3 Ways to Kill Collaboration FAST

0:06 Hey there and welcome to the Unleash, Your impact podcast, where we discover and talk about all the ways to build a culture of collaboration one team at a time. Because we know this is where the greatest impact lies. The greatest impact lies in teams. I'm Casey W impact, coach, and consultant and the host of this podcast. Today's episode Sewed is brought to you from a Facebook live session in the leading collaborative teams, Facebook group in this session. I share about three ways to kill collaboration fast and how to, instead, build a culture of collaboration. Now, you can catch this episode right here in the podcast on YouTube, or you can join us in the Facebook group to catch this replay and get access to other content.

0:58 With that said, I hope you enjoy. Happy Wednesday after know, I guess. It's evening time. 6:30, Central Standard time. I see we have at least one person watching right now so that's awesome. What I would love for you to do as I am beginning to share tonight, I would love for you to add a comment. Let me know who's here, if you're catching the replay, just hashtag replay, let me know who you are, where you're from and what it is that you do. I know that we probably have mostly Skaters in this group. But there are likely a couple of other people from maybe the corporate world, which is great because it gives us a really new and interesting perspective. So high, I am KC W.

1:44 I'm an impact coach, and consultant, which means that I get to do Consulting work with instructional leaders, mostly instructional leaders, in schools, but also some other organizations and it is my goal as a coach and consultant to Make thriving, cohesive teams a possibility for any individual and organization. So I want to tell you, kind of what I envisioned as I do my work as a coach and consultant, I Envision collaborative communities in, which the vast majority of Educators, or people are eager and inspired to go to work. Each day, feel valued and empowered while at work and each day with a great sense of purpose, and fulfillment. So, Let's get started tonight as we're going through this live Facebook session.

2:36 I am going to try to keep you as engaged as as possible but also know that, you know, we have busy lives and it is December. So I realize there's so much going on right now, right? Like you have so many things going on. So this could be one of those live sessions where you pop in and out or you're listening on the go or you catch the replay later. All of that is completely, okay? That's why we create the replays so that you can watch it later at your leisure. But I am going to ask you as I'm going through this to ask some things on the comment. So even if you are catching the replay, you can put some things in the comments to share some of your thoughts and ideas.

3:16 But what I want to do is start by telling you where you can go to get a few more things that could be helpful as you are practicing. Ying. As a leader, especially as a collaborative leader, you can go to my website catching up with kc.com. There you were going to find out more about me if you're interested, you are going to see impact resources for all you'll see my blog. You'll also see information about how we can maybe partner together, okay? So tonight, we are here to talk about three ways to kill collaboration fast, Also three ways that we can build a culture of collaboration instead and I want to talk shop first.

4:08 So if we're talking shop I want to know kind of threw an emoji. What you feel about collaboration in your building. So if you are here live or you're going to catch the replay, just drop a little Emoji or maybe a gif and show us how you feel about collaboration between Dean teams or between individuals in your school or in your organization. Hi, Kristina from Missouri and aspiring instructional, coach, listen, you're in the right place. I want to tell you, too. If you haven't joined the new to coaching group here on Facebook, please go and join the new to coaching Facebook group. With Allison Peterson.

4:51 She's a dear friend of mine and has lots of great, lots of great things to share. Okay? So I'm assuming, if we were to see lots of emojis in the comments, we would see, maybe some sad faces, maybe we would see some frustrated faces. Maybe we will see a few happy faces, maybe we could see some really great names or gifts that show collaboration. Hey Michelle Bulan okay? Yeah, kind of like this and collaboration not-so-great could be better, right? And it could be Better everywhere. And I believe that that is true for all of us. And we're going to talk about that, kind that assumption that collaborations happening when.

5:41 Sometimes it really just is not happening at the end of this. So as we have more people pop in, or as you're thinking about, like what you would show, if you were going to describe collaboration in your community, I'm going to share what I want to provide at the end of this replay. So at the end of Or at the end of this live, I'm going to be looking for some hashtags, and I'm going to be giving away at least two, Marco Polo, plus passes to some lucky winners. If you're not familiar with Marco Polo Plus or Marco Polo, it is a fantastic app that you are going to want to spend some time looking into and getting familiar wised with because it is great not just for your social life with her friends and family but it Can also be great for your professional life with colleagues co-workers or just like minded people, that you want to come together with and share your thoughts.

