Committing to the Culture

How Leaders Can Create and Sustain Positive Schools

Steve Gruenert, Todd Whitaker

• Publisher: ASCD
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781416627845
• eBook ISBN: 9781416627876
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Leadership in Education

In their follow-up to School Culture Recharged and the best-selling School Culture Rewired, Steve Gruenert and Todd Whitaker go deep into the roots of culture change and explore how school leaders can positively shift their cultures in a sustainable way.

Drawing from the authors' extensive experience and research, Committing to the Culture
- Unpacks questions around the nature of culture, including the importance of vision and climate and how the tension between the past and the future can keep a culture stagnant.
- Explains how toxic cultures come about, why they can be so resistant to lasting change, and how not to change those cultures.
- Describes how to build a positive culture based on trust, collaboration, and commitment rather than fear, competition, and compliance.
- Offers advice to help leaders ensure that positive change endures, withstanding fads, toxic mindsets, and other threats.

The authors provide real-world scenarios to illustrate how their ideas and approaches work in practice. Leaders will gain profound insight into how to create meaningful change, with the goal not just to "transform" their school but also to get all members of the school community to commit to culture change—and make sure that change sticks.

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Chapter 1

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Gaining a Deeper Understanding of Culture

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In this chapter, we explore deep questions around the nature of culture, including what culture reflects and how our own mindsets affect our perception of it; how factors such as vision and climate shape a culture; the influence of various roles in the culture "movie"; and how the tension between the past and the future can keep a culture stagnant.

Culture as a Reflection of the Leader

We believe that it takes five years to change a culture, for better or worse. After five years, the culture is more a reflection of the leader than anything else. Figure 1.1 summarizes the priorities of both effective and ineffective principals over a five-year period—and the cultures that result.

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Figure 1.1. Effective Principals Versus Ineffective Principals

Year 1

Effective Principal

• Wandering
• Listening
• Asking relevant questions
• Challenging irrelevant egos
• Relating

Ineffective Principal

• Wandering
• Mandating
• Avoiding
• Reacting

* * *

Year 2

Effective Principal

• Listening
• Asking relevant questions
• Relating
• Empowering
• Dreaming

Ineffective Principal

• Wandering
• Mandating
• Avoiding
• Reacting

* * *

Year 3

Effective Principal

• Listening
• Cultivating
• Dividing
• Observing

Ineffective Principal

• Wandering
• Mandating
• Avoiding
• Reacting

* * *

Year 4

Effective Principal

• Recruiting
• Supporting
• Branding

Ineffective Principal

• Wandering
• Mandating
• Avoiding
• Reacting

* * *

Year 5

Effective Principal

• Solidifying
• Celebrating
• Listening

Ineffective Principal

• Wandering
• Mandating
• Avoiding
• Reacting

* * *

Outcome

Effective Principal

• A positive school culture that attracts effective educators

Ineffective Principal

• A toxic school culture that recruits and rewards ineffective educators

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Our encapsulation of what ineffective principals do year after year may seem harsh, but we have seen it happen. It does not take much effort to build a toxic culture. Research tells us that if a leader does nothing, or does the same ineffective things year after year, the school's culture will drift toward negativity (Deal & Peterson, 2010). And some ineffective principals may put a lot of energy toward what they think is good management when they are actually building a wall, with them on the outside. We envision this wall much like the fourth wall in theater, which separates the actor and the audience. Some prefer to have the wall quite thick to create distance between them and those watching, whereas others break down the wall so that they can connect with the audience. When school leaders are experiencing stress, they may create such a boundary in an effort to hide their vulnerability. Paradoxically, however, this wall is not protective. If a school leader has walled herself off from staff during stressful times, she may find that she no longer has the trust of the faculty and staff and, in dire cases, may be seen as the enemy.

