Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark Herring (00:00):
All of the new
technologies that are in place
(00:02):
now the ways that we cancommunicate, we haven't
transferred any of those newsystems and processes into the
way that we operate our school.
So there are lots of things thatare still ingrained in the
practice of a school that noone's ever questioned. Is this
the right thing for us to bedoing? Is this a good use of the
students time is sending anemail to the whole school to
tell them that there's a staffmeeting on this afternoon, and
(00:24):
then having one or two peopleaccidentally replying all So now
everybody in the school has hadresponded to that email to say,
okay, Message received? Yeah,that's fine. Okay. Thank you for
that. The better mindsetpodcast, welcome to The Better
Mindset Podcast, episode 13. I'mMark Herring.
Bex Rose (00:47):
And I'm Bex Rose,
Mark Herring (00:49):
conversations
about leadership, learning and
educational technologies. Ontoday's episode, we dive into
the nightmare that communicationcan be for schools. If you're
tired of overflowing inboxesunnecessary reply emails and
meetings, that could have beenan online message. Stay tuned.
Right back, so what we're gonnabe talking about today on this
(01:12):
special internal communication,so for a lot of people, I guess
what they may not realize isthat we work with a lot of
schools, and we're working withschools around digital
transformation, and what thatlooks like. And one of the
topics that comes up over andover again, in that leadership
space, when we're consulting,and we're working on what their
priorities are and what theirgoals are, is what their
(01:32):
communication processes looklike. And it's something that is
a pretty common theme. I heardit two weeks ago, when I was in
a network of schools that wewere looking at. And there were
some, I would say, maybe wecould start off with some horror
stories, we could actually justsort of kick it off with some
things that that trigger a lotof those conversations when
we're in the leadership space,with schools. So I've got two
(01:53):
here that I'll give you, youmight have some that you could
bring to the table as well. Butthe first one was, I was doing a
one on one coaching with ateacher. And he was talking to
me about having at least over2000 unopened emails on. Yeah.
Like, I know, if you looked atmy iPhone, because I don't tend
(02:16):
to use my mail app on my iPhoneas my main internal work, you
know, mail client, that tends tobe all of my subscriptions, and
all of those types of things.
And so there's probably aboutthere on the, you know, the
little red bubble that everybodygets horrified when they look at
the screen, your screen. Butwhen he was talking about, you
know, 2000, he said, I said,don't tell me those are emails
from the school because he wastalking about, you know, how he
(02:38):
never reads his emails. And hesaid, Yeah, he said, the
majority of them are from peoplein the school, a rather large
school. So lots of students andlots of teachers and lots of
emails going back and forth. Buthe said, it actually gets so
overwhelming for him, he justcan't look at it. He just he
just refuses to look at it. AndI say, Well, how do you even
know what's going on, you know,at any particular time. And he
said, I just asked a colleague,or I've got a friend who story,
(03:00):
I just asked her what's goingon. And she tells me, that's
definitely what I would pass isa bit of a horror story. And
that it may be very in degreesof those for people listening,
you know, you may have people inyour school who know, you know
that don't look at those emails,because of that very reason. Or
they may look at them. And itjust sort of creates that
feeling of stress whenever theysee lots of things coming in,
(03:22):
and lots of things happening.
The other internal communicationhorror story that I've got kind
of on the tip of my tongue waswhen you're in a school, and it
happened to me three weeks ago,there were messages coming over
the intercom on probably a 20 to30 minute basis about things
like you know, don't forget thatthere's a staff meeting this
(03:43):
afternoon, the time is 310instead of 315. Or it will be a
message for you know, Johnny,can you come to the office to
collect your lunch, you know?
And so, in that situation, whatyou're having is everybody in
the school being disrupted fromwhatever they're doing, whether
they're a teacher trying to getsome planning and assessment
done, or whether it's, you know,a classroom who's in that
(04:04):
learning flow who have to stopbecause then there's a message
going across the school, haveyou? Have you seen that kind of
thing in schools?
Bex Rose (04:12):
I actually completely
forgot that was even still a
thing. I remember my first myfirst years of teaching, we had
one and we had like 30 Somethingclasses and that's exactly what
happened. And like, they'd belike cats, put your hands on
your feet.
Mark Herring (04:25):
Let's go pee for
us. Oh, wow. So they had to
actually do an action beforethat. Yeah,
Bex Rose (04:30):
yeah, I had five year
old so I couldn't hear. But I
think from from there, my nextschool, we had like just phones
in our class. And so and when Iwas teaching DP, my phone would
go all the time, it'll be like,and I'd have like a monitor that
would have to answer the phoneand then sort of like screen the
(04:51):
calls if they were reallyimportant, like get me out of
teaching a group lesson to dealwith something or, or was it
really important that I neededto actually go going through
something. Yeah, so it's kind ofmotor phones, but oh my
goodness, it just that justbrought back like PTSD almost
like stop every two seconds likethat was that was horrible. And
(05:13):
then also I think another onethat would always be would and
especially I know you DT leadsout there, we'll know this to
Mark Herring (05:21):
explain why the DT
leaders are sorry, a digital
Bex Rose (05:23):
technology lead. So if
you're a digital technology
stuff and the scope, you getthat knock on the door, the key
has fallen off the keyboard, canyou fix it? Or my passwords not
working anymore? Can you fix itand you're like, I've got this
class for sitting here, like aclass eyeballs looking at me,
and I've got to fix thispassword. This is not gonna work
(05:45):
for me. So you'd have these kidsthat would constantly be this
revolving door of your classes?
Or a note from another teacherthat that the internet's not
working in the room. I need tobreak this
Mark Herring (05:59):
trigger. Yeah,
well, a lot of schools, you
know, have will have one or twoteach students who are out of
their class for a whole day oflearning sitting at a desk in
the office. You might see that,you know, have you seen that
before? Yeah. And they certainlyare a runner.
