In this solo episode, Natalie honors the Halloween season by describing five ghastly ghouls haunting our schools: phantom policies, zombie meetings, dementor processes, and the control and avoidance poltergeists. Learn what they are and how to defeat them! 💬 Continue the conversation with Natalie on Twitter or Instagram 🎧Listen to the podcast episode that inspired this episode: “Slaying your Organizational Debt Monster.” 🎥Watch Rodney Evans describe organizational debt. ✊ Join our Facebook group for community, connection and allies. ✨Get on the list for advance tickets for the Empowerment Ecosystem Summit! Show Notes:
- Organizational debt is the policies, practices and ways of working that are no longer serving their purpose, leading to bureaucracy.
- Phantom policies are born of a idiosyncratic mistake and scare teachers from more meaningful practice (e.g. teachers must have 5 entries per week in their grade book).
- Zombie meetings are routine meetings that have lost their soul. (e.g. PLC meetings).
- Dementor processes suck the life out of creativity and innovation. (e.g. committees as a part of the change process).
- The control poltergeist haunts leaders lacking connection and leads to a culture of permission.
- The avoidance poltergeist haunts leaders who feel unsafe and leads to a culture of influence.
- The fix to all of these issues is the thing we tend to avoid in our workplaces, tough conversations (with ourselves and others).
