Question: What helps your staff pursue excellence?
 
Answer: A common understanding of expectations and definitions. When staff have a common understanding, they work more effectively. One way you can work to ensure a common understanding is to have your staff discuss expectations and definitions found in key organizational documents, including the mission, vision, values, philosophy, and job descriptions.
 
Here’s what happened at this morning’s high school staff meeting at Christian Academy in Japan, where Anda Foxwell, high school principal, focused her staff on 1 expectation (teacher involvement in professional development) and 1 definition (learning):

1 expectation: Anda reviewed a statement from the school’s philosophy regarding professional development: “Teachers avail themselves of resources and training opportunities for ongoing professional growth.” To flesh out the meaning of the statement, Anda reviewed the school’s professional development plan and had teachers talk in small groups to review progress on their professional development goals.

1 definition: Next, Anda reviewed a statement from the school’s philosophy regarding student learning: “Learning occurs as students are equipped with knowledge, skills, and attitudes so they can love and serve God and others.” To reinforce this statement, Anda linked it to the role reading plays in students getting knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and how teaching reading strategies can help students learn more effectively.

Ensure a common understanding of expectations and definitions. Pursue excellence. Today.

Your staff members are a gift from God. You know this, and you want to be a good steward of God’s gift. How can you excise staff stewardship?
 
Answer:  By encouraging reflective practice. This means staff members reflect on current practice in order to improve practice, in order to more effectively use the gifts God has given them. Ways to encourage reflective practice include:

• Providing time for staff to journal on what they do and why.
• Providing time for staff to ask each other a set of questions designed to encourage reflection, for example: What people/projects are you spending your time/energy on? What’s been satisfying/frustrating? What do you think you’ll do?
• Providing a coach, who will ask staff members questions like: What’s your goal? What’s happening? What can you do? What will you do?

Note: These activities require you to provide your staff with time. Invest time in reflection—there’s a good payoff.
 
3 questions:

1. What are some other ways to encourage reflective practice?
2. What will you do to encourage reflective practice?
3. How will you use reflective practice to show your staff you care and want to be a good steward?

Pursue excellence. Encourage reflective practice. Today.

You value your stakeholders. And you know it’s important for your staff to have shared understanding about who your key stakeholders are and the roles these stakeholders play.
 
Question: How can you develop shared understanding?
 
Answer: By having your staff reflect on who your key stakeholders are and the roles your key stakeholders play.
 
Here’s what happened at this morning’s high school staff meeting at Christian Academy in Japan, where Anda Foxwell, high school principal, focused her staff on stakeholders (parents and students):
 
Anda began with a devotional on the role of parents (Deut. 4.9, 6.7, 11.19, 32.46). Then Anda had her staff reflect on stakeholder roles by considering 2 sections from the school’s philosophy statement:

• Parents assume the primary responsibility for their children’s education, with CAJ assisting them in providing Christian education.
• Students are valued as persons created in God’s image, are responsible for their learning, and can influence it by diligence, prayer for wisdom, and the application of God’s Word to their lives.

Finally, Anda tied staff reflection to 2 concrete activities—parent/teacher conferences (Nov. 25-26) and student-led conferences (Feb. 11). For each activity, staff identified the role of the student, teacher, and parent.
 
Reflect on who your key stakeholders are and the roles they play. Pursue excellence. Today.

Dr. Keith E. Webb 

Let's be honest, most training is full of knowledge, ideas, and "good stuff" but not much practice.

Paul wrote, "Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me - put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you" Philippians 4:9.

Too often, my problem is not a lack of knowledge; it is too little living out of that knowledge. Chinese philosopher Han Fei Tzu said it well: “It is not difficult to know a thing; what is difficult is to know how to use what you know.”

This is where Follow-Up Coaching comes in.

Follow-Up Coaching
Follow-Up coaching comes at the end of content-based training. Coaches use a series of (usually prepared) questions to move the client forward in implementing the training content over the weeks or months following the event.

For example, Focusing Leaders is a process designed by Terry Walling to help mid-career leaders to understand their calling and giftedness. There are group meetings every month with coaching appointments between the meetings. During the coaching appointment the coach will ask a series of set questions in line with the previous group meeting's subject. In this way, the group meeting content gets coached into the lives of the participants.

It's a powerful combination.

In fact, one organization studied the impact of only training vs. training with follow-up coaching. Training produced 23% better performance, but training with follow-up coaching produced 88% better performance. That's a significant difference!

Getting Follow-Up Coaching Going
One feature of organizations that are characterized as having a "coaching culture" is that all their training is followed by coaching. Doing this is actually easier than it may sound.

