What We're Reading

Johnson, Stefanie. (2020).  Inclusify.  New York:  HarperCollins.

Inclusify has strategies on how to include people and their ideas to make better decisions for your organization. These strategies can be used for individuals, groups, or the whole company.  Johnson takes inclusion to a practical level, beyond talk, to embrace all ideas leading to the best thinking and decision-making.

Stefanie uses the term Inclusify. Unlike “diversifying” or “including,” Inclusifying implies a continuous, sustained effort toward helping diverse teams feel engaged, empowered, accepted, and valued.

She found two skills leaders demonstrate to show Inclusifying. First, leaders embrace different perspectives and backgrounds. Second, leaders fit all the unique pieces together to create a cohesive, interdependent team with a shared purpose.

I like the words embrace and celebrate unique and dissenting perspectives while creating a collaborative and openminded environment where everyone feels they truly belong. A sense of belonging is essential for people to bring their best self to work and the world.

Johnson identifies several studies showing the benefits of inclusivity and honoring diverse perspectives. Leaders who Inclusify will have better relationships with their teams, elicit greater productivity from all of their workers, and create a more positive environment for everyone. Engagement is paramount to a successful business. It is a key driver of performance, with the most highly engaged workers outperforming others by 10 percent in customer ratings, 21 percent in productivity, and 22 percent in profitability.

There has been a myth of only the strong survive.  This myth has been attributed to Charles Darwin.  In reality, it is the most adaptable that survive.  Think of hiring  under the normal circumstances.  People hire people most like themselves.  OK, how does that increase adaptability?  I heard a story of GM CEO, Alfred Sloan, who asked his senior vice-presidents what they thought of an idea he had.  Everyone nodded and gave approval.  His response was if everyone agreed, there must be something wrong.  If everyone thinks alike, he didn’t need everyone at the conference table.  Good move for him, bad move for those sheep at the table.

The following is a summary of some of the more popular beliefs in organizations. Myths and mistakes that were common for white men to believe differed slightly from those that impeded women and people of color and led two of the archetypes to manifest differently.

• Meritocracy Managers: wants to hire the “best people for the job but does little to appreciate the unique qualities of his employees or help them feel that they belong to the same team.
• Culture Crusader: Focuses on creating a team of like-minded people and ends up forgoing the benefits of incorporating different thoughts, perspectives, and backgrounds.
• Team Player: A subset of Culture Crusaders (mostly women (WOC), people of color (POC), and LGBTQ) who work so hard to assimilate with the group that they lose touch with the value their own and others diverse perspectives add to the team dynamic.
• White Knight: Takes a paternalistic approach to women, POC, WOC, and LGBTQ and tries to “save” them. The resulting lack of emphasis on shared goals diminishes team cohesion because people cannot see how they fit together.
• Shepherd: A subset of White Knights, Shepherds are women, POC, WOC, and LGBTQ who offer in-group support but in doing so cause people to question their motives, resulting in a less cohesive team.
• Optimist: Sees value in uniqueness and belonging but is not committed to actively creating change and so maintains the status quo through inertia.

A graphic in the book is organized around the sense of belonging on the ‘y’ axis and a sense of uniqueness on the ‘x’ axis.

High Belonging, Low Uniqueness:                 High Belonging, High Uniqueness:

Cultural Crusaders & Team Players               INCLUSIFIER

Belonging

Low Belonging, Low Uniqueness:                 Low Belonging, High Uniqueness:

Meritocracy Manager                                     White Knight & Shepherd

Uniqueness

A couple of definitions might help here.

Belonging:

• Incomplete: You feel like you can fit in, but not at your true self
• Included: You feel valued and accepted for who you are

Uniqueness:

• Invisible: You do not feel like you fit in and you feel no one knows you
• Insular: You do not feel like you fit win but people know they real you.

When Belonging and Uniqueness exist, Inclusion is encouraged and honored.

White men also make up only 31 percent of the population. Aggressive female leaders are so quickly denigrated in society, I have created the ABCs of Breaking Bias: Admit it, Block it, Count it.

The easiest way to achieve this is likely by anonymizing assessments (removing the names from applications) so you cannot be biased. The consulting company named Gap Jumpers showed that when traditional screening was used for hiring, 80 percent of the people who made it to the first-round interview were white, male, able bodied individuals from elite institutions. In anonymized selection, that number dropped to 40 percent.

I found it interesting that we might want to hire people who have faced challenges rather than only those with high test scores. Kids who have to pay their own way through college might take longer to finish school, but that says nothing about their intelligence or performance. It means they have navigated through multiple challenges and barriers.  Which person do you  want to hire? Persistence and creativity have a lot of influence on success.

Johnson uses an airplane metaphor to describe those who face barriers.  It takes longer for a flight if there are headwinds.  It takes less time for air travel when having the advantage of tailwinds.  Are we hiring people who have had the advantage of many headwinds in life or hiring some of those people who have had headwinds and still arrived safely. I think this is worth considerable thought when hiring a person for your organization. I know when I was hiring math teachers, I was hesitant to hire someone who only had a 4.0.  I wanted to know they had been a bagger at a grocery store, a waitress, or something that said they worked with people in addition to having content knowledge.

Numerous studies show that crowds, as long as the individuals in them are diverse, can outperform experts when making decisions, a phenomenon called the wisdom of the crowd.

A Team Is More than the Sum of Its Parts. You can’t build a football team with all quarterbacks. I call this the myth of multiplicity—the idea that there is one best type of person and the best team is created when you have a bunch of those people. I imagine a team of all 220-pound quarterbacks when the opposition has 320-pound line.

Johnson suggests the following:

I gave the benefits of gender diversity on corporate boards to a room full of executives. This is the data I gave them:

• Having more women on the board correlates with higher returns and growth.
• Having more women in the C-suite correlates with greater profitability.
• Having more women in top management correlates with greater profitability,
• Having more women in the organization correlates with greater profitability and higher stock returns.
• Women and people of color must have more management experience than their white male counterparts to earn their first spot on a corporate board.

When you choose to Assess (people) Before Criteria are Defined (A-B-C-D) your mind will usually fill in the blanks for you so that you end up choosing the person who best fits your prototype.

A better alternative is if you define the criteria for the right hire before evaluating candidates (Define Criteria Before Assessing, or D-C-B-A), you are better able to judge all applicants against the same set of criteria and choose the best candidate for the job.

Ask the question, who has tailwinds?  Who has headwinds?  How did they do give their circumstances. “Certain people have privilege [tailwinds], When the proposals were anonymized, women outperformed men by almost 1 percent” 

One way to help eliminate bias is to:

• Anonymizing assessments for selection and promotion
• Remove names from applications before evaluating them.
• Create a list of the best-qualified candidates versus the nominated candidates for promotion.
• Compare the lists and look for diversity disparities.

Diversity will help creativity and the bottom line. A third study showed that companies with more diversity programs—from disability to gender to race to LGBTQ status—created two more products a year than did companies that did not have diversity programs.

GO FOR ROGUES (this can increase learning) – The kind of people I call rogues will help generate new discussions and improve innovation and decision-making.

So when a white guy with a Mohawk and tie-dyed shirt came into her office for an interview, she thought, maybe he is the person we need to help us understand our customers and business in a new way. Rather than writing him off or pretending he did not have a Mohawk, she slowed down for a minute and asked him what he could bring to the table.          

An example in schools was, having someone “different” join their group caused the students to feel as though they were less effective and actually made them feel as though they made worse decisions—but they were wrong. Adding an outsider as opposed to an insider actually doubled their chance of identifying the murderer, from 29 percent to 60 percent.  The lesson is: go for rogues, and then learn from them.

Here was something new I learned. The Just-Because SHAM (She/He’s A Minority) – Do white men ever say, “Man, I’m worried that they hired me just because of my race [or gender] .

I had never heard this quote before.  Heed the learning. Napoleon Bonaparte’s statement: “The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.

There are more lessons on bystanders, sexual harassment behaviors, discrimination, and bullying.  She shares the DARE model.

• Distract the perpetrator by interrupting the situation.
• Address the behavior of the perpetrator.
• Recruit others to help.
• Engage the target in conversation.

Some of us have had the ‘White Knight Syndrome.’  Be aware that the unspoken or unconscious message you may be sending is that this person is not a colleague, needs to be saved, and is less than competent.  Not a good message to improve diversity and get better thinking.  Equality and Equity should not signal negative stereotypes.

The following can provide some insights for moving from a predominately white male culture to an inclusive and more productive culture.

Here is a summary of some of the INCLUSIFYING ACTIONS that are distributed throughout the book:

• Delete the word meritocracy.
• Follow the D-C-B-A principle.
• Adopt a growth mind-set.
• Ban bullying and try giving.
• Lift people up, don’t carry them.
• Try reciprocal mentoring.
• Think right and left-not right and wrong.
• Prepare for perception.
• Choose equity over equality
• Aim for inclusion.

Sherwood, Ben. (2009). The Survivors Club.  New York: Grand Central Publishing.

The whole field of studying survival is called “human factors in survival.”  The question researchers are trying to answer is, “Why do some people live and others die?” Some people are able to find a way to survive the most difficult situations and some are not.  Why?  A question that occurs to me is how do adults in organizations survive?  What support systems help people survive?  How do some bounce back from adversity? And, how do we help kids survive the most difficult environments full of challenges mostly not under their control?

As I found out in this book, there is a lot we don’t control AND there are some things we can control.  So, survival and resilience is important to long-term health physically and emotionally.  There are many stories of difficult situations throughout this book.  I found it a good read and I learned some important strategies.

The first story was a grabber. A Knitting Needle Through the Heart. A woman fell and a knitting needle went through her chest.  First and foremost, should they try to pull it out? “No, don’t touch it. “It was pure instinct”:

• She didn’t want anyone to go near the injury until she was at the hospital. Doctors would say later this was the first decision that helped save her life.
• Waiting for the paramedics was a second lifesaving choice.
• She needed to stay alive for Callie. (her daughter)

This made me think of the first rule of assessing any situation.  Honesty.  A ruthless assessment of reality.  “Denial is inactivity that prepares people well for the roles of victim and corpse.” This denial shows up in many of us and in organizations.  I have a three whine rule in my coaching and leading.  If you create options to solve problems with individuals and they keep returning without implementing any of the agreed upon suggestions three times, I assume they just want to complain and take no action.  If they return after trying a solution and it doesn’t work, that is different.  They have taken some affirmative step to find a way to solve the issue.

Another story that caught my attention was, The Mystery of the Unopened Parachutes. I don’t mind saying I am not going to intentionally jump out of an airplane.  The following two lessons were from skydiving. The two lessons researchers studied were:

1. Situational Awareness- people forget where they are and the situation they are in.
2. Brainlock – They freeze under pressure and can’t think. The focus narrows and the person can’t think of options.  I know I have worked with people like this and, at times, I have done the same thing. (true confession).

Two things can help under extreme pressure.

1. Keep trying to solve problems no matter what happens. They refuse to quit and sometimes die trying to save themselves.
2. The second type of person gives up quickly. They resign themselves and surrender.

Here are three survival lessons from authors Griffith and Hart for those of us who don’t jump out of airplanes.

1. Try to relax. Some skydiving instructors have a special signal when they’re free falling with anxious students: They pat the top of their heads. It’s a sign to stay calm.
2. Remember where you are. It may seem obvious, but situational awareness can mean the difference between life and death.
3. Never give up. Many parachuting deaths could have been prevented if skydivers kept working on their problems.

Those three suggestions may help us as we navigate our own personal and professional challenges.

Another major learning for me in this book was the Theory of 10-80-10. In any emergency people divide into three categories.

