Have you Found the Right Environment to Grow Personally and Professionally? Law of Environment

Your environment plays a big part in how much you you grow.

Have you ever heard the old tale of the goldfish? The one that says that if you put a goldfish in a bowl it will always stay the same size, but put them in a pool and they will grow to a foot long and ten pounds? Well I have to tell you it is somewhat of a myth! It is true that the fish will grow to different sizes, but it has little to do with the size of the tank.  I did some research on this. Does the fish sense that it cannot grow any bigger because of the size of its tank?  No!  It turns out that the growth of the fish is directly related to the quality of the water.  Think about it - when you keep a fish in a bowl, there is no filtration, no aeration to provide oxygen, there are few nutrients, and the fish is fed one basic food.  But the fish in the pond has limitless opportunities. Plants in the water provide oxygen, there are a wide variety of nutrients, and the ecosystem provides a system to clean the water on constantly.  So it’s funny that we think that the fish stays small because of the size of the tank, when actually the fish is malnourished. It simply is not surrounded by an environment for growth.

When I was a young man, in high school and into my first couple of years of college, I was a line cook at a restaurant in my home town.  I learned the entire menu and I became an asset on the staff because I could run all the stations. I had the grill station down, where I made some great steaks and ribs, the saute, where I pan fried fresh fish out of Lake Michigan, and I could do the wheel, who worked the fryer and flat top, made the plates up.  I thought I was a kitchen all star.  So one day, back in college, I went on an overnight field trip to a science center, and, because I asserted my kitchen prowess, I was nominated to be in charge of making breakfast for 25 people.  I had a moment of humility when I realized that I didn’t actually know how to make bacon, biscuits, and certainly not eggs to order! Breakfast wasn’t on the menu at my restaurant.  The cooking environment I was in was limited to about 20 items, but those were the only 20 things I could cook! I had ascended to become a big fish in little pond, so to speak, and with nowhere to grow, I became complacent.

Sometimes you need to change environments in order to grow.  Now how could I have learned more cooking skills?  I could have worked at other restaurants, been around different cooks, more menu items, but what I did was reach the top of my environment, and settled. I did not have the perspective to look outside to grow, until that moment when the bacon was half raw and half burnt to a crisp.

The best place to learn is when you are surrounded by people that are better than you. If you are at the head of the class, you need a new class.  Confucius is quoted as saying - if you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room. But what I learned in rereading this chapter this week, is not necessarily that you need to surround yourself with people that are smarter than you.  It’s that you need to surround yourself with people that are growing more than you.  It’s the hot poker principle - how do you get a poker hot? You put it next to the fire.  How do you light your mind on fire? You get yourself around other people who are thinking big. 

I once asked an ecology professor at Yale, who had taught at all levels of higher ed, what made the difference between teaching at Yale and at a directional state school like the one I went to.  I’ll never forget what he told me - he said, “I enjoyed teaching at a community college because people are there on nights and weekends doing whatever it takes because they value the degree, but at the Ivy League school people value the learning.  The difference is, at Yale, the end of the class is the beginning of the discussion.” What an amazing environment that is to have people all around that are inspired to take the learning farther.

So let’s talk a little about schools.  How can you as a school leader create an environment of growth?

1.  First and foremost, I think you have to model it. Talk about what you are reading.  Tell everyone. Set the example for personal growth. My poor friends and coworkers, are subjected on a daily basis to hearing me go on and on about the podcast I listened to in the car on the way to where ever I got.   
2. Second, seek hungry and passionate people through the interview.  Skip the “philosophy of education” and “what are your strengths and weaknesses” routine.  Ask questions about their life outside work and see if matches their work.  If your science teacher volunteers at the Durham Museum of Life and Science on the weekend, thats a good sign. If they spent last weekend at the Smokey Mountain National Park, they use their free time to grow or practice their content. If they do not spend their weekends either outside in nature or watching the Discovery Channel when they are inside, maybe thats a red flag! 
3. Third, help people work in their strength zone. The quickest way to kill growth is to require someone to spend a majority of their time in an area that they don’t care about!  
4. One more - let them pick their PD!  It’s your job as the principal to identify trends and pick whole staff PD, but to foster individual growth, ask the teachers what they want to get better at! Let people that care about STEM to the STEM camp, send your classroom culture expert to Ron Clark Academy, and bring a future administrator to the regional principal consortium to meet other principals and hear the conversations we have about problem solving.

You want people that seek out growth in your organization because there are 3 groups of people, and if you are not intentional about picking your people, they make up 3 equal parts.

The first, are your pessimistic people that always see the bad in the situation.  They get stuck on why you can't rather than why maybe you can, and they are your energy consumers.

Next there are your energy neutral friends.  Where when the going is good, they are happy and they are contributing.  These folks will help the school or the organization in the good times, but when the bad times come, they flip to the dark side and latch onto the fear and the uncertainty.

Finally, the last third are your leaders, influencers, and your energy producers.  These people set the expectation that they can take control of their attitude and can always choose to look at failures as opportunities, when things get hard. 

So, if you are the average of the 5 people you hang around most - Jim Rohn said, then think about where they fall in those thirds.

If in your core 5 you have 3 energy consumers and 2 energy neutral, look out because it will have hard to grow in that environment.  

If your 5 are all influencers and energy producers, hold on tight.  You are going on a wild ride of growth, if you can keep up.

Think about that as a school staff of 30.  If you are not intentional about surrounding yourself with growth minded people, you would have 10 in each category on your staff.  10 pulling the school down, 10 pushing the school forward, and 10 just seeing which way the wind is blowing.  What if you were able to recruit and retain a staff of 30 energy producers.  It would be like at Yale, where the end of class is the beginning of the conversation.  Where growth multiplies upon itself due to a culture that is inescapably moving forward.

Leaders are responsible to create an environment of growth for others.  Does your leader provide a growth rich environment for you?  Are you greeting an environment for growth for your team?

Get out your pen and paper, and number it 1 - 10 and for each of the following statements, marking true or false about the environment where you work.  

1 - Others are ahead of me 

2 - I am continually challenged 

3 - My focus is forward 

4 - The atmosphere is affirming 

5 - I am often out of my comfort zone 

6 - I wake up excited 

7 - Failure is not my enemy 

8 - Others are growing 

9 - People desire change 

10 - Growth is modeled and expected  

If you answer false to more than half, you need to change your environment to reach your potential. But remember, that’s only half the battle.  

If you change your environment, but not yourself, your growth will be very slow.

If you change yourself, but not your environment, your growth will speed up some, but will still be limited.

It is only when you change both yourself and your environment that you can grow as much as possible.

If you can be honest with yourself, you can find your best place for growth by evaluating yourself based on these three questions:

• Do you have the right soil to grow in: What nurtures you?  What do you like - songs, ideas, rejuvenating experiences, recollections, books that changed you. Is your life focused on these, and if you have none, are you seeking them out?
• Do you have the right air to breathe in: What is your purpose?  What makes you get up at the alarm clock and not hit snooze.
• Do I have a climate that sustains me:  Do the people around me challenge me? Who is in your inner circle and are they moving forward with you?

Adapted from John Maxwell’s Law of the Environment from The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth

This blog was written by Geoff Gorski