1. List up the application points of your training. How do you want participants to behave and think differently? Focusing on behavior makes things easier.
2. Take a look at the content of your training and edit it to focus on the behaviors you want to participants to adopt. Cut the extra "good" things, and focus.
3. Create time during the training so participants can plan their implementation. Have participants share that with somebody else.
4. Write up a set coaching questions to be asked to participants during the next couple of weeks or months. With these questions in hand, just about anybody can do the follow-up coaching.
5. Provide follow-up coaching at least 4 times over the next 3 months, beginning a week after the training. Coaches can meet with 1, 2, or 3 participants at a time. (More than that doesn't work as well.) We've also formed participants into groups of 3 and given them the follow-up coaching questions and allowed them to "peer coach" each other. Obviously, the more skilled your coaches are the better the outcome, but half the power is in the questions and the fact that the topic is brought up again 4 more times following the training.

I've implemented Follow-Up Coaching with the shorter training events I lead and have seen fabulous results. How about giving it a try? And let me know how it goes.

Copyright © 2008 Keith E. Webb & CRM
Dr. Keith E. Webb is a trainer and experienced cross-cultural leadership coach helping non-profit organizations, teams, and individuals multiply their cross-cultural impact. Find free articles at http://www.CreativeResultsManagement.com

God has provided you with staff. You know your staff members are more than employees. They are God’s people who seek to pursue God’s calling through their personal and professional lives. You care about your staff and want to be a good steward of them.
 
To exercise staff stewardship, be sure to address staff personal life. Here are some options:

• Do daily devotions. Have a set time each day for staff to gather together to read the Bible, sing, share what’s on their hearts, and pray.
• Have fun together. Celebrate birthdays, weddings, and babies. Go on sightseeing trips and to banquets.
• Provide special activities, like making pottery and designing a fitness plan.
• Give time off for weddings, funerals, and maternity/paternity leave.
• If you’re in a foreign country, be sure to help staff with language instruction and with finding doctors/dentists.
• Give staff the option to get coaching on things related to their personal lives—balancing work/home, improving relationships, achieving financial goals, and maintaining health.

3 questions:

1. What are some other options?
2. What will you do to address staff personal life?
3. How will you show your staff you care and want to be a good steward?

Pursue excellence. Address the personal life of your staff. Today.

Shared understanding is powerful. When staff members have shared understanding, they move forward together. Why? Because they understand what an idea means and what it looks like in practice.
 
Question: How can you help your staff develop shared understanding?
 
Answer:

1. Set the stage.
2. Identify what you want to develop shared understanding on.
3. Ask questions to provoke reflection.
4. Generate discussion.
5. Document a summary of the discussion and distribute it.

Here’s what happened at this morning’s teacher meeting at CAJ:
(1) Set the stage: The principal, Anda Foxwell, led a devotional in the importance of teaching children (Deuteronomy 1: 6; 4:9; 11:18–20).
 
(2) Identify what you want to develop shared understanding on: “Parents assume the primary responsibility for their children’s education, with CAJ assisting them in providing Christian education” (CAJ Philosophy Statement).
 
(3) Ask questions to provoke reflection: Anda asked:

• What are the implications of each phrase?
• What does is mean that we do and don’t do? 
• What are the specific ways that we carry out this statement?

(4) Generate discussion: Anda had teachers get in small groups to examine the statement and respond to the questions. She walked around, listening in on the discussion.
 
(5) Document a summary of the discussion (and distribute it), for example:

• Implications: God is at the center of education. Parents, students, and teachers need to communicate. Parents can’t just pay a fee and leave the students to the school—parents, not teachers, are responsible for the child. We need to be clear on what kind of education CAJ provides so parents know how we assist them and don’t assist them—this is especially important, given the cultural diversity of our community. We offer a certain type of education, and we need to be open about what we can and cannot provide.
• We do this: We communicate with parents.
• We don’t do this: We don’t assume the primary responsibility for a child’s education—that’s the parents’ responsibility.
• Ways that we carry out this statement: Back-to-School Day, posting grades and assignments online, report cards, parent/teacher conferences, student-led conferences, parents making final determination regarding AP courses and co-curricular participation

Develop shared understanding. Today.

You’re leading a Christian organization, and you want your staff to increasingly implement you organization’s philosophy. Good.
 
Question: How can you do this?
 
Answer: Start by using meetings to have your staff discuss ways to implement your organization’s philosophy. This is what principals at Christian Academy in Japan are doing.
 
