Consultant Q&A
John Runyan Responds:
I
believe that individual workers have to find and bring
their own motivation. As leaders, you can do the best
possible job on your side providing a healthy context in
which employees can work. But then it is up to them to do
their best.
My
basic answer to your question is:
Build a two-way learning relationship with
each employee focused on that specific employee’s
performance and your management of that
person.
This seems particularly appropriate for
leaders and managers in a school district working with
teachers and other educational support
staff.
The first step in building a learning
relationship is to choose to learn about yourself as a
manager and a leader. Be curious, open, and enthusiastic
about getting feedback from your employees about your
impact and influence on them.
The second step is to invite your
employees to learn about themselves and their
performance, especially as that performance impacts the
mission of your schools—serving students and their
families. Make this invitation real and deliver it
consistently over time directly in person, both in a
group setting and then one-to-one. Optimize your chances
of engaging employees in fruitful mutual exchanges by
being a learner on your side and providing initial
orientation, training, and support to
them.
The third step is to develop along with
your employees a set of language, standards, and
expectations that will work for all of you as you give
each other information about your performances in various
roles and on different tasks. You may choose to use some
professionally, pre-prepared language, forms and
agreements as the framework for your performance
feedback. But you should be sure to customize and align
your process and materials to fit your particular school
district and situation.
Finally, you should embark on these
exchanges on a schedule and with a rhythm of
give-and-take that fits your particular situation.
Provide a number of opportunities and iterations to try
out your performance-oriented feedback. Allow for the
inevitable mistakes, misunderstandings, and mid-course
corrections that will follow—i.e., allow for
learning about the mutual learning exchange that you have
undertaken.
I assume that many of your employees
will choose to take you up on your invitation for a
two-way learning exchange. What if some don’t? In
the beginning, I would allow them the choice to opt out.
If they choose to work in the dark or to just receive
more traditional, structured one-way feedback with you
setting all of the standards and details of the process,
that may be OK for now. They just need to know that their
performance evaluation and their resulting job prospects
and security then move far more out of their own hands.
Over time, I would recommend that you hire only those who
want to be a part of the larger mutual learning culture
that will develop over time in your school district.
Eventually, you will end up with a growing, critical mass
of teachers and staff who want to get the feedback that
will help improve their effectiveness.
Once you have launched into these
learning relationships, you should figure out together
the right balance of corrective feedback and
appreciative, supportive behavior that will work for each
individual employee. Instead of having to guess or simply
impose a common pattern of these feedback styles, you
will find out from and with each employee what works best
for her or him.
JOHN RUNYAN
is a senior consultant, now affiliated with Leadership
Everywhere, LLC, in Seattle. An educator and consultant
for 25 years, he specializes in coaching leaders and
helping to create “learning organizations.”
Runyan’s colleagues, Elaine Sullivan, Leopoldo
Sequel, Rhonda Gordon, Rene Pino, Catherine Johnson, and
Merrilee Runyan, inspire him and help him to think
carefully and write clearly in response to these
questions. His e-mail address is jrmrv@aol.com.
Nancy Coleman
Responds
Question for
Consultants
October 2001 News for a
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A Day in the Life of a Fool
