LIVE Q&A: PLCs and Teams (Replay #3)

0:02 Welcome to the Catching up with Casey's show. If you are tired of chasing buy in, frustrated with teams who can't seem to get on the same page, or over the constant struggle of holding people accountable without micromanaging, this is the show for you. I'm Casey Watts, speaker, author and the creator of the Clarity Cycle Framework. I help leaders just like you take teams from frustration to alignment, so teams can work collectively toward a common purpose in a committed way instead of against each other as though they're functioning in different organizations. And we do it all through the craft of clarity. Whether you lead from the middle or you were the front facing leader of your organization.

0:45 On this show, we bring clarity to the seemingly small things in leadership that make the biggest difference because clarity precedes capacity. Now, with all of that said, let's dive into today's episode. Hey, welcome to this episode. It is the last of a series of three replays that I recorded about two years ago. So this is the third episode of a series of three, which means you're going to want to go back and listen to the other two episodes if you have not caught them already. The first episode was titled PLCS Just say no. You might be surprised to exactly what I'm saying no to. The second was strategies for revitalizing PLCS and or teams. And then this episode is a replay of a live Q and AI did. It's refers to all things PLCS and teams. I answer questions about transferring ownership and how we can promote ownership in PLCS and team meetings. I answer questions about resistance. I answer questions about norms.

2:06 So definitely listen to this episode with an open mind, thinking about your own professional learning communities and or thinking about the teams on your campus and how they collaborate and how you can use some of these strategies to help them better collaborate. As as per usual, I've I've said this in the last couple of episodes that were replays, you may hear me mention something about all Things PLC Facebook group or the all Things PLC course. Those are no longer available. However, better things are now available. I mean, this was two years ago. So my content has grown and changed based on the needs of the clients that I work with and the schools that I have been a part of as well.

2:53 OK, I would love to hear what is most useful from you for you from this episode. Without further ado, let's dive in. All right, here we go. I'm so excited to dig now into your burning questions about PLCS and teams. So here we go. I'm going to pop up some different questions that I have seen rolling around. Again, be sure that you put your comments, your questions right there in the chat so we can see it and so I can possibly come to it and answer that question. Here we go. One of the first things that we're going to talk about is how do I help teams take ownership?

3:37 How do I help teams take ownership? Now give me a thumbs up reaction or some kind of reaction to let me know that this is something that you feel like you are your campus is struggling with because it may not be you, it could be your campus and you're just not quite sure how to help them to take ownership. This is extremely common and it takes time and patience and vulnerability and bravery to actually push your teams to take ownership. But it's ultimately what we want because when a team takes ownership, then we know that they are doing the real work and we also know that they are ready to function as a true PLC and do the learning work. So I want to share with you a couple of ways that you might help teams to take ownership.

4:35 The first thing that I want to remind you of, and you hear it all the time, this is going to be no surprise to you at all. I bet you can guess. I bet you can guess what I'm about to say. Someone put it in the comments. Let's see if you can guess what I'm about to tell you needs to happen. If you guessed norms, you are absolutely right. It is so imperative that norms are set. But here's the thing. Far too often norms are not set in the appropriate way, or they're not revisited in the appropriate way. I'm going to give you a couple of examples.

5:17 Not too long ago I was working. I went to work with a a group of teachers for the first time. I've never worked with them before. And I knew that per all of my other work, one of our first things to do was to talk about our purpose for my work with them and set norms. And so we talked about the purpose. We talked about the end goal, we talked about success criteria. And then after we looked at success criteria, we said, OK, if this is how we know we're going to be successful, what norms might we need to adhere to or hold to in order to be successful in order to reach this end goal?

5:57 And after I asked that question, it was just kind of like crickets. And so as I usually do, I gave quite a bit of wait time. It almost became awkward, right? You've had those moments where you're like, Oh my gosh, I, it's the silence is killing me. But I'm really good at wait time. But I waited and I waited. And then finally someone said, so you mean like rules or expectations? And I said it caught me off guard, you know, So I so I found myself thinking, well, I mean, yeah, somewhat like, what do we want to adhere to so we accomplish this? And so they said the typical normal things like everyone has an opportunity to share or don't interrupt or be respectful things that you might hear in a classroom. And I knew then and there that there was a misconception about what we mean by norms.