Bex Rose (06:14):
It's still happening.
I was it to go drop somethingoff at college the other day for
my daughter, and I saw thatthere was someone sitting there.
And I remember, do you rememberthat feeling doping the kid and
you're like,
Mark Herring (06:26):
yeah, just to get
out of class. It was so good.
Yeah, and they're, you know,good leadership hosts, if you've
got somebody who's a hosted orwelcome, new people, that kind
of thing. But if you're, you'resolely a runner have a piece of
paper, or you're the person whotakes the clipboard from class
to class with the class notices.
Like that sort of thing is stillhappening. And all of those
(06:46):
horror stories, I think areindicative, I think there's so
the fact that we're so busy inschools, that we're working in
our schools, and we're notworking on our school, so all of
the new technologies that are inplace now the ways that we can
communicate, we haven'ttransferred any of those new
systems and processes into theway that we operate our school.
(07:09):
So there are lots of things thatare still ingrained in the
practice of a school that noone's ever questioned, is this
the right thing for us to bedoing? Is this a good use of the
students time is that a goodinterruption of every classroom
style is sending an email to thewhole school to tell them that
there's a staff meeting on thisafternoon, and then having one
(07:30):
or two people accidentallyreplying all So now everybody in
the school has had, you know,Mary, responded to that email to
say, okay, Message received?
Yeah, that's fine. Okay, thankyou for that, you know, it's one
of those things. So there arethings that you can do to be
able to improve those. Andthat's what we want to unpack
(07:51):
today, we want to have a look atwhat a successful internal
communication plan looks like,and how you actually get there.
And some of the tips that we'relearning along the way, when
we're working with schools, thefirst thing to start with, is to
have a look at what successfulinternal communication looks
like. So what is your criteria,and I've got a few things here
for you to be able to have, likea vision really, or, you know,
(08:13):
like a criteria that you havefor what we're trying to
achieve. So there's a few thingsto start off with number one,
you want to be able to havetransmission of information to
everybody in the team in theappropriate way. So the main,
the main aim of communication isfor me to be able to get some
messages to you and for you tobe able to get messages back.
And so there are ways to be ableto do that the first thing, you
(08:33):
want to be able to make sure,make sure that everybody's
getting what they need. That'sthe first thing. The second
thing is you want to be able tobuild culture and celebrate
success. And there are ways thatyou can do that, right with some
of the tools that we've got inplace, we'll have a talk about
the technology behind that, andmaybe some of the face to face
ways that you can get that sortof thing happening. But it's
about transfer information. Butit's also an opportunity to
(08:56):
build culture, isn't it, it'salso a way to you what you want
to be able to do is connect withthe team at the appropriate
level. So you don't want somemessages to go to absolutely
everybody in the school. Ifyou're looking for the PE shared
key that somebody has lost, youdon't want the science
department to be asked aboutthat, you know, it's not a reply
(09:16):
or so you want the rightmessages to the right people at
the right time. And then the theI think probably one of the most
crucial things that schoolsdon't even consider or have as
something that is important, ismaking sure that whatever you
do, it's an efficient use ofeverybody's time. So to have
everybody sitting in the staffmeeting, for example, this is
probably not a great use of timeto have everybody sitting in the
(09:38):
staff meeting hearing messagesthat don't relate to them, when
it could have been an email tospecific people, just because
it's more convenient for me as aleader to be able to give that
message to everybody at one timeso that I know that everybody's
heard it. It's not actually thebest use of everybody's time. So
it's about thinking about thatefficiency as well. So, transfer
information, build culture,connect with The right people at
(10:00):
the right time and then makesure that, you know the
communication is efficient.
Those are some things to be ableto have, as I think the thing
that you're trying to aim at,right? So yeah, what does that
look like when you're workingthrough a bit of a plan, and we
can have a have a chat aboutthis and some of the things that
we've seen schools do. But thefirst thing that we recommend to
schools to do is to number one,actually be intentional about
(10:22):
developing a plan for change.
And so what you can do is youcan just let everybody know that
this is what you're doing, buthave the intention as the
leadership team, to be able tolook at what you're doing and
assess it against the criteriathat you said, there may be
things that you've added to thatcriteria that we just described.
But start off actually beingintentional about it, right
(10:43):
saying, right, we're going tolook at this, and maybe at the
beginning of next year, or thebeginning of next term, we're
going to roll out a new plan,that's our timeframe, we're
going to be intentional aboutit, and we're going to move,
that's the first thing, isn'tit? Because it's really hard for
a lot of schools to actuallymake the decision that they're
going to do that.
Bex Rose (11:00):
And that's, you know,
change management 101 It's
basically a change managementplan in this context, isn't it?
Really, yeah.
Mark Herring (11:07):
So you just have
to have to be intentional about
it make a decision, rather thanlittle tweaks here and there,
let's let's take a concertedeffort to go through a process
and do it right. So that's thefirst thing. Number two, the
second thing you want to be ableto do is develop a team that are
going to help you make thatdecision with representation
from all of the different areasin some way, shape, or form.
