Consider measuring and minding the I vs. They Gap

Part 2 in the series on school transformation by Erich Bolz, VP of Research and District Development at The CCE.

Second Course

You may recall in our earlier piece: The Tired School Improvement Initiatives Won’t Transform your School But This Will, we discussed how a policy-driven overreliance on student achievement data and structural implementation (think MTSS, PBIS, and any other flavor-of-the-month alphabet soup initiatives) has not led to national student achievement results we had hoped for.

School principals, and to a lesser extent school system leaders, are woefully unprepared to do what may be the most critical work on behalf of their school or system. Chances are, your job description does not mention this task that is not only critical to your longevity as a leader, it may also be the most important contribution to your school or system you can make in your leadership tenure.

What is this work you may be asking? In the business world, leader training in organizational development is a cornerstone of executive leadership development. Organizational Development (OD) is a field of study and practice that focuses on improving the effectiveness, performance, and overall health of organizations. It involves planned and systematic efforts to bring about positive changes in various aspects of an organization, including its structure, culture, processes, and people.

Does this sound like anything you learned in principal prep? Probably not. In our last piece, we discussed how education’s fixation with implementing structures with alphabet soup acronyms will not move the improvement dial.

We are largely victims of bad public policy that has us chasing the next structural implementation, as this year’s commitment to refining our MTSS system will move the dial for our students and their achievement. Implementation frameworks from leading research organizations abound. Yet in each of these frameworks (MTSS, PBIS etc.) the following question is literally never asked: “Is your school community ready for transformation, and how do you know?”

Despite the structures put in place to foster success, schools who have it all (ample resources, accomplished leaders, skilled teachers and support from families and the community) can still fail as a system. The reason is this; when a strong culture is not in place, even well-resourced organizations fail.

Don’t take my word for it. For those of you who are fans of sports, examples of teams with great players and top-flight training amenities don’t necessarily win. Teams where players and coaches demonstrated unconditional positive regard for one-another often win the day, and sometimes they do it with fewer material resources.

So how does one measure culture? Contrary to the prevailing beliefs of some, culture can be quantified. My employer, The Center for Educational Effectiveness (CEE) implements staff survey measures we refer to as the “I vs. They” gap. This gap represents the difference in what a person believes about themselves (positive for most individual teachers) and what they perceive about their colleagues’ behavior (less positive). We judge ourselves by our intent and others by our perceptions of their behavior.

I vs They

Let’s use the “I versus They” gap as our starting place. The gap in perceptions reflects individual team members judging themselves by their intent and others by their behavior. The greater the gap, the greater the resistance, and the greater chance it will inhibit or erode trust in a team. To address this gap, two key questions emerge. First, “What are the plausible reasons this gap exists? Could it be an inter-staff dynamic, or staff-administrator dynamic? A follow up to that question could be, “What happens if we allow the gap to persist?” The second question, “What would you need to see, hear, or experience to know the culture is improving?”

Changing the culture means changing mindsets. We often assume that school leaders have the skills and mindsets to make this shift. They may not know what to expect when taking on this challenge. School leaders have been expert teachers and even great instructional leaders, but while this can aid teaching and learning individually, it rarely translates to systemic changes in the culture. Coaches help school leaders focus on new or latent skills that are already there but may need maturing. Often, coaches provide a rare space for the school leader to develop new mindsets that focus on growing the school culture.

How school leaders interact and react affects the culture of the school. Self-reflection on their own leadership abilities and a conscious shift from ‘I’ (the leader) to ‘They’ (the school) are the first steps in leading change.

In a 2020 research study undertaken by BTS Spark during the first year of the Covid pandemic, and amid school closures and reopening’s, found that leaders who could shed the superhero syndrome and admit vulnerability, express humility, were better able to make decisions, engage others and bring the school community together. It was counterintuitive that those who could admit uncertainty could also grow the strength and agency of their teams to better solve problems. This was a distinct I vs. They leadership scenario. By showing their human side, these leaders could better engage and empower their school teams, allowing them space to make suggestions, provide insight, and solve issues.

It is well within reach of any school leader to shift the culture of an entire school or district. It takes daily discipline and perseverance to transform a school’s culture, but it doesn’t have to take a long time. The actions and reactions of the school leaders lay the groundwork for shifting a school’s culture. If the reader concludes, “He gave us some concrete notions about how to quantify culture but didn’t provide information on what to do next.” The reader is correct! Stay tuned for our next piece on how to take your cultural measures and translate them into the practical daily disciplines leading to culture transformation.

Continue to follow this blog series to learn more about the following key notions:

• Culture is king and the school leader is the curator.

• Maintaining and improving culture is a daily practice, and coaching helps.

• Overinvestment in structure will not overcome a challenging culture.

• Culture eats strategy and structure for breakfast.

• Burnout in education has never been higher. Culture can be both an indicator and antidote for burnout.

• Measuring culture, focusing on empathy, not hiding from vulnerability, and being a people-focused leader are all key.

• Asking for help from an executive coach, fostering high functioning Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and using the power of 1:1 inquiry to start short cycle improvement initiatives are steps for anyone wanting to grow themselves and their schools.

• Naming and measuring toxic school culture will help to address it .

• Turning culture data into short-cycle improvement initiatives will help to implement changes.

To learn more about how The Center for Educational Effectiveness can assist you in measuring culture, and more importantly become your guide on the side in making cultural changes, please visit: https://www.effectiveness.org/products-services.