Thursday, May 21, 2015

Six Secrets to Change

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Here's the Script:
Greeting
Hey everyone, good evening. I hope you are doing well.

Introduction
Tonight, I want to discuss Fuller’s 6 secrets of change. I found them to be encouraging, inspiring, and very practical mindsets or approaches to school leadership.

Overview
Fuller’s 6 secrets of change are a cyclical set of approaches to staff dynamics and staff culture that set the tone for a safe and positive environment.  The different secrets all seem to draw on a common source of love, mutual respect, and trust.  The outputs of these secrets are positive staff culture, a culture of learning and modeling, and a sustainable model of leadership; in that, systems are devised that overwork employees or present a hierarchical dictatorship in the leadership strata.

Change 1: Love your employees
Fuller says that the first change is to love your employees.  For me, this was the most revolutionary and inspiring of all the secrets.  Revolutionary because so few companies and non-profits do it well and inspiring because it looks forward to the promise of something so much better within organization and leadership.  So this is where I want to spend most of time.

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13: out of faith, hope, and love – love is the greatest”. In education, we tend to put faith in so many best practices and educational fads that even tend not to have any research supporting them; we hope that our kids will do well on their tests based off of the endless hours we’ve put in.  But do we the greatest and most foundational of these things in education? Love?

This doesn’t necessarily look like giving hugs and flowers to staff and kids.  Rather, love that is “patient with employees, kind when things are going well or poorly, humble in conversation and approach – not dictatorship; that tells the truth and gives constructive and sometimes difficult feedback, love that hopes, yes – but that trusts.  What an empowering concept!

The biggest obstacles to overcome at my school come in the form of leadership.  I was told on day one that we were equals and we were a collaborative school.  That’s well-wishing. Our school is very hierarchical, you collaborate if you’re in and you better do what you’re told.  This would be a difficult, near impossible change at our school as the current leadership team stands.  I don’t believe they can see the benefits of such a change.

In the mean time, I’m doing my part to show them love and support and all those things I just mentioned.  Maybe I can get the ball rolling! Thanks for listening.

1 comment:

  1. Hi,
    I actually really like Fuller’s 6 secrets of change. I think that this would be a great thing to use in the workplace. Even more in a school. I could use these and make adjustments for the classroom to create a better place for everyone. I really like #3 because is has to do with judgment. As a teacher it is a place that nobody should lean to in the classroom. The class should be a place for others to learn and with that comes thoughts of others.


    Sheninger, E. C. (2014). Digital leadership: Changing paradigms for changing times. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

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