What that doesn't mean is thatyou have a team of 12 people who
(11:30):
are making decisions, it mightbe four or five people, but you
want to have, you know, peoplewho are involved at the exec
level you and you want to have,you know, some staff
representation at the teacherlevel so that they can give
their input for any of thosecritical components. And you
want to have, you know, a bit ofa range of maybe some age
groups, that's something that alot of schools don't think
(11:50):
about, you know, have we gotsome older, older, more
experienced teachers, but do wehave some younger teachers as
well, so that everybody can givetheir perspective, because what
I think a lot of schools don'trealize is that in any teaching
cohort, you have probably gotthree, maybe four different
generations, you know, operatingwithin that you've got people in
(12:10):
their 20s, I won't go into namesof millennials, and Gen Z's and
all those types of things. Butyou've got, you know,
20s 30s 40s, and 50s, and 60s,very different, you know, so
that your 40 year old age groupoperate very different, even
from your 30 year old age. Yeah,but
Bex Rose (12:25):
they also bring
different perspectives on things
that you may not be thinking of,as well. So it could be that the
older generation has somereally, you know, they've been
around for long enough, theyknow what works in some
respects, but the youngergeneration also have all these
new ideas and new apps andthings that have come through
and, and taking the best bitsout of that. So not only that,
(12:46):
it also enables that buy in fromthose people across the those
age levels as well. Because ifthey know that their voice is
being heard in some way, orform, by someone that's
representing them in that forum,they're going to be more
inclined to want to be part ofit, because they know that that
person is representing them inthat really important time of
change.
Mark Herring (13:06):
Yeah, yeah, 100%,
I think that's the critical
thing, just making sure thatyou've got people being able to
be represented in that group.
And then then the third, thethird part of that relates very
closely to that, make sure thatyou've got people who are
representing the different areasand age groups, but also making
sure that you've actually mappedout who the stakeholders are,
who are the people that you'retrying to communicate with. I
think that's really important. Alot of people forget to do that.
(13:28):
But it's, it's changedmanagement 101, who are the
people who are impacted by thechange? And so just sitting down
with that team of people, itmight be four or five people
just get a big bit of paper andstart to put those people into
groups. Okay, so we've gotdifferent departments, that
could be one set ofstakeholders, we've actually got
different age groups ofteachers, that's another
(13:48):
department. We've got differentlevels of leadership. That's
another sort of area ofstakeholders. We've also, now
we're talking internalcommunication. But let's say
you're we're going to look atyour communication plan overall,
we work with a lot of schools tobe able to map the stakeholders
in their community as well. Soparents, caregivers, what does
it look like for extendedfamily? What does it look like
for you know, older and youngersiblings, all those types of
(14:11):
things?
Bex Rose (14:12):
And governance is
another one. I'm on a public
trustees, and I feel likesometimes that group is
forgotten. But it's so importantbecause the visibility needs to
be there in terms of thedocuments and bits and pieces,
so they're not included. Somaybe that's another key area
that we need to make sure thatis included.
Mark Herring (14:34):
Yep. 100%. Yeah,
so just map those people out.
And new governance as part ofyour internal did I do before?
Bex Rose (14:41):
No, no, no. I've got
one ready to go though. We're
going to do here analogy. It'sreally good. I just execute your
bet.
Mark Herring (14:49):
You probably got
to put me off now. I won't use
any metaphors or analogies. Isaid so number so that was
number 123. Now we're up tonumber four. Number four is
build your criteria. So whatdoes this successful
communication plan look like foryou? And that you could, you
could use the four that wetalked about before. But there
may be some things that arereally important. And it's at
(15:10):
that point that you want tostart to do number five, you
want to give everybody a voice.
So by giving everyone a voice,you're actually asking them, you
know, things like it could be asurvey, or it could be, you
know, just some discussionpoints that people pull back, it
could be a discussion that youmap on to the faculty meeting,
you just ask people, you know,your faculty leaders, when at
the next meeting, just have abullet point, what are the what
(15:31):
are the key pain points? Whatare the things that are working,
what's not working for you, butgive people an opportunity to be
able to feed in to not only thecriteria of what it should look
like, but how are things goingat the moment, you know, what
processes do you have in placethat are working, what's not
working? What are the painpoints, that kind of thing, and
giving people an opportunity tohave input in is, is super
important. So that's, that'snumber five, number six. Now,
(15:54):
what you're going to be able todo is create a map of the teams
and the groups. Now it's verysimilar to that map of the
stakeholders. But now whatyou're doing is you're starting
to think about the aims and theprocesses and the groups that
you need to be able tocommunicate with. And I think
this is really important. What alot of people do is they start
(16:14):
with an idea of a tool, and theysay, how can we use this tool?
And what would be the best useof this tool? As opposed to
thinking what are the differentgroups? What are the processes
and pathways and actually map itout on a plan. So you might have
the SLT you'll have you facultygroups, you've got individual
groups of teachers, you've gotlots of other groups actually
map out those internalcommunication processes, and
(16:36):
what that looks like, you know,include your admin staff, you
know, so when a notice comesfrom a local partner, or you
know, the the swimming pool, orthat sort of thing, how does
that message feed through toyour teaching team, so actually
mapping that out on a big bit ofpaper, and you can do that
digitally. That's not a problem.
There are lots of different, youknow, Infinite Canvas tools out
(16:58):
there that you can use, likeOneNote, and freeform and things
like that, on Apple,
Bex Rose (17:03):
I think this is a
really important thing to
consider is having someone likeyou to be coming in at this
point, because we've done somany of them that we know what
is missed, or, you know, likeyou don't know what you don't
know, right? And so because thisis something that we do
regularly, we know, you know,who sometimes is forgotten,
(17:24):
where how this can be thissuited. So if you did have PLD,
ours, or if you didn't want towork with us, it would be a good
chance for us to help at thispoint at this point.
