Greetings from the action-packed, information-filled 2012 Learning Forward conference in Boston. I’ve finally found a few minutes to actually organize and share some of my notes!
Sunday I spent most of the day in a session with Bob Garmston and Jennifer Abrams. Their focus: Breaking Through Conflict and Hard Conversation Barriers to School Improvement.
Garmston is a legend in professional development circles. He co-authored The Adaptive School, which is one of the guiding texts for our ABPC work, as well as Cognitive Coaching, based on the influential model he developed with Art Costa.
Jennifer Abrams, a former English teacher and new teacher coach, is a professional developer with two books to her credit, Hard Conversations and the intriguing Being Generationally Savvy: Working Effectively with Educators of All Generations due out from Corwin in 2013. She also contributed to several notable collections: Learning & Leading with Habits of Mind and Mentors in the Making.
Garmston (right) and Abrams (far left) made a good team, given her work around “having the hard conversations” and his long association with coaching and leadership techniques that emphasize honest dialogue and personal growth.
Two quotes from the presentation resonated with me. The first:
Get into trouble, necessary trouble — John Lewis
Most of you will recognize John Lewis as a 1960s civil rights leader who worked closely with Dr. King and now a long-time Member of Congress. When speaking to a group of students recently, in response to a question about how to do the right thing, he encouraged students to not be silent or ignore injustice and he used the words quoted above.
The second quote is by a master of Akido, the Japanese martial art:
Conflict is just energy in the system — Thomas Crum
Many of you may be shaking your head. Who WANTS conflict? Yet, we know – to paraphrase Michael Fullan — that if things are going along quietly and smoothly, probably not much is happening .
Having the hard conversations
The target for the Garmston-Abrams presentation was leaders: district leaders, school leaders, teacher leaders. “The more knowledgeable teachers, coaches, and administrators are about the dynamics of conflict,” they proposed, “the more capable you become in finding your voice, speaking to, and working through difficult problems, challenges, and conflicts.”
When facing conflict, they suggest differentiating between whether you are actually “in conflict” or whether you are “managing conflict.
Contending that both states have similar tensions (but call forth different responsibilities), they identified seven tensions:
Emotional:
• Discomfort with competing views and energies
• Managing one’s own emotional state in a setting of conflict
• Maintaining a clear sense of self, role, and responsibilities
Organizational:
• Someone has asked me to do something and I have not been given time, training, or tools
• I have not been involved in the decision
• The rationale wasn’t defined
• Time wasn’t provided for learning or implementation
• Belief systems of those working in the school as to what education is about are not aligned
Interpersonal
• Discomfort with being at odds with colleauges
• Feeling judgmental about colleagues
• Would prefer a safe zone; just want to do my work
Cultural
• Different perspectives about … [example: female principal supervising a teacher from Saudi Arabia]
Value and Preferences
• If it isn’t familiar; it will take effort; it might be at odds with educational beliefs
General View of Change
• I don’t like it
• It never makes anything better
Garmston and Abrams recommend that the leader take a look at the cause(s) of the conflict and be prepared to ask the person or group the following question:
“Is this (conflict about) a principle or a preference?”
They further suggest that if the responder(s) answer “principle,” the next statement from the leader should be: “Let’s hear it.” On the other hand, if the conflict is being caused by a preference, the leader should courageously and courteously suggest that this initiative/decision is moving forward and ask them to participate.
There’s so much more I could share from their all-day session, but I’m rushing off the hear the next keynote speaker, Anne Bryant with the National School Boards Association.
If these ideas interest you, be sure to take a look at this PDF put together by Abrams, which includes many more details and even some “Quick Scripts for Having Hard Conversations.”