6:55 So I had to really backtrack and have a brief mini lesson about norms and give some examples. So that's what you're going to want to do first and foremost is make sure everyone has a clear understanding of this sometimes abstract word norms. And it could be possible that in the past they've heard the term norms before, but was used in an inappropriate way. So we have to be sure everyone has a common definition for the term norms. Then after you have a common definition, I'm going to take you through the five steps for setting norms if time is limited, and here's what that that is, determine your end goal.

7:39 And I kind of just talked to you about this, but I want to take you through each of these and let me take this banner off the screen so you can see everything. You're going to determine a collaborative end product, goal or accomplishment. What's at the end of this? What are the needs of the individuals of the whole group? Give them time to think. Like what do I need in order to reach that goal? What do I need myself? And then what does the group need? And then share out those things. Then narrow those ideas to the most common and valuable according to the group. So as people are sharing out, I might say, you know, in order to reach this end goal, in order for us to be productive and have a common formative assessment that we're walking away with, I need us to stay on track. I need people to be able to give me processing time, but I also need us not to go off on these tangents because I'll lose my train of thought.

8:35 Several people might say that and we find it as a common goal or value that we have. Then we define the norms for clarity and purpose. So when I say I want to be sure that we stay on track, what does that mean? What? What does that look like or sound like or feel like? How will we know that we are staying on track and who's going to be responsible for holding us accountable to this? It can't always be the facilitator, right? Because sometimes the facilitator is the leader. It's like the instructional leader, for example, the principal, the assistant principal, the instructional coach.

9:15 That really shouldn't necessarily be the facilitator and APLC, but sometimes it is if you're just beginning PLCS. So figure out who in the team, who in the group has that strength of holding people accountable and then you're going to measure, optimize and repeat those norms. So periodically stop throughout your PLC and say, let's reflect how are we holding to our norms? What is benefiting us? What is not been benefiting us? Is there anything we need to adjust as we move forward, move forward and revisit them at the end. OK, what I like to do, because sometimes you will notice that I'm trying to take this off the screen real quick. Sometimes you will notice that people say the same things again and again.

10:01 Like we review our norms every time we come to APLC, right? And it becomes monotonous and boring. If you have an end goal, like let's say you know what we have decided that we want the student goal that we're focused on for our PLCS for the next 4-5 six weeks. Is this, If that is the case, these are the norms we need to set. Then over the next 4-5 six weeks, those norms are the norms that you are revisiting, but you're not going to go through them as just like a checking off of the list every week. But instead, what you can say is take a look at the norms. What is it you feel like you really need to adhere to today? What's going to help you to be most beneficial? Be ready to share out.

10:49 They review it, they think about it, maybe they do even a stop and shot and then you say, OK, share out. What do you feel like you're going to have to adhere to? What are you going to lean into today as we work together? They're holding themselves accountable. They've written it down. They have other people who are holding them accountable. This is important work, right? The next thing I want to tell you about when we're thinking about this, OK, so I've kind of moved like really fast through that. Tell me in the comments of what I just said about setting norms resonates with you. What's resonating with you. Drop it in the chat so we can see it. Now the question that I am still tackling right now is how do I help teams take ownership, right? So we talked about norms.

11:38 Here's the next thing that you can do. Here's another thing. You can as a facilitator, cultivate the genius in others. And you can do so by recognizing, provoking, cultivating intelligence, and in that order. I love this quote from Liz Wiseman. I hope maybe you can see it. Maybe you can't because this is pretty small on my own screen, but but, she says leaders or some people, some leaders create genius around them and make everyone, staff and students alike, smarter and more capable. Make other people, everyone around you, smarter and more capable.

