Category: Thinking

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7 powerful questions for leaders: creating a culture of ideas

Communication is the life-blood of an organisation. Dialogue needs to be honest: seeking objectivity, reducing bias and never covering up truths or views to make things ‘comfortable’. However, a habit of bad conversation stifles problem-solving, dampens enthusiasm and encourages the building of defensive routines.

From my own organisation and having worked with many schools, training providers and charities, it’s clear that the good communication begins with the leaders. As a leader there is always an enormous temptation to jump in and start giving advice without having really listened to the issue, without having sought enough perspectives, and without leaving room for others to grow their own solutions. The trouble is, however good your ideas, they come with a big shiny sign that say ‘the boss likes this, I should prioritise her/his thinking above my own’. What we want is a culture where great ideas and great thinking can take root, driven by everyone.

Here are 7 questions which I think can help.

1. “What’s on your mind?”
This is a great way to open a conversation – it signals that you’re interested in what the other person is thinking, and that you’re open to hearing concerns. It puts the ball in the other person’s court; they get to name the priority and they have control over the agenda.

This question needs to be used together with question 2 which is…

2. “Let me check I’ve understood. Are you saying <re-phrase and summarise>?”
It’s worth doing this check even if you’re reasonably certain you have understood. As you’re listening to what is being said you’re automatically reinterpreting it to your own view of the world. It’s useful to try and re-phrase/summarise and check that a) you’re on the right track and b) you haven’t missed something that’s important to the other person. Sometimes, when I listen to people, some elements of their dialogue spring out at me, but when I summarise the overall meaning I discover that I’ve distorted or obscured some of the key meaning that the other person intended. This technique demonstrates that your first priority is listening and understanding, not to jump in and take over control of the problem or situation.

A way of making questions 1 and 2 work together even better is to physically sit next to each other during the conversation, perhaps on two adjacent sides of a table, and sketch out ideas as the other person speaks. It could be a flow chart or a napkin sketch. It slows the process down, ensures you can repeatedly check that you’re on the same page, and allows the other person to see a map of what they’re saying and refer back to it later.

An image of a napkin showing a sketch of people sketching on napkins.
Napkin sketching can be a powerful tool for communication. [image source: Fast Company]

I’m grateful to Oliver Caviglioli for introducing me to this whole area of sketching, especially napkin sketching. It certainly takes some practice and it’s not always the right solution, but I have found it useful.

3. “What’s the real challenge here for you?”

Cover of book
The Coaching Habit

This is a lovely question which I recently read in The coaching habit: Say less, Ask more & Change the way you lead forever” (Michael Bungay Stanier). It’s helpful when someone has given you a laundry list of issues or concerns, or where someone has gone round in circles, or is being fuzzy. It forces the other person to search for the nugget that is really important, that matters most. As Stanier says, the word real “implies that there are a number of challenges and to choose from, and you have to find the one that matters most. Phrased like this, the question will always slow people down and make them think more deeply.” The words ‘for you’, are “what pin the question to the person you’re talking to. It keeps the question personal and makes the person you’re talking to wrestle with her struggle and what she needs to figure out”. [quotes from the book, Chapter 3]

4. “It sounds like you’re frustrated/disappointed/angry with X. This suggests that you have a vision in your head of what X should ideally be like, and it’s falling short. Could you describe that vision/ideal?”

This question has led to a few breakthrough moments for me, not only with other people but also even challenging myself to answer it. I was inspired to try this approach after a conversation with Tony Nicholls who inspired me to read about appreciative inquiry, an approach/philosophy of change and improvement that invites people to focus on the positive, not the negative.

This question draws on the ‘dream’ element of appreciative inquiry which is about articulating potential. It allows people to start describing and fleshing out an alternative reality. I have found that people often drift back quickly to describing the deficits – it takes quite a lot of gentle steering to get the other person to stay on ‘positive’ first, while not making them feel you’re ignoring the facts and emotions around the problems – e.g. “I can see that you find that frustrating. I’m keen to understand your ideal so that I can understand why the current situation is falling short.”

It allows them to imagine some light at the end of the tunnel and flip a negative conversation into one with more potential. Once the desired future is clear, it’s much easier to see the path to get there.

5. “Who could you ask to get helpful and different perspectives on this?”

This question serves multiple purposes. Firstly, as a manager, your instinct is to give your perspective and try and solve the problem. This question interrupts that instinct and helps the other person look elsewhere, using their own resourcefulness to do so. Secondly, it ‘zooms out’, reminding both of you that everyone sees the world from their own point of view, that everyone will be missing something, and that multiple perspectives are better than any one.

It’s not necessarily an easy question. If someone is feeling stressed and emotional then it’s hard to ‘zoom out’. An invitation to do so may even sound like a criticism. It may be the right thing to do to simply ‘park the conversation’ and say “it’s good to understand your point of view on this. Can we take a break to allow us both to reflect on this a bit?” You can then come together when the tension is lower, summarise where you were and start the process of ‘zooming out’.

Once you do start thinking of people, it’s worth teasing out “why do you think that person’s perspective might be helpful and different?” as this continues the process of helping the other person imagine themselves in other people’s shoes.

6. “What’s the most helpful thing I can do right now?”

