Using PLC Questions to Analyze, Inspire, and Transform Teams

0:04 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 in today's Unleash. Your Packed podcast. And this collaboration combo where we talk about anything and everything that has to do with building and utilizing teams. So you can have a better and bigger impact all, while helping people do the work that they love, we are going to be learning about how to utilize PLC questions or actually variations of PLC questions to analyze Inspire and transform T teams not tease. That would be kind of weird.

1:00 So if you are not live here with us today, you can catch the replay. Like I said, you can catch it on YouTube, you can catch it here on Facebook for the next 30 days, or you can see this in the podcast episode. So, I'm on Spotify, but also iTunes at Unleashed your impact podcast. Okay. So, here's what we're thinking about today. I'm going to take 20 to 25 minutes to talk about utilizing variations. Of those all familiar PLC questions to analyze Inspire and transform teams. I am hearing my dog scratching at the door.

1:41 If you can hear that, we're just going to pretend it's not happening. I want you to be able to reflect on your teams and how teams work together. So you might be thinking about plc's, you might be thinking about grade level teams, you might be thinking about leadership teams, any of those kinds of tea. Was that could be less dysfunctional and you want to move them to become more desirable. Okay. So here's what could be the case, and I'm certain and I would love to hear in the comments. If you have had these experiences drop them in. I'm seeing Michelle from dinner Denver. Hi, Michelle. I'm seeing some other Facebook users and I can't exactly see your names because I'm using a stream yard.

2:27 So you have to approve stream yard for me to be able to See you on here either way. So if you want to say hey Casey this is so and so please drop that in the chat or you can approve stream yard and I'm not quite sure what the link is but you should see it somewhere in the comments, okay? So you may have had these experiences drop in the chat. If you have you may have worked with teams plc's even just collaborative work where people dread coming to collaborate together. Okay, so give me a thumbs up emoji, heart emoji, maybe even a sad face. If that is something that you have experienced or maybe you've experienced teams that simply struggle to get along.

3:14 Let me tell you, I have been there. I have even been a part of those kinds of teams. So, I'm guilty guilty, as charged. Maybe you have teams that get along, but they are going nowhere fast right. Again, Show me a reaction. If you've experienced that before, or maybe and this is sometimes the case not as often, but maybe you work with teams who are awesome, but they're ready for more right now. Let me tell you, if we are not intentionally talking about the way that we function as teams, then they're going to remain stagnant and our problems of practice will remain cyclical.

3:57 It is just a fact. Have to talk about how we function as teams and that unfortunately is not done enough. We just plow along through the hard work, and most of the time we see very, very slow progress and often no progress at all, which is really frustrating, but it's not frustrating just for you. As the team leader, it is frustrating for team, participants. It is frustrating for the Ation as a whole because guess what, especially in schools, if one team is struggling the entire organization suffers and even worse the students suffer and we definitely don't want that to happen. Okay, so what we want to see our teams Thrive, we want to see teams Thrive so that they can be more desirable to be a part of, right?

4:57 And what we feel like a team is a desirable thing. It's a place where we want to belong. People are more eager to collaborate and collectively work toward goals together. Am I right? Or am I right? I'm feeling like I'm right I hate Theresa. Michelle says she had that experience earlier that Weekly. Not earlier this week but weekly my goodness. Yes, I'm of us experience it weekly and it can be draining and we if it's draining for us as the team leaders. Us what it is probably dreaming for so many other people in our team or organization.

5:38 So this person said I work alongside amazing teams but time is the issue girl or guy, you are. So right time is always the issue. Sometimes teammates feel as if another meeting is not in their schedule. Let me tell you, I have already planned an episode in the future where we talk about faster me. He's better meetings. There's a great episode from Patrick Lencioni. He's one of my favorite guru's of helping organizations to function as highly as they possibly can and be as productive as possible. He talks a lot about this so I'll have to find that episode and post it in. I'm going to post that probably in the leading collaborative teams group.

6:23 So if you're not a part of that group, be sure to join. We would love to have you. Okay. Hey, Al Listen from College Station. Oh, I'm so excited you're here. I miss you. Okay, let's dig into it. So I want to tell you a little bit about these questions and there are four questions plus 1. So PLC questions, you are probably most familiar with the for PLC questions from Richard, divorce, who has written these four questions that people use in plc's for work around student. At learning. And then there is also PLC plus from the publisher Corwin and they have the for PLC questions, plus one, and we're really going to be thinking about melting that together, but I have variations of those questions that you're going to use for teams that you work with. So that those teams can in turn positively affect student, learning and student outcomes, right? Because we can talk about the students all day long and go through these He's great questions in this deep work, but there could be an even deeper work that helps us to go faster and farther and that is the teamwork behind it. Okay, so we're going to talk about four questions plus one question and I want to tell you before we get started that you can find these questions on my website. There is a Blog that I will post

