When new staff come to work with me I don’t give them all the information they need to do their job. I do this on purpose. I introduce them to our vision, our values, and some of the key elements they need to know to get started. After this I focus on introducing them to people, and let them know we are here to help, I am here to answer questions, and from there I pretty much send them off to learn how to do their job. I realize this is unconventional. If I did orientation the same way as it is done in other parts of my district, I would sit down with them for hours going over their job requirements, reading over a manual etc. Instead, all of my first meetings with them involve me asking personal questions to get to know them, and sharing stories to allow them to get to know me, and the “us” of the organization.
This methodology has proven very successful for me. We don’t do everything by the book here, but I believe we do everything well, and my staff have an autonomy, buy-in, and enthusiasm not reflected across the district. Time and time again my staff are promoted in the district at a rate far disproportionate to the rest of schools. I share this not to brag, but because I think I am just beginning to understand why this works.
Just this past week my family received as a gift a small white board and dry erase marker. It is magnetic, and hangs conveniently on the refrigerator where our kids can access it. Something so small has probably been the most exciting toy coming out of the holidays, which is a fact to be explored another time. I was marveling this weekend as I watched my five-year-old son draw a cat from his own mind, which was far better than anything I could draw copying. He then proceeded to draw a tree and label it “gren reen forest.” He spelled a couple words wrong for green rainforest, but both instances left me sitting back and saying to myself. “How does he know how to do that?” I did not teach him these specifics. Brie did not sit down and teach him how to draw cats. He taught himself. With space and time and immersed in a place where we draw and we write, Eli has begun himself the learning process to belong in such an environment. He has already surpassed me in drawing, and I am recognizing more and more my services will not be needed to sit down and have big, dramatic instruction sessions to teach him how to write. He can more or less teach himself, though he can do this, because he is not alone. His mom and I do our own writing, we will take small moments to coach, and he has us for questions, but he is doing his own independent study as it were. How productive it seems to be!
The same concepts are what make my staff teams so competent. As a boss I believe they will learn if given the space, I believe in our systems, our purpose, and the people I already have in place. Because of this I can let new people go and watch them acclimatize. Some of them go through a clear period of culture shock when they realize I am not going to force-feed them regulations and a job description, but inevitably every staff I’ve ever had has figured it out. Together with a safe team of people they teach themselves how to do their job. People are powerful learners.
In the book of Jeremiah 31:34, and then repeated in Hebrews 8:11 a day is promised when, “No longer will they teach their neighbor . . .” Coming from our teacher-oriented, intellectually-driven society I have wrestled long and hard with this verse. I don’t have peace with it yet, but I am beginning to see some of its truth and not just feel it. God has made our children, and all people, as powerful learners. Learning was designed to come forth from the learner, not from a teacher. We tend to get this backward. By elevating ourselves into an exalted role as teacher we threaten to decrease the God-given impetus in them to teach themselves. As a boss I lead with vision, the creation of team and culture, and by working and learning harder than anyone. I do well to focus my energies the same way at home. Then I can sit back and celebrate with my kids all they’ve learned, not all I’ve taught them. It’s a powerful gift!
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