Tag: Leadership

How To Make The Most Of The First 5 Minutes Of Your Workshop

FacilitationPublished onUpdated onLeave a Comment on How To Make The Most Of The First 5 Minutes Of Your Workshop

And I am not talking about icebreakers

This article is part of an edited transcript of a great conversation with Jim Sill from Deploy Learning about facilitation and workshop leadership skills.

This section explores what it takes to create a workshop, training or meeting space where participants are heard and valued.

I share my approach to starting workshops and how I make the most of the first five to ten minutes.

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Google Forward Event at the Melbourne Arts Centre (2018)
Jim Sill ↘︎

When working with large groups, it can be challenging to create a space where individuals are heard and feel valued. Can you talk about your approach to that? How do we value the individuals in the room? How can we help them be heard?

Tom Barrett ↘︎

It starts with intentional design. Pay attention to the experience.

Yes, to content, for sure. Know what we are working on, but also recognise that everybody’s going to experience something together. So be intentional in the design of the experience.

Try to think through what the experience is going to be.

  • How will I gather feedback?
  • What am I doing at the beginning?
  • How do we transition into the first activity?

At the beginning of my face-to-face workshops, when I first started facilitating, I met people at the door as they came in, making sure that people in the first five or ten minutes were spoken to and were greeted with warmth and kindness.

I know that sounds obvious, but it’s easy to forget.

When your projector or display is not working, when you are trying to get that website running, you start to forget those things.

There’s been plenty of workshops where I’ve been in the middle of tech support, crunched over my laptop with a conference technician trying to get on the network, and people have started to come in. And I’ve just left it, and I’ve just gone and spoken to people because that’s what I’m there for.

One of the things I do to ensure that the workshop space is intentional is to set very clear protocols. Even in an hour session, I take five or ten minutes to talk about, ‘what are we here for?’ Let’s talk about that. Let’s be clear about that. If I need to do any sharing about agreed expectations, I would.

I also set a range of workshop protocols which are to do with participation and feedback. One of them, for example, is stepping up and stepping back. So I say at the beginning of the workshop:

“There’s an expectation on everybody today to step up and contribute. Today’s session involves your participation. You’re going to be part of it, but also notice the times when you need to step back. So step up and step back. Try to balance that.”

We need to communicate to workshop participants; these are the expectations to manage those expectations throughout the session then.

Invariably, when I take that five minutes to set protocols, there is a much higher likelihood of a successful workshop.

People might sit back too much, or they’re not going to participate in the intended way. And so, at the beginning of a meeting or workshop, talk about, “what are our protocols?”

We’ve all experienced this with generic staff meeting scenarios. We’ve got to switch our phones off— I’m talking specifically about how do we participate effectively? How do we contribute to this work? How do we cue our participants into what is expected of them so that they can be successful?

I might say things like:

“Today’s going to be a pretty creative session. So I was hoping you could tune into that part of your mindset, where we’re going to be quite creative. There’s a section later on where we’re going to be working on ideas together.”

I might even throw a follow-up question in there, “what might help us tune in to that type of participation?”

What I often say, Jim, is we take the time to talk about the talking. At the beginning of the workshop. Talk about the talking you’re going to do so that the expectations are clear in people’s minds.

In the first five minutes of your workshop:

  • Talk to as many people as you can, connect with them and learn their names or something about them.
  • Establish clear expectations about the workshop participation journey. (This is easy to communicate when you are intentional in your workshop design).
  • Set protocols about participation — talk about the talking.

3 Mental Models From Economics For Educators To Enhance Your Innovation

Innovation, Mental ModelsPublished onUpdated onLeave a Comment on 3 Mental Models From Economics For Educators To Enhance Your Innovation

Enhance your innovation efforts with these three concepts.

Build your cognitive toolkit with this trio of mental models from economics and explore their relevance for innovation in education.

  • The Network Effect
  • Sunk Cost Fallacy
  • Compounding

We will look at each model and consider ‘How does this connect with education innovation and leadership?’​

The Network Effect

A commodities’ value grows with the number of people who use them.

This is labelled the positive network effect. As more people use something, more people are also motivated to join.

Think about the mobile technology that we use. Any person with an iPhone can communicate easily with another iPhone owner.

The network effect has helped Apple’s growth, but there is also the benefit to us. We perceive and gain more value from a phone when others are part of the network or technology ecosystem.