12:26 If we are doing that, then we are promoting ownership and autonomy. So we want to recognize the intelligence of the people around the table. You might say to them, oh, that's an interesting thought. And then go on with it. You know, I can tell you've given this a lot of thought. So and so you've sparked my curiosity. I noticed you said those are all ways to recognize someone's intelligence, provoke that intelligence, so we recognize it. But now what are we going to do with that? Just because I recognize that someone did a great job, You know, sometimes that could be their maximum capacity or maybe they have the capability to do more, to stretch themselves, to grow. That's when we know we should provoke them. We have to provoke that intelligence. So you might say that's an interesting idea, tell us or me, but tell us because we're in this group more, OK And what else?

13:32 Why? What might we notice if we did this instead? And then finally cultivate that intelligence, push it, nudge it just a little bit. What would that look like? How can you or how can we go about this together? What would that look like for our PLC? If right, who could be the next person you reach out to about this and why? It takes someone in the group to recognize, provoke, and cultivate the intelligence and genius and other people in order for you to start seeing them as people who want to belong to something bigger than themselves.

14:20 It doesn't exist without someone being brave enough to nudge people along. You can be that person. OK, so again, how are you going to recognize, provoke, and cultivate the genius and intelligence in others? So they want to belong to something bigger than themselves, right? They want to take ownership of it and then finally you might consider how you could use talk moves for teams. This is a very powerful idea which you see happening as best practices in classrooms. So if you have read any work from building thinking classrooms or some of the how it's called, it's number talks.

15:08 Math Solutions has created books about number talks and they think about how what are the talk moves that we can use so that students are engaging in high quality conversations and doing deep thinking. And we can do the same for adults. Because here's the thing, I think we have this assumption and I talk about this all the time. We have this assumption that people that adults, because they are adults, they have the ability to collaborate. Well it is not the case. What is most often happening is we are noticing faux collaboration, which is to say fake collaboration.

15:48 Faux collaboration is similar to just seeing people Co working Co existing together in this work environment. Just because we see that two or more gathered does not mean that true collaboration is happening. It takes us fostering collaboration. In order for true collaboration to actually happen, and in order for collaboration to feel meaningful, it has to be fostered, has to be taught, it has to be explicitly modeled. So here's what you might do. Model receptive body language re voice or rephrase what someone has said in your own words and you can say tell me if what I'm saying is accurate or I want to check my perception on this Da da da da da. Is that what you mean when you say XYZ encourage adding on. So I'm noticing, you know what, Jenny Lou, who I don't know, Jenny Lou who is sitting so quietly, not participating, not engaging.

16:55 And maybe it's because you've got Jonna Joan Jane, who is dominating the group. You can, as a facilitator say, you know, let's take a moment to pause. Jenny Liu, who can you add on to what so and so has said? She may not because she may feel intimidated by that, but if she says, you know, I don't really have anything to add, that's OK. You can say, all right, you know, just take some time to think about it. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Follow up with her later. Provide adequate wait time. I talked about this earlier. It's important for adults as well. It's awkward as all get out, but it is so necessary. And then finally, hear me out, people, hear me out, leaders, especially if you are an Enneagram to or you you're working genius is enablement.

17:51 Oh my gosh, you're going to want to provide all the advice and fix all the problems, but avoid the advice trap. Here is what Michael Bungay senior says. Be humble, stay curious and change the way you lead forever. Step back from trying to provide advice. You initially are going to think they're not going to see me as credible because they think I'm the person that's supposed to bring all of the answers. Guess what? If you are trying to bring all of the answers, then you are actually becoming an enabler and preventing them from taking ownership. So take a step back and go back to thinking about cultivating genius, OK?

18:36 And you also might think about Michael Bunge, Senior 7 essential question. Gemini has fantastic questions as well. So I'm seeing someone say, can we get a copy of what you were just projecting? I'm gonna go ahead and tell you that most of these, all three of these things that I've just shared are all within the course. And sometimes keep an eye out, look out for, go to my website and sign up for my e-mail because sometimes I'll put these in there, things like this or other freebies in an e-mail that I send out every week. And just so you know, I send out a free resource every single week in my e-mail. So if you're not part of my e-mail list, be sure to go to catching up with kc.com and you should see at the bottom of the page a way for you to sign up for or newsletters. OK guys, tell me what is on your mind like what has been standing out to you?