It may be that the other person simply wishes to make you aware of something. It may be they want a specific piece of guidance. Maybe they want some feedback. It puts the ball in the other person’s court to say what you should do. It also stops you from going into ‘telling’ mode by default.

You have probably already helped by simply getting the other person to clearly articulate an issue and what the solution could look like, as well as sources of perspective and expertise. You might have (hopefully) sparked a sense of curiosity and drive to solve the problem.

Even if you’re asked for an opinion you might sometimes say “let’s see what you come up with first as it might be better than any idea I come up with”, or “I could come up with some ideas but I’d rather hear yours first.” Note that it’s worth avoiding signalling that you have ideas that you’re simply hiding or else you could just encourage a game of ‘guess what’s in my boss’s head’.

7. “When will we revisit and review this?”

Toward the end of a conversation you may both feel some relief that some difficult ground has been covered, or excitement that a seed has been sown. However, part of the reason that progress has been made is because you have a) paid attention to it, b) given permission for thinking and honesty and c) made it clear that the other person has ownership. Over time, the other person may see your attention fade, they may start doubting if they are still allowed to be creative and honest, and they may start interpreting things you’re doing and saying (outside of the meeting) as signalling that you’re taking back ownership.

I’ve learned this the hard way, with colleagues feeling I started some creative thinking and then interpreting later actions (sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly) as implicitly ‘dousing the flames’. It’s important to review and revisit ideas together, if only to continue to show that you’re not just about to jump onto the field of play uninvited – nor end the game early and start a new one – but that you are still very interested and enthusiastic. You may have planted a seed and started an initiative because it’s something you’re excited about. When you come back to it, you may now be excited about something very different. However, by reconnecting, showing interest and attention, and encouraging energy and curiosity, you can stay engaged and seek to maintain growth.

Conclusion

I’ve come to learn that I’m often at my happiest when I’m constantly exploring new ideas and sharing things that excited me. However, I’ve also learned the hard way that a tendency to be slow to listen but be quick to share my ideas, suggestions and latest enthusiasm has a toxic effect that encourages others to feel their own ideas aren’t valued and that they are not being heard.

I’m fascinated by the 7 questions above as a way of learning how to keep turning this dangerous habit on its head. I hope they’re of some use to you and I’d warmly invite you to share with me any critique, ideas or questions.

Some further reading

I’ve been enjoying these books recently – they’ve helped to spark some of this thinking.

Cover of book
The Coaching Habit
Image of the book cover
An everyone culture: becoming a deliberately development organisation – Kegan and Laney
Book cover: Multipliers
Multipliers: how the best leaders make everyone smarter – Wiseman and McKeown

Note: thanks to Dame Alison Peacock whose wonderful mantra ‘a culture of ideas’ continues to guide so much of my thinking.

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6 ways learning science might improve Ballroom & Latin practice & lessons

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AJive_Langella_Moshenska_1107.JPG

Today I found a great way to bring my not-so-secret past as a competitive latin dancer* together with my enthusiasm for research into teaching and learning. As those who know me through the mainstream education world will know, I’m fascinated by how students learn and how we help teachers learn how to teacher better.

I met up with teacher-to-the-champions Mr Graham Oswick, who along with some wonderful other teachers** did his best, many years ago, to inject some form of technique and style into my remarkably resistant body.

We had a chat about what teachers, students and competitors might learn from the most up to date research about how the brain learns***. Stemming from that discussion, here are 6 ideas from my reading of some cognitive science literature*** that I think might plausibly transfer into more effective teaching and learning in ballroom and latin.

I should note – I’ve not tested these and I’d love to hear if anyone has conducted some high quality research. Also, if any cognitive scientists would like to correct any mistake from my inevitably non-expert interpretation then I’d really welcome your input!

