Category: Coaching

4 Reasons Why Leaders Who Act Like Teachers Win

10/4/2017

Everyone can remember her favorite teacher. For some, it was a fifth grade teacher who read books aloud to the class. For others it was a softball coach, a mentor at a new job, or professor at university.

This teacher changed you — made you rethink the world and your place in it. The best teachers don’t just improve a person’s understanding — they change a person from the inside out.

We live in a world where everyone is trying to get a leadership edge. Your company wants to get more attention and convert people into followers/customers/clients. No profession has more experience in capturing and converting followers than teachers.

My nearly 20 years working in schools has allowed me expert access to what makes great teachers such leadership rockstars. You want to be a leader that your team/clients believe in? Engage like a teacher.

the secret to great leadership?
Engage like a teacher.

1. Be a Contexter.
Every message has context. Simon Sinek told you to know your “Why.” I’m telling you to know your “Who, When, and Where.” I call it Contexting.

You need to be a communication monster when you are a leader. Build your messaging around who you are talking to, their background knowledge, what they care about/are afraid of, where they are, and when they are. It’s not about you. It’s about them.

People aren’t empty vessels waiting to be the recipients of your genius. Have respect for the fact that everyone hears/sees things in a different way. If they don’t understand you, they won’t pay attention to you.

2. Take full responsibility for miscommunication.
People get so caught up in what broke down in a miscommunication. “Whose fault was it?” people ask. Who cares? Even if it isn’t your fault when you were misunderstood, it’s your job to fix it.

Miscommunication is one of the greatest creators of problems in human history. This is true in markets, too. Be the adult in the room. Deal with it.

3. Listen because you mean it.
Respect and loyalty are plants in a garden. They take time to develop and are easy to kill. If you act like you give a shit but you actually don’t, your listeners will figure it out. And then they’ll not only bail, they won’t want to come back.

You want to build an audience/employee team without loyalty? Fine. Watch them leave when the next shiny object floats by. Pay attention to them — their needs, their worries, their dreams — and they’ll resist leaving you.

4. Your greatest success is achieved through others.
Teachers know: you can’t do anything TO your students. You can only achieve things THROUGH your students.

Your clients need to believe that their success is of critical importance to you — not simply a collateral consequence after you get them to sign a contract. Same with your employees: when the people who work for you believe that you actually care about their success, they’ll work harder and longer for you and with you.

Remember: your people are the ones who “graduate” — not you.

Great teachers aren’t selfless. They are “otherfull.” Make your work about building greatness in others.

Isn’t that what great leadership is all about?

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school yourself

7/14/2016

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The Biggest Obstacle Isn't a Reality: It's a Dream
Here's the old model, the time-tested, incredibly persistent concept of "school:"

The teacher teaches the student.

It's simple, easy to understand, and has the ring of truth. We say things like "he taught me so much!" or "I learned so much from her." The teacher is a vending machine, a talking textbook, a knowledge dispenser. We keep the wisdom and dole it out.

what did your favorite teacher actually teach you?

As a teacher, I can tell you: this model works-- less than half of the time. The days it works are sublime: you lecture, digress, and expound. Your students sit in the glow of your brilliance, they eat it up, light bulbs go on, and the music of instruction plays like a street fiddler in the square. You make the magic.

But when that ain't working for you, when the students are bored, lost, or detached-- these are awful teacher moments. Your students loll in the harsh light of your artificial sun, they list in their seats, darkness pervades, and the clatter of the lecture plays like a rusty chain on the pavement.

We love a brilliant genius around whom the STUDENTS orbit.

Anyone can teach anything, we think.
it's a simple transaction.

The Great Teacher Fantasy
Often, teachers of teachers claim to want to debunk this model. The better part of professional development that I have seen in the last 10 years as a teacher seems to be grounded in the idea that the teacher should not be the "Sage On the Stage." But I don't believe we actually want to debunk this at all. When we talk about a great teacher, we often talk about this brilliant genius around whom the classroom orbits.

This old model IS the problem, of course. We love the fantasy that teaching is simply imparting wisdom. The best teachers are ones whose kids learn the most from him, we think.

We live in a "Guru culture." To be a "great teacher," you just have to be a respected resource of knowledge or skills. Anyone can teach, we think, as long as a person has content mastery. Are you a great chef? Then you can teach cooking. Are you a professional baseball player? You'd be a great coach. Are you a great surgeon? You'd be a great science teacher. We've even created our computer models around it. Data is "downloaded" from an original source. It's "copied." Knowledge is not mastered-- it's copied and pasted.

