Effective Communication: Session 2/3

Hello everyone, I'm Blakely Nielsen, Director of Marketing at Parallel. I'm so excited to kick off session 2 with you, and if you were here for session 1, welcome back, and if this is your first session, welcome. Before we get started, I want to take a moment to recognize and thank each of you for being here today, and also a special thank you to Parallel's district partners who are here with us. As special education leaders, you are changing the landscape of special education. As Tony Robbins once said, the way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives. At its core, special education is about communication. How we connect with students, families, providers, and one another directly impacts outcomes. The way we communicate both interpersonally and with our systems defines the level of support and success we can provide. Today we are honored to have Corey Gollum with us, someone who not only understands the challenges but also reminds us of the why behind everything we do. At Parallel, we believe in fostering that connection. We're not just here to help you with staffing solutions. We integrate with your district, working alongside you to ensure You have access to the best providers, whether it's SLPs, school psychs, special education teachers, or school social workers. We're also here to provide you with resources and keep you up to date on all the latest insights. Part of that commitment means creating spaces for meaningful conversations like this so we can learn, grow, and push boundaries of what's possible. So let's get started, let's be inspired, and most importantly, let's Keep making a difference. Throughout the session, if you have any questions, please put them in the Q&A, and we hope to see you again at session 3. With that, I would love to introduce Corey Gollum. Corey, thank you for being with us here today, and it's truly a gift to hear you speak. You don't just care about special education, you care about the people leading it, making sure they have the tools, the vision, and the support to create real change. Some people work in education, others elevate it, redefine it, and transform it. Corey Gollum is one of those rare leaders who does all 3. With 41 years of experience, including serving as an assistant superintendent, Corey has not only witnessed change, she's driven it forward. She understands that leadership in education isn't just about policies and programs, it's about people, it's about impact, it's about knowing that every decision we make shapes the lives of students, families, and communities. Corey's expertise, the things that matter most: leadership development, communication strategies, and the kind of decision-making that doesn't just move the needle, it changes lives. And for those of us in special education, Corey has always been an advocate passionate about creating inclusive environments where every student has a chance to succeed. Today, Corey is here to help us reconnect with our why, the reason we do the work we do, and to inspire us to lead with intention, clarity, and purpose. With that, I'd love to turn it over to Corey. Thank you.

All right, everybody, so let's go. The only thing I want to say just to begin, first of all, I'm so excited to be here, and I hope that if you were here at the last session that it was meaningful and you got some little key takeaways. But I do want to just share with you that everything I share with you now is truly for educational purposes. I'm not a lawyer, not pretending to be a lawyer, so I'm not giving any legal advice. It's pure educational. So remember last time we talked about your why, your purpose, and the real goal was because when I started many, many years ago, I wish somebody had given me these 3 skills that we're going over in these 3 webinars. And the first one is you have to know why you're doing it. And I hope that when we did the one the last time, some of you got to practice some of those exercises and you all have your clarity and your why of what you're doing. So in this framework, remember, we— I called it the CEO framework because we did clarity of purpose. But today we're going to talk about the enhanced communication skills. And remember, next one in our webinar 3, we'll talk about optimized strategic decision-making. So my goal and what I hope that the outcome of all of this by the end of this series, you're going to know how to lead with a purpose, understanding your core principles. You're going to be able to communicate with impact. And be able to articulate your vision clearly and listen actively. We're going to talk about that today. And then solve problems creatively and decisively so that you can take the critical and creative thinking skills and make really good decisions. So in this module, which is Enhanced Communication Skills, I wish honestly that I had known this because I can tell you when we get into some stories of some things that I did wrong when I started and I'm sure that when you think about real world, and maybe some of you have ever had this experience, I remember being in a team meeting with my peers and our executive director at the time— I was a director— asked us for some solutions on how to solve things. And I remember raising my hand. Well, you didn't raise your hand. It was a small group. But, and I gave my suggestion and it's like nobody heard me. And then maybe 5 or 10 minutes into the conversation, Somebody else said the exact same thing that I had just said. And they're all clapping and excited, thinking, what a great idea. And I'm thinking, wait, something's wrong. Why did they not understand what I said? And that's when I started delving into communication and thinking, it has to be the way that I'm saying it. So maybe I'm not getting it out the way that it should be. And that's why this actual module is really important because I want— I'm hoping that you'll find some tools and strategies to help you with honest and transparent communication. So remember when we sent out the reminder on the invite, there was 3 questions we had on that invite. One of them was reflect on a recent situation where communication within your team was particularly effective or ineffective, and what contributed to that outcome. And then the next one was, what strategies did you find useful for building trust and improving communication with colleagues, parents, or students? And then the last one was, in your opinion, what was the most critical barrier to effective communication in your educational environment? And how have you attempted to address it? So as we go through this presentation, I want to make sure that you kind of think of your responses. Maybe with some of the information I'm sharing, you may change your response of what you said. I'm hoping you'll gain some new insights. And then at the end, join us in the breakout so that we can have face-to-face discussions to your responses, maybe some questions that you're going to get from this presentation. And also what I think is the most important, you're going to network with people from all over the country. So remember, this is going to be about the importance of effective communication and trust building. And I know for myself, there was one of my pet peeves is I have to be able to trust the people I work with, because when you trust them, then you know that what they say is going to happen, and you don't have any, like, expectations that you know can't be met. So let's go to the next part. What is some of the things about effective communication? Why is it important? To have this as we're in educational leadership? Well, one thing is let's look at building trust, because effective communication is going to foster that trust between leaders, your staff, your students, your parents. It's going to create a supportive environment and collaborative because we want collaboration. It's going to enhance your collaboration. Clear communication is going to encourage your teamwork among your educators, and you're going to facilitate the sharing of ideas because that's really important. There is no one answer for everything. There's always different perspectives. You may have some change management. I know there's a lot of that going on right now with all the budget cuts and all sorts of things that are happening. So when you have change or transition, strong communication is going to ensure transparency and help you manage the expectations, hopefully reduce some resistance. It's going to help increase engagement because if you're having communication techniques that can inspire and motivate your team, It'll lead you to enhanced participation and improved outcomes. It'll improve your problem solving and conflict resolution. Open dialogue, active listening will help identify and address issues that are promptly leading to effective resolutions and maintaining a positive district culture. It'll ensure consistency and clarity. Effective communication helps ensure that goals and policies and expectations are consistently articulated and understood by all stakeholders. It'll enhance your professional development because by communicating clearly, leaders can better mentor your staff, your support, and support their professional growth and contribute to a culture of continuous improvement. And lastly, it'll strengthen community relations. I know you will have a lot of meetings with your parents, with your board members, your stakeholders in the community. Strong communications with parents and community will build confidence in the district's leadership and operations and will enhance your public support and involvement. And for me, building trust reminded me of an analogy. And, you know, I don't know, people call this sometimes the circle of life or circle of learning. And, you know, when you first start out, people are doing this for you. You're getting a lot of help. People help you, but then you start doing it for yourself. And then lastly, you're gonna do for others, and that's what I hope this will get you to do. So here's some tools that we're gonna talk about for this one. We're not gonna do all these today, but I just wanted you to have an idea of what we're looking at, because there's 2 main strategies when you're dealing with communication. First, you have to understand your own communication. And then second, you have to understand the behaviors of others and be flexible to adapt to that. Because once you own your— understand your own, you have to be willing to adapt your communication style and behavior to the styles of others so that you can communicate and collaborate with the others. So some strategies you can do are a reflective listening journal. And in this case, you would keep a daily journal and reflect on the conversations that you've had, focusing on how they listen to you and what you could do to improve. The second one is the communication styles assessment. And in this one, there are 2 models. There's several models, but we're only gonna talk about 2 in this presentation. One is the social styles model, which really focuses on understanding your own, but also how you can adapt to the people that you're serving. And then the StrengthsFinder, which is by Tom Rath, he's— that he uses, and we'll get a little bit into that so that you can help actually figure out what is your own communication style. Another tool that you can use is feedback practice. And when you have time, you know, pick somebody that you're very comfortable with and create scenarios that require thoughtful responses to feedback, both giving and receiving it. The 4th one is mindful listening exercises. And for that one, you can do things like listen to a podcast without being interrupted. The best way for me to do that is in my car because then there's no distractions. So I'm just listening inten— well, I hate to say there is a distraction, I'm driving, but I am listening to the podcast and hopefully there's no other noise behind that. And that might help you just focus on listening skills. And of course, there's always storytelling because when somebody tells a story and hopefully it's impacting you a little bit, you start thinking you might want to share a story with somebody that's work-related. Sometimes when I'd come in on Monday mornings, they used— my team used to laugh at me. I would have watched a movie or I would have watched something on television, the news or something. And Monday morning when we're having our meeting, I come in and I say, do you know what I just thought of? I was— and they go, oh my God, here goes Corrie. She must have watched some show that is— but it helps because it creates you a storytelling practice and it gets people engaged to listen to you. So if you can see your screen, don't change your current screen that you're in, but either open up a different window or use your phone and go to menti.com, M-E-N-T-I dot com, and enter the code for this. It's 555720— I'm sorry, 2305. It is at the top of the screen, but I know if you have a smaller screen, it might be hard to see. So again, once you're on menti.com, enter the code 55572305, and then put in, how would you rate the current level of trust and communication within your team? It'll come up like a multiple choice. There you go. Somebody's in there. What you think, are you very high with your trust, high, moderate, low, or very low? Look at them coming in. I love this. And I hope you guys can see what's coming in here. Moderate is kind of the average right now. Oh, we got a little high. That's good. We'll wait a few minutes for people to get them in. I want to say we have like 67 participants right now. That's amazing. So let's see if we can get a few in here and see what the most thing— how you would think. I'm hoping that some of the skills that we learn in here today Will help you guys go from low and moderate to high and very high. Because having trust with your team and communication is one of the best things you can do as a skill. Okay, so it seems like the average is moderate, and we have some that are low. Very good, you guys. Okay, I'm gonna move on. You can keep entering, but I'm gonna just move on for the sake of time a little bit. But I love the input we have. So if you think that or moderate or low, I'm going to introduce you to something called the Social Skills Styles Model. And this is one that's divided into 4 categories. And it's a model that you can use when you're dealing with your team. And the 4 categories you see are analytical, amiable, expressive, and driver. So I'm going to go into a little bit on that so you can look at how it can provide some insights and how you can adapt your style. To better connect with others. And this one was actually developed by Tracome, which is a company in Colorado. And you see it comes into 4 quadrants, the 4 types. And the purpose of this is to enhance self-awareness so that you can understand your own style, but also leaders can be more aware of their communication habits and how they'll be perceived by others. It'll help you with adaptability because learning about different styles will allow leaders to adapt their approach to better connect with your staff, your colleagues, your students, and just promoting effective interactions. It also will improve team dynamics when you recognize and value diverse communication styles. It can help enhance team collaboration and reduce the misunderstandings that, and overall, hopefully improve your team performance. And it'll facilitate conflict resolution, help you understand the underlying preference of each style, will help you in navigating with your team the different conflicts and tensions that you might have, and help you a little more effectively adjust to the communication approaches. So let's look at each one. When you look at the analytical style, this is typically thoughtful, reserved, and slow-paced. People in this analytical quadrant are typically described by others as quiet, logical, and sometimes reserved or cautious. They tend to appear a little bit more distant from others, and they may not communicate unless there's a specific need to. And it's important— and here's some questions I'd like you to ask yourself when you're looking at somebody who has an analytical style. How do you typically gather information before you make a decision? How or what ways would you ensure accuracy in your communications? And then how do you react when faced with unexpected changes? Let's look at the amiable style. This is one that is friendly, supportive, and relationship-focused. People with this style openly display their feelings to others. They appear a little bit less demanding and generally more agreeable than others. They're very interested in achieving a rapport, and they're very relationship-driven. So they're a little more informal, casual, and easygoing. So questions you may ask yourself on this one when you're dealing with your team is, how would you build rapport with your team members? What strategies do you use to resolve conflicts with your colleagues? And then how do you balance emotional support with productivity? The 3rd one is expressive. This is typically people that are very enthusiastic and emotional. People with expressive style, they're a little bit more willing to make feelings known to others. Sometimes they appear to react impulsively because they react showing both positive and negative. And typically they're described as being personable, talkative, sometimes a little bit opinionated. So in this case, questions you may ask is in what ways do you express enthusiasm in your communication? How do you adapt style to include detailed information? And how would you handle criticism or feedback? And then the 4th one is called the driving style. That's controlling, decisive, and fast-paced. People with a driving quadrant or in this section, social style, they're seen by others as direct, Active, forceful, and determined. And this is a tricky one because sometimes they'll come off as being too authoritative because their goal is to get others on track and their objectives are they want to get things accomplished. So one of the things I would suggest for this person, and that's why we're going to do active listening, because sometimes I fall into this category because I just, I'm very analytical, but I like to get things done. So I have to work on active listening. One of the— some of the questions you may ask is, how do you prioritize tasks when you're under pressure? What methods do you use to communicate urgency effectively? And then how would you ensure assertiveness is perceived positively by others? Because especially being a woman, many times when you do things, they'll say you're too assertive. But you want— you're not really assertive. You just want to get the job done, and you want to make sure it's a positive approach. Here's the second strategy that I think is really important, and it's called StrengthsFinder 2.0. This was developed by Tom Rath based on the strength-based leadership of Don Clifton, and it'll help you understand that building your talents and the talents of people around you, you do it through an assessment that's categorized, but he has 34 themes in this. And the purpose of this one, it's gonna highlight unique strengths that you have. This one is really for your own growth and providing insights to how your talents and how to use them to influence communication. The strengths for communication leaders can capitalize on their strengths to enhance communication style by making interactions more genuine and impactful. It's gonna promote authenticity and confidence because when leaders you know, use their strengths to communicate, they're more likely to be authentic and inspire trust and the respect of others. And it's gonna help support team dynamics because by understanding the strengths of your team members, you can assign roles that play on each other's strengths, which will foster, you know, harmonious and productive environment. And it's gonna help guide personal development. The assessment that you'll take will help— you could do this with your team as well— will help leaders set goals for personal growth And ongoing improvement for communication skills and your leadership style. But you must purchase the book because at the end of the book, which I took this assessment, there is a code and a link to this assessment. So I'll give you an example what it's like. And I'm not sure if you can see, but this is the book. I have the book. So one of the— here's my top strengths, which kind of didn't really surprise me. But for me, I was individualization because I'm very intrigued by the unique qualities of people. Um, also analytical, and that's true because I do love data and I go through things, and it's my ability to think about all the factors that might affect a situation. And I know it sometimes drives people crazy when I get like that, but I also— my third one was responsibility and to take ownership of what I say I will do. I'm very committed to stable people knowing that when I say I'm going to do something, I learned it over the years, I do what I say and I say what I do. And I really value honesty and loyalty. Strategic was my 4th one, so that with any given scenario, I can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues. And learner was the 5th one because I do have a great desire to learn and continuously improve. And I love to invest in myself, which I encourage all of you guys to do, is to invest yourself. So take the assessment. And when at the end, when we give you a link to join a community, our community, or even in our chat, or maybe even at the breakout room. If you've already taken it, you can share your strengths with us because we want to focus on leading as strength-based and then reflect on how you can leverage those to improve. So in this one on menti.com, I want you to tell me which communication skills do you find the most valuable for building trust. And again, you will open up another different window. Or on your phone, you can go to menti.com. And the code for this one is 54887903. And I'd like