My journey with faculty leadership and management.

I have procrastinated about this long enough, I need to seriously start developing this performance plan.  It is surprisingly more difficult than I predicted, partially due to the fact that I have enjoyed the sensation of “drifting” as unexpected projects and roles come my way.  However, as I realise the impact this has on my staff members I need to focus on the development of this plan.

In preparation I have completed two tasks.  The first was to establish and ask my staff and upline management to contribute to a johari window.  A Johari window is described as a model for mapping personality awareness.  It allows me to compare what I think of my personality to that of what my staff think.  It will also provide me a relative strength of each response, indicating which traits were identified by more than one person.  I intend to use this in comparison to a survey where I will ask my staff what they desire my traits to be.  This will inform my plan as I consider how I can best address the needs of my department.

Secondly, I created a mind map identifying the range of roles I currently have.  The family section is currently incomplete, however I believe I have represented my professional duties.  The mind map is below.

This informs me of a couple of things.  Firstly, I am active in a number of roles and organisation and planning needs to be structured to ensure productivity.  Secondly, it clearly outlines the roles that I should be performing whilst at school.  DETA jobs need to take priority when at my place of employment.  Remembering this may assist ti further enhance organisation and continue to combat the perceived perception of my staff in relation to my leadership and management time.

I’ll devote some time to reading and reflecting on the “Developing Performance Framework” from DETA, and using these templates to generate some further feedback and planning thoughts.  I’m now re-reading First Things First by Stephen Covey, Roger Merrill and Rebecca Merrill.  I have never read this completely so my focus is to read it, reflect and develop this plan as efficiently as possible.

There is so much on the go.  I really need to sort my daily routine out so I can be much more productive and effective than I was in term 2.  Particularly towards the end of term 2 I would spend large portions of time looking at my endlessly growing To do list, but not knowing where to start. Currently there is about 80 job on the list, some of which are small tasks that will take 30 minutes or less to complete, others are large projects running over weeks.  Problem was I could not find a place to start work and would get distracted by solving computer issues or re-arranging my desk.  Neither fit in the formula for effective work.

I am also critically aware of my large periods of absence from my faculty and staff.  To me this means I need to be visibly involved in faculty leadership and management work whilst I am there.  If I spend large amounts of time achieving little, then am absent on regular occasions there is a real possibility of developing the perception that the faculty is of reduced importance in the range of roles I work within.  I needed to develop a planned work flow to enable enhance productivity.

To do this I’ve gone back to the age old advice from the first Deputy Principal I worked with.  I was only in the same school as her for a semester but she has had a profound impact on my professional life.  My favourite catch phrase of hers is “Just make sure your own world buzzes, the rest doesn’t matter.”  This is something I have kept in my mind consistently, and in reality is probably on reason I continue to put my hand up for projects that come my way – simply because I enjoy being involved and working within a range of teams.

Another catch phrase she used to say was “Always clean your desk before you go home.”  Now until recently I took that literally, as her desk was always pristeen.  But I am now thinking about it a little more metaphorically.  My desktop includes the actual desktop, my intray, email inbox, thoughts, notes in diary and default evernote notebook and my whiteboard.  If the desktop is clean but the rest still cluttered, then organisation of the following workday is a challenge.  So this term I am focused on cleaning my entire desk before I go home.  To achieve this I will need to revisit a theory I have blogged about before – “Zen to Done.”  Specifically the ubiquitous and complete capture.  I need to devote an hour at the end of each day to “process” and plan for the following day.  I believe if I can come into work with an achievable list of tasks written on my diary then my stress and procrastination may reduce.

Why written notes?  I put a lot of information on my computer and in the cloud.  I think I need to list the working goals separately to reduce distraction.  And I need to realise my achievable list may have few, or even single items on it.  I will never get all the hours allocated to me to complete work. As a leader and manager I need to plan for interaction and problem solving with staff.

So wish me luck, hopefully I leave term 3 under a deal less stress than I did term 2.

I am in the throes of developing my own performance development plan.  It is more difficult than I expected.  I began by attempting to sit down with the templates provided to us by our administration.  A couple of entries appeared, then writers block.  I could not specify what development I saw as potential viable and achievable in each of the sections.  I think a major influence on this is the recent expansion of possibilities for my professional involvement in a range of activities.  Last year I could not have predicted or expected that I would be invited to assist in the range of professional development activities and curriculum projects that I currently have running.  In 2009, I believe I am the epitome of grabbing opportunity when it presents itself.  These opportunities have a significant impact on my primary role as a teacher and secondary role as a Head of Department, but ignoring the opportunities would be disadvantageous to my personal development.  There is no doubt in my mind that my involvement in all of these projects has improved my capability and performance as an educator.

