Abraham Lincoln’s saying, “If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first four hours sharpening the axe,” speaks to the importance of purposeful preparation and focus. Wailing away at a tree with a dull axe is less than rewarding, to say nothing of the fact that you’ll spend considerably less energy sharpening than swinging, and can be more available to Life once the tree has been felled. Habit #7 also elevates taking care of yourself in the middle of requests of your time, and obligations to work and family -- you put yourself closer to the top of the checklist understanding that you can be better for everyone else if you are well taken care of.
Just like lifting weights builds muscle, challenging situations present opportunities to practice Covey’s habits. I had a teacher some years ago introduce me to a series of classroom management strategies, and he suggested to look forward to bad-weather days, and days leading up to vacation. Hyped-up kids who’d rather be elsewhere, he said, are the perfect chance to practice your skills. Sharpening the saw means that I focus, looking for situations to deposit more than I withdraw from relationships; that I put myself fully in the shoes of the person emptying their heart before speaking; that I take control of situations by owning my responsibility to think, say, and react with the end in mind. In essence, sharpening my skills, prevents stagnation and mediocrity. I can teach my students the importance of a spiraling motion as it concerns curriculum. Just because we’re learning long division with whole numbers, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep fresh on how to divide by fractions. Likewise, strategies used socially to avoid dramatic situations with friends and family, can be revisited and practiced so that when life presents an unexpected challenge, you can be ready; when friends (and co-workers) need advise or help, you’re the person they can trust to turn to.
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Covey’s Habit #5, Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood makes you vulnerable to the reality that the conclusion you may have brought to the table may not be the one your integrity allows you to stick to. Once you sincerely empathize, and with feeling understand what the other person’s situation is, how their personal story affected their intentions, it’s more difficult to “stick to your guns.” The latter phrase apparently came as a command for a military sailor to stay with his gun even while under enemy fire. (Idiom, 2014). Synergize, Covey’s 6th Habit builds on the understanding that empathic listening allows. There is no way that you can view someone who doesn’t share your views as an enemy, if you have sincerely put yourself in their shoes. To synergize means you actually seek out diverse opinions with the expectations of outcomes far more sophisticated or creative than you initially suggested. Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is appropriate as it regards working toward a common mission, but is less than courageous if you want to set the stage for truly powerful alternatives. Exploring the reasons behind objections can shed light on your own assumptions, and open the door to an entirely new direction. The work you spend in understanding one another, within the bounds of a trusting culture, slingshots you past the perceived limiting beliefs that individuals bring to situations. In a class meeting “issues” form, students are able to check a box to let the group know if they simply want to get the problem off their back, receive feedback, or suggested strategies to try out. The last option is the one that takes the most courage, because at follow-up meetings we ask if those strategies worked. I can commit to encouraging with consistency, that students opt to consider seriously the strategies coming from kids with whom they don’t usually mesh. To help them realize that walking the path they don’t select for themselves can get them to a calmer, more powerful place. References Stick To Your Guns - Idiom Origins. (2014, March 22). Retrieved November 21, 2016, from http://idiomorigins.net/stick-to-your-guns-origin/ We’ve all had conversations where you suspect the person you are talking to is quietly waiting for you to shut up long enough for them to interject their opinion; and you can tell this because nothing they say seems influenced by what you have said, especially if they didn’t acknowledge what you said, or how you felt. “Enough about you, let’s talk about me.”
Often if either party is not listening purposefully, you have what Covey (2007) calls Collective Monologue. This is similar to preschoolers engaging in parallel play, where each is sitting in the sandpit with their toys separately near the other but not interfering with their toys. In the same way we have conversations where we share our ideas but are protective of their implications and our desired outcomes, robbing ourselves of finding common ground. Covey’s 5th habit is one that everyone should practice just out of annoyance, but the motivation to make likely a win-win situation where you end up with a solution not previously expected is even more profound. Building the foundation for effective communication takes work. Without judging, or probing, or advising, relying on your autobiography, which can be perceived as coming from a place of not understanding, or condescension, one should repeat in your own words what they have said. In addition to showing that you’ve heard their words, you ought to relay that you understood their feelings, and go from there. At this point, the person you are talking to should open up in a solutions oriented manner, revealing a space where you can both reside. From that place of commonality can come great things. I try very hard never to use the phrase, “in the real world” when talking to my students, because it implicitly communicates my perception of their world less than real, or pertinent to seriousness. If I’m trying to connect curriculum to the “world beyond school,” I may use those words or “the adult working world.” It sets the groundwork for respectful conversations, as they see that I understand that their experiences are complicated. Feeling validated, empathic listening is more likely to be reciprocated. Class meetings are an excellent place to model and teach this way of communicating. So often students react to situations having taken things personally, often not aware of the weight of their words, and once they appreciate the other person’s perspective the emotion leaves the situation and a solution is reached. Empathic listening gives them the opportunity to systematically and sincerely get to a better place, an environment more conducive to social and academic growth. I found this fourth habit of Covey’s See→ Do → Get paradigm intriguing because it’s name, Think Win-Win has such an active first word. “Think” implies focus; ending up in a win-win situation invariably does not happen by accident -- you have to work for and at it, and that can only happen consistently if you pay attention. This habit is almost Buddhist in that in order to make it valuable you have to live the practice. I find it appropriate that this is the first in the steps of moving from independence toward interdependence and relationship building. All the work on self: accepting responsibility for your feelings and situations; acting with a clear vision of where you are going; and setting and sticking to priorities, prepare you to recognize moments where competitive instincts can overwhelm the need to contribute to an environment that supports student achievement.