1. There are survivors who manage to save themselves.
2. There are fatalities like the passengers on the Estonia, ocean liner, who never had a chance and died immediately when the waters came.
3. There are victims who should have lived but perished unnecessarily.

A caveat:  Reality Principle. “There are times when you have no choice, you die. Full stop. It’s just the way it goes.” You may do everything right to save your life, but some crises simply aren’t survivable. They’re fatal from the outset. People didn’t do anything wrong. They lost the “cosmic coin toss.” It just wasn’t their day.

Theory of 10-80-10.

1. Around 10 percent of us will handle a crisis in a relatively calm and rational state of mind. The top 10 percent are the survivors. Under duress, they pull themselves together quickly. They assess situations clearly. Their decision-making is sharp and focused. Psychologists call this process “splitting,”’ and it’s common among people who keep their cool under the greatest stress.
2. Leach says the vast majority of us, around 80 percent, fall into the second band. In a crisis, most of us wind up “quite simply stunned and bewildered.” Our reasoning is significantly impaired and thinking is difficult. We’ll stare straight ahead. We’ll barely hear people around us. We’ll lose sense and sight of what’s going on around us. It’s okay—it’s not necessarily fatal—and it doesn’t last forever. The key is to recover quickly from brainlock or analysis paralysis, shake off the shock, and figure out what to do.
3. The last group—the final 10 percent—is the one you definitely want to avoid in an emergency. Simply put, the members of the third band do the wrong thing. They behave inappropriately and often counterproductively They make the situation worse they freak out and can’t pull themselves together.

I am looking forward to applying the Theory of 10-80-10 to leaders and organizations I work with.

There is a story in the book about plane crashes and how to survive.  As a frequent flyer, I paid attention to this part of the book.

A quote: “It’s not the crash that kills most people, It’s what occurs after the crash during the fire and evacuation.” This reminds me of a quote I heard years ago, (I paraphrase) it’s not what happens to you, it is how you respond to what happens to you that determines what you learn.

I was struck by this Rule of 3. I think it has great application to life.

The Rule of 3 states that you cannot survive:

• 3 seconds without spirit and hope
• 3 minutes without air
• 3 hours without shelter in extreme conditions
• 3 days without water
• 3 weeks without food
• 3 months without companionship or love

According to Helmreich, here are ten characteristics that accounted for success in life:

1. flexibility
2. assertiveness,
3. tenacity
4. optimism
5. intelligence
6. distancing ability
7. group consciousness
8. the ability to assimilate the knowledge of their survival
9. the capacity to find meaning in life

Helmreich said, All of the Holocaust survivors shared some of these qualities, Only some of the survivors possessed all of them.

Here are some great questions you might ask yourself and others.

• Which of these ten traits is the most important?
• Which do you possess?
• Which ones do the people you are working with have?
• Which ones do you or others want to develop?

Helmreich continues, “The gift of intelligence, Thinking quickly. Brains accompanied by common sense.” This kind of basic intelligence is different from book smarts or IQ. It enables people quickly to size up situations, break down and analyze problems, and make good decisions.

Effort alone is seldom sufficient because of all the things that could go wrong. Mostly it is a mixture of effort and luck that is needed to be successful.

Here are some characteristics from Dr. Charney who studied the Stockdale Paradox and resilience models:

1. Stay positive and hopeful while confronting reality.
2. Find a resilient role model.
3. Develop a moral compass and unbreakable beliefs. Resilient people find strength in God, and in ideals and principles greater than themselves,
4. Practice altruism. By helping others, Dr. Charney says, you can help yourself feel better in tough times.
5. Develop acceptance and cognitive flexibility, meaning the ability to learn and adapt your knowledge and thinking to new situations.
6. Face your fears and learn to control negative emotions
7. Build active coping skills to handle your problems.
8. Establish a supportive social network to help you.
9. Stay physically fit.
10. Laugh as much as you can.

A hopeful message from Dr. Charney, “The greatest surprise of his career, he says is the “hidden capacity” of most people to rebound from adversity.”

I have heard this quote before. “What does not kill me makes me stronger,” Nietzsche

Some of the above can be overwhelming. So I end this summary with a concept that gives me hope and a new focus for myself and others. It’s a little-known phenomenon that they named post traumatic growth. Dr. Calhoun believes that most people actually are transformed for the better from their battles with life’s toughest stuff.

Here are some statistics that were surprising to me. Survivors experience greater compassion and sympathy. Trauma isn’t purely negative and destructive: Growth through suffering is “an experience as old as humans.”

            The Surprise of the POWs – 61 percent of POWs reported “favorable” psychological changes after captivity, including a deeper understanding of themselves and others and a clearer sense of life’s priorities.

            Korean War, one quarter reported that they learned so much from the experience that they “would be willing to go through it again.”

            “Human beings aren’t as vulnerable as some people think.” Over the course of our lives, he goes on, between 70 to 75 percent of us experience major traumas and crises that are sufficient to trigger stress related disorders

            Only 8 to 12 percent of us experience symptoms of PTSD. That means more than 80 percent of us experience trauma but don’t suffer psychiatric disorders as a result. 

            Dr. Mitchell smiles and says: “A lot of people just don’t have enough faith in what they’re able to do.”

Are You a Survivor? A survival situation brings out the true, underlying personality. Our survival kit is inside us.  – Laurence Gonzalez

I’ll end this summary with the Survival Toolkit: Which ones do you have?

• Adaptability – You’ve got the capacity to adjust readily to different situations and to change your attitude and behavior to handle new challenges. . Charles Darwin “In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.
• Resilience – An African proverb says the wind does not break a tree that bends. The Japanese say nana korobi yaoki: Fall down seven times, stand up eight.
• Faith – You trust God to “fill the gap” between the challenges you face and what you’re capable of handling;
• Hope – Dr. Groopman continues. “For those who have hope, it may help some live longer, and it will help all to live better.
• Purpose – Viktor Frankl, “everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. ‘He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.”
• Tenacity – Your tenacity is your superglue in the toughest times.
• Love – Purpose—a survivor tool described earlier—is defined as a calling greater than yourself. For you, love is the ultimate purpose.
• Empathy – It may seem counterintuitive, but in a crisis, your ability to help others turns out to be a very powerful way to help yourself.
• Intelligence – Your intelligence is a powerful weapon against everyday adversity, too. You see complex and dangerous situations very clearly. You examine problems from all angles in search of realistic solutions.
• Ingenuity – You are clever, inventive, and resourceful. The proper term for MacGyver’s gift is bricolage: the art of building things from whatever materials are available Swiss Army knife and duct tape, his two favorite tools for improvisation.
• Flow – “the harder we try, the more complex our plan for reducing friction, the worse things get.” You understand the futility—and danger—of trying to control the uncontrollable. Facing a crisis, some fight and others flee, but you flow.
• Instinct – Latin tuere: to guard, to protect. “You, too, are an expert at predicting violent behavior,” he writes. “Like every creature, you can know when you are in the presence of danger. You have the gift of a brilliant internal guardian that stands ready to warn you of hazards and guide you through risky situations.

White Fragility.  What this means to me, an old white guy, who has been a principal for over thirty years?  My experience in urban and suburban schools is the same.  When talking about race and culture, many white people get uncomfortable and scared. NOTE:  there are always outliers so don’t assume every white person is uncomfortable

In addition, don’t assume every person of color has an agenda against white people.  In the 90s, while being a principal in an urban environment, we organized principal PLCs.  When I heard an African American middle school principal, another high school principal who was Native American, and a Latino principal say they had the same concerns I did when we talked about race, I was amazed, AND relieved.  I am grateful for those conversations.

Growing up literally next to the tracks I always was vigilant about fairness.  I was not only affirmed by these conversations but got to learn because we all were vulnerable and shared real emotions, challenged beliefs, and shared ways to help others to build enough trust to have authentic conversations.  Therefore, I read this book and suggest you do too.

Diangelo, Robin. (2018), White Fragility.  Boston:  Beacon Press.

Pay attention to assumptions about adults and kids. Sometimes we make assumptions based on very little data. For example, though a child may look black and be treated as black, she may be raised primarily by a white parent and thus identify more strongly as white. I think it is important to realize that when a child is born, excluding a physiological issue, that brain can learn any one of about six thousand languages.

One true assumption, like it not, is ‘white privilege.’ White fragility is triggered by discomfort and anxiety, it is born of superiority and entitlement. A friend of mine, Saundra, an African American educator and I were having a discussion.  She helped me understand white privilege early when she told me that her and her husband had to talk to their kids about how to act when and if they got pulled over by the police.  I never had to do that with my two kids. The current events have certainly shown that issue to be truer than ever.

I think the next paragraph highlights the reason asking questions to increase understanding is more effective than making judgments to justify our preconceived beliefs.  If I understand racism as a system into which I was socialized, I can receive feedback on my problematic racial patterns as a helpful way to support my learning and growth. Yet when someone lets us know that we have just done such a thing, rather than respond with gratitude and relief (after all, now that we are informed, we won’t do it again), we often respond with anger and denial.

This book is intended for us, for white progressives who so often—despite our conscious intentions—make life so difficult for people of color. I define a white progressive as any white person who thinks he or she is not racist, or is less racist, or in the “choir,” or already “gets it.” I strongly suggest reading Kendi’s How to be an Antiracist. It is not enough to take the passive stance of, ‘I am not a racist.’ It is past time to be an Antiracist.  See  https://learningomnivores.com/what-were-reading/how-to-be-an-antiracist/ ‎ for a summary of Kendi’s book.

I , Bill, have been critical of our leadership preparation programs in college and universities. Diangelo states, I can get through graduate school without ever discussing racism. I can graduate from law school without ever discussing racism. I can get through a teacher-education program without ever discussing racism.

People of color may also hold prejudices and discriminate against their own and other groups of color, but this bias ultimately holds them down and, in this way, reinforces the system of racism that still benefits whites. Racism is a society-wide dynamic that occurs at the group level. People of color do not have this power and privilege over white people. That is why now, more than ever, we need understanding, actively be antiracist, and find ways to increase the equity of opportunities.

There is research that students of color do better when there are teachers of color in the school.  There is progress being made hiring more people of color but not enough and not fast enough. This is where institutional racism has been accepted as status quo. I sometimes hear, “we can’t find quality candidates.”  How about growing your own?  Is your organization open to attracting and retaining people of color?  What are the barriers that get in the way?  Ask people of color.  If people of color trust you, they will tell you.  If  people of color don’t trust you, good luck.

All systems of oppression are adaptive; they can withstand and adjust to challenges and still maintain inequality. Take, for instance, the federal recognition of same-sex marriage and accommodations for people with disabilities. While the overall systems of heterosexism and ableism are still with us, they have adapted in limited ways. p. 40          

One line of Dr. King’s speech that continually resonates with me is “that one day he might be judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin.” We say we want people of character, are we living that value?

Racial bias is largely unconscious, and herein lies the deepest challenge—the defensiveness that ensues upon any suggestion of racial bias. This defensiveness is classic white fragility because it protects our racial bias while simultaneously affirming our identities as open-minded.

Whites enact racism while maintaining a positive self-image in many ways:

• Rationalizing racial segregation as unfortunate but necessary to access “good schools’
• Rationalizing that out workplaces are virtually all white be people of color just don’t apply
• Avoiding direct racial language and using racially coded terms such as urban, underprivileged, diverse, sketchy, and good neighborhoods
• Denying that we have few cross-racial relationships by proclaiming how diverse our community or workplace is
• Attributing inequality between whites and people of color to causes other than racism

What I do know is that the world, and the United States is and continues to be populated more by people of color.  Our future will be determined on how well we level the playing field, embrace diversity as energy for learning, and see the benefits of creativity that more diversity brings to life. I really like the term in the book of color-celebrate. Celebrate inclusivity. Reap the benefits.

