In August of 2018, all staff attended a session with speaker and consultant Vince Martinez, who focuses on organizational change and growth. He talked about committing to change, and what it means to be accountable. He also introduced us to above and below the line behaviors – that is, behaviors that either set us back, or move us forward. Then we started the tough conversations… addressing the perceptions and realities of our current culture, and what we WANT our culture to look like.
In October of 2018, Vince returned and we took a deeper look at our district’s culture and values. As a team, all staff brainstormed negative cultural beliefs or perceptions held by staff as well as what we want to change that cultural belief to. Every staff member had the opportunity to be heard, and each got to vote for the concerns they considered to be the highest priority. Then we split into groups to develop “cultural beliefs” to define who we are as a district, or who we aim to become. Each group and each individual visited all 6 stations to share their feedback and refine the belief statement.
In the end, we had created 6 succinct beliefs that are a reflection of the values of our entire district.