During yesterday’s staff meeting, teachers at Christian Academy in Japan reviewed the following statement from the school’s philosophy: “Teachers model a Christ-like lifestyle.” Then, the teachers brainstormed the ways to model Christ for their students:

• Love students, parents, and staff.
• Teach God’s truth.
• Extend grace.
• Value each person as God’s image bearer.
• Treat everyone fairly—show no favoritism.
• Be diligent and honest.
• Obey the rules the kids have to obey.
• Forgive and ask for forgiveness.
• Speak the truth in love. Don’t gossip. Make sure that conversations (about kids and with kids) are respectful.

Question: What are the benefits of having staff discuss philosophy at meetings?
 
Answer: Benefits of discussing philosophy at staff meetings include:

• Increased staff awareness of the philosophy.
• Staff connecting philosophy and practice.
• Everyone getting on the same page.
• Returning staff and new staff interacting on vital concepts.
• Increased staff implementation of the philosophy.

Discuss philosophy. At your next staff meeting.

You have a philosophy of Christian education. Good. And you want to make sure you’re implementing it. Even better.
 
Question: How can you do this?
 
Step 1: Take a line from your philosophy statement and ask, “How do we do this?”
 
For example, teachers at Christian Academy in Japan reviewed the following statement from the school’s philosophy statement: “We recognize and value student diversity seen in ways of learning, abilities and cultural background and identities.” Then, the teachers responded on the following question: What do we do that shows that we recognize and value student diversity?
 
Here are their some of their responses:

• We differentiate instruction.
• We support students with special needs.
• We have a variety of different classes (for example, AP and ESL).
• We respect the cultural background of our students.
• We celebrate student success in a variety of ways, including posting art and holding sports assemblies.
• We try to minimize academic competition and try to maximize moving all students along from where they are.

Step 2: Once you have identified how you currently implement a given line from your philosophy statement, ask, “How could we do this even better?” Then, take action on your answers.
 
Implement your philosophy of Christian education. Today.

Your staff members play a vital role in carrying out your organization’s mission. Because you care about your staff and because you want to be a good steward of the staff God has provided, you ask yourself, “How can I energize, focus, and unleash the staff?”
 
Answer: Document and implement a Staff Stewardship Plan that outlines how you provide your staff with the support, encouragement, and accountability they need to pursue God’s calling for their lives, both personally and professionally. That’s right—how they can pursue God’s calling, both personally and professionally.
 
While God’s calling for each staff member includes carrying out your organization’s mission, God’s calling for each staff member is broader than your organization’s mission. God’s calling for each staff member also includes things like family and church involvement.
 
Question: What’s the rationale for providing support, encouragement, and accountability for personal life?
 
Answer: That’s a good question. Investing in personal life demonstrates holistic care and empowers staff to more effectively carry out the organizational mission. For example, by providing coaching at work, you can help staff members reflect on and address personal concerns like balancing home/work. When personal concerns are addressed, staff members feel cared for and can more fully focus on work.
 
Or for example, you want to have staff use SMART goals in carrying out the organizational mission. Start by having staff members develop SMART goals for something in their personal lives (for example, maintaining good health). Then, have staff transfer what they learned about SMART goals in their personal lives to their professional lives.
 
Question: What can you do to address the personal life of each staff member?
 
Answer: Here are 4 options:

1. Devotions: Read the Bible and pray together each day.
2. Social gatherings: Have fun together—wedding and baby showers, banquets, sightseeing trips….
3. Support for personal life: Provide days off for weddings, funerals, maternity/paternity leave….
4. Coaching: Provide coaching to help staff balance work/home and maintain good health.

Question: What can you do to address the professional life of each staff member?
 
Answer: Here are 4 options:

1. Professional development: Provide the learning opportunities your staff need to carry out organizational mission.
2. Job debriefings: To promote reflection on work, give staff a set of questions they can ask each other.
3. Staff supervision: To help your staff grow professionally, provide accountability/feedback.
4. Coaching: Provide your staff with coaching to help them focus and work smart.

Bottom line: Provide your staff with the support, encouragement, and accountability they need to pursue God’s calling for their lives, both personally and professionally. Get started by taking this self-assessment (designed for international Christian schools) and by looking at this sample Staff Stewarship Plan.
 
Pursue excellence. Implement a staff stewardship plan. Today.

Need to develop a strategic plan? Start by answering 8 questions:

1. What problems/opportunities are you passionate about & blessed by God to address?
2. What’s your mission?
3. What goals do you need to achieve to carry out your mission?
4. What’s been accomplished?
5. What helps you achieve your goals?
6. What hinders you from achieving your goals?
7. What are your options for moving forward on your goals?
8. What will you do to achieve your goals?

As a leader, you want pursue excellence in order to achieve your organization’s mission. Good.

