1. Leading by Convening is a new approach to stakeholder engagement and collaboration.
Today we will:
Share lessons learned.
Introduce tools and information. 
Discuss options that fit your needs.
Offer tangible activities to get started.
What is your picture of collaboration?

2. Thi Thanks for inviting me!
This is the first of four in the series on Leading by Convening
We will:
Describe the changes in special education accountability and leadership demands
Explore a new approach to leadership
Conceptualize ‘stakeholders as allies’ in achieving sustainable change .

3. By the end of today’s session
You will:
Be able to describe three critical ‘habits of interaction’ that support sustainable change
Discern the difference between technical and adaptive strategies to achieve practice change
Identify difference in stakeholder role at four deepening level of engagement
Identify a professional situation to which they will apply the principals of Leading by Convening (LbC

4. The ideas we will begin to explore t in our four sessions together are grounded in major points of change in Special Education: 1997: IDEA ‘97 Amendments 2014: Results Driven Accountability ( RDA)
What are the implications for leadership?
What are the implications for local practice?
What is your ‘picture’ of Collaboration?
Use the 8 images to generate ideas about interaction and shared work

5. Recognizing the Need for Change...
Implementing 1997 Amendments to IDEA
Access to the general curriculum
Evidence based practice
Participation in assessments
Placement neutral funding
A little history of Leading by Convening....
The Reauthorization of IDEA was the challenge that united more than 50 national organizations and family groups:
Bringing policy and practice together
Building appreciation for stakeholders expertise
Creating ways for stakeholder voice to be heard and valued
We had knowledge and skill gaps but most importantly … We had relationship gaps with the partners
We needed to accomplish the new vision!
With this understanding The IDEA Partnership was born!
Although the issues may be different as we undertake the SSIP, do we still have knowledge shill and relationship gaps?
We had knowledge and skill gaps
but most importantly
We had relationship gaps.

6. Can We Share Leadership across Groups with Differing Perspectives?
Yes!
We Can!
The IDEA Partnership
55 National Organizations
Developing shared learning opportunities that connect decision-makers and stakeholders
After forming the unified partnership, we continued to learn from and with each other
… Exploring shared leadership and action by uniting people with authority and people with influence …
And, building capacity across roles, networks and levels of the system.

7. Bill East, Jr., Ed.D.
National Association of State Directors
of Special Education (NASDSE), 2012
There will never be enough laws, policies, processes or documents to force change. Change is best realized through the relationships we build with those people and groups that have a common interest toward solving a persistent problem or seizing an opportunity.
Importance of Relationships in Change
This understanding speaks to the current move away from compliance as the single indicator of success. OSEP has led on this and NASDSE agrees. The Results Driven Accountability and the State Systemic Improvement Plans are built on this understanding. The Partnership work on Authentic Engagement and Leading by Convening is built on this understanding.

8. Leading … and Leading by Convening
A Blueprint for
Authentic Engagement:
Stakeholders as Allies
We’ve learned some valuable lessons about who the stakeholders are...how they want to be engaged...and what they might do if asked... Stakeholders as Allies!!!!
...designed to convey the lessons learned over 15+ years

9. Turn of the Table: Authority
Thinking about leadership on special education....
What is the best thing about authority?
What is the worst thing about authority?

10. What is an ‘ally relationship’?
Board and table work

11. Convening as a ‘New Discipline’
Convening is:
More
than a meeting
More
than facilitation
Bringing people together in face to face and virtual ways is just the start … we have to find ways for people to contribute … and help them do it!
This is the new role as a convener.
We are talking about convening across school and community efforts … and sometimes across agencies … a ‘system convener’ role
So…why convene?
We need to become allies in making the changes in order for practice to stick …
We have evidence based practices … but face continual challenges to implementation and fidelity.
No group, agency or organization can do it alone.
Predictable changes in leadership make it critically important to have deep understanding in the field that will help the work go on across leadership changes.
In the connected world we live in now…stakeholders expect to be engaged…to have a role. If we do not engage them authentically and as allies in accomplishing goals…..we risk having opposing groups undermine efforts with misinformation
The beginning of a relationship
focused on practice change

12. RDA: Focus on Compliance and Results
Core Tenants:
Developed with stakeholders
Transparent and understandable
Drives improved outcomes
Ensures protection of individual rights
Differentiated incentives, supports and incentives
Direct resources for the greatest impact
Responsive to the needs of children and youth with disabilities and their families

13. Turn of the Table: RDA
Thinking about leadership on special education....
What is the best thing about compliance?
What is the worst thing about a focus on results?