  1. When learning something new we have a limited working memory that can reliable hold about 3 to 5 ‘chunks’ of information at any one time before we feel overwhelmed and overloaded. For novice dancers each ‘chunk’ may be small movements, single steps, movement of one muscle. However, expert dancers have learned to combine multiple ideas into more complex mental schema which can be accessed as a single chunk, allowing experts to build up more complex ideas that would overwhelm beginners.
    • Suggestion: limit the amount of new steps and ideas you focus on at any one time when learning something new to avoid being overwhelmed by an impossible learning task. For new ideas, steps or technique, playing music, dancing with a partner or being aware of others watching you may be factors that overwhelm or impede learning as they all take part of your attention and therefore working memory.
  2. It’s tempting to try and learn and practice dances in chunks. This is known as massed practice. e.g. where you focus on all of the Samba for 20 minutes before moving to Rumba for another 20 minutes. However, cognitive science shows us that long-term memory of dances is stronger if we interleave practice. Oddly, it has been shown that by giving ourselves a bit of time to forget an idea then, even though the next time we try to remember it will be harder, the long-term strengthening of memory of this approach is much greater than repeating the same ideas back-to-back.
    • Suggestion: even though it feels harder, you’ll end up with stronger memory of routines is you interleave dances rather than doing massed practice of repeating one dance several times before moving to the next.
  3. One of the most frustrating problems in dancing is where you remember a routine and technique in the studio but where it goes out of your head in an exam or on the competition floor. One element of the problem is clearly related to stress but another issue could be related to the idea of transfer. This is where the learning of an idea is strongly associated in your memory with a particular location, environment, music, and so on. Learning science suggests that we can help overcome this by mixing up our practice and learning in all sorts of different ways, to ensure that the only common factor is the actual core idea that we’re focused on, rather than letting it get bound up with other factors.
    • Suggestion: mix up practice in as many ways as possible to strengthen your learning and adaptability. Try different music, different tempos, different locations facing different directions. Start at different points of the routine. Wear a variety of practice wear – heavier and lighter.
  4. A common way to teach ideas in dancing is for the instructor or teacher to demonstrate an idea by dancing it themselves while the student watches. However, learning science shows that novices are very likely to have attention focused on some of the wrong aspects of the demonstration. Another issue is that the act of processing the moving image also takes up valuable working memory which takes attention away from the key aspects being demonstrated. Research has shown that students often learn new ideas better from a series of still images where the key aspects are simply and clearly highlighted and where details that are not important to the key idea are de-emphasised.
    • Suggestion: work hard to focus attention on the key aspects being communicated. During teaching demonstrations you could perhaps attach something brightly coloured to the area of focus. Another idea is to use a series of still images (or, even better, simple line drawings) and talk through them using a highlighter to show the key areas of focus.
  5. Research suggests that the most successful students are constantly engaged in self-talk – internally re-explaining what they are seeing and experiencing to make sense of it. Less successful students do less of this. This mental process helps to create the links between practice and theory – i.e. between the what and the how and why. In more successful practice and teaching, students are encouraged and helped to engage in self-explanation, e.g. by pausing frequently in demonstrations or by being given worked examples with gaps to fill in.
    • Suggestion: during lessons and practice, make time to verbalise both the sequence of steps and the logic of why actions are taking place. Repeated demonstrations are less effective than switching back and forwards between instructor-narrated demonstrations and student-narrated practice, or even student-narrated demonstrations.
  6. One of the more effective ways of learning is to see two concrete examples of an idea or practice side by side and then work with a teacher to identify key differences. It is significantly more effective to be able to see ideas side-by-side than it is to watch one example and then another, especially when key aspects can be put right next to each other and highlighted.
    • Suggestion: use video to capture the teacher and the students dancing the same moves to the same music, then play back side-by-side, pausing and slowing to emphasise key aspects of difference. Stills from both might be used on-screen with a digital highlighter to emphasise key differences in shaping, or slow-motion used to show differences in rhythm or size/volume of movement.

To re-iterate, these ideas are taken from general literature on cognitive science, not from any specific literature on learning or practising dance. However, they do seem to be generally applicable in a wide variety of settings and learning so I hope they might start a useful discussion among ballroom and latin dance teachers, students and competitors about improving the way that steps, techniques and routines are taught and learned.

Anyone fancy exploring this further?

 

*In case of scepticism, here’s a video of me dancing with the lovely Leah Rolfe back in 2007 – should be noted Leah has gone on to much greater things since finding a significantly better partner in the amazing Adelmo. I also danced with other amazing partners such as Sharon Withers, Sarah Farrell, Laura John, Georgina Weeds , to name just a few.

**Other amazing teachers included Bruce Richardson, Vicky Cunniffe, Lorraine Kuznik, Neil Dewar, Ian Waite, Karen Hardy, Luca Sartori and Goran Nordin, Margaret Redmond and several others. I’m ridiculously grateful to them all, even if I’m no longer dancing.

colvin clark ev based training*** These ideas are all taken from Ruth Colvin Clark – Evidence-based training methods where you can also see references for all of the research quoted.

Note: the image used as a header for this blog is cropped from an original by Ailura (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org
/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons – from https://commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/File AJive_Langella_Moshenska_1107.JPG

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The science of learning (part 2)

Following on from “Learning that works (part 1)” which was about what happens in our brains regarding paying attention, this post looks at how we assimilate and associate ideas and form memories. It’s a bit oversimplified, but gives a sense of what’s going on, I hope.

Slide1 Slide2 Slide3 Slide4 Slide5 Slide6 Slide7 Slide8 Slide9

PS As the lovely @Nick_J_Rose has pointed out, I’ve simplified things and somewhat conflated the ideas of ‘chunking’ and ‘schema’ – the former being about working memory and the latter being about long term memory. I’m grateful as ever for his feedback and I’ll try and unpick this in the next blog. You can read more about chunking, schemas and prototypes here.

DISCLAIMER: I’m neither a qualified psychologist nor neuroscientist so please let me know if I’ve made any errors here. I’d be really interested in any feedback that you have – please comment below!

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2012: time to stop this poverty of aspiration known as ‘ability’ labelling.

Have you ever taken an IQ test? My Dad loves to complain that IQ tests only measure how good you are at taking IQ tests, (albeit while noting he was once a member of Mensa), and the more I’ve been reading about learning, psychology and neuroscience the more I find I absolutely have to agree with him.

It’s always been fairly nonsensical when you consider how this fabled human quality of ‘natural ability’ was so inextricably and inversely linked to poverty, parenting and early childhood experience. I wonder how many of the people who graduated from the ever-expanding Open University last year were written off as ‘not very bright’ at school? My own mother left school at 15 without a maths qualification and with an enormous chip on her shoulder. By the time she was 55 she had a masters degree in literature and a great deal more pride. She not only had to study, she had to build her own confidence and teach herself study skills, and I have to say I admire her greatly for it.