6:40 Now, I'm also going to tell you, I've been sick for the last several days, so I'm going to be pausing to get water quite a bit, so you don't have to listen to arrest voice. Okay? So let's get started. I'm not going to spend a like a super long time in this. So door, this live session explaining a whole lot of things because I want to keep it brief because I feel like if we get past 30 minutes, we've kind of extended into a time where it's hard to engage. So my goal is about 30 minutes and might be less than that amount of time or a little bit more. But what I want to start with is thinking about the three things that kill collaboration fast.

7:24 Now here's the deal and I'm going to be very transparent and honest in this. Session. We all whether we realize it or not kill collaboration. We all have the ability in sometimes, the tendency to kill collaboration and we also probably see other people who kill collaboration like, we witness it day in and day out. Okay. So as I'm sharing about these three ways to kill collaboration fast, I want you to be thinking Thinking about yourself of course and I want you to be thinking about situations where you've noticed this happening, okay? And anytime you see those situations where you notice it happening, or have noticed it happening, please comment. Put yes in all capital letters or put hashtag me to or give me some kind of emoji to let me know that I'm not alone and to let other people know that they're not alone. This happens to us all when we're trying to build a culture. Collaboration.

8:31 We all have a tendency to kill collaboration fast. Whether we realize it or not. Okay. So here we go. Are you ready? The three ways that we kill collaboration. Fast, are we avoid quote-unquote time-wasters? So that's the first way we make assumptions, and I said that earlier, we make assumptions. And finally, the third way that we kill collaboration fast Fast is that we attempt to collaborate without goals or any plans at all? Okay, so the three ways I will say that one more time, we avoid time wasters, we make assumptions and we collaborate without any goals or plan. So we're going to start with avoiding time wasters. And what do I mean, by avoiding time wasters. Well, what I want you to think about it. Is, if you were working in a school or really any organization in Europe, the beginning of what you would call like the year.

9:37 So, the beginning of the school year, I want you to think about what is most, what time is spent on, what things and what is the most time spent on. So think about and put in the comments, like what it is that your organization or school does at the start of the year with teams and individuals. What do you spend a whole lot of time on I would tell you for for a lot of schools that I've worked with, a lot of time is spent on individualized, things, such as logistical ways to get into the progress of the school year.

10:31 Things like your online PD, things, like learning the new curriculum things. Like, I'm trying to think of some other things that we spend time on. Things like getting into the classroom and working on classroom, decorations. Getting things organized, a lot of time is spent on logistical things. The things that most instructional leaders believe is the most important thing to focus. Their time on little to no time is spent on things like self awareness and social awareness very little time.

11:12 If At all is spent on self and social awareness. Now, what you often will see our schools that spend time with ice breakers or team building building activities and that is all great and fun, but those are implemented in a way to break the ice or to help teams get to know each other. But at a very surface level, now this becomes a detriment because Without the time to truly get to know themselves as a worker as a collaborator without time to let people get to know their core motivations. What struggles, they encounter and how they can rely on others. And without the time for them to be able to do that with other people and to know other people's strengths and areas of growth, let me tell you what the productivity down the road is going to be Lacking.

12:13 I want to read you just a little bit from this book called team of teams by General Stanley, McChrystal, it's a fantastic read. It's really all from the perspective of the military but he has some really insightful things about how to work as a team of teams and this is what he says about. This is what he says about. The time spent he says that trust a It's are inefficient getting to know your colleagues intimately and acquiring a whole system. Overview are big-time sinks the sharing of responsibilities generates redundancy.

12:56 But this overlap and redundancy, these inefficiencies and other words, he's saying these things that we try to avoid because our waste of time are precisely what amuse teams with high-level adaptability and efficiency. Great. Teams are less like, awesome machines than awesome organisms. We have a tendency to avoid these time-wasters. But what happens in the end is that because we avoid what we feel like our time wasters, we have teams that are doing the guessing work of trying to figure out each other. I'm so sorry. They're trying to figure each other out many months down the road and because of that, they are not as productive as they could.