Another quote I like is: So unless that kindness is combined with clarity and the courage to name and challenge racism, this approach protects white fragility and needs to be challenged.  p. 129    I repeat: stopping our racist patterns must be more important than working to convince others that we don’t have them. It is said talk is cheap.  It is the actions that tell what we really believe.  See a previous post, ‘Words are Rumors, Watch their Feet.     https://learningomnivores.com/rules/words-are-rumors-watch-their-feet/

There are ways to check our assumptions and if any of our behavior was a problem.  Diangelo suggests some of the following behaviors:

• Reflection
• Apology
• Listening
• Processing
• Seeking more understanding
• Grappling
• Engaging

I like her final suggestion. The final advice I offer is this: “Take the initiative and find out on your own.” To break with the conditioning of whiteness—the conditioning that makes us apathetic about racism and prevents us from developing the skills we need to interrupt it—white people need to find out for themselves what they can do. Break with the apathy of whiteness and demonstrate that you care enough to put in the effort.

Bottom line: you would care enough to get informed. So consider racism a matter of life and death as it is for people of color and do your homework. Niceness will not get racism on the table and will not keep it on the table when everyone wants it off.  p. 153         Interrupting racism takes courage and intentionality; the interruption is by definition not passive or complacent.

We don’t have to be perfect and we can put in the effort.  Reduce the talk.  Take the action.  Let’s do things that matter.  Make the world a better place.  We are going to need all the brains and energy from everyone to deal with current and future problems.

Kendi, Ibram X. (2019). How to be an Antiracist.   New York:  Penguin.

The following quote is from the jacket of the book. “THE ONLY WAY TO UNDO RACISM IS TO CONSISTENTLY IDENTIFY AND DESCRIBE IT AND THEN DISMANTLE IT.”

The quote above describes the essence of this book. There are racists.  There are people who say they are not racist.  Saying you are not racist is NOT ENOUGH.  We must actively confront, change policies, and take action.  My last ‘New Rule: Words are Rumors, Watch their Feet’ was making the point that it is actions that tell you what people really believe. See https://learningomnivores.com/rules/words-are-rumors-watch-their-feet/

Here are my nuggets from the book:

“Denial is the heartbeat of racism, beating across ideologies, races, and nations.”  First, identify issues.  Being a white male I know conversations about race can be scary. Read Robin Diangelo’s (2018) on White Fragility for more information. If we can’t talk about real issues, how can we ever solve problems.  As a principal in the Minneapolis School System, in the 90s ,I was in a principal’s discussion group with Mike Huerth, a Native American male and Eleanor Coleman, an African American woman.  Mike and Eleanor said they had the same concerns I had. Having authentic discussions can be uncomfortable.  How freeing to hear that.  Thank you Mike and Eleanor, wherever you are for helping me have the courage to talk more openly and honestly about race with myself and others.

“What’s the problem with being “not racist”? It is a claim that signifies neutrality.” I suggest we are rarely neutral and now is not the time to be neutral.  We might not want to be honest, or we are scared, or we are afraid of the consequences but not neutral.  Not being racist is a passive stance.  Another past ‘New Rule; Be Aware of Bullies and Bystanders,  I suggested that bullies are a problem.  Bystanders might be more of a problem.    https://learningomnivores.com/rules/be-aware-of-bull…onstrate-bravery/

In fact, I have read research that says bystanders cause more problems for the person being bullied than the bully.  It is the feeling being alone with no support from friends or observers.  When supervisors in schools do not support students who are being bullied, it can be devastating for the person.  BTW this goes for adults as well as students. See the book Mobbing (1999) about bullying in the workplace. To paraphrase Dante’s quote, ‘the hottest corners of hell, are reserved for those in times of crisis, remain silent.’

The goal must be taking action. “Now it’s know how to be antiracist.” Here is a definition from the book.  “ANTIRACIST: One who is supporting an antiracist policy through their actions or expressing an antiracist idea.” Let’s actively confront people and policies that limit the individual and collective intelligence, contribution, and creativity to be a better society. James Surowiecki (2005), Wisdom of Crowds, says a decision made by a group is significantly better than a decision made by the smartest person in the group.  I ask groups, why?  Think about it. Does having more perspectives help make a better final decision?  Does having perspectives from diverse points of view make a better decision?  Answer is ‘yes.’

Here are some statistics from the book. “White lives matter to the tune of 3.5 additional years over Black lives in the United States, African Americans are 25 percent more likely to die of cancer than Whites. During the 2013-14 academic year, Black students were four times more likely than White students to be suspended from public schools, according to Department of Education data.”

I suggest we rethink some of our practices.  As an example, in the 80s while being an assistant principal in charge of attendance and discipline in a large high school,  I suspended students for not coming to school.  That was the policy.  What the heck was I thinking.  Students were not coming to class, so I suspended them so they couldn’t come. Jeez. I wish I had read Daniel Health’s (2020) new book, Upstream.  Hopefully, I would have done something different.

Another important point is about “microaggressions.”  It is a term Chester Pierce, Harvard, created in the 70s.  An example is when a person of color sits by a white woman, the white person grabs her purse.  When I walk down the street and see a group of black people, I cross the street. Because of the color of their skin, I start making assumptions about the person’s ability, background, and potential. These microaggressions happen in businesses and schools far too often.  Making assumptions about people, without even interacting, continue what psychologist call ‘attribution error’ and ‘confirmation bias.’

I really liked this story in the book. “Fable of the man and the lion.” In the fable, a man and lion travel together, arguing over who is superior. They pass a statue that shows a lion strangled by a man. The man says, “See there! How strong we are, how we prevail over even the king of beasts.” The lion replies, his statue was made by one of you men. If we lions knew how to erect statues, you would see the man placed under the paw of the lion.” Whoever creates the cultural standard usually puts them self at the top of the hierarchy.”  How true.  We often have blinders on.  Take the blinders off and deal with our reality.  See it, acknowledge it, and take action to change it.

“Just as race doesn’t exist biologically, race doesn’t exist behaviorally.” Think about it, there is no achievement gap at birth.  When a child is born (absent a genetic or physiological disorder), they can learn any of about 6000 languages. Kendi makes the statement, “The racial problem is the opportunity gap, as antiracist reformers call it, not the achievement gap. We must no longer be ashamed of being Black, As long as the mind thinks there is something behaviorally wrong with a racial group, the mind can never be antiracist.”  I have heard the phrase ‘students know more ways to learn than we know how to teach.’  This makes school and business leaders nervous.  It also makes us aware of expanding our repertoire of learning rather than one way fits all.  “To be antiracist is to think nothing is behaviorally wrong or right—inferior  or superior—with  any  of the  racial  groups.”

Kendi quotes one of his teachers, when asked about being objective. “It is impossible to be objective. ‘If we can’t be objective, then what should we strive to do?’ “Just tell the truth.”  Wow, that simple.  That takes courage and strong values. That’s what we should strive to do. “Tell the truth.”

Here is another reason for organizations to model the way.  “White teachers are about 40 percent less likely to believe the student will finish high school. Low-income Black students who have at least one Black teacher in elementary school are 29 percent less likely to drop out of school.” Beliefs drive behavior.  Change the belief, change the behavior.  The reverse is also true.  Change the behavior and you can change the belief.

 “Racism has always been terminal AND curable. Racism has always been recognizable and mortal.” I love this statement because it says we CAN make the world better.  We can find solutions.  The issue is, ‘will we?’

Here are some suggestions from Kendi to be an antiracist.

• I stop using the “I’m not a racist” or “I can’t be racist” defense of denial.
• I admit the definition of racist (someone who is supporting racist policies or expressing racist ideas).
• I confess the racist policies I support and racist ideas I express.
• I accept their source (my upbringing inside a nation making us racist)
• I acknowledge the definition of antiracist (someone who is supporting antiracist policies or expressing antiracist ideas). struggle for antiracist power and policy in my spaces.

Here are some questions for you?

• What am I doing to change policy?
• How can I genuinely urge people to focus on changing policy if I am not focused on changing policy?

Here are some suggestions for teams that we work with to eliminate racial inequity in our spaces.

• Admit racial inequity is a problem of bad policy, not bad people. Identify racial inequity in all its intersections and manifestations.
• Investigate and uncover the racist policies causing racial inequity.
• Invent or find antiracist policy that can eliminate racial inequity.
• Figure out who or what group has the power to institute antiracist policy
• Work with sympathetic antiracist policymakers to institute the antiracist policy.
• Monitor closely to ensure the antiracist policy reduces and eliminates racial inequity.
• When policies fail, do not blame the people. Start over and seek out new and more effective antiracist treatments until they work.
• Monitor closely to prevent new racist policies from being instituted.

Kendi had to face his own cancer and cancer in his family.  He made the following statements at the end of the book. “Cancer is likely to kill me. I can survive cancer against all odds. My society has racism. The most serious stage. Racism is likely to kill my society. My society can survive racism against all odds.”  

“What if we treated racism in the way we treat cancer? What has historically been effective at combatting racism is analogous to what has been effective at combatting cancer. But before we can treat, we must believe. Believe all is not lost for you and me and our society.”

“Believe in the possibility that we can strive to be antiracist from this day forward. Believe in the possibility that we can transform our societies to be antiracist from this day forward. Racist power is not godly. Racist policies are not indestructible. Racial inequities are not inevitable. Racist ideas are not natural to the human.”

“But racism is one of the fastest-spreading and most fatal cancers humanity has ever known. It is hard to find a place where its cancer cells are not dividing and multiplying.”

“What gives me hope is a simple truism. Once we lose hope, we are guaranteed to lose. But if we ignore the odds and fight to create an antiracist world, then we give humanity a chance to one day survive, a chance to live in communion, a chance to be forever free.”

One final point about what we say and what we do.  Maybe it is because I have worked in Urban schools for half of my professional life.  Maybe it is because I literally grew up next to the tracks with parents who did not complete high school.  It seems every school leader, staff, or district I work with has something in their literature on mission, vision, and values about believing in diversity.  OK, here are the words again.  Let me ask you, ‘if you believe that diversity is important, what would I see or hear when visiting your school that would tell me you see diversity as a strength.’ Let’s embrace diversity as a creative source of collaboration and action. The future is what we deserve.  The future is what our kids deserve.

I am requesting you do the AAA model.  Awareness, Acknowledgment, and Action.  Words without action is just talk.  Take action.  One of my favorite quotes from Angeles Arrien is, “if your job is waking up the dead, GET UP, TODAY IS A WORKDAY.”

References:

Davenport, N., Ph.D., Schwartz, R., & Elliott, G.  (1999).  Mobbing: emotional abuse in the American Workplace.

Ames, Iowa: Civil Society Publishing.

Diangelo, Robin. (2018), White Fragility.  Boston:  Beacon Press.

Heath, Dan. (2020). Upstream.  New York:  Avid Reader Press

Surowiecki, James.  (2004).  The wisdom of crowds.  New York: Anchor Books.

Heath, Dan. (2020). Upstream.  New York:  Avid Reader Press

The Opening Parable:

You and a friend are having a picnic by the side of a river. Suddenly you hear a shout from the direction of the water—a child is drowning. Without thinking, you both dive in, grab the child, and swim to shore. Before you can recover, you hear another child cry for help. You and your friend jump back in the river to rescue her as well. Then another struggling child drifts into sight… and another … and another. The two of you can barely keep up. Suddenly, you see your friend wading out or the water, seeming to leave you alone. “Where are you going?” you demand. Your friend answers, “I’m going upstream to tackle the guy who’s throwing all these kids in the water.”