Perhaps, in her school days, she failed her 11+. Perhaps she was put in low ability sets. Perhaps she was given cloze-exercises and wordsearches when her peers in other sets and schools were getting challenged by extended problems. Maybe nobody ever took the time to go back and shore up a few shaky foundations of her understanding, nobody took the time to give her the will, the confidence, and the discipline to learn nor the tools with which to improve. I suspect instead they simply said ‘she’s not very able’ and were happy for her to not understand much of what was being taught, gain Ds and Es and then shunt her off to some low-expectation low-demand qualifications to suit her ‘talent’ level.

Of course there has been a change in focus in these days. Now having failed her 11+ she would have been allocated a target grade that is appropriate for her ability while showing a suitable level of progress. Teachers may even tell her they have set an aspirational target of a C. High aspirations indeed(!), and then of course she would be advised to take some of her favourite subjects, possibly less academically demanding ones, so that she won’t lose her self-confidence.

Oh dear. Can 2012 be the year we stop this nonsense? Time to go back to first principles.

Every student has some history of attainment and some holes in understanding. However, just as importantly, each of them bring with them varying levels of motivation across subjects. The process of learning itself requires a number of skills, and different students will be strong in some and less-so in others.

Attainment, and capacity to learn. The two planks of student education and development. And yet for some reason lots of teachers pay far too much attention to the former, and concentrate overly much on the narrow ‘confidence’ element in the latter.

It is our role as teachers to develop a student’s capacity to learn as much as it is to present the subject material. If a student finds something hard and unappealing it is our job to develop their mental capacity to learn it effectively and find some hook of interest and experience on which to hang it – not to find them easier work or funnel them in to ‘alternative provision’.

If a student doesn’t initially warm to a subject, or has trouble accessing it, then they are not ‘less able’, they have simply not yet developed the capacity to learn it so effectively, nor have they yet attained the relevant previous skills and knowledge. Children develop at different rates, but that does not imply ‘ability’. If a student isn’t accessing material in a lesson then perhaps the assessment of their understanding has failed – there may be earlier concepts that they haven’t grasped that are blocking their progress.

That said, if we give students the impression that it is their job to sit there passively and be ‘taught’ by teachers then we are doing both the students and the teachers a disservice. In developing their capacity to learn we must not only instil motivation but also the discipline and rigour of study. Some of the best things that we learn in life are the ones that are hard, verging on unpleasant at first, and only blossom into fascination at a later stage. If we trust both that the outcome of our efforts will be worthwhile, and that we have the ability to overcome the obstacles, then we can learn.

Poverty of aspiration is a terrible thing. Is is easy, as @oldandrewuk always says, to write off  “other people’s children” as simply less able, while staying up late with your own helping them with homework and buying in expensive private tutors so that they can fulfil their true potential.

I very much hope that any student who, in my career so far, has felt that I have written them off or ‘dumbed them down’ will, in 20 years time, track me down with their own Open University degree in hand and shove it in my face. I am sure I would deserve it, just as much as my own mum’s maths teachers most certainly did.

Agree/disagree? I’d love to hear your comments.

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Stress: what is it?

Our bodies have evolved to react when in danger, whether that is physical danger (e.g. the threat of being eaten or attacked) or social (losing social status, uncertain situations, lack of control, meeting strangers or unfairness).

Of course these days things tend to be a little more complicated than being chased by a wild animal or trying to fight off a new dominant male in the pack, but sure enough the stress mechanism still comes in to play. It is entirely possible to get some control over these processes, but the first stage is to recognise and understand what is happening.

The body’s response to stress

The initial reaction to stress (‘Alarm’) is all about preparing the body to start running or fighting, and is triggered by the release of hormones such as adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol as directed by the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that links the nervous systems and endocrine/hormone systems. The effects you notice are:

  • Acceleration of the heartbeat and breathing faster, to get more oxygen to the muscles,
  • Liberation of fat and glucose to provide energy for the muscles,
  • Pupil dilation and inhibition of peripheral vision so you concentrate on moving in one direction only,
  • Relaxation of bladder and various sphincters, to prevent the effort of holding in body waste and possibly to ‘offload’ weight,
  • Dilation of blood vessels in muscles, constriction of blood vessels everywhere else,
  • Magnification of spinal reflexes, ability to focus and immune system, and inhibition of various other energy-consuming processes and responses such as sexual arousal, digestion, attention to pain and higher-order thinking (e.g. creativity and metacognition).

If the cause of stress remains for some time then the body moves in to the ‘resistance’ phase where it attempts to adapt the response to suit the situation. However, if this goes on too long then the body moves in to the final ‘exhaustion’ phase where the imbalance of normal blood flow and excess production of certain hormones can exhaust the body’s resources, leading to long-term damage. This could manifest as ulcers, diabetes, digestive disorders, cardiovascular problems, depression, or other mental disorders.

So what’s the problem?

Stress is a fairly primitive response to problems, and in most situations that we encounter in life we would do better to regain control of ourselves. When we’re in the full grip of ‘fight-or-flight’ we aren’t using our full mental faculties, and can appear irritable, overly emotional, agitated and unhappy. We’re poor at remembering, poor at concentrating and we tend toward pessimism. The trouble is that, for many people, stress becomes a way of life. People become isolated socially, pick up bad-habits and addictions, become more prone to illness, lose sex-drive and develop poor sleeping habits.