Mark Herring (17:33):
Yeah. And so that
point that then you can, you
know, when you've got peoplewho've got ideas that they've
seen working at other schools,that's, that's the advantage of
having that third party comingin, yeah, we can, we can sort of
make suggestions for differentthings, you know, particularly
based off what platform you'reon, you know, if you're, if
you're within the Microsoftecosystem, then there are tools
that are really well developedwithin there, like teams and
(17:56):
different chats and channels,and things and recommendations
that we can make, that we knoware working, you don't have to
make the mistakes for yourself,we can talk about the things
that we're seeing working inother spaces. If you're in the
Google ecosystem, then you'vegot Google Chat, you've got
Google Spaces now and rooms andthose types of things and in
different ways that you can usethose and utilize those to be
able to just achieve some reallyefficient communication
(18:18):
processes. So then, once you'vemapped that out, now we're
talking about number seven,which is developing a flowchart
for full visibility. And when wesay a flowchart, what we don't
mean is the groups of people whoare going to be receiving the
messages. But it's almost like aflowchart that helps people
understand the decisions thatyou have to make, to be able to
(18:40):
communicate the most effectiveway for every situation. And we
created one of these for usingtechnology better for all of our
team. So we've got over 25. AndI think we might even be pushing
on 3030 Different people were inthe team's environment. But
we're in the in the Googleecosystem as well. But we've
decided to use teams as our maininternal communication tool. And
(19:02):
then what we did is we created acommunication charter that helps
new people, but also existingpeople understand the different
processes that you have to beable to go through. And so it
just has a question that'sasked, and then it has an arrow
that goes to whatever the answeris, and it tells you what to do
at that point. So the firstquestion could be, is this for
(19:23):
everybody in the company? And ifit's a no, then it goes down to
the next question, which is,okay, which which group of
people? Is this a couple ofpeople? Or is it a is it an
actual team? And then so thenyou got Okay, so it's a group
chat. If it's an individual sortof group, or if it's a team
that's that's designated, thenit goes to a team channel. And
so there are little things likethis and then you know, if it's,
(19:45):
if it's somebody that's outsideof the company, then it goes
over to email, but it's justdirecting people to the right
pathways to be able to make theright decision for the right
tool and the right group and theright situation,
Bex Rose (19:57):
and then making sure
that is followed through because
I came from so like, like, thisis what happened to me. So I
came from education where, youknow, it's predominantly email,
right? So I get back to my deskafter being out, you know, going
into a class or whatever, comeback to my desk, and I had like,
40 new emails, like, this islike constant, like you
constantly have emails comingin. And it would just be like,
(20:20):
Have you remembered this orlike, just from from my friend
in the office, or, you know,sharing, or, you know, the
principal or whatever, and itjust be like a, like a,
basically like a text message,right, but it'll be on email.
And so I've been working likethat for the last 20 years, you
know, so I, when I came to useeBay, I was like, I'd flick an
email through and ask Mark aquestion or fucking email to ask
(20:41):
a question. And they'd be like,Yeah, this is not how we do it.
Go to teams, like copy it. Sothen, like, I think sometimes
people would even like, copy themessage from the email, bring it
back to teams and be like, Thisis how we communicate. And oh my
gosh, like, I mean, I still getemails, obviously, from external
schools and people that I'mworking with, but predominantly,
(21:03):
you probably sometimes actuallyhear my My Thing, Thing, Thing,
and that's people in the in the,in our teams environment, but it
is so much better having them inthose channels, because it just
keeps everything together, youcan go what'd I say last time,
rather than having to go backthrough the thread of emails,
just just keeping everything inthe same place. Or if it's, you
(21:25):
know, you know, a group, I workwith other dudes now. And so
having our Ozzy chat and beingable to keep all the all the
stuff in one place, and keepingit just is, so you just feel so
much more organized.
Mark Herring (21:36):
Yeah, everything's
got its place, and everything
has its value. Now we'll talkabout, you know, a lot of people
are thinking, Well, what's wrongwith emailing people in the
school, that kind of thing.
We'll talk about those types ofthings in a second. But just to
continue, so don't get over overour skis. But just to carry on
with our levels. Now, it's good,those are good, good things to
be able to bring up in a second.
So number seven, was develop aflow chart. So once you've made
(21:58):
some decisions about how you'regoing to use the different
tools, and what decisions peopleneed to make, that are going to
lead to those different toolsand how they use the tools, then
the next thing you need to beable to do is once you've got
that drafted, then let everybodyknow, number eight is inform of
the change and give anopportunity for feedback. So
what we did in the company is wewent through numbers one to
(22:19):
seven. And then what we did iswe shared the draft form, or we
let everybody know, hey, look,this is what we're thinking is a
good process. These are thethings that we've heard from
you. This is the these are thegroups, this is the steps, this
is the flowchart of how you makea decision about who you how
you're going to communicate withsomebody, give us some feedback,
let us know. So I walked throughwith everybody on a call one of
(22:40):
our team huddles, and then gavepeople an opportunity to give
feedback there on the spot ifthere was something that they
wanted to bring up, or they hadchance to do it offline as well.
And by offline, I mean, youknow, in a written message, or a
DM or whatever. So we postedthat online and got some
feedback. And then we made somechanges, there were a couple of
things that we realized thatwere not identified, there were
a couple of groups that hadn'tbeen identified, that could be
(23:03):
included, one of them wasinternal communication with
external partners. So we havepeople that we work with, who
have access to our internalteams. And so it wouldn't have
been appropriate to be out, orit wasn't really efficient to
email those groups, you know,people that we're working with,
when we could actually go intothe team that we've set up for
(23:23):
them. So we have a whole teamset up for partners outside of
UTB. For us to be able tocommunicate, especially when
we're working on differentprojects. So that was a part of
the the flowchart that weadjusted.
Bex Rose (23:34):
Was the does the
flowchart also include defining
the communication channelchannels like for for like, when
appropriate? So a general like aformal announcement? Or? Like,
was that part of that as well,you know, say if there's a
formal announcement aboutsomething that's happening
within the company, or somethingthat's happening within the
school? Is that was that alsokind of defined at that point?
(23:56):
Was that further down the track?
Mark Herring (23:57):
I don't think we
are articulated absolutely
everything on that chatter. Andwe wouldn't recommend that
schools do that. Because I thinkyou need there needs to be an
understanding with people thatyou know, once it's on the
flowchart, it's not set inconcrete, this is a it's a
guide. So it's like a teamprotocol that needs to be, you
know, a lot more agile than itdoes need to be set in stone. I
(24:18):
think a lot of schools like tohave things, probably like the
old days where you would put iton paper, you'd put it in a ring
binder, and it was photocopied,and it was on the shelf, right.
Whereas with a digital wage, oneof the advantages that we have
with that is that if you decideto make a change or an
adjustment, or there's a newfeature that comes out on one of
the tools that you're using, youknow, you can adjust it and
(24:39):
change it. So we didn't haveabsolutely everything on there.
There were things that were kindof just kind of known as SOPs or
standard operating procedures.
That would have to be agile.
Yeah, good question. So thenumber eight once you've been
funded the change and givingpeople an opportunity to get
feedback, then you want toroadmap what the transition
looks like. So people will wantto know, are we starting this
(25:01):
tomorrow? When are we actuallyshifting, you know, all of that
sort of thing. So I think makingsome clear decisions about what
the date is that the things aregoing to change over to, I
think, is really important. So,you know, you could have like a
milestone of the beginning of aschool term or the beginning of
a school year, sometimes thatcan be a good way to be able to
transition things. Or you couldjust say, hey, look, what you
(25:22):
know, if you're a small school,and there's not too many of you
around, you can say, by onMonday, this is the way we're
going to be doing things, let'strial it out. And we'll give it
a trial. And we're going to havea, you know, an adjustment
period or whatever it is. But Ithink being really clear, and
communicating that effectivelyis super important.
Bex Rose (25:39):
I've also been in a
meeting with the school that had
did none of this process andended up just they when they
started back at school thisyear, they've moved over to the
slab talking like this. And canyou imagine the backlash from
that it was not going well forthem. That change management
(25:59):
piece 101 is making sure thatall the people are on this
journey with you. Because evenif they think it might be a good
idea, if they haven't beeninvolved in that process, the
backs gonna go up. Yeah, theydon't change. They weren't part
of it. They had no, they had nopiece of that puzzle whatsoever.
So yeah, just that importance, Ithink just keep reiterating that
(26:19):
bring people on the journey, thecommunication, making sure
everyone knows when they'restarting, when it's when it's,
you know, even getting some buyin on the most appropriate time,
it could be that if you are asmaller store could start the
start of a term. And so they canhave a bit of a play with it
over the holidays, you know,that kind of thing. But just
that communication piece is
Mark Herring (26:36):
so important.
Yeah, 100%, it's, it's just sucha crucial, crucial part about
any change, I think my dad hasbeen involved in a lot of change
processes with his career, youknow, over the years, and
brought in some quite major,almost international level of
change. And he always tells methat, you know, you're always
going to have 10% of people 10to 20% of people are actually
(26:57):
not going to like what you'redoing, it's that middle group
that you're trying to aim for.
And what you want to try and dois keep the dissenters or the
people who are negative about itdown as small as possible. And
one of the ways that you can dothat? Well, there's a few
things, number one, be reallyclear about the communication,
to let people know that this iswhat we're doing. And this is
why we need to be able to do it,involve them, you know, involve
(27:18):
people in the process all theway along, from the beginning to
the end, you know, at the verystart, this is what we're doing
by that by this time, this iswhat we're aiming to have
achieved it get the voice alongthe way, but also explain, you
know, that that we are going tobe able to have to put things
things in place for this reason,you know, we want efficient
communication, we want to saveyou time, we want to lessen the
(27:41):
disruption in your classroom,all of those types of things,
you know, just reminding peopleabout why things need to change,
and where you're going, whereyou're gonna go in that
direction. So numbers one tonine. So we went all the way
through, you know, that from thevery beginning of being
intentional all the way throughto roadmapping, the transition
and then communicating and beingagile and flexible and being
(28:01):
able to change not flip floplike, Oh, we're trying Google
Chat this weekend or next week,we're doing teams, you know,
it's about refining one tool andgetting that happening and
getting the most out of it. Sohere's here's some tips that we
think are really important. AndI guess answering some of the
frequently asked questions thatwe hear all the time from
people. So the first tip thatwe've got is creating a chart,
(28:23):
we talked about that, but makingsure that that chart is agile.
So going back to it all the timemaking sure that it's part of
the process of bringing in newpeople, but it's also something
that is visible for everybody.
And reminding them we haveonboarding processes and videos
and slides and things thatpeople can access. And we have a
list of things that you have totick off when you first come
(28:43):
into the company. So if you'vegot new staff joining, I know
some schools will have like anonboarding manual, or they'll
have a day where they theyonboard all new staff, and they
go through what these processeslook like. I don't know, have
you been involved in anyonboarding processes in schools
before?
Bex Rose (29:00):
Yes, there was nothing
when I started. So it was
something that I was reallypassionate about doing and
refining. And it's just thatit's just that fluid, you know,
refining, getting feedback fromthe people that have been on
boarded recently and what we'vemissed. And because when you've
been here for so long, youforget you just do everything,
you know, like I'm on autopilot.
So by having fresh eyes come in,it's really, really important to
(29:23):
hear their feedback.
Mark Herring (29:26):
I think back to
some of the onboarding I've had.
It's like, this is the securitycode. This is the key. This is
this is where your classroom iswell done. We see your IT staff.
Oh, no, here's the manual.