19:32 What are you thinking is like an AHA for you? What are you thinking you need to know more about? And do you see this as a way, do you see these as ways that you can promote ownership? Just tell me that for a little bit. Let me get a sip of tea. It's funny, I've got Mcallister's tea right here. It's unsweet tea, which I love. I love unsweet tea. And I also have a cup of coffee. So I'm going to be, well, caffeinated this evening. Maybe that's why I'm so excited. Actually, no, I just really, really, really love this topic so much. OK. Next question? And I get this, this probably one of the, I feel like this kind of goes with ownership a little bit, but this is one of the most asked questions of all time about PLCS or about teachers and leading teachers in general. What can we do about resistant people or teams? What can we do about resistant people or teams? If this is something that you think about, you don't even have to ask the question.

20:48 If you think about resistant people or teams, give me a thumbs up or put something in the comments. So while you're doing that, if this is something that you're like, yes, how do we help or support the resistant people and how do we ensure that they're not dragging everybody down? Oh my gosh, please put that in the comments. I see some thumbs up already. And I just want to note, it's important for me to hear that I don't need to have all the answers. And then enabling is actually hurting the ownership of your groups. Yes, absolutely. OK, here we go. And I also see love the idea of six week goal focus that norms are quickly developed toward that work.

21:36 Absolutely. Team often sets norms at the beginning of the year. Yes. And they don't always apply to the work as it changes throughout the year. Absolutely. It happens all the time. Happens all the time. And they lose their effectiveness. And then guess what? People get these negative experiences related to norms. They have this idea of, oh, that's what norms are. Yeah, I'm. I'm not about norms like that seems like pointless work. We don't want it to become that way. All right, So how do we deal with resistant people or teens? My very first question for you is what's directly within your control? What is directly within your control? My suggestion, if you're kind of like wondering why are they resistant, my suggestion is for you to do a 1055 protocol. Now, I talked about the 1055 protocol in last week's session, so if you didn't catch that, be sure to go to it so you can hear all about that 1055 protocol.

22:47 You can teachers can go through this, but leaders can also go through the 1055. I mean, it's really useful for any leader, leader or teacher for lots of different scenarios. But if you do a 1055 protocol, your problem statement is teachers or teams are resistant during PLCS. Now, there might be something very specific that you know that they're resistant to, so you include that in the problem statement. If it's just like they're just resistant, like we're not going anywhere or we're going nowhere fast, you know, like that could just be your overall problem statement. So then you list what are 10 possible reasons they could be resistant?

23:32 What are five more possible reasons they could be resistant? What are five more reasons they could be resistant? Guess what? You've got a list of 20 different reasons that teachers could be resistant or teams. Then you're going to go through that list and you are going to strike through what is completely outside of your control. You're going to put an asterisk next to what you can influence, what you have some influence over, and then you are going to highlight what is directly within your control. When you look at that list and you realize what's actually directly within your control, then you are going to better be able to grasp the directions that you had to help them become less resistant.

24:20 Now it will not be. There's no magic pill. There is not I, I think we all wish there were and we all have these teachers that we wish we could clone or these teams that we wish we could clone. Like where you leave that PLC meeting or you leave the team meeting, planning meeting, and you're like, if everybody could be that way, it would be like bliss, right? However, it's a little bit of job security and it gives you a little bit of a challenge, something to challenge yourself with. But here's what I'm going to say. After you learn what's directly within your control, think about what clarity there is around those things that you've highlighted. Clarity precedes capacity.

25:06 If teachers do not have, or teams do not have clarity around what they're doing, why they're doing it, what the end goal is, and how they're going to get there, you are going to experience resistance. There is AI think it's Noster's model for complex change. You can look that up. It gives you a graphic and maybe somebody already knows what I'm talking about. They can find it and link it in the comments. But they give you this graphic of all of the different things that are needed or that are necessary for change, complex change to happen.