14. Stakeholder Engagement : A Core Tenant for Implementing RDA
Your stakeholders....
Invitees
Partners
Allies

15. Break
Let’s be back in 15 minutes

16. What Will It Take? ’: Invitees Participants Allies
Who are your stakeholders?
‘Wall work’.. and table work

17. A Blueprint for Authentic Engagement
Habits of Interaction
Elements of Interaction
Coalescing Around Issues
Ensuring Relevant Participation
Doing the Work Together
Adaptive
Technical
Operational
Networking
Collaborating
Transforming
Informing
Depth of Interaction
To download, visit:

18. Interconnected Components
Habits of Interaction
Elements of Interaction
Depth of Interaction

19. Communities of Practice
Habits of Interaction
Coalescing Around Issues
Ensuring Relevant Participation
Doing the Work Together
Theory Base:
Etienne Wenger
Communities of Practice
Habits of Interaction
Elements of Interaction
Depth of Interaction
Begin by scanning for common goals and feelings of shared purpose. Recognize that we have something to learn FROM others and design learning activities so that we can learn WITH one another.

20. Elements of Interaction: Theory Base: Heifetz and Linsky
A Convening Approach to Common Practice Problems
Adaptive
Technical
Operational
Decisions
Theory
Theory Base: Heifetz and Linsky
Technical and Adaptive Challenges
Experience Base:
Stakeholders
( “Pay attention to”...)
Begin by scanning for common goals and feelings of shared purpose. Recognize that we have something to learn FROM others and design learning activities so that we can learn WITH one another.
Habits of Interaction
Elements of Interaction
Depth of Interaction

21. Elements of Interaction
Depth of Interaction:
A convening approach to deep engagement
Informing
Networking
Collaborating
Transforming
Sharing or Disseminating; One-way
Exchanging; Two-way
Engaging; Working together over time
Committing to engagement and consensus-building
Experience Base:
IDEA Partnership
Habits of Interaction
Elements of Interaction
Depth of Interaction

22. Elements of Interaction
Ideas to Action
Learning Activities and Tools
Habits of Interaction
Elements of Interaction
Depth of Interaction

23. Organization of Each Section
Leading by Convening
Very brief overview
Text Box with critical content
Text that gives a little more about the content
Rubrics to measure progress
Tools and learning activities
Text Box with critical content on adaptive and technical elements
Plain English
Can be used as a personal guide
As a training resource
Written by stakeholders

24. Very Brief Overview

25. Text Box with critical content

26. Text that gives a little more about the content

27. Rubrics to measure progress

28. Tools and learning activities

29. Exploring the Blueprint through an Issue: Cradle to College and Career
Readiness and Early Learning
Early Childhood
Literacy, Numeracy and Behavioral Health
Level
Elementary
Subject Area Competence , Personal Growth and Active Engagement
Middle School Level
Application of Subject Area Knowledge; Demonstrated Mastery, Choose Own Path
High School Level
Continuous Learning, Personal Mastery, Continuous Adjustment and Openness to Change
Post-secondary and Employment

30. Lunch
Let’s be back in one hour

31. Exploring the Blueprint through an Issue: Cradle to College and Career
Readiness and Early Learning
Early Childhood
Literacy, Numeracy and Behavioral Health
Level
Elementary
Subject Area Competence , Personal Growth and Active Engagement
Middle School Level
Application of Subject Area Knowledge; Demonstrated Mastery, Choose Own Path
High School Level
Continuous Learning, Personal Mastery, Continuous Adjustment and Openness to Change
Post-secondary and Employment

32. Elements of Interaction
Habits of Interaction
Coalescing Around Issues
Ensuring Relevant Participation
Doing the Work Together
Habits of Interaction
Elements of Interaction
Depth of Interaction

33. Coalescing Around Issues
How People Are
Four Simple Questions
Seeds of Trust
Meet the Stakeholders
Begin by scanning for common goals and feelings of shared purpose. Recognize that we have something to learn FROM others and design learning activities so that we can learn WITH one another.

34. Who cares about this issue
Four Simple Questions
Who cares about this issue
and why?
What work is already
underway separately?
These tools may be helpful in creating interaction that helps you move to more and deeper engagement.
Four Simple Questions is a ‘think through’ tool. Used by a team, it permits you to take a broad look at the full array of stakeholders and your potential links to them. Used with groups, it permits you to see the issue from their perspective.
USB/Coalescing Around/Four Simple Questions.pdf
What shared work
could unite us?
How can we deepen
our connections?

35. Elements of Interaction
Habits of Interaction
Coalescing Around Issues
Ensuring Relevant Participation
Doing the Work Together
Habits of Interaction
Elements of Interaction
Depth of Interaction

36. Relevant Participation Has Several Faces: Range, Frequency, and Role
Power differential
Supporters and critics
Players at different levels of scale
Frequency
Episodic or ongoing
Predictable interaction, sufficient to build relationships
Often enough so that stakeholders can take roles
Role
Fixed or shared leadership roles
Everybody comes as a learner

37. Ensuring Relevant Participation
What’s In It for Me?
Engaging Everyone
Learn the Language: Make the Connection
Web of Connections

38. Engaging Everybody
To what extent have you gone beyond the inner circles in your work?
What advantage is to be gained by involving those who might fall into the outer circles.
The outer circles give us greater ‘bandwidth’. The strength of the message reaches more people and connects them actively to your work.
Adaptive leaders learn to translate the core work into ways that many people can contribute.
Adaptive leaders customize messages for broad dissemination in the outer circle and begin a dialogue

