Group Norming

"Culture eats strategy for breakfast."- Peter Ducker

This quote begins the 5th chapter in Elena Aguilar's book The Art of Coaching Teams. 

No matter how great our agenda or ability to deliver content, if there is not a foundation of trust or a productive culture put in place, we will not get very far.

I participated in a book study with my #pln following the #educoach group. I have found a plethora of valuable information to help lead teams more efficiently. This aligns well with my new role in which I am facilitating 6 team meetings a month around the area of literacy; I also will continue to facilitate our district ELA Content Leadership Team once a month. 

To begin the year, the math coach and I co-facilitated norming meetings with the grade levels we share. We felt this was a great way to show the staff that we are a team, not math/literacy silos. We also felt strongly that norms for the groups should not change if the facilitator is different. The math coach and I wanted to be a part of the norming process, so everyone has buy-in. Aguilar says, "Norms are effective when a team determines them together and when their meaning is clear to all members."

To guide the process, we modified the agenda from Aguilar's book in which she shared an example of a Norm building meeting. 

Here is our common agenda;

Opening

• Welcoming
• Agenda Overview

Generating Our Norms

• Surfacing previous experience
• Hopes for today
• Brainstorming

Clarifying and Classifying our Norms

• Select and share
• Clarify
• Organize our brainstorm
• Narrowed list we all can live with
• Voting

Reflection/Feedback

• Reflection
• Feedback
• Appreciations

The feedback we got was that most teachers found this valuable. They liked that they had time to think independently on what norms they thought were important first, and then come together as a group to see patterns and come to a common consensus. 

Here are some of the norms teams found valuable

Keep children as our focus

Treat each other with respect

Be present both physically & mentally

Practice respectful tech/phone use

We will use our time wisely, starting and ending our meetings on time

Invite and welcome the contributions of every member & listen to each other

Be solution-orientated and forward thinking

Respect other’s ideas

Be open to possibilities and other’s thinking; ask questions to clarify

Assume positive intent

Be present mentally and physically

Be prepared - complete assigned tasks, have data ready

Pay attention to heart and meaning

Speak directly to people about issues

Be solution oriented

Agree to disagree

Ask questions when in doubt

Ask direct questions to clarify issues

Use our time wisely and stay on task

Laugh, enjoy one another

Norms can offer enormous transformation potential. I look forward to working with these teams and getting to the work that centers on kids.