This is all rather rather sad and ironic as our most effective routes out of stress are often other people’s empathy and listening, sleep, and our own high-order thinking skills such as metacognition. However in the absence of a decent understanding of stress we often smoke, drink, take drugs and develop emotional problems and thinking disorders.

So what’s the solution?

Fortunately we can learn and develop the skills that help overcome the majority of stressful situations.

  1. Name the emotion in order to tame it.
    Practise becoming aware of your different emotional states. Notice your physical stress responses and make a mental note that you are feeling stressed and anxious. Separate the feeling from yourself, e.g. “I feel sad right now” and not “I am sad”. This engages your left-brain to bring a bit of order and logic to the rather more right-brain oriented emotional responses, and activates the metacognitive powers of your higher-order brain areas to bring understanding instead of fear.
  2. Put it in to perspective.
    Remember all emotions are temporary and will pass. Spot what just caused the emotion and notice that your brain went into autopilot as a result. Pause whatever you are doing. Take a deep breath, exhale slowly and consciously relax your muscles. If you are able, move away from the situation and do something physical (brisk walking, jumping, stretches). Take a moment to notice as the physical symptoms gradually diminish: muscles relax, breathing and heart-rate slows, your thinking becomes calmer. By doing this your brain starts releasing chemicals that moderate the hormonal action of the stress response.
  3. Acknowledge and accept it.
    Don’t give yourself a hard time, your instincts just kicked in as a result of the combination of what just happened with your memories of previous events. Don’t worry that you’ve just been in conflict or an anxious-making situation. Both are very useful, and can be triggers for personal growth. You’ve just been in a situation where you can learn something useful about yourself, the world, and other people. Take a moment (you can do this a little later) to think through the clear logic of what happened, how you felt and why you felt it. If it was someone else who caused the stress, imagine what combination of their personal perception and memories triggered their action. All of these actions help you move the event from unconscious low-level memory to explicit higher-level memory, and fully integrate the event through all parts of the brain, emotional and logical. Failure to do this can lead to anxious memories and future stress.

When should you do this?

Use this all the time. Practise noticing your emotional and mental state, whether happy, sad, alert, tired, loving, angry or anxious. You can even practise this in retrospect by simply imagining a recent stressful situation and remembering your physical state. You’ll probably find that in doing so you re-live some of the stress and can practise taming it.

How can you help someone else?

This is easier with children, but can also work with adults. Be explicit in naming what they are feeling, e.g.”Oh dear, poor you, I can see you’re feeling really angry at the moment, your brain must be in full stress mode which can’t be very nice”. Use your whole body to show empathy and sympathy for their situation. Speak more slowly, take a breath and exhale noticeably. Encourage them to pause and take a breath. If you can do, take them away from the stress situation and encourage them to walk around. You could sit down and throw a ball backward and forward as you start to discuss the situation, give them a stress toy or a cushion to squeeze. Remind them gently (if appropriate) that it was just an emotion when their brain went into autopilot.

As you see them start to relax, say it out loud – reassure them that they are relaxing and that the situation is over. Now you can start  asking questions and listen openly to responses. You might start with “How are you feeling now?” to ground them back in their more relaxed state.

Summary

  1. Stress is activated in physically and socially threatening situations
  2. Your muscles tense, your breathing quickens and your logical ability and emotional control diminish.
  3. Begin to conquer stress by noticing the stress response in your brain, and mentally name it: “I am feeling stressed/anxious at this moment”
  4. Put it in perspective by remembering that it is just a temporary emotion. “I can relax myself and this emotion will pass soon”. Pause, take a slow breath, relax your muscles,
  5. Acknowledge the stressful situation. Don’t give yourself a hard time, take a moment to think through the situation from all angles and perspectives.
  6. Practise noticing emotions in all parts of your life. Help other people through stress by verbalising what they are thinking, mirroring their emotions and guiding them to relax.

I will be writing some more blogs about how school leaders, teachers, students and parents can apply these principles, and about how some simple habits can increase your general positivity and reduce overall stress.

I’d welcome your thoughts on this blog, as always!

Bibliography

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The tyranny of targets and approved teaching methods

I was watching a video of systems thinker John Seddon lambasting an obsession with targets recently. He points out that if you want to improve any system it’s worth thinking about three elements:

  • Purpose. What effect should the system have, what are its intended outcomes?
  • Measurement. How do we know if the system is fulfilling its purpose?
  • Method. What happens in the system to keep it on track?

Any thinking needs to start with the purpose or else you get a whole raft of unintended consequences. Education is no exception, and I’ve been picking out examples that I have personally encountered.

When the primary focus is on measurement (exams/league tables) you simply create a de facto purpose of “make the measurements look better”. Some of the methods to do this may suit the original purpose (attempts to improve quality of teaching and learning), but some of them will work directly against it (endless revision classes, insufficiently taxing exams, over-coaching, or even cheating).

Just as damaging is a focus on method. For example “all must write lesson objectives, all lessons will be three part, and all students must know their levels”. This creates a de facto measurement “is the teacher using an approved method?” and “can the student recite their levels”, which in turn creates a purpose of “create teachers who use a fixed teaching method, and students who can recite levels”.

