EXCELLENCE & ETHICS

Updates from April, 2013

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  Abuse or motivation? I know it when I see it. Do you? By Matt Davidson, Ph.D., President, Institute for Excellence & Ethics (IEE)

  Matt Davidson posted in Character Blog, Character For & From Sports at 1:59 pm on April 5, 2013 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  Some years back I was involved in a year-long study of an elite prep school men’s basketball program. The school had a mission dedicated to whole-person development, in which competitive sports, music and the arts featured prominently within a rigorous overall college-prep curriculum.  As a social-scientist interested in both excellence and ethics it was a unique opportunity to examine the crossroads where an uncompromising commitment to excellence meets an uncompromising commitment to integrity and whole-person development.

  The study involved significant embedded observations with the team, interviews with coaches and players, and the analysis of significant data gathered from microphones that the coaches wore in practice and games.  (Imagine that coaches—or parents or teachers—somebody recording and analyzing your every exchange! It was amazing). I remember a point when a team member contacted me very concerned because the coaches had been yelling and screaming at practice and he had great concern that would present the coaches in a bad light. You can’t be a coach dedicated to ethics and whole-person development if you scream and yell, right?  Some on our team absolutely believed that to be the case; I was not one of them. Coaching intensity is essential for high performance; I firmly believed that there was a place for yelling and displays of passion and emotion. I reserved judgment until studying the tapes and integrating it into my lived experiences with the coaches and players.

  What we found was very nuanced:  coaches screaming at the whole group regarding attitude and effort; coaches exhorting players to play harder, be tougher, to do it over, to do it better; coaches harping on little details.  Like a parent disciplining a child, they almost always went to players that they had gotten after to explain further their expectations and motives for getting on them.  What was NOT part of the yelling was equally important.  They were not attacking players personally; they were not cursing; they were not denigrating them, embarrassing them or confronting them.

  Coaches offered sound insight into our questions regarding the type, timing, and intent their yelling and overall motivational strategies. They could differentiate why they communicated with one player one way and another player another way. It was not indiscriminate yelling; it was not vitriolic rage and personal attack; it was differentiated instruction. They knew when to speak softly, how to comfort the player and the group, and then how to move their teaching to crescendo with effect.  As a former athlete and coach I certainly did not think the yelling was inappropriate, let alone abusive.  I absolutely felt that it represented an intensity necessary to bring out the potential for excellence in the individual players and the team. These weren’t  5-year old t-ball players; they were competitive, elite student-athletes.

  In 1964, in an attempt to define pornography and obscenity, Justice Potter Stewart famously said, “I know it when I see it.”  When the video of Rutgers basketball coach, Mike Rice, went viral this week I knew abuse by a coach when I saw it.  I was not only aghast to see Rice yelling homophobic slurs at his players, kicking them, shoving them, throwing basketballs at their chests, legs, and head; I was angry as hell.  I love and defend good coaches. There’s no defense of Mike Rice’s behavior. He’s a bully and his tactics were abusive. Period.  Here are the two main criteria by which I draw this conclusion on the Rice tape, which was not my conclusion in the tapes from the basketball study discussed above.

  1. Bullying involves a real or perceived imbalance of power, where the one with power attacks the less powerful or powerless.  Rice had the power: not only because he determined who would play and how much they would play, but because he held the ultimate power: the scholarship.  Complain to the assistant coach or AD and you’re done. But they could still transfer, right? Remember, we’re talking real or perceived power. No doubt the players had more power than they believed or used. (As I watched the tape I literally wanted one of the players to charge the coach and knock him on his arse!).  As in cases of domestic abuse, the belief that somebody holds power over you is real.  And really, if you believe that should you try to get out of the situation that the coach will tell the next inquiring school or coach that you’re just soft, a head-case, or not a character-guy, one can see why the players believed the coach has the power and thus endured this bully.

  The powerlessness of the players in this case and in other similar is made worse by the complete and utter moral failure of the athletic director to stop the abuse.  When the AD chose to become a bystander to the abuse, he became part of the abuse. And what was the message to the players when the assistant coach brought concerns to the AD and was subsequently dismissed?  I highly doubt they thought the AD was a neutral arbitrator. Tim Pernetti is hardly the only AD who has failed to protect the student-athletes. Far too many AD’s—and frankly speaking the NCAA itself—are deeply compromised by the conflict of interest that exists between their job to protect and promote the well-being of student-athletes and their job to make lots of money off of college athletes.

  High school and AAU coaches don’t stand up to these coaches because they want their players to get scholarships (and they often covet a chance to follow one of their players into the elite coaching opportunities). Parents are also often accomplices to these crimes because they are over invested and beholden to AAU and high school coaches and they choose to ignore or justify these bullying behaviors to get or keep a scholarship or to get their kid to the professional ranks.  So when you can’t trust your coach, assistant coach, AD, high school coach and AD, AAU coach or your parents I think it’s not so hard to believe that they believed they didn’t have power to stand up to Coach Rice.  My disbelief and frustration that the players didn’t just deck the coach, quickly changed to anger at those who created and sustained the reality that made this possible.

  2.  Bullying usually takes two general forms:  psychological and physical.  You’ve got both on full display in the Rice video. The instruments of psychological abuse are verbal and emotional in nature. The humiliating, dehumanizing, vindictive exchanges exact a deep emotional toil. I can already hear it from “that coach” or “that parent”:  “Come on, man; these are big boys. You’re not going to tell me he hurt their feelings.”  College athletes are amazing physical beings; but they’re still essentially young adults and they’re most definitely human beings.  Years of working with athletes at all levels makes me absolutely convinced that psychological abuse is real. I’m not convinced that his tactics “did no harm”;  and I am absolutely sure they did not do “maximum good” in pursuit of excellence or whole-person development. And maybe the tape doesn’t show physical abuse, but it clearly shows physical intimidation and a persistently aggressive and hostile atmosphere which most definitely was unjust, unfair, and unhealthy.

  I’ve already heard current and former coaches hedging on this case, mostly by decrying Rice’s use of homophobic slurs as always and everywhere wrong, but then claiming that you need to build relationships if you’re going to drive kids hard in pursuit of their best. Going out for pizza and a movie so you can continue your abusive practices isn’t my idea of balancing pursuit of excellence with whole-person development. This is akin to an abusive husband taking his battered wife out to dinner or on a lovely vacation. It doesn’t undo the abuse; it makes it worse by revealing the deep-seated hypocrisy and manipulation at play.  Bottom line: coaches must view student-athletes as an end, not as a means to an end.

  Unfortunately, I think the type of behavior we observed from Rice is far more prevalent than most would want to admit. And, in my experience, female coaches are now often as likely to engage in these tactics as men.  Let’s be clear:  every coach who kicks over a garbage can, breaks a clipboard, throws their team out of the gym, or screams about poor execution or effort isn’t an abusive bully.  So too, every player who gets upset from constructive criticism, doesn’t like the coaches style, or a coach getting after them hasn’t necessarily been “abused.”   But we can’t simply operate under the “that which does not kill us makes us stronger” mentality of coaching. And just because your coach did it and you turned out alright doesn’t make it right either.  The ends don’t justify the means. All that motivates is not moral.

  Three practical suggestions for moving forward:

   1. Develop an approach to coaching and player development that integrates the development of performance character and moral character. This idea grew out of the basketball study described above. Great coaches develop both excellence and ethics. Moral and performance character are interconnected, inseparable, dynamic forces that coaches must balance. You can’t unhook them; you can motivate in a way that violates respect and decency; so too if you love players you must push them. Mike Rice’s approach unhitched performance character from moral character.  Develop both moral and performance character with intensity and intentionality; beware when the weight of your foot is disproportionately on either—especially performance character.

  

  2. Make this a topic of an Intentional Culture Conversation within your family, your team, and amongst coaches, trainers, and administrators. We developed Intentional Culture Conversations for use in our work when the topic clearly has the potential to contribute to or detract from the mission and goals of the organization, but where the topic is complex and not clear-cut.  In this case an Intentional Culture Conversation must be engaged regarding the line between abuse and motivation, about the balance of excellence and ethics, and about how we empower all stakeholders to stand up, speak out, and stop abusive coaches.  The pursuit of excellence that also seeks whole-person development is as much art as science. The discussion may not lead to clear and obvious policy, but to ignore the issue and hope it doesn’t eventually emerge as a problem is just foolish. Assuming we all understand what is expected is ridiculous.  We must beware of simple, easy, and obvious answers—which are often also wrong (for example, no yelling by coaches, no intense coaches, get rid of the scoreboard, or make all sports like intramurals).  Let this terrible incident be the start of something good. Start the conversation.

  3. Define abusive coaching behaviors so you’ll know it when you see it.  Once you think about coaching that balances moral character and performance character, and once you’ve engaged in an Intentional Culture Conversation with your stakeholders, then I recommend that you create a checklist outlining a checklist of coaching behaviors that constitute your definition of bullying. Because it’s such a complex and nuanced area, many will not want to define the abusive, bullying behaviors. But this is a mistake that lets the bullies hide and the puts the good coaches at risk of being misunderstood (think of the coaches in our study above). You may not get agreement on everything, but you must be prepared to identify it—for coaches, for players, for parents, for AD’s.  This will create an awareness of what to look for, of what to avoid, and will more quickly allow stakeholders to speak up to fix the problem or to better clarify your standard. For example, here’s my coach’s bullying behaviors checklist:

  • Does the coach….
  • Ridicule, embarrass or demean players
  • Make verbal attacks personal
  • Exhibit intimidating, threatening, and/or aggressive confrontational style with players
  • Humiliate players publicly or privately
  • Engage in emotional games, like not talking to a player, or having them sit away from the team after a bad performance
  • Grab, push, shove or hit players
  • Make clear to players that there is no way out or around the coach

  Mine isn’t the only checklist. But take note of how even this simple checklist forces you to accept or reject mine, which ultimately leads to the clarification of your own.

  Players don’t always appreciate (or even like) coaches, especially since most of coaching is getting more out of you than you think you’re capable of, pushing you beyond your limits, targeting your weaknesses for development .  A good coach is like a good parent: your kids don’t always like you; they often resent your standards and expectation. But if you do it the right way for the right reasons years later they understand and appreciate you—and usually adopt your standards and values.  But a bad coach is like a bad parent: they leave pain, scars, and resentment that last a lifetime. It’s a fine line between motivation and abuse—it’s also a slippery slope, so be careful and get intentional.

  

   

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  Sometimes people who are hurting hurt people: Talking to my children about the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary

  Matt Davidson posted in Character Blog, Intentional Family Culture at 12:19 pm on December 15, 2012 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  I was away from home when the tragedy took place at Sandy Hook Elementary Connecticut Friday, December 14, 2012 and I first learned of the tragedy unfolding early in the day; it was too much to process. By the early afternoon as I sat in the airport watching and listening in horror, I could not stop the tears. My mind jumped from my experience in schools and to all the principals and teachers and schools like Sandy Hook that I had been in and worked with.  We work to make schools that are safe to learn, where there is a culture of respect and trust. In the face of this tragedy, I honestly didn’t know—and don’t know—what to say to the teachers and to schools just yet.  I don’t know what the takeaway is, what the deeper solution is—beyond vigilance and additional security.

  All I could think was, “what will I say to our kids?” How will we explain this to them? How will we help them face the brutal truths of this tragedy, without scarring them or scaring them?  What follows is what I wrote as I tried to think about what my wife and I will say when we talk about this later today. It draws from my experience as a psychologist working with schools on developing character, and working with youth in at-risk environments, but it is written as I will speak it—as a father, to my family and to my kids.  I share it not as the only way to talk to your kids, but one way, our way. We have four children, 3 girls and one boy, ranging in age from 5-10.   They attend a school that looks like Sandy Hook in many ways; it’s a safe school in a good community. I hope that in sharing others who are struggling to make sense of this for themselves might find something useful, something helpful as we try to move forward from this tragedy. What you say to younger kids might be different; how much you include might vary; what you ultimately decide to say to your children might be very, very different.    But I believe you must say something. You must help them make sense of it.

  ————————————-

  Dear Kids,

  Dad and Mom have some very sad news to share with you. It’s hard for us to even find the words to say what we have to say.  Something terrible happened today. A young man in Connecticut who was very troubled got into an elementary school and used a gun to shoot and kill 20 students and 7 teachers.  Mom and I wish more than anything that this had never happened, and that we didn’t even have to tell you about it. But it did happen, and you will hear about it on the news and you will hear kids talking about it and we wanted you to hear it from us.

  I know that you’re probably feeling sad in your heart, that your tummy may feel a little sick—that’s how Mommy and I feel too. We feel so sad for the people who were killed and for their families and friends. We feel angry that that bad things happen and that people hurt other people. We feel scared because we don’t want anything to happen to you. It’s okay to feel all those things and we need to keep talking about how we’re feeling.  You need not worry about those who died. We have no doubt that they are at peace in God’s loving arms. We really need to pray for the parents and families in this community, that they can have courage and strength, that in time they can heal and find peace in their hearts, that they can forgive and let go of the anger they feel in their hearts right now.

  You probably are wondering why would somebody do something so terrible and hurt people like this man did?  The truth is, we really don’t know why this man, or any person would do something terrible like this to others.  But, this young man is obviously sick—not sick like with cancer or diabetes, but sick with a mental illness in his heart and in his head and in his soul. Sometimes people with this kind of mental illness can be so sad or angry or depressed that they do terrible things like this young man did. You know how at school, if you somebody does something to you it can make you angry?  This young man suffers from a different kind of anger. Nobody at this school did anything wrong, or anything to make him angry. He was mad at everybody and he probably wasn’t even sure why. Remember how we talk about the idea that “hurt people, hurt people,” that people who have suffered or are suffering often hurt others?  This young man was hurting, and he hurt others.  It doesn’t make it right, but it can help us to understand why. We can be so angry with him for hurting so many innocent people, but we can also understand that he was a sick man and that sometimes people who are hurting, hurt other people.