The ramifications are enormous. We have come to think of teachers as simply "info and skill distributers." Our whole student testing and teacher evaluation model is based on this presumption. Our cultural conversation about teaching isn't based on teaching; it's based on a fantasy of teaching.

What Teachers Actually Do
Student teaches herself. Teacher teaches student to teach herself.

Our fantasies about being a great teacher hide what great teachers do. Great teachers don't teach anything; they teach learning. First time parents have no teachers. Nobody could teach Mick Jagger how to sing, Warren Buffet how to invest, Oprah Winfrey how to produce, Michael Phelps how to swim, or you how to do whatever it is YOU are good at. Of course, teachers helped Mick and Warren and Oprah and the rest-- but no one taught them-- at least, not in the traditional sense. They taught themselves. Their mentors/teachers taught them (and you) not WHAT to do but, rather, HOW to do it. As have all the great teachers in your life.

Heck, you taught yourself language. How to walk. Do you ever think about how your brain must worked for that to have happened? For it to happen to everyone, everywhere, in every culture around the world? Great teachers know that students HAVE to teach themselves.

Great teachers don't teach subjects;
they teach learning.

it's true in every field:

your best manager, leader, or boss helped you understand and execute the work on your own.

The fantasy model needs a real challenge, especially as our cultural and political conversations about good teaching begin to gain more and more traction. How can we attract great teachers when we don't even talk about what a great teacher does?

When on the job, the best teachers are barely there. They elegantly and efficiently drop in and out of the learning process. Doing this is complicated and requires extraordinary awareness. It's a profession that is all about "how," not "what."

Great teachers aren't vending machines. They are catalysts, context makers, inspirers, models, and value multipliers.

It's why I say teaching is like entrepreneurship: it's about engaging others in answering a question or solving a problem. It's why it's the most important profession in the world. Teachers impact every market and every other profession. How we think about teachers impacts everything.

This is not a moral argument. It's an economic one.

This article originally appeared in iBlogAmerica on January 20, 2013. Mike Kleba has revised and reprinted his article here.

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Teachers are Fast Companies

4/10/2015

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Teaching science isn’t just a science. It’s an art.

Everybody knows that science and science education are hot these days. The Oscars (and tons of ticket buying audience members) loved this year's nerdpics The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game. Whether it’s on TV (with PBS's Neil deGrasse Tyson or AMC's Breaking Bad) or on YouTube (with Bozeman Science or AsapSCIENCE), science is dope. Science sells-- and the audience is growing.

Like with a startup in any market, whether it be a taco truck or a new app, being hot can turn into success fast- especially in schools. Teachers who know how to gather, focus, and replicate this kind of interest can build a program that can last for years. It's entrepreneurship at its most fundamental.

This is no small feat in a culture always looking to save money by cutting programming in schools. I often read how difficult it is to launch a winning company.

Try launching a winning (and challenging) program in a school. Especially in the field of science.

BEING HOT CAN TURN INTO SUCCESS FAST IN SCHOOLS

TRY LAUNCHING A WINNING PROGRAM IN A SCHOOL

“Well, we started the year with some kids assuming leadership positions. But they didn’t stay in them,” Steve Peroni tells me. “The students who worked the hardest took over. Which is how it should be. I named a new captain for the national competition the day after we won regionals.”

Peroni, along with Sara LeMar, coaches North Shore High School’s Robotics Team, located on the coast of Long Island, NY. A couple of weeks ago, their team, RoboGym, won the county regional title. It's a first-time championship for a team in only its fourth year in operation.

“A lot of kids want to be involved in Robotics, especially now that the team is having some success. I tell them that nothing matters more than being here and doing the work,” says Peroni, sounding a lot like anybody running a hot new startup.

Peroni and LeMar have one of the toughest jobs in a high school: teaching Physics. Physics isn’t hard to teach because the work is empirically more difficult: it’s harder because it flies against a cultural tide of habits. We want things fast and we want it simple—physics is rarely these things. Physics requires time and repetition to comprehend and employ fundamentals, similar to learning to play the piano or to be a great swimmer. It's not for those who dabble.

Make no mistake: students hunger for these sorts of challenges. It’s just that our culture typically swings toward behavior with a faster payoff.

So, when science gets hot, teachers like Peroni and LeMar jump to capitalize- this time with an after school program. These teachers’ battle lines are the same as those held by any who run a company. It takes leadership, hard work, a propensity for risk, and the desire for big payoff. You have to know your market, develop your team, leverage resources, and struggle through challenges. Running a business is a science, sure. But, like teaching, it's also an art.

