In this episode, Dr. Joi Patterson and Dr. Amy Vujaklija discuss the importance of aligning organizational values with daily experiences, particularly in educational settings. They emphasize the need for leaders to transform climate survey data into meaningful action through transparency, stakeholder engagement, strategic planning, and continuous improvement. Joi highlights the significance of storytelling and celebrating progress, while Amy stresses the importance of aligning survey findings with existing strategic plans. They both agree that transparency and communication are crucial for building trust and fostering a positive organizational climate. The conversation concludes with a call to action for continuous improvement and better alignment of culture and values.

Music: https://soundcloud.com/zack-brown-290928439/calm-background-for-video-121519?si=cb2fa8f66d914b7797eb3a463e5797e5&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Joi Patterson 0:04

How can we better align the experience of people that people have day to day with the values we aspire to live?

Amy Vujaklija 0:15

Teaching and leading are rewarding but complex.

Joi Patterson 0:19

And whether you're in a classroom or a campus, new challenges are always emerging.

Amy Vujaklija 0:25

I'm Amy Vujaklija.

Joi Patterson 0:27

I'm Joi Patterson,

Amy Vujaklija 0:29

and this is Teaching and Leading,

Joi Patterson 0:32

where we explore teaching, leadership, equity, and the systems that shape education,

Amy Vujaklija 0:38

and how educators can grow, explore, and have a meaningful impact

Joi Patterson 0:43

as teachers

Amy Vujaklija 0:44

and leaders. So let's get into it. Hello, Dr. Joi.

Joi Patterson 0:51

Hello, Dr. Amy.

Amy Vujaklija 0:54

I am excited to wrap up to really think about putting a bow on this series of episodes about climate and culture. You know, we talked in the beginning about collecting data, but that's only the beginning, right?

Amy Vujaklija 1:14

Right. The

Amy Vujaklija 1:15

real value of that climate survey lies in what leaders do next. So, in this episode, we want to explore how institutions can transform survey findings into meaningful action. We're talking about transparency, stakeholder engagement, strategic planning, continuous improvement. Let's talk about how organizations can build trust by communicating results, celebrating progress, and really creating that culture where every employee has a voice in shaping the future. Let's talk about that climate and organizational change.

Joi Patterson 2:07

You know, Amy, one of the biggest misconceptions about climate surveys is that the survey itself creates change. I mean, you know this. This is not so different than the work that you do for accreditation, you know all the data that you collect. I mean, you're just swimming in information. It's not the information that impacts the change. It's the information that simply gives you information, right? And so, what creates change is what leaders choose to do about the information because they ultimately have the task of sharing the information and deciding what are we going to work on. Right? For me, the climate has never been about just producing a report, and I think I told you before it's like the blueprint for me of the things that I'm going to work on, the programs that I'm going to give, all of that. It's about really helping the organization tell a story. And in episode three, we were with Zion Banks, who's a storyteller who talked about how the organization tells the story. It's about celebrating where it's thriving, acknowledging where improvement is needed, and really creating a roadmap of how we move forward together. It gives us just kind of that snapshot in time, but it also gives us something that's really, really, really valuable, and that's that blueprint for continuous improvement. And you know this all too well from working on accreditation. And all you can do is continuously improve. But it helps us to answer questions like, where are we making progress? So where are we improving? We want to make sure from the last time that we are continuously improving in the areas that we said we want to make progress. Right, where our employees having different different experience, what should we protect ourselves from? What's working well? Where should we focus our energy on next? Because you can't do everything. That's when the climate survey is really exciting for me. When we're no longer just measuring, but we're actually improving. And you know, you want to test. You can't wait to test the waters again to see how much you're improving.

Amy Vujaklija 4:42

There's a piece in there. There's a timeline for the survey, so you talk about distributing, and then you get the data, and then that exciting impact and that continuous improvement. You've got your your map, your blueprint. Now let's talk about some of the bigger mistakes organizations can make after they receive that bulk of data from a survey. I mean, think about the kind of data. I mean, I'm sure there are good points, bad points, but what mistakes should organizations avoid?

