This morning, I got one from the folks at Blue Ocean Strategy. They’re a business strategy consulting firm, and I’m not sure exactly when or why I signed up for their email. But I’m grateful I did!

Today’s email had a link to this Harvard Business Review article that they wrote back in 2003 about a concept called “Fair Process.” As I read it, I felt my understanding and awareness shift in some really important ways. “Outcomes matter” to people, say Kim and Mauborgne, the authors, “but no more than the fairness of the processes that produce them.” And fair process, as they define it, has three key elements that they call

• Engagement
• Explanation
• Expectation Clarity

“Dan Flavin – Structure and clarity – Tate Modern Museun London” by www.twin-loc.fr is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

As soon as I saw that list, even before I read their definitions of the terms, it hit me: that’s the missing piece!

If you’re a teacher, and you’re feeling Stuck and frustrated and unappreciated by your administrators, colleagues, parents, and students – if you’re pretty sure or very sure that you want out of education as a field – at least one of those elements is probably missing. If you’re a language teacher and you – or your students – are Stuck, Stuck on a particular concept or Stuck at a particular level of proficiency, at least one of those elements is probably missing. If you’re a homeschooling family and you’re Stuck, with a child who wants to learn a particular subject and “can’t” with the tools and resources you can access, same issue: at least one of those fair process elements is probably missing. Same issue if you’re an adult learning a language on your own and you’re Stuck on a concept or Stuck at a level of proficiency.

Stuck usually means at least one of those three elements is missing, or there isn’t the right amount of it to meet your needs.

Sometimes all three are missing and the situation is almost intolerable. If you read the whole article, they have a long, painful Story about that. Sometimes two are missing and it’s “just” painful and unpleasant. Sometimes one is missing and it “just” hurts to deal with.

Since you’re reading this, I bet you feel in your heart that expectation clarity is missing from your problem situation. When there isn’t expectation clarity, an IT – a seemingly unsolvable problem or unachievable result – is right around the corner. And as we discovered earlier in this blog series, where there’s an IT, there’s usually a missing Spark. And where there’s a missing Spark, the pain is deep – it’s an Identity-level pain because the Spark lights the way to the identity-level gift that is yours.

Are you ready to locate that Spark and see where it’s leading you?

“Mosaic depicting theatrical masks of Tragedy and Comedy, 2nd century AD, from Rome Thermae Decianae (?), Palazzo Nuovo, Capitoline Museums” by Following Hadrian is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

I tend to tell story fragments in these posts, little bits of the Story that D, Q, M, E, and their alphabetically-disguised counterparts have told me. And you may have noticed that I’m not the protagonist when I tell those coaching and teaching stories, those stories of transformation. Sometimes D, Q, M, or E is the protagonist. Sometimes the real protagonist is the coaching process. When I tell stories of my Latin learners, the protagonist is sometimes the learner, sometimes the subject matter.

But a lot of teachers, especially the teachers who are Stuck and Frustrated, are telling a different kind of Story. A lot of teachers are telling a teaching and learning story where they’re either the Protagonist, if things go well, or the Persecuted Victim, if things go badly.

I get it! That’s what it feels like in your Personal Story! And your Personal Story is important.

But your Personal Story isn’t your Teaching Story. Your Personal Identity isn’t your Professional Identity. Your Teaching Story, your Professional Story, isn’t all about you the way your Personal Story is. Your Professional Story is about the people you serve professionally and the results you help them achieve. Your Professional Identity is about who and how you are being as you serve them and help them achieve those results.

When our Personal Story and Professional Story get fused, we suffer! When our Personal Identity and Professional Identity get fused, we suffer! And when our specific professional role gets fused with our Personal and Professional Identities, the suffering is compounded.

If you’ve been feeling stuck and frustrated, trapped in a Story where there’s always too much work and not enough time, take a moment. Take a quiet moment. See if you’re trying to be the Protagonist in a Story that isn’t fully yours. And if you have been, there’s great news. You can stop. You can change. You can re-craft your story and shift your role and get those identities and role definitions unfused.

We can work on that together if you want.

Like so many of us, Q knows what to do, and she knows how to show her students what to do. She also knows what to do if she runs into something she doesn’t know, and she knows how to do that. She asks the what or how question in a Facebook group where other teachers will see it, and she knows that someone will tell her what or how.

But Q, like so many of us, doesn’t necessarily know why we’re asking students to Do That, beyond “it’s on the exam” or “it’s on page 73 of the textbook” or “it’s in the curriculum guide.” And she doesn’t necessarily know what for – the bigger-picture desired result that This Thing is expected to lead to.