If student interest were measured in investment dollars, RoboGym would be a venture capitalist's dream. Watching Peroni, LeMar, and their team, first place medals around their necks, swaggering down the hallway, you don’t just see a program led by kickass teachers.

You see a company led by kickass entrepreneurs.

images from
Focus Features, The Theory of Everything

http://www.murraymitchell.com/2013/01/breaking-bad-split-face-poster/

http://www.northshoreschools.org/15April/hs-robotics-win/index.html

IF STUDENT INTEREST WERE MEASURED in INVESTMENT DOLLARS, ROBOGYM WOULD BE
A VENTURE CAPITALIST'S DREAM

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surf school

3/3/2015

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it’s impossible to be cool and complain about how much something weighs.

Surf school starts in the sand.

To be clear: it starts when you hump your 35lb board over half a sandy mile from the surf shop to the surf line. I’m not saying that the board was heavy—it’s impossible to be cool and complain about how much something weighs and, let’s be honest: I’m determined to sound very cool while I describe my first time surfing—but I am saying that the sand was hot.

Crazy hot. Cook an egg hot. Motorcycle muffler hot. Erase all creases in your feet and leave your footprints untraceable by the FBI hot.

“I pray thee, good Mercutio the day is hot” hot.

So, yes: surf school starts in the sand. And, after schlepping my board across the blazing beach in Salyulita, a Mexican town north of Puerto Vallarta, I am ready to be in the water. But first: a tutorial-- in the cool sand, thankfully under the shade of a gathering of palms in the midafternoon sun.

“Put your whole body on the board—just lay down and let your feet hang off the back,” Gary from France tells us. “Feel the board with your body.” He’s the fit, charming instructor who gets immediately down to business, his accent both softening his direct orders while also completely melting girls in our group and, Jesus, me, too. “You’re too far forward,” chirps Dana, our other instructor, a super fox from the Czech Republic who calls a spade a spade. With their deeply bronze tans, white flashing smiles, and ripped physiques, our instructors had us mesmerized. We hung onto every word (why are surfers such hotties? Because they work their bods, I learn later, my whole sore body barking angrily at me during margarita medication time at dinner).

In the dappled shade, we stretch, boards beneath us, practicing our strokes. We are told to pop up on both feet and to be aware of how being too far back on the board will apply the brakes while being too far forward will bury the nose. We get safety tips: Dana tells us to keep the board between us and the beach. Gary warns us to keep the tether from our ankle to the board clear of our other foot. “You don’t want to be under a wave with your legs tied together.” Sounds like good advice.

And, in about 7 minutes, our instruction on land is over.

“Let’s go,” says Dana, not waiting to see if we follow. She and Gary zip up their form fitting wet suits and lead us straight out into the surf—and, the newbs that we are, simply walk behind them. And, within 15 minutes, everyone has gotten up and surfed at least one wave. The whole lesson took fewer than 25 minutes. Announcement: I am a surfer now. A surfer who surfs.

And that’s what I call good game.

These surfing instructors put on a teaching clinic that morning. It was goal oriented, student centered, and teacher led. It had authentic assessment, practical applications, and demanded performance from every pupil.

They didn’t overdo the help because they didn’t offer much. Or, at least, not much help that impeded our own process. Sarah and Molly, for instance, just wanted to do it their own way. Chris had some questions about fine points. Scott wanted to jump straight to pulling off 360s. The point is: the teachers weren’t interested in doing anything other than help each of us in the way we needed to be helped.

“Let’s go,” says Dana, not waiting to see if we follow. She and Gary zip up their form fitting wet suits and lead us straight out into the surf.

They didn't see us as students. They saw us as surfers.

Gary and Dana anticipated our questions but left room for our own discovery. They promised us nothing but believed in our reasonable ability to do anything we tried. They seemed utterly unattached to our respective failures but were the first to yell “you look beautiful up there!” or “lean into it, you’re killing it!”

Our surf instructors were great teachers for the most important reason: they didn’t see us as students.

They saw us as surfers.

And we, seeing ourselves reflected in the eyes of our beautiful teachers, believed them.

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What's a coach worth?

4/6/2014

1 Comment

A great coach can change everything.

A lot of attention has been paid to college sports in the last month. March Madness had people around the country filling out brackets. A court ruling on the potential unionizing of college athletes led by a group of students at Northwestern also got a lot of buzz.

But I couldn't take my ears off of a conversation on a radio call in show here in New York on station WNYC. "The Brian Lehrer Show" brings in all kinds of guests and puts them on the phone with people listening in their cars and at home and work. Like many shows like it around the country, this call in program is more of a community service than straight entertainment programming. I think Lehrer does a hell of a job.

