ISM has long written about the key role that healthy faculty cultures play in the long-term success of a school. One aspect of faculty cultures that administrators need to examine is the level of trust between teachers and administrators, as well as trust among all teachers. One simple but powerful way of assessing the state of your culture regarding trust issues is by using a continuum chart, which we’ve drawn in informal fashion below.
The Head may wish to gather the Administrative Team for this discussion, to select a small group of teachers to ask for feedback, or both. Once the group is gathered, the process is simple.
- Show them a chart like the one shown here (which can be altered to include any other culture-related issues or aspects you may want to examine).
- One by one, ask the participants to mark where they feel the school’s culture stands on each of the continua.
- When all have had a chance to mark the chart, ask the group to interpret the results for you.
The results may surprise you. Or they may confirm your gut feeling on certain matters. In either case, it is sure to be a powerful and enlightening discussion about one of your school’s most important intangibles its culture.
When conducting this exercise, keep these factors in mind:
- There are no right answers. All you’re looking for is an accurate description of what culture exists today.
- While the right side of each continuum is generally regarded as more positive, the school wouldn’t necessarily want its culture to be flush right on all points (i.e., some balance is probably desirable on many of the elements).
- One of the most enlightening things the participants can do is to help you know in which direction any given continuum seems to be heading (e.g., “We’re currently on the ‘individualism’ side of the ledger … but we seem to be moving more strongly to the ‘collaboration’ side, as faculty get used to working in teams during more of the teaching day”).
There are other, more formal surveys that the school can engage in to assess its faculty and student cultures (some of which are offered by ISM). In between formal surveys, though, the above exercise can give the administration insight into the state of the culture in powerful and visceral ways. We would love to hear about your experiences if you put the continuum exercise to the test.
Additional ISM resources of interest
ISM's Monthly Update for Human Resources Vol. 10 No. 2 Rethinking Faculty Performance Evaluations
ISM's Monthly Update for Division Heads Vol. 7 No. 10 Make Your Faculty Evaluation Meaningful
Additional ISM resources for Consortium Gold members
I&P Vol. 31 No. 2 The Support Staff Culture Profile
I&P Vol. 33 No. 2 Character Education and Faculty Culture
I&P Vol. 37 No. 10 Faculty Compensation, 2011–12: Day School Salaries
I&P Vol. 34 No.1 Your Faculty Culture and the Pay-for-Performance Approach
I&P Vol. 36 No. 7 Cross-Divisional Teachers and Your School’s Faculty Culture Differences