“Question mark made of puzzle pieces” by Horia Varlan is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Meanwhile, D and I have been working on the next-step program for her now that we’ve found (or at least started to find) the new flow for her classes. D had many things to celebrate and just a few concerns when we met the other day. Her biggest concern wasn’t about what she’s doing or even how she’s doing it; it was about making sure that she and her students were clear on the why and the what for. D isn’t just changing things about her classroom structure and procedures; she’s aiming for a much more fundamental shift where she gets to be the facilitator, not the controller, and her students move from consumers of information to something more like co-creators. D has a very clear sense of the why and the what for behind this change, and she can already see that her students are intrigued and curious. So our new program focuses on Flipping the Role Definitions – her own and that of her students – over the next three months or so. She’s eager to get started, and I’m eager to see what will emerge in the coming months.

Meanwhile, Q gets stuck when the why and what for aren’t clear to her. E has the seed of a great competency-building, interest-based, semi-independent strand of class for her students … but E is stuck with mountains of grading because there’s something in the why and what for that isn’t quite aligned with the current what and how.  M is stuck with an old-normal approach to teaching grammar that isn’t working for her students, but she can’t quite see how to change it … because there’s something in the why and what for of Latin grammar instruction that has never been clear to her, even though she’s a pro at the what and how.

I’ve been stuck. You may be stuck … and if you’re stuck, you may be stuck in that gap between what to do and how to do it (the things that Old Normal School and teaching focused on) and why and what for (the things Old Normal School really didn’t need to address because they seemed so obvious). 
Good news: you don’t have to stay Stuck, but it’s hard to get Unstuck by yourself. Let me know if you’d like some help getting Unstuck or finding and taking those Next RIght Steps.

What showed up for me was the importance of the Truest, Deepest Gift.

“Birthday gifts” by Droid Gingerbread is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

We all have one! Some of us were labeled as a gifted child and some weren’t. Some were labeled as twice-exceptional – gifted, with some other learning difference too – and some weren’t. But all of us, no matter the label, have a truest, deepest gift.

It’s related to the Spark, the thing that drew you to the work you love … or used to love. The thing that sustained you in the good years, making your soul sing and making the hard and difficult parts worthwhile. The thing that seems to have vanished or disappeared at some point … and when it did, that’s when your unsolvable problem or unachievable desired result, the thing we’ve been calling your “IT,” showed up. 

How do you go about finding your truest, deepest gift? And what do you do when you’ve found it?

Finding it may be challenging but it isn’t hard. Finding it just involves looking at that Story of yours, the Story of what brings us here today. Somewhere in that Story, along with the “IT” and the Spark, you’ll find the Truest, Deepest Gift, probably hiding in plain sight.

So you’ve found it – or maybe you’ve found them because maybe there’s more than one. There probably is more than one! Now what?

Now you can Claim it – claim it as your own, and claim it as a Gift. You may not have done that before.

And then you can Open it. Open it and really discover exactly what it is and exactly what for and who for it’s wanting to be used … because that Gift, or that Set of Gifts, is very closely connected with your Core Purpose.

And then? Then you can Combine it with the Gifts of others … because it’s so much more joyful, so much more wonderful, when Gifts are combined.

And when you need help with any of those things, I’m here.

One of those words was shame.

“Shame” by PinkMoose is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

For Alan, shame is the feeling you feel when you realize that you’ve done something bad, something that hurt someone else, a feeling of remorse and regret that motivates you to stop doing the bad thing and start doing something better. But for me, shame is much deeper, more existential. Guilt, for me, is the feeling that I have done a bad thing, and shame is the feeling that I am actually a bad person … and when shame deepens and festers over time, a bad person whose badness can’t be changed.

That’s a terrible feeling! I hope no one reading this post has ever felt that way!

And yet, when I think about teachers I know and love, I realize that far too many of us have felt that way. Far too many of us, especially when our professional identity says “I am, or am supposed to be, a good, experienced, effective teacher.” We discover something – something we didn’t know, something we don’t know how to do. Our professional identity tells us “But I am a good, experienced, effective teacher. I should know this! I should be able to do this!”

None of that is “bad.” But what comes next?

For Alan, “OK! Now I know, so now I can do better.” That’s a healthy and growth-oriented response. But sometimes we go in a less healthy direction. Sometimes we go from “I should be able to do this!” to “What’s wrong with me that I can’t do this?” And sometimes we go from there to “I must be a bad person after all.” And then shame – the kind I was talking about with Alan – comes along … and we know the rest of the story.