Here's the manual for you to beable to do all your planning and
that sort of thing. And thereare lots of ways of you being
able to create some, I guess,some more interesting process to
be able to do that. There's alot that schools can learn from
(29:48):
the corporate world and from thebusiness world. And there's a
lot of HR tools that you canenable now. There's there's apps
that you can download. There'swebsites that you can sign up
for where they have littleonboarding videos. And they
have, like scaffolded templatesof you being able to go through
things, we use an applicationcalled Monday and a lot of
schools have taken that onboard, where you can create a
(30:11):
board with tech sheets that youcan work through. So once you've
got an onboarding template setup with the tick boxes, that you
can include videos and slides,and you can put links to
different things, then then youcan duplicate that for people,
right? So you can create a copyfor Bix, and then this is Texas
copy. And then if I'm your teamleader, or, you know, whoever it
(30:31):
is that I, you know, you reportto, you can be going through
that when you're, you're havingyour, you know, weekly meetings
or whatever, and you can sort ofhave a look at that process.
before school starts. Thanks.
Yeah, once we go, yeah,
Bex Rose (30:46):
our Oh, sorry. I mean,
not doing it. Every start of the
year, teacher only day who satin front of that, every year,
when you've been there for like1015 years at a school and you
hear the same onboardingprocesses. Every year at the
start, you can pretty muchrecited off, that's also not an
efficient use of time. Butanyway.
Mark Herring (31:05):
Yeah, what and I
think, you know, it's an
opportunity for you to be ableto build culture too. So it's
not just about here's the key.
And this is the tool that youuse when you need to email if
you know, when you need tocommunicate with people use this
tool here, it's actually aboutthe way that you use the tool,
we've had some some goodconversations internally UTB,
about when to use directmessages and when to jump on a
video call. And that's been areally good development, I think
(31:28):
has solved a lot of issues overthe last couple of years. For
example, one of the guidelinesthat we have is that the more
emotional the conversation hasthe potential to become, the
more you need to do it eitherface to face or on a video call.
And that's happened a number oftimes, you know, it's very easy
for me to fire off, you know,quick little, you know, just
just have a bit of a rant andfire some shots at somebody, or
(31:51):
when I'm giving a message or areply or maybe having to say no
to something or, you know, mayberedirecting somebody, and I know
that there's a potential forthat person to take it the wrong
way. You know, that's part ofyour onboarding communication
processes, is about teachingpeople to actually it's better
to say, Hey, have you got fiveminutes for a quick call? Or can
I make a time to jump on a callwith you, if we're remote, or if
(32:13):
we're in a school, go and seethe person, you know, actually
drop into this for the classroomafter school and just have a
quick chat.
Bex Rose (32:21):
I think another good
point here as right at this
point, as well as setting theboundaries. So, you know, it can
be you can be contacted 24/7Nowadays, so what does that look
like for your internal team? Isit okay to message your, the
neighbor, neighboring classroomteacher at 930? When you're
planning at night when theystarted at seven in the morning?
(32:42):
Is that okay? You know, soputting those boundaries in
place of work hours, when canyou? When is it? When is it
okay? That might beindividualized, it might be team
wise, it might be homeschool,wise, but just having that
clear, and clarity around thatboundaries point
Mark Herring (32:58):
and giving people
permission. So if you're the
leader of the school, one of themost important things you can do
at that school is to give peoplepermission to not have to answer
messages outside of schoolhours, you know, so that I find,
I find that I want to get amessage across and I need to get
a reply, you know, things likeand one of the tips that will
give us is using the thumbs upor an emoji as a response so
(33:21):
that you can see who's seen thismessage, you know, if there's
something that's reallyimportant for tomorrow, that's
one thing, you know, if it'slike, hey, something sports has
been canceled tomorrow, youknow, can you give a thumbs up
to this so that I know thatyou've seen it, and then I'll
reach out to the people whohaven't thumbs up. That kind of
thing is different, when you doneed to get in contact with
people. But I think it's reallyimportant for leaders to be able
(33:42):
to give permission to say topeople Hello, on the weekend,
I'm not expecting a response,just because I'm messaging at,
you know, two or two o'clock ona Sunday afternoon, doesn't mean
that I need a reply from you,because that might not be your
time to be able to work onthings. So having those
conversations and that directthat direct conversation is
really important.
Bex Rose (34:01):
There's lots of other
things that we could teach you
as well around scheduled sendingand things like that. Yeah. We
just it's all ours all undertheir wellbeing banner. So if
you've got wellbeing and yourstrategic plan, this is an
actionable way of showing thatyou are doing something not just
putting on some sausage rollsthat morning tea time like this
is actually actionable stuffthat we can help you with.
Mark Herring (34:24):
Yeah, yeah, let's
go and thinking about time too,
with a lot of these digitaltools. This is one of the
beautiful things about toolslike teams I'm thinking of, and
you know, Google chats andthrough Google Spaces, there are
features in there that canreally help you. Things like
automation. So you can set up anautomatic repeat reminder to
people that the staff meeting ison in 10 minutes. You know, so
(34:47):
you can do that. You don't haveto go in there and do that all
the time. I remember in theclassroom, I was using Google
Calendar, announcements or thereminders function where it
would announce a regular eventand I Never, never forget, it's
burned into my brain the shameof walking into Assembly Law
late because my classroom wasright down the other end of the
(35:10):
school. And I always used torely on classes walking past my
class to remind me that simplyresigned, you know, but we were
down the far end, and no one wasasked. And so we were, we had to
walk in with it. I was the onewho felt really shame. So what I
did is I created a repeatingevent on my calendar, and it
(35:31):
would ding on and it was send mea text message. And I don't
think Google Calendar does thatanymore. I think there's other
ways that you can do that to, toother tools that you've got. But
yeah, you can set it up. You cansit
Bex Rose (35:42):
moneybags, just send
your buddy back to the office by
certain time or the lady of theoffice will get grumpy because
the value was added on time. Itwill be another one.