Of course leaders/managers/headteachers may have in the back of their mind that as well as delivering approved methods and improved accountability measures they would also rather like to ensure kids receive a ‘good education’, but if this is the lower priority then the system will reflect it.

In the 50s and 60s in Japan they went through a revolution in quality that enabled them to  overtake the industrial domination of the USA in few decades. Many managers there were trained by W E Deming, who famously advised

“Eliminate numerical quotas, including Management by Objectives.”

So how do we change our lessons and our schools to reflect this? After a short brainstorm I’ve thought of a few ideas, but I suspect you could suggest many more.

  • Remember that improving accountability targets is not an objective in itself: it will be one tell-tale sign of whether your students and teachers are buying in to the core purpose of learning.
  • Plan every lesson primarily to achieve learning. Think about the learning that needs to take place before you think about the structure and content of the lesson.
  • Assess deep learning. Use the SOLO taxonomy. Use the full range of tools from rote memorisation through to open-ended problem solving.
  • Reject imposed lesson structures, let teachers grow their strengths, challenge students in different ways.
  • Never judge a student, a teacher, a lesson or a school by their outcomes alone. You need a rich mix of observations, discussions, and self-evaluations  as well as outcomes.
  • Focus less on recording and processing symptoms of poor learning (e.g. behaviour problems and absences) and put more energy in to creating better learning. You can pick up the relevant information from these measures without having to obsessively record them 10 times a day.

Let me be clear. I absolutely do not suggest that we don’t need to measure things, take exams or train teachers in specific methods. However, we do need to avoid these methods becoming compulsory and these measures and exams becomes ends in themselves. There needs to be a relentless focus on student learning and development – everything else is, and should remain, subsidiary. When that is improved, we will know it by seeing the measures improve.

To conclude, a few more pieces of classic W E Deming advice, as taken from the Cambridge University Press summary of his 14 points.

  • Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.
  • Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the workforce asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
  • Eliminate work standards on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.
  • Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.
  • Remove barriers that rob the hourly paid worker of his right to pride in workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.
  • Remove barriers that rob people in management and engineering of their right to pride in workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and management by objective.

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

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That’s not fair! The psychology of our natural sense of justice.

Social experience is as important to our wellbeing as physical environment. Research suggests that our innate neurological threat-reward systems are activated not only in response to basic physical stimuli such as food/hunger, pain/pleasure, etc. but in response to five basic social qualities:

5. Fairness

In 2007 Tabibna and Lieberman did an interesting experiment where people were told that there was a certain quantity of money available and that it would be split between them and one other person. They measured the reward-mechanism response in their brains as they told them this, and found that if offered $0.50 out of $1.00 total then the subjects experienced a greater reward response than if they were offered $10.00 out of $50.00. The perceived unfairness of the latter situation was greater, even though, objectively, they were getting a better deal.

Fairness, it seems, is an inbuilt mechanism in the brain, and can affect our sense of relatedness and status.

“People who perceive others as unfair don’t feel empathy for their pain, and in some instances, will feel rewarded when unfair others are punished (Singer et al, 2006).”
(SCARF white paper)

Similar parts of the brain are activated when people perceive unfairness as when they are physically disgusted by something, driving people to a state of either anger or fear – the classic fight or flight response.

So what lessons can we draw from this for teaching and learning, school leadership and education policy?

Teaching and Learning

Having a consistent approach to rules, both rewards and punishment, can work in a teacher’s favour. It ensures students sense they too will be treated fairly, thus reducing anxiousness. It increases certainty and helps students recover relatedness even after they have been disciplined. Stressed and inexperienced teachers often attempt to mix ‘tactically ignoring’ problems with sudden harsh punishments when their patience breaks. This immediately aggravates the sense of fairness in every member of the class, turning them against the teacher. Attempting to do any real teaching when the class is in this state is futile – their fight-or-flight response is activated and completely dampens the relevant mechanisms relevant for learning.

School Leadership

In the general stress of a teacher’s job, the very last thing that they need is to feel that they are being treated unfairly themselves. A lack of transparency in pay, rewards, and promotions are common causes of perceived unfairness, and even more so when new management are parachuted in and suddenly decide that one or two members of staff need to be removed. Even if it is for the best intentions, a decision to treat some people by different rules will destroy the collegiate atmosphere for the rest. If in doubt, senior leadership should ensure that they come off no better, and ideally ever so slightly worse than their colleagues when a change in rules is announced.

Education Policy

Politics is rife with accusations of unfairness. In times of change when anxiety is generally higher then people will be acutely aware of any lack of justice. Common problems are when politicians push their ‘pet’ projects or make announcements without any genuine transparency. Of course politicians, like many other, suffer unfairness at the hands of the media, but it is vital that they avoid making the same mistake.

In times of hardship it is worth demonstrating how politicians and policy-makers are being affected, and again it is worth ensuring that the perception is that “we’re all in this together, but we value you so much that we’ll take a slightly bigger hit ourselves”. A notable place for this would have been where the UK government was negotiating pension decreases. I suspect that the whole thing would have been accepted much more readily by unions if MPs had made a show of how they were cutting their own pensions by ever so slightly more than their proposals for the rest of the country.

