Responsive Management and the Exit Interview

Having an exit interview process within a school is a good practice that allows the school to collect information about school culture and health.  The administrative team and school leadership group need to use the information from these interviews to improve school culture through responsive management.

Exit interviews are seen by existing employees as a sign of an open and positive community and culture. They are perceived as caring and compassionate - a sign that the school is big enough to expose itself to criticism.  They provide an opportunity to 'make peace' with disgruntled community members who might otherwise leave with negative feelings and disparaging ‘word of mouth’ reflections about the school.

Exit interviews strengthen the head’s and curriculum leaders’ understanding and experience of managing staff and the school. Hearing and handling feedback is a powerful  professional development process.  They are positive and necessary for quality and effective people-management by most professional institutes and accrediting bodies concerned with quality management of people, organizations and service.

The feedback and analysis of exit interviews provide pertinent and useful data which can be used to inform staff development needs and training planning processes. Exit interviews also provide valuable information regarding recruitment and the improved inculcation and induction of new community members.

Furthermore, exit interviews provide direct information and data about how to improve staff retention.  Many times the organization is not happy to see people leave no matter the'post-rationalization and sour grapes' reactions of some managers to the departure of good people –if you will -  the ‘ it is what it is’ attitude.  The exit interview can offer an excellent source of comment and an opportunity for management to evaluate the all-important components of succession planning. Good people leave because they are denied opportunity to grow and advance. Wherever this is happening the school needs to know about it and respond proactively.

Every organization has at some point in its history several good people who want to leave because they are not given the opportunity to grow and develop, it can be sensible for school management to delegate responsibility to those who want it and are ready for it. Exit interviews are an excellent catalyst for identifying opportunities for improvement in this integral area of management development and succession.

So overall, exit interviews, and a properly organized, positive exit process greatly improve the chances of successfully obtaining and transferring useful knowledge, contacts, insights, tips and experience, from the departing employee to all those needing to know it, especially successors and replacements. Most departing staff are happy to help if you have the respect and courtesy to ask and provide a suitable method for the knowledge transfer, be it a briefing meeting, a one-to-one meeting between the replacement and the leaver, or during an exit interview.

Sources: NAIS.org
businessballs.com

Crucial Conversations

Schools hoping to make successful change speak openly about anticipated problems, taking on the all-important work of ‘crucial conversations’.  When new ideas and directions are introduced, successful schools effectively talk about concerns and stumbling blocks, thereby creating the social support within the school required for success. The ability to hold a crucial conversation is a key to successful implementation of new ideas and directions. As new ideas and systems are introduced, people have to be able to honestly and openly raise issues and concerns. Their ideas have to be vetted so that the initiative can be adjusted and tailored to specific cultural contexts and unique needs.  And everybody—no matter their background, education, or expertise—needs to be able to speak and be heard. When all the ideas from the group are surfaced, the group experiences synergy, as people build off each other’s input—surfacing the best ideas, making the best decisions.  Group members can then own and act on those decisions with unity and commitment because they’ve been involved from the beginning. In short, when stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run deep, change efforts work best when people know how to engage with one another and have ‘crucial conversations’.

Once the members of the school community have discussed concerns and established plans, they are able to move ahead to implementation.  This invites the consideration of how to respond if members of the group don’t follow new processes or if they violate new protocols, if they are resistant to the new direction or behave in ways that are incongruent with the philosophy behind a change effort and forward momentum.  This is where schools operate more like families and less like businesses.  In business, people more commonly know how to discuss ruptured agreements, dishonored expectations, or just plain bad behavior.  That is, people are skilled enough to speak in the moment and face-to-face about problems. These are crucial confrontations and are vital to successful implementation of new directions and initiatives. To be clear in a crucial conversation people work through their differences of opinion. It’s about disagreeing with each other openly. In a crucial confrontation, members of the group  face broken promises -it’s about working through disappointment. New initiatives will have poor traction if employees are allowed to ignore, resist or violate them without consequences. Therefore, in order for change and forward momentum to succeed, members of the group must know how to confront one another in an effective, direct, and healthy way.  In short, along with engaging in crucial conversations, members of the school community must know how to engage proactively and positively in crucial confrontations.


source: 

Beyond the Fads: How Leaders Drive Change with Results, Ronald N. Ashkenas; Human Side of School Change, Rob Evans

The Pursuit of Happiness

One of the great gifts educators get to take advantage of is a slower pace in the summer with really important personal time for replenishing and renewing energy for the work ahead.  Whether you are a teacher or an administrator or a trustee in a school, summer is a great time to reflect, regroup and reconsider commitment and direction for the work that most engages you. 