7:54 at the end of this. I've got a bitly link and it looks something like this. So it says you In PLC questions to analyze and transform teams, there is this document that has additional questions. You can ask that. I'll talk you through today, to help you Pro people through the major 4 +, 1 questions and then there's a blank document where you can use that when you go into work with teams, okay? So let me tell you a little bit about how some of these questions originated. I was working recently with a group of instructional. Coaches and our Focus was instructional practices, like how are you going to support best instructional practices with your teachers in classrooms? And that was the work that we thought we were going to do it transformed to completely different work because as I was questioning and coaching, I noticed that this group of instructional coaches, didn't have a common vision mission and they didn't have any foundation.

9:00 Snow work upon which they stood to work as a team toward a common goal. And so it was interesting. We used some of these questions without even knowing it and then we went through the work of instead of thinking about instructional practices, the work of what does it look like to build your instructional coaching program? So that you're grounded in a vision mission and set goals collectively and that's something. You can see as you're working toward that together, right? We can see progress as we're working toward it, you cannot see Proctor progress. If you have not set some intentional goals and thought about what it looks like to reach those goals. And that's kind of what PLC questions and specifically these PLC questions for teams is all about. Okay, so let's dig into these four questions, the four questions, and Pop them up on the screen, the four questions are.

10:04 Where are we going? Very familiar. When you use that. With plc's, thinking about student learning. Where are we now? It's pretty obvious. Right? Like where are we now? We're going to analyze where we are so that we can move forward. Then how do we move our team forward? And then the fourth question is, what do we find most useful? I can't wait to dig a little bit more into these but again, remember I'm keeping you 20-25 minutes and that's it, right? These I want these to be short, impactful sessions, the plus 1 is who benefited who did not benefit and that's really Ali similar to the plus.

10:46 One question that Corwin authors have put out and their PLC plus Books. Okay? So, we're going to dig into each of these questions just a little bit. And again if you want to dig a little bit deeper into each of these beyond what I provide today, I'm going to leave you with the link to the blog post that has this entire content like the whole blog post plus the thing that you can download, okay? So before we get started drop In the comments. Hashtag? Ready. If you're ready to begin digging into these questions, hashtag ready, let me see it. And I'm going to take a swig of water. All right, I'm ready.

11:32 Are you ready? Here we go. The first question that we're going to dig into is where are we going the most important thing that a team can do before they begin their work together and sadly, it does not happen near enough, is to ask the question, where are we going in the first place? And you're thinking, like, you can use these ins as a team to help you begin your initial work as a team or you can use these questions when you have a project at hand, okay? Or it could be a problem of practice at hand. So really we're not thinking about using these just one time to help us improve our team but we're using it maybe to improve and solidify our team.

12:23 Maybe we're using it to help us work through a hefty profit. Jack, or maybe we're using these questions to help us to reflect on our practices so far or problem of practice. So, where are we going? Andy Stanley is notorious for letting us know that the most important work and you can do is set and cast a Clear Vision and come back to it again and again, and again, I cannot count on my hands the number of teams even if it is Is just a group co-working together who have come together to dive into the work. Without first saying, where are we going?

13:05 What is the end result? So, here are some questions and I'm going to read these directly from this this template that you can get on my website. But these are some questions to help probe that thinking to help you carry the conversation so that it doesn't feel awkward saying where we going, and no one really knows how to Answer the question. So here's what you can ask. Consider the vision of our organization or our team and or in what ways do we ultimately want to function as a team or maybe you could say, how do you view the ideal team working together?

13:45 Or another, probing question, could be, what goals does the team want to accomplish as a result of our work together. So, those probing questions could Vary based on why it is, you're asking the question in the first place. Okay, we're going to jump onto the next question. So we have decided, this is where we're going. This is how our team wants to work together, or this is what we want to accomplish. This is what we envision now. This is the more challenging question because this question requires people to be vulnerable and it takes trust. And guess what, if you have a dysfunctional, team chances are This question is going to be tricky and it could be a question that people don't necessarily answer honestly and that's okay. You're not going to give up.

14:37 You're still going to ask the question and you are going to take on the responsibility of modeling that vulnerability about yourself. This is a hard question to because often times you will notice this idea of like, what are we pretending not to know coming into To play where we may know that there are things that were doing, that could be obstacles to our growth as a team. But we're really going to pretend not to know that because it's harder to recognize that and make changes, then it is to just sit back and kind of let things go on as they've been going on, right? So you really have to have a sense of vulnerability and Trust built in order for this to be a fruitful. With fruitful responses but it's still important to ask it because guess what?

