Feedback for improvement
For those that are reading blogs by the Trafalgar Primary School staff, you might like to know about our adventure into "feedback". This was started before employing the FISH philosophy, however the philosophy has helped us to accept our feedback better.
As a team we employed a company to work with us to help us become a more effective and more harmonious team. We were asked to visualise the team that we wanted to be and were then asked what was stopping us. A very honest, frank, confronting conversation ensued from this and lots of our "history" was laid on the table. From here we designed our team trademark, which was to develop a sense of belonging, to be supportive, professional, united and dynamic......the acronym BSPUD was used (we use Mr Potato Head to symbolise this). Great you might say, all very cozy and warm and fuzzy...............the hard part comes next. Each staff member at some stage receives feedback on their progress towards being a BSPUD team member. The chosen staff member is asked to leave the room and fill in a form that predicts what will be said. We work in teams of four to provide feedback to the recipient. The feedback takes the following form. Use three words to desrcipbed the person. Name the things they should stop doing. Name the things they should start doing and the things they should keep doing. These must relate directly to our trademark and cannot be personalised.........if you are working in a team of four to give the feedback all four members must agree otherwise the feedback is not given. The recipient comes into the room and we sit in a horseshoe around them and one member from each of the teams delivers the feedback.. ................Yes very confronting! However, we had staff feedback last night that was described as uplifting! The indivdiauls given feedback were told how they were valued as professionals and that the only thing they could improve on was to share themselves more with us.
How did FISH help. FISH gave us the more positive practice in giving feedback. We tell each other informally to "choose our attitudes" we encoruage each other to play and we acknowledge this when it happens. The FISH feedback is less formal but it allows us to practice the delivery of feedback in a less threatening way. It also signals that we are all equal in our team. Just because I'm the Principal does not mean that the most recent member of my staff cannot tell me when I'm not living up to the trademark, or when my attitude stinks. We work as one and we will fight to keep this new found approach (as we have already done).
Perhaps you might like to ask Tristan, Raelee, Ben, Tristan or Di (other FISH members) what they think?
As a team we employed a company to work with us to help us become a more effective and more harmonious team. We were asked to visualise the team that we wanted to be and were then asked what was stopping us. A very honest, frank, confronting conversation ensued from this and lots of our "history" was laid on the table. From here we designed our team trademark, which was to develop a sense of belonging, to be supportive, professional, united and dynamic......the acronym BSPUD was used (we use Mr Potato Head to symbolise this). Great you might say, all very cozy and warm and fuzzy...............the hard part comes next. Each staff member at some stage receives feedback on their progress towards being a BSPUD team member. The chosen staff member is asked to leave the room and fill in a form that predicts what will be said. We work in teams of four to provide feedback to the recipient. The feedback takes the following form. Use three words to desrcipbed the person. Name the things they should stop doing. Name the things they should start doing and the things they should keep doing. These must relate directly to our trademark and cannot be personalised.........if you are working in a team of four to give the feedback all four members must agree otherwise the feedback is not given. The recipient comes into the room and we sit in a horseshoe around them and one member from each of the teams delivers the feedback.. ................Yes very confronting! However, we had staff feedback last night that was described as uplifting! The indivdiauls given feedback were told how they were valued as professionals and that the only thing they could improve on was to share themselves more with us.
How did FISH help. FISH gave us the more positive practice in giving feedback. We tell each other informally to "choose our attitudes" we encoruage each other to play and we acknowledge this when it happens. The FISH feedback is less formal but it allows us to practice the delivery of feedback in a less threatening way. It also signals that we are all equal in our team. Just because I'm the Principal does not mean that the most recent member of my staff cannot tell me when I'm not living up to the trademark, or when my attitude stinks. We work as one and we will fight to keep this new found approach (as we have already done).
Perhaps you might like to ask Tristan, Raelee, Ben, Tristan or Di (other FISH members) what they think?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Griff Wigley on
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Wow. This sounds both intense and.... yes, uplifting, Vicki. And it sounds quite complementary to aspects of Unit 6 in the new LeaderFISH! guide called Find IT, Live IT, Coach IT:
How can you live and lead more purposefully, so you are affected less by what happens around you and guided more by who you want to be? It starts by defining your purpose (Find IT), taking action (Live IT) and asking others to help you be the person you say you want to be (Coach IT).
You've formed teams there, where everybody both gives and receives feedback on (Coach IT) on their actions (Live IT) related to the BSPUD elements of your vision (Find IT) that you've laid out. Cool!
So before I ask your colleagues, is there some coaching that you've received lately that A) has been helpful; and B) that you're willing to share here?
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Vic, do you have a photo of your Mr. BSPUD?
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Permalink Reply by Vicki Miles on
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Griff,
Interesting questions and observations! We have really been going things alone here. The team/leadership proposals and actions have stemmed from a desire to try different approaches, as we have found the traditional department sanctioned training and programs end up watered down versions of global thinking that has not really then considered the local context. We endeavour to make what we do uniquely Trafalgar Primary.
So the short answer is that we have not received any training in coaching at all, and in retrospect perhaps we should have, however I believe that we are collectively more positive about the possibility of coaching than we were two years ago.
We are moving into the "mentoring aspect" of our trademark more and more. When people receive their feedback they are encouraged to define an action for improvement and then encouraged to work with a member of staff they select that they feel can help them with this action. It is very early days however and obviously more successful with some staff than others.
I look at the development of this culture as a journey. We certainly hit a few potholes, take the wrong road and turn back, but we also end up in very exciting places (sometimes slightly worn out) but we keep going. HAving travel advisors (like you and the fish networkers) helps a lot!!!!
Photo of MR BSPUD coming soon!
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