Let's go through the years summarized in Figure 1.1:

• Year one: The concept of "leadership by wandering around," introduced in the 1990s, means simply leaving one's office and wandering around the school, engaging with staff through such interactions as spontaneous classroom visits and short conversations with the goal of strengthening relationships, professional practice, and culture. Although we are not discounting this approach, what principals do while they're wandering counts for a lot. Note how the priorities of effective and ineffective leaders diverge after that initial "wandering." Some principals wander for years on end with no purpose, creating a mere illusion of leadership.
• Year two: It's not by chance that after year one, effective leaders shift their focus from wandering to more targeted actions, including listening, recruiting, and supporting. They become more purposeful in determining the strategic people as well as the strategic issues. At this point, the honeymoon is over, and any resistance will get real. Ineffective leaders will continue to wander in year two, avoiding conflict while making a show of being connected.
• Year three: By this time, an effective principal knows which teachers represent the future of the school and which do not. A key priority here is dividing. Think of the dividing process as placing all irrelevant opinions and egos on an island where they can do little damage. This is a social division: the leader separates those who want to improve from those who are stuck in the past, thereby preventing the latter from negatively influencing the good things happening at the school.
• Year four: This year is critical, because many school leaders may get complacent, thinking everything is in place after three years of effort. But for the new culture to stick, it will need at least two years (years four and five) of continued effort. This is where some leaders may run out of commitment, change jobs, retire, or get promoted. Year four is often the time when a new culture loses its grip. The ineffective leader will assume year four is a done deal (that is, if he or she gets to year four). Effective leaders continue their push by recruiting and supporting effective, positive staff members.
• Year five: Although you don't need to wait until year five to celebrate, this is a good time to solidify what you've put in place. We encourage all leaders to celebrate any progress being made—including the small, easy wins—as they evolve into a better school. Celebrating progress in a purposeful and meaningful way in year five strengthens the culture and makes it resilient to negativity.

Culture: Something We Have or Something We Are?

Some people believe school culture is something they have rather than something they are (Geertz, 1973). This distinction may initially seem purely semantic, but when we dig deeper, we see that it indicates a significant difference in mindset. When you imagine culture as something you have, you're making it something that can be set aside or changed without letting it influence what you do or how you think. By contrast, seeing culture as something you are makes it much more indelible and difficult to deny or change.

Anthropologist Edward T. Hall (1990) wrote, "Anthropologists have known for a long time that all aspects of a culture are interrelated. They also know that to change one thing is to change everything" (p. 196). Think of an ecosystem, with its countless interdependent parts. Similarly, anthropologists and ethnographers describe culture as something in our heads that provides "programming" as we decode our environments (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010; Schein & Schein, 2017). Whatever new things show up will be interpreted through the existing program.

Whatever metaphor we use to define culture, the meaning is clear: cultures are large and complex, and you can't just make a superficial improvement and expect the larger culture to shift. Those who envision changing their culture quickly and easily believe that school culture is something they have and can switch out like a pair of shoes—that once they grow tired of it, they can simply set it down and move on to the next idea. We warn against adopting this mindset, which will ultimately drive you in circles, going nowhere fast. You will be more productive if you see culture as something you are and work to change it slowly and holistically, from the inside out.

Shaping the Culture: Illusion Versus Vision

Culture can be shaped by illusion or vision. An illusion is something our minds project onto reality. Illusions can make our brand of reality a bit more tolerable and fool us into thinking everything is OK. Sometimes the culture builds an edifice of illusions to convince a group of people that certain beliefs and behaviors are necessary to improve, or even to survive.

Whenever any group of people hangs together for a long period of time, a culture will evolve. We are hardwired to form connections with others. If the family, church, or school does not meet this need, then perhaps a gang, a cult, or a social network will. Whatever group we decide to identify with determines who we are, who the enemy is, and what is true. Each group we join will have its own "movie," and we will seek out our roles in that movie. Most of us think the old movies are the best; most of us think the old ways are still relevant.

Look around your classroom or school building. Does the place look like it did 30 years ago? The world of education is steeped in tradition that is difficult to uproot. Research continually reveals new cognitive breakthroughs in learning, yet we still put chairs in rows, lecture students, and wait for the bells. Alumni want their children to receive the same education they did. A vision for a new and better future is often held in check by the illusions advocated by the current culture.