13:43 Be they are not as successful as they could be. So what I'm suggesting is that we instead dedicate time for our teams and individuals to get to know themselves really well in the beginning of the year and to get to know each other. Well, that could happen in a myriad of ways. It could be that you're helping them to understand their personality types. It could be that you want them to understand, they're working genius, which I've been posting about it. Could be that you want them to develop a team organizational chart where they organize the things that each of them contributes and the ways in which each of them needs other people in order to be successful, okay? So give me a hashtag, dedicate time. If that's something that you're thinking, yeah, we really could be dedicating our time in a different way to our organization at the beginning of the year. So that we We are not three months down the road, trying to do this guesswork of will, why isn't so? And so contributing to the conversation or we still have single contributors, or we have chaos, and disorganization, and teams Dedicate time.

15:03 Got to dedicate time to people getting to know themselves and others. Well, okay, so the first way to kill collaboration is to avoid quote-unquote. What we feel, like our time wasters, which are actually value adders, and tie matters, because we are more productive down the road. The second way, That we can kill collaboration. Fast is by making assumptions. Now, I want to tell you a story from a school that I consulted with recently, I was working with was a whole school organization. I work primarily with the instructional leadership team and they wanted to place their focus on data. And when I asked about collaboration at the instructional leadership team said, our teams collaborate Ever ate really well and I said, tell me more and their assumption was that because the team's got along that they all collaborated will.

16:09 But here's what's interesting when I went to meet with individuals from those teams and with teams together, separate from instructional leadership, they had a different story to tell. Their story was one of. Well, I don't get to share my ideas a lot because Pause. There's a veteran teacher on the team who shares everything and I don't want to interrupt and I don't want to share what I'm thinking because she's been here for so long. Another was a story of you know, I have a lot to share but I really don't know what the expectations are from instructional leadership or one of.

16:51 Well, we all sink feel like we get along but we're afraid to take risks because we're not quite sure how How it's going to be responded to their story. Did not match that of the instructional leadership team. The instructional leadership team assumed that collaboration was happening because the team got along. Let me tell you, we cannot assume that where two or more people are gathered. That collaboration is happening. Collaboration, takes vulnerability, it takes courage. It takes effort. It takes crucial conversations when those things are not happening, collaboration is not happening.

17:36 So what we have to do instead is we have to teach collaboration explicitly, we have to model it regularly. We have to practice it regularly and we have to celebrate it systematically. Those are the things that are required in order. Order to see collaboration come to life so that we don't have this faux collaboration which is to say a fake since of collaboration. We want to explicitly, teach it effectively model, it routinely practice it and celebrate it systematically. Now when you think that your team's truly understand collaboration, you will still again and again and again explicitly, Each it effectively model, it and routinely practice it because we cannot resort to making assumptions when we start making assumptions. That's when the wheels fall off the track. That's when we fall prey to focal aberration where it's not really happening at all.

18:49 Now what I love to think about is this celebration piece of it, because even when we do see teams somewhat collaborating, well, Well, how often are those teams or individuals celebrated? And when we, what we know is that celebrations, Fall to repeated action celebrations fall to repeated actions. The wording of, that is so important because it happens, almost an explicit. Inexplicably celebrations fall into repeated actions. And we want that to have a trickle effect, a domino effect, right?

19:30 So I think about when this could take place like when am I going to have the time? Or when isn't she? Strong leadership going to have the time to explicitly teach it. And what does that even look like? You're right, it does take time but kind of going back to avoiding time wasters that's not a time-waster that has to be dedicated time and it has to be stated that hey we're going to explicitly, teach you how to have a crucial conversation because that's collaboration. A lot of people don't know how to do it, which means you have to effectively model it and then you have to give them opportunities to practice.

20:12 So when we think about providing these opportunities to teach model and routinely practice collaboration and what it truly looks like, we might think about doing that in plc's or you could actually have individual conversations with people before they go into a collaboration session or they go into a co-working session together and You can teach them and Coach them through trying to collaborate well with their peers, okay? So the second way to kill collaboration fast as to make assumptions that it's actually happening and then instead to teach it model it practice it.

20:54 And don't forget that last part, which is celebrated systemically, okay? I'm seeing a yes in the comments. Absolutely love that. You're including that in the comments. Okay, the third. Third way to kill collaboration fast and this is probably one of my favorites. It is to collaborate without goals or plans now It is easy to assume that when we go into a meeting with a plan, it's going to work out as planned. But we all know that that doesn't always happen, right? And that's okay because we know that meetings could be messy and messy is actually where often the success happens. I think about those sometimes those plans as being very unintentional.