Mark Herring (35:52):
Banking or
something?
Bex Rose (35:53):
Yeah. Like, we had to
make sure that everything was
down at the office at a certaintime or the absences were back.
No, before
Mark Herring (35:59):
attendances, yeah,
like filling out your attendance
register, that kind of thing.
There are theory. Yeah, but butas a as an admin staff, you can
actually set a repeat message togo out to every teacher, you
know, make sure your routine isso that when they're
periodically checking in or, orlooking at different things,
then they get a reminder ofthat, to make sure that they
stand before they get a morningtea. The next little tip here is
(36:21):
about smartwatches. What a lotof people have when whenever
you're in schools is they'llhave things like this, I've got
a Garmin, you've got an AppleWatch, there's things that you
can use in the classroom space,where you're not picking up your
phone, and like doing this inthe middle of class all the
time. But you get a little dingon here. Now, that requires some
discipline, and some know how tobe able to set up the
(36:43):
notification so that you onlyget the notifications that you
want, right. So you don't want,you know, text messages from
from your kids at home or what,but you probably do want those,
but you can set up Do NotDisturb with exceptions for
different things. And so youcould set up an exception to
come from teams and a particularchannel or to come from certain
(37:05):
sort of areas that you know, youneed to be reminded of maybe
your calendar is reallyimportant for you to be able to
get some notifications from andso leverage that. Because
there's nothing worse thantrying to get a hold of
somebody, like if you've been ina school and tried to find
somebody in the school and kindof like do you know where the
principal is? Or where you seeMr. Richards? Fine. Yeah. Yeah,
(37:26):
we can't find it. Well, if youjust see. So how cool would it
have been when I was, you know,on duty way down the end of the
cricket field or something, toget a little ping on my watch
saying, like, you know, someoneat the office is here to see you
if you've forgotten about thisappointment? You know, that
would have been fantastic. But,you know, rather than having to
run around and try and findsomeone, I always used to wish
that you had like a little map.
(37:49):
And you could identify where keypeople were on your time, you
could do that with differentapps like the app if you're
saying, we've seen those appsbefore,
Bex Rose (37:59):
even find my phone,
like people only find my phone
or anything like that. Yeah, Imean, yeah, slightly creepy. But
yeah, I get it.
Mark Herring (38:07):
But we have one
for our family. That's called
life 360. And once you've signedup with those with, you know, I
can see my wherever my teenagersare anywhere in town, not the
older one. So Oh, yeah, yeah,it's really good. You can ping
it. And it'll even tell youthings like how much power the
phone has got lifted, and allthose types of things. Maybe
there's potential, I haven'theard of any schools doing that
(38:28):
kind of thing. But maybe there'spotential for key people in the
school who are roaming all thetime to be set up with a life
360 app. So you could see whereanybody isn't, you could ping
them at any particular time andfind them. So thinking about
those tools, and just havingthose conversations, you know,
what would be a good way to usethese tools wisely. And I think
that's, that's one of the othertips, thinking about the ways
(38:49):
that you use all of thedifferent communication channels
and the features that areavailable. Now this is it's a
bit of a plug for companies likeours who have got expertise in
this area, but our trainers areacross all of the features and
how to use them and how to usethem effectively. So in teams,
for example, you've gotdifferent channels, but you've
got different direct messagegroups that you can set up. And
(39:11):
what I've discovered recently isthat when I'm working on a
particular project, like let'ssay I'm working on a project
with you and a couple of othertrainers, I can start a new
group, but then if I name it, itcreates a whole nother group
with those people. And I don'thave to keep jumping into the
same group that I was in withthose people before. So it
starts a whole new thread. And Ican put the project files and
(39:33):
those types of things up thetop. So one of those little
nuances are just things thatyou'll learn as you go along the
way to being smart, really,isn't it? Yeah. So this brings
me to the question of why wouldyou use an internal
communication tool like teams orlike Google Spaces, as opposed
to emailing? Can you think of acouple of reasons why schools
(39:53):
should get out of their inboxes?
Bex Rose (39:55):
Well, I know I know
personally, the direct feeling
from not having Having so manyemails coming in constantly was
just an like, actual weight offmy shoulder not having to go. I
get I get emails now still, butnot the cause not not the vast
amount that I wouldn't get whenI was in school, and it would be
the reply, or that would just belike, yeah, yeah, would write
(40:20):
me. And I think it's a lot moresafer. You know, like, how, how
easy can those emails just getaudit on someone else, you know,
I know that you probably canstill copy and paste, but it's
so much easier to go forward.
Look at this, you know, like somuch easier and dangerous for
our profession. When you have somany privacy issues.
Mark Herring (40:41):
Yeah, one of the
biggest things too, is the time
it takes to send an email asopposed to just a quick message.
You know, like, so if you'resending an email, usually people
stick to an email protocol,because that's important when
you're communicating withexternal partners or external
people. So parents orcommunities or you know,
businesses and that type ofthing or other schools. It's,
(41:02):
it's a high Bix, leave a space,right? Formulate a couple of
lines, and then you leave aspace and the you know, might
say, you know, talk to you soon,that kind of thing. And then you
have your email signature at thebottom. And then you got to
remember who you're sending itto, and all those types of
things. Whereas if you're justsending a message, it's Hey,
BEX, have you seen this thingtomorrow, you know, and then you
don't say anything, it's just amessage. And then it's a very
quick message back and forth, Ithink and especially if you've
(41:24):
got those channels already setup. So you and I've got a direct
message channel, we can justping each other all the time.
And the person's developedavailable. Yeah, you do tend to
beat each other. Or
Bex Rose (41:35):
sometimes you can even
just communicate and gifts,
which is so
Mark Herring (41:39):
fun. Absolutely,
yeah. And they're a little bit
trickier and email. And thatleads to the next step about
creating some channels for fun.
