Tuning Up, Tuning In! © Nexus Point 2011 Welcome! Dr Cathy Symington Education Management &...

Tuning Up, Tuning In! © Nexus Point 2011

Welcome!

Dr Cathy Symington

Education Management & Leadership


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That was AWFUL!!!


What did we just do?

• We just appraised that performance!

• Or more accurately, we had our judgment / opinion / assessment.

• We knew how it should have sounded, and we were ready to tell them how to fix it!!!

How different is this from the way we sometimes appraise performance?


It can be very common• for appraisal to be just like this;• for performance to be judged and assessed,• for people to be told how to fix it,• for people to feel like appraisal is being done to

them,• for people to feel that their own thoughts don’t

count,• for people to be left thinking less of themselves,

and• for the process to seem like a waste of time.


Maybe it’s worth considering• exactly what we are intending to cause,

• what extraordinary results are possible, and

• if how we are going about it actually gives us a chance to produce those best results?


What if• appraisal really was about how to have

people and organisations give their very best performance?

• What if it actively focused on not just doing their best job, but feeling the best through doing it, and really getting to be their best?

• What if appraisal was the perfect opportunity for tuning up and tuning in?


Tuning Up, Tuning In!

If you want the best performance, you’d better have your staff tuned up and tuned in!

But what do you tune up, what do you tune up with, and

what do you tune in toin order to get (or give) the very best performance?


Tuning Up!


Let’s draw an analogy:

If you were to shift this see-saw, where would you press?

1 2 3


If you want to influence performance,

where would you ‘press’:

• Action / Behaviour?

• Feeling?

• Thinking?


What do you think 1, 2, and 3 are?

1. Action / Behaviour

2. Feeling

3. Thinking1. 2. 3.


Results*

Behaviour

Feelings

Thoughts

* Results = Performance Rock (2006)


Where do we normally focus to influence performance?

1. Behaviour

3. Thinking

2. FeelingPerformance


We want to influence performance.

• We know our best leverage is through influencing thinking.

• But we also know that;

“One cannot teach a man anything. One can only enable him to learn it from

within himself.”Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)


“Ideas are like children, there are none so wonderful as your own.”Chinese Fortune Cookie 2005

• People have to have their own “A-Ha!” moments!

• Your brilliant ideas will never work as well as when people have the idea themselves!


How can we influence thinking?

Through:•what we say,•how we say it,•the questions we ask,•the feedback we give,•the way we listen.


Tuning Kit


Tuning through listening

Start with tuning up and tuning in your own listening.

• What are you normally listening to? Yourself, mostly; your thoughts, judgments,

opinions, assessments, points of view…

• What do you do when you’re not listening? Interrupt, give advice, add to or detract from

what’s being said, do something unrelated… What’s your body-language when you’re not

listening?


What to tune your listening to?

• Try “listening for potential” (Rock 2006).

“If you treat an individual as he is, he will stay as he is, but if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought and could

be.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)


What does this look like?• Maybe ask questions like these:

– “How can I best help you think this through?” or– “Do you want to use me as a sounding board?”

or– “Do you have a sense of what you want to do,

and do you want to explore that with me?”(Rock 2006)

• Do what ever you need to do to actually listen - manage thoughts, distractions, body-language, appropriate feedback.


(www.coursetrack.finnware.eu)


Be rigorous with your listening

What if you listened for: • What are they tuned in to?• What happened?• What was done / not done?• What was expected?• What worked, what didn’t work?• “He said, she said”; the facts of a situation or

conversation (don’t get caught in a drama)?• How something made the person feel?


Tuning through questions

What are the best questions for tuning up and tuning in?

• The kind that show up the thinking.

• The kind that have people see for themselves where they are in or where they are out of tune.


Different types of questions:

1. Closed questions– “Do you agree?” – “Did you prepare for that meeting?”

2. Open, non-directive questions– “What about this situation / person makes

you so uncomfortable?”– “What don’t you understand?”

3. Directive questions– “Which colleagues / topics are you having

problems with?”


4. Quantitative questions– “What?”, “When?”, “Who?”, “How much?”,

“How many?”.– E.g. “How are you connecting with the

talents of your students / staff?”5. “Why?”

– “Why on Earth did you do that?”6. “How?”

– “How did you work that out?”7. Feelings questions8. Visionary questions

– Ask about past successes, future dreams.Based on Whitmore (2010)


Design your questions for tuning.

The more thinking that is done in answering your questions, the more tuned in they can become, and the more extraordinary their (and your) performance can be.


Tuning through feedback

To elicit the best performance, what can you focus your feedback on?

1. Behaviour / action?

2. Feeling?

3. Thinking?

4. All of the above?


How you give your feedback can make all the difference.

• You certainly don’t have to be delicate!

• Just take time to think through what you want to communicate and what result you intend to produce.

• Thinking through the small details of this will pay dividends!


Some feedback styles work better than others

1. Manager to teacher: “You are so boring!”

2. Manager to teacher: “Your classes are so boring!”

3. Manager to teacher:“Your class was well-planed and

technically accurate, but did not connect with the students.”


What about these:4. Manager to teacher:“How do you feel about your classes?”

5. Manager to teacher:“What is your intention in this classroom? To what extent do you think this is being fulfilled?”

“How are you engaging your students in this topic?” “How could you develop this further, or what could make a difference now?”


Should we only use questions in feedback?

• Of course not!• Of course there are times when you

should say something directly. – The things you say can make the

most extraordinary difference!• Just think about what you intend to

communicate, what result you intend to produce, and how best to do that.


Fine tuning

• “In my view…”

• “In my experience…”

• What do you want to acknowledge?– Actions, feelings, thinking?– Qualities?

• Guide, offer, suggest, invite.

• What do you think they’re capable of?


Tuned up, Tuned in.

• Be straight.

• Tell the truth (they can handle it!).

• Be honest, sincere and appropriate.

• What could you thank them for?


Influence


• Trust and trustworthiness

• Deals with facts not stories / drama

• Clear communication

• Listens well

• Empathises, rather than sympathises

• A high level of awareness

If you were going to let someone influence YOUR thinking what would you require from them?


Also tune yourself

• What are you tuned up to?

• What do you tune in to?

• Does that tuning accomplish what you’re committed to?

• What do you need to watch out for?

• What would help if you developed it?


What to tune in to?


For the very best performance,how about tuning in to these:• Principles• Values• Motivators• Passions• Talents• Agreements• Aligned courses of action?


What happens if we are tuned up and tuned in to these?

– Harmony– Resonance– Growth– Partnership– Responsibility– Accountability– Satisfaction– Appreciation– Acknowledgment.


What happens is something like this:



What happens is best quality performance.


If appraisal was about tuning up and tuning in,

• There’d be no need for defensiveness, justification, avoiding.

• It would be an opportunity; for partnership, leadership, responsibility and accountability…

• It would be an opportunity for harmony, creativity, and for extraordinary performance.


Just remember;

For best quality performance, tune up and tune in to THINKING.


How you listen

What you ask

What you say

It all has an impact

It can all make a difference


It’s all about tuning up and tuning in!

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