Apace of Change

by Damian Bariexca, Ed.D.

Archive for the ‘Reading’ Category

#SLDunkTank Redux

A little more on Escaping the School Leader’s Dunk Tank this month:

So ‘self-help’ really isn’t my preferred reading genre, but in addition to Dunk Tank, I highly recommend 10% Happier, by Dan Harris (yes, that Dan Harris).  Much of what Harris ultimately uncovers (spoiler alert) is that our own perceptions of situations factor greatly into how they impact us.  Not that it’s as easy as saying, “Don’t let anything bother you” – obviously that’s not possible, nor is it always the best way to handle conflict or problems.  What I take from it – and what I have been trying to do in my own life – is focus on responding to the things within my control to change, and trying to let the things beyond my control go as much as possible.  The last year or so that I’ve been practicing this – well, it hasn’t been 100% stress-free, but I stress about far fewer things and am stressed less often.  As Harris says, I’m definitely at least 10% happier than I was before.

Before coming to this realization, I had a definite tendency to perseverate, over things both within and not within my control.  Perhaps I’m getting more patient or mellow in my old age, but I’m finding it easier to look at situations more objectively than I used to and respond (not react) accordingly.  Coda & Jetter speak to this proactive approach throughout Dunk Tank, and one section of their book that I think deserves highlighting is their “Eight Tasks to Optimize Triumph Over Tragedy”.  They’re survival skills for when you do find yourself in the dunk tank, but they’re also pretty good habits to get into regardless.

NB: This list is presented under the assumption that there are not more serious underlying medical or psychological factors present.  Nothing on this list is a replacement for counseling, addiction treatment, and/or medication as deemed necessary by a professional.

List Your Gratitudes: It’s hard to be perpetually stressed, upset, or otherwise in a bad place if you can list – mentally or physically – the things you are grateful for in your life.  Periodically taking stock of the good things in your life is helpful for avoiding getting stuck in the mire and reframing your outlook.  Not professionally related, but our house has been on the market since January, and we haven’t had a lot of action.  I’m not happy about it, believe me; I could focus on that and stress about not making progress in the last 3 months, but I choose to focus on my gratitudes: if we don’t sell, I am grateful to live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood.  My kids go to great public schools, have friends they enjoy with minimal drama, and are involved in activities they love and that make them feel good about themselves.

Recognize Your Talents: “Self-talk” can be positive or negative.  In times of great stress, negative self-talk may come easier than positive, so it’s important to deliberately focus on positive self-talk.  Even if you have not had many concrete achievements in your position, Coda & Jetter say, focus on the contributions you make.  How do you make your workplace/home a little better every day?  Even if it has no tangible impact on the dunk tank situation you face, the worst-case scenario of this strategy is that you are in a good place to talk yourself up at your next job interview.

Create and Use Affirmations: A little bit of overlap with the previous section, but this is more concrete in terms of developing positive things to say about yourself and then reviewing them regularly.  It helps prevent you from falling into a perpetually negative mindset.  I recall speaking with another dad (teacher in another district) at our sons’ Cub Scout meeting at one point during my dunk tank experience.  He had asked me a simple question about work and I went off on a jag that probably made him feel uncomfortable.  He made a joke; I don’t remember the exact words but it was something to the effect of what a drag it was to talk to me.  He wasn’t wrong.

Allow Yourself to Be Vulnerable Again: Sometimes we stay in bad work situations because leaving is scary and requires us to be vulnerable (opening up to rejection in the job hunt process; risking repercussions of having people in our current workplace find out).  Having been there myself, I get it, but it’s an important mental block to overcome.  Allowing yourself to be vulnerable puts you in a good position to either fight the necessary fight in your current workplace and not shrink and be a pushover, or break out of your comfort zone and move on to a potentially better situation.

Strategize Your Game Plan: So you’re in the dunk tank.  What are you going to do about it?  Specifically, I mean?  And what if that doesn’t work, then what?  What’s your Plan A, B, C, etc.?  At what point is enough enough and you need to eject?  What Coda & Jetter call “proactive paranoia” I’ve always referred to as “playing chess” – thinking about multiple possible courses of actions, outcomes, and responses.

Redefine Yourself: Does your game plan include any changes in how you view yourself professionally?  Take the opportunity to develop new goals.  If you are an assistant principal, maybe now’s the time to look for that principal position.  If you are a building administrator, what about a position in central office (or vice versa)?  It’s no coincidence that artists with the most staying power – Madonna, Bowie, Prince – have been able to successfully reinvent themselves (and please don’t read too much into the fact that two of those examples are now dead).

Develop Yourself into a Behind-The-Scenes Expert: Knowledge is power, so do some “deep dive” self-directed learning and learn more about topic or topics relevant to your field – it will either make you more confident, make you better able to navigate the dunk tank, or help you represent yourself well in an interview if/when you decide to leave.  The worst that can possibly happen is that you know more afterward than before you started, and it may even help with the recognizing talents/affirmation/positive self-talk.