  You may be wondering why people couldn’t tell that this man was angry and that he was going to hurt others?  Well, you know how in the movies, when something bad is going to happen and the light gets dark and the music gets scary? You just know that something bad is going to happen. Unfortunately, when someone is sick like this man and they’re angry and they plan to do something bad, it’s a lot harder to tell. This young man was probably sick and suffering in his heart for a long time. Unfortunately, when you’re sick like he was, it’s harder for others to see it and harder for him to get the help he needs. That’s why you need to be kind AND careful: you need to be kind to everyone because you don’t know what kind of pain and suffering they have on the inside, and you don’t know how your small act of kindness might help them. But you need to be careful. There are bad people in the world, and they can be around our home, your school, or at the mall.

  You’re probably wondering if you’re safe and if this couldn’t happen at your school or in our community?  The truth is that something like this could happen anywhere. So we always have to be careful. You have to keep your eyes and ears open and look out for people and situations that look dangerous. It’s just like crossing the street by our house: remember how we tell you, “our road isn’t busy, but it only takes one car driving too fast and one kid not paying attention and we could have a tragedy.”  We still let you ride your bikes. We still let you chase down the balls that go across the street. It’s not dangerous, but you have to pay attention. It’s the same at your school. You’re safe. Your teachers work so hard to make you safe. They have security and cameras and they work with parents to keep you safe. But you still need to be careful.

  You may be wondering what you would do if that happened at your school?  We don’t think it will ever happen here, but it’s still good to be prepared. It’s just like the fire drills you have at school: your school has never had a fire; we hope and pray you never will, but you still practice fire drills. So what can you do if you’re in a situation like this:  first, stay calm and don’t panic! You must stay calm so you can think and listen. Don’t scream and yell; think and listen. If adults are there you listen and act on what they tell you to do. If they are not there, then you look for a way to get out of the building or away from the danger. If you can get out, go quickly away from the danger and look for a place or a person you can trust. If you cannot get out of the building or away from the danger, look for a safe corner to hide, something to get below like a table or into like a closet. Stay low, stay quiet, and stay calm and wait for someone you can trust to come to you. You may have to wait a long time, but just be calm and patient, someone will come for you.

  It’s a very sad time in a very joyous season. This is a very difficult and painful situation. Mom and Dad are heartbroken that this has happened and that you have to know about something this awful. We wish there were no bad people in the world. We wish that nobody was suffering from hunger or poverty, from war or violence, abuse or neglect of any kind. We wish that every child was safe and that every person was happy. But unfortunately, that’s not the way the world is. But, we can be aware and be on guard and we can be careful. We can also be kind to others always and work hard to make sure that we help everyone, especially those who are hurting. We can pray for those who are sick and remember that everybody is struggling with something.

  Remember, that while there are bad people in the world, most people are good. Choose to spend your life working to be kind and make things better for others. The prayer of Saint Francis is one that can help us make sense of this tragedy—for the man who killed, for those he killed, and for those of us who must live in the aftermath of this awful event. It speaks to how we want you to live, how we all need to live so that we can heal from this tragedy and begin making a world where hatred is replaced by peace. Let’s say the words together–not just with our lips, but truly in our hearts:

  Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

  Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

  Where there is injury, pardon.

  Where there is doubt, faith.

  Where there is despair, hope.

  Where there is darkness, light.

  Where there is sadness, joy.

  O Divine Master,

  grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

  to be understood, as to understand;

  to be loved, as to love.

  For it is in giving that we receive.

  It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

  and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

  

   
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  Educating for Conscience AND Competence

  Matt Davidson posted in Character Blog, Character For & From Sports, Excellence & Ethics in Business, Intentional Family Culture, Power2Achieve Community at 4:06 pm on October 12, 2012 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  When it comes to the development of character, ethics, and integrity we would do well to heed the wise advice of Blaise Pascal, who famously observed, “the heart has its reason, which reason cannot know.”  Ethical development that targets the head and neglects the heart, tends to create ethical legalists who can reason themselves into or out of most any action or inaction.  Thus, it is critically important that we educate for conscience; essential that through education and advocacy we cultivate self-awareness and awaken the values voice inside every individual.

  The development of conscience must be an essential focus of values education; and yet, as Mary Gentile has argued in her book, Giving Voice to Values, the development of conscience alone is insufficient. Conscience—a sense of right from wrong—also requires a sense of competence—a sense of practical know-how.  Competence speaks to what Gentile and others have referred to as “post-decision making” when we know what we ought to do and need to figure out how to make it happen within the challenges of the real world pressures and stresses (Gentile, 2010).

  In our work this has meant that we distill complex and multifaceted moral and performance character values into their more specific competencies. Our operational definition of character as “values in action,” gets calibrated by a focus on the development of specific character competencies.  Competent: “able to”; incompetent: “unable to”. Organizations want and need “individuals who are able to …”, for example, give and receive constructive criticism, manage priorities and reduce stress, be fair to all involved, continue trying in the face of difficulty, and so on.

  Competencies are process skills that connect awareness and sensitivity, to reasoning and judgment, to behavior. The development of competencies requires action and reflection, practice with feedback, real-world simulation that targets practice of essential skills in settings that are similar to the real challenges one would face, and yet still safe enough to allow the development of mastery.  When skills for each of these processes are fully developed and become automatic, cognition and action become intertwined and an individual consistently engages in positive behavior (see, for example, review of related research in Narvaez, 2006).

  The development of competencies has meant the ability for us to teach general skills universal to all settings, while also targeting the development of skills specific to particular settings—be they in school, sport, or work.  A contextualized view allows us to approach each situation as having its own challenges and requisite skills.  We simulate for the most common situations you will face in this specific context. Too often training for ethics and character is too amorphous to teach or learn—certainly to assess.  IEE’s research-based tools distill theory and research into replicable guides for thinking and behavior.  Consider, for example, our Win-Win Negotiation Tool, which provides a guide for effective negotiation—a complex and critically important skill.

  
  

  Our work has been focused on developing a battery of Tools within each of our Excellence & Ethics Focus Areas.

  

  In essence, Excellence & Ethics tools, like the Win-Win Negotiation Tool, define standards and expectations. These “tools” represent what Mary Gentile would call “scripts” that guide implementation, thereby ensuring a more efficient and consistent standard of output. Clear and concise (i.e., simple, concrete, memorable, action-oriented) tools become models to guide behavior across the organization. Consistent and pervasive use of the tools over time leads to individual and organizational habits.

  The support for and value of our work has increased in school, sport, and workplace settings as we have begun to develop both conscience (a belief that I ought to) and competence (a belief that I am able to).