Summary

  • We make make assessments of fairness based on how we are treated compared to everyone else – it plays to our natural sense of empathy.
  • Unfairness causes stress and anxiety and induces anger, fear and hopelessness.
  • Lack of consistency is unfairness, and lack of transparency can lead to perceived unfairness.
  • If you have to inflict suffering on people you lead then you should be seen to be suffering at least as much yourself, in order to maintain the sense of justice.

Bibliography

  • Managing with the brain in mind, Strategy Business magazine issue 59, Autumn 2009.
  • SCARF360 white paper, David Rock, NeuroLeadership journal, issue one, 2008
  • Singer, T., Seymour, B., O’Doherty, J.P., Stephan, K.E., Dolan, R.J., Frith, C.D., 2006. Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others. Nature, 439, 466-469.
  • Tabibnia, G., & Lieberman M. D. (2007). Fairness and Cooperation Are Rewarding: Evidence from Social Cognitive Neuroscience. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1118, 90-101.
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Friend or Foe? The science of empathy and relationships explained.

Social experience is as important to our wellbeing as physical environment. Research suggests that our innate neurological threat-reward systems are activated not only in response to basic physical stimuli such as food/hunger, pain/pleasure, etc. but in response to five basic social qualities:

4. Relatedness

We all know the feeling of meeting someone completely new. There’s a slight tension and greater alertness: the classic fight-of-flight response. In fact, our brain is programmed make a judgement about each new person we meet in order to assess the risk of the situation.

“The decision that someone is friend or foe happens quickly and impacts brain functioning (Carter & Pelphrey, 2008). For example, information from people perceived as ‘like us’ is processed using similar circuits for thinking one’s own thoughts. When someone is perceived as a foe, different circuits are used (Mitchell, 2006). Also, when treating someone as a competitor, the capacity to empathise drops significantly (Singer et al, 2006).”
(SCARF white paper)

If the initial interaction and conversation goes well then you get a sense that you are ‘warming’ to the other person. This feeling appears to relate to the release of oxytocin in the brain, a natural brain hormone associated with affiliative behaviour (Domes et al, 2007). It has been suggested that oxytocin not only allows us to bond with another person, but also helps us overcome existing preconceptions or stereotypes by easing the process of ‘unlearning’, an important point for conflict resolution. Oxytocin is known to be release in particularly large quantities at the start of new romantic relationships and when people become parents.

“Studies have shown far greater collaboration when people are given a shot of oxytocin, through a nasal spray. (Kosfield, 2005).”
(SCARF white paper)

Relatedness and its importance in in organisations and schools is not a new idea. ‘Team Building’ exercises are very common, although if these are implemented by simply throwing a group of people together at random then you’re not likely to get a great response. The key is to explore ways that people can see team members, colleagues and classmates as ‘like me’ in some way. This is important to counteract feelings of loneliness.

“the human threat response is aroused when people feel cut off from social interaction. Loneliness and isolation are profoundly stressful. John T. Cacioppo and William Patrick showed in 2008 that loneliness itself is  a threat response to lack of social contact, activating the same neurochemicals that flood the system when one is subjected to physical pain.”
(Managing with the brain in mind)

So what lessons can we draw from this for teaching and learning, school leadership and education policy?

Teaching and Learning

First and foremost this article should hopefully help to further dismiss the adage of ‘don’t smile before Christmas’. It is immensely important that students create a warm relationship with their teacher. When this happens then the empathy created will foster greater trust and better behaviour. The best teachers always take time to know and understand their students and try and relate to them.

It is also important that students relate to each other. In secondary schools in particular there are many different classes with different groupings, and teachers shouldn’t ignore the importance of relationships between students. Peer collaboration is a powerful learning tool, but won’t be possible until relationships have been properly established.

School Leadership

Professional development happens much more effectively when teachers collaborate, not only with performance managers, line managers and mentors, but with other members of their departments. The best school leaders encourage social activity within and outside the classroom, and give staff an opportunity to learn together. Teacher sports teams, yoga classes, choirs, etc. are all excellent to create useful relationships, but you may also like to experiment with a display of teacher photos with accompanying brief ‘biographies’ including interests. School leaders need to participate in this as well: a cold, aloof management team reduces trust, and means they are less likely to hear about problems until too late.

Education Policy

Politicians have left a trail of PR disasters as they attempt to wear baseball caps and proclaim ‘pop’ music tastes in an attempt to make voters think they are ‘like me’. When you’re in charge of such an enormously diverse group of people then the values and consistency demonstrated by your actions will be more important.

When management teams or ‘superheads’ are placed in schools then there needs to be serious time and effort put in to building relationships with existing staff, students and parents. New federations or chains cannot hope to pull together successfully unless they give time for staff to get out and visit colleagues in other establishments.

Summary

  • We are tense when we meet new people. Our fight-or-flight response kicks in.
  • ‘Warmth’ between people occurs when they find similarities, and this can help break down stereotypes and preconceptions.
  • Loneliness can be a severe problem, with mental repercussions similar to physical pain.
  • Effective organisations work on trust and empathy between staff, and it is worth spending time on relationships, although crass attempts at ‘team-building’ can be counterproductive.