To embark on my path of renewal, I particularly enjoy reading the reflections of wiser, more experienced people than I.  Recently, I revisited the musings of Hugh Prather ( a noted philosopher and writer) in weighing my sense of connectedness and the balance of things in my internal and external spheres of influence.  I have collected a few thoughts for further consideration -at your leisure of course!

I cannot 'make my mark' for all time - those concepts are mutually exclusive. 'Lasting effect' is a self-contradictory term. Meaning does not exist in the future and neither do I. Nothing will have meaning 'ultimately.' Nothing will even mean tomorrow what it did today. Meaning changes with the context. My meaningfulness is here. It is enough that I am of value to someone today. It is enough that I make a difference now   Very seldom will a person give up on himself. S/he continues to have hope because he knows he has the potential for change. S/he tries again - not just to exist, but to bring about those changes in the self that will make life worth living. Yet people are very quick to give up on friends, and family, to declare them hopeless, and to either walk away or do nothing more than resign themselves to a bad situation.

Life has a way of taking unexpected turns - of throwing surprises at us when we least expect them. In many ways, life does bring one down. When unplanned and unexpected events come into our lives, they leave us in a state of pain, grief, doubt, fear and depression. One feels the need for a strong and stable foundation that one can depend on when life's river takes unexpected turns. A simple formula is needed that can keep us grounded on the path and pointed in the right direction - that of flow, let go, forgiveness and happiness. These are simple solutions, and they also are the catalysts in bringing happiness.

For more reflections from Hugh Prather check out:  ‘The Little Book of Letting Go’ or ‘The Key to Happiness’

The Gorilla Story

This story starts with a cage containing five gorillas and a large bunch of bananas hanging above some stairs in the center of the cage. Before long, a gorilla goes to the stairs and starts to climb toward the bananas. As soon as he touches the stairs, all the gorillas are sprayed with cold water. After a while, another gorilla makes an attempt and gets the same result—all the gorillas are sprayed with cold water.
Every time a gorilla attempts to retrieve the bananas, the others are sprayed. Eventually, they quit trying and leave the bananas alone.

One of the original gorillas is removed from the cage and replaced with a new one. The new gorilla sees the bananas and starts to climb the stairs. To his horror, all the other gorillas attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted. Next, the second of the original five gorillas is replaced with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Next the third original gorilla is replaced with a new one. The new one goes for the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four gorillas that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the
beating of the newest gorilla. After the fourth and fifth original gorillas have been replaced, all the gorillas that were sprayed with cold water are gone. Nevertheless, no gorilla will ever again
approach the stairs. Why not?

“Because that’s the way it has always been done.”
Reprinted with permission: aha! Process, Inc. 2004. Olsen, W. & William, A

Why This Story?

Change is irritating. It is confusing, mysterious, unsettling, yet undeniable. It knocks us off balance. It frequently pushes us beyond our comfort zones. We’re compelled to run faster and faster just to keep up. And there’s no end in sight, no resting. Because of the nature of things, we have to abandon what isn’t working. We must create new ways of being in the world and with each other. This is very demanding, energy-consuming work. We find ourselves reacting to changes proposed or demanded by others—parents, businesspeople, legislators, boards of education, et al.—while the real task, it seems to us, is to proactively create our future together. We end up in habitual behaviors that we use to avoid change. The alternative is to react defensively to changes being thrust upon us, thereby creating a future not chosen, into which we stumble, instead of a future we actively help shape.