So a lot of people think that,you know, like, obviously,
you're communicatinginformation, or you wanting to
get information back and forthand get some feedback and
things, but sometimes just beingable to share a picture of
something funny that your dog'sdoing or, you know, Hey, have
you seen this, you know, listento this funny thing that
(42:00):
happened in class today, or thatkind of thing? You know, you can
create some fun channels.
Bex Rose (42:06):
Yeah, well, even you
know, we've spoken about love
languages, and there's so manyteachers out there that need
that words of affirmation, it'sjust one of the things one of
the one of the, I'm going tocall it, I wasn't going to call
it a trait, but some specialthing about teachers is that
they do do the work to feel likethey're doing a good job. Good
job. So having a we've got onethat's called core values, shout
(42:27):
outs, which is, so aligning withour values this person has done
first, and you can tag theperson in and then people go,
Yeah, this is awesome. You'reawesome, you know, and all just
a cup of your words ofaffirmation person. So having
something you know, you couldsay, hey, I really I walked into
Mrs. Body bars class the otherday, and the kids were so
(42:48):
engaged with that learning onNearpod, that it was so cool.
And just popping it up on thechannel. And just that warm,
fuzzy, you know, like, it's justYeah, it's
Mark Herring (42:58):
cool. It's that
we've got a random fun channel
too. So everybody in the teamcan can be communicate. So you
know, it's that kind of watercooler conversation. Did you see
that thing that happened on thesports game last night, here's a
screenshot or something I saw,you know, those types of things.
So that's a real fun way, justbuilding community and having
fun together and kind ofenjoying each other's company,
online. So that's a reallyimportant thing that's been
(43:20):
going for a long time, we couldtalk about communication all the
time, couldn't we're prettypassionate about Yeah. One of
the things that I think issomething that leadership could
think about is looking at yourengagement metrics. So you know,
one of the things that we findquite funny is we give sometimes
an award to the person who sentthe most messages throughout the
quarter or the term. Andthere's, there's, you know,
(43:42):
there's little funny things thathappen, because we do have
people in our team who will say,hey, and then enter, and then
they'll say, What are youthinking about this space, and
then they'll have a message. Andthey'll like that, it'll
basically that could have beenone or two sentences as one
message, but they seem to aboutsix messages. So that 10
Bex Rose (43:59):
people, one of the
people on my team will write
each word like, just to beannoying.
Mark Herring (44:05):
Yeah, yeah. But,
but as a, as somebody who can,
you know, when you can get yourIT team or if you've got access
to your dashboard, you can gointo the back end and see who's
communicating with who and howmuch and who's not
communicating, you know, maybethere are people who are a
little bit isolated and notconnecting with other people. So
that can be really interesting.
Um, just to be able to see andyou can kind of get a gauge of
what's happening in your teamgives you a little bit of
(44:28):
insights. The last one, I thinkthat is really, really important
is there are lots of situationswhere we've talked a lot about
online communication tools thatare really handy. But there are
situations where it's importantfor your communication plan, to
be thinking about when to use aface to face meeting and when to
use some of those online tools.
(44:49):
And, you know, the classicscenario is everybody's in the
staff meeting, and you know,he's spent about half an hour
transferring information. Nowthat can be quite important when
you want opportunities. Forpeople to have a face to face
discussion, whether it's thingsthat, you know, you might want
them to discuss and give yousome feedback right there on the
spot, that can be, that can be agood way to be able to do or
(45:10):
have a discussion, write yourfeedback on a piece of paper,
we'll collect it, and we'll feedthat back. But there's a couple
of things that you can do, whereinstead of doing that, maybe
that staff meeting couldactually be an email, you know,
but in our situation, we're nottalking about an email, we're
talking about a principals post.
And I know that there are lotsof staff out there who really
appreciate on a Monday morning,having a rundown from the
principal of all of thedifferent things that they're
(45:30):
thinking about, or theinformation that they've
collected from different things.
Or it could even come from theadmin, you know, it's like an
internal newsletter of thethings think about things coming
up sort of, we used to have anuts and bolts meeting at one
school I worked at, which Ireally liked, like it was like
Tuesday morning, at 815. Everyevery week, you had a nuts and
bolts, which was just, you know,this is what's happening. These
(45:51):
are the things
Bex Rose (45:54):
on a Sunday, yeah,
schedule seemed on a Sunday
evening, on what's coming upthis week, just while there, I
knew that there would beplanning and we'd come to that
we'd had a conversation thatSunday evening was the best time
for it to come through. So yeah.
Mark Herring (46:07):
Awesome. So So
lots to think about lots of
tips, we could probably keepgoing on about all of these
sorts of things. But but whenyou're working with a company
like ours, or any third party,that I guess the big idea is to
be intentional about it to gothrough a process where you're
you're thinking about who youwant to connect with, who are
the people who are going to beinvolved in that process, and
(46:27):
then be intentional about whatthat change process looks like.
But keeping it agile as well. Sothere's lots of little things
that you can be able to do. Butif we can just say encourage one
or two people in your school tojust have a little bit of a look
at that process and invest sometime, it may take some time for
you to be able to do it. So itneeds to be a priority, you
(46:48):
might need to move some stuffoff your priority list to be
able to do this. But if youthink about the long term
benefits of culture, building oftransferring information, the
efficiency that can come out ofthat and then just releasing
that overwhelm for people to nothave to go through their inbox
and sift through things, I thinkis really important. So lots of
(47:09):
things to talk about. If you areinterested in finding out more
about this differently, get intouch with us team at Using
Technology Better, we'd love tohelp you but hopefully there's
some takeaways for you to beable to get out of that
conversation to make thingsbetter at your school.