Impact Over Applause

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By Jeff Price

Are we ok stepping out of the spotlight to make sure the right things are done? How do we feel about doing the invisible work the we know matters? Leaders that work on striving for impact over acknowledgment might be one of the deciding factors for institutional success and it’s something I don’t know we talk about enough. 

A Case Study

Last week during a school walk, I asked a question that brought a hush to the crowd and ended up turning a conversation around. During a debrief we were discussing how a teacher had made great use of the time for the class we just saw. It was structured around targeted student group work. Students were selected for specific tasks for that 45 minute chunk of time by data the teacher collected during an earlier class period. There were 2 small groups, 2 pairs of students working collaboratively, and the rest on laptops. Such an effective use of time, the observation team noted. And, yes, it seemed great. 

It’s worth saying here that this school and district weren’t seeing the academic gains they had expected this year. 

I’ll get to the question that quieted the crowd in a minute.

 

First, some background on some earlier walks that same day. We had visited this same teacher earlier during a regular period. Our big takeaway from the observational data during this first visit was that the teacher would be hard pressed to answer answer the question, “Who learned today and how do you know?” Now, there were plenty of positives to build on that we had seen. Kids were on task. The curriculum was in place and being used, positive interactions with students, active monitoring.  But, there was also quite a bit of teacher talk, significantly more than student talk. So, our high leverage feedback from this observation was to increase structured conversations between students. The end goal was to use that process to gather some data about student understanding. 

To recap then, we had all agreed the teacher did not have an effective way to gauge student understanding during the first visit. And, in the second visit we heard that data from earlier class was used to structure targeted small group. The same data that we did not see being gathered, let alone processed. And, the group I was with seemed to not connect the dots. We were seeing the two visits in isolation. Taken separately, the second visit had the appearance of being a model to scale. Who wouldn’t want targeted intervention in place based on real student input?

The Turn

Here’s where the question I mentioned a minute ago enters the conversation. I simple asked: 

Isn’t this the same teacher we saw earlier that we all said we didn’t see evidence of monitoring student understanding?

That’s it. No follow up on why I asked or what I thought. I let the question hang for a minute. I figuratively stepped back. Then, someone in the group wondered aloud how the teacher knew which students needed to be in which groups. That wondering led someone else to point out that while it was a well thought out strategy, it might have a pretty big gap in how it’s working. This led to a longer discussion about how, if the teacher struggled to really know who or who did not get a concept, let alone where misconceptions were happening, how could they then have well thought out student grouping in an intervention class? And finally to someone being curious about where else this was going on at the campus and district. All I did was start the process and then monitor the progress.

The initial question had made everyone pause and make interesting thinking faces of combined recognition and “oh shit.” 

The Play By Play

Let me do a play by play here, some metacognition and a think aloud. Before I asked the question I had a couple options:

Option 1: Let it ride and wait for someone to eventually see this gap. Maybe I could bring it up in the debrief later in the day. It really wasn’t my place to make a scene. 

Option 2: Show everyone that I had made a great discovery that would not only change the campus academics but would let everyone know how smart I was.

jk

Both of those are terrible and neither are the actual options I actually thought about. But they are over simplified examples of common moves.

There can be a real tension in situations like this for some of us. As leaders others can put us in the role as the ones with the answers and the fix. There can also be pressure on leaders to create urgency. We need to fix this and move on. So, absolutely, we can feel like these actually are the two primary responses for us. 

Wait for the team to step up on their own to build collaboration.

Or

Take center stage and be the smartest one in the room and tell it like it is. 

Both can be problematic. More importantly, neither take advantage of the less visible systems and structures that lead to shared understanding, ownership, and solutions.

Seriously Now

Let me be real and give the actual think aloud for that situation:

I asked the question to get everyone’s attention focused on a systematic gap in a process that the group seemed to not notice. A process, by the way, that is a great idea in theory. But, I wanted us to take a minute and be real about what were seeing. We were looking for ways to improve. We were working a system to give us useable information not simple compliance. That takes some reflection and honesty. It was irrelevant to worry about who would or would not get credit for asking the deeper question here. 

Asking the question might have come across as a “guess what’s in my head.” I have the solution to a problem you haven’t seen. But, acknowledging that internally before I asked that question, reminded me to ask and then step back and guide the group’s processing from the side.

Stepping Up and Inviting In

The art of leadership is understanding when to get out of the way once you’ve starting the ball rolling.  In our debrief, I wasn’t pointing things out to let everyone know how special I was. Similarly, neither was I worried about coming across as someone talking out of turn. Impact over acknowledgment. 

Step up when needed. And then, guide and facilitate by inviting others in on the process toward deeper impact. That second part takes not just trust, it takes some real courage from the leader.

Again, this is a key leadership feature, impact over acknowledgment. Collective efficacy over individual praise. Set aside the ego of “being right” or “being so clever to see the obvious.” It’s about what’s best for the kids and the systems we put in place to ensure they’re successful not to show how valuable you are. And to do this in the context of the high stakes leaders are in.

And don’t get me started about stepping up to “be the boss.” You really don’t have to be a hard ass, no nonsense leader all the time. Not much can shut down a culture of exploration and insight as some ill timed “You will respect my authority.”

Back to the beginning

Are you ok with stepping out of the spotlight to make sure things are done? And how do you really feel about doing some of the invisible work of guiding and facilitating instead of always leading from the stage?

What is one way you can focus on impact over acknowledgment this week? 

Reach out and let me know. And, if you want to bounce some ideas off of someone, message me. Let’s talk. 

There’s important work to be done and we don’t have to do it alone.