Another installment of readings from Lead. Learn. Change., the book, pages 88 to 103. This episode includes Farmer’s Market SEEfood, and a PAGE Break. All profits from the sale of the book support the Allene Magill Memorial Scholarship fund, helping paraprofessionals who are pursuing their dream of becoming classroom teachers.
Look closely - Farmers Market SEEfood
There is no such thing as an “average person.”
Reflections and Call to Action
Words to Live By
PAGE Break – In-house and in the field
Look closely
Farmers Market SEEfood
You have likely smelled it before. You round the corner or open the door and it hits you square in the nose. Seafood. Fresh, and lots of it.
It’s often in the back, along a long wall, visibly marked by wet floors near display cases, fish staring at you, bulging eyes sometimes slightly askance, fins and scales and tails and heads hugged by mounds of pulverized ice, and, yes, emanating that unmistakable dockside fragrance.
My wife and I, our shopping almost completed, headed away from the fresh fruits and vegetables, and toward the market’s “fishy section,” to look at the freshly caught fare before heading home. While Debbie rearranged the contents of our cart, pushing aside shiitake mushrooms, small bottles of flavorful hot sauce, and just-baked bread to make room for one or two more items, I walked ahead and something caught my eye. Directly in front of me was a lidless cylindrical cooler about three feet high and two feet in diameter. Peering inside, I found a lot of blue crabs[1]. The container was teeming with the poor creatures, most of which looked a bit sluggish, limply lying there, mostly motionless.
I wondered. How hard can they pinch? I mean, really, those claws don’t look that much larger than the ones on the crawdads we used to catch as kids. I moved my hand into the bin and inched my right index finger toward an average-sized claw of one of the crabs climbing slowly on the top layer. Nothing.
Snap! That hurt. But instead of attending to the pain, I performed the telltale visual scan of the publicly embarrassed, looking around to see if anyone had seen me. How dumb do I look, standing here with a crab hanging from my finger? That concern didn't last long, however. Turning back to the tub, and what I thought might soon be a nub, I gently pulled the offending critter off of my finger.
Actually, I didn’t. Because the crab refused to let go. While this scenario was unfolding, my wife arrived with the grocery cart. She looked at my face, glanced down into the container, saw my finger, and moved on, somewhat hurriedly it seemed, as if we were perfect strangers. Ever so slightly shaking her head as she departed, she never uttered a word. I was on my own.
The pain was quite intense by now, only a few seconds post-assault. I applied pressure with my left hand on what I thought might be the crab’s trigger point to let me go. Surely a pinch from a larger and more intelligent (?) creature would ensure my release.
It didn’t. So, I did what I had to do. Avoiding the crab’s other front leg, I pulled harder–much harder–finally dragging the claw straight off of my finger, creating a nice groove in my flesh as it broke free. A thick, deep red drop of blood oozed from the crater-hole in my finger. Before it could drip on anything, I shoved my hand into my jeans pocket while pressing with great force on the injured spot, using another of my fingers to stem the tide.
If I was a wimp, I might have cried. But my pride was to be protected and off I went, in search of my wife, so we could leave and I could apply a bandage to my crustacean-induced wound. I lived, by the way.
Make no mistake, I knew what a crab was. I knew the names of a few different crab species. Blue. Snow. King. Spider. Hermit. I had seen scores of photos of crab in my lifetime. I had been to an aquarium, a few grocery stores, and some restaurants. I have eaten crab. What’s to know about crab that I didn't already know? A bit, apparently.
While I was fairly familiar with crab, and had had some up-close contact with them, every experience before the “pinch lesson” had truly been superficial. I had never really SEEN crab. I had looked at, touched, purchased, and even tasted crab, but I had not truly seen crab. Before the day at the farmers market, crab was just another seafood. Now it was SEEfood.
If we don't really interact with those around us, if we observe them only from a distance, and if we assume that they must be just like others who are similar in appearance and other surface characteristics, we can’t honestly claim to know them. Acquaintances, maybe. But they will not rise to the level of friend, colleague, valued customer, or collaborator. Not without meaningful interaction.
How can your lesson, product, service, response–or even your questions–even remotely align with your students’ or customers’ needs, preferences, and timelines if you operate on assumptions versus relationships? They won’t.