  Note: This blog excerpted and adapted from a paper delivered at the Baum Symposium on Ethics at Drake University, October 3, 2012.

  

   
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  Care-frontation: Making Peace with Conflict

  Matt Davidson posted in Character Blog, Character For & From Sports, Excellence & Ethics in Business, Intentional Family Culture at 9:52 am on September 21, 2012 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  Conflict is inevitable for any group individuals who share space and goals.  Conflict isn’t bad or good necessarily, it simply is.  Conflict is a byproduct of human relationships and human performance.  Put any group of individuals together in community; allow for personality and ability differences; factor in limited time, money, energy; account for the toll exacted by the day-to-day grind; and you’ve got a cauldron for conflict. Should you aspire to lofty individual and collective goals, you will have added a conflict catalyst to the conflict cauldron.

   Show me individuals thriving in any role—parents, spouses, siblings, teachers, workplace leaders, coaches, teammates; priest or rabbi, politician or physician—any individual, thriving to any degree in any role or setting and you will see individuals who manage conflict well. Where individuals and organizations are surviving, not thriving, where there is inconsistency in the quality of human interactions and performance, poor conflict management is likely part of the equation.

  You have humans, you share space, you have some task to perform: you have conflict.  Thus, managing conflict is an essential element of a positive and productive culture of excellence. Too often, however, our approach to conflict is focused on avoidance and dismissal—avoid conflict at all costs, and if you can’t make it go away.  We often speak and operate in terms of conflict resolution, rather than conflict management. In the former, we seek to resolve it, or make it go away. In the ladder we accept it and manage the type and nature and net costs of this inevitable byproduct of human interaction.

   Even in contexts where the goal is enjoyment and the relationships are familiar (i.e., friends or family gathering for food and fellowship), conflict doesn’t disappear. However, in contexts where our goals are challenging and our relationships are contingent, even utilitarian in nature (i.e., individuals with particular skills hired to help us thrive as an organization), then the nature, frequency, and intensity of conflicts are likely to increase. An intentional culture of excellence must proactively establish and develop the habits needed to efficiently and effectively navigate conflict—or suffer the real costs to the individuals and the organization.

  In his book, Caring Enough to Confront, David Augsburger argues that when we see confrontation as rooted in caring, when we understand it as “care-frontation”, then we can begin to experience conflict as “natural, normal, neutral, and sometimes even delightful.”  How could conflict ever be delightful?  When it removes for the confronter the acute pain and recurring aggravation, along with the deep wounds and heavy burden that festers and grow when suppressed. Or, when it removes for the confronted the tangible tension and persistent awkwardness and provides them with something new insights into how to better exist and work with another.

   Augsburger argues that “care-fronting unites love and power…concern for relationships with concern for goals.”  Love and power, relationships and goals:  I want the best for you, therefore I expect the best from you. I challenge you because I love you. I challenge you to make you the best you.

   When confrontation is re-framed as care-frontation it goes from something to be avoided—a win-lose, angry and argumentative, attack the person not problem reality—to something healthy and productive and worthy of the energy required. Confrontation becomes care-frontation when we speak the truth in love, expressing our deepest beliefs and needs while still respecting the deepest beliefs and needs of the other(s), holding self and other accountable out of mutual respect and for our mutual benefit.

   Here are some simple—though not necessarily easy—steps to transform confrontation into care-frontation:

  1. Attack the problem not the person. The goal isn’t to be right; the goal is to get it right.
  2. When in doubt, do it. Conflicts delayed and deferred make little things into big things.
  3. Use I-statements that honestly and respectfully express your thoughts and feelings, are solution-centered and clarify the goal or expectation (e.g., I think ___because…I feel ___ because…I intend to ___ because…).
  4. Avoid You-statements that blame, insult, attack the personality and/or character of others. You-statements divide, distract, and disrespect. They sound like “You never, you always, you should have, you won’t, you don’t.”
  5. Seek win-win solutions by clearly expressing your needs (I want), their needs (you want), and working together to find creative solutions that satisfy both (we could).
  6. Accept that mistakes and missteps will happen; be ready to apologize, make up for, and move on from mistakes—they too are inevitable byproducts of human relationships and goal attainment.

  Conflict is neither bad nor good;  it simply is. Conflict simply is an essential part of goal achievement and human interaction. Turn confrontation into care-frontation and you’ll begin to more fully realize your human potential and performance goals.

  

   
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  Homeboy Solutions

  Kyle Baker posted in Character Blog at 1:26 pm on May 16, 2012 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Creative Solutions, Gang violence, Homeboy Industries, Los Angeles, Poverty, Urban

  _________________________

  Post by Kyle Baker, Program Coordinator at the Institute for Excellence & Ethics.

  You can follow Kyle’s daily adventures here.

  _________________________

  What a difference a week makes.

   

  Last Wednesday at 4:00 AM, I was on my way to the Kansas City airport, preparing for a day walking through airports and onto planes.

  This morning at 4:00 AM, I was cooking breakfast for 50+ homeless men and preparing to walk the infamous Skid Row section of Los Angeles this afternoon.

  Last week I was wrapping up my most recent trip to Kansas, where I met with educators on a variety of topics and facilitated three Excellence & Ethics Impact Academies, retreat-style workshops designed to guide participants into reflection on how they can develop into Impact Leaders and equip them with tools and skills needed to do so.  (You can view our workshop materials from these Impact Academies by clicking here.)

  This week, I’ve seen countless Impact Leaders in action.  Along with eleven other Carroll College students and alumni, I am in Los Angeles this on a Headlights Service Immersion trip (read more about this trip here).  The objectives of this trip are to join together in order to serve people and communities in need and to learn of their stories and about the challenges they face.

  Earlier this week we were able to visit Homeboy Industries, a comprehensive gang intervention program that has transformed entire neighborhoods if not the entire city of Los Angeles (it certainly has transformed the way we think about the creation of opportunities for gang members).  Homeboy Industries abides by two slogans that are referenced consistently:

  “Jobs not jails,” and “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.”

  It might be easy to cast off such brash statements…until you see Homeboy Industries in action.  On Monday, we visited a silk-screen shop, a bakery, and a café (complete with some of the best organic, sustainably grown food and coffee I’ve had in a very long time) that are run by Homeboy Industries.  Fast Company CoExist recently profiled Homeboy Industries, so you can read more about them by clicking here, but here are the essentials:

  In the 1980’s, a Jesuit priest named Fr. Greg Boyle was placed at the Dolores Mission parish in the Boyle Heights region in Los Angeles.  Sharing a name with the neighborhood was pure coincidence, but his placement there was not.  After working in Bolivia, Fr. Greg asked his provincial (supervisor) if he could be placed at the poorest parish they had.  Since this was quite a rare request, the provincial was more than happy to place him in Boyle Heights, a region of LA that in the late 1980’s was entrenched in a full blown gang war.  By accounts we’ve heard this week, there were up to 18 actively warring gangs in the area at that time and there were often 2-3 homicides per week, most of them gang related.

