An inquiry inviting others’ perspectives

An ISTE reflects on feedback from participants to understand why her leadership of a staff meeting was successful in one context but not in another. By comparing what happened in two different places and times she reinforces a key understanding and shifts her practice.

I work as an adviser. At the start of this year, I had a staff meeting that did not go well. We had difficulty staying focused and achieving what I wanted the meeting to achieve. I reflected on why this may have happened: why did this meeting not work when others have?

I was still pondering this question a week later when I interviewed a teacher and principal I’d worked with last year about what had been successful in that initiative and in my practice during that time. Whenever I worked with this staff in meetings, I ensured that the intended outcomes of the meeting were shared with the group at the start with the opportunity for negotiating change. Both the teacher and the principal commented that this was a key part of the success of the initiative, for the following reasons:

• It gave participants the opportunity to have input into the direction of the session and to co-construct the intervention.
• It demonstrated my professionalism as an ISTE – I’d thought through what we were there for and the intended outcomes of the intervention.
• It showed the teachers that their time was valued and would not be wasted.
• It meant that if as a group we got off task, there was a reference point to refocus us.
• It gave purpose to the meeting.

I reflected on these comments and realised that I hadn’t shared my intended outcomes for the staff meeting with the new school this year. At the next meeting, I ensured that these were shared at the beginning and displayed during the meeting and that everyone understood they were up for negotiation. There was a marked change in the way that meeting went. The staff were generally focused and, on one occasion when two participants went off task, it was another staff member who referred to the outcomes to refocus us.

The principal later commented that it had been a productive meeting and that they’d achieved what they wanted to. This reinforced the need to share outcomes and also the need to allow for this in the time available. The whole experience brought home to me how evidence – in this case, feedback – can inform and contribute to shifts in my practice. Even relatively small changes such as this one are important!

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