The Network Effect breaks down to another level of influence.

  1. Direct network effect
  2. Two-sided network effects
  3. Intra-personal network effects

Take a look at Apple’s Success and Network Effects to find out more.

How does the network effect connect with education innovation and leadership?

The network effect is all about how people’s acceptance of an idea or innovation.

Take any new initiative or programme you plan to establish at your school. It could be a new structure for professional learning, reading comprehension routines, assessment expectations, or a design approach in your curriculum.

Have you got an example in mind?

Great, now think about how you might share stories of success within the initial phase. A few reports of success at a staff session might help kickstart the network effect.

Sunk Cost Fallacy

If you have ever ordered too much food and then attempted to get your money’s worth by eating too much, you have experienced the sunk cost fallacy.

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Image by 愚木混株 Cdd20

Sunk Cost Fallacy is a cognitive and behavioural bias that sees us continue an endeavour due to previously invested time, money, effort or resources.

The sunk cost is part of the experience we can’t change, yet we continue onwards as if we have no other choice.

I have never had much appetite at breakfast, but I miraculously eat all sorts when I have a buffet breakfast at a hotel. I hear myself say, “I may as well.” This behaviour is the sunk cost fallacy.

Here’s a thought experiment from Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman:

Imagine that you have two tickets to tonight’s NBA game in your city and that the arena is 40 miles away. But it’s begun to snow, and you’ve found out that your team’s star has been injured and won’t be playing. Should you go or throw away the money and skip it?” To answer that question as an economist would ask yourself the following question: Suppose you didn’t have tickets to the game and a friend were to call you up and say that he has two tickets to tonight’s game which he can’t use and asks if you would like to have them. If the answer is “you’ve got to be kidding, it’s snowing, and the star isn’t playing,” then the answer is you shouldn’t go. That answer shows you that the fact that you paid good money for the tickets you have is irrelevant — their cost is sunk and can’t be retrieved by doing something you don’t want to do anyway. Avoidance of sunk cost traps is a religion for economists, but I find that a single college course in economics actually does little to make people aware of the sunk cost trap. It turns out that exposure to a few basketball-type anecdotes does a lot.

Taken from Richard Nisbett’s article in This Will Make You Smarter.​

How does the sunk cost fallacy connect with education innovation and leadership?

I often wonder if we have commitment issues in schools.

I have witnessed lots of irrational reluctance when it comes to abandoning ineffective programmes, which is the sunk cost fallacy at play.

We want to keep every programme running, rather than clear space and resourcing for an innovation that might be more appropriate.

My challenge to you is to consider your school programmes that are still running, despite the ineffective impact they create.

If you want space for innovation, you have to stop putting energy, resources and time into ineffective alternatives.

Compounding

Compounding is all about how small habits over time make a big difference.

When we think of compounding, we typically think of finance and positive returns, as in “good compounding.” But compounding just reinforces what’s already happening — good or bad. There is no judgment. And compounding works outside of finance. So while we can compound money positively and negatively, we can compound ourselves as well. ~ Shane Parrish​

This email is the 237th time I have researched and crafted about 700 words in a weekly issue.

In terms of knowledge, mindset and skillset, the gains from such a habit are not just increasing linearly. The improvements would be an example of exponential growth.

But we find it difficult to wrap our heads around longitudinal exponential or non-linear growth.

Consumer psychologists Craig McKenzie and Michael Liersch showed that people could not accurately estimate the outcome of such non-linear processes. Instead, they believe that savings will grow linearly and underestimate how much their current savings will be worth in the future.

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. They seem to make little difference on any given day, yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous. It is only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent. ~ James Clear — Atomic Habits via FS​

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Image by 愚木混株 Cdd20

An element of this mental model that has piqued my curiosity lately is that the compound effect is neutral.

It works for negative and positive behaviours, choices and habits. It is making me think more carefully about which personal or professional routines I have on repeat.

How does compounding connect with education innovation and leadership?

Innovation does not have to be at a pre-defined scale to be worthy of our time.

Implementing a novel idea that adds value can be at a small scale or a whole organisation level.

I am talking about scale because to establish a routine and habit that compounds a positive outcome, we need an achievable output.

Reflect on the scale of your school’s innovations and consider how these might break down to more minor actions or micro-commitments.