Anyway, he did a segment on "Coaching" that got me thinking about Teachernomics.

Lehrer asked people to call in about great coaches they had and the responses were telling. We heard folks talking about track coaches, soccer, trumpet, baseball coaches... even life coaches. Nearly everyone who called in told the story of someone from her past who gave never-diminishing advice. Aside from the wise words of a mentor, what other kind of work doesn't diminish or lose its value over time? Invention? Art?

That's got to be the topic for another article.

What got me thinking about the value of a coach, however, had less to do with the lasting emotional/psychological impact on a player or more to do with the actual price tag. How much is a great coach worth, financially?

The answer, of course, depends. Little league coaches often get paid nothing or close to it. On the other hand, college football coaches of elite or enormous schools can get paid millions of dollars a year.

Both render incredible value to their teams. Some of those little league coaches (or middle school or high school coaches) will do the best coaching the players will get their whole lives. Some highly paid professional coaches will be the subject of great derision. Some coaches, no matter the level, will give advice and instruction that will be cherished for decades. Others will be forgotten.

What a coach gets paid will have almost no correlation with their effectiveness.

The point is: we have a huge problem figuring out how much coaches are worth, financially, despite the fact that their players can often easily estimate their impact value on them. Culturally, we don't know up from down on the value of good instruction. Remember that when you hear parties from unions to governments to parents to business talk about the cost of education.

What is the difference between a great coach and a bad coach? Depends on what you mean by "great." For must of us, it's an important personal question that weirdly has no bearing on financial ramifications.

What is the difference between a coach and a teacher? Nothing, of course.

Check out Brian Lehrer's awesome show here
http://www.wnyc.org/story/the-brian-lehrer-show-2014-03-18/

Image from WNYC's "The Brian Lehrer Show"

1 Comment

NOBODY influences
LIKE A TEACHER

4 Reasons Why Leaders Who Act Like Teachers Win

the secret to great leadership?
Engage like a teacher.

school yourself

what did your favorite teacher actually teach you?

We love a brilliant genius around whom the STUDENTS orbit.

Anyone can teach anything, we think.
it's a simple transaction.

Great teachers don't teach subjects;
they teach learning.

it's true in every field:

your best manager, leader, or boss helped you understand and execute the work on your own.

Teachers are Fast Companies

BEING HOT CAN TURN INTO SUCCESS FAST IN SCHOOLS

TRY LAUNCHING A WINNING PROGRAM IN A SCHOOL

IF STUDENT INTEREST WERE MEASURED in INVESTMENT DOLLARS, ROBOGYM WOULD BE
A VENTURE CAPITALIST'S DREAM

surf school

it’s impossible to be cool and complain about how much something weighs.

“Let’s go,” says Dana, not waiting to see if we follow. She and Gary zip up their form fitting wet suits and lead us straight out into the surf.

They didn't see us as students. They saw us as surfers.

What's a coach worth?

just a Fact:

Mike kleba

Archives

Categories

NOBODY influences LIKE A TEACHER

4 Reasons Why Leaders Who Act Like Teachers Win

the secret to great leadership?Engage like a teacher.

school yourself

what did your favorite teacher actually teach you?

We love a brilliant genius around whom the STUDENTS orbit.

Anyone can teach anything, we think. it's a simple transaction.

Great teachers don't teach subjects; they teach learning.

it's true in every field: your best manager, leader, or boss helped you understand and execute the work on your own.

Teachers are Fast Companies

BEING HOT CAN TURN INTO SUCCESS FAST IN SCHOOLS

TRY LAUNCHING A WINNING PROGRAM IN A SCHOOL

IF STUDENT INTEREST WERE MEASURED in INVESTMENT DOLLARS, ROBOGYM WOULD BE A VENTURE CAPITALIST'S DREAM

surf school

it’s impossible to be cool and complain about how much something weighs.

“Let’s go,” says Dana, not waiting to see if we follow. She and Gary zip up their form fitting wet suits and lead us straight out into the surf.

They didn't see us as students. They saw us as surfers.

What's a coach worth?

just a Fact:

Mike kleba

Archives

Categories

NOBODY influences
LIKE A TEACHER

the secret to great leadership?
Engage like a teacher.

Anyone can teach anything, we think.
it's a simple transaction.

Great teachers don't teach subjects;
they teach learning.

it's true in every field:

your best manager, leader, or boss helped you understand and execute the work on your own.

IF STUDENT INTEREST WERE MEASURED in INVESTMENT DOLLARS, ROBOGYM WOULD BE
A VENTURE CAPITALIST'S DREAM