Health parable (adapted from the original, which is commonly attributed to Irving Zola)

I see this latest book by Dan Heath as a masterful example of systems thinking, reflective thinking forward and backward, and a helpful process for education and business.  The book is complete with multiple examples and is a learning opportunity for those who read it and apply upstream thinking.

A major premise of the book is: “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” I know W. Edwards Deming has said something similar in his work.  Deming suggests, quit blaming people and look at the system which is creating the behaviors.

A story told later in the book is called the Cobra Effect.  In India there were too many cobras.  So, they put a bounty on the skins of cobras.  Bring in a skin, get some money.  A cottage industry sprang up which started raising cobras.  They would bring in the skins and get money.  Soon they were spending a lot of money for cobra skins.  So, they quit paying for cobra skins.  Guess what, the people who were raising cobras released the cobras.  Now they had more cobras than before.  Ah, unintended consequences.

One of the first vignettes is about Expedia.  In 2012 there were about two million calls from customers asking for information that the customers had already received.  This represented over 50% of the customers.  OK educators, how much time and money is spent on answering questions that were in newsletters, websites, etc.? When Expedia calculated the cost – $100 million. Yikes

Wanting to be helpful, Expedia staff responded as quick as they could. So, the question became how do they prevent that amount of phone calls? They added a ‘press 2’ to the phone call that would automatically resend the itinerary.  Phone calls for this kind of help went from 58% to 15%.  What a great zero-cost way to save money and time.

Many times administrators say they are so busy.  Yes, they are.  Aren’t we all in the field of education?  Larry Cuban wrote an article in 1985 for Kappan about superintendents as fire fighters.  Cuban basically said leaders need to do three things:

1. Put out fires: Schools have to be safe physically and emotionally.
2. Fireproof: Create systems so fires don’t start.
3. Start fires: What and where can you start fires for learning?

I think Upstream is concentrating on #2.  This is the most productive way to save time, energy, and money.  We need smart thinking for crazy times. Yes, that is a book title  read years ago.

Another helpful story is about police officers.  One stands on the street corner where lots of accidents happen.  Cars see the officer and slow down.  Another police officer hides in the bushes and catches speeders and gives them tickets.  The question is, which one is seen as most valuable?  Probably the one who is busy giving tickets.  The one who is preventing accidents probably doesn’t get much recognition.  Think about analogies in schools.

As I work with principals, many are really good at putting out fires.  They get recognized for it.  Unfortunately, they become arsonists.  Most of us do what we get rewarded for.  AND, those leaders spend less time on learning and more on control.  What a paradox.  How many principal meetings spend time on sharing ideas on how to prevent fires?  Most meetings I have attended over the years spend most of our time on how to put out fires, not prevention or starting the fire for learning.

Systems tend to reward reaction to rather than prevention for.  We need Upstream  thinking in many places.  Health care costs about $3.5 billion dollars.  Research I have read said that 80% of our health care could be reduced by five things.  No smoking, no or reduced drinking and drugs, better sleeping habits, healthy eating, and reducing stress.  Hmmm, wonder if we could model and teach kids this?

Good Intentions Guarantee Nothing.  It is the actions of smart, committed professionals that will change our educational system and schools by raising positive citizens.

One more story from Chicago Public Schools.  In 1998 the graduation rate was 52.4%. Once they started looking at the data, freshman (9^th grade) was where most students were dropping out.  What they found was if the schools could keep more freshman on track, the graduation rate would increase.  Upstream, 9^th grade, had a huge effect on 12^th grade graduation. CPS started a program of Freshman On Track (FOT).

Two surprisingly simple factors: (1) a student’s completion of five full-year course credits; and (2) that student’s not failing more than one semester of a core course, such as Math or English… Those two factors, combined, became known as the Freshman On-Track (FOT) metric. Freshmen who were on-track by this measurement were 3.5 times more likely to graduate than students who were off-track.

What amazed the leaders was:  ‘Freshman On-Track’ matters more than everything else put together. Conspicuously absent from the calculation were: income, race, gender, and—perhaps most incredibly—the student’s own academic performance through eighth grade.

I have personal experience with this in an urban setting.  As a high school principal I came into a situation, in 1995, where most of our dropout rate was in 9^th grade.  After reviewing the data with the administrative team, we asked for teacher volunteers to work with freshman.  We brought 85 freshman together, with adults, to tell us what would keep them in school.  At the opening of a one day planning session a student shouted out, to me, “you’re the principal, you figure it out.”

Actually I did know many things that would work.  Big deal, I know. What was important was that the students had a voice.  What we came up with was creating a family which had students with the same teachers for the whole year except for electives.  We reduced the dropout rate by 50% the first year.  When asked by others what my goal was, it was simple to me.  I wanted every 9^th graders to become a 10^th grader.  I didn’t need two or three pages of educationese describing the vision, mission, and values.

Here are three barriers to upstream thinking:

1. Problem Blindness: you must ask questions surfacing what is really going on and what contributes to the problem. This takes a ruthless assessment of reality.
2. A Lack of Ownership: those working on the problem must take ownership. If everyone works in siloes, nobody is responsible.  The alternative is everyone is responsible. Upstream work is chosen, not demanded. The question is not: Who suffers most from the problem? The question is: Who’s best positioned to fix it, and will they step up?
3. Tunneling: under pressure we focus on doing what we always have done. Our vision narrows, working harder rather than stepping back and considering alternatives to solving the problem. Tunneling begets more tunneling. Tunneling is not only self-perpetuating, it can even be emotionally rewarding.

The next section deals with the Seven Questions for Upstream Leaders. There are vignettes in each chapter.

1. HOW WILL YOU UNITE THE RIGHT PEOPLE? Doctors prescribe, miners dig, teachers teach, and up streamers meet.
2. HOW WILL YOU CHANGE THE SYSTEM? A great quote in the book is, “You can’t solve a dynamic problem with static data.”
3. WHERE CAN YOU FIND A POINT OF LEVERAGE? Upstream leaders should be wary of common sense, which can be a poor substitute for evidence
4. HOW WILL YOU GET EARLY WARNING OF THE PROBLEM? After Sandy Hook, leaders started focusing on mental health issues, not just the access to guns.
5. HOW WILL YOU KNOW YOU’RE SUCCEEDING? There are three types of ghost victories. These are ways we think we are succeeding but are actually not.

• your measures show that you’re succeeding, but you’ve mistakenly attributed that success to your own work
• you’ve succeeded on your short-term measures, but they didn’t align with your long-term mission
• your short-term measures became the mission in a way that really undermined the work

6. HOW WILL YOU AVOID DOING HARM? One of the stories involved lawsuits coming from a playground in Brooklyn. Many kids were breaking their legs on the swings.  Once they investigated, they found the swings were too long causing the broken legs.
7. WHO WILL PAY FOR WHAT DOES NOT HAPPEN? When you get paid for something, you do more of it. Preventive efforts succeed when nothing happens. Who will pay for what does not happen? “We under-invest in the services and policies that would keep people healthier so that they would not develop those illnesses or have the injuries or suffer from premature deaths that we know could be avoided.”

Paying for upstream efforts ultimately boils down to three questions: Where are the costly problems? Who is in the best position to prevent those problems? And, how do you create incentives for them to do so?

Good intentions guarantee nothing. It boils down to good thinking, good actions, and using the feedback loops for assessing the positives and negatives.  I found some very good models in this book.

References:

Cuban, Larry. (1985). Conflict and Leadership in the Superintendency.”  Phi Delta  Kappan. V.67, no.1, Sept. 1985.  Pp.28-30

Mitroff, I. 1997). Smart thinking for crazy times. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. 17, 28

Boyes, Karen Tui. (2019). Project Genius: Big Learning for Young Geniuses.  Lower Hutt, NZ:

Spectrum Education LTD.

Karen is a fantastic presenter, committed to making learning better for students, and has introduced me to a wide range of resources.  This book was recently published about ‘project based learning’ (PBL) for elementary students .  I think most of the templates, etc. also apply to secondary students.

Genius Hour is a movement that allows students to explore their own passions and encourages creativity in the classroom. It provides students a choice in what they learn during a set period of time during school. You will also find the black line masters are available for download at www.spectrumeducation.com/project-genius-book-resources

Very positive quote for students to hear this. “You are a genius and the world needs your contribution.”            Angela Maiers

Here are three main elements to Genius Hour.

• Research: Students must research something. Students cannot spend time going over information they already know. The key is learning and as a bi-product of this, learning and refining research skills.
• Create: Students have to create something. They need to have something ‘to show’ for their time.
• Present: Students have to present something. At the end of the time frame given, students give a verbal presentation to explain their process and learning.

This book organizes PBL in easy to follow steps. Here is the short version of her seven to begin

1. Find your Passion – Start by discussing, “What does it mean to be passionate about something?” Create a wonder wall and invite students to add questions they have about the world. Show students videos such as Cain’s Arcade or the Kid President’s Pep Talk, both easily found on YouTube.
2. Plan, Plan, Plan – Encourage and provide time for students to plan out their project. This is one of the most important steps for success in Genius Hour. Planning Guide on p.33
3. Make a Pitch – Pitch Presentation Template on p.43
4. Project – Rules for Genius Hour – These are student expectations so there is clarity.
5. Create a Product – examples on p.56
6. Presentation Day – Presentation Structure – template on p.65
7. Ponder

I like the reflective questions Karen uses under the Ponder step.  Here are some of them:

• What did you learn about working together?
• What did you discover about yourself as a learner?
• What did you do when you found others didn’t agree with your ideas?
• What new questions are you asking:
• What new insights have you gained that you can apply in the next project you work on?
• What did you do when you reached an impasse?
• How do you feel about your contribution to this project?
• What more could you have done
• What experiences made you laugh?

In Chapter 3, Karen provides a week by week organizational template that can be used.  Of course, like most things, you need to adapt according to the age and learning levels of the students.

Another quote that caught my attention is the following: “What good is an idea if it remains an idea. Try. Experiment. Iterate, Fail. Try Again. Change the world.”                 Simon Sinek

And, another: “The greatest artists like Dylan, Picasso, and Newton risked failure. And we want to be great, we’ve got to risk it too.”               Steve Jobs

Too often students are resistant to trying things because they don’t want to fail.  Karen addresses the concept of Mindset by Carol Dweck in the book.  Maybe ‘how to reframe failure as feedback’ could be an important topic for student learning.

Here is a list of skills she encourages staff to teach explicitly.

• Research Skills: How to search online, how to use contents, index and print resources, note taking techniques, evaluating sources, citing sources, I add teaching responsible use of technology.
• Organizational Skills: Keeping track of resources, creating and keeping deadlines, decision making, time management.
• Goal Setting & Planning Skills: Being specific, results oriented, realistic, recording..
• inquiry Method: Formulate questions, exploring & investigate to find answers, build new understandings & meanings, share new knowledge, reflect and acting upon findings…
• Scientific method: Hypothesize, test, analyze. repeat…
• Speaking & listening skills: Teamwork, co-operation, written and oral communication… How to make an impact when presenting, in my opinion, does not get the attention is deserves. (Just Bill’s opinion)

Most of us know this quote from living life. “The middle is messy and it is also where the  MAGIC happens.”       Brené Brown

Hanging in there during the messy part is hard for adults and children. From my experience life is not a straight line nor smooth.  The rocks in the road can be insurmountable obstacles or learning opportunities.  This reminds me of a quote attributed to Mary Pickford, the actress: “Failure is not falling down, it is not getting up again”

Struggling students can benefit from PBL if they can find their passion.  As teachers, we model passion or the lack of excitement. I believe modeling passion about learning is an attractor for students.  Helping students who struggle find their way might be the best thing we do.

