COMPETENCY 10: STAFF PERSONNEL
Related Task 10.2: Ability to assist staff members with individual problems, needs, feelings, and frustrations.
Specific Task 10.2.2: Interview administrators regarding means of handling personal problems of staff.
Narrative description of specific task: Interview building administrators (4) about difficult conversations they have had with staff members (focus on their reflections, strategies utilized, and things they would have done differently). Identify administrator lessons learned and reflect upon how I would have handled the same types of situations.
Related Task 10.2: Ability to assist staff members with individual problems, needs, feelings, and frustrations.
Specific Task 10.2.2: Interview administrators regarding means of handling personal problems of staff.
Narrative description of specific task: Interview building administrators (4) about difficult conversations they have had with staff members (focus on their reflections, strategies utilized, and things they would have done differently). Identify administrator lessons learned and reflect upon how I would have handled the same types of situations.
Interview #1
Dr. Jennifer Hammond, Principal
Overview
Dr. Hammond began our conversation by bringing up the leader's role in dealing with problems within your staff that can lead to difficult conversations. She said. "People often come with problems, but they don't always need you to solve them." She said that over the years she has learned that she doesn't have to jump in to solve all problems. Early in her career she would do this, but now she has more patience and wisdom and has learned to ask the individual, "what can you do to solve it, what supports do you need to solve it?" She conveyed that sometimes people just need an ear to bend and as a leader you should listen and ask questions to guide them to solving the problem themselves, otherwise all of these little situtation will consume you.
When in the situation of needing to have a difficult conversation, such as with a teacher regarding an issue during their observation, she puts time into prepping what it is she will say. She said she uses open ended questions to help guide the conversation so the teacher reflects upon what the issue might be, and hopefully they also see what it is they could be doing better. She said she observed a science lesson last year where the teacher lectured the whole time using printed transparencies on the overhead projector. During the post-observation meeting she simply asked the teacher, "When did you put that lesson together, do you think it could be updated?" The teacher said that he had planned the lesson and had been using it for ten years. He seemed embarrassed when admitting to this. After a continued discussion about the details of why this lesson needed to be updated and how, she said. "If you want me to come back... I will." The teacher agreed, and she said that the new lesson wasn't great, but it was much better than before. Dr. Hammond conveyed that as a leader you have to be honest with people and let them know where they stand. If you avoid the conversation, there will be no growth and no one gets better that way.
Dr. Hammond makes a point to practice difficult conversations so that the critical comments are sandwiched within positive affirming comments. She said it's difficult though, “How do you put together the conversation, where there are 99 things they are doing right? Everyone fixates on the 1% they didn’t do right.” This is the difficult part of the conversation, the fact that the people might be upset, but you have to try your best to mitigate that.
When asked about difficult conversations with parents, she brought up an issue she dealt with recently where parents were upset with the school's volleyball coach. The parents were upset by the attitude the coach had with their daughters. Dr. Hammond said that the coach had been around a long time and had an "old school" mentality regarding her treatment of players. The hard part about the situation was that the season was over in the fall, but parents had let the issue fester and then blew up at the administration about it in February, months after. She said that this is often the case with difficult parent issues, parents don't address an issue right away with a teacher or coach and then come to adminstrators when the situation has escalated more. She said a lot of these situations aren't win-win's, somebody always ends up feeling like they didn't get everything they want. As an administrator you have to put your all into sorting out the problem and coming up with a plan. However, If people are still upset and you've truly put your best into the situation, you have to let it go. She said this will be very difficult as a new adminstrator, and only gets a little easier as you gain experience.
As far as general difficult conversations, she said that even trivial things can be difficult. She said the worst nagging things she hates to deal with are employee dress code violations. Sometimes she has to have conversations with teachers and secretaries about their appearance, or unfortunately even smell. It's an awkward conversation, but it can be handled in a professional and concerned way.
Strategies Used in Difficult Discussions
Dr. Jennifer Hammond, Principal
Overview
Dr. Hammond began our conversation by bringing up the leader's role in dealing with problems within your staff that can lead to difficult conversations. She said. "People often come with problems, but they don't always need you to solve them." She said that over the years she has learned that she doesn't have to jump in to solve all problems. Early in her career she would do this, but now she has more patience and wisdom and has learned to ask the individual, "what can you do to solve it, what supports do you need to solve it?" She conveyed that sometimes people just need an ear to bend and as a leader you should listen and ask questions to guide them to solving the problem themselves, otherwise all of these little situtation will consume you.
When in the situation of needing to have a difficult conversation, such as with a teacher regarding an issue during their observation, she puts time into prepping what it is she will say. She said she uses open ended questions to help guide the conversation so the teacher reflects upon what the issue might be, and hopefully they also see what it is they could be doing better. She said she observed a science lesson last year where the teacher lectured the whole time using printed transparencies on the overhead projector. During the post-observation meeting she simply asked the teacher, "When did you put that lesson together, do you think it could be updated?" The teacher said that he had planned the lesson and had been using it for ten years. He seemed embarrassed when admitting to this. After a continued discussion about the details of why this lesson needed to be updated and how, she said. "If you want me to come back... I will." The teacher agreed, and she said that the new lesson wasn't great, but it was much better than before. Dr. Hammond conveyed that as a leader you have to be honest with people and let them know where they stand. If you avoid the conversation, there will be no growth and no one gets better that way.
Dr. Hammond makes a point to practice difficult conversations so that the critical comments are sandwiched within positive affirming comments. She said it's difficult though, “How do you put together the conversation, where there are 99 things they are doing right? Everyone fixates on the 1% they didn’t do right.” This is the difficult part of the conversation, the fact that the people might be upset, but you have to try your best to mitigate that.
When asked about difficult conversations with parents, she brought up an issue she dealt with recently where parents were upset with the school's volleyball coach. The parents were upset by the attitude the coach had with their daughters. Dr. Hammond said that the coach had been around a long time and had an "old school" mentality regarding her treatment of players. The hard part about the situation was that the season was over in the fall, but parents had let the issue fester and then blew up at the administration about it in February, months after. She said that this is often the case with difficult parent issues, parents don't address an issue right away with a teacher or coach and then come to adminstrators when the situation has escalated more. She said a lot of these situations aren't win-win's, somebody always ends up feeling like they didn't get everything they want. As an administrator you have to put your all into sorting out the problem and coming up with a plan. However, If people are still upset and you've truly put your best into the situation, you have to let it go. She said this will be very difficult as a new adminstrator, and only gets a little easier as you gain experience.
As far as general difficult conversations, she said that even trivial things can be difficult. She said the worst nagging things she hates to deal with are employee dress code violations. Sometimes she has to have conversations with teachers and secretaries about their appearance, or unfortunately even smell. It's an awkward conversation, but it can be handled in a professional and concerned way.
Strategies Used in Difficult Discussions
- Open-ended questions
- Give people time to cool off
- Sandwich critical comments with positive supportive comments
- Don't avoid difficult conversations, they only get worse with time
- Be honest with people and let them know where they stand
- Be reflective - think "what if it was me, or my child?"
- Be a scapegoat - sometimes people want someone to blame and you can't get defensive
- Check in on subordinates to see if they are okay
Interview #2
Trish Poelke, Assistant Principal
Overview
Trish's interview was a very interesting one because it was conducted the very next day she sent an email to the entire high school staff that had ruffled many feathers. The email was sent regarding staff members who had still not correctly set up their grade weighting scale in our gradebook program (a program that has been a point of contention for the last two years due to it's difficulty to use, and it's penchant for errors).
Trish described how she had sent an email a month ago to the staff regarding setting the grade weighting for the second semester (the program doesn't hold the weighting from the previous term). If the grade weighting wasn't set, then students true course grades would be skewed dramatically, and she wanted to make sure there would be no surprises when it came time for official grades. When she started checking in the system to ensure that teachers had done this (a month after her initial email) she found than an overwhelming number of teachers had not done this, or it was done incorrectly. She said she started to become very frustrated that so many teacher's gradebooks were incorrect. Later in the week she sent a blind carbon copied email to every teacher that did not have their gradebooks set up correctly. It directed teachers to fix the problem according previous instructions, and then send her a screenshot of the correctly set up gradebook. However, at the end of the email she wrote that teachers who didn't comply within a certain time period, would have the non-compliance reflected in their evaluation. The last comment she made in the email was what got the staff so upset. Trish says that she regrets including that in the email, but she feels that she was being honest. If they didn't comply and take care of their administrative responsibilities, like managing their gradebooks, it would reflect poorly in their evaluations.
The issue got blown out of proportion by the last comment she chose to include in the email. It was the talk of the teacher's lounge for the remainder of the week. Also, a staff member ranted about the issue on facebook (the staff member never used the names of administrator's, but it was very obvious what and who was being ranted about). The facebook comments ultimately got back to Trish, and she had to talk to that staff member personally about "putting people on blast on social media." She said the face-to-face discussion with the staff member was productive and they both saw where the other one was coming from. However, she reiterated to the person, that if they have an issue they need to come talk to her, and that gossip, especially with an electronic record, was not okay behavior.
Trish is still in damage control mode with the staff, but she has made a point to go and talk to those that she has found are upset with how she handled the situation. She said that leadership is difficult because people see you make decisions everyday, and they might not always be happy with them. It's especially hard if you do not have close trusting relationships yet (Trish is in her 2nd year at Grand Blanc, which has a very large staff that is split into two campuses). It's sometimes difficult to decide whether a request can be emailed, or it warrants an individual meeting. If she could go back and do it again, she would have called all of the staff that didn't have the gradebook issue fixed. She claims even though that would have taken a lot of time, she would not have been dealing with upset staff members the way she is now.
Another lesson learned she described relates to a book the admin team is reading. It discusses how leaders should always assume the good in people. She described how some of the teachers that were emailed about their gradebooks being incorrect, had actually complied with her original email, but that some technical error with the program caused it to not be saved. She said those are the teachers that she really felt guilty about sending the email to. However, she reiterated that regardless of how she handled it, the gradebooks needed to be fixed.
General difficult conversations that she has had in the past - Evaluations
Trish also related how observations and evaluations can be very difficult conversations, and for constructive criticism to be effective there must be a certain level of trust. As worrisome as they seem, she said evaluations can help improve a teacher's craft. She cited an example of a teacher that was evaluated and clearly needed improvement. In the observation, Trish wrote what she saw and then offered suggestions for what the teacher could do to improve upon those issues. She said that this particular teacher took the suggestions and the next few times Trish came back and observed them, there was marked improvement. She said this teacher still isn't one of the greatest when compared to stronger peers, but the fact that they took the constructive criticism and used it in a positive way said a lot about their character.
She described another time where she observed a teacher and the lesson didn't go very well, but the teacher argued with the observation. The teacher felt that it wasn't a good reflection of what the their classroom looks like from day to day. Trish gave them the benefit of the doubt and asked them when they would want her to come back, and what they would specifically like to work on. When she came back, the lesson went much better and the teacher was very grateful. She said the lesson here as an administrator is that you should give people the chance to improve. You shouldn't avoid a difficult conversation, be honest and then give your people the chance to fix the situation.
Finally, she made it clear that as a leader, you will never be able to make everyone happy. Don't be afraid to have difficult conversations. She explained how she worked with someone before who was hesitant to have the difficult conversations because he was afraid of having people be upset with him. She explained that ultimately, that doesn't work, people won't respect you. If you do what you feel is right in your heart, people may criticize you, but you're the one that has privy to the big picture.
Strategies Used in Difficult Discussions
Trish Poelke, Assistant Principal
Overview
Trish's interview was a very interesting one because it was conducted the very next day she sent an email to the entire high school staff that had ruffled many feathers. The email was sent regarding staff members who had still not correctly set up their grade weighting scale in our gradebook program (a program that has been a point of contention for the last two years due to it's difficulty to use, and it's penchant for errors).
Trish described how she had sent an email a month ago to the staff regarding setting the grade weighting for the second semester (the program doesn't hold the weighting from the previous term). If the grade weighting wasn't set, then students true course grades would be skewed dramatically, and she wanted to make sure there would be no surprises when it came time for official grades. When she started checking in the system to ensure that teachers had done this (a month after her initial email) she found than an overwhelming number of teachers had not done this, or it was done incorrectly. She said she started to become very frustrated that so many teacher's gradebooks were incorrect. Later in the week she sent a blind carbon copied email to every teacher that did not have their gradebooks set up correctly. It directed teachers to fix the problem according previous instructions, and then send her a screenshot of the correctly set up gradebook. However, at the end of the email she wrote that teachers who didn't comply within a certain time period, would have the non-compliance reflected in their evaluation. The last comment she made in the email was what got the staff so upset. Trish says that she regrets including that in the email, but she feels that she was being honest. If they didn't comply and take care of their administrative responsibilities, like managing their gradebooks, it would reflect poorly in their evaluations.
The issue got blown out of proportion by the last comment she chose to include in the email. It was the talk of the teacher's lounge for the remainder of the week. Also, a staff member ranted about the issue on facebook (the staff member never used the names of administrator's, but it was very obvious what and who was being ranted about). The facebook comments ultimately got back to Trish, and she had to talk to that staff member personally about "putting people on blast on social media." She said the face-to-face discussion with the staff member was productive and they both saw where the other one was coming from. However, she reiterated to the person, that if they have an issue they need to come talk to her, and that gossip, especially with an electronic record, was not okay behavior.
Trish is still in damage control mode with the staff, but she has made a point to go and talk to those that she has found are upset with how she handled the situation. She said that leadership is difficult because people see you make decisions everyday, and they might not always be happy with them. It's especially hard if you do not have close trusting relationships yet (Trish is in her 2nd year at Grand Blanc, which has a very large staff that is split into two campuses). It's sometimes difficult to decide whether a request can be emailed, or it warrants an individual meeting. If she could go back and do it again, she would have called all of the staff that didn't have the gradebook issue fixed. She claims even though that would have taken a lot of time, she would not have been dealing with upset staff members the way she is now.
Another lesson learned she described relates to a book the admin team is reading. It discusses how leaders should always assume the good in people. She described how some of the teachers that were emailed about their gradebooks being incorrect, had actually complied with her original email, but that some technical error with the program caused it to not be saved. She said those are the teachers that she really felt guilty about sending the email to. However, she reiterated that regardless of how she handled it, the gradebooks needed to be fixed.
General difficult conversations that she has had in the past - Evaluations
Trish also related how observations and evaluations can be very difficult conversations, and for constructive criticism to be effective there must be a certain level of trust. As worrisome as they seem, she said evaluations can help improve a teacher's craft. She cited an example of a teacher that was evaluated and clearly needed improvement. In the observation, Trish wrote what she saw and then offered suggestions for what the teacher could do to improve upon those issues. She said that this particular teacher took the suggestions and the next few times Trish came back and observed them, there was marked improvement. She said this teacher still isn't one of the greatest when compared to stronger peers, but the fact that they took the constructive criticism and used it in a positive way said a lot about their character.
She described another time where she observed a teacher and the lesson didn't go very well, but the teacher argued with the observation. The teacher felt that it wasn't a good reflection of what the their classroom looks like from day to day. Trish gave them the benefit of the doubt and asked them when they would want her to come back, and what they would specifically like to work on. When she came back, the lesson went much better and the teacher was very grateful. She said the lesson here as an administrator is that you should give people the chance to improve. You shouldn't avoid a difficult conversation, be honest and then give your people the chance to fix the situation.
Finally, she made it clear that as a leader, you will never be able to make everyone happy. Don't be afraid to have difficult conversations. She explained how she worked with someone before who was hesitant to have the difficult conversations because he was afraid of having people be upset with him. She explained that ultimately, that doesn't work, people won't respect you. If you do what you feel is right in your heart, people may criticize you, but you're the one that has privy to the big picture.
Strategies Used in Difficult Discussions
- Be up front and honest with people, and then give them the chance to fix their mistakes
- Use face-to-face communication as much as possible
- Pick your battles
Interview #3
Christopher Belcher, Assistant Principal and Gary Goetzinger, Assistant Principal
Overview
A joint interview was conducted with both administrators where the discussed specific difficult conversations that had recently with staff, as well as general lessons learned. It was an interesting conversation due to the fact that both men have similar viewpoints about difficult conversations, but they don't see eye to eye in how they are delivered.
-Specific Instance shared by Chris
Chris chose to talk about an issue he just finished dealing with that involved a hall monitor at the high school. Ultimately, he had to have a tough conversation with this gentleman, and formally write him up. The issue stemmed from the interaction that this hall monitor has had in dealing with students. On previous occasions it had been reported that this hall monitor confronted a misbehaving student by coming up behind them and putting his hands on their shoulders in what was considered a threatening manner. Other times, it has been observed/reported that this hall monitor has been having too casual of conversations with students in the hallway (for long periods of time) when those students should have been promptly traveling from destination to destination. The issue that led to a formal write up was due to the recent role that the hall monitor had been serving in as an In School Suspension (ISS) aid. While in the ISS room, his informal tone made a female student feel uncomfortable, as in could be seen as him possibly "hitting on" her. There is not evidence to prove this, but given his past track record, he had to be formally written up and warned that if anything of this nature happens again, he will be removed from the high school, and most likely the security contractor will terminate him.
Chris described how previous conversations with this employee about the inappropriateness of his actions have not been difficult to have, but this particular employee would get defensive through the use of excuses or justifications. He would use these types of excuses to explain away why he did what he did, or why the situation may have made it look a certain way and was misunderstood.
Again, ultimately Chris wrote the gentleman up. One thing he did that he would do differently next time is bare the bad news himself. He at one point mentioned to the employee that he should value his second chance, and that Dr. Hammond, the principal probably would have had him removed from the building. Chris said he would not have shifted the "bad guy" role to Dr. Hammond if he could go back and do it all over again. Gary, however said that it is sometimes best to use the layers of administrations as a buffer. He said he does this when disciplining students. He'll take on the good cop role, so the teacher can still have a positive relationship with a student they interact with daily. Gary felt the same thing goes with employees, since Chris still has to have a working relationship with the hall monitor, he didn't see anything wring with making Dr. Hammond out as the one he should be worried about. Chris still said he would take the responsibility of being the bad guy the next time.
General thoughts on difficult conversations from Chris and Gary -
Reasons for difficult conversations
Strategies Used in Difficult Discussions
Christopher Belcher, Assistant Principal and Gary Goetzinger, Assistant Principal
Overview
A joint interview was conducted with both administrators where the discussed specific difficult conversations that had recently with staff, as well as general lessons learned. It was an interesting conversation due to the fact that both men have similar viewpoints about difficult conversations, but they don't see eye to eye in how they are delivered.
-Specific Instance shared by Chris
Chris chose to talk about an issue he just finished dealing with that involved a hall monitor at the high school. Ultimately, he had to have a tough conversation with this gentleman, and formally write him up. The issue stemmed from the interaction that this hall monitor has had in dealing with students. On previous occasions it had been reported that this hall monitor confronted a misbehaving student by coming up behind them and putting his hands on their shoulders in what was considered a threatening manner. Other times, it has been observed/reported that this hall monitor has been having too casual of conversations with students in the hallway (for long periods of time) when those students should have been promptly traveling from destination to destination. The issue that led to a formal write up was due to the recent role that the hall monitor had been serving in as an In School Suspension (ISS) aid. While in the ISS room, his informal tone made a female student feel uncomfortable, as in could be seen as him possibly "hitting on" her. There is not evidence to prove this, but given his past track record, he had to be formally written up and warned that if anything of this nature happens again, he will be removed from the high school, and most likely the security contractor will terminate him.
Chris described how previous conversations with this employee about the inappropriateness of his actions have not been difficult to have, but this particular employee would get defensive through the use of excuses or justifications. He would use these types of excuses to explain away why he did what he did, or why the situation may have made it look a certain way and was misunderstood.
Again, ultimately Chris wrote the gentleman up. One thing he did that he would do differently next time is bare the bad news himself. He at one point mentioned to the employee that he should value his second chance, and that Dr. Hammond, the principal probably would have had him removed from the building. Chris said he would not have shifted the "bad guy" role to Dr. Hammond if he could go back and do it all over again. Gary, however said that it is sometimes best to use the layers of administrations as a buffer. He said he does this when disciplining students. He'll take on the good cop role, so the teacher can still have a positive relationship with a student they interact with daily. Gary felt the same thing goes with employees, since Chris still has to have a working relationship with the hall monitor, he didn't see anything wring with making Dr. Hammond out as the one he should be worried about. Chris still said he would take the responsibility of being the bad guy the next time.
General thoughts on difficult conversations from Chris and Gary -
- Be HONEST with people - don't sugar coat or play games- it's never good. Don't string people along.
- Presentation of difficult conversation is important - give them the truth but not in a harsh way - "I care about you, I want you to get better (students)... but with adults you need to let them know of the potential consequences if they don't improve.
- Sugarcoating and not being honest early has made it so people didn't get the message early on, then when a difficult decision comes later they are shocked when it actually happens. (early conversations mitigate some of the emotions)
- Gary tries to take an employee's personality into account, e.g "You've got to understand ho to kick in the ass vs. who to pat on the ass".
- Chris said, "there are 10% though, where you don't know how to motivate them - and honesty is the best policy, because that they will know where they stand."
- "It's HARD to have these discussions - know matter how much experience you have with it."
Reasons for difficult conversations
- laziness
- incompetence
- lack of pride,
- lack of self values
- lack of work ethic
- lack of skills for that job
Strategies Used in Difficult Discussions
- Honesty
- Address the behavior, not the person
- Don't sugarcoat the message
- Bare the bad news yourself, don't shift the message to a superior
- Be straightforward and honest with the issue
- Have difficult conversations sooner, rather than later
- Document instances of misconduct, even if informal
- Set clear expectations for your staff, and continually reiterate those expectations
Artifact: Memo to Hall Monitor
difficult_convo_memo.pdf | |
File Size: | 433 kb |
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