Establishing clear expectations with your team is harder than it looks. But excellent teachers make it look easy.
As kids head into a new school year this week, educators will collaborate with their students to develop values and norms that the whole class will observe.
Leaders in any organization can learn from this research-backed practice.
Three Tips for Coaches from Highly Effective Teachers
1. Involve Your Team
While leaders and coaches should communicate their own expectations and non-negotiables, we shouldn’t set all team expectations in stone without collaboration from our teams. Great teachers practice this– they have their unmovable core values for the class, but they also invite their students to co-create some group standards.
According to the American Psychological Association in 2022, managers should do the same. Research suggests that when employees feel they have a voice in organizational decisions, they feel a stronger sense of ownership and buy-in to the decisions, and they’re more likely to remain in their jobs.
Tip #1: Organize a team expectations brainstorming session or use a collaborative tool to gather input from everyone.
2. Start with values, develop norms
Once teachers have their class’s core expectations or values in place, they create “procedures” – daily routines students can follow to make sure the class runs as smoothly and efficiently as possible. These clearly defined behaviors help teachers assess whether or not individuals are making progress toward the goals for the group.
“Perhaps the single most powerful way to bring efficiency, focus and rigor to a classroom is by installing strong procedures and routines,” says Doug Lemov, author of Teach Like a Champion. “You define a right way to do recurring tasks; you practice doing them with students so they roll like clockwork.”
In the realm of adult, professional teams, we call procedures by another name – norms. Scott Baker, a Human Relations executive at Command Alkon, writes, “Successful leaders know that being more deliberate about defining team norms will help the team work together and hold each other accountable.”
Tip #2: Just like expectations or values, your team members are more likely to embrace team norms if they are given input in their creation. Clearly define these values-based daily actions or processes with your team.
For more details on how to facilitate this discussion, reach out to us. CCI has developed a structured discussion based on the work of psychologist Edgar Schein.
3. Regularly Review and Adjust
Expectations should be a living document, not a static rulebook. Teachers know this well – they frequently revisit expectations and norms with their classes.
High school teacher Sam Bradford writes, “If I start to notice patterns in classroom conduct that impede learning, I’ll ask the class if any norms need to be revised or replaced. They can take ownership and build self-awareness… By the end of the year, I’ve usually revised norms half a dozen times.”
Bradford notes that the time of the year and the nature of the group’s dynamic impact when and how he conducts such review meetings. “Things are very different when it’s the start of the year and no one knows anyone else as opposed to when it’s mid-semester and we’re comfortable. Or if it’s one week before a much-deserved Spring Break. Those chapters all feel different and require different reminders in order to do good work.”
Tip #3: Put it on the calendar! As circumstances change or teams grow, set aside time to explicitly revisit your expectations and make adjustments as needed. This ensures that they remain relevant and effective.
This year, take a page out of the teacher’s textbook. By following these three tips, you can create a positive and productive work environment where everyone knows what is expected of them.
Sources:
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/10/feature-workers-motivation
https://teachlikeachampion.org/blog/a-case-study-in-the-power-of-academic-procedures-and-routines/
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