Teaming: Collaborate to Innovate and Impact

This blog post explores the importance of teaming and consolidates my thinking on how to create a psychologically safe environment for collaboration and innovation.

This year, I am looking for a new job and read through several schools’ strategic plans. These big schools have set what Jim Collins called BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals) in his book, Good to Great. In case you are wondering, the pronunciation is bee-hag. These goals are aspiring and innovative that respond to situations we are currently in and anticipate the future. The timeframe of the strategic plans lasts between three to five years. Based on my personal experience and observation, a three-year version seems more realistic and achievable than a five-year version. Cameron Herod explained in Vivid Vision that a three-year version gives an organization enough time to meet its strategic goals for innovation.

The strategic plan provides a blueprint to guide the school’s development and impact student learning. However, when the vision is not shared among team members, misalignment and uncoordinated actions happen. Are all teachers clear about the school’s strategic plan? How are they included to give their input and help the school achieve the goals? Or are they being told that it’s in the strategic plan and they will need to implement it? Is it “Execution-as-Efficiency” or “Execution-as-Learning“? (Edmondson)

I have an opportunity to enhance further my understanding of teaming through my online course, Leading People, organized by Harvard Business School. A school is not only a place for students to learn. It also needs to be a place for teachers and supporting staff to grow through collaboration, experiment and reflection. Adults who help students learn on campus need to model these behaviors in order to achieve the school’s strategic goals collectively. Through the teaming and learning process, teachers also unlock the skill of empathy and put themselves in their students’ shoes. However, it does not work if we put people in the same room and expect productive collaboration to happen magically. School leaders must model the behaviors and do some preparation to establish a conducive learning environment.

I consolidated my reading and learning and created a graphic to explain teaming. To implement Execution-as-Learning, the foundation work is Teaming followed by Organizing to Learn. School leaders create a psychological safety environment that promotes speaking up, collaboration, experiment, and reflection. It’s easier said than done. Just because leaders say they have an open-door policy and everyone is free to speak up, it does not mean that team members will develop trust and respect among one another. It will need to be done more subtly. I have listed some ideas based on my reading in the poster. In addition to cultivating psychological safety, leaders need to reframe for learning; learn from failures; facilitate boundary spanning (physical distance, status, and knowledge boundaries). Once organizing to learn is set up, then the team can begin execution-as-learning: diagnose, design, action, reflection.

While teams collaborate to solve problems and/or innovate, it is helpful to know where they are on the Process Knowledge Spectrum as it requires different thinking and research. “Process knowledge is knowledge about how to produce a desired result.” (Edmondson) Schools are trying to solve many kinds of problems or innovate to facilitate learning. It will be essential and effective for teams to know what the focus of learning should be to solve a specific problem or come up with an innovative approach. The Process Knowledge Spectrum can be applied in the school context and used as a tool to help teams anticipate learning and resources needed to achieve the goal. The level of uncertainty gradually increased from routine operation to innovation operation. 

When focusing on the teaming process, the school fosters both individual learning and collective learning. I think the teaming framework is very useful to support in-school PLC (Professional Learning Community) and evaluation committees (e.g. CIS, IB, WASC). Teaming takes time, and time is a finite resource at school.I can see why schools skip teaming and organization to learn steps and jump right to the execution-as-efficacy step. School leaders need to be patient and remind themselves of the concept that to go fast; we must go slow. Steps taken to cultivate the team and develop norms of collaboration will pay dividends later on. I see teaming is one way for schools to foster Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). When teachers are collaborating, learning how to solve the problems, and/or innovating to change, they develop their professional identities, collective efficacy, and understand learning is a process that involves reciprocal interdependence. I will challenge schools to reflect on their current meeting structures and reflect on how teachers and supporting staff are involved in the decision-making process. Are teachers aware of what the school tries to achieve in the strategic plan? How are teachers part of the problem-solving and innovating process?  

I created this poster to remind myself of the importance of teaming and ensure I provide mentorship, coaching, and pedagogical support to teachers to collectively make a positive contribution to student learning and the school’s vision. If it is helpful, you can download the PDF for reference.  

Reference

• Edmondson, Amy C. Teams That Learn : What Leaders Must Do to Foster Organizational Learning. San Francisco, Calif., Jossey-Bass Pfeiffer ; Chichester, 2008.
• Herold, Cameron. Vivid Vision : A Remarkable Tool for Aligning Your Business around a Shared Vision of the Future. Austin, Texas, Lioncrest Publishing, 2017.