Here is an excerpt from a practitioner, Simon Ashby.  At the end of his list he talks about the “dunno” students.  I think this was a very good addition.

• Genius Hour is going to be the hardest thing they’ve ever done.
• It’s OK not to know what to do, how to do it, what your passion is etc.
• Genius Hour is an opportunity to extend themselves beyond what you (and they) thought possible.
• As your teacher, I’m more than happy to suggest some areas for you to go down, but the ultimate decision is yours.
• Finally, you have your “dunno” children. Idealistic teacher: ‘What are you interested in learning about?” “Dunno”. “What do you do on the weekend? “Not much” etc. When you take your time to bore down into these children’s lives I’ve often found the “dunno” comes from fear of failure or standing out too much from fear of bullying etc. These children require simply, a poke or prod in the right direction, some structure to support them, the freedom to fail and lots of check-Ins from you. Contact @SimonAshbyNZ on Twitter.

Karen provides the following list of other practitioners with their contact information:

• Miriam, bell@cust.school.Nz
• @rachoconnelll on twitter
• nikedwards@gmail.com
• @KyleHattie on twitter

In another chapter Karen provides tips to inform parents about PBL.  Many times when we try different teaching strategies we don’t share enough with parents.  I have found that parents are on a twenty year lag time.  They remember what school was like.  When school deviates from what they are familiar with, they question the change. We need to educate them as well.  Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills at OECD wrote an article titled, “Educating students for their future, not our past.”  We will have to engage parents so they know what we are trying to accomplish and preparing them for an ever changing world.

The following is a list of 21st Century skills .Parents need to know what is going to be required in the future.

• Critical thinking
• Creativity
• Collaboration
• Communication
• Information literacy
• Media literacy
• Technology literacy
• Flexibility
• Initiative
• Productivity
• Social skills

In another chapter Karen addresses what she calls the Responsibility Framework.  I like the acronym for learning  (OAR) and being a victim (BED).  If you want to learn, put your OAR in the water.  If you are a victim, you might as well go to BED and pull the covers up over your head.

I wrote a new rule a year ago titled ‘Failure IS an Option.’ https://learningomnivores.com/rules/failure-is-an-option/

Karen put this in her book, “Failure is an Option – Simply learning from your mistakes teaches you so much.” It makes sense to me.

Here is a closing thought by Karen. This is an opportunity to allow your students to express themselves, to develop lifelong learning skills, be curious, find their passions and strengths.  As always, there is more in this book to help create learning opportunities for students.  I recommend this book for those who want to start using PBL as a learning strategy.  There are many templates and great questions in the text.

Coyle, Daniel. (2018). The Culture Code. New York: Bantam Books

One of the reasons I recommend this book is that it includes many other sources, about learning cultures, e.g. Pixar, Google, Navy SEALS, Schools, etc. My confession up front.  There are so many meaningful concepts in this book I cannot possibly include everything in a short summary. Okay, this is the longest summary I have done.  Sorry but this  book is really good.

Question: ‘Why do certain groups add up to be greater than the sum of their parts, while others add up to be less?’

Peter Skillman he assembled a series of four-person groups at Stanford, the University of California, the University of Tokyo, and a few other places. He challenged each group to build the tallest possible structure using the following items:

• twenty pieces of uncooked spaghetti
• one yard of transparent tape
• one yard of string
• one standard-size marshmallow

The contest had one rule: The marshmallow had to end up on top.

The results – “kindergartners built structures that averaged twenty-six inches tall, while business school students built structures that averaged less than ten inches.” Teams of kindergartners also defeated teams of lawyers (who built towers that averaged fifteen inches) as well as teams of CEOs (twenty-two inches).

Why did this happen? It is the combined efforts and the process that helps get better results rather than the individual knowledge and skills each person possesses. Rather than trying to prove how smart you are, kindergarteners worked in cooperation experimenting with different models, taking risks, adjusting to failures AND keeping focus on what is the outcome.

The kindergartners succeed not because they are e smarter but because they work together in a smarter way. we can measure its impact on the bottom line. (A strong culture increases net income 756 percent over eleven years, according to a Harvard study of more than two hundred companies.)

• Skill 1—Build Safety—explores how signals of connection generate bonds of belonging and identity.
• Skill 2—Share Vulnerability—explains how habits of mutual risk drive trusting cooperation.
• Skill 3—Establish Purpose—tells how narratives create shared goals and values.

Culture is a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal. It’s not something you are. It’s something you do.

SKILL 1 – Build Safety

Will Felps, who studies organizational behavior at the University of South Wales in Australia. Felps suggests three negative archetypes: the Jerk (an aggressive, defiant deviant), the Slacker (a withholder of effort), and the Downer (a depressive Eeyore type). The result from having a person play these individual negative archetypes.  Group performance diminished by 30-40%. So, bad apples do have an effect.  Refusing to address these issues will negatively influence the outcomes.

The following observation really caught my attention. First, we tend to think group performance depends on measurable abilities like intelligence, skill, and experience, not on a subtle pattern of small behaviors. Second surprise is that Jonathan succeeds without taking any of the actions we normally associate with a strong leader.

These interactions were consistent whether the group was a military unit or a movie studio or an inner-city school. I made a list:

• Close physical proximity, often in circles
• Profuse amounts of eye contact
• Physical touch (handshakes, fist bumps, hugs)
• Lots of short, energetic exchanges (no long speeches)
• High levels of mixing; everyone talks to everyone
• Few interruptions
• Lots of questions
• Intensive, active listening
• Humor, laughter
• Small, attentive courtesies (thank-you’s, opening doors, etc.)

Alex Pentland, MIT, wrote a book titled Social Physics (2014). He found language is made up of belonging cues. Are we safe here? What’s our future with these people? Are there dangers lurking?

Belonging cues possess three basic qualities:

1. Energy: They invest in the exchange that is occurring
2. Individualization: They treat the person as unique and valued
3. Future orientation: They signal the relationship will continue

The key to creating psychological safety, as Alex Pentland and Amy Edmondson emphasize, is to recognize how deeply obsessed our unconscious brains are with it. A mere hint of belonging is not enough; one or two signals are not enough. We are built to require lots of signaling, over and over.  

Overall Pentland’s studies show that team performance is driven by five measurable factors:

1. Everyone in the group talks and listens in roughly equal measure, keeping contributions short.
2. Members maintain high levels of eye contact, and their conversations and gestures are energetic.
3. Members communicate directly with one another, not just with the team leader.
4. Members carry on back-channel or side conversations within the team.
5. Members periodically break, go exploring outside the team, and bring information back to share with the others.

Coyle shares a story about the competition between a company call Overture which was well funded and had very smart people, from major universities, on their team.  The goal was to build a software engine with a search function and connect it to advertisements.  This story is similar to the Langley v. Wright Bros competition for designing airplanes.  Overture was beaten out by an unknown group called Google.  It seems safer was better than smarter.  Humm, any applications to your organization?

Belonging feels like it happens from the inside out, but in fact it happens from the outside in. Our social brains light up when they receive a steady accumulation of almost invisible cues: We are close, we are safe, we share a future. Basic questions: Are we connected? Do we share a future? Are we safe?

I ask, ‘how safe is your company, school, or surroundings?’ As this relates to schools, researchers discovered that one particular form of feedback boosted student effort and performance so immensely that they deemed it “magical feedback.” Students who received it chose to revise their papers far more often than students who did not, and their performance improved significantly. The feedback was not complicated. In fact, it consisted of one simple phrase. I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them. That’s it. Just nineteen words it contains three separate cues:

1. You are part of this group.
2. This group is special; we have high standards here.
3. I believe you can reach those standards.

What cues are you sending in your organization?

There is a story about Tony Hsieh, Zappos.  He wants to create collisions. Collisions—defined as serendipitous personal encounters— are, he believes, the lifeblood of any organization, the key driver of creativity, community, and cohesion. I have read about the ‘watercooler effect’ in other books.  How do you get people talking, sharing ideas, and refining what works?

Each of the three parts, called Skills, conclude with ‘Ideas for Action.’

Part One Skill – Build Safety – Ideas for Action

Spotlight Your Fallibility Early On-Especially If You’re a Leader. I like Amy Edmondson’s quote, “hug the messenger.”

Preview Future Connection. A study by Amir Goldberg at Stanford showed that it was possible to predict how long employees stayed by how frequently their emails contained family references and swear words.

Overdo Thank-You’s. Gregg Popovich takes each of his star players aside and thanks them for allowing him to coach them. When Coyle visited KIPP Infinity, a remarkable charter school in Harlem, New York, he witnessed teachers thanking one another over and over. Here is the unheralded person who makes our success possible.

Be Painstaking in the Hiring Process  See Lazlo Bock (2015), Work Rules.

Eliminate Bad Apples’  New Zealand All-Blacks, the rugby squad that ranks as one of the most successful teams on the planet, achieve this through a rule that simply states, “No Dickheads.” It’s simple, and that’s why it’s effective.

Create Safe, Collision-Rich Spaces Create spaces that maximize collisions.

Make Sure Everyone Has a Voice

Pick Up Trash:  John Wooden, the team’s legendary head coach, was picking up trash in the locker room. “Here was a man who had already won three national championships,”

Capitalize on Threshold Moments:  “We need you to help us make our films better “It’s incredibly powerful,”

Avoid Giving Sandwich Feedback

Embrace Fun

SKILL 2 – Share Vulnerability – Ideas for Action

There is a story of an airplane that had an explosion and how the crew managed to land the plane.  The crew of Flight 232 communicated at a rate of more than sixty notifications per minute

The crew of Flight 232 succeeded not because of their individual skills but because they were able to combine those skills into a greater intelligence. They demonstrated that a series of small, humble exchanges—Anybody have any ideas? Tell me what you want, and I’ll help you—can unlock a group’s ability to perform. The key involves the willingness to perform a certain behavior that goes against our every instinct: sharing vulnerability.

Other stories include Navy SEALS, candor-filled moments happen in the After-Action Review (AAR). The AAR is a gathering that takes place immediately after each mission or training session: Where did we fail? What did each of us do, and why did we do it? What will we do differently next time? AARs can be raw, painful, and filled with pulses of emotion and uncertainty.

Pixar, those uncomfortable moments happen in what they call BrainTrust meetings. The BrainTrust meeting is not fun. But it’s also where those movies get better. Pixar president Ed Catmull. “it  is the most important thing we do by far. It depends on completely candid feedback.”

A concept that interested me was the ‘vulnerability loop.’ Trust comes down to context. And what drives it is the sense that you’re vulnerable, that you need others and can’t do it on your own.”  Vulnerability doesn’t come after trust—it precedes it

The book describes some people who energize thinking.  One person was Harry Nyquist at Bell Labs.  He was characterized as ‘fatherly’ and having ‘relentless curiosity.’  They said he drew people out and got them thinking. People described him as having ‘relentless curiosity.’ If we think of successful cultures as engines of human cooperation, then the Nyquists are the spark plugs.

Another person cited is Roshi Givechi works at the New York office of IDEO, the international design firm headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Givechi is a designer. Unofficially, her role is to serve as ‘roving catalyst’, involved in a number of projects, helping the teams navigate the design process. WOW, I want people like that on my team.

Robert Bales, one of the first scientists to study group communication, discovered that while questions comprise only 6 percent of verbal interactions, they generate 60 percent of ensuing discussions. Here are some examples of cues that encourage thinking:

• Maybe you’ve had an experience like this . . .
• Your work might be similar . . .
• The reason I was pausing there was . . .