So how does one develop a performance plan when they cannot necessarily predict the immediate future?  I need to be careful of how I phrase this plan as I don’t want commit to anything that may not be realistic or achievable.  If I can’t achieve it then it seems an ineffective use of time and resources to work towards it.

And then it hits me, like a wet rag in the face.  While I am thinking this and reflecting on my own position, I suddenly realise my management of staff may also significantly impact on their ability and motivation to develop a performance plan.  We all understand the formation of curriculum teams, and as a Head of Department I have allocated classes based on teacher competence and ability, with some consideration to their desires.  With the number of teachers I have, it is impossible to give everyone their “dream” subject or class.

So have I subconsciously pigeonholed certain staff members?  Has my choice of class allocation resulted in them similar feelings that I am now experiencing.  Has my management made them feel like their future is not something they can control?

Of cource the development of a performance plan should be generic and not rely on the type of classes and students they teach, but surely a teacher who is not completely happy with the classes they are allocated will not feel the desire to develop performance.  Surely it is possible if they believe they are not being challenged by the students or classes they have been allocated, that they feel they do not need to develop.  Or even worse – it is possible they feel that development of a performance plan this far out from timetabling for 2010 that allocation of classes may in fact interrupt their performance development.

I can think of at least four staff who may feel this way.  Four staff that I have inadvertently over the last couple of years subconsciously pigeonholed towards certain groups of students and certain curriculum areas.

And then there is the thought that when I expand a team within what is considered a “dream” subject, that others who were not included in the expansion but desired their own inclusion may also feel a motivational drain.  This is something I need to consider critically.  To initiate, I have asked each of my staff to consider the six (6) curriculum teams within the department and where they would like to be considered part of that team.  From this I will develop a concept map which will show me any gaps between staff desires and department requirements.  Its at this point I will need to make some decisions however this year they will be in consultation with my staff.

Now, back to my own performance plan.  I have come across a section of the EQ site that deals with performance development, and provides a range of templates to assist in reflection and planning.  I have not read in depth these materials as yet, but hope to do so over the next week or through the holidays.  If you are interested, here is the link – http://education.qld.gov.au/staff/development/performance/

A critical factor in successfully managing others is efficient management of self.  Over the years I have tried quite a few models of personal management, but am quite happy with the process I have working at the moment.  I have followed the “Getting Things Done” methodology but found it too verbose and time consuming to actually categorise all my tasks.  In my reading I have come across “Zen to Done” which although built on the same principles is a lot easier to implement.

Every leader / manager has a “pile of work” that is waiting to be completed.  Some may have more than one pile.  To me the most important step of Zen to Done, and my personal management, is to capture everything I need to do into a single list. That means getting all the paper notes, voice mail messages, calendar reminders, email inbox, physical inbox etc, and creating a single list.  When you do this for the first time, don’t worry about sorting.  I like digital lists, and have become a fan of Toodledo.com which I sync with Ultimate ToDos on my iPod Touch and through a toodledo widget on my iGoogle.  The advantage to Toodledo for me is its calendar view of tasks.

Having a single list of tasks allows me to plan for task completion more effectively.  However this plan also relies on me being realistic about my time.   I have come to learn that as a leader / manager you don’t own all of your time.  Even though I have 630 minutes of lesson time where I am not teaching during the week, that does not mean I get 630 minutes to work on my tasks.  There will always be interruptions, questions to answer and problems to solve.  This is why I like ZTD’s idea of most important tasks.  Have categorised in your task list a number of mot important tasks you know you can complete in the week.  I limit myself to two (2).  If I finish them and get to work on others, then that is a bomus.  This also provides some perspectve and allows you to decline some requests for extra work, and provides a chance to be able to agree to that extra work you are actually interested in.

In order to effectively complete my MITs, I need to have a routine for work completion.  For me this means developing a calendar of personal and work committments, and seeing where there is space to work relatively uninterrupted.  I tend to stay at school after 3pm a couple days a week to get that uninterrupted time.  However if doing this, its important to have a cut-off time.  For me this is easy, as its important to be home for dinner with the family.  To do this I have to leave by 5:30pm.

When I feel I am in control of my working life, I feel more confident to lead and manage my staff, and less stressed generally.  I encourage you, read Zen to Done but most importantly develop a plan that works for you.