I once created a tool that combined multiple frameworks into a single page. This one piece of paper deftly demonstrated the interconnectedness of many varied and complex parts. Or so I believed. Desiring to share this self-proclaimed amazing resource with others, I had the good sense to first bounce it off of at least one trusted colleague. The feedback? “Well, David, I think it’s great…if you're the customer.” That was a profound insight and I have never forgotten it. Creating the tool certainly aided my understanding, but it went no further. If we start with the product, as I had done, with the supposed answers for others (when they were actually for my benefit), instead of starting with the customer, and with their questions, we’re not designing. We’re marketing. We’re not teaching or coaching. We’re telling. We’re not collaborating. We’re assuming.
We might be able to make something that appeals to a broad audience, and that can be good.Making something that appeals to a narrower audience, addressing more specific needs, is possibly better. When we generate a product, performance, or potential solution because the student or customer wanted it and has injected his or her ideas into the design, that's best.We must see the person we serve first, then meet their need. Where is the organizational seafood in your world? What are you so familiar with that you don't really notice the details? What needs to be SEEfood instead?
Are you an educator? Do you really see your students, or have you allowed the latest school rankings and school report cards to lead you to view your most important customers only as members of an artificially defined group, lumping together children with a few shared demographic data points? Students are not served best when they are primarily identified by economic status, ethnicity, race, first language, or a test score.
Do you serve your fellow man in another sector? Do you really see your patients as individuals and not merely as part of a cohort whose members are statistically likely to have a heart attack or develop high blood pressure? What if Bob or Jane will change their eating habits and fitness practices–even if doing so is quite unusual for most of your patients–staving off worsening medical conditions because of their actions? Should they be treated as if they are merely one of the masses who won't take the initiative to improve their lives?
Do you seeyour clients as unique people, with nuanced needs and expectations? How is Client A, with so many characteristics in common with Client B, still markedly different from Client B? What does that difference mean for your work?
When you deal with another person, you are not dealing with anaverage, you are dealing with that person, one person, not a mathematical amalgam of a nebulous, artificial group. There is no “average person.” There is no “average student[2].”
Don’t just smell the seafood. Don't merely consume it and move on because it has met your needs. Don’t simply package it and sell it because the fictional average person will buy it. Don’t arbitrarily decide which is the best seafood because of one easy-to-measure factor such as price. In reality, it’s SEEfood. Shift your perspective. Get up close and personal. Risk the results of real involvement.
See.
Reflections and Call to Action
The adage says the customer is always right. Regardless of your level of agreement with that statement, it is likely that you believe that the customer is certainly important. So, who is your customer? The question may sound simplistic, but absent organizational clarity around that issue, resources may be deployed unnecessarily. Time and money may be squandered, and confidence and trust may be diminished. Is your customer a student, staff member, volunteer, parent, colleague, someone in an official leadership position, a vendor, or someone else? Consider these questions.
Is your customer “profile” based solely–and narrowly–on binary characteristics (e.g., under or over 40 years old, in-state or out-of-state resident, Android phone–yes or no, etc.), or on a broad range of demographic data, or on something else entirely? What are the potential benefits of knowing and understanding your customers and their needs in a different way?
What else about your customers might be helpful to learn?
What is your process for responding to customer opinions and ideas? How do you determine what type of customer input is important?
How important is it for your organization to demonstrate customer appreciation? How might that best be accomplished? Are there ways you could customize and individualize some aspects of the service or product you provide?
Farmers Market SEEfood
Words to Live By
“The first step in exceeding your customer’s expectations is to know those expectations.”
Roy H. Williams
“Focusing on the customer makes a company more resilient.”
Jeff Bezos
“Good customer service costs less than bad customer service.”
Sally Gronow
“The most important people who walk through our doors every day are our students.”
Allene Magill
PAGE Break – In-house and in the field
These descriptions of PAGE are not intended to paint PAGE as a perfect organization because there’s no such thing. Anywhere. What PAGE is, however, is an invaluable organization for its members, as well as a truly great place to work. In recent years, PAGE is more and more often being recognized by other organizations as the “go-to” source for accurate information and solid, informed guidance, advocacy, and a balanced perspective regarding a range of topics and issues. For example, in response to PAGE’s Educator Informed Recommendations(https://www.pageinc.org/covid-19-school-opening/),Atlanta Public Schools invitedPAGE’s executive director to participate in that school system’s transition team for reopening school in the wake of COVID-induced shutdowns. A month earlier, PAGE hosted a virtual event featuring State Superintendent of Schools Richard Woods, Deputy Superintendent Tiffany Taylor and Georgia Department of Education Chief of Staff Matt Jones, answering questions from participants, discussing the impact of the pandemic, and addressing solutions to challenges that surfaced during a difficult time. (Audio file https://www.pageinc.org/georgia-schools-covid-19-page-virtual-town-hall/).
Consistent membership numbers further amplify PAGE’s claim to greatness, with over 40 consecutive yearsof membership increases, pre-COVID. PAGE did not experience a single membership dip from 1975 to 2020! (Even the sole downward bump in 2021 did not dip below the 2019 level.) Because PAGE offers legal and liability support and protection, as well as legislative advocacy, and at significantly lower cost than other organizations, membership is a bargain. But educators don't simply wake up one day and decide that they are going to become a PAGE member. Georgia’s teachers, administrators, and support staff are aware of PAGE for multiple reasons. This familiarity is predominantly fueled by a tireless member services staff, some serving in a centralized office setting, processing information, ensuring the accuracy of data, handling inquiries via email or telephone, and others are the “boots on the ground,” as former PAGE executive director Allene Magill liked to call them. These membership service representatives (MSRs) and college service representatives (CSRs)–assisted by Consultants, and further supported by Student Activities Coordinators–travel to nearly every school district and college or university in the state, and almost 2,400 schools, each year. Not surprisingly, an MSR’s day starts early and often ends late. MSRs truly serve their customers.
The work that goes into coordinating schedules at hundreds and hundreds of facilities across geographically huge territories and/or densely populated counties is staggering. Add to the equation the fact that the overwhelming majority of places the MSRs visit typically begin their school year within a very narrow window of time. Meeting customer preferences while operating in tight time constraints is no small task, but the MSRs get it done. Member services staff members based in PAGE’s Atlanta office complement the work of their colleagues in the field. This vital team communicates directly with PAGE members every day, answering calls, and interfacing with school and district personnel to update member information for seamless membership support. Some cross-training has also been implemented, enabling those who support every department in the organization to fill in, pitch in, and accelerate work in any area, whenever needed.
Besides visits to K-12 schools (e.g., 96% of all sites visited in the 2018-2019 school year), PAGE also visits institutions of higher education and stages activities that feed into the college phase of a future teacher’s career. For example, during the 2018-2019 school year (the last full year of non-COVID-19 affected attendance and events), 151 presentations were made to high school students in Education pathway classes. Fifty-two colleges were visited, with over 6,000 college students in teacher prep coursework attending various sessions (Code of Ethics, Career Launch, Ed 411[3]). Future Georgia Educator (FGE) Days were hosted on ten different college campuses around the state, with more than 1,600 students from 93 schools (mostly high schools but including some middle school representation) attending keynote and breakout sessions and interacting with recruitment reps from dozens of colleges of education who are seeking to increase their enrollment numbers, which bolsters teacher pipeline efforts statewide. This comprehensive approach to attracting, retaining and supporting teachers and prospective teachers is making a difference for many school districts in the state. Disaggregated PAGE membership numbers further highlight the strides being made in early career stage efforts, with approximately 10,000 student PAGE members as of this writing. Let’s take a quick look at 2020-2021, the first school year that began inside a pandemic-affected calendar. Despite the potential havoc wreaked on gatherings of any type, whether staff meetings, new teacher induction sessions, or small group informational opportunities, Team Membership worked inside official health agency and governmental guidelines while simultaneously honoring school and district preferences to ensure that Georgia’s educators knew that PAGE was remaining active, available, and advocating on their behalf. During the first six months of a most unusual school year, PAGE made virtual or face-to-face contact with over 40,000 educators via group meetings and one-on-one interactions, plus visits to over 30 college campuses where representatives were “in front of” over 1,500 students, professors, and teachers.
The cycle is never-ending, as school and school system needs fluctuate year to year. Administrators and decision-makers change roles. School district calendars are shifted. Schools open, close, merge or reorganize. Attrition data must be analyzed. Pandemics land in our midst. Budgets for travel and for the resources provided to educators are reviewed and revised, all to serve members effectively [4].
Such details are not unique to the world of education, or to PAGE in particular, as all successful organizations juggle personnel issues, facility and staffing needs, budgets, and calendars. What is different is the way PAGE handles these myriad responsibilities. PAGE always starts with the customer in mind. And that stance cannot be taken without knowing your customer. Because PAGE places a high value on regular interaction with Georgia’s educators, members’ concerns and ideas have a platform from which they can materialize into meaningful policy recommendations or advocacy.
Just as PAGE members know that PAGE is engaged in ongoing improvement efforts, so too do PAGE employees. At a recent meeting of all staff, those present were asked, with no advance notice, to compose a tweet-length message about PAGE. Specifically, “What should others know about us? Why does PAGE matter?” The wording could be crafted individually or in groups. What follows is a sampling.
