Culture of collaboration . . .



 Earlier this week I had the opportunity to meet with leadership from TEA and PSE, the organizations that represent our teachers and our classified staff. During both meetings, the importance of being open to influence and being aware of one’s mental models and ladders of inference was reinforced for me. At points of time in both meetings, the content of agenda items could have led to polarization and traditional positional responses with the real discussion done in the parking lot after the meeting. For me, it meant I needed to suspend assumptions so that I could continue to hear and consider the expressed needs before jumping to conclusions. I believe that others in the room were doing the same thing.


Why are we able to do what many others seek to reach, but struggle to accomplish? I believe that there are many contributing factors such as our work with building common purpose, our commitment to collaboration, our behavior that manifests in contract language that demonstrates respect, and our openness to the concerns of members in both organizations. I also believe that our leadership training and focus on collaboration and effective communication have laid a foundation for the capacity to engage in skillful conversation.

One of the skills that we teach is what the literature calls left/right and we call public/private. It identifies the importance of saying in the meeting (public) what you would say to your best friend in the parking lot (private) so that you can influence decisions that are made and have those decisions be more likely to deal with the root of the problem and sustain over time. Most of the time, which is more than I observe in some other meeting contexts, this is what happens. I believe that it is the norm for these monthly meetings.

Of course, the people engaged in the conversations also have a great deal of influence on the culture. I have been fortunate to work with two HR people, Mary and Bruce, who have been able to support these conversations and maintain a collaborative culture over time and I’m confident that Mark will continue with this success. I have also been blessed over time with association leaders who are first advocates for their membership, but who also have the capacity to see a bigger picture and value collaboration as a problem solving tool. Believe me when I say that there are many times when I give thanks for people like Steve, Amy, and John for TEA and Barb, Connie Jo, and Karen from PSE. We have the capacity to disagree and problem solve with commitment to our various constituencies and laughter to energize us as we struggle with difficult issues.

Though it will be hard for some to believe, I look forward to these meetings and for the opportunity they give to live our belief in the importance that we each bring to the work of educating our young people. I am very thankful to be able to do this with quality people committed to success and willing to think and act systemically.