  Upon arriving in the neighborhood, Fr. Greg set out to learn about the challenges that the neighborhood was facing and work together with community members, primarily women in the neighborhood, to develop and implement creative solutions.  Homeboy Industries is only one of the many profound examples of how the creative solutions that have been developed have had a significant positive impact on this neighborhood, but for now I will focus on Homeboy in order to illustrate how they’ve moved to address critical issues facing current and former gang members.

  Fr. Greg and his team quickly saw that one of the root causes of long-term gang membership was lack of any other valid option for many people in the area, especially if they dropped out of school and/or got involved in gang activity from a young age.  Take a look at the table below to see some of these challenges they identified and how Homeboy Industries works to provide solutions:

  Challenge	Solution
  Gangs warring over territory.	Homeboy intentionally hires people from different gangs and puts them in situations where they must work together in order to keep their job.
  Gang-affiliated tattoos can be a barrier to employment and/or a risk to life.	Homeboy Industries provides free tattoo removal services to anyone that walks in the door(In 20 days this February, 840 people took advantage of this service).
  Low employability skills.	Homeboy provides a wealth of 100% free, no-obligation courses ranging from Excel 101 to resume building to yoga which are open to anyone at any time.
  Mental health and substance abuse issues (often undiagnosed/untreated).	100% free, no-obligation counseling services available.
  Legal issues.	100% free, no-obligation legal services are available for area ranging from immigration status to parking tickets to custody issues.
  Lack of food/proper nutrition.	The cafeteria in the Homeboy Industries office has an open door policy; anyone can walk in and have something to eat or drink at any time during office hours, including you or me as well as someone who does not have the means to get the proper food/nutrition they need in order to pursue a job and/or work productively.
  Lack of employers willing to give entry-level jobs to the people who come to Homeboy Industries looking for them (usually people who are associated with gangs, have dealt drugs, been incarcerated, etc.).	Homeboy created several business which employ “Homies,” including a silk-screen shop, bakery, a café, and the Homeboy Industries office itself.
  Long-term dependence on social-services.	Participation in Homeboy is an 18 month rehabilitation process, which includes mental health services, career counseling, classes, performance reviews, etc.  After 16 months, participants meet with a team of case managers, job developers, etc. to build and implement a self-sufficiency plan.

   

  As we toured Homeboy Industries, our tour guide Gabriel explained that these solutions were a process, and that they take time.

  He told us that several years ago “G” (which is what Fr. Greg is commonly referred to as here) had given him a chance, and that he’d left his old way of life behind and seized the opportunity.  He worked for Homeboy Industries for a period of time, then gota job with the railroad making over $45,000 per year (to put that into perspective, according to the principal of Dolores Mission Catholic School, only about 5% of the households in this area bring in over $20,000 per year).  However, he had a “relapse” (what this consisted of he did not share with us, he only referenced “his addictions”) and lost his job, his family, and his home.  He described coming back to see G:

  “G gave me a hug, he told me I had no reason to be ashamed, and that I was exactly who God created me to be.  Then he told me to work on myself for a little bit, and come back when I was ready.  So I came to see him in December, and in January he gave me another opportunity with this job.  Now my personal goals are to keep working on myself so I can get enrolled in school and become a counselor to help other people.”

  When we met Fr. Greg on Monday afternoon, he was quick to tell us that they hadn’t “fixed” anything, a message that is shared by many in this area.  However everyone here is  just as quick to point out the reductions in murder and other violent crime, thousands of “Homies” who now have jobs, men (including Gabriel) and women who are taking classes not only in Word, but also parenting and relationship-building.  They are proud and should be of the work they have joined together to put in for their community.

  Indeed, as another Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once wrote, we must trust in the “long slow work,” and not get frustrated if “success” by our desired definition and metrics is not initially achieved.  Instead, we must (1) remain focused on the goal we’ve set out to achieve (In the case of Homeboy, end the violence that has plagued the lives of the people in this neighborhood), (2) develop many ideas for diverse and wide-reaching solutions, (3) refine these ideas until they are shaped into implementation-worthy plans, and then (4) communicate the plan to everyone involved and put it into action with fierce determination as well as the unbridled humility required to reflect, regroup, and begin anew when a plan needs further development.

  

   

  Although Fr. Greg and others working in this area (and in other places) may feel as if they’ve only just begun to work toward a solution, spending this week surrounded by true Impact Leaders has been a great reminder that creative solutions are as much about process as about product, and that even if we haven’t achieved our final goal, there are always opportunities to plan and problems-solve further.

  By my assessment using Creative Solutions Rubric, I’d give Homeboy Industries three thumbs up.

  

   

  _____________________________________________________________________________________________

  The Excellence & Ethics Tools mentioned in this post, the Creative Solutions System and the Creative Solutions Rubric, are available in:

  Unit 6.1 of the Power2Achieve Foundations Curriculum.

  Excellence & Ethics Professional Development Toolkit 6.1.

  Impact Academy workshops for educators, students, and community leaders.

  For more information, email Kyle Baker at kbaker@excellenceandethics.org

  

   
• 

  The Web of Impact

  Kyle Baker posted in Character Blog at 2:24 am on April 19, 2012 | 3 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: impact (2), mindfulness (2), Power2Achieve (8)

  Post by Kyle Baker, Program Coordinator at the Institute for Excellence & Ethics.

  You can follow Kyle’s daily adventures here.

  ______________

  After nearly a month of traveling to different regions of the country to work with educators and students, last night I flew into Helena, Montana for a few days on the ground.  This morning when I woke up, I drove to Whitehall, a small southwestern Montana town of just over 1,000 residents.  As I pulled into town, I used my iPhone to access Google Maps so that I could find directions to St. Teresa’s Catholic Church.

  I parked my car between two neatly painted white lines in the parish parking lot, and walked into the church just as a funeral Mass began in celebration of the life of Betty Hogan, whom I had never met.

  So why was I at the funeral of someone I’d never met, in a town I’d never been…and what does all of this have to do with a “Web of Impact”?

  ____________________

  From 2001 until graduating in 2006, I attended Carroll College in Helena, Montana, where I played on the football team.  My time as a student-athlete (a term that has come under fire recently, but which I take very seriously) at Carroll was filled with many wonderful and challenging experiences, and marked by great development as a student, an athlete, and a person; it was one of the truly formative periods of my life.

  While there, my offensive line coach was a man known to many as “Hogie.”  Hogie is the kind of person who epitomizes the term “duties as otherwise assigned.”  In addition to serving as a football coach, he also oversees the strength and conditioning program, is the master of the equipment room, and the king of one-liners.  Most people I’ve met over the years who have been associated in any way with football in Montana have a “Hogie-story,” and somewhere tucked away in a box I even have a binder full of “Hogie-isms” I collected during 5 years of film-study sessions.

