Creating the Conditions to Thrive: Lessons From the PGP Program

By Josh Cobb, Head of School

When we began our professional growth partner (PGP) program at Graland, we intended to restore the fabric of our entire educator community after the strain of the pandemic. By including all faculty and staff (all educators), we came together and built relationships throughout the school, no matter what role you had in educating children. While those relationships were strengthened, we also looked to inspire individuals to strive toward a professional and personal vision, ideally to thrive. What we did not expect was that our work with the PGP program would begin to define our overall approach to professional growth. As we all experienced the program, either as coaches or coachees, three core elements of the program manifested to not only the PGP program, but to all professional development endeavors—belonging, empathy, and agency.

Our strategic plan visual shows a culture of belonging encircling the three key components of our community: empower educators, inspire students, and engage families. It makes a clear statement that belonging is required to thrive. In the PGP program, it is also essential that each coach intentionally co-creates a container of belonging with their coachee. This container refers to everything from the place they meet to a defined, shared purpose. While establishing those agreements, the coach places the coachee at the center. Similar to how a teacher places students first and asks what is best for them, this partnership focuses on the needs of the coachee and looks to ensure that they feel cared for, seen, and valued. Ali Waggener ’94 Boyd, a consultant from Evolve Leadership Partners who has trained our PGP coaches, who are also administrators at Graland, over the last two years, introduced us to a book, “Helping People Change: Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth” by Richard Boyatzis, Melvin Smith, and Ellen Van Oosten. The book captures the tenets that have been guiding the PGP program, including the importance of centering the coachee: “Our point is this: to help other people, we have to focus on them, not on our vision of how we think things should be. We have to understand them. To understand them, we have to talk to them and discover their views of the world, their situation, and how they feel.” The focus on understanding creates that culture of belonging and resonates with our character attribute of empathy and its associated behavior, “seek to understand.”

To seek to understand and develop empathy, the coach needs to rely on being present, asking open-ended questions, and active listening (another behavior from our character framework). A 2018 study by researchers Guy Itzchakov and Avi Kluger “advocate(s) that attentive, empathic listening encourages others to feel relaxed, be more self-aware, and expand their capability to openly reflect.” These strategies, based on curiosity and empathy, not only help create that container of belonging, but also help trigger the “positive emotional attractor” (PEA) network; a neural network that enables a generative learning mode. Ultimately, if the coach does give their full focus to the coachee, they will feel awash with kindness. Receiving this compassion also provokes the PEA. Once a coachee’s PEA is enlivened, they are more open to possibilities and the awe, gratitude, and discovery that comes from lifelong learning. As Boyatis, Smith, and Van Oosten assert, “The PEA enables us to thrive by activating stressalleviating hormones that produce feelings of safety, hope, and even joy.” Throughout our training with Boyd, we have all seen the potential of creating spaces devoted to stimulating the PEA and thereby reaching our strategic goal of empowering educators.

Inspiring the PEA–and its associated feelings of safety, hope, and joy–is a first step to empower both the coach and coachee. From there, the efforts of the coach focus on agency because as Boyatzis et al. suggest, “People tend to change their behavior when they want to change and in the ways they want to change. Without an internal desire to change what or how they behave, any noticeable differences are often short-lived.” By asking open-ended, non-judgmental questions, the coach looks to discover where the coachee would like to arrive and what destination the coachee wants to achieve. Once that vision is clear, the coach looks to the coachee to share the steps needed to realize their goals and then returns to those steps in subsequent meetings to understand their impact and to hear the reflections of their partner. By avoiding fixing the problem or immediately giving advice, the coach ensures that the path to the destination is defined by the coachee. Researcher Angela Passarelli, director of research at the Institute of Coaching, McLean/Harvard Medical School, found that “vision-based coaching (coaching that emphasizes the PEA) left participants feeling more uplifted emotionally, reporting higher quality relationships with their coaches and setting a higher number of goals.” Across Graland, these coaching techniques look to build individual agency and intrinsic motivation throughout all educators as they strive toward their professional or personal vision and ultimately enhance the educational experience of students.

Graland’s guiding principle, Pursue Excellence, reflects a tradition of striving. We want this ethos of continuous improvement to be reflected in our students and our educators, and we want it to manifest from the spirit of lifelong learning. That is why we chose the word “Thrive” to sit in the center of our strategic plan visual. Our pursuit of excellence must be sustainable. Similar to the behavior associated with the attribute of adaptability, we all aspire to embrace a growth mindset and look for opportunities to grow. For educators and students, the elements of belonging, empathy, and agency ensure the sustainability of that pursuit. Without feeling acknowledged and understood for who you are and without feeling efficacy in the pursuit of your goals, it is easy to feel powerless. The PGP program looks to empower educators in their sustained and healthy pursuit of excellence.

As we have learned and lived the philosophy of the PGP program, its potential impact expands beyond the program itself into other arenas, including peer observations, instructional coaching, and sphere transitions, specifically, by honoring the impact of the PEA on an individual’s growth. Our compensation model sets up a growth trajectory for lead faculty that begins at the professional sphere and moves through the distinguished, the influential, and the transformative spheres, each defined by a clear set of criteria emphasizing the values of classroom mastery, innovation, collaboration, and leadership. A sphere transition occurs when a faculty member decides to apply to advance from one sphere to another. When their application is approved, they launch into a ten-month process to demonstrate their growth in three specific criteria of that subsequent sphere. On this journey, they are supported by a team of three individuals, their advocate (usually their direct supervisor), a feedback partner of their choice and a feedback partner of their advocate’s choice. Like the PGP program, it is essential for their advocate to center the process on the individual going through the sphere process and make sure they feel supported. Though the scope of these conversations may be much more narrow than the holistic discourse of the PGP program, it still relies on triggering the PEA by emphasizing belonging, empathy, and agency.

As I look at other elements of our professional learning programs through the lens of the PGP program, I am excited about how the lessons learned from this initiative will help us achieve the strategic objective to foster a collaborative culture of growth. The more educators can feel empathy, belonging, and agency while they strive toward their professional and personal vision, the more our students and, therefore, our families will benefit. The synergy of the strategic plan will spin towards a thriving community.