15:32 If you ask it enough and you're having these honest conversations, eventually you'll get to a point where the conditions are just right. And people can answer this question in a way where they're leaving their feelings or maybe that's not what I want to say. Maybe I want to say leaving their personal perceptions behind right? Okay, so where are we now, we're going to analyze where we are. Maybe we are recognizing. We are a team who we want to work in a way where crucial conversations can be had like that's a vision that we have but right now we're too afraid to say the things that are on our minds because we fear that we will be judged for what we say, it is awesome.

16:21 If people can recognize that they might not in the beginning and that's okay. So where are we now? We may be list out the things that show where we are now, and we want to be sure that we identify here is what we're doing. Well, here's what we're struggling with up against where we want to be. And then the third question is, how do we move our team forward? And again, this can be a tricky question. That requires. Vulnerability and Trust because we have to recognize that we are going to make Steps to move forward. And we have to look beyond the programs that we have. Our programs are separate from our people. Our programs are separate from our people. So if we are going to focus on moving our team forward, we really have to focus on our people. So you might look at the vision of where you're going. Look at what you've listed out for where you are now and decide.

17:25 What do we keep? What are we get? Rid of, what do we modify? Okay, how do we move our team forward then? Oh, I didn't tell you some of the questions you can ask to probe that along. So you can say, I've kind of mentioned it like compare where you were going with, where your team is now, in what ways, should the team celebrate and remain consistent? What adjustments need to be made. How will these adjustments impact? The team were organization? How would these adjustments affect individual members of the team or organization? So again, All of this is on my website in the blogs and I'm going to leave that link below. Okay, question, number four, What did we find most useful? My very favorite question of all time. Aside from what's on your mind and both of those question, what's on your mind?

18:16 And what was what did we find most useful come from the work of Michael bungay, stanier, he has written the seven essential questions in his book, The coaching habit, and it is a phenomenal, read. All about the seven questions and the very last question, maybe it's the next to last. Jan is what did you find most useful. The reason we want to end on this question is so that people are leaving thinking about the impact that they had during their time together, thinking about how they contributed or thinking about what they're still wondering when they walk away. Now, it can be easy to forgo this question because of like a lack of time or maybe it what Maybe you get into these kinds of meetings and you don't get through all of the four questions and you're like, you know what of all of the questions.

19:13 I'm just going to cut that one out. I advise you not to do that because you risk people walking away ruminating on maybe the negative pieces of your work together or you run the risk of them walking away. Not understanding how they contributed or they walk away, not understanding Was most useful, right? So we don't want that to happen. So, I highly encourage you to include this question when you're working with teams and trying to decide, how are we going to function best as a team in order to produce the results that were wanting to produce? Okay, so that was for questions. Then we're about to get into the plus one so far tell me about in the comments just list out.

20:05 One, two, three or four and I'll post these questions again. Which one did you find would be the most valuable for teams that you work with? Even if you're not a person who leads the team? Because I'm betting that if you don't lead teams on regular basis, you at least leave some kind of co-working time with other people, right? Like you have project that you complete with people and you could use these questions To help you move it along, and be more efficient, more productive and have higher quality products. So which of the questions? One, two, three or four, drop it in the comments.

20:46 Do you feel like would be most beneficial for you? Question 1, where are we going question 2? Where are we now? Question 3, how do we move our team forward question for? What did you find most useful? I'm seeing a couple of people say question for can help us. So many levels. It? Absolutely can? Yes, is it a Dina did I pronounce it correctly? It is such a great question. Question 3 question 3 to Great went to MMM. Yes I can see you in the comments Teresa. Yep, awesome. Okay yeah, that is awesome.

21:26 So question for is it's probably my very favorite question of all time. Would we find most useful sometimes? I find that I lack the courage to ask it because I know that I've asked it before and I tend to think, oh my gosh, I'm just going to be repetitive there. Probably getting tired of this question but Oui. All of the experts point out time. And again, how important it is to State, the vision to cast, The Vision regularly to ask the questions regularly, because while it is on my mind, it is not on the minds of all of the people that I'm working with. So, I want to keep that as a leader, that's so important for me to keep in the back of my mind. Okay, let's dig into that last question. Now the plus one.

22:25 So you've gone through all four of these questions and and again, I don't know if I said this earlier but you may go through all of these questions in one session or you may go through like one question at a time depending on the work that you're doing. So I might say if I was working on a project with a group of people and that was my current team, I might decide to say, we're going to have a meeting and just talk about where we're going at the end of That meeting even if we don't get to the questions, two and three. I'm still going to ask question for before we jet out of there. So you could fluctuate the use of these questions.

