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What Worked and What Didn’t?
As the end of the year approaches, now
is the time to do a little background work to recap both the successes and
missteps of this year and set up your council for even greater success next
year. This is a common technique, used widely
in situations where teams need to work together to deliver results.
It drives open communication and captures some of the key information
that can be used to help a council to become more effective. During the last
meeting of this year, before members have left for the summer and forget about
the year’s ups and downs, take some time, perhaps 15 – 30 minutes, to
capture the group responses to these three questions on a flip chart: What worked this
year? What didn’t work? What should we do
differently next year? While it seems
simple, obtaining open and honest input to these three questions requires the
leadership of a skilled facilitator to ask the questions, accept the answers
without becoming defensive, and keep asking, ‘what else?’
A principal, chair or vice-chair should play the role of facilitator. What worked this
year? The order in which
the questions are asked is quite important.
The first question, ‘what worked this year?’ allows the group to
celebrate the good things that it did to work well together as a team or
accomplish on behalf of the students in the school. This opens up the discussion in a non-threatening way,
causing the group to become reflective – focused on the positive aspects of
the year In leading groups
through this, I often find that groups accomplish more than they remember, and
that the effort to write down the answers to this question enables the whole
group to realize that more is ‘working’ than they thought.
A facilitator may
have to stimulate memories and discussion by asking about what the council did
to work well as a team, how it worked with the school staff, and what some of
the specific initiatives were that went well. What didn’t work? While this can be a
tough question to ask, it can also be the source of the most significant
learning for the group. Some of
what went wrong may be obvious to some, but may be unknown to others.
The open discussion about what didn’t work helps everyone to come to a
common understanding of what the group’s issues are.
How those are addressed can be left for next year, but capturing them now
is important. The biggest two
challenges a facilitator will face in gaining input to this question are 1) to
avoid becoming defensive, and 2) to keep the discussion from degenerating into
an argument. Quickly capturing a
person’s idea, writing it down and moving on to ‘what else’? can help keep
the discussion focused. What should we do
differently next year? After the discussion
about what worked and what didn’t, capturing the group’s ideas about ‘what
to do differently next year’ helps to focus everyone on taking action
collectively to make the council better. It
drives home the point that the group is in control of how well it works
together, and it helps to bring out the most important changes that the group
should consider. It leaves people
thinking that things can be even better next year. Share the learning Capturing the
group’s answers to these questions on a flip chart is the first step in
sharing the learning. It enables
everyone to visually ‘see’ a common outlook as the discussion is happening.
Often, seeing words on a flip chart will trigger people to think of
something else to add to the discussion. Once the session is
completed, capture the material from the flip charts and summarize it on a
single page, to be attached to the minutes, and handed out to everyone at the
first meeting of the new school year. How your group
addresses the output is up to you. There
may be a single idea that comes out of this can help your council become even
better next year, or there may be 2 or 3. I can pretty much
guarantee this, your council can become even better next year if the team all
recognize the challenges and opportunities facing it, and play a role in
selecting the course of action to address it.
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Send mail to
gkerr@schoolcouncils.net with questions or comments about this web site.
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