Situation. Behavior. Impact.

In October, I wrapped up one of the top professional development years of my life, as we concluded a yearlong journey with the Center for Creative Leadership out of Greensboro, NC. I would recommend CCL to any leader: https://www.ccl.org/ I was blessed to be with 29 other superintendents in the state who met in Columbus in October and December of 2019 and March and October of 2020. We finished via Zoom, as COVID spelled doom for the final, in-person leadership work. I literally experienced dozens of activities and leadership opportunities of Srelevance, some of which I hope to share. One of those is the purpose of this entry.

Recently, in Norton, I was made aware of some dialogue that had occurred between our own leadership and our employees - little, small moments of interactions that occurred that wouldn’t really benefit staff morale or student growth. They weren’t earth-shattering moments, but just words/actions that came out of leaders’ mouths that weren’t meant to be harmful, but could definitely create harm. This is important because everyone is paying attention to what comes out of our mouths, and people listen to one another. They take things as they are spoken. One time as a 1st year teacher, in a fun attempt to connect with the students, I told them we were going home at lunch because of the snow that was starting. It was harmless dialogue, and I casually mentioned it to one class, even though it wasn’t true. What happened after lunch? Kids - many of them - started going to their lockers and putting on their coats! The joke had left my room and spread like wildfire. The bad thing for them? The decision makers on items like snow days or leaving early weren’t in on my personal dialogue, so the students packed their coats back into their lockers and returned to class. People pay attention to our words!

Our team at Norton explored this reality, especially when it comes to effective feedback. If you lead in any way in your world, you’ll understand the difference between effective feedback and that which really only serves the purpose of getting something off of your chest. We are attempting to choose effective feedback. CCL brought “Feedback that Works” to one of our sessions, and what an impact it made! As leaders, our goal really is to never let people know we are the boss, but instead to inspire them to get work done in a manner that benefits everyone. So...when a leader has to redirect because something was completed poorly, there’s an effective way to do that, and it’s called Situation, Behavior, and Impact. CCL has taught this approach after nearly 20,000 case studies of language we use when we provide feedback.

My dad used to tell me to use my head for something besides a hat rack, but I’m certain CCL would not consider that to be effective feedback! Instead, the plan and approach lies in working directly with the person, explaining the situation that occurred, providing the exact behavior that was witnessed, and explaining the impact that it made. It’s very simple, and it works.

If you’ve ever been in a position of providing feedback - or received it - maybe you’ve heard something like, “Your behavior in the meeting was ridiculous” or “I can’t ever rely on you to do anything” or “You’re a really good employee.” None of those moments of feedback would really be seen as effective, and there’s a much better way of presenting them using Situation, Behavior, and Impact. It would be this: “Chris, we had a team meeting today at 7:30 in the conference room to start our work week (Situation). You arrived late to that meeting, criticized Steve when he suggested possible cuts for the department, and nodded off when the meeting dialogue didn’t involve you (Behavior). I don’t believe that you came to the meeting prepared to help us move forward.” (Impact). That’s better than “Your behavior was ridiculous”. At CCL, we practiced taking these moments of feedback and turning them into SBI. I can say it provides a new perspective on how you can actually say something you want to say and that needs to be said!

Recently, we cut the ribbon on a new Calm Room at our middle school, so I used the opportunity to utilize SBI. On a random day of the week in November, during construction, I stopped by without notice, and Jessica and Jackie stopped what they were doing, walked me through the room, explained the purpose of this area, and provided a 20-minute tour. I could have said, “That tour was helpful; thank you”, and they might have appreciated it, but there was room for more. Upon returning to the office, it took me 2 minutes for an SBI email: “Jackie and Jessica. Today, I stopped by the calm room unannounced while you were working. You dropped what you were doing and gave me a personal tour of the room, complete with insight and hopes for particular areas. Your actions today made me feel like I was part of the team. Thank you.”

Many of you reading blogs do so because you want to grow, and because you do a lot of work with people. The next time you have to provide feedback, try SBI. You will grow personally, and it will benefit those trying to accomplish great things with and for you.