What do you do when someone's ambition and vision, collides with their skill set and technical abilities? As a coach, what do you do when a person's mindset changes right before your eyes? [this is the change that isn't very good to see]
So here's the story, the situation, the conundrum that I find myself thinking about for the last few days. I will try to keep this as anonymous as possible, as I think this through as a write it all down. But don't expect any answers here . . . I haven't got that far with my thinking. Maybe you might have some input on all of this for me . . .
There is a colleague that I work with who embarked on a big project to revamp the online presence for part of the school. They inherited a spaghetti map of different systems and platforms which wove together a piecemeal online existence, from their predecessor. That previous colleague essentially built bits and pieces of the overall resource over a number of years, using whatever tool was on-hand, convenient, or in their field of view at the time. In short, it is/was a mess and needed to be completely overhauled and replaced.
Enter my new colleague who fought and fought with maintaining this old plate of spaghetti, and came to hate it. Once they had reached their tipping point where they wanted to fix it, change it, update it and make it their own, we started working on it together through regular coaching sessions. My new colleague (how about I just call them Bob from now on) . . . Bob . . . started conducting a ton of research into what other schools were doing, their look and feel, their functionality and content, and their audience. Bob also had a pretty good idea about what they wanted, as he had done a similar project at their previous school with much success. The big difference between these two projects, is that the previous school did not have a system/platform already in place and they hired a developer to build everything for the school. In the here and now, there is no big budget to pay someone, and the culture is more of a DIY project.
So Bob took it upon himself to rebuild everything from scratch, and made this their goal last year. By the end of last year, we had built parts of the new system, but had not "released" it for use yet. In other words, the old plate of spaghetti was still on the table and was still being served to the school. At the start of this year, Bob really wanted to focus on building the last remaining pieces of the system and to get everything up and running as soon as possible. As the beginning of the school year got busier and busier (as they do), this project got put on the back burner to simmer and stew. We revisited it and worked on it periodically during our coaching sessions, but more often than not, something else would take precedence and would be more immediate. When we did work on the project, development was often slow or at a standstill. In Bob's own words, he often "could not remember how to do something" or "could not make a decision on what he wanted." It was one step forward and three steps back, but we kept com in back to it, as it was/is important.
Then Bob dropped the bomb on me . . . he told me that he is so stressed out by the project and his inability to make any progress on it, that it is affecting his health. Boom! In order to preserve his health, he was going to drop the while thing, and perhaps we can salvage some of the pieces that we have already built. "Thank you for your time and effort and patience in coaching me, but I can't work on this any longer." Boom!!
What do you do when someone's ambition and vision, collides with their skill set and technical abilities? The project involved rebuilding resources which are really important to the school, which support teaching and learning across school divisions. Bob has a vision for what this could be, and would use it in his teaching everyday. However, Bob really does not understand why he could not grasp how to use these tools to build his vision, and why it is so hard for him. This is the clash or the difference between what they want to do, and having the skills/expertise to accomplish that goal. As a tech coach, I see this as part of my job - to bridge the gap, which is what we have been working on for almost a year now.
What do you do when a person's mindset changes right before your eyes? In the beginning, Bob clearly had an growth mindset towards this project - he saw it as a challenge and a point of deep learning on his part to work through it. But all of that changed gradually as the frustration grew and the health issues started building. Are these two things connected? Bob seems to think so. I, on the other hand, think that it has more to do with the steep learning curve that the project represents, combined with growing health issues related to his age . . . both difficult subjects to brooch in a conversation or coaching session. With Bob's growing frustration and lack of progress, this turned into a downwards spiral which resulted in his mindset flipping over into the fixed position. He is now thinking that he cannot learn these skills and tools, and that this project is just too big for him the tackle. He even said that he will just leave it for someone else to fix and build once they are gone. Totally defeated. Bob no longer sees it has job to do this kind of work, and knows the school is not going to pay a developer to build it for him. Totally stuck.
So what do I do with this project? On one hand I could jump in and build it for Bob, but that is not my role or my job, and does not really involve coaching in any way. Furthermore, Bob would not be in a position to maintain and further develop their system from whatever point I brought it up to . . . I would be signing up to be the gatekeeper and custodian for his system. On the other hand, I could just accept that Bob is giving up and try to salvage some of the work we have already done, but that would effectively making part of the plate of spaghetti taste a little better, while at the same time making the plate bigger. Not a very good outcome. So what should I do, to move forward with this project and with Bob as a colleague whom I coach? Any ideas?
So here's the story, the situation, the conundrum that I find myself thinking about for the last few days. I will try to keep this as anonymous as possible, as I think this through as a write it all down. But don't expect any answers here . . . I haven't got that far with my thinking. Maybe you might have some input on all of this for me . . .
There is a colleague that I work with who embarked on a big project to revamp the online presence for part of the school. They inherited a spaghetti map of different systems and platforms which wove together a piecemeal online existence, from their predecessor. That previous colleague essentially built bits and pieces of the overall resource over a number of years, using whatever tool was on-hand, convenient, or in their field of view at the time. In short, it is/was a mess and needed to be completely overhauled and replaced.
Enter my new colleague who fought and fought with maintaining this old plate of spaghetti, and came to hate it. Once they had reached their tipping point where they wanted to fix it, change it, update it and make it their own, we started working on it together through regular coaching sessions. My new colleague (how about I just call them Bob from now on) . . . Bob . . . started conducting a ton of research into what other schools were doing, their look and feel, their functionality and content, and their audience. Bob also had a pretty good idea about what they wanted, as he had done a similar project at their previous school with much success. The big difference between these two projects, is that the previous school did not have a system/platform already in place and they hired a developer to build everything for the school. In the here and now, there is no big budget to pay someone, and the culture is more of a DIY project.
So Bob took it upon himself to rebuild everything from scratch, and made this their goal last year. By the end of last year, we had built parts of the new system, but had not "released" it for use yet. In other words, the old plate of spaghetti was still on the table and was still being served to the school. At the start of this year, Bob really wanted to focus on building the last remaining pieces of the system and to get everything up and running as soon as possible. As the beginning of the school year got busier and busier (as they do), this project got put on the back burner to simmer and stew. We revisited it and worked on it periodically during our coaching sessions, but more often than not, something else would take precedence and would be more immediate. When we did work on the project, development was often slow or at a standstill. In Bob's own words, he often "could not remember how to do something" or "could not make a decision on what he wanted." It was one step forward and three steps back, but we kept com in back to it, as it was/is important.
Then Bob dropped the bomb on me . . . he told me that he is so stressed out by the project and his inability to make any progress on it, that it is affecting his health. Boom! In order to preserve his health, he was going to drop the while thing, and perhaps we can salvage some of the pieces that we have already built. "Thank you for your time and effort and patience in coaching me, but I can't work on this any longer." Boom!!
What do you do when someone's ambition and vision, collides with their skill set and technical abilities? The project involved rebuilding resources which are really important to the school, which support teaching and learning across school divisions. Bob has a vision for what this could be, and would use it in his teaching everyday. However, Bob really does not understand why he could not grasp how to use these tools to build his vision, and why it is so hard for him. This is the clash or the difference between what they want to do, and having the skills/expertise to accomplish that goal. As a tech coach, I see this as part of my job - to bridge the gap, which is what we have been working on for almost a year now.
What do you do when a person's mindset changes right before your eyes? In the beginning, Bob clearly had an growth mindset towards this project - he saw it as a challenge and a point of deep learning on his part to work through it. But all of that changed gradually as the frustration grew and the health issues started building. Are these two things connected? Bob seems to think so. I, on the other hand, think that it has more to do with the steep learning curve that the project represents, combined with growing health issues related to his age . . . both difficult subjects to brooch in a conversation or coaching session. With Bob's growing frustration and lack of progress, this turned into a downwards spiral which resulted in his mindset flipping over into the fixed position. He is now thinking that he cannot learn these skills and tools, and that this project is just too big for him the tackle. He even said that he will just leave it for someone else to fix and build once they are gone. Totally defeated. Bob no longer sees it has job to do this kind of work, and knows the school is not going to pay a developer to build it for him. Totally stuck.
So what do I do with this project? On one hand I could jump in and build it for Bob, but that is not my role or my job, and does not really involve coaching in any way. Furthermore, Bob would not be in a position to maintain and further develop their system from whatever point I brought it up to . . . I would be signing up to be the gatekeeper and custodian for his system. On the other hand, I could just accept that Bob is giving up and try to salvage some of the work we have already done, but that would effectively making part of the plate of spaghetti taste a little better, while at the same time making the plate bigger. Not a very good outcome. So what should I do, to move forward with this project and with Bob as a colleague whom I coach? Any ideas?
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