to see what communication skill would you find the most valuable for building trust. And just do one word. Or you can put a couple of words, but because this one comes out like a word cloud. So remember, it's menti.com. .com, menti.com, and the code is 54887903. Yeah, I love honesty and trust. Those are all ones I would say myself. Authenticity. This is great. I'm looking at your screen. I think it's amazing. Ability to listen. Oh, true. Yep, all of these. Honesty is the big one, isn't it? Yeah, consistent is important. Integrity. This is great, you guys. You know, honesty was always one of my things. I mean, people can tell when I'm not telling the truth. They just— I don't have like— I'd never be able to play poker because I don't have a poker face. So I'm honest to the T, and sometimes you have to watch that. But I always will. I mean, that's one of my things. So I love this. This is great. Integrity is also important. This is great, you guys. Wow! I can't wait till we go into the breakout room. And just to remind you guys, don't worry, like in the breakout room, if you don't want to have your camera on, you won't have to. It's really just a wonderful way for you to network, and we can discuss and debrief after this presentation. So this is great, you guys. Honesty and integrity. Those are probably your biggest ones, right? I do see ability to listen and active listening and listening and thoughtfulness. And I want to— these are so important. Because I want to talk to you now about the actual skill of active listening. And for me, this is probably my biggest challenge when I was in leadership and still is today because I came— I grew up in a family of 7 kids and 6 of them are girls and everybody talked at the same time. So my mind was always buzzing and I would listen to you, but then I would already have the solution in my mind and I'd want to blurt it out before you finish talking. So what is active listening? It's, it's the process of fully concentrating and understanding and responding and remember what is being said during the communication. Goes way beyond hearing the words. It's actually involving engagement and acknowledging of the speaker's message. So one of the things it does, it builds trust, and it's gonna foster an environment where people feel heard and valued. It's gonna enhance understanding, reducing misunderstandings and clarify information. So you have helping with effective problem solving, increase empathy because it encourages people to be open with you and so that they know that you're listening and understand their perspective. It improves retention, keep listeners focused on better able to remember the key points and things that happen. So how do you do this? Well, you're gonna practice by maintaining eye contact and show focus and interest in the speaker. Avoid interrupting. Allow speakers to express their thoughts fully. That was a really hard one for me. You wanna be able to give feedback by summarizing or paraphrasing what they've said and give nonverbal cues. So really pay attention to people's body language and tone for context, because if you're looking at them and they're sitting like this, there may be a little bit of anger going on. If they're leaning in, you know that they really wanna share. And also ask clarifying questions so that you can inquire or gain deeper insights to confirm their understanding. So what would this look like if you were going to do this, which I encourage you guys to practice and do this with your team members? Remember, when you're going to do this, you set the intentions by beginning with the goal of understanding and connecting. That's your purpose. You want to have all distractions taken away so that the environment is conducive to listening. You want to employ a response. So you want to make sure that you are— don't just like nod. You may want them to speak a little more. So you say, I hear you, or tell me more about this, because you want to encourage them to be able to speak to you openly and that they trust you. And practice patience. My hardest one to do because I hate silence. Allow the silence to digest information without rushing to respond. And then finally, make sure you give them some feedback on your listening effectiveness from the people that you're practicing with. OK, so let's look at a little scenario of how this works. You had a team leader that faced communication breakdowns causing project delays. So what did he decide to do? He adopted the active listening techniques and transparent communication so that the leader could rebuild trust and enhance efficiency. So that's how you can actually do it. So one thing is to— these are tips for you— that you identify the misunderstandings, schedule a team meeting to discuss any points of confusion. And this is how I know it would work if I gave instructions to my team and everybody got it right, then one person, then I know it's something that he missed or it was a little confused. If the whole team didn't get it, then I know I have to come back and clarify the message and maybe use simpler language, make it clear so that they can understand what is required. And make sure that you're actively listening to what their concerns or questions are. I had a boss who I absolutely adored, and I remember that anytime if we were at a board meeting and when the members come up to speak to the board, he always was focused, leaning in, and paying attention to what these parents had to say versus some of the board members or some of the other people