In part one of this blog, I articulated how important the teacher team leader is to the implementation of Professional Learning Community principles and processes, which is the most promising strategy for improving teaching, learning, teamwork, and collaboration (DuFour et al., 2021). As part of this, we explored the role and responsibilities of the team leader, as well as some helpful assumptions and mindsets. In other words, the last post highlighted key characteristics of your own approach to being a teacher team leader.
Leading teacher teams effectively
To briefly review, the role of the teacher team leader that I propose in my book, The Teacher Team Leader Handbook: Simple Habits to Transform Collaboration in a PLC at Work®, is to ensure the effective functioning of the team in improving student learning and guaranteeing that students learn essential outcomes. The three responsibilities are to make it safe, build capacity, and do the work.
As a teacher team leader, it is helpful to hold certain assumptions—things that you hold to be true (Sparks, 2007). I propose five assumptions for teacher team leaders:
I propose five assumptions: 1) People do the best that they can. 2) You can only control yourself. 3) Behavior communicates. 4) People want to get stuff done. 5) Conflict is good.
And, finally, effective mindsets, or attitudes leading to action (Mindset Works, n.d.), might include seeing what others don’t (yet) see in themselves, being humble with a posture of learning, and spreading the contagion of joy.
It’s time to focus on teacher team leader actions
With a foundation of clarity about your approach to the work, let us now turn to actions that you can take to transform teamwork and collaboration. The Teacher Team Leader Handbook goes into great detail and provides descriptions, tools, reflective questions, and next steps on the moves, techniques, and strategies for transforming collaboration in a Professional Learning Communities (PLC) at Work® school or district. For our purposes here, I have highlighted just a few moves and strategies that I have found to be the absolute most impactful in my work with teams. I affectionately refer to these as the three “magic moves” and seven “sweet strategies.”
3 magic moves that work like a charm
There are three “magic moves” that you can take as a teacher team leader that will immediately and dramatically impact the work of the team: pause, paraphrase, and third point.
The pause is the single most powerful nonverbal move in your toolbox (Grinder, 2007), and it is just what it sounds like: It involves being silent. Of course, it’s also helpful to breathe during that pause. And a subtle breaking of eye contact (to reduce the potential for perceived intimidation) adds to the effect of a pause.
The second magic move is the paraphrase (Garmston & Wellman, 2016): It’s magic because it’s disarming, doing two things: 1) Ensuring that you understand others, and 2) Ensuring that others feel understood. Even a clumsy paraphrase is better than no paraphrase, though the key is to be genuine. This communicates to others their value as a person, as well as their value as a professional, and this greater understanding builds relationships, teamwork, and collaboration.
The power of a third point
Finally, one of my all-time favorite moves is the use of a third point, because it’s not only highly impactful, but it’s probably the easiest to implement. The term third point (Grinder, n.d.) comes from the notion that you, yourself, are the first “point” in any given interaction. The other person or people are the second “point.” The third “point,” then, is an object. For example, when you use an agenda and have it projected on a screen for all to see, the screen is your third point. If you have data posted on chart paper, the data on the chart paper is your third point.
A third point does two things for a group: 1) It shifts energy and 2) helps with psychological safety. Regarding shifting energy—especially in tense conversations—a third point enables that energy to be directed toward the third point instead of each other.
This helps to maintain relationships as we engage in a focused conversation where we can be hard on ideas and soft on people. This shift in energy facilitates your #1 responsibility (psychological safety) because we have now shifted our energy to this “thing”—our third point—instead of at each other. The psychological safety thus engendered makes it far easier to engage in productive conflict.
7 sweet strategies you can use to ensure great leadership
While there are many more strategies shared in my book, here are the seven “sweet strategies” that you will want to be sure to have as a regular practice in leading your team. While some of these may be already familiar to you, let’s take a brief look at each. 
While some of these may already be familiar to you, let’s take a brief look at each.
Norms:
Norms are an expression of the needs of team members (Ferriter, 2020). Collectively and collaboratively establish them. Collaboratively monitor them. Hold each other accountable to them. And celebrate adherence to them.
Outcomes
The three most important things of any meeting are these: Outcomes, Outcomes, and Outcomes (Garmston and Wellman, 2016). What is the purpose of your meeting(s)? What needs to be accomplished? How will it happen? Have clear outcomes—and be sure that these outcomes will serve the larger purpose of the team . . . that of ensuring all students are learning at grade level or higher.
Agendas
Agendas provide a road map for the work of the team when it’s together. But any old agenda won’t do. The agenda must be focused on what will accomplish the identified outcomes leading to student attainment of essential learning. And in a PLC at Work, those outcomes revolve around the four critical questions and must involve either learning or deciding as a team. Don’t use informing outcomes that are the basis of managerial tasks.
Inclusion
People don’t care about your meeting. They are thinking about the email they just read, or the interaction they just had with a child, or the phone call they need to make, or any of a thousand other things other than your meeting. So use Inclusion (Garmston and Wellman, 2016) to 1) focus the mental energy of each person in the room, 2) get everyone’s voice in the room, and 3) start to build community, teamwork, and collaboration as we connect with each other and the content. And please note that an Inclusion is very different from an icebreaker–something that ticks off half the people in the room.
Protocols
Use Protocols. Protocols provide guardrails to assist with ensuring equity of turn-taking and are therefore equal-opportunity-challengers. For most people, regardless of whether they speak up too much or too little, it will be a challenge to follow them. Be sure that you and your colleagues understand that the constraint of a protocol helps team members to exercise restraint in the conversation.
Celebrate
Recognizing small efforts and changes is critical to not only our own social-emotional well-being but to building momentum for future growth and development (Johnson, 2022). So find ways to Celebrate both efforts made and the results of those efforts.
Who will do what by when
The purpose of a meeting isn’t just to meet, but ultimately to take action. At the conclusion of the meeting, everyone needs to be clear about next steps, so simply identify “WHO will do WHAT by WHEN” (Garmston and Wellman, 2016).
Simple moves for powerful PLC teams
We know that becoming a professional learning community is both challenging and rewarding—both for the adults and ultimately for the students we serve. The role of the team is critical to this process (Kramer, 2019), as is the team leader. In addition to the consideration of your internal state, a few, simple, go-to moves and strategies will ensure that it all comes together for the improvement of professional practice and results for students.
Reflective Questions
- Which of the three moves would you like to use? When and how will you go about practicing and then implementing them?
- Which of the seven strategies does your team already use, and which ones might you need to start and/or refine? When might you start this?
There is no part three to this blog, but this doesn’t have to be the end of your exploration of professional learning communities! Check out these hand-picked articles on the PLC process, what it means, and how to work with your PLC teams:
About the educator
Chad M.V. Dumas, EdD, focuses primarily on collaborating to develop capacity for continuous improvement. An international educational presenter and award-winning researcher, he has led nationally recognized improvements for both students and staff.