Good news: it doesn’t have to be that way! You don’t have to have “my” kind of shame. You don’t even need to have Alan’s kind, the temporary remorse and regret that leads you to make a change. It’s not your fault that you didn’t know, that you couldn’t do … but you don’t have to feel bad about that. In Robert Dilts’s language, you’ve discovered a behavior-level issue where you need some coaching, or a capacity-level issue where you need some teaching. Or maybe you’ve found an incongruency or misalignment at the level of values and beliefs, and you need some mentoring around that. You might need some sponsoring as you reground and reframe your professional identity … but whatever the problem was, it’s Fixable. Whatever the thing was, the thing you don’t currently know how to do, it’s Doable – it’s just that you don’t know how to fix it or how to do it by yourself. We can work on it together (and you know how to reach me on LinkedIn when you’re ready for that), or you can find someone else to help you.

In just a few days, here in the US, we’ll commemorate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King’s work was all about liberation … and liberation is a process, an ongoing process of coming to know better and deciding to do better.

And that’s what this is all about!

We ended up meeting that day for a Next Right Steps call. We found T’s Spark and her “IT.” And we started working on T’s next program, reframing her professional identity for a post-retirement role that makes T’s soul sing as she contemplates it. I’m excited, happy, and thrilled for her … and of course she’s excited, happy, and thrilled too. And Unstuck. And looking forward to a desired future state that seems so much more reachable than it did two days ago.

“Many Paths” by keepitsurreal is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

T knew when the time was right, she took the step, and an amazingly bright, beautiful future is opening up for her. What really convinced her, she told me, was the story of my friend M, or Ms N, who knew when the time was right and took the step into retirement – and she continues to thrive and take the next step almost 30 years later. She loved the way that M was able to reframe her identity through various roles and stages, and she wanted that for herself.

“If they can do it,” says Ali Katz, another of my personal mentors, “I can do it too. If they can have it, I can have it too.” And that’s important to remember, especially if you’re feeling Stuck and Miserable. Somewhere out there – somewhere not so very far away in our hyperconnected online world – there’s someone who successfully made the move from Stuck and Miserable to Joyful and Free. Maybe they’re available to mentor you directly, or maybe they can be your indirect mentor by example.

Otto Scharmer, who has been both kinds of mentor to me, talks about three “groundings” or “anchor points” that are particularly important in rapidly changing times. We anchor ourselves horizontally, he says, in the people around us – in what Robert Dilts would call our social environment. We anchor ourselves vertically upward in our purpose and vertically downward in our place. And we anchor ourselves chronologically in our practice, our awareness of the past and the present and the emerging future. But when we’re unanchored and ungrounded, even in just one of those ways, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by rapid change.

And so many people, especially teachers, are feeling unanchored and ungrounded in many of those ways right now. Maybe even in all of those ways!

T has been at her current school for well over 20 years, but as the faculty changed and the students changed over time, she’s been feeling less and less horizontally grounded. She’s still got a strong upward vertical grounding in purpose, but she’s feeling disconnected from the place. When it comes to chronological grounding in practice, she knows what used to work and she has some things that still work, but the emerging future of teaching practice – which may be the most important one – felt more and more disconnected.

And then we met. And we shared our Stories, the Stories of what brings us here today. We found her “IT” and her “Spark.” And all of a sudden, T was grounded and anchored again. It’s easy to see your next right step when you’re properly grounded and anchored … and it’s a lot easier to take that step, too.

And that’s what this is all about. That’s my desire for you when you’re ready!

My friend N is a career coach and resume writer. “Why,” she asked me, “is it so hard for teachers to understand how to write a resume? Why do they need so much hand-holding from me when they come to me?”

And if we’ve connected through the Facebook groups for transitioning teachers, you know that one thing I often help those folks with is … how to write a resume. “Why am I not hearing back when I apply?” they ask. Or “Is there something wrong with my resume?” Or “How do I revamp my teacher resume to apply for a job as …?”

“Resume – Glasses” by flazingo_photos is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

If you’ve been a teacher, you know that a teacher resume lists every imaginable job duty and every possible extra thing … because (so we’re told) that’s what the Principal Who Will Hire you is looking for.

(Principal friends. is that actually what you’re looking for these days? Latin friends, do you appreciate the “lorem ipsum” text in that image? Non-teacher friