Negotiating for Change in Your Organization with Daniel Bauer

Hey, everyone, and welcome to our Throwback episode. In our Throwback episodes, we are reintroducing you to some of our most popular episodes. This is great for new listeners who want to learn more about the work we've done in the past. And it's a great refresher if you've been a listener for a long time. Enjoy.

Danny Sunshine Bower. That's what I call myself. I added that sunshine part because, Kwame, you know, life gets tough at some point. You know, it's tough and it could break you down. But the thing for me is that I always wanted to remind myself, even though the clouds may be here, the storms might be happening right now, there's sunshine always around the corner. But I've been in education for, I think, 17, 18 years now. I've had the role of teacher of instructional coach, assistant principal and principal. And now I've transitioned from that working within local schools and districts to running my podcast full time. Better Leaders, Better Schools. And I get to coach 37 or 38 school leaders from instructional coach all the way up to superintendent and masterminds. And that's really become my life's work. I have a quote that I love, which is, everyone wins when a leader gets better. And my former pastor, Bill Hybels used to share that at the Global Leadership Summit that Willow Creek puts on. When I heard that quote for the first time, it's like lightning struck me and I really started to focus on leadership. So now this is what I do. So I put out the free podcast every week. And I also work with my clients on a weekly basis as well.

That's phenomenal. And another interesting thing about you, tell them where you are.

Right now, I'm in Antwerp, Belgium, man. So it's like, not that the listeners are here, it's not a live podcast, but it's 3:30 here, and I think you're in America. Are you Central Time?

No, Eastern.

Eastern. So it's probably like 8:30 or 9:30 by you.

So.

Yeah. Yeah. So I've been here for two weeks. My wife's job brought us here. She's working at the University of Antwerp. She studies epidemics and what kills us. So it's not anything I'm interested in other than her keeping me alive. And since I have these awesome school leaders I work with, we do it virtually over zoom. I can work from anywhere. So as long as I have Internet and my laptop, we're good to go.

That's awesome. The main reason I wanted to get you on the show Is because I know you have been put in situations in the past where you're trying to bring people on board to a new agenda that might be difficult for them to accept or understand. And so within those complex organizations of schools, you run into resistance. And so I wanted you to talk a little bit about how you've been able to break through. So tell us a little bit about the resistance you faced in the past. When it comes to instituting some new.

Agendas, I think you should expect resistance. Right. Any change is hard. And you think about just change in your own personal life, whether it's starting to work out a little more frequently or changing your diet. You might turn into a toddler and have a bit of a tantrum. You know, you're talking about your son having a bit of, you know, an issue and getting him to school a little bit late. And now we're recording the podcast. When we were moving to Belgium, Miriam was so frustrated about some stuff and shipping boxes. She told me to pull the car over so she could jump off the bridge. Right. So listen, when change is going to happen, you're going to throw tantrums. I'm here in Belgium now. The climate is much different than Texas. The other day we got caught, Kwame, in the worst rainstorm and that I've ever been in. And it was cold and we were supposed to catch a train from Antwerp to Brussels. And the storm was so just ferocious. Everybody was taking public transportation. So we missed the train. We missed the train, missed the train. Not because we weren't there, because we couldn't get in. And then the wind blew so hard, it blew my umbrella, you know, like inverted it. And so I freaked out. I melted down. And that's because change is hard. I'm not used to the climate yet. So, you know, thinking about my organization, whenever we had to go through large scale change, and let's say that would be moving to standards based grading, to be specific in education or problem based learning, project based learning, that kind of thing. That was a dramatic shift, a complete paradigm shift for my people. And I think it's healthy to remember just the small examples from your own personal life that change is hard. People are going to get frustrated and you should expect resistance. If you don't get resistance and change is happening, then people are lying to your freaking face, in my opinion. I read a book recently and hopefully I'll be able to share some things I've learned from it. It's a must read. And I know that you're passionate about negotiations. The Book is never Split the Difference. Have you heard that one?

Yeah. Chris was on the show.

No way. So, I mean, come on, he's the exper. I learned so much from Chris in that book. Just in terms of the three yeses, right? In terms of there's a yes, right? That is just like, hey, okay, I hear you. There's a yes. That's confirmation. There's a yes that you do to just like push somebody away. And then there's the actual commitment. And that's what you're going for. And so that's why I'm saying you should, you should absolutely expect resistance. Because if you don't have it, it's just like Chris says, there's. You're just getting that yes and it's a fake yes. It's not a yes or commitment. It's just. Can you please stop talking? We'll pretend we're going to go through with the initiative, but we're just going to do what we want when we close the doors to our classroom.

That's brilliant. And you know, that ties in perfectly with what these studies are showing about when it comes to people who are doing, like you said, on diets. When people are on diets, they broke them into two groups. One group was told to just be 100% positive, just think about only the positives. And the other group was told to think about the potential barriers that you were going to go through. And the group that thought about the negatives ended up doing better than the people who thought strictly positive because managing your expectations in that way allows you to have more resilience. And when it comes to persuasion, especially in cases like yours, when you're dealing with big institutional change, you need to be resilient and hang into these conversations. So that's a really great point. Resistance is nothing in order to truly make change.

You have a healthy perspective too about what research shows in terms of organizational change. And when I was in graduate school, I remember reading in elementary schools it might take 3 to 5 for change to actually happen. And then in an upper school, middle or high school secondary, you have five to seven years to actually let the change take a hold. And when I was working in high schools, that's what we saw. We instituted standards based grade in year one and it wasn't until like year three and year four that we were really firing on all cylinders and people were less resistant. They weren't necessarily firing against us. And a lot of it is just that it takes time to communicate what these initiatives entail as a Leader, you can't expect people to just hear this change, be wildly passionate about it, and then run with it so quickly. Right. Without the training that's necessary and the failures that are necessary. So we can learn from mistakes, regroup, and really figure out, like, what is it that my people need to be successful regarding this initiative, this change.