23:08 But I do suggest that they go in a certain order except for like questions, three and four, or sorry, not three and four before and the plus one. So here's the plus 1, the plus 1 is who benefited who did not benefit. Fit when you ask this question, is more of like a checking in question. So I might think at the end of our maybe it's like three months from now. We've been working as a team. We've improved our work or want to just check in and kind of get a temperature. Check of where are we now? We're going to be asking this question who benefited and who did not. So we've got, we've decided where we're going.

23:50 We thought about where we are now, we decided how we were going to move. Our Forward and we worked on that now who benefited from that work who did not benefit and it could be that you're thinking about individuals within the team like, how did each individual benefit, how did they not benefit? You could be thinking about the team as a whole, or you could be asking this question about outside Outsiders, so people who are not necessarily within the team, but we're impacted by the team's work. So who benefited who did not. Not benefit. This is especially powerful. Oh my gosh. This is so powerful. If you have a team of teachers who have been dysfunctional and you ask this question along the way about students of their. So you've gone through the work of analyzing inspiring and transforming the team.

24:46 You get to a checkpoint in you say, if we ask who benefited who did not, what would we be able to say about Our students. I think that would be so powerful because, guess what, they're not reflecting on. Did I enjoy this work? Did I personally gain from this work? No. Did my students gain from this work that I did to self-reflect and improve my team as a whole powerful question. Okay, so I've given you the four questions when working with teams plus 1, You can get the download and it's just my blog. You'll see at the end of this blog post. This PDF there are two pages.

25:34 You've got the questions that help you to like probe people along and help you know like what else can I ask to help us. Think about this question and then there's just a blank template if you wanted to use that physically with a team or co-working group of yours. So you can get that at bit.ly slash team, pl/sql. Gents or you can just go to my website catching up with kc.com and download that from my blog, you'll see it posted their next, I want to ensure that, you know, about the bleeding collaborative teams, Facebook group. So this is a growing group and the whole purpose of it is to be a network of people that works together to think about how to support teams. Because I believe that teams is Is where it's at. This is where we're going to have the greatest impact on organizations as a whole and effective. Highly functioning teams is what brings us to work every day and helps us to feel valued and powered in fulfilled and that's what we want.

26:43 I envisioned Collaborative Learning communities in which the vast majority of people are eager and inspired to come to work and each day with a great sense of purpose and fulfillment. And then finally, If you are a leader, a 360-degree leader, who believes that at the heart of your work coaching is involved. You've got to ask me about the Breakthrough Circle. It is a great group of women who work together to think about how do we become 360° leaders in our organizations with coaching at the heart of it all, okay? And if you are here and you were a part of the Breakthrough, sir, Circle Community. Oh my gosh, please give us a thumbs up or a heart emoji or tell us a little bit about your experience with breakthrough Circle and I think I said that was finally, but this is actually what is finally, the last thing I have a great Share Cast coming up.

27:42 We're going to be talking about, you've probably seen me posted on social media. A lot lately, we're going to be thinking about the six types of working genius as it relates to To our work, as instructional leaders and teams that Share Cast is coming up, is going to start in February, you're going to see me posting about it on social media pretty soon, but you can also see that on my website as well. Okay, so with all of that said, listen, we've gotten to the end is now 7:30 I kept you a little bit past when I said I would that's okay. I'm working on it. Let me ask you this question. What did you find most useful from This session tonight. What did you find?

28:28 Most useful and I will tell you something that I found most useful even though I was the presenter of this was it, I found it most useful to see so many people resonating with this question or this question resonating with so many people Teresa said I love being part of the Breakthrough. Circle, even if you get so busy you can't be live. You can catch replays. Yeah. It's very much like this Alison Peterson. Who is the hope, the founder of the Breakthrough Circle. She and I work really closely together. So we try to make everything live, but then available for replays later, The question. So what you found most question most useful were the questions and how they provoke your own reflection and thought in order to best support your school, absolutely, their great self reflection questions as well.

29:30 And these would be great questions to ask as a leadership team, who's trying to think about supporting teams. So it really can be just a scaffolding effect a waterfall effect. If you will, where we say, We're going to start using these questions with our leadership team. And then, we're going to think in our leadership team, how are we supporting teams? And the teams are going to use the questions. They can even be helpful for students who collaborate together. Especially if you have older students, Keeps Us grounded and the right kind of work with teachers. Yes, let's keep the main thing the main thing. Okay guys, I enjoyed my evening with you, but let me get one more.

30:15 Our love that I can use these questions as soon as I reconvene with my team's. Yes. And you have to let me know if you do that. So, send me a private message. If you use them with teams, I would love to know how it works out with your teams. I'm gonna go eat my dinner, which is pizza and I will catch you guys on the flip side. See you later.