It is important to recognize that Newton’s Third Law, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction is especially applicable with relationships and the conflicts that can arise when disagreements are not managed well. If you bend your knees and push hard on the ground, the force you exert is returned immediately and you go airborne. If I go into the office or human resources with an issue to resolve and approach the situation pushing hard, then I shouldn’t be surprised to have that effort returned. Maybe I’ll “win” the argument, but I’ll probably leave exhausted, and in the wake of that moment is resentment that is sure to resurface in a future visit. I believe the meter stick against whether to lose or not is “Are you compromising your integrity?” “Are you being insincere to your mission?” Being proactive gives me the understanding that I can control what I say, think and do, while understanding that by entering the interaction with clear expectations and a mind open to a creative solution, all parties can end up with an alternative that is mutually beneficial. I can commit to practicing this Think Win-Win habit in PLC meetings by realizing that by being open to suggestion, and looking for ways to contribute to the team as opposed to leaving with something, my time will be well spent. I intend to share this outlook with my students in Positive Discipline class meetings, by showing the kids how sometimes looking for a quick resolution will give them more time to play, and even more powerful: treating one another fairly and generously will avoid conflicts altogether. In this way the entire culture of the school can change. I have a favorite coffee mug, which was given to me by a former student, that reads “Today is going to be a great day.” There is no exclamation mark, because who wants to deal with all that energy first thing in the morning? It is a calm statement of fact, and sits right below where you take a sip, so you seem to drink the idea in. On those days where I get to believe my mug, I feel accomplished, and it’s really satisfying.
Covey’s third habit, “Put First Things First” is painfully simple. It adds to his See → Do → Get paradigm that contributes to building trust first with yourself, and then with an increasing circle of friends, coworkers, and beyond. It allows you to expand your sphere of influence as people see you as a person who reliably does what he says, and those results are consistent with his values. Authenticity is an integral quality of a strong leader. My iPhone is useful to me for many reasons (Apple is quite good at creating functions I “need” my phone to do for me), the most important of which is my calendar. Whenever I leave my classroom, en route to a meeting or whatnot, people always remind me about places I need to be, or things I need to do, which without my calendar or my “Reminders” app, would drop off into another dimension far from the reaches of my memory. Not knowing what I need to do, leaves me with an uneasy feeling, like with the next step the ground is going to swallow me up -- not exactly a position of strength. However, having a list of responsibilities and meetings can still seem overwhelming, and that’s before opening the email inbox which is a whole other random to-do list. Email requests almost always fill up Quadrant 3, things that are shared with false urgency -- it may feel good to have less “unread” in the inbox, but not at the cost of living in Quadrant 2. If I want to master this habit of “integrity and execution” and be a quadrant two leader, where I can address things that I consider important (and difficult), BEFORE it becomes an urgent need, I need to focus on that end. It is imperative that I get to work fifteen minutes earlier, to take some time at the beginning and end of each workday to prioritize items on that list, playing them against my values, and as Mark Twain said, “Eat a frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” Building on that, “Your “frog” is your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it.” (Tracey, 2016). In an effort to have everything in one place, I also need to make sure that should I jot down notes or obligations on paper at a meeting, that I should transfer it to iCal. Ben Franklin suggested that all of this should exist in one book: for me that’s my iPhone. He also advised, “For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.” If I prioritize, I can be effective and enjoy results that I, and those I hope will follow me, can consider authentic. My students are about to go to enter the world of middle school where, with six different teachers it is going to be imperative that they organize themselves well and manage their time carefully. I intend to teach the habit of putting first things first by having them understand where each item on their to-do list sits on the four quadrant chart. By understanding that procrastination puts at risk the quality of their work, and that getting the right things done first can help them manage and avoid stress, they can strive to be Quadrant 2 middle-schoolers! References H. (2016, May 19). The Truth About Frogs. Retrieved November 07, 2016, from http://www.briantracy.com/blog/tag/eat-that-frog/ Early in my career, parents of children in my classroom encouraged me to go into administration. “We need you to run this place -- you’d be great at it!” they’d say. When our small district was in need of a superintendent, some suggested I apply. Comfortable with my well-received “Mr. Riviere” school persona, and being distracted by an all encompassing foray into building two homes, raising two daughters, sidestepping disaster in the Great Recession, honoring my marriage, and paying attention to my health, I could not fully envision myself as THE educational leader. As a matter of fact, there were times when I couldn’t quite tell which career was “on the side,” although I knew I had to stay teaching because the work felt so right. Habit #2, Begin With the End in Mind, is one I have long lived, and it is only recently that the “End” involves my yielding to leadership.
