Transfer Barrier” concerns people who are unable to transfer knowledge easily from person to person, from team to team, from school to school, or from district to district.
“The Search Barrier” concerns people who are looking for information and people, and but are not able to find them easily.
"The Not-Invented-Here Barrier"
“…the not-invented-here barrier, which arises when people are not willing to reach beyond their own units to input and collaborate.”
"The Hoarding Barrier"
“Unlike the not-invented-here barrier, where people do not want to ask others for input, the hoarding barrier concerns people in the opposite role: those who might provide help but do not offer it.”
Hansen offers some advice on how to overcome these barriers to collaboration. One way to overcome these barriers to collaboration is to unify people through unifying goals.
Creating a unifying goal is not as straightforward or easy as it sounds. When President Kennedy stated the goal of landing a man on the room and bringing him back safely, others in his administration suggested the goal should be preeminence in space. One goal sounded all encompassing, while the other was very limited, focused, and specific. One seemed tangible while the other was a concept. How often have you seen goals that seem so overarching that they don’t connect with your day-to-day experience? Hansen explains that unifying goals must do four things.
The Goal Must Create A Common Fate
“A unifying goal has power only is all relevant groups need to pull together to make it a reality.”
A unifying goal must unite all the teachers or all the Professional Learning Communities. Creating a goal that puts the pressure on one team or grade level is not unifying. For example the goal of raising the 4th grade writing assessments results, or 5th grade science scores put all the pressure on one grade level and does not unify the entire school.
“The greatest benefit of a common-fate goal is that it elevates the aspirations of people to something bigger than parochial group goals.”
When was the last time your school or district created a goal and raised your aspirations to “something bigger?” Maybe raising test scores is aspiring, maybe not. Whatever the goal, it should require all to look ahead to something great.
The Goal Must Be Simple And Concrete
“Kennedy’s moon goal is so memorable—so captivating—precisely because it is simple and concrete.”
A goal like, “Prepare all students for college” isn’t exactly specific and concrete. Which college? What type of college? Equally vague is “prepare all students for the global workplace.” What does that mean?
Don’t make it wordy. Keep it simple. Stay away from clutter.
“Clutter is used to hide and hedge. Simplicity means stripping away clutter. One simple phrase (‘land a man on the moon’) beats many long sentences.”
“But there is a problem with simplicity. Most leaders, when they try to be simple, turn out vague and abstract goals, not concrete ones”
“Leaders who state a simple and concrete goal will do better, because people will know what it means. It is not open to interpretation. It also is measurable: worlds like premier, preeminence, and superior are open to many interpretations and hard to measure. In contrast, ‘bringing him back safely to Earth’ is measurable. Did the astronauts come back safely? Yes, they did. Check.”
The Goal Must Stir Passion
“Powerful and unifying goals stir passion and inspire. They appeal to people’s hearts and not only their minds.”
Raising test scores has never appealed to my heart, but maybe it appeals to yours. Sadly, I haven’t had a goal as an educator that that every appealed to my heart. Staying “fiscally solvent” or “increasing API scores” just doesn’t get me up in the morning.
“Unifying goals need not appeal to a higher purpose (such as helping humankind) or noble pursuits (landing a man on the moon) to be inspiring. Leaders who appeal to high performance and excellence can also stir passion among people.”
The Goal Must Put Competition on the Outside
“Few things unite people better than having a common enemy.”
“Many executives blunder by stoking competition among employees—for example, by instilling rivalry between salespeople. In a special issue devoted to competition, Business Week wrote, ‘Everyone likes to win. Beneath all the talk about teamwork and balance, all the books on being kind and cultivating emotional intelligence, people still crave to be the best.’ The problem with this argument is that teamwork and ‘being the best’ are seen as mutually exclusive. But they are not. People can still crave to win, be the best, but they can do so as part of a team that wins against an outside competitor. They unite in competing against an external force.”
Schools and grade levels should not be in competition. The point here is that there are external forces (NCLB, Race To The Top, public perception) that can be used to motivate the staff to unite against. The goal is focus energy toward the external force and not at each other at school.
Creating unifying goals while balancing the need for individual educators to create their own individual goals is the key to creating powerful Professional Learning Communities and schools.