Why do most school cultures sell a future that looks like the current one? It's not because they are bent on sabotage. Quite the opposite: the purpose of culture is to survive the future by sharing stories of those who have survived the past. Most cultures are trying to prevent people from stepping out into traffic.

But it's important to take risks and step into the unknown. No matter how great a school is now, it can't move forward if it doesn't have a vision of a better future, something to move toward. A vision is really a conversation people have about what they hope the future will hold. A clear vision strips away the illusions of the current culture, serving as an antidote to the subtle slide back into old ways.

Climate: A Window into the Culture

Let's look at the role of climate, which is often conflated with culture. They are not the same thing, but they are connected. Climate is an indicator of how things are; it's the way most people feel on a normal day. These feelings generally arise in response to an external stimulus, such as an event, the day of the week, or even the weather. By contrast, "[c]ulture is the personality of the building. It is the professional religion of the group. Culture gives permission to climate to act as it does" (Gruenert & Whitaker, 2017, pp. 3–4). If something happens once, it affects the climate. If it happens all the time, it becomes part of the culture. Simply put, climate reveals the culture.

Most school climates have a consistency about them. When something happens, we can usually predict how people will feel about it. If the fire alarm sounds, students may smile and prepare to visit with friends outside, while teachers feel frustrated by the interruption to their lesson. Each group is simply responding as the culture has taught it to.

When a school is improving, the climate feels different. There is a sense of hope and anticipation. The trivial things that usually bother us don't seem as important when we can sense something better around the corner. When the school is improving, people become more patient, more forgiving. There is more humor, and mistakes are not morale killers. People want to be there. We can tell how well a school is doing by the complaints we hear. If people are complaining about the weather or a baseball team, the school is probably in good shape.

Climate can also tell us when we are heading toward a negative place. Trivial issues seem to provoke big discussions. People vent about issues that should not be issues, such as lukewarm pizza in the cafeteria or kids wearing hats in school. If the leadership does nothing about it, frustration will eventually create fissures along social lines, and negative conversations will build into a confederacy. Minor gripes can become building-level issues if the culture is in a bad place.

The building-level climate is the most revealing element of culture when looking for clues as to which direction the school is heading. When school leaders set out to shift the school's culture, they can peek at the climate to see whether they are improving things or just frustrating people.

Let's look at a scenario that illustrates this. When Ms. Garcia, a principal we once worked with, returned from a national conference, she wanted to share a few ideas with her staff, including having teachers engage in nonevaluative observations of one another's teaching. At the next faculty meeting, she shared a few ways other schools were doing it and, hoping a few teachers might give it a try, asked for volunteers. Several raised their hands.

Ms. Garcia invited the volunteers to take the lead in developing their own protocols, scheduling the observations, engaging in discussion prior to or after the observations, coming up with "look-fors," determining the duration of the observations, and so on. She wanted them to own the process and to have a chance to be creative. Then she left them alone. She wanted to let the climate inform her as to whether this was a good idea, so she observed the feelings of all the adults in the building—not just the teachers doing observations. Were they talking about it informally? Did it seem frustrating to make the schedules work? Were more teachers getting involved? Was the culture pushing back?

It did not take long for good news to travel back to Ms. Garcia. To her surprise, by the time she heard the experiment was doing well, she discovered that a few additional teachers had joined in. She was especially gratified when one of her average teachers came to her in the hallway to express her appreciation for how a few teachers were taking time to help her—not realizing it was the principal who had made it happen. And Ms. Garcia wanted it that way. There was no need to discuss it during faculty meetings or to post the news in the school's Friday Focus—not yet. To use the culture as the conduit for this initiative, it needed to be shared by word of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Gaining a Deeper Understanding of Culture
• Chapter 2. Toxic School Cultures: How They Get That Way and Stay That Way
• Chapter 3. Building a Trust-Based Culture
• Chapter 4. Sustaining Culture Change
• A Final Word
• References
• Related ASCD Resources
• About the Authors
• Copyright