96 – Five Culture Fixes for Schools

In this solo episode, Natalie honors the Halloween season by describing five ghastly ghouls haunting our schools: phantom policies, zombie meetings, dementor processes, and the control and avoidance poltergeists. Learn what they are and how to defeat them! 💬 Continue the conversation with Natalie on Twitter or Instagram    🎧Listen to the podcast episode that inspired this episode: “Slaying your Organizational Debt Monster.”   🎥Watch Rodney Evans describe organizational debt.     ✊ Join our Facebook group for community, connection and allies.   ✨Get on the list for advance tickets for the Empowerment Ecosystem Summit!   Show Notes:   Organizational debt is the policies, practices and ways of working that are no longer serving their purpose, leading to bureaucracy. Phantom policies are born of a idiosyncratic mistake and scare teachers from more meaningful practice (e.g. teachers must have 5 entries per week in their grade book). Zombie meetings are routine meetings that have lost their soul. (e.g. PLC meetings). Dementor processes suck the life out of creativity and innovation. (e.g. committees as a part of the change process). The control poltergeist haunts leaders lacking connection and leads to a culture of permission. The avoidance poltergeist haunts leaders who feel unsafe and leads to a culture of influence. The fix to all of these issues is the thing we tend to avoid in our workplaces, tough conversations (with ourselves and others).