Biography

  • Managing with the brain in mind, Strategy Business magazine issue 59, Autumn 2009.
  • SCARF360 white paper, David Rock, NeuroLeadership journal, issue one, 2008
  • Carter, E. J. & Pelphrey, K. A., (2008). Friend or foe?
    Brain systems involved in the perception of dynamic signals of menacing and friendly social approaches. Journal
    Social Neuroscience, Volume 3, Issue 2 June 2008 , pages 151-163.
  • Mitchell, J. P., Macrae, C. N., & Banaji, M. R. (2006). Dissociable Medial Prefrontal Contributions to Judgments of Similar and Dissimilar Others. Neuron, 50, 655-663.
  • Singer, T., Seymour, B., O’Doherty, J.P., Stephan, K.E., Dolan, R.J., Frith, C.D., 2006. Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others. Nature, 439, 466-469.
  • Domes , G., Heinrichs, M., Gläscher J., Büchel, C., Braus, D., Herpertz, S. (2007). Oxytocin Attenuates Amygdala Responses to Emotional Faces Regardless of Valence. Biological Psychiatry, 62(10), 1187-1190.
  • Kosfeld, M. Heinrichs, M., Zak, P. J., Fischbacher, U., & Fehr, E. (2005). Oxytocin increases trust in humans. Nature, 435, 673-676.
  • Cacioppo, J. T., & Patrick, B. (2008). Loneliness: human nature and the need for social connection. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
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Taking Control: Why Autonomy Reduces Stress

Social experience is as important to our wellbeing as physical environment. Research suggests that our innate neurological threat-reward systems are activated not only in response to basic physical stimuli such as food/hunger, pain/pleasure, etc. but in response to five basic social qualities:

3. Autonomy

“Autonomy is the perception of exerting control over one’s environment; a sensation of having choices. Mieka (1985) showed that the degree of control organisms can exert over a stress factor determines whether or not the stressor alters the organism’s functioning. Inescapable or uncontrollable stress can be highly destructive, whereas the same stress interpreted as escapable is significantly less destructive. (Donny et al, 2006).”
(SCARF white paper)

Human beings have evolved to carefully evaluate each social situation for danger. I previously wrote about status, but there is a broader evaluation of whether the situation supports or threatens one’s capacity for choice, presumably to ensure options for fleeing are available at all times.

A greater feeling of control leads to reduced stress. In a study of nursing homes, Rodin and Langer found that residents who had all their choices made for them were less healthy and had shorter life-spans than those who were given more control over decisions that affected them. Other studies in the workplace have shown that the number one cause for people leaving a profession is perceived lack of control over work-life balance.

So what lessons can we draw from this for teaching and learning, school leadership and education policy?

Teaching and Learning

If teachers dictate the content, delivery and pace of every lesson then not only are they giving themselves a hard time but they may be unwittingly inflicting greater stress on students. If a child is faced with obligatory tasks that they feel they cannot do then they will become anxious, and their learning will be impaired. However if we allow them choices at these moments of stress then it can help them relax and enjoy themselves. Of course, this doesn’t mean kids should be allowed to opt for the easy low-challenge material, and we have to be careful that each challenge has that optimum level of uncertainty that promotes the greatest learning.

Teachers commonly proffer control to students in other situations, using choice to help defuse anger and bad behaviour, although we can see that transparently fake choices (‘it’s my way or you leave’) will only increase the tension further.

School Leadership

Micromanagement is well-known bad practice, and we can now see why from the brain’s perspective. School leaders should avoid dictating classroom practice as this piles on pressure when teachers need to be calm. Instead, offer structures with clear room for choice. At moments of high stress (e.g. inspections) offer staff choices and some control. “You have to do it this way” will lead to much more stress and resentment than “Something needs to change, which of these two options would you prefer?”

Try to give flexibility in working patterns – a good school will be clear that they will support part-time working if at all possible. If your timetable can introduce elements of choice for students then they will also feel more empowered and engaged.

Education Policy

Autonomy is the current buzz-word in education, although politicians are irresistibly drawn toward micromanagement and centralisation as it satisfies their own feelings of control and therefore safety. Devolving power may be intellectually satisfying but it increases the stress of policy makers when they don’t feel they have hands on the levers. Political leaders and commentators should recognise that stressed, insecure politicians centralise, and that attacking them incessantly can only exacerbate this.

School inspectorates have a tough but necessary job to assure quality. However even a small amount of autonomy could help. For example, allowing teachers to opt to choose broadly to be seen during one day or another would be massively beneficial. Teachers would be less stressed, and this would ensure observations were more realistic.

Summary

  • Lack of control or choice increases stress levels. This suppresses learning, demotivates, and can lead to poor health.
  • Leaders’ desire to reduce their own stress drives them toward taking control over everything, but this instinct will increase stress in everyone else. A balance needs to be maintained.
  • At moments of high stress, simply giving a choice can help defuse some of the tension.

Bibliography

  • Managing with the brain in mind, Strategy Business magazine issue 59, Autumn 2009.
  • SCARF360 white paper, David Rock, NeuroLeadership journal, issue one, 2008
  • Donny, E. C., Bigelow, G. E., & Walsh S. L. (2006). Comparing the physiological and subjective effects of self-administered vs yoked cocaine in humans. Psychopharmacology, 186(4), 544-52.
  • Dworkin, S I., Mirkis, S., Smith J. E. (1995). Response-dependent versus response-independent presentation of cocaine: differences in the lethal effects of the drug. Psychopharmacology, 117(3), 262-266.
  • Rodin, J. (1986). Aging and health: effects of the sense of control. Science, 233, 1271-1276.