25:49 If any one of those things are missing, then you're going to notice that it's a lot more difficult to make change happen. So take a look at that. But I do want to leave you with this that clarity precedes capacity. Get clear on where your people are headed and how they are going to get there. And then you're also going to want to use results. I think we spend so much time trying to figure out, well, how do we get everybody on board? How do we move people forward? But we spend so much time trying to gain buy in that we're losing momentum and we're not making any progress at all. So I want to take you to Douglas Reeves book leading change in your school.

26:33 And just to quote exactly what he says, he says you don't wait for buy in, but rather no, let me back up. The leaders did not give vague assurances of success and carefully worded caveats that, after all, change takes a long time. Rather, they provide measurable, clear and significant results in one or two semesters. Don't wait for buy in, but rather you make the change and use the results to gain sustained support. People have to have mastery experiences, and they have to have several mastery experiences before they're willing to buy in. As leaders, it is our job to create those mastery experiences, but it takes us being really clear and transparent about where we're headed and how we're going to get there and clarity about why the people matter and why they're a part of that.

27:32 OK, so tell me, I know that seems like a vague answer to how do we, what can we do about resistant people or teams? Well, let me back up a little bit earlier. I told you, you got to help them to take ownership. That should help with the resistance. However, think about what's directly within your control. Are we talking about like 80% of the people are resistant? Are we talking about 20 people? 20% of the people are resistant. What's directly within your control? Provide clarity. Use mastery experience results to move people forward. OK, so that was the close to the end of that replay, that episode about that, where I was answering all of these questions about PLCS and teams.

28:26 Now it does go on a little bit longer and one of the questions that I address after what you just heard is that I address a question about agendas a little bit. And there's one other question I answer as well. But I think it's a question that has already been answered in these three episodes that you've listened to that have been back-to-back. I was on fire in that episode. I you probably noticed that I was just so excited. At one point I was talking about the tea that I had and the coffee that I had, that I was going back and forth between the tea and the coffee. And maybe that caffeination was creating some excitement. But truly, it is just the topic that creates excitement and it is not, I want to be clear that it's not the topic of PLCS necessarily.

29:13 It's not the topic of teams necessarily, but it is the topic of clarity. How we are not only gaining clarity for ourselves as leaders, but then how we are are providing clarity for our people so that we can transfer ownership. That that's where we get lost. That's why a gap between the adults on our campuses exists because there's no transfer of ownership. It's very much like what we might experience in the classroom when there's not a transfer of ownership from teacher instruction to students. OK, so that's those are the three episodes. I hope that these episodes helped provide some kind of clarity for you around what collaboration is looking like on your campus, be it you are APLC campus or you are not and you just have collaborative working teams. We want to get to true collaboration, and it happens with the craft of clarity.

30:18 As always, let me know what was most useful from these episodes. All three of them. Be sure you go back and listen to the other two. Check out the show notes to see what resources I provide and check out the show notes so that you can directly reach out to me via e-mail casey@clarity-driven.com. Or check out how you and your instructional leadership team can engage in the Clarity Cycle Framework. Until next time, guys, I hope that you it is a holiday season. I hope you are having some wonderful, some wonderful memory, making opportunities with your friends and family. And yeah, keep, keep listening to the episodes. We'll catch you later.

31:06 Bye. Hey listener, I am so honored that you listen to today's episode and I hope you gained something valuable from it. I'd also be honored if you did ME3 solid favors. First, subscribe to this show. I've got a lot of great content coming up, and I don't want you to miss any of it. Second, be sure you're following me on social media platforms. You can find me at. Catch up with Casey on LinkedIn or Instagram. And finally, if you were looking to book a dynamic and relatable speaker for your next event, conference, or retreat, I would love to bring a message about how the crash of clarity makes a significant impact on both leadership and life. Until next time, always remember.