Crucial Conversations has a website, which is filled with resources about communication and leadership. Find it here: https://www.vitalsmarts.com/crucialconversations/
Chapter 1: What's a Crucial Conversation? And Who Cares? MORAL OF THE CHAPTER: Honing your ability to have the difficult conversations is key to successful leadership. There is a myriad of evidence to make this a priority skill to possess. SUMMARY For writing purposes, I'm abbreviating crucial conversations as CCs.
Chapter begins with this quote:
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. -George Bernard Shaw
Definition of CCs:
...interactions that happen to everyone. They're the day-to-day conversations that affect your life (pg. 1)
A discussion between two or more people where (1) stakes are high, (2) opinions vary, and (3) emotions run strong.
Components of CCs:
Opinions vary
Stakes are high
Emotions run strong
One of three things happen during CCs:
We avoid it.
We have the conversation & it doesn't go well.
We have it & it goes well.
Why CCs Fail
Designed Wrong: Humans are programmed to into emotions in conversations. When stakes get high, our adrenaline increases, causing us to have less control of emotions.
Under Pressure: Most CCs are spontaneous, leaving us feeling like we need to respond right now. We must think on the fly. This causes more emotions. When the unplanned conversations, happen you have these things to manage:
The issue at hand
The other person
A brain overwhelmed by adrenaline and emotions and thoughts
Little Practice w/ Effective Communication
Law of Crucial Conversations: Essentially, all effective leaders have "the capacity to skillfully address emotionally and politically risky issues."
People who are strong communicators:
Respond to financial pitfalls more quickly & more intelligently
2/3 LESS likely to be injured or die due to unsafe work conditions
Save $$$ & time (Over $1,500 & 8 hours for each conversation)
Increase trust
Reduce transaction costs in virtual work teams
Influence change in toxic or poor-performing colleagues
Failures in business DOES NOT EQUAL failure in policies, processes, structures, or systems. The real problem is employee behavior.
My supervisor continues to tell me that my career is a marathon, not a sprint, Wise words. I usually respond with, "If everything feels under control, you're not going fast enough" (Mario Andretti). I believe that my career is going to be a balance of these two ideas.
Cover for Crucial Conversations
Which brings me to this professional read. In my yearly goals conversation, I expressed my desire to become better at communication. I struggle with expressing my thoughts concisely, yet clearly, & delegating tasks. My supervisor recommended Crucial Conversations by Patterson et. al. earlier this semester. I'm finally taking his advice and picking up the book, even though I purchased it well over two months ago.
Just as I recommend to students, for this professional read, I'll be an active reader. I'll be annotating, reflecting, and paraphrasing as much as possible. Every few days, I'll post my active reading thoughts in order to share what I've read and what I've reflected upon.
What an energizing first day at ALA Annual Conference yesterday!
Certainly made head way for my three goals.
1. Added Three Massachusetts librarians and Leslie Preddy to my library team. Lots of great conversations about what we do and idea exchange. Leslie is a MakerSpace guru!
2. Brief discussions with Leslie about makerspaces. She'll be a great person to follow. I grabbed lots of graphic novel resources to help purchasing for next year!
3. Got great giveaways from tons of vendors! Will be looking into RefMe and a music research resource! Sent a huge box of goodies home. Can't wait to give it to all of my Londonderry librarians.
Day 2:
AASL Affiliate Assembly. Lots to learn there. I can't wait to experience librarianship at the national level.
Experience San Francisco in the afternoon. #lovewins
Do something
& do it well: As is such with so many careers, librarians have the opportunity to do
so much, which can feel overwhelming.Also,
as a new librarian, I often feel as though I’m not doing enough or I’m not as
good as some of the other seasoned librarians.However, after speaking with Matthew Winner, I’ve decided to abandon
those feelings and instead I’m going to do
something & do that one thing well. When I conquer that & start doing that one
thing well, I’ll add another piece.I
haven’t narrowed down my one “something” yet, but here are the things I’m
thinking about:
MakerSpace
activity each month: Thanks Heidi Doyle & Dover Children’s
Graphic
Novel Book Award at my school: Matthew Winner gave me this idea!
QR Codes
galore! – Thanks Rachel Hopkins for this awesome re-energizing idea from the
slideshow!