So what are some specific examples of resistance you've run into when you're trying to implement these types of things?

One example that really took me aback because something that's foundational to me is I wanted to create an environment where people felt cared for at work, where their great work was celebrated and acknowledged in public and private fashion. And I remember just wanting to put together a committee that would identify the amazing work happening within the organization. And then through an email newsletter, through staff meetings, through parent meetings, I mean, through all these different avenues, plaques and everything, gifts. I wanted to celebrate my people. And the last school I worked at, there was a section of the staff resistant to celebrating success. That really took me aback. That's a specific example. So I'm sure you wanna know, like, what did I do in this sense. Yeah. Again, it's like knowing that it's going to take time. And I think since I was brand new to the organization, one of the things that you have to realize as a leader, you can't do too much too fast, and you have to do your homework, which I thought I did. Understanding the culture of where your organization is and where they've come from, and the change can't be too far on the other spectrum. You're going to have more resistance probably than usual. I thought I did the homework and I thought I was doing something okay. But I probably, if I'm honest, probably could have learned a little bit more about the culture and how they wanted to be celebrated. The other thing that really caught me by surprise, I was new to the building. Somebody I was told had a lot of political power and influence right within the school. She was telling me how upset everybody was with this new initiative. And I took what she said to be true instead of running that idea, or what some leaders call floating the balloon and just seeing, like what happens when you put a message out there through someone and how people respond, that wasn't true. Actually, a lot of the people like the new initiative and the celebrations and what she was sharing was kind of her personal take on things and some of the more older and senior teachers that didn't necessarily want this feel good celebration sort of culture. So once I had that information, I stuck to my guns and let it just play out through time. Continued to resource the group that was in charge of the celebrations and decided to keep my focus there. I figured if people did start to feel the positives of being celebrated and acknowledged for their good work, we would win over anybody that was on the fence. And then there's some folks that you just got to know you're never going to win, and that's okay. So are you willing to stand in that discomfort and be comfortable within that tension if it's something that's core to your leadership principles? So, for me, this is something I really wanted to see, and so I was okay with that. And that maybe harmed that relationship a bit, but that's okay because that was just one individual and it won over so many other people.

And I love this example, and there are two main things I want to pull out from it. The first one is the fact that oftentimes the first negotiation we have to have is for information. It takes a little bit of persuasive skills to be able to get people to be open and comfortable enough with you to share that information. But the reality is, a lot of times there's no amount of research you can do that can find those nuances that can only be found within the minds of other people. It's like you said, you needed to learn more, and now if you had to be put in that same situation again, you would approach it a little bit differently still, with the ultimate goal being the same, but getting more information first. And then the second part is the importance of understanding numbers and who you can win and who you can't. It's almost like a lifeguard. Sometimes you save who you can, and then if somebody's going down and you realize that you would put your own life in jeopardy, or is the missions in jeopardy for it, sometimes you kind of have to let it go. But when it comes to organizations like this, coalition building is important. And so you realize that those people, if you're able to get the majority on board with you, it wouldn't really matter because those other people who you couldn't bring on would have to go with the flow anyway. Because just by sheer numbers and by persuading the people that you knew you could persuade, they would have to get on board regardless.

Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, unfortunately, when I had to leave, right, to come to Belgium, not everybody cried. Right. Those are the people I didn't win over. But there were folks with. And only being at that school for a year that, you know, there were tears. And we had general compassion for each other. We loved each other. Right. They literally said that, don't leave. We love you. You know, and I don't need to be a leader. That's necessarily love. But I've obviously brought it up a bit in terms of celebrating people and wanting to connect. So this is something important to me. But it just showed. It showed that I had been connecting and doing what I needed to do with the people that I had identified, that I could influence and the folks that I knew I wasn't going to be able to reach. Well, we didn't cry over spilled milk, you know, when I transitioned. And that's okay, right?

Man, this has been great. This has been really helpful. Before you go, I want you to tell the audience what you think is one thing that they can do in the next week to be more persuasive within their organizations.

To be more persuasive. I think really just. It's so funny because I'm reading about leadership, I'm reading about influence, I'm reading about empathy. I'm reading about marketing. I'm reading this book, right? Never split the difference. All of it has to do with understanding who that other person is. And so I would say dig deep and do as much research to really think from that other person's perspective. Try to understand what lights them up, right? What inspires them to come to work or not, what are their biggest frustrations and pain points, what are their greatest successes, and go through some type of mindful exercise to get that perspective. And that will absolutely make you more persuasive tomorrow.

I love that. And just to add one thing to that, I would say also recognize which assumptions you have about the other person's motivations, because a lot of times we have. I'm not sure which episode is going to come first, but we're going to have an episode on confirmation bias. And a lot of times we filter the information that we receive through our own lens, and it. It changes the color of what's coming in. And so instead of really seeing what's out there, we're filtering it through our own biases and perceptions. So recognize what's inside of you and then open yourself up completely to receive what's inside of them.

Yeah, Kwame, I just had to add on to that just really quick, but it's so important to have some type of personal board of directors, like a mastermind. And Kwame, you shared on the pre chat, you know, you're in a group for podcasters wanting to grow their shows reach more people, add more value to folks lives, and for me, I get to work with school leaders in the mastermind setting. I'm glad you brought up that bias you talked about because yes, you want to hear things the way it would make sense to you and make you feel good. And so when you got other people that you know though are rooting for you and your success, but also can call you out on your stuff objectively because they want you to win. When you have that safety belt and that trust, you can break through that bias and not let those assumptions bite you in the butt.

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