Part Two Skill – Build Safety – Ideas for Action

Make Sure the Leader Is Vulnerable First and Often: Laszlo Bock, former head of People Analytics at Google, recommends that leaders ask their people three questions:

• What is one thing that I currently do that you’d like me to continue to do.
• What is one thing that I don’t currently do frequently enough that you think I should do more often?
• What can I do to make you more effective?

Over communicate Expectations:  (CEO Tim Brown incessantly repeats his mantra that ‘the more complex the problem, the more help you need to solve.’

 Among the refrains:

• Collaborate and Make Others Successful:
• Going Out of Your Way to Help Others Is the Secret Sauce.

Deliver the Negative Stuff in Person:  One of the best methods for handling negative news is that of Joe Maddon, the coach of the Chicago Cubs and avowed oenophile. Maddon keeps a glass bowl filled with slips of paper, each inscribed with the name of an expensive wine. When a player violates a team rule, Maddon asks them to draw a slip of paper out of the bowl, purchase that wine, and uncork it with their manager. In other words, Maddon links the act of discipline to the act of reconnection.

When Forming New Groups, Focus on Two Critical Moments:  these two critical moments happen early in a group’s life. They are:

1. The first vulnerability
2. The first disagreement

These small moments are doorways to two possible group paths: Are we about appearing strong or about exploring the landscape together? Are we about winning interactions, or about learning together?

Listen Like a Trampoline:   Good listening is about more than nodding attentively; it’s about adding insight and creating moments of mutual discover) t effective listeners do four things:

1. They interact in ways that make the other person feel safe and supported
2. They take a helping, cooperative stance
3. They occasionally ask questions that gently and constructively challenge old assumptions
4. They make occasional suggestions to open up alternative paths

As Zenger and Folkman put it, the most effective listeners behave like trampolines. They aren’t passive sponges. They are active responders, absorbing what the other person gives, supporting them, and adding energy to help the conversation gain velocity and altitude. Also like trampolines, effective listeners gain amplitude through repetition. “I’ve found that whenever you ask a question, the first response you get is usually not the answer—it’s just the first response.

In Conversation. Resist the Temptation to Reflexively Add Value:  The most important part of creating vulnerability often resides not in what you say but in what you do not say. This means having the willpower to forgo easy opportunities to offer solutions and make suggestions. Skilled listeners do not interrupt with phrases like Hey, here’s an idea or Let me tell you what worked for me in a similar situation because they understand that it’s not about them.          

Givechi. ” ‘Say more about that. Givechi calls “a scaffold of thoughtfulness.” The scaffold underlies the conversation, supporting the risks and vulnerabilities. Without it, the conversation collapses.

Use Candor-Generating Practices like AARs, BrainTrusts, and Red Teaming.  The good AAR structure is to use five questions:

1. What were our intended results?
2. What were our actual results?
3. What caused our results?
4. What will we do the same next time?
5. What will we do differently?

Some teams also use a Before-Action Review, which is built around a similar set of questions: .

• What are our intended results?
• What challenges can we anticipate?
• What have we or others learned from similar situations.’
• What will make us successful this time.

Red Teaming is a military-derived method for testing strategies; you create a “red team” to come up with ideas to disrupt or defeat your proposed plan. The key is to select a red team that is not wedded to the existing plan in any way, and to give them freedom to think in new ways that the planners might not have anticipated.

As a high school principal, I have used a Red Team several times to SAVE TIME.  I ask some of my most creative (yes, sometimes hard to deal with students) to give me feedback before implementing a policy change or new project.  I ask this group of students to tell me how they will beat the system.  It usually take about fifteen minutes for five or six students to figure out a way to sabotage a solution.  Love those kids.

AARs, BrainTrusts, and Red Teams each generate the same underlying action: to build the habit of opening up vulnerabilities so that the group can better understand what works, what doesn’t work, and how to get better.

Aim for Candor; Avoid Brutal Honesty: Giving honest feedback is tricky, because it can easily result in people feeling hurt or demoralized. Pixar, is to aim for candor and avoid brutal honesty.

Embrace the Discomfort:  two discomforts: emotional pain and a sense of inefficiency. the key is to understand that the pain is not a problem but the path to building a stronger group.

Align Language with Action:  navy pilots returning to aircraft carriers do not “land” but are “recovered.” IDEO doesn’t have “project managers”— it has “design community leaders.” Groups at Pixar do not offer “notes” on early versions of films; they “plus” them by offering solutions to problems.

Build a Wall Between Performance Review and Professional Development  to keep performance review and professional development separate. Performance evaluation tends to be a high-risk, inevitably judgmental interaction, often with salary-related consequences. Development, on the other hand, is about identifying strengths and providing support and opportunities for growth.

Use Flash Mentoring:  pick someone you want to learn from and shadow them – instead of months or years, it lasts a few hours. Those brief interactions help break down barriers inside a group, build relationships, and facilitate the awareness that fuels helping behavior.

Make the Leader Occasionally Disappear:  One of the best at this is Gregg Popovich. Most NBA teams run time-outs according to a choreographed protocol: First the coaches huddle as a group for a few seconds to settle on a message, then they walk over to the bench to deliver that message to the players. However, Spurs coaches huddle for a time-out. . . and then never walk over to the players. The players sit on the bench, waiting for Popovich to show up. Then, as they belatedly realize he isn’t coming, they take charge, start talking among themselves, and figure out a plan

Skill 3 – Establish Purpose

1965, a Harvard psychologist named Robert Rosenthal found a way. Harvard Test of Inflected Acquisition, which could accurately predict which children would excel academically in the coming year. The teachers were informed, these students were special. The first-graders gained  27 IQ points {versus 12 points for the rest of the class); and the second-graders gained 17 points (versus 7 points).

Here’s the twist: the Harvard Test of Inflected Acquisition was complete baloney. In fact, the “high-potentials” had been selected at random. The simple, glowing idea—This child has unusual potential for intellectual growth—aligned motivations, awareness, and behaviors.

Rosenthal classified the changes into four categories.

1. Warmth (the teachers were kinder, more attentive, and more connective)
2. Input (the teachers provided more material for ^learning)
3. Response-opportunity (the teachers called on the students more often, and listened more carefully)
4. Feedback (the teachers provided more, especially when the student made a mistake)

Every time the teacher interacted with the student, a connection lit up in the teacher’s brain between the present and the future. Each time the student did something ambiguous, the teacher gave the student the benefit of the doubt. Each time the student made a mistake, the teacher presumed that the student needed better feedback.

Amy Edmondson observed two hospitals to find out how a new procedure would help patients.  She focused on what make successful teams which led to successful treatment for patients. The answer, Edmondson discovered, lay in the patterns of real-time signals through which the team members were connected (or not) with the purpose of the work. These signals consisted of five basic types:

1. Framing: Successful teams conceptualized MICS (the new procedure) as a learning experience that would benefit patients and the hospital. Unsuccessful teams conceptualized MICS as an add-on to existing practices
2. Roles: Successful teams were explicitly told by the team leader why their individual and collective skills were important for the team’s success, and why it was important for them to perform as a team. Unsuccessful teams were not.
3. Rehearsal: Successful teams did elaborate dry runs of the procedure, preparing in detail, explaining the new protocols, and talking about communication. Unsuccessful teams took minimal steps to prepare.
4. Explicit encouragement to speak up: Successful teams were told by team leaders to speak up if they saw a problem; they were actively coached through the feedback process. The leaders of unsuccessful teams did little coaching, and as a result team members were hesitant to speak up.
5. Active reflection: Between surgeries, successful teams went over performance, discussed future cases, and suggested improvements. For example, the team leader at Mountain Medical wore a head mounted camera during surgery to help facilitate discussion and feedback. Unsuccessful teams tended not to do this.

Note what factors are not on this list: experience, surgeon status, and organizational support. These qualities mattered far less than the simple, steady pulse of real-time signals that channeled attention toward the larger goal. Edmondson discovered the value of those signals is not in their information but in the fact that they orient the team to the task and to one another.

Each year around a thousand new restaurants open in New York City. All are launched with optimism, confidence, and high hopes for success. Five years later eight hundred of them have vanished without a trace, for various reasons that are, in essence, the same reason. A successful restaurant, like a successful Antarctic expedition, depends on ceaseless proficiency. Good food is not enough. Good location is not enough. Good service, training, branding, leadership, adaptability, and luck are not enough. Survival depends on putting all of it together, night after night. If you fail, you disappear.

The reason Meyer’s restaurants are so successful is the warm, connective feeling they create, a positive feeling amongst the staff.  They do not do ‘skunking.’ Skunking is spraying negative energy into the workplace, as skunks do when they’re frightened.

Meyer’s catchphrases focus on how to respond to mistakes.

• You can’t prevent mistakes, but you can solve problems graciously.
• If it ain’t broke, fix it.
• Mistakes are like waves; servers are really surfers.
• The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled.

Catmull has learned to focus less on the ideas than on people. One of Bill’s favorite quotes is from Ed Catmull: “Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they’ll find a way to screw it up. Give a mediocre idea to a good team, and they’ll find a way to make it better.”

Catmull has almost no direct involvement with creative decisions. This is because he realizes that

• the teams are in a better position to solve problems
• a suggestion from a powerful person tends to be followed.

Catmull is congenitally wary of mottoes and catchphrases, handful of “Ed-isms” are heard in Pixar’s corridors. Here are a few:

• Hire people smarter than you.
• Fail early, fail often.
• Listen to everyone’s ideas.
• Face toward the problems.
• B-level work is bad for your soul.
• It’s more important to invest in good people than in good ideas.

Part Three Skill – Establish Purpose – Ideas for Action

The difference with successful cultures seems to be that they use the crisis to crystallize their purpose.’ It’s not as simple as carving a mission statement in granite or encouraging everyone to recite from a hymnal of catchphrases.           

Name and Rank Your Priorities’  Most successful groups end up with a small handful of priorities (five or fewer), and many, not coincidentally, end up placing their in-group relationships—how they treat one another—at the top of the list.

Be Ten Times as Clear About Your Priorities as You Think You Should Be:  Inc. magazine asked executives at six hundred companies to estimate the percentage of their workforce who could name the company’s top three priorities. The executives predicted that 64 percent would be able to name them. When Inc. then asked employees to name the priorities, only 2 percent could do so.

Figure Out Where Your Group Aims for Proficiency and Where It Aims for Creativity  You want to spotlight the goal and provide crystal-clear directions to the checkpoints along the way.

Embrace the Use of Catchphrases:  When you look at successful groups, a lot of their internal language features catchphrases that often sound obvious, rah-rah, or corny. The trick to building effective catchphrases is to keep them simple, action-oriented, and forthright: “

• Create fun and a little weirdness” (Zappos), “
• Talk less, do more” (IDEO), ‘
• Work hard, be nice” (KIPP),
• “Pound the rock” (San Antonio Spurs),
• “Leave the jersey in a better place” (New Zealand All-Blacks),
• “Create raves for guests” (Danny Meyer’s restaurants).

Measure What Really Matters   Personal Emotional Connections (PECs) or creating a bond outside the conversation about the product . So when a customer service agent spent a company-record 10 hours and 29 minutes on a call, Zappos celebrated and sent out a press release.

Use Artifacts  the battle gear of soldiers killed in combat at the Navy SEAL headquarters; the Oscar trophies accompanied by hand-drawn sketches of the original concepts at Pixar.

Focus on Bar-Setting Behaviors  One challenge of building purpose is to translate abstract ideas (values, mission) into concrete terms. One way successful groups do this is by spotlighting a single task and using it to define their identity and set the bar for their expectation.