Teacher PD
& Book Group to improve instruction: Angie Miller gave me this idea!
Number 2
NH
Librarians are supportive: Got a question?Need another librarian’s eyes on what you’re
doing?Reach out!We’ve got a great team here in NH who are
always willing to help! Go NH Team Library!
Number 3
MacGyver
Librarianship, Dover Children’s Museum, & MakerSpaces: MakerSpaces
do not need to be million dollar budgets & Lego Mindstorm kits. MakerSpaces can easily be paper plates,
dowels, & a fan. It’s the
instruction & the design process that matter!
For more information on any of this & the resources I'm using to get my brain flowing:
About a month ago, I was riding in the car with Pam Harland -- she's hands-down the best mentor I could have ever wished for. I interned with Pam at Sanborn two years ago, and I had no idea what I was in for. She challenges me to bring my professionalism to the next level; even when she's not there, I always think, "What would Pam think of this? What would she do?"
In this car ride, Pam was asking me about my experience this school year at my new school. I told her plenty of things that were going well & she continued to ask leading questions, like she always does. I knew that there was something she was getting to. Then it happened. After I finished a short story about how I broke ground with some of my teachers, she asked me if I could write up what I just said, video tape it, & send it to her so that she can use it in a huge upcoming presentation that she has.
Blown.
Away.
You want me to do WHAT!? Things like, "I've got nothing to add to the library conversation," or "I'm just doing what comes naturally to me," popped into my head. I didn't feel qualified or reputable.
After a bit more explanation & pep talk, I jumped on board with Pam's request. Sometimes in school libraries, there is no one else in the building who knows what you're capable of and the skills you have. But they only way that they are going to know is if you put yourself out there & show them what you've got. After 5 or takes, this video resulted:
Here's the transcript of what I said:
As a librarian, you've got to put yourself out there. This school year, I started at a new job at Londonderry Middle School. There are approximately 1,000 students at LMS, and I’m fortunate to have a robust library program in the district as well. However, I knew that I could not bank on this. I knew I needed to foster my own professional relationships in the building. I set my sights on two goals. One: learning students’ names & two: showing the faculty that I am a positive collaborator. But this didn’t happen overnight.
Learning students’ name is something that I deal with daily, and I have found great success with it. Every time students check out books, raise their hands in class, ask questions, etc. I ask their names if I don’t know it. I admit directly to them that I have 1,000+ names to get a handle on this year, but at least they see me making the effort. It’s caught on quite well. Students will quiz me in the library, the hallways & the lunch room. Knowing names has certainly helped me connect with students to foster positive relationships that are so crucial in the learning process.
My second goal, to be a positive collaborator wasn't something that could automatically happen. This November, an eighth grade science teacher came to the library because he needed computer time. After fulfilling scheduling needs, I made conversation with the teacher, and I said, "So, the library keeps stats on usage, what are you doing with your kids?" He told me that he & the other teachers do a project every year in that students research about elements and their properties. They'll select one element and research the properties & the final product was a PowerPoint presentation of all about the general properties of a certain element. I had some suggestions for improving the project, but instead of coming right out and saying all of that, before they knew me or trusted my opinion, I simply suggested Google Slides to improve their instruction. He agreed to meet with me. Before I knew it, we met multiple times, bringing in the other eighth grade science teachers, overhauling the whole project, changing assessments, and improving student learning, while meeting the same standards.
My advice when working in a new school, or even with new people in your buildings, is to start small. Foster relationships with your students & your teachers daily. Get to know them. Don't expect lesson plans or student learning to be perfect. Listen to your collaborators and push them to improve their instruction, but still maintain their teaching style. Offer lunch time or after school PD sessions or MakerSpace activities. You'll see great success.
I never make New Year's resolutions. But this year, I told myself that I'd write more.
However, in thinking about that, I realized that I didn't write much in 2014, 2013, or 2012, or really ever. So it's hard to write more, if I haven't really ever written to begin with. It's like the s'more scene in The Sandlot...
How can Smalls have more of something if he hasn't had anything yet? Exactly. How can I write more if I haven't done any writing yet? So, I resolve to write. Write about what I do as a librarian and why I do it. Which means, that I'll need to do more conscious thinking too. Thinking about my craft.
