The following is excerpted from an article I wrote for the InterED publication of AAIE, The Association for the Advancement of International Education: Leading with Teams: Today’s Leadership Requirement. (You can find the entire article here. )

My career as an educator was birthed, incubated, nurtured, developed and seasoned on teams. My student teaching was a year-long experience in a grade-4 classroom with a master teacher, two student teachers, a graduate assistant and visiting professors. My first year as a teacher I was on a four-teacher team with 120 grades 5-6 students in one large room. While students left early once a week to create team time, nearly all days ended with the team around a table figuring out “what happened today” and “what are we going to do tomorrow?”

After five years in that setting, I became a grade one teacher teaming with an experienced primary teacher in a double classroom. I survived the transition thanks to a team approach. We were members of a seven teacher K-1-2 team. After a few years, I became the team leader for the K-1-2 staff and joined my principal’s school leadership team. Now in weekly meetings, I learned to plan for student learning K-8 and coordinate student, teacher, parent, system needs across the school.

My last thirty plus years as a teacher and administrator trainer and consultant have been built and supported by a team of talented individuals bringing scheduling, design, art, technology, publishing, communication, travel planning, etc. — skills to create the services I provide. I have always felt that working with a team was a benefit. I believe today it is a requirement. The complexity of desired outcomes we are looking to produce can no longer be accomplished with the skills and resources of an individual. This is especially true in schools and the necessity is often multiplied in international school settings. School heads and administrators need to function as leaders of highly effective teams and support their leaders in building quality teams across the campus and community.

John Maxwell’s (2001), The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, states that teams:

• involve more people, thus more resources, ideas, and energy than would an individual.
• maximize a leader’s potential and minimize weaknesses.
• decrease a leader’s exposure.
• provide multiple perspectives on how to meet a goal and thus create several alternatives.
• share credit for victories and the blame for losses, creating humility and authentic community.
• keep leaders accountable for the goal. Individuals can change goals without accountability.
• can simply do more than an individual.

This strikes me as a valuable set of benefits for making the investment in building effective teams. Most importantly for educational leaders working to transform schools: your students deserve the best you can provide and that most likely means creating high functioning teams.

Defining team

I was conducting a workshop for international school heads around leading teams when about 90 minutes into the session a head yelled out, “Oh no! My leadership team isn’t a team!” As the laughter around the room subsided, there was a realization that the head had not intended to be humorous but had shared a sudden insight out loud. My finding is that many educators have not had the team indoctrination that I experienced as I entered the field. Most educators have not really had team experiences in their work in schools. Sometimes teachers will tell me that they have strong teams in their school. When I ask them to share an example of why they say their teams are strong they tell me, “We share everything.” While sharing is nice, it is a far step from teaming. (You can find a blog on teaming vs sharing here.) I have found that what most school personnel label as teams are really franchises.

Teachers who are franchised may work together well to discuss possible solutions for a struggling student. However, when the meeting is over, it is up to the teacher of the struggling student to decide what to do. The teacher is not responsible to inform other members of her decision or the outcome. Teachers on a team will decide together the strategy to implement. The teacher serving that student is accountable to implement the plan, seek additional support from the team if needed, and report back evidence of progress or lack of progress.

Are administrators on your leadership team working in franchised silos where they support each other but do not share responsibility for each other’s success? Or, do they function as team members, who are vulnerable, informing colleagues of where they are short of meeting desired outcomes and asking for commitment from colleagues to solve the problem as the team’s problem? I have frequently consulted in schools where administrators individually shared with me struggles they had in meeting desired outcomes, but when I tried to facilitate a team problem solving session, none of the earlier problems I heard are presented. The heads of those schools are not leading teams.

Consider the various groups that meet together at your school. Which meetings are individuals spending time together without a clear understanding why they are together? Which meetings are friendly and often productive franchises that support the individual doing her job after the meeting? Which meetings are teams with shared goals, commitment and accountability to each other for the goals to be met? Transformation will require teams.

[Maxwell, J. (2001). The 17 indisputable laws of teamwork: Embrace them and empower your team. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc.]