References:

Bock, Lazlo. (2015). Work Rules.  New York:  Twelve

Catmull, Ed (2014). Creativity, Inc.ˆ New York:  Random House.

Edmondson, Amy. (2012). Teaming.   San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass

Edmondson, Amy. (2019). The Fearless Organization. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons

Pentland, Alex. (2014). Social Physics.  New York:  Penguin

Wagner, Frank. (2015). The Power of Total Commitment.  SCC Marshall Goldsmith

I write this on New Year’s Eve.  A time of reflection for me. I remember a quote from Ron Edmonds, 1979.  It is still true today.

“We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us.  We already know more than we need to do that. Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far.”

As Frank Wagner wrote, The Power of Total Commitment. Who are the people with total commitment for our kids?  Who can engage in positive ways to leave a legacy of learning for our kids and colleagues?  Who wants our communities to model ethical and humane behaviors that are preached in most religions?  I DO.

My notes are based on an allegory of conversations between a founder of a company who is passing the leadership to a new CEO.  I am only picking out a few of the lessons contained within.  I can strongly support reading it as many of us are developing future leaders in staff, and most importantly, students.  Neil Postman said, “Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.”  We have work to do to insure a good future for ourselves and our kids.

In the foreword, Ken Blanchard said, “Many of the crises we face today in our personal and professional growth are not due to lack of leadership. They are based on a lack of commitment.”  Commitment builds trust.  Most of us track leaders by listening to what they say and watching what they do.  The closer those two are, trust increases.  The farther apart they are, the less trust in the leader and the system.  Who do you hang around?  Who do you work with?

An example I use in workshops is in the area of diversity.  Just about every mission statement and goals schools and districts profess have some statement about believing in diversity, embracing diversity, or committed to diversity.  My question for the people working in the system is, ‘what will I see or hear that tells me you believe in diversity?’  Words without actions are rumors.  NOTE:  (mini rant) I do not like the statement tolerate diversity.  Really?  How about embracing and learning from diversity. Jeez,

Frank promotes three truths.

1. Values drive commitment – I want to hear what teachers and leaders believe and what they value. What keeps you awake at night? Who influences you?  What events have shaped your attitudes?  What makes you happy? People want to understand your personal story. They want to know why they ought to be following you.
2. You either lead by example, or you don’t lead at all. What is credibility behaviorally? When we asked this question, the answer came back loud and clear: You must do what you say you will do. As Sam (a character in the book) says, “I realized no one escapes from leading by example. The only question is, what example are we setting?
3. The best leaders are the best learners. Leadership can be learned through active experimentation, observation of others, study in the classroom or reading books, or simply reflecting on one’s own and others’ experiences. What was more important was the extent to which individuals engaged in whatever style worked for them Which comes first, learning or leading. Learning comes first.

So, how do you help make your commitments happen?  One way is to persist in acknowledging, implementing, and continually checking on progress.  People forget, leaders have to remind them.  Leaders have to overcommunicate.  I often ask leaders ‘on a scale of 1-10, 1 (one being you don’t know how to spell the word learning and 10 (ten) learning is in every sentence that comes out of your mouth , what would they say?’

Thomas Edison’s line about success being 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. To me commitment really requires two things.

1. you have to believe in something. A prerequisite for commitment is a sense of direction.
2. you also need the willingness to persist and act consistently with what you believe in over the long haul.

Jim Collins (2001) uses the metaphor of a fox and a hedgehog.  I have been a fox for years, wanting to know more and more.  The hedgehog, on the other hand, stays focused, persists, and sees a preferred future. The ability to stick to focus on what is important is essential to effective leadership and management.

Here are questions that are in the book to remind and refocus leaders on their commitment.

• Did I help our customers today? As a school leader my customers are staff and students.
• Did I help in achieving any of our key results?
• Did I help our people today?
• Did I help our Company’s mission and strategy? What is your personal mission? What is your professional mission?
• Was I a good role model of our Company’s values? Oliver Wendell Holmes has a quote, ‘what I do speaks so loudly, they can’t hear what I am saying.’

Another question to help leaders focus is, ‘How can you get others to focus on what’s most important?’ Focus on the one-hundred meters in front of you. He beat into my head that looking too far out in front or too closely within one’s own psyche were disaster-prone scenarios. Because they lost sight of their immediate, controllable surroundings. 

If the leader could learn from someone, s/he took full advantage of the situation. So, who do you learn from?  Who would you like to learn from?  Who do you hang around, people who zap you (energize) or people who sap you (drag you down)?

Here is a suggestion given in the book to help implement and sustain learning.

1. Focus on what’s important
2. Lead by example
3. Reward success.

“Our job is to reward success, not failure.”

There is no end to learning.  Who believes the future will be the same as now?  Not Me. “The most insidious disease in business is complacency. I call it psychosclerosis:  hardening of the attitudes.”          F.G. “Buck” Rodgers

Managing disrespect is as important as anything we’ve talked about so far. Remember I’m carefully choosing my words here. What you are asked to do is manage disrespect. I didn’t say your role is to cure or solve it. “The word manage connotes an on-going process.”. Too many times in the past, I’ve taken too passive a stance when I saw someone taking potshots at what I’m committed to.”

“By doing nothing, you give approval for inappropriate actions.” I have also heard the phrase, ‘what you permit you promote.’ I found this attributed to Liz Jazwick. Silence can signal more than action if we allow bad behavior.  Will Felps has done a study that there is a reduction of 40% by having one bad apple on your team.  In my opinion that is too high of a cost to pay for tolerating poor behavior.

To combat complacency, Frank offers this idea.  Curiosity is a sure antidote for complacency. If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself, but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer one defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. I think this is good advice.  Not only does it focus on knowing yourself and others, learning from real life and getting feedback is extremely important.  I suggest we change the “F” word to ‘feedback’ rather than failure.  Once we have feedback, we can use that learning for what Marshall Goldsmith calls ‘feedforward.’

Getting feedback from multiple sources, assuming  trust and honesty, can create better results.  If the only person you listen to is yourself, you have a fool for a teacher. James Suroweiki (2004) in his book, Wisdom of Crowds, suggests that over 80% of the decisions by a team are better than the smartest person on the team. Reason? More perspectives, more ideas usually leads to better decisions because we take into account more information and the results both positive and negative.

People can bounce their ideas off of and listen to people who have the capability of sparking their creativity. The credit belongs to others. They’ve shaped my thinking and improved upon It. Changed it in ways I’d never have achieved alone. And, therein lies their usefulness.

Frank Grisanti, a businessman and consultant has Four Rules:

1. Only do business with people at your level of integrity
2. Only accept work you are fully qualified to perform
3. Know the rules of the business you are working with
4. Don’t be a pig

They sound good to me. Agreeing to abide by rules like this before working together can help move at a faster pace.  A safe place to work and interact normally generates more ideas and better ideas.

Without change, you’re not improving anything. Before any real change can take place, two steps are crucial:

1. looking for a better way
2. learning from others.

How do you leverage your skills and the skills of those around you? Have you ever thought about what you don’t have on your team?  How do you get those skills to be more productive? Robert Pascale once said, “Nothing fails like success.”  Once we are successful, sometimes we think we have found THE answer or the behaviors will hold true for every problem and forever.  HA.  Things change and I have rarely found one thing that works in every school with every staff member.  I say may times, “you need repertoire and the agility to use that repertoire.”

My favorite quote that Frank has in this book is from Mark Twain. ”Anyone who has had a bull by the tail knows five or six things more than someone who hasn’t.”  Yes I know that every athletic coach, drama coach, etc. wasn’t the best performer and they can still be an effective coach. However, having a lot of experiences to draw from can be a value added knowledge base.  If you have been in the arena, it can be an advantage, IF YOU HAVE LEARNED FROM THE EXPERIENCE.                       

 “A person who won’t assess an upcoming risk has no advantage over the person who can t.”

President Teddy Roosevelt said about the strong man who stumbles compared to the critic. The credit belongs to the man marred by dust and sweat and blood in the arena who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short, time and time again; who knows great enthusiasm; and who devotes himself to a worthy cause. At best, he knows the triumph of high achievement. At worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. His place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

So, get in the arena, bring your repertoire, learn constantly, and take the lessons forward.  Finally, share your learnings with those who want to get better.  Be the learning catalyst that makes the system go forward.

A final word from Frank. You can’t rest on past success. You have to continuously look for a better way. Never stop learning or challenging yourself*and others. Finally, you have to persist in taking risks. Doing all of these takes courage. A lot of it.

As in the past, italics means direct quotes from the book.  You can order this book from Amazon.  If you want multiple copies, feel free to email Frank directly at coach.frank@gmail.com

There are more important points than I have represented here.  Good reading to all.

References

Collins, J.  (2001).  Good to great.  New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

Edmonds, R. (1989). History of effective schools. Retrieved from http://www.effectiveschools.com/about-us

Surowiecki, J.  (2004).  The wisdom of crowds.  New York: Anchor Books.

Boaler, Jo.(2019).  Limitless Mind. New York: HarperCollins

This book dispels myths about learning that many people still hold to be true. Boaler synthesizes research from Dweck on Mindset, Duckworth on Grit, Ericsson on deliberate practice, and Grant on creative thinking among others.

No longer can we believe there is fixed intelligence from birth.  Neuroplasticity means we all can learn at any age and expand our neural networks no matter what we are born with. Boaler works mainly in the area of math and the lessons are applicable to all disciplines.

Here are the six keys of learning included in Boaler’s work:

LEARNING KEY #1 – Every time we learn, our brains form, strengthen, or connect neural pathways. We need to replace the idea that learning ability is fixed, with the recognition that we are all on a growth journey.

I, for one, am happy to hear this.  As I get older it means I can continually learn more.  K. Anders Ericsson has done research on ‘deliberate practice’ which is a major cause of getting closer to an expert level in a chosen field.

Even when a young girl had one hemisphere removed, the remaining hemisphere started to accommodate and take on functions of the brain that were lost.

We are not born with these pathways; they develop as we learn— and the more we struggle, the better the learning and brain growth.

LEARNING KEY #2 – The times when we are struggling and making mistakes are the best times for brain growth. Struggling to learn grows more connections.

            www.youcubed.org has research that can accelerate our learning strategies.

In the U.S. and UK we do a lot of tracking in our schools.  Unfortunately, 88% of those who are put in tracks early in elementary school are still in the same tracks throughout their K-12 education.

San Francisco Unified is a large and diverse urban school district whose school board voted, unanimously, to remove advanced classes until eleventh grade. Within two years, during which all students took the same mathematics classes until tenth grade, algebra failure rates fell from 40 to 8 percent of students in the district and the number of students taking advanced classes after tenth grade went up by one-third.


Another important quote is from J.K. Rowling. Failure is not fatal and can be a learning opportunity. Rowling sent her Harry Potter manuscript to twelve different publishers, all of whom rejected it. “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.”

We have to get over the fixed brain myth that limits the students and those who teach kids.  The fixed-brain myths have been devastating for students of all ages who have been written off in schools, classrooms, and homes, millions of children who have been made to believe they cannot achieve.

            When we are willing to face obstacles and make mistakes in the learning process, we enhance neural connections that expedite and improve the learning experience.  Thirty years ago I heard the HR director of a suburban school say he believed in IWWCW.  Puzzled, I waited for him to explain.  He said that stood for “In What Way Can We.”  That stuck with me. Look for ways to accomplish our goals.

Curricula and textbooks are designed with trivial, unchallenging questions, so that students will get a high percentage of answers correct.

            For students to experience growth, they need to be working on questions that challenge them, questions that are at the edge of their understanding. And they need to be working on them in an environment that encourages mistakes and makes students aware of the benefits of mistakes.