These 3 steps can help:

1. Identify 5-15 measurable key organizational indicators. How? By reflecting on what it takes to achieve your mission. For example, if your mission is to equip students to impact the world for Christ, a key indicator is student learning.
   
2. Measure your organizational indicators. In the school setting, you can use common assessments to measure student learning.
   
3. Use your measurement data to design action steps. Use data from common assessments to design action plans. For example, to increase student application of a Biblical perspective, have teachers design a Biblical perspective unit.

Reflect on 3 questions:

1. What are your 5-15 measurable indicators?
   
2. How can you measure each indicator?
   
3. How can you use your measurement data to design action steps?

Get your staff involved: In addition to identifying organizational indicators, ask each staff member to identify 2 or more key personal indicators, measure each indicator, and use the data to design action plans.

Bottom line: When leadership and staff focus on measurable indicators, they increase the likelihood they will pursue excellence and, consequently, achieve the mission.

Pursue excellence. Identify and measure your key indicators. Today.

God’s people are talented, faithful, and servant-hearted. Out of love for God and others, God’s people do jobs for which they are not trained, suited for in terms of temperament and strengths, or passionate about—they do jobs for they are not sufficiently qualified. And God uses them. Good.

Or is it?

It’s good that God uses His people. It’s good that God’s people are talented, faithful, and servant-hearted. But it’s not good when these same people are assigned tasks for which they are not sufficiently qualified in terms of training, temperament, strengths, or passion.

How would you feel in the following 4 scenarios?

• Scenario #1: You’re a teacher. You’re teaching kindergarten, but you have been trained as a high school math teacher.
  
• Scenario #2: You’re a consultant. Due to limited office space, you’ve been assigned work alone at home, but you work better when you have a steady diet of social interaction.
  
• Scenario #3: You’re a strategist. You’re working as a secretary, but you’re at your best when developing policy, procedures, and systems.
  
• Scenario #4: You’re passionate about stewardship. You’re in charge of personnel, but you really enjoy numbers, charts, and helping your organization use its financial resources wisely.

Response #1: I’d be willing to serve, and I’m pretty sure I’d experience frustration in all 4 scenarios. How about you?

• In Scenario #1, I’d experience frustration due to being assigned tasks for which I am not trained. I can hear my supervisor saying, “We really need you to do this. And we think you can do this.” But I know that if someone with training were available, my supervisor wouldn’t be assigning the task to me.
  
• In Scenario #2, I’d experience frustration due to being assigned tasks for which I’m not temperamentally suited. I’d be lonely, and lonely doesn’t feel good.
  
• In Scenario #3, I’d experience frustration due to being assigned tasks that don’t play to my strengths. Secretarial work involves a myriad of details and requires accurate data input, two things I’m not good at. I know I’d make mistakes, the kind others won’t like.
  
• In Scenario #4, I’d experience frustration due to not being passionate about the work itself. When I’m not passionate about the work itself, I have to put in extra energy to perform well. So instead of being energized by the work, I’m going to be drained. Not much fun.

Response #2: I recognize that leaders of Christian organizations do their best to make effective staff assignments and that it’s not always possible to assign tasks that fit people in terms of training, temperament, strengths, and passions.

Response #3: Leaders of Christian organizations are stewards of the staff God provides. As such, they should be aware of and have documentation of each staff member’s training, temperament, strengths, and passions. And they should raise the awareness of each staff member regarding his/her training, temperament, strengths, and passions.

Response #4: Leaders of Christian organizations must consider their options before assigning tasks:

1. Assign tasks to qualified staff, to staff with the appropriate training, temperament, strengths, and passions. Before making assignments, (1) review staff qualifications (training, temperament, strengths, and passions) and (2) review the qualifications needed for the tasks.
   
2. Get your staff qualified, then assign tasks. How? After reviewing staff qualifications (training, temperament, strengths, and passions) and the qualifications needed for a tasks, provide training, modify the work environment so it suits temperament, modify the tasks so they play to strengths, and cultivate passion by talking regularly with staff about how the tasks contribute to the achievement of the mission. Then, assign the tasks.
   
3. Recruit qualified staff.

Christian leaders, steward the people God has given you. Assign qualified staff, get your staff qualified, or recruit qualified staff. And balance this with the fact that God can use anyone to accomplish His purposes.

Pursue excellence. Today.

P.S. Christian staff members, get qualified for the tasks you’re assigned. Get training. Find ways to modify tasks so they better suit your temperament and play to your strengths. Cultivate passion for the work by focusing on how it contributes to achieving the mission. And remember, God can use you to accomplish His purposes.