Empower Others: Cultivate a Think-Tank for Your Colleagues: In the most basic terms, this involves you creating a support system for yourself where one doesn’t currently exist.  Coda & Jetter give the example of getting superintendents together from around the local area to share advice, information, and experiences, but you can do this regardless of your position.  Reach out to your counterparts in other districts and get together once a month – not as a “bitch session”, but to discuss current events, share interesting articles, and generally compare notes.  If you can’t bring yourself to do it locally (either within your district or outside of it), develop your PLN on Twitter, LinkedIn, or your preferred social media service.  It’s good for the soul to be able to rub a friendly elbow with people who do or have done your work and can commiserate, support, advise, and celebrate.

 

Book Report: Avoiding the #SLDunkTank

So I’ve started my 2017 Reading Challenge off on a real tear, devouring nearly 13 books in the first two months alone (my goal for the year was 15!).  I’m grateful that life circumstances are affording me the opportunity to pleasure read as much as I am – certainly more than I have in a very long time – so I figured I’d pause and reflect a bit periodically here on some of what I’m reading, since most of it is related to education.

“Have you ever felt as if a supervisor, coworker, or even your own school board was trying to sabotage you?” reads the bright yellow text on the back of Escaping the School Leader’s Dunk Tank: How to Prevail when Others Want to See You Drown, by Rebecca Coda & Rick Jetter.  Thankfully, the answer for me in my current position/district is a resounding NO, but that hasn’t always been the case throughout my career.  It’s through that lens – of a targeted employee, not necessarily a targeted leader – that I read this book, and I think the stories were just as relatable and the advice just as relevant.

The bulk of the book is anecdotes shared by current and former school leaders – an assorted variety of principals, superintendents, and other similar building- and district-level administrators – followed by relevant commentary and insight from the authors.  I think it would be easy for the uninitiated to read these stories and engage in a bit of Monday-morning quarterbacking, but do so at your own risk.  It’s very easy to read about these horrible situations from a neutral third-party perspective, but I’m here to tell you that the decisions and analysis don’t come quite as easy when you’re mired in the thick of it.

If you’re lucky enough to never have had that bullseye on your back, I recommend reading this while waters are calm so you know the warning signs to look out for (or, equally as valuable: know that there may never be warning signs and a bad situation could just hit you out of the blue – when and how you respond is even more crucial then).  If you are currently experiencing or have experienced this, Dunk Tank offers some tips for how to be proactive as well as how to cope and respond if and when things begin to go south.

As I reflect on my own dunk tank experiences (admittedly mild by the book’s standards, but my employment was still at stake), I think the biggest takeaways from this book that I would have found most helpful at the time were:

  • It’s not you, it’s them (maybe).  I’m good at owning up to my mistakes, my failures, and my shortcomings, and I’ve always been on the lookout for ways to be a better scholar, writer, teacher, psychologist, administrator, friend, dad, and husband.  That’s a big part of why my dunk tank experience impacted me so much and the residual effects lingered – what did I do?  Why wasn’t I good enough?  Didn’t I try my best?  Am I just not cut out for this?  Am I a failure?  Coda & Jetter would suggest that while introspection is good, sometimes the person trying to dunk you has reasons, agendas, or issues all their own, and you’re just collateral damage.  If it wasn’t me in the dunk tank at that time, it would have been somebody else (and subsequent experience has confirmed that to be the case for me).  Look inward but don’t consume yourself; sometimes, the problem really does lie with someone else.
  • Quitting isn’t quitting.  There may come a point in your dunk tank experience when you need to take a long, hard look at the situation and decide if you can continue to work there.  I know this is much easier said than done in most cases, but taken on balance, what is more important: the job you currently have in which you are being set up for failure, or your long-term mental and physical health?  I think in our profession especially, leaving a job can be seen as admitting defeat or “giving up”, and I admit to falling victim to that mentality from time to time as well.  But when you have tried everything to stay out of the dunk tank, then tried everything to get out of the dunk tank, and you’re still in the dunk tank, well… that’s a call you have to make for yourself in your specific life situation.  I know that for me, staying and trying to make a bad situation better was a Sisyphean task, and leaving really was the only thing I could do to improve my situation, and better to do so on my own terms than on someone else’s.  It was scary as hell at the time, but in retrospect, has proven in spades to have been the right decision.

I think I have one more post on the dunk tank in me, but I’ll cut it here for now.  In the meantime, my final thoughts on this book are these: while this book is aimed at school leaders, I’d suggest that anyone who works in a hierarchical organization could benefit from the stories, insights, and lessons shared in this book and apply them to their own situations.  Give it a read yourself, or – even better – get your administrative team to do a book study on it!