“The Transfer Barrier” concerns people who are unable to transfer knowledge easily from person to person, from team to team, from school to school, or from district to district.
“The Search Barrier” concerns people who are looking for information and people, and but are not able to find them easily.
"The Not-Invented-Here Barrier"
“…the not-invented-here barrier, which arises when people are not willing to reach beyond their own units to input and collaborate.”
"The Hoarding Barrier"
“Unlike the not-invented-here barrier, where people do not want to ask others for input, the hoarding barrier concerns people in the opposite role: those who might provide help but do not offer it.”
Hansen offers some advice on how to overcome these barriers to collaboration. One way to overcome these barriers to collaboration is to unify people through unifying goals.
Creating a unifying goal is not as straightforward or easy as it sounds. When President Kennedy stated the goal of landing a man on the room and bringing him back safely, others in his administration suggested the goal should be preeminence in space. One goal sounded all encompassing, while the other was very limited, focused, and specific. One seemed tangible while the other was a concept. How often have you seen goals that seem so overarching that they don’t connect with your day-to-day experience? Hansen explains that unifying goals must do four things.
The Goal Must Create A Common Fate
“A unifying goal has power only is all relevant groups need to pull together to make it a reality.”
A unifying goal must unite all the teachers or all the Professional Learning Communities. Creating a goal that puts the pressure on one team or grade level is not unifying. For example the goal of raising the 4th grade writing assessments results, or 5th grade science scores put all the pressure on one grade level and does not unify the entire school.
“The greatest benefit of a common-fate goal is that it elevates the aspirations of people to something bigger than parochial group goals.”
When was the last time your school or district created a goal and raised your aspirations to “something bigger?” Maybe raising test scores is aspiring, maybe not. Whatever the goal, it should require all to look ahead to something great.
The Goal Must Be Simple And Concrete
“Kennedy’s moon goal is so memorable—so captivating—precisely because it is simple and concrete.”
A goal like, “Prepare all students for college” isn’t exactly specific and concrete. Which college? What type of college? Equally vague is “prepare all students for the global workplace.” What does that mean?
Don’t make it wordy. Keep it simple. Stay away from clutter.
“Clutter is used to hide and hedge. Simplicity means stripping away clutter. One simple phrase (‘land a man on the moon’) beats many long sentences.”
“But there is a problem with simplicity. Most leaders, when they try to be simple, turn out vague and abstract goals, not concrete ones”
“Leaders who state a simple and concrete goal will do better, because people will know what it means. It is not open to interpretation. It also is measurable: worlds like premier, preeminence, and superior are open to many interpretations and hard to measure. In contrast, ‘bringing him back safely to Earth’ is measurable. Did the astronauts come back safely? Yes, they did. Check.”
The Goal Must Stir Passion
“Powerful and unifying goals stir passion and inspire. They appeal to people’s hearts and not only their minds.”
Raising test scores has never appealed to my heart, but maybe it appeals to yours. Sadly, I haven’t had a goal as an educator that that every appealed to my heart. Staying “fiscally solvent” or “increasing API scores” just doesn’t get me up in the morning.
“Unifying goals need not appeal to a higher purpose (such as helping humankind) or noble pursuits (landing a man on the moon) to be inspiring. Leaders who appeal to high performance and excellence can also stir passion among people.”
The Goal Must Put Competition on the Outside
“Few things unite people better than having a common enemy.”
“Many executives blunder by stoking competition among employees—for example, by instilling rivalry between salespeople. In a special issue devoted to competition, Business Week wrote, ‘Everyone likes to win. Beneath all the talk about teamwork and balance, all the books on being kind and cultivating emotional intelligence, people still crave to be the best.’ The problem with this argument is that teamwork and ‘being the best’ are seen as mutually exclusive. But they are not. People can still crave to win, be the best, but they can do so as part of a team that wins against an outside competitor. They unite in competing against an external force.”
Schools and grade levels should not be in competition. The point here is that there are external forces (NCLB, Race To The Top, public perception) that can be used to motivate the staff to unite against. The goal is focus energy toward the external force and not at each other at school.
Creating unifying goals while balancing the need for individual educators to create their own individual goals is the key to creating powerful Professional Learning Communities and schools.
Recent Comments