            Nonevaluative self-testing or peer testing is most beneficial. When the pressure of testing increases it has a negative effect on many students.  Stress reduces our thinking ability.

Japanese teachers want the students to struggle—and recalls the times when they would purposely give the wrong answer so that students would go back and work with foundational concepts.


            The defining characteristic of the lesson in China was struggle—the teacher deliberately put the students in situations where they became stuck and had to think hard.

LEARNING KEY #3 – When we change our beliefs, our bodies and our brains physically change as well.

There is more and more conflict in our world and in the field of education. I found the following passages encouraging.

David Yeager and Carol Dweck have conducted important research on mindsets and conflict. They found that people with fixed mindsets (individuals who believe that their abilities and qualities are static and can’t be changed) have a heightened drive for aggressive retaliation during conflicts.

            The researchers found that people with a growth mindset respond to conflict with less hatred, less shame, and less desire to be aggressive growth mindsets are less prejudiced about race.

            So, if you want to be successful in dealing with conflict, it is all right to struggle.  Just keep expanding your repertoire for effectively managing conflict.

Bill’s self-promotion:  I am currently working on a book for Solution Tree on ways to productively respond to resistance.

The “Power of Yet.”  When a person is trying to learn something, add the word YET.  I am not good at drawing, YET.  I haven’t learned to factor binomials, YET.  This signals the situational is conditional and learning is still possible.

LEARNING KEY #4 – Neural pathways and learning are optimized when considering ideas with a multidimensional approach.

Sometimes we signal that learning is function of time or the student has not put in enough effort.  Be careful of that.  One of the things that Carol says keeps her up at night is when students are told to put in effort and that success is all about hard work, without their being given the tools by teachers to learn more effectively. “Effort is key for students’ achievement, but it is not the only thing. Students need to try new strategies and seek input from others when they are stuck.”

Although we are not born with identical brains, there is no such thing as a “math brain,” “writing brain,” “artistic brain,” or “musical brain.” We all have to develop the brain pathways needed for success, and we all have the potential to learn and achieve at the highest levels.

Learning new knowledge requires different pathways in the brain—pathways that focus on attention, memory, reasoning, communication, and visualization.

Many people believe that Albert Einstein was a genius.  Me included.  However, the following are some of his quotes.  Nice to know humility was present.

• It’s not that I am smart. It is just that I stay with problems longer.
• I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.
• In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

Ways to Encourage Brain Communication and Development

• Can you solve the question with numbers?
• Can you solve the question with visuals that connect to the numbers through color coding?
• Can you create another representation of the ideas? A sketch, doodle, physical object, or form of movement?

Every Wednesday, teacher named Marc, presents his “favorite no”—a mathematical problem with mistakes that the students have to work to find the right answer. When he moved to the multidimensional, mindset approach, the success rate went up to 70 percent from 6.

LEARNING KEY #5 – Speed of thinking is not a measure of aptitude. Learning is optimized when we approach ideas, and life, with creativity and flexibility.

Neuroscientist Sian Beilock has studied the brain when people are working under pressure. A particular area of the brain called the “working memory” is needed when we do calculations. The working memory is sometimes referred to as the “search engine of the mind” and, like all areas of our brains, is developed through practice. What Beilock has shown is that when we are stressed or under pressure, our working memory is impeded.

Another point is learning in schools is not a race.  Learning is not time certain; it is learning certain.  Some of the strongest mathematical thinkers are very slow with numbers and other aspects of mathematics. They do not think quickly; they think slowly and deeply.

New information for me was how parents can affect math anxiety. Sian Beilock’s research has revealed interesting associations that tell us just how damaging such messages are. In one study, she and colleagues found that the amount of math anxiety expressed by parents predicted their child’s achievement in school. And their math anxiety impacted students negatively only if parents helped with homework.

There is some advantages to having some things memorized.  If that is what education and learning is about, we may be in trouble.  In every country the students taking a memorization approach were the lowest achievers, and countries that had high numbers of memorizers—the US was one of these—were among the lowest achieving in the world.

Adam Grant notes that the students in the US often regarded as “prodigies”—the ones who “learn to read at age two, play Bach at four, breeze through calculus at six”—rarely go on to change the world.

            LEARNING KEY #6 – Connecting with people and ideas enhances neural pathways and learning.

Connections and collaborations have a tremendous amount to offer the process of learning and living. Vygotsky said years ago that learning is social. Learning with and from more people widens our information and perspectives.

When trying to figure out why African-American students had such a gap in mathematics Uri Treisman, a mathematician at the University of Texas at Austin, found, through studying the students at work, was that there was one difference—the African American students worked on math problems by themselves, whereas the Chinese American students worked collaboratively.

Uri and his team set up workshops for the more vulnerable students, including students of color. The academic improvement that resulted from the workshops was significant. Within two years, the failure rate of African American students had dropped to zero, and the African American and Latino students who attended the workshops were outperforming their white and Asian classmates.

            This sounds promising for us to rethink how we teach and learn math. I have found in my years of observing teachers, those who talk openly about their challenges in learning and solving problems, students feel more connected and know that teachers are human too.

Learning from others who don’t think like you can be very rewarding.  This quote might be a little out there but fits for creativity for sure. Phineas T. Barnum: “Whoever made a difference by being like everyone else?”

Asking students has always proven to provide insights into problem solving for

1. So. when an interviewer asked students, “What do you guys think it takes to be successful in math?” here is what they said.

• Being able to work with other people.
• Be open-minded, listening to everybody’s ideas.
• You have to hear other people’s opinions, because you might be wrong.

These students were taught that part of being a community, such as a class of learners, involves looking out for each other. Valuing both growth and difference is a powerful way of opening minds.

            So my final advice for you is to embrace struggle and failure, to take risks, and to not let people obstruct your pathways. If a barrier or roadblock is put in your way, find a way around it, take a different approach.

As always, there is much more in this book than I have represented here.  I highly recommend this book for a positive approach to learning and adapting the thoughts in our schools.

Towery, Twyman. (1995) The Wisdom of Wolves. Franklin, TN: Wessex House

I think the following credo could work for our school cultures.  Read it and see what you think.

WOLF CREDO:        Respect the elders

                                    Teach the young

                                    Cooperate with the pack

                                    Play when you can

                                    Hunt when you must

                                    Rest in between

                                    Share your affections

                                    Voice your feelings

                                    Leave your mark                                   July 17, 1988 Del Goetz

Human and animals have existed on the planet forever.  Many cultures have learned from watching animals interact with each other and nature. This is the earth’s balance.  As some species become extinct, we lose the possibility of learning about their culture. They understood that they were a part of nature, rather than nature being a part of them.

When we believe the humans are superior and can change the world against nature, we get into trouble.  Too much ego makes us vulnerable. As Peter Senge said in his book The Fifth Discipline, “Nature bats last.”

A wolf pack remains a model of playfulness, teamwork, efficiency, and sharing.  Our educational  system is staggering, while the wolf pack, as always, puts the education, protection, parenting, and mentoring of their young first.

The following are some excerpts from this book might be useful. There are more heading and concepts than represented in this summary.  I hope these passages are helpful in creating learning cultures.

Teamwork

The lead wolf expends the most energy.  He is the trailblazer, crashing through the soft snow, allowing each succeeding wolf to conserve energy.  When the lead wolf tires, he may drop off to the side and allow the next wolf to assume the lead positions. Each member must be prepared too not only carry their own load, but to assume greater leadership at any time.  The viability of the organization may well depend upon it.

This is why we want to develop leadership at all levels including the students we serve.  Include them or be prepared to move toward more control.  Control is the opposite of trust.

A company is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.           Morris Weeks

We don’t seem to realize that our spouse and children aren’t nearly as interested in our job title as our taking time to relate to them as equals.  I wish I had accepted this earlier in life.

Unity Through Uniqueness

The secret is that the wolves are always careful not to duplicate each other.  Each wolf assume a unique pitch respecting the distinctiveness of the other members of the pack.  They are one, but they are unique, each contributing to the organization in their own individual way. Outstanding teams consist of individuals with differing gifts.

Diversity strengthens.  By this I mean we need all the skill sets we can acquire, all the multiple perspectives from people, and the commitment to civility in order to attract and connect with a world that continues to expand in diverse ways.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.     Martin Luther King, Jr.

Curiosity

What I know doesn’t impress me… what I don’t know excites me. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.                                                                                           Samuel Johnson

Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.                   William Arthur Ward

• • Inquisitive ones also offer greater opportunities for success.
  • What has amazed you today?
  • How are you at using your intelligence in unique and creative ways?

Intellectual curiosity has been identified by Adam Bryant as one of the most effective qualities of a leader.  Leaders these days need to know how to ask questions rather than telling others what to think.  As the degree of psychological safety increases, the pooled intelligence will increase and creativity will surface to solve problems.

Attitude

The attitude of the wolf can be summed up simply:  It is a constant visualization of success.  Wolves have mastered the technique of focusing their energies toward the activities that will lead to the accomplishment of their goals.

Which way do you look at problems.  Insurmountable or in what way can we solve this?

Get the right perspective.  When Goliath came against the Israelites, the soldiers all thought, “He’s so big we can never kill him.”  David looked at the same giant and thought, “He’s so big, how can I miss?”   Russ Johnson

Failure

While the wolf pack may be nature’s must formidable hunting machine, they have a failure rate of approximately 90%.  They never stop doing the little things, attending to every detail as they canvass endless miles each year in search of their prey.

Consider the following as reframing failure into feedback.  Once we receive feedback, we are able to use that information for feedforward (Goldsmith) to plan what to do next.  Adding to your repertoire provides more options to solve more problems.

Failure has no relevance to the wolf. The mistakes made are not viewed as failure, but become a part of the wolf’s collective knowledge.  Failure is an attitude, not a reality.

A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than a whole book of praise after a success.   Anonymous

Perseverance

Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.    Confucius

Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another. Walter Elliott

Perseverance is best taught by example. Students, staff, and community are watching.

Play

Wolves’ love of play is never exhausted, regardless of age.  Through experimental play, wolves learn how to acquire food and sustenance.  They also become physically stronger and mentally tougher through play. 

Don’t get so busy making a living that you don’t know what you’re living for.         Unknown

Southwest Airlines is a company that seems to thrive on zaniness.  It also means success.  This “low fare” airline has been rated number one by airline passengers.  Fun at work and terrific customer service obviously go hand in hand.

Creating positive cultures, including play, fun, and creative games can energize people.  There are many resources about happiness, laughter, and play making the culture more creative and increasing commitment to the goals of the company.

Death & Survival

Younger wolves respect the unique gifts the elders have to bestow upon them, which is shown by the deference they show them. Therefore, death to a single wise wolf, while damaging, is not usually fatal to the pack, for the younger wolves have been prepared.

The viable organization prizes training, coaching, and mentoring.            

• • Do you let others show that you would appreciate learning form them?
  • Do you know that studies who that people who have mentors have more successful personal and professional lies?
  • Are you willing to set aside your own ego to benefit from others’ experiences?

Loyalty

The wolf pack places education and training first, and their organization has stood the test of time.

In the final analysis it is not what you do for your children but what you have taught them to do for themselves that makes them successful human beings.                          Ann Landers

In human organizations we can use change as a tool, or let it use us.

Not everything that is faced can be changed.  But nothing can be changed until it is faced.            James Baldwin

Loyalty is also being able to speak truth to power. Wise leaders know who they can trust to tell them the truth.  John Gardner said, “Pity the poor leader who has unfriendly critics and uncritical friends.”

Conclusion

All things are connected… Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.

                                                                                                            Chief Seattle, 1854

A video about Wolves and the World