were on their phones. So you knew they weren't paying attention. And I always admired that about him. So also nonverbal communication. Make sure your body language is open and approachable. Don't be like this or don't be standing back. Lean in so that they know you're really listening. And ask for feedback. You want constructive feedback. And you want to encourage team members to express their thoughts and questions for any improvements. So one more Mentimeter. Go to menti.com, M-E-N-T-I dot com. And the code for this one— well, first, here's the question. Well, the code is 1988, 1988-3173. And the question for this one is, what would— what's your biggest challenge in communication within your educational environment? And again, it's menti.com, M-E-N-T-I dot com, and one nine eight eight three one seven three. And put your little put something up there so everybody can see. Time to really listen. That's important. Ooh, lack of trust in yourself. Okay, we'll we'll work on that one. Time. Time is horrible. It's hard. Perception. Oh, staff is closed off. Yeah, that happens. So maybe you can use some of those tools to find out why they are closed off. If you find out what their communication style is by using the social style, maybe you can adapt your style or your mode to work within theirs so they'll understand maybe and get back in. I like this. Being misunderstood. That's probably one of my biggest ones that used to frustrate me a lot. It took many years for me to kind of narrow down and make sure that what I was saying was understood. And the thing you have to remember that if you're being misunderstood is that maybe it's not really what you're saying, but it's how you deliver the message. So that's important. Sometimes the delivery of the message can be taken many ways. That's one of the reasons I always get bothered with texts or emails, because you can't see how the person's personality is coming through. Time is coming up a lot. Yeah. And there's alternative ways to get your thoughts across to your staff. So that's important. This is great, you guys. I really like this. And for time, we're going to move on to the resources. I want to share some resources with you. So role-playing exercises— this is something you guys can practice listening and giving and receiving feedback. I encourage you to watch Brené Brown's On Leadership, Vulnerability, and Courage. She has a YouTube that is just great to watch. And she also has a book so you can dive deeper, Leadership Qualities That Promote Trust and Engagement. Or that's Brené Brown. The book I think is great that she has is Dare to Lead. If you have Netflix, you might want to watch The Call to Courage, her next Netflix special. There's a segment on trust and vulnerability that I think has great insights on the call to courage. So I think that would be really great for you. And we will have— we do have a community for this. When you get your resource page, it'll say join the Integrated Ed community, and then we can go back and forth and learn a little bit more about this. So before I end, there's some reflective questionings I want you to think about. So what are the main causes of communication breakdowns in a team? How does active listening help a team leader build— rebuild trust? And then you can mention 2 key outcomes of transparent communication within the team. So that's when I talked about, you know, like, think about this. Have you ever said something that was so misunderstood That even autocorrect couldn't save you. That's why we were here today. So I'm hoping that this clears up a lot of your communication hiccups. And I'm excited to see what your questions are gonna be when we come into the breakout. So we'll get into that. But right now, I'm gonna turn this over back or turn it back into for Blakely to get us into the breakout.

Corey, thank you so much for that wonderful presentation. It was so great. And we're about to go into the breakout room, so I'll push everyone over there. But before, um, we go into the breakout rooms, I just wanted to take a moment to thank Corey for leading this series. And then also, um, you know, I tell you a little bit about Parallel. At Parallel, we believe in thinking differently when it comes to special education. We're not staffing solution. We're an extension of your on-the-ground team. We know how much you're juggling as a leader, and it's our goal to keep you on the prepared path with a flexible, customized approach. And we really do value communication with our districts. Our customer success team is always on it. They're always communicating because communication is key. With our top-tier accredited SLPs, school psychs, social workers, and special education teachers, we help districts build solutions that truly work for their unique needs. Our team would love to meet with you, so I'll put in the chat a link where you can actually meet with one of our team members. I encourage you to take 60 seconds to fill out this form if this is something that can be of interest to your district. No pressure. But with that, you know, we hope that you will come on camera if you can. We know some of you may be really busy, and there's no pressure, but I'm going to Open up the breakout room, and everyone can head over there. So we'll have a discussion.

And I want to so Blakey, I just want to encourage people to go into it and don't worry. I know that you may be at work and you don't want to have your video on, but if for anything else, it's a great way to network because this is people.