39. Elements of Interaction
Habits of Interaction
Coalescing Around Issues
Ensuring Relevant Participation
Doing the Work Together
Habits of Interaction
Elements of Interaction
Depth of Interaction
Transition from Debra to Mariola

40. One-Way, Two Way Learning
Doing Work Together
Problems Come Bundled
Building Engagement
Defining Our Core
One-Way, Two Way Learning

41. Challenges Adaptive Principles Communication Understanding Agreement
Willingness to make personal change
Technical
Experts
Checklists
Manuals
Tools
Protocols
Technical Challenge
Requires information, knowledge or tools
Adaptive (Relationship) Challenges
Requires understanding and a willingness to make behavior changes

42. The Leadership Challenge
Knowing when a persistent problem needs an adaptive (relationship) solution
Learning that technical solutions are necessary but often not sufficient
Building adaptive skills as a part of strategy
Think about how Heifetz describes
“work in a pressure cooker”
relationships as the container that has to be strong enough to ‘hold the pressure’
interaction active enough to keep people engaged until they can make the change”
Let’s listen to Heifetz on Adaptive Leadership

43. Problems Come Bundled
Every issue has both a technical and an adaptive side ... defining both is critical when we want to engage stakeholders. Checking your perceptions is even more important!

44. One Way and Two Way Learning

45. Plotting Learning Activities in Four Quadrants
Informal Learning
From
With
Formal Learning

46. Elements of Interaction
Habits of Interaction
Coalescing Around Issues
Ensuring Relevant Participation
Doing the Work Together
Habits of Interaction
Elements of Interaction
Depth of Interaction

47. Leading by Convening means we….
Convene the stakeholders to discover why a practice is important and how it will improve practice.
“From your perspective....”
“In your experience...”

48. Break
Let’s be back in 15 minutes

49. From Invitees to Allies
Authentic Engagement
Active engagement
Translate complex work into ways that individuals can participate
Everyone is a leader and learner!

50. Bridging Tool: Dialogue Guides
Pat

51. There are gaps between research, policy and practice
Information gaps
Gaps in prior knowledge
Skill gaps
Gaps between the dispositions needed to implement and the dispositions currently held
We must learn how to communicate simply
We must build multiple opportunities for engagement!

52. Dialogue : An important strategy
Pat
Dialogue : An important strategy
To implement IDEA as envisioned we need to develop shared meaning
To create shared meaning, we need to understand what others see in an issue
Dialogue is a way to learn what others see in an issue and share our own perceptions
Stakeholder engagement demands dialogue!

53. What do we mean by ‘Dialogue’?
Pat
Debate
Discussion
Dialogue
Accepts assumptions as Truth
Surfaces various assumptions
Examines
assumptions
Point – Counterpoint
Majority rules; agree to disagree
Seeks common ground; supports consensus
Persuasive
Informative
Reflective

54. How Do We Create Dialogue?
Pat
Invite the stakeholders
Read and reflect on the issues
Exchange perspectives on the issues
Generate Reaction Questions that will permit stakeholders in the field to express their perspective.
Generate Application Questions that will help stakeholders in the field to use the dialogue to build new understanding or take action on an issue.
Offer a Facilitator’s Guide to help others hold dialogue in the field.

55.
Pat
Handout – DG facilitator guide

56. Pat
Reaction questions permit stakeholders in the field to express their perspective.
Reaction questions are intended to help people make their mental models explicit.
They are designed to help people see that there are multiple perspectives that need to be bridged for IDEA to be successfully implemented
Reaction questions should help participants appreciate the differences in perspective across roles and provide insight into the shared interests that could unite them.

57. Sample Reaction Questions Stems
Some sample starters:
Why is ______________important to you …
In terms of program and services
In terms of relationships between ________and _______
In your experience, ________________
What do your colleagues say about ______________

58. Pat
Application questions are intended to help people begin to think about the future state of practice.
Application questions are framed so as to point the way to the involvement of the various stakeholder groups.
Application questions should generate ideas about how to find out what is currently in progress, become more knowledgeable and/or move forward.
Application questions move us toward shared action

59. Sample Application Starter Stems
Recall a time when …. How might the new knowledge have changed that story? How might ….. be expected to respond to the new information? Where will this new information impact practice? How might ….. be better prepared to understand the changes? Do you know what is happening with ….. in your state? How can you find out? Do you know the level of awareness of ….. in your district? Your school? How can you support new understanding?

60. Creating a DG for Local Engagement

61. Creating a DG for Local Engagement

62. Measuring Progress Qualitative Rubrics to Quantitative Comparisons
Using the rubrics, you can begin to reflect on engagement. By inviting stakeholders to participate, you can learn how your stakeholders think you are doing.
Leading by Convening: Bringing It All Together

63. Next Steps: Next Sessions
Choose and issue that is important to your work
Develop a plan to lead with your stakeholders on this issue
Use the session as ‘real time coaching’ or a ‘planning venue ‘ for future work
Participate in survey of individual needs and targeted issues
Participate in November planning webinar for the December session
Receive invitations to participate in national work on bridging tools