Joi Patterson 5:26

So one of the things I want to say is, where do you get your survey from, right? And again, you know this is it proprietary information? Is it consistent with what you used before? And there's reasons why people choose what they choose. We chose a survey that was affordable, that was valid, reliable, and affordable. What did affordable mean? Affordable mean I had to do all of the analysis. That's what affordable gets you. But in my timeline, you know, getting all these points of data, it was like Christmas for me. It's like unveiling something just really, really special, no matter what the information was going to tell us-good, bad, or indifferent. It was like Christmas for me. But one of the places where we fail is that pressure that we have to fix everything immediately. Again, you know this with accreditation. You can't do this if employees identify all these opportunities of improvement. And you and I talked about that. You got 300 people who are giving opinions and writing feedback or more, and you got all these areas of improvement, and you're trying to come up with themes, and you're trying to dwindle it to a workable amount. And then I, in particular, wish I could respond to all of them, but we can't because you get overwhelmed, and then you won't. It's not realistic, and then you can't make improvements, and you can't solve anything overnight. And so it's really how do you get it into a workable amount of work, but also how do you share that progress that builds confidence? Because I think it's super important that employees know that you got it, and what is it that you got, and how do you share that with them, and how do you share with them your plan to make improvement?

Amy Vujaklija 7:30

I'm sure that all of the feedback can be yes, it's it's got to be overwhelming, and people want their voices heard. They want to be acknowledged, that their voices were heard. But I'm sure when people are sharing their negative experiences, there's a tendency to be defensive. Like, wait a minute, that's that's not how it really is here, or things aren't exactly like that. Why did that person say that? How do you guard against defensiveness and really look at the survey results objectively and really to distill the themes and the most ideal path forward?

Joi Patterson 8:20

I think I should hire Zion Banks to turn this into a story, and maybe that would help because that is one of the hardest things. Having the forums, which seem like that would be difficult, was actually one of the easiest things because I was unguarded, and it allowed information to flow. The hardest thing for me is actually in the process of sharing it with leaders. So, like starting in our case with the president, you know, or any CEO of the organization. And so, first asking the question of where to begin, right? And I think that that's the exact question you really want to ask: is where do you begin, rather than trying to tackle every recommendation to stop, look at the major things, look at it across groups, align it with our strategic priorities, what are we work? What else are we working on right now? What about this will help us get to where we want to go strategically overall? How could we make meaningful progress that employees will actually feel and appreciate? And so that's the really hard thing of being able to share that with other leaders, so that they're not defensive in a way where they can see this is our reality, but it's an opportunity, and it's an opportunity for us to shine. It's an opportunity for us to tell our story. It's an. Opportunity for improvement, and who doesn't like improvement, right? But it's to break down those barriers so that those leaders can actually listen.

You bring up a really good point about how to look at what plans are already existing. What kind of strategies are already being built? We have been in the process, and many universities across the nation go through this process every few years, three to every 30 to five years, thinking about a strategic plan that is responsive to their communities, to the time period to the needs of their of and responsive to policies. So a strategic plan that is being developed. That's a good time to really think. Where does this tack on? Where is it? Where does it blend well, mesh well with the actions that we are in the process of making right now, and it doesn't seem as much like one more thing, or an overwhelming list of items to tackle, like checking off boxes, and I don't think that's actually the right way to approach it. Is looking at it as a long list of things to fix,

right? It's not a punch list.

No, so that's one way that leaders might decide on how to approach that laundry list of things that might need to be fixed, and some very minor, and some maybe more of a climate issue. But there's still that how, like how do leaders decide what to address first when there might be such small, easy wins or big challenges that need to be more fully thought out, like how do you weigh those, and how do leaders decide?

I was really very strategic about the framework going into this and talking to leaders. One of the things is being really not only transparent with staff and students, but transparent with leaders because it's either going to help us grow or it's going to make us erode. So we have to make a choice of what you want to do with transparency. So I, for one, really feel strongly that employees deserve to know what we learned from the survey and what our commitment is to make continuous improvement. So I intentionally organized things when I got to a good size of what we could tackle, align to other priorities. You know, I'm going to share. Here's the big list, and you could do whatever you want to do with it because you have your own team. And Amy, you may find something on that list that didn't make it to the small list because the small list align to other institutional priorities, but there may be a small win on there. So I'm going to share all that information so that you have all that information. But in leadership meeting, we're going to focus on what do these three to five things really tell us, so that we talk about this is what we heard. These are things where we're already making progress. What are we doing already, and what more can we do in this area? So, what will you do? And I'm going to start with kind of what will you do? What will we do, like in your department, and then what will we do as an institution, and it's something our president call a "I we we, and so that is the approach that we're going to take. And it's really about how are we part of the solution, and then transferring that. How are we going to transfer that? And that's the most important part, the most beautiful part. How do I transfer it to you? So then you adopt that, Amy, and how do you now own this feedback in areas that the employees say that we need to improve? How do you embrace it, and now you make it part of your departmental plans of how you want to improve.

That is so valuable because whenever we're thinking about this climate survey, we are thinking, well, what is that administration going to do for us? How is that university or that workplace? Because we can think about the climate survey in K 12, in private businesses, public institutions. What are you going to do for me? But if we look back and really think about what episode three was telling

us,

we can all take responsibility. Now, being transparent is a piece of that, but I think going back to what you were saying about the forums-that's where you can really build that trust and that buy-in, so that people take ownership of pieces that are manageable, that are that align to the specific department, or something that is within someone's grasp. There are university, like the bigger picture things that might not be able to be tackled by an individual, but by groups, by departments, we can have small and big wins. So knowing that we all own the data, we all own the climate, and we all have that can have that buy-in to improve the climate, if that's what the survey calls us to do, which we have said multiple times about improving.

Yep,

improving is continuous. It doesn't have to be a bad climate to improve it. It can be a good climate, and

yeah, you want to continuously improve your climate results are great. What do you have to do? You continuously improve. You know that from accreditation, and and here's this process, and this is really what I want people to take away from this improvement process. And I'm glad you said that. The first thing is we listen, right? Being brave enough to collect the information, we analyze what did the information tell us and who told us. We engage with our stakeholders, so having those forums, and then we identify the priorities, and that has been that took a lot. That took a lot of time, especially aligning it with other priorities and plans. Then from there, developing an action plan. What are we going to do about it? And then how are we going to communicate that? How are we going to communicate it so that it becomes multiple action plans in different places, right? How do we communicate our progress? That's another hard one. How do we show that we are making improvement, and then measure it again? Do it all over again. That's how we improve. Because if you don't assess, you will never know if you're improving. The survey provides data, right? And the forms they provide contacts. You create an action plan that's going to provide us with some direction, but if we communicate it, that's going to build trust,

and that is a good place for us to think about what we do to build trust, and that is by transparency, providing that context, the things we talked about in episode three, and that communication, building trust, is what develops a better climate. I'm

just so happy. I just really love this whole series because we started this series about what is culture, what is climate, what's morale, and all of those different things. But my hope is that every organization that's listening will leave with one question: How can we better align the experience of people that people have day to day with the values we aspire to live? Because when culture and climate, when we align those two, you know. We perform better, and we become the places that people genuinely want to work and learn and grow. This is where we want to retire. That's who we become when we can do those things together, and it aligns perfectly with our new strategic alignment, better together, right?

That's exactly right. This has been a great conversation and a great series.

Yep, and have fun.

I think that we can leave it there for now, but listeners need to know that we. Always improving and growing.

Yep, and we're always available. So if you have any questions, you can always reach out to Dr. Amy and I. So until then,

thanks for listening to Teaching and Leading with Dr. Amy and Dr. Joi.

This podcast is supported by Governor State University.

Show notes and resources for this episode are available at govst.edu/teachingandleadingpodcast.

Until next time,

keep growing

as teachers

and leaders.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai