Table 1.3: Seven Qualities of High-Performing Groups—Self-Assessment Inventory
| Quality | Questions for Individual Group Members | Comments |
| Maintain a clear focus. | Am I clear about our purpose? | |
| Is this comment or contribution contributing to our purpose? (Do I really need to say this?) | ||
| Should refocus the group at this point? | ||
| Embrace a spirit of inquiry. | Am asking questions to which have an answer? | |
| Am open to the influence of others’ perspectives? | ||
| What might be avoiding or leaving out? | ||
| Put data at the center. | How do these data influence my thinking and comments? | |
| What other sources might add to our thinking? | ||
| What don’t I understand at this point? | ||
| Honor commitments to learners and learning. | How do keep learning as the priority? | |
| In what ways am achieving my current goals in my classroom and with my group? | ||
| What new goals might set for my own learning? | ||
| Cultivate relational trust. | What makes me feel safe or not in this group? | |
| How am I making it safe for others? | ||
| Am following through on my commitments? | ||
| Seek equity. | Am talking too much? Too little? | |
| Do others have space to share? | ||
| Am I able to set my own preferences and judgments aside to consider others’ ideas? | ||
| Assume collective responsibility. | How am demonstrating my investment in this group? | |
| How is my participation affecting others in the group? | ||
| In what ways are the connections and linkages between my work and my colleagues’ work making a difference for students? |
For most groups, there is a tension between investing time in capacity building and completing the immediate task; many complete the immediate task at the expense of capacity building. Yet when groups only focus on their work, their skill and resource levels remain static. High-performing groups recognize that meeting the complex challenges and commitment to ongoing improvement of student learning requires equal commitment to their own growth.
Data Story: Committing to Group Growth
It is midyear at Prairie View Elementary School. The fourth-grade team has a weekly forty-five-minute work session and has been working together for two years. This year, two new teachers have joined the six-member group. The group members have targeted math as an area for improvement. While all agree that their work has been productive, they want to continue to develop as a high-performing group. Using the Scaled Group Inventory (page 21) as a basis for dialogue, the team members have established goals for their own growth as they explore math data.
Based on their conversation, they have selected two qualities: (1) maintaining a clear focus and (2) developing relational trust, as their goal arenas for the year. At this point in their development, they have agreed to focus on effectively using time (digression management) and ensuring a sense of emotional safety for all members as key growth areas.
To assess time use, they have agreed to create a rotating role of process observer. This group member, while engaging in the task at hand, will keep a record of both on- and off-task or topic time use. They will use these data comparatively from meeting to meeting to determine their increasing efficiency.
Keeping data at the center, they will also use an exit survey format at the end of each meeting. Each team member will respond to two stems to assess growth in relational trust.
1. Something that made me feel safe during this meeting is __________.
2. Something I did to make others feel safe is __________.
The team members preserve twenty minutes of processing time every other meeting to discuss their own growth.
“Look at the graph for our on- or off-task time use. On-task time is increasing, but not very rapidly.”
“Yes, I expected by this time of year we would have at least 90 percent of our time on task, but it’s only 65 percent.”
“Maybe 90 percent isn’t realistic, given that we do need some decompression conversation and to connect about stuff that happens between meetings.”
“Well, let’s say we aim for 80 percent, what can we do to meet that target?”
“How about using a visible timer, a signal when we meander off topic, or both?”
“And let’s reserve five minutes at the beginning of each meeting for some social interaction, catching up and touching base—then get down to business.”
“So, for our next meeting, let’s have a little bell in the middle of the table that anyone can access if the conversation strays away from the topic and see how that works.”
“Yes, and let’s have a coffee and conversation space at the beginning of our session—but let’s be sure to keep it to five minutes.”
“Maybe that’s where the public timer could come in, as well!”
Once the group has agreed to some action related to its time-use goal, the members explore their data on relational trust. They put the exit slips from the last two meetings on the table and sort them into categories.
“It seems that there are some consistent examples of things that increase our emotional safety, like not being interrupted or feeling like we have a space to speak, which come up in more than half of the responses; not interrupting others appears frequently as well.”
“That’s