  After a person tells you their favorite Hogie-story, they’re quite likely to comment just as quickly on what a good, hard working, and caring man Hogie is.  No matter how early I would arrive for our winter conditioning workouts (which usually began prior to 6:00am), Hogie’s car would already be in the parking lot.  The door to his office was constantly open, inviting conversations on everything from game plans to relationships to what was for lunch that day in the dining hall.  On Saturday afternoons after a game, as everyone poured out of the locker room to celebrate a victory with their families, Hogie could be found washing the game uniforms because he believed that champions should never have grass stains on their uniforms.  This is a man who takes his jobs very seriously, because he knows their purpose, even if sometimes that purpose goes unnoticed by others.

  The man many know as Hogie is Coach Jim Hogan, son of Betty Hogan, who passed away last week after a long battle with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

  ____________________

  Funerals have always been a strange thing to me, perhaps because as a child I didn’t have many experiences of dealing with the death of friends and loved ones.  I do remember attending the funeral of a friend’s father (Gary McKenna, my youth football coach, who first taught me to love the game of football, about the hard work required to play it well, and about the relationships that could be developed through teamwork and competition).  I remember being overwhelmed by the sadness that permeated the building, and I remember hoping that people wouldn’t be so sad when I died.

  Of course this sadness is natural; we grieve for the loss of those we love and can no longer spend time with, we wonder if we should have called or written more, and we are confronted by the truth of our own mortality…but many times, as was the case today in Whitehall, joy is also present.  Joy for a life well lived, and for love well shared.

  Today as I sat in St. Teresa’s and listened to readings and reflections on life and death, I realized that I wasn’t just there to support my mentor and friend as well as his grieving family, but that I was also there to share my gratitude for the profound impact that Betty Hogan had on my life.

  ____________________

  I don’t imagine that when Betty was 12 or 22 or 72, she ever imagined that her thoughts, her words, and her actions would someday affect a kid she would never even meet in any significant way, but they did.  Through the impact she had on the life of her son Jim…the values she instilled in him, the life-lessons she guided him through, and even the way she tended to his basic human needs for food, water, shelter, and affection as a child…she had a powerful and lasting impact on my own life, because her son Jim has made a significant impact on me, and has helped me become the man I am today: Far from perfect, but trying every day to learn to be a good person, to work hard, to not take things so seriously that I miss the chance to share a smile or a laugh, to be fiercely loyal, to be genuine, and to love the people around me.  In the 11 years we’ve known each other, Coach Hogan has done so many things to help and support me I’ve lost count, and I am certain there have been many more that I’ll never learn of.

  His thoughts, words, and actions…the life of Jim Hogan, has had a profound, formative, and lasting impact on me.

  ____________________

  The most fascinating thing about this is that the influence of so many others who have had an impact on his life makes up part of an expansive Web of Impact.  You and I are part of this web too, just as is the person in the factory that built my car, the person who carried my iPhone from the delivery truck to the store, the person who designed Google Maps so I wouldn’t get lost (well, at least not as often), the person who painted the lines in the lot where I parked, and the usher who greeted me with a smile and a “good-morning” as I walked into St Teresa’s.   Just like I don’t imagine that Betty Hogan ever thought,“I bet if I teach my son Jim to work hard and be a good person, he will teach the same things to a football player he coaches someday,” I don’t know that the people who performed the jobs I just described thought about how their actions would affect me today…the impact they would have on me….but what if they did?

  And what if I did? What if I thought more about what kind of impact I was making…what if we all did?  What increase in sense of purpose would we have?  In our sense of self-worth?  In our understanding of community?  In the joy with which we experience both the profound and the seemingly mundane?  What if we thought more intentionally about the impact we wanted to make with our lives, and what if we reflected deeply on this more regularly?  Because you see, our thoughts, our words, our actions…they really do matter, and they matter in incredibly more vast and complex ways than we can ever imagine or comprehend.  And one of the great gifts of this life is that we get to choose the kind of impact we make, because we get to choose how we think about the world and about the people around us, we get to choose what we say and how we say it, and we get to choose how and when we act. (And as Spiderman always wisely reminds us, this great gift of power comes with great responsibility).

  ___________

  A few weeks ago, I got to speak with nearly 400 high school and middle school students about “Impact” at the Southwest Kansas Student Leadership Conference, hosted at Garden City Community College. (My participation in this event was made possible through a generous conference sponsorship from United Wireless of Kansas).  Throughout the conference, students reflected on their own unique skills, talents, and interests, and on how those could be put to use in order to make a positive impact on peoples’ lives, in their schools, in their families, in their workplaces, and in their communities, both now and in their future.

  Next month, more students and educators will have the opportunity to contemplate this idea of being a part of a Web of Impact; to reflect on what they want their own impact to be and to learn to develop personal competencies that will help them make a positive with their life.

  Through the Kansas PCEP Project, a federally funded initiative that for the last four years has worked to create a sustainable character development movement in high schools across the state of Kansas, students, educators, school board members, and community members have been invited to participate in three Excellence & Ethics Impact Academies which will take place around the state. These Excellence & Ethics Impact Academies provide participants with a unique opportunity to reflect deeply at their own experiences, to identify their goals, and to consider how their unique skills, interests, and opportunities can be built upon in order to make a positive and lasting impact with their lives.

  And these opportunities are important, not only for our schools, and our communities…but for our collective future…because what we think, what we say, and what we do matters.

  ______________

  Whether we realize it or not, each of us makes an impact on the people we interact with and on the world around us…and if we all spent a little more time being still with that information; thinking about all the people who have made an impact on us, and considering what kind of impact we will choose to make with our own lives, our individual lives are likely to be lived with more depth and richness, and perhaps our collective impact will begin to solve some of the more global problems we’re confronted with today as a society.

  Just like Mrs. Hogan may never have known the significant impact her life had on me, we may not ever directly see tangible evidence  that every thought we think, every word we utter, or every action we take will have…but one thing that we do know is that the Web of Impact is real…and we are all part of it.

  

   
• 

  What are you progressing toward today?

  Kyle Baker posted in Character Blog at 1:57 pm on February 29, 2012 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: challenges, goals, process, progress

  __

  Posted by Kyle Baker, Program Coordinator for the Institute for Excellence & Ethics.

  You can follow his daily adventures here.

  ___

  An essential step in goal achievement is the identification of your desired destination…what you’re aiming for…where you’re heading.

  Regardless of who I work with, from students in elementary schools to competitive athletes, from people learning basic job skills to organizational leaders at the top of their fields, from teachers to college seniors, true identification of a desired destination (aka a goal) can prove to be an incredibly challenging task.  I’m not talking about things like “get good grades” or “exercise more”…but those specific, measurable goals that we want to achieve as individuals, teams, and organizations because they really mean something to us.

  It can be scary.  Sometimes it can feel selfish.  It demands honesty, humility, and vulnerability.  It requires accepting the fact that it will take hard work to achieve…and that even with hard work, you still may not get there.  At some point, the question of “Why exactly do I want to do this again?” will come up, and sometimes you may not be able to find an answer.

  I know this not only from a research perspective, but because I experience these challenges myself…we all do.

   

  Goal achievement doesn’t just happen.  It’s a process.

  
  

   

  Progress through process.

   

  So….What are you progressing toward today?

   

  “Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.”

  -Khalil Gibran

   

  

   
• 

  Reflections on Behavior Management from a Teacher at a NY State School of Character

  RichParisi posted in Character Blog, Power2Achieve Community at 4:28 pm on February 17, 2012 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  Over the last few years I have had the privilege of being part of the IEE Team that worked with the staff at Allen Creek Elementary in the Pittsford School District. Last month Allen Creek Elementary was one of three schools in New York State to be recognized by the Character Education Partnership (CEP) as a State School of Character. After hearing the good news about their award I began to reflect on some of the stories I have heard from teachers at Allen Creek. There have been many wonderful success stories but one of my favorites is from Jason Juszczak, a third grade teacher, at Allen Creek Elementary.

  What follows is a narrative from Jason of some changes he made during the 2010-2011 school year. I appreciate Jason’s transparency in sharing and his willingness to look at making changes that would improve the culture in his classroom.

  Throughout the first 7 1/2 years of my teaching career I had utilized a very traditional form of behavioral management.  Call it what you want, “School Zone”, “Red, Yellow, Green”, etc., it was simply a way to point out when a student did something that was undesirable or something that broke the rules set-up in the beginning of the school year.  As I prepared my system every fall, the thought returned each time that this system is not working.  It was really only effective in making the students fearful about going on the “School Zone Board”.  Students complied with the rules of the classroom simply to stay off of school zone.  I noticed that it inhibited the natural behaviors of the students.  Even as I saw this each year, I always came back to this system because it was what worked.  Or so I thought.

  I was fortunate enough to have a parent conference this year where I was challenged to consider something, anything different that might put the focus more on positive student behaviors. The very next day we started our Bucket System.  The students were recognized for doing something great a.k.a. for filling a bucket.  While they did something nice for someone else, they were also filling their buckets and feeling good about it.  Behaviors like:
  1.  Listening to the teacher.
  2.  Treating others with respect.
  3.  Following directions.
  The list goes on and on.  These were behaviors that students were “punished” for not completing in the past, but were now actively trying to get recognized for.  I had students that were picking up the belongings of others, or helping people get packed up. You could hear students complimenting others about something that they did or said.  The noticeable difference was the smiles on the faces of the students.  It was working.

  After a few months of using our Bucket System, it was time to challenge the students further.  They noticed the difference this made on a group, but how could it impact an individual?

  After experiencing an IEE workshop during Superintendent’s Day, I acquired various strategies and techniques for investing time rather than wasting it, as well as the concept of action steps and making mini-goals in order to go from one’s current location to their desired goal.

  I introduced goal setting to my students on May 19th of this school year.  We began with a whole-class goal of just trying to keep the classroom clean.  We discussed that success will not come to us; we have to go to it.  One student, Mia, stated, “In order to have success, you have to be your best”.  It was a strong statement, but our desired location for our class was to have a clean classroom throughout the day.  We realized that trying to do that from a current location of having an untidy classroom was going to be tough.  We knew we wanted a clean and organized classroom, but we didn’t know what that looked like or how to get there.  We created smaller action steps, or mini-goals that we could accomplish that would permit us to reach our goals on a more regular basis.  What the students did not realize is that the action steps that they stated as being a path to their success were in fact the very things that were preventing them from having that clean classroom in the past.  Things such as: picking up papers, keeping your desk tidy, etc.  Now that they knew what they COULD do to keep the classroom clean, the students experienced success right from the beginning.

  After a few days of working as a group, we decided to write individual goals.  The students brainstormed areas that they would like to improve on.  This was not academic, it was personal.  Students set goals to pace themselves while working, stay focused on their reading, and listening to the teacher.  In order to reach that goal, students needed to create smaller action steps that were help them experience success; again, action steps that were preventers for them in the past now became drivers.  One student wrote that in order to listen to the teacher and follow the directions they could have their eyes on the speaker, make sure their bodies are always facing the person talking, and not get involved in side conversations.  All three of these things were preventing them from being able to listen attentively.  Now students were attacking these action steps each day with enthusiasm because they finally had the understanding that they could do it.

  To help students monitor their behavior and success, we incorporated the Attitude and Effort Rubric presented by IEE.  Each student received a pinch card with the rubric, as well as a copy of their goal.  Twice a day, once at the end of the morning and once at the end of the day, students recorded how they thought they performed.  I would go around and then record based on my observations.  During this process, conversations and reflections were made about how a student was able to get a three today, how that felt, or what prevented them from achieving a three.  We discussed how a three every day would be great, but that it wasn’t expected that students were perfect all moments of the day.  Some days are better than others, and the important piece would be recognizing what the drivers and preventers were on those days.

  The change has been tremendous.  When asked what her feelings are when she achieves her goal, Annie said, “I feel good because I went to my goal for that day and I was a better writer.  I used to miss a lot of punctuations in my writing because I was always rushing.  Now I think of my goal and I always remember”.  Annie went on to comment on changing to our Bucket System by saying, “It is better now because you are doing something good.  Before the change you didn’t get appreciated for doing good things.”  When asked what she thought about the change from School Zone to the Bucket System, Ana replied with, “The buckets actually change your behavior because you focus on your goals and focus on getting better.  Before the change I just focused on not getting in trouble”.

  I know that this year has been a different year for both the students and me.  Focusing on the positives rather than the negatives has helped me to be a better teacher, but also a better person outside of school as it has transferred to all areas of my life.  I know that when I sit down in the fall of the 2011-2012 school year and plan out my behavioral plan for the new students, I will not be asking whether or not it is going to work, I know that it will.  I will be asking myself just how much these students will be able to achieve.

  Some Reflections on Jason’s Story

  One of the things I enjoyed most about Jason’s sharing is his taking the time to do a “self-study” (one of the Four Keys we talk about at IEE) and his realization that he could improve the culture for learning in his classroom by making some changes. I also love the fact that this is a powerful example of a teacher being a life-long learner. As a school administrator for 27 years it was always a goal that we hoped our students and staff would pursue and I am always excited when I see educators modeling that for students.

  I was also very pleased to see that Jason took some of the practical tools that we discussed during our professional development day in March and began to look at ways to use them in his classroom. His use of the Culture of Excellence & Ethics Attitude & Effort Rubric and our Culture of Excellence & Ethics Goal Map Tool played a key role in some of the positive improvements he made in his classroom. The actual examples of students rating their attitude and effort twice each day and setting specific goals that they could pursue helped them to grow as students. In a time when there is such a focus on topics like AYP (Annual Yearly Progress), RTI (Response to Intervention) and APPR (Annual Professional Performance Review) we believe that the Culture of Excellence & Ethics Tools we have developed are practical tools that can help educators as they look to address each of these topics.

  A final comment is that Jason is just one example of how the educators at Allen Creek consistently look to improve their practices to build the culture where “Students Can Be Their Best Selves and Do Their Best Work”. Their example of being life-long learners is an excellent one for their students to see. They have truly developed a Professional Ethical Learning Community (PELC) that helps them to continually improve as a staff.  I believe that the PELC they have created is one of the key reasons they were recently recognized as a NY State School of Character.

   

  

   
• 

  Lighting the Fire

  Kyle Baker posted in Character Blog, Excellence & Ethics in Business, Power2Achieve Community at 5:16 pm on February 8, 2012 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: mission, passion, purpose

  __

  Posted by Kyle Baker, Program Coordinator at the Institute for Excellence & Ethics.

  You can follow his daily adventures here.

  ___

  Last week, I was sitting in one of my favorite Syracuse haunts, Recess Coffee House, when a group of four nestled into the plush chairs across the room.  It quickly became apparent that the group was comprised of three freshman college students and a “mentor.”   By the content of their conversation (so maybe sometimes I can actually hear through my earbuds…so?) and the body language of the students, it appeared that they were assigned to meet with this mentor through some type of academic support program (in other words, they didn’t seem too thrilled to be there).

  After some brief small-talk, the mentor quickly moved to what must have been the topic for the day’s discussion by posing the following question to the group:

  “So, where do you see yourself heading after you graduate from college?”

  Needless to say, he didn’t gather much of a response from such a bold prompt.

  As I sat there responding to emails and checking calendar dates, I had to laugh.  Only minutes before I had been with Matt Davidson discussing a similar question: “What will our work at IEE look like in 2012?”

  In everything from grandiose life ambitions to more typical daily decisions, it can often feel as if we’re constantly seeking clarity of direction and purpose.  This certainly is true for me; I’ve often joked that I stick to water, coffee, and espresso because a decision like what kind of Gatorade to purchase can cause my knees to buckle…(anyone who’s ever made a road trip with me can attest that the process isn’t pretty).

  But developing our sense of passion, purpose, and mission is much more important than deciding on a drink flavor.  In fact, an emerging collection of cross-disciplinary research is teaching us that having a clear sense of what drives you as an individual and/or organization is essential for health, happiness, productivity, and social change. (See the January/February issue of the always excellent Harvard Business Review for an insightful analysis of current research in this area).

  Recently I was blessed with the opportunity to lead a retreat for college students where we focused on a line that St. Ignatius of Loyola, a prolific thinker and writer, often included at the bottom of the letters he would pen to his friends and colleagues around the world:

  “Go forth, and set the world on fire.”

  The question that stems from this line is a big one:  “How do I do that?”

  The answer waits for us in reflection on what helps us light the unique fire within each of us, or as Howard Thurman put it, “what makes us come fully alive.”  This reflection includes thinking about our dreams, openly and honestly identifying what can help us achieve them as well as what may prevent us from doing so, and learning to articulate who we are and who we want to become.

  Following the retreat (you can view the slides that were used during the retreat here) I received feedback from students indicating that for many of them the retreat represented the first time they’ve reflected deeply upon these themes.

  Perhaps just as interesting (and deeply moving) were the emails I received from those that were on the retreat in supporting roles along different points in their journey:  A person preparing to retire later in the month from a job that by his own accord had “defined his identity” for several decades; a person who shared that he was “at the theoretical midpoint of life this year” and beginning to reflect upon “what my epitaph will say (which is the sentence carved in stone),” and a person just beginning her career who summarized the experience by saying “the issue of where is my life headed is a BIG anxiety button for this generation of so many options and possibilities.”

  These are big questions whose answers are constantly evolving, but even though they can be scary and complex, working to discover our passion, purpose, and mission through exercises such as the Blueprint for Life, the Character SWOT Analysis (both featured in Power2Achieve Unit 8.1), and writing (then living) “Your Sentence,” (presented in Daniel Pink’s bestseller Drive and featured in Power2Achieve Unit 5.1) is essential, as is creating opportunities for our students and members of our organizations to do so. (As you’ll see in the retreat slides, these served as the pillar exercises for our retreat…and the sentences the participants came up with filled me with a great sense of hope for our future.)

   

  So “Go forth, and set the world on fire”…but before you set out to do so, be sure to spend some time thinking about what lights your own fire.

   

  

   
• 

  Power2Achieve Schools Receive State's Top Honor

  Kyle Baker posted in Character Blog, IEE & Partners' News, Power2Achieve Community at 6:48 pm on January 30, 2012 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Academics, award, AYP, ethics, excellence, Graduation, Kansas, performance (2), Power2Achieve (8)

  Post by Kyle Baker, Program Coordinator for the Institute for Excellence & Ethics.

   

  Northern Heights High School (Allen, KS), Clifton-Clyde Senior High School (Clyde, KS), and Weskan High School (Weskan Township, KS) have received the highest honor the state of Kansas bestows on K-12 schools, the Governor’s Award, which recognizes the top performing schools in the state.

  In order to receive this award, high schools must:

  • Achieve the Kansas “Standard of Excellence” in both reading and mathematics.
  • Made AYP (Annual Yearly Progress) in reading, math, and graduation rate.
  • Be among the top 5 percent of schools in reading and mathematics on state assessments.

   

  These three schools all currently utilize the Power2Achieve Foundations classroom curriculum through the their participation in the Kansas PCEP grant project (coordinated by Sue Kidd).

  In addition to utilizing Power2Achieve Foundations, each of these schools has also received multiple Culture of Excellence & Ethics Toolkit professional development workshops for the school’s entire faculty/staff, has used the Culture of Excellence & Ethics Assessment (CEEA) to assess the culture and climate of their school, and have learned to use that data to guide improvement strategies through IEE’s Using CEEA Data for School Improvement professional development workshop.

  These services were also provided through the Kansas PCEP project and the Toolkit workshops were delivered by IEE’s outstanding team of trainers in Kansas:  Kansas PCEP coach DeAnne Heersche and Excellence & Ethics Certified Trainers Jara Wilson, Audrey Neuschafer, Noalee McDonald-Augustine, Susan Johnson, and Mary Ghetto.

  Silver Lake Junior/Senior High School (Silver Lake, KS), another Governor’s Award winner, utilizes the CEEA survey (also made possible by the Kansas PCEP project).

  The recognition of these four school’s as Governor’s Award winners continues to confirm the positive impact a comprehensive implementation of Power2Achieve Foundations, Culture of Excellence & Ethics Toolkits, and the Culture of Excellence & Ethics Assessment produces in schools.

  You can read more about the Kansas Governor’s Award on the Kansas State Department of Education’s website here.

   

  Congratulations to Northern Heights High School, Clifton-Clyde Senior High School, Weskan High School, and Silver Lake Junior/High School!