(Note: “Tweet-style” spacing, capitalization, punctuation, creative grammar, etc., are utilized in these messages. #IgnoreAssumedErrors)
PAGE: Professionalism, Advocacy, Growth, Economy
PAGE: Making Georgia better. #SenseOfUrgencyForChange
PAGE: Created by teachers for teachers and the children they serve
PAGE: Leading the way to educate Georgia’s future generations
PAGE: Transforming education from the ground up. #BootsOnTheGround
PAGE: Leading the way in education!
PAGE: Supporting Education by Supporting Educators
PAGE: Professional Learning plus Membership, Legislative, and Legal Support at its best!
PAGE cares about teachers, students, and the future of education in Georgia. #PAGECares
PAGE is a great partner to educators in Georgia!!
PAGE focuses on ultimately making the lives of children better.
PAGE helps teachers do what they do best. #WeReady
PAGE is a great organization.
Without any front-loading, at the tail end of a very full agenda, and in less than five minutes, succinct statements were effortlessly produced by PAGE team members filling every role in the organization–statements that captured key characteristics of the organization’s work: professionalism, advocacy, legal representation, change, growth, a future orientation, leadership, member support, caring, transformation, legislative voice, teachers, students, professional learning, being prepared, partnerships, connecting with others, and more. In 2020 PAGE earned an exceptional rating in multiple categories of organizational culture, affirming PAGE’s workplace as highly desirable (https://www.pageinc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/PAGE-Named-AJC-Top-Workplace.pdf). The following year, PAGE once again earned the award, ranking third among all organizations with fewer than 150 employees. Such a designation is always connected to a focus on one’s customers. Organizational success, by definition, is customer centered–understanding, recognizing, anticipating, acknowledging, and appreciating customers’ needs. Because PAGE supports its members in a thoughtful and consistent manner, that service-oriented approach creates a highly positive workplace culture.
A few years ago, PAGE initiated an innovative way of facilitating professional learning opportunities to educators, via multi-district networks. The reaction among those involved was quite positive–so much so that leaders in another school district made a request for a similar support structure. But this request fell outside of the newly designed collegial collaboration arrangement because only one school district would have been involved in the new “network.” However, instead of ignoring this district’s request–since a “singleton” didn’t fit PAGE’s expected or stated format–PAGE nevertheless did not wait until other school districts in the region joined in. The process was customized for that single school system because those educators wanted to engage in the framework available to them. Consequently, lessons learned via candid feedback from participants in PAGE’s longest-standing school district network led to some nuanced shifts in another network as it was being formed.
PAGE’s professional learning team has been responding to shifts in the educational landscape for some time and works diligently to keep its eye on the horizon so that structures can support educators regardless of the pressing issues of the day. Student poverty on the rise, assessment tools and reporting procedures in a state of continual flux, here-today-gone-tomorrow programs, and short-sighted school improvement efforts create new challenges for our public schools and for the teachers, administrators and support staff who serve our state’s students. What has been tried in the past–compliance-driven participation in traditional “staff development” activities–will not adequately address the needs of today’s teachers, students or local communities.
Therefore, PAGE professional learning emphasizes the importance of understanding both why change is needed and how to develop the capacity to craft meaningful work that consistently engages students. PAGE professional learning initiatives have included: role-alike sessions; cross-role opportunities; dynamic regional networks reaching hundreds and hundreds of practitioners; school-based, culture-impacting design work; and, recently, online interactions. PAGE’s research connected to these experiences shows strong correlations between PAGE’s professional learning approach and educator practices. (See Appendices A, B, C, and D for details.)
To succeed as an individual, team, or organization, we must adapt and do so with agility.
We must listen to lead. We must learn to change.
Lead. Learn. Change.
That’s PAGE.
[1]Crabs vs. crab - I checked - either can be used. Singular vs. plural. Nothing to debate here. Nothing to see here. Move along.
[2] An interesting and insightful article on the concept of “average” can be found here - https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ed/15/08/beyond-average.
[3] Code of Ethics presentations are conducted by PAGE attorneys; Career Launch and Ed 411 are modules designed for juniors and seniors embarking on their education careers; Ed 411 is subtitled What Your First Year of Teaching is Really Like.
[4] School closures, delayed or staggered openings, adjustments in face-to-face and virtual learning opportunities, and other structural and timeline shifts growing out of a thoughtful and measured response to the COVID-19 situation have naturally impacted PAGE’s Team Membership’s work. Nonetheless, creative and consistent support for Georgia’s educators has remained a focus during this unexpected time. See “PAGE Break – COVID, communication, and consistency” for details.