Casting a Collective Vision

After building a cohesive team, the next step in Student Leadership is to cast a collective vision.  Defining the goal for a group is essential as this will set the course and empower long standing work for your student leaders.  We all know that there a difference between having a group of kids get together versus a team of students with one collective dream.  Let me expand upon this idea by using common language from athletics.  We often here the difference between a good team and a championship team include phrases like "we really came together" or "we were like a family" as they pursued and accomplished their team goals.  These same principles can be applied to the development of a Student Leadership Team.  These quotes below help capture the importance of taking individual leaders at your school and making an unstoppable force:

1. "Individual commitment to a group effort--that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." --Vince Lombardi
2. "Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships." --Michael Jordan
3. "Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results." --Andrew Carnegie
4. "Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much." --Helen Keller
5. "Remember, teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability." --Patrick Lencioni

After reading all of these great quotes from people who were able to accomplish great works with others, we must ask ourselves... What are some primary principles when casting a collective vision?  We all know that we cannot take a group of middle school student leaders and place them in a room without any guidance and they magically come out with a well crafted plan to accomplish a collective goal.  They need a little more direction.  Therefore, middle schools staff leaders must take the initiative chart a course for successful collaboration and incorporate a gradual release of control to the students as they become more confident and self-sustaining. Here are some points to ponder:

1. Clarity
What do you want your Student Leadership Team to become?  In our case at Big Walnut Middle School, our staff leaders had already charted the Mission of each of our student leadership organizations with an overarching Mission of the Student Leadership Committee to inspire and guide social influence for students.  The adults identified our strength of service-minded students at our school and dreamed about how the collective empathy of our students could have a tremendous local, regional and global impact. Therefore, early in our work we clarified our observations with compliments to our students with specific examples of how they have impacted their world through service and started to paint the picture for 600 individuals at Big Walnut Middle School unified in service to others.  Think about... 600 people, 3.5 hours of service in one day.  What could we accomplish by unifying our efforts?

2. Connections
In order to strengthen our students perspective of service learning and assist in the development of a common language, we spent some time in reflection and conversation about the Corporation for National & Community Service Issue Brief on the Impact of Service Learning.  Students teams read through the article and had deep discussions about how service learning could impact our school.  The students used post-it notes to identify all of the benefits of service.  These conversations and connections would become really important to the future work of sending out our student leader teams to cast the vision to other students within our school and partners from the community (more to come in future posts).

3. Collaborative
I love watching student statements change from "I" to "We" when talking about student leadership initiatives.  For school leaders, this is an outward measure that ensures you are making progress towards developing a team with a collective vision. One way explicitly show student leaders that they are starting to act and think alike is by taking those post-it notes about why students should participate in service learning and categorize them as a group.  A lot of tech tools can help with this process (wall wisher or padlet) or you can just go old school with post-it notes.  Either way, students can visually see their ideas becoming one.

4. Communicate
Publishing your vision solidifies the team.  Make it a big deal because it is a very important step.  This the first opportunity for your student leadership team to tell others about their means and methods to reach their goals. Big Walnut Middle School used social media to highlight our progress and share perspectives (@BigWalnutMS on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram).

5. Celebrate
My last suggestion from today is just to celebrate. Let your students know how pride you are of them and their accomplishments. At the same time, talk about how much they will accomplish and how large of an impact they will have on your school and community. Enjoy the ride, smile and laugh and celebrate every step towards the fulfillment of your collective vision!

Building a Cohesive Team





Don't Spill the Beans

Whether preparing an athletic team, starting a new Project Based Learning unit in your classroom or bringing together a new Professional Learning Community, it is essential to take some time at the beginning to establish a cohesive team.  We can not expect that teamwork will just happen.  Educational leaders must be purposeful in the development of collaborative skills that will promote and support communication, creativity and critical thinking within a leadership initiative.  I feel as if there are few major activities that support the building a cohesive team:

1. Team Building Exercises
When you hear the words "Ice Breakers," what comes to mind?  I have always been intrigued as to how adults and young adults respond to these tricky initiatives.  I can anticipate some eye rolls and fist pumps out there in cyber land.  I for one have always enjoyed and incorporated these challenge by choice components when establishing a team.  I feel as if one of the main ingredients to pull off team building activity is that the leader of the initiative must fully buy in and share with everyone the purpose of the games.  Believe me, do not underestimate the power of Team Building Initiatives as they establish shared experiences and simulated trials which ultimately build a foundation of trust.  The Leadership Council at BWMS started with a "Don't Spill The Beans" initiative as shown by the picture above.  During this activity, you should divide into teams and share the task is to carry the can of beans on a bandana without touching the can while they move to touch objects.  Participants are not allowed to touch the cup directly or through the bandana and the bandana must remain flat at all times.  You may have to make changes to the initiative as the game progresses to increase difficulty if things are too easy or vice versa.  Processing after the game should center on how well did the group work together in this activity and why was it important to have everyone on the same page?  These questions will become very important as you start to establish your shared Norms.
 2. What is our Goal?
At the first meeting it is essential to cast the vision for the purpose of your leadership council. The team will naturally ask - Why am I here and What do I need to do?  Very early in the process we shared that with our students the mission of the Big Walnut Middle School Leadership Council is to inspire and guide the social influence of the student body at BWMS.  Within this mission we identified two main events in which the students will take full responsibility for contributing to our school in a positive way... 1. Anti-Bullying Day and 2. Service Day.  These landmark events helped clarify the roles and responsibilities of the leadership council while giving a purpose to each meeting.  While planning these events, BWMS will increase student voice and choice through student leadership.

3. Shared Team Norms
Establishing team norms is another very important concept that is often overlooked when first establishing a team.  Frequently, team protocols begin with establishing norms but far too many people do not see the importance of taking the time to do so.  I feel people, even adults, think they are better at being a team player than they may actually be and therefore underestimate their conflict resolution capabilities.  For the BWMS Leadership Council, we started by having all of our team members Think, Pair, Share ideas and perspectives that should guide our meetings and procedures.  After some feedback from the group, we ended with the following list to guide our work this year:

• Be Respectful to Others
• Be Open to Other Ideas
• Be Present & Attentive
• Be the Representatives of BWMS
• Synergize & Have Fun

4. Constantly Revisiting Our Mission and Methods
One last point of emphasis when establishing a Cohesive Leadership Team is to constantly revisit your mission and methods set out to help achieve your team goals.  As we continue our meetings throughout the school year in preparation for the Anti-Bullying and Service Days at BWMS, we frequently revisit our Norms.  In addition, as your team gets deep into the details of planning, take time out to throw in some new team building initiates to keep everyone fresh and having fun.  The mission and methods are the cornerstones of keeping your team unified so Together Everyone Achieves More.