Conversations among teachers are critical to real change occurring in classrooms. Instructional coaches and teacher leaders are often tasked with facilitating team or PLC conversations that lead to actions to  increase student success.

Margaret Wheatley states on her website:

“One of the things we need to learn is that very great change starts from very small conversations, held among people who care. But talking about what really matters – the issues that really concern you – requires courage. Forget about the politics or the staff person who is driving you crazy. What are the things you really have deep, abiding concern for? What is it you really have some passion for? If you go into that question for yourself, you will find the energy to go forward. The conversation should not be based on complaint, but should be based on both passion and a sense of hope.”

I like that thought. “Conversations should be based on passion and hope.” The more time that PLC learning is driven by passion (the sense of urgency that exists in driving what members want to make happen for students) and hope (as a team of educators we can learn how to make this happen), the more energy members will invest.

Here is a diagram I use for illustrating facilitation.

The facilitator has two key roles:

The first is to spark the conversation among members. I see this step as often being part of the planning work done by the facilitator. Knowing the agenda or goal of the group you are facilitating, what might spark (connect with passion or urgency)?  The spark might come from an article, video clip, student work or data, observations from walk -throughs or classroom visits.

An ongoing role of the facilitator is to keep the group moving toward action. Teachers don’t want to spend time in meetings that “go nowhere.” Taking action doesn’t need to mean that the team has a solution to implement. Action can mean researching, gathering information from other teachers, or experimenting with an idea.  I suggest to PLC facilitators that 20 minutes is a good guideline of the time to begin moving a conversation toward “homework”. What actions will members take between this meeting and the next to further the conversations and progress? Sometimes a question for reflection that will be shared at the beginning of the next meeting is the action.

To facilitate means “to make easy.” The group facilitator’s job is to make it easier for the group to do its work. By providing non-directive leadership, the facilitator helps the group arrive at the understandings and decisions that are its task. In a consensus group the facilitator’s focus is on the group and its work. The role is one of assistance and guidance, not of control.

Michel Avery, Brian Auvine, Barbara Streibel, Lonnie Weiss
Building United Judgment: A Handbook for Consensus Decision Making

I often use questions as my “non- directive” leadership/facilitator role to guide groups to taking action on their goals. I recommend using the Questions for Life process to plan questions.

Download a copy of Questions for Life Cue words.

Here is a set of questions I designed to facilitate a conversation around increasing differentiation. Questions are presented one at a time and teacher responses and questions can alter direction.  PLC members agreed to bring a class set of student work to their meeting.

• Select an example of above standard, on standard, and below standard levels of performance. (analysis)
• In each of the examples, describe the depth of student understanding… illustrating the differences. (analysis) (same/different)
• Which students in your class might be capable of handling a more rigorous assignment? (analysis) Why do you think so? (evaluation)
• Which students in the class may need more support (scaffolding) to handle this assignment? (analysis) Why? (evaluation)
• Working with a partner, develop ideas for increased differentiation in the next assignment? (ideas) Ideas are then shared with the PLC.

Too often, PLCs begin their work with the last question. The facilitator’s planning of the lead-up questions can “make the work easier” and progress greater.

Here is a second model focused on student engagement. Teachers are asked to bring the last three days of instructional plans to the PLC session.

• Where did you have the highest level of student engagement? (analysis)
• What did you see/hear observing these students? (perception)
• Where did you have the lowest level of student engagement? (analysis)
• What did you see/hear observing those students? (perception)
• During the high engagement activity which students didn’t engage? (analysis)
• What is common about unengaged students? (induction)
• What action did you take when you noticed the unengaged students? What impact did your actions have? (analysis)
• What elements of your content tend to engage students more? Less? (analysis)
• In your opinion what instructional strategies tend to gain the highest engagement? (evaluation)
• Working with a partner, identify an idea for increasing engagement in an upcoming lesson. (idea) Ideas are shared with the PLC.

Planning time on the part of the facilitator preparing the questions can very positively impact the quality of PLC conversation and actions.