21:47 So for example, if you notice a plan that has three bullets on it and it has the same things for each of those three bullets. Every time you meet, we know that that is not an effective agenda or plan where the goals, what are the goals of those continuous meetings and that can kill. Ocean because then it becomes this monotonous thing that you have to go do. And we're not truly using that time to collaborate, then it's not meaningful to anyone. Then no one wants to go to the meeting at in the first place, right? You see how it's just like this cycle? It's this continuous Catch-22.

22:29 We want to steer clear of that. Here's the problem with plans. Plans, take courage. So, when you go into a meeting and you notice no one has a plan, you have to think to yourself, okay. I have to be that courageous leader. That brings a plan and that's hard because plans can often insinuate things, right? So when you say, let's create a plan for this meeting, or let's create an agenda or a goal for our time together, sometimes. Can insinuate to people what you mean. I'm not doing my job or it can insinuate to people will, are we why do we need a plan? I feel like we get along just fine or it can insinuate two people plans.

23:18 Oh, you mean, you're going to add more time for us to work together and people don't like to use their precious time. Here's what happens though. I love the words of Patrick Lencioni. He talks about going into a meeting with plans, right? Like you, can go into a meeting with plans and those plans can be a little bit messy and you can get sidetracked, but to go into a meeting or a cowork without a plan or agenda, and all is simply Sloppy, and here's what it results in it results in later on unproductivity, right?

24:05 And I want you to comment. Yes. If you're if you notice any of these things happen, as a result of no plans, it can result in unproductivity that word. I think it is. We're going to go with it. It can result in sloppiness. Of course, slowness, it can result in chaotic work, it can Then produce even if it produces work. It's usually Bland or unimpressive work or unimpressive products. We need to ensure that we are planning intentionally so that collaboration can actually happen, no one can collaborate.

24:50 Well, if there is not a vision or goal in mind for the collective, Of Team it just doesn't happen. And even when it does happen, it's not sustainable. But our plans and agendas and goals, make it sustainable. Okay, so I've told you three ways to kill collaboration fast and it solves it would be like 30 minutes and we were going to be done because I don't want to spend a ton of time talking about all the things, these things, although I could go into depth about each of them, the three ways to kill collaboration fast. Is to avoid time wasters to make assumptions and to collaborate without any goals or plans.

25:36 Here's what we want to do. Instead we want to dedicate time dedicate time where time is necessary and that is in intentionally allowing people to become self and socially aware so that they can double their productivity as a team. When they begin to work together, right? We also want to explicitly teach effectively model in routinely practice collaboration. We cannot assume that it's going to happen of its own accord. Even if we are looking in on two people working together, you cannot assume that collaboration is happening and then we want to celebrate it system out magically. So that whatever get celebrated gets repeated, think about that domino effect.

26:27 Oh, and then, finally, we want to plan intentionally. We want to be sure that our plans means something we want to ensure that our plans produce things that matter. And that people want to continue that great work together, okay? I have shared Ways that you can combat that. And what I want you to do is in the comments. If you're here alive, or if you're catching the replay, I want you to drop what you feel like was most useful for you here tonight in this session. Was it the three ways that kill collaboration? And you notice like, uh, I noticed some of those things happening from myself as an instructional leader or I'm noticing it happening from other instructional leaders or Or was it some things that you want to go back and really intentionally put into place next semester as you're helping teams to collaborate?

27:28 And you also might decide to go to my blog catching up with kc.com blog, and that's where you're going to find a print a printable download that you can get through. You'll see it through like the third blog, I think and it's this exact content right here. It is three ways to kill collaboration fast and ways to build collaboration instead. Now, remember at the beginning, Beginning of this session. I said, I wanted to give out to Marco Polo plus passes. And again, if you are not sure what Marco Polo is.

28:10 I highly suggest you dig into it. What I'm going to do in just a couple of days, I'm going to go back and take a look at some of the comments and I'm going to put that in just a random generator. Those two people will be drawn and I will shoot you a message. I'm seeing people say biggest. Takeaway was don't make assumptions. Absolutely that's a hard one to Michelle said begin Central about everyone's time. Yes absolutely. Okay. Now what I'd love for you to do last is simply drop me better, you better team hashtag use it regularly because that's what this group is all about. This group is all about becoming a better use so that you can be a part of and build better teams. Okay, I've enjoyed being with you. I'm if you're catching the replay, hashtag replay and I will catch you later.