I believe that there is a certain degree of ego involved in thinking that you ought to be the one people follow. It’s an easy reach with children, because of the great disparity in experience between them and me. At this point in my career, however, I can see that there is a greater driving force that has less to do with how great people think you are for its own sake, and more to do with how they judge the merits of your beliefs. Do they think you are competent enough to coax those beliefs into results that matter? Stephen Covey (2006) considers competency an important element of trust -- an endearing personality may qualify someone for friendship and good times, however competency suggests leadership. Before I could consider this, my second masters program, I had to be able to see myself as an educational leader in a school other than the one I currently love, and the one in which I have worked these last eighteen years. I recognize that the way in which I can best serve education, and align my actions with what Jerry Patterson refers to as my True North, is to shift my role into one where I have a greater sphere of influence. In the same way as in chess where planning too many moves ahead is a waste of time, but ignoring what your opponent may do is equally unwise, I have to prepare myself to lead without limiting myself to one school, or even one type of job. The only thing I know with certainty is that I am here now, and I need to do this well; to pay attention to all that is being shown to me by changing my perspective. As Patterson teaches, from your beliefs come intentions that can further manifest as actions. Those actions reflect a degree of reliability upon which others will count, and will serve as the foundation of their trust in you. Do you follow through on the things you say? How is your character shaped by the consequences of your actions? Do you present as a person of integrity, as someone to listen to, believe in, and follow? To complete the line of logic, if your results are consistent with your beliefs, then congratulations, your authenticity is high! I’m a firm believer in the Pareto Principle, and try to practice it every day: the idea that 80% of your results come from 20% of your effort. I would think it smart to identify where that 20% lies, and let the important stuff of the remaining 80% rise to the surface. This can be applied to curriculum design, planning, behavior management, email, grading, and giving student feedback. Covey suggests in his See, Do, Get paradigm that after focusing on what is important, you act after prioritizing, and enjoy the results. This is consistent with Pareto, however, it does put additional significance on my choices. I can commit to being consistent and careful with communicating with parents. The first way by emailing a response “Got it!” if I don’t have time to respond more fully, but know that I have to follow up within a day. Secondly, I can send out a “good feeling” email weekly to one household regarding a celebratory moment involving their child. The end I have in mind is a parent body that feels connected to the classroom and school in a positive way. By following through on these small commitments, I not only build trust with myself, but also contribute in a positive way to school culture. References Covey, S. M., & Merrill, R. R. (2006). The speed of trust: The one thing that changes everything. New York: Free Press. Maybe thanks to Stephen Covey’s use of the term in his treatise The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, being proactive has become entirely cliché. This is unfortunate, because the term has serious weight behind it, and deserves the attention that resulted in its overuse. I appreciate the focus Dr. Pumpian has brought to this first habit, being proactive, by referring to Sonya Friedman's characterization of the three things over which you have power:
In this sense, we all live in our personal virtual reality: how we see our common spaces and shared experiences at work, for instance, must be different, because of the different paths we have traveled in getting to this moment. A leader needs to interpret and even expect different reactions to the same situation, understanding that the behavior is prompted by different values. Nevertheless, you have the power to think what you will by first not taking anything personally: if everyone exists in their unique virtual reality, the judgement is theirs and has nothing to do with you. Affect your feelings by changing your focus; change what you think and thereby change the gravity or casualness of the moment. If what you say, the second of Friedman’s powers, reflects your perspective, understand that it may make the situation better, worse, or be of no value-added at all. Knowing that the words you share will be perceived through the filter of the listeners’ values ( if they are even paying attention to you), should give you pause to be sparing, and careful with what you say. Your reaction needs to match the situation appropriately. Some kids get teased more than others because their reactions to being bothered are highly entertaining. If you are clear with your intentions with a person, a problem, or a goal, then you are more likely to exhibit behaviors that feed that intention; impulses or histrionics are likely to be avoided, and the energy you share with the people around you will inspire confidence and calm. Almost always, the “next right thing to do”(Muller, 2010) is obvious and right in front of you. Do that. It may be cliché, but Habit #1: Be Proactive, is entirely pertinent to becoming the kind of person that others welcome into their company. By taking responsibility for my choices instead of being a victim of circumstance; by being careful with my words; and by doing the next right thing, I can stripe away limiting beliefs and be the person of good intention that I would like a little more. Commitment: Each week formal “class meetings” with my fifth graders are supposed to address issues and problem solving strategies that impact school life. This would be a perfect place to teach the habits. Being that middle school is looming ahead, Covey’s lessons would go a long way to preparing my students on how to be more independent, more empowered little people. References Covey, S. R. (1989). The seven habits of highly effective people: Restoring the character ethic. New York: Simon and Schuster. Muller, W. (2010). A life of being, having, and doing enough. New York: Harmony Books. Ruiz, M. (1997). The four agreements: A practical guide to personal freedom. San Rafael, CA: Amber-Allen Pub. |
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