On Protocols and Sabotage


Yesterday I met with our new team of Instructional Coaches. We are building our framework for the new year, planning for New Teacher Academy, and making a plan for Opening Institute. It's a tall order for anyone, and I couldn't ask for a better team.

 I'm an Instructional Coach too, largely a technology coach. In a sense, I'm the first Instructional Coach that our district has had. It's a lonely job, and I'm so deeply relieved and nervous at having a true team of full-time coaches with which to collaborate. In our meeting, we used the Meeting Protocol. I first read about this Protocol in The New School Rules by Anthony Kim and Alexis Gonzalez-Black. I value the protocol because it is designed to help teams build together. We check-in, build an on-the-fly agenda and create as we go. As I have used the protocol (along with other ideas found in the book) I have felt like a more responsive and aware leader. I'm not just dishing out ideas. The protocol pushes me to listen more. 

 Team members set the priority for agenda items. Yesterday, one of our coaches had to leave early, so I asked him to determine the order of priority of our agenda. It works.

 Along the same thread, Anthony Kim also introduced me to the concept of sabotage. According to this source: 

 "In 1944, the CIA’s precursor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), created the Simple Sabotage Field Manual. 

 Here’s a list of five particularly timeless tips from the Simple Sabotage Field Manual:
  1. Managers and Supervisors: To lower morale and production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.
  2. Employees: Work slowly. Think of ways to increase the number of movements needed to do your job: use a light hammer instead of a heavy one; try to make a small wrench do instead of a big one.
  3. Organizations and Conferences: When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large and bureaucratic as possible. Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.
  4. Telephone: At office, hotel and local telephone switchboards, delay putting calls through, give out wrong numbers, cut people off “accidentally,” or forget to disconnect them so that the line cannot be used again.
  5. Transportation: Make train travel as inconvenient as possible for enemy personnel. Issue two tickets for the same seat on a train in order to set up an “interesting” argument." 
Friends! It is 2019 and we do too many of these things, still. In particular, too often, we meet just to meet. One of my goals is to trust my team and empower them, not sabotage our productivity. 

KB

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