For example, a leadership team might be planning to redefine the meeting structures and transform their impact.

Yes, we need to think about the whole programme of change. Still, to take advantage of the compounding effect, we might consider one question at every meeting or a single protocol for collaboration as a starting point.

What small innovative commitments can you make that will compound into a significant change?

Your Talking Points

Three mental models, so I leave you with three summary provocations for your educational innovation efforts:

  • Who can share a story of success? [Network Effect]
  • What are you going to stop doing? [Sunk Cost Fallacy]
  • What could be part of an innovative micro habit? [Compounding]

31 Days of Reflective Journal Prompts

Speaking of habits and routines, I have a new Reflection Workbook on sale.

Download a free copy of my 31 Days of Reflective Journal Prompts to help you build a habit of healthy thinking and compound some gains about reflective practice.

Use the link below to visit the landing page and get your download.

Download A Month of Journal Prompts

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This article is a Dialogic Learning Weekly. ⚡A weekly email designed to build your cognitive toolkit and enhance your practice. It saves you time and provokes your thinking.

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Provocations To Be More Empathic

EmpathyPublished onUpdated onLeave a Comment on Provocations To Be More Empathic

Piece Together Moments of Truth

The word derives from Greek empatheia (from em- ‘in’+ pathos ‘feeling’)

Key Ideas

  • A moment of empathy
  • How to define empathy?
  • Children’s books on empathy
  • An alternative view to challenge your thinking.
  • Empathy is an aggregate of personal stories and emotions.
  • The perspective from Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence.

Empathy: An Aggregate of Personal Truths

“our capacity for empathy is as much the result of our experience and practice as it is of our genetic makeup.” ~ Alisa Del Tufo

I typically share a simple question:

Is empathy a skill?

A closed question, so a simple one right?

Maybe this question breaks those rules. It is simple in structure and yet beguilingly complex to ponder.

Del Tufo answers it pretty well in my opinion. Our ability to empathise with others can be practised, the skill can be refined through the use of various tools and thinking frameworks to help us.

However, there is still something at a deeper level we rely upon.

During a school workshop, we discussed this very same question. Through our dialogue, we explored the concept that we could never completely understand what the experience and perspective are of someone else.

Walking in someone else’s shoes is as elusive as someone walking in our own.

With only a partial understanding realistically within our grasp, we explored how empathy is perhaps more about forming an understanding that is closer to someone else’s truth.

However, the truth we create ourselves is likely to be an aggregate of our own experiences, thoughts and emotions. Our own truths.

Empathy is an aggregate of our truths.

Del Tufo explains that we learn empathy when we experience connectedness and surface shared values.

I think this occurs in small aggregated pieces, rarely do we have exactly the same experience to draw from, the complexity of our bias (and life) prohibits this in many ways.

Image by 愚木混株 Cdd20

It is more a mosaic of experience we build that helps us connect with others, find common ground and shared values.

Against Empathy

How can we really claim to “know” what another truly feels?

Do you think empathy is a skill? Is empathy something that can be taught? Can we design an empathy rich curriculum?

Let’s explore an outlier’s view. Paul Bloom explains in his book ‘Against Empathy’ that “kindness motivated by empathy often has bad effects.”

“good parenting involves coping with the short-term suffering of your child”. An over-identification with one’s child’s unhappiness can be disabling to both parent and child.

In the link below Salley Vickers explores the book further explaining that Paul Bloom:

pins his colours to the mast of rational compassion rather than empathy, and it is a central tenet of the book’s argument — I think a correct one — that there exists confusion in people’s minds about the meaning of the two terms.

Please use the article as a provocation to your understanding of compassion, empathy and sympathy.

A review of these two books by Salley Vickers. Well worth your time to explore these opposing views to the usual rhetoric about empathy in education.

Against Empathy by Paul Bloom; The Empathy Instinct by Peter Bazalgette – review

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Image by 愚木混株 Cdd20

Empathic Concern

Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence, offers some clarity here to navigate the confusion. He explains that there are three aspects of empathy:

The first kind, cognitive empathy, allows me to see the world through your eyes: to take your perspective and understand the mental models that make up your lens on events. The second kind, emotional empathy, means I feel what you are feel; this empathy gives us an instant felt sense of the other person’s emotions.

It’s the third kind, empathic concern, that leads us to care about the other person’s welfare, to want to help them if they are in need. Empathic concern forms a basis for compassion.

In order to feel someone else’s pain, I have to connect with memories and experiences I have had.

Goleman explains that this might mean we choose not to help others because if your suffering makes me suffer, I can feel better by tuning out…When we think of empathy as a spur to prosocial acts, it’s empathic concern we have in mind.

In this short read, Daniel Goleman responds to the question: What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?

Children’s Books on Empathy

Stories have the potential to be perspective portals.

Stories have the power to transport us into another world and another worldview. The list of children’s books below is a good starting point for talking about empathy with young children.

The list author is Tinybop, a US, Brooklyn-based studio creating educational products. Although I have not come across some of these books before, I like the sound of this one:

Just Because by Amber Housey. Part of the series Flip Side Stories, which aim to teach children to see another point of view, Just Because teaches children about the value of giving, being thankful, and having empathy for others.

A great little collection of books aimed at primary age children that you might use as a starting point for dialogue about how we feel with others.

13 kids books to spark conversations about empathy

Moments of Empathy

Design Thinking has a phase called empathy. But this is not something we switch on and off. It is certainly not something that is just a tick-a-box.

A deeper connection with people at the heart of a problem will likely yield a stronger commitment to figuring things out.

During a Design Thinking online workshop, I encouraged teachers to share a story. A story of a time when they felt out of place and challenged by a language or cultural barrier. These memories helped us to connect on a deeper level, with the experiences of students at the heart of their inquiry.

It shifted the dialogue and our motivation to advocate.

We made meaning by connecting with our own experiences, memories and stories. This put us in a position to connect in a more meaningful way and understand more.

It was a privilege to be part of that moment, so pure and clear, and to help a little in getting there. It is rare to share such a discrete moment of empathy that I can recount.

Hold the Space

I stumbled on this quote from Brené Brown. Not sure why it had passed me by over the years, but my practice is better for this powerful articulation of what empathy is.

Empathy has no script. There is no right way or wrong way to do it. It’s simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of ‘You’re not alone.’

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I had the chance to put it into practice straight away and wondered if I was overthinking how we “do it”.

Thanks for exploring these ideas with me.

Your Talking Points

  • Do we narrow our attention too much on our quest for ‘more empathy”?
  • Reflect on the clearest moment of empathy you have witnessed?
  • Reread Brown’s quote. How might you apply the ideas in your own practice?
  • What will you do to withhold judgment or simply listen?

This is a snippet of my Dialogic Learning Weekly. ⚡A weekly email designed to build your cognitive toolkit and enhance your practice. It saves you time and provokes your thinking.

Exactly the nourishment I need on a weekly basis.

⚡️ Subscribe now and get started this week.

How Will Your School Community Share Your Story?

LeadershipPublished onUpdated onLeave a Comment on How Will Your School Community Share Your Story?

The pandemic experience is an opportunity to create a story to tell future generations.

King Lear and Cordelia (Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 4, Scene 7) Francesco Bartolozzi , CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

A look at storytelling and leadership, here is a summary.

Key Points

  • Story bias helps us organise, filter and remember information.
  • Storytelling is critical to successful leadership — this is especially true during disruptive change.
  • Teleological explanation helps us to understand what we are trying to become.
  • The pandemic experience gives us an opportunity to create a story to tell future generations.
  • Read more articles on leadership.

Narrative Bias

We rely on the story bias. It helps us process our experiences into manageable chunks. This cognitive bias is our tendency to assimilate experiences and information into a coherent narrative or story pattern.

We filter the masses of data we encounter. This pattern recognition lets us jettison the information that does not fit into our story view.

There is a downside. Although experiences are more memorable, we might force information into a preset mould and disregard new insights we need to pay attention to.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb illustrates how stories are more memorable when they offer layers of meaning. Compare the following statements:

“The king died and the queen died.”

“The king died, and then the queen died of grief.”

This exercise, presented by the novelist E. M. Forster, shows the distinction between mere succession of information and a plot. But notice the hitch here: although we added information to the second statement, we effectively reduced the dimension of the total. The second sentence is, in a way, much lighter to carry and easier to remember; we now have one single piece of information in place of two. As we can remember it with less effort, we can also sell it to others, that is, market it better as a packaged idea.

The second example is more memorable because the chunks of data become tied together with the story and a layer of meaning.

Lead With Stories

Peter Senge explains that leaders add new layers of meaning when they focus on the ‘purpose story’ — why do we exist, and where are we heading?

[stories] provide what philosophy calls a “teleological explanation” (from the Greek telos, meaning “end” or “purpose”) — an understanding of what we are trying to become.

Purposeful narrative, coupled with system strategy, creates a sense of continuity and identity not achievable in any other way.

Activating purpose is impossible without storytelling ~ John Coleman

Use stories to help people reflect, learn and understand the forces of change within our education systems.

Leaders in learning organizations have the ability to conceptualize their strategic insights so that they become public knowledge, open to challenge and further improvement.

We also have to figure out ways to share stories across time and create artefacts that guide future generations.

Cautionary Tales

In issue #172 of my weekly email, we looked at how tsunami stones represented the catastrophic stories of the past. Dotted throughout the landscape of coastal communities are large stone tablets, some as tall as 10 feet, that date back to the 1890s. Carved into these are the stories of past tsunamis.

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Photo by Cindy Chan on Unsplash

Some feature warnings to seek higher ground in the wake of an earthquake. Others give death tolls or mark mass graves. A few denote place names with clear messages, like Nokoriya (Valley of Survivors) and Namiwake (Wave’s Edge).

These monuments saved lives in more recent events and act as a storied artefact and cautionary tale across generations.

I challenged readers of issue 172 to reflect on the story you might tell of our current times.

What will be your community’s story of the pandemic? Will it be of the virus? Or our struggle with isolation and remoteness? Or will your community story be about compassion, empathy, generosity, resilience, innovation and relationships?

Your Talking Points

  • What stories filter your experience?
  • Years from now, how will our storytelling be instructive, purposeful and add value?
  • How will it be pointed reminders of our collective commitment to a set of values that can resist a global pandemic?

This is a snippet of my Dialogic Learning Weekly. ⚡A weekly email designed to build your cognitive toolkit and enhance your practice. It saves you time and provokes your thinking.

Exactly the nourishment I need on a weekly basis.

⚡️ Subscribe now and get started this week.

5 Questions For Team Leaders To Challenge Willful Blindness And Create An Open Culture

Mental ModelsPublished onUpdated onLeave a Comment on 5 Questions For Team Leaders To Challenge Willful Blindness And Create An Open Culture

Willful blindness is a cognitive bias that explains ‘the deliberate avoidance of knowledge of the facts.’

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Closed minded? Photo by Bart Christiaanse

if there’s information that you could know and you should know but you somehow manage not to know, the law deems that you’re willfully blind. You have chosen not to know.

What are you wilfully blind to? — Forward Institute

What Harm Might We Cause

Just recently, I learned of a school leader pushing the idea of learning styles. They used the flawed concept and strategies to frame student needs.

Readings and examples that explained the issue were ignored. They chose not to know.

Ideology powerfully masks what, to the uncaptivated mind, is obvious, dangerous, or absurd and there’s much about how, and even where, we live that leaves us in the dark. Fear of conflict, fear of change keeps us that way.

Why We Ignore the Obvious: The Psychology of Willful Blindness – Brain Pickings

Every minute counts with students; that is why these mental models are essential. We have to peer into our gloomy thinking shadows and ask:

Conscious Avoidance of the Truth

According to Margaret Heffernan, as much as 85% of employees report people are afraid to raise issues at work.

This compulsion not to rock the boat is a survival impulse that protects us from conflict and confrontation. “We can’t notice and know everything”.

We mostly admit the information that makes us feel great about ourselves, while conveniently filtering whatever unsettles our fragile egos and most vital beliefs. It’s a truism that love is blind; what’s less obvious is just how much evidence it can ignore.

How many issues and negative work habits in schools are ignored? Perhaps wellbeing and health are where willful blindness in education is most prevalent.

Your Talking Points

  • How might we be wrong?
  • What process might surface any negative work habits?
  • How might we reduce the discomfort and fear of change?

This is a snippet of my Dialogic Learning Weekly. ⚡A weekly email designed to build your cognitive toolkit and enhance your practice. It saves you time and provokes your thinking.

Exactly the nourishment I need on every week.

⚡️ Subscribe now and get started this week.