Week 3 Blog Post
One of the biggest takeaways from this week's reading both in AMLE and from the Five Key Responsibilities online article, is the importance of working as a principle while engaging your teachers as a team. AMLE discusses the importance of a shared vision, and from personal experience, this is absolutely huge in corporate America. Without bringing people together to create a vision where everyone has an opportunity to participate in creating that vision, it can not be successful. People need to know they are a part of something in order for them to buy in. If they, in this case, teachers, participate in building a mission/vision statement for a school, then they feel their opinions are valued, their voices are heard, and they are a true part of a team, and therefore more willing to work together and support one another, rather than making it a competition against one another.
The best meetings I've ever run during my time at Kellogg's have been those that have been "cross-functional" meaning I brought people from all different departments together so each department could have a seat at the table, and have representation during the meeting. Though I worked in marketing, I knew how important it was to get sales input, supply chain input, and sales support input when building out a new product. Sales was less likely to be on board with having to sell an item, if they never felt like they were involved from the beginning. Supply chain was less likely to help us overcome obstacles at the plant during production if they also felt like they were left in the dark. By bringing people from all different departments together, we were able to ensure our product would be successful, because everyone committed to a piece of the pie. We all had to work together for the launch of the product to be successful, and it took bringing people together from the beginning for this to happen.
This is absolutely true for principles as well. Rather than creating a divide between principles and teachers, they need to create an inclusive environment where everyone buys into the vision of the school. This is also a great way to build other leaders. By assigning people to committees, or making smaller work groups, it allows people to step up and showcase their leadership abilities, and take action. It allows teachers to feel more motivated when they can help build a curriculum, rather than when they're just being told how to teach.
This is also just a great way to get work done. By getting people involved who are passionate about a subject matter, it can help bring together the best information. Diversity of thought is also key to success. Without bringing people together, we miss out on the opportunity to bring together a plan that is built off of different perspectives, backgrounds and experiences.
The best meetings I've ever run during my time at Kellogg's have been those that have been "cross-functional" meaning I brought people from all different departments together so each department could have a seat at the table, and have representation during the meeting. Though I worked in marketing, I knew how important it was to get sales input, supply chain input, and sales support input when building out a new product. Sales was less likely to be on board with having to sell an item, if they never felt like they were involved from the beginning. Supply chain was less likely to help us overcome obstacles at the plant during production if they also felt like they were left in the dark. By bringing people from all different departments together, we were able to ensure our product would be successful, because everyone committed to a piece of the pie. We all had to work together for the launch of the product to be successful, and it took bringing people together from the beginning for this to happen.
This is absolutely true for principles as well. Rather than creating a divide between principles and teachers, they need to create an inclusive environment where everyone buys into the vision of the school. This is also a great way to build other leaders. By assigning people to committees, or making smaller work groups, it allows people to step up and showcase their leadership abilities, and take action. It allows teachers to feel more motivated when they can help build a curriculum, rather than when they're just being told how to teach.
This is also just a great way to get work done. By getting people involved who are passionate about a subject matter, it can help bring together the best information. Diversity of thought is also key to success. Without bringing people together, we miss out on the opportunity to bring together a plan that is built off of different perspectives, backgrounds and experiences.
Hello and peace to all
ReplyDeleteHello Ashley,
Thank you for the insights in your post. I really liked how you related the ideas that we read about regarding the importance of collaboration to your own personal experience in the corporate world. You did a great job of explaining how when one department, interacts with another department, who interacts with another apartment, etc., And they are all together at times to create and participate in a shared vision, everybody has more buy-in and relate-ability! Further, if I am in one area, and I see how another area works, I can apply what I have learned to my own area because I know how it will affect other areas because I now understand their areas better in the collaborative meeting.
Anyway, from what we read for this week, an important point that was pointing out was the importance of principals, utilizing the good leadership strategy of bringing people together in collaboration! There are several points made about how important and effective this can be and that good leaders (i.e. good principles) will make it a point to ensure that there is collaboration among staff and teachers for the exchange of ideas to best serve and help students . And by the way, in doing this a more collaborative community is developed as well…. So is not only about the exchange of ideas, and using each other’s resource for this, it’s also about building community and relationship!... And creating “buy-in!”
So anyway thanks for your post and some really great points and connections…. Peace Ashley…. Peace all
Ashley,
ReplyDeleteTeamwork makes the dream work right?! Especially when you have people who are willing to work, compromise and just get it done. Principals have such a difficult job with many facets to it. Building great teams is just one piece. If you can find a district who has a great leader who believes in the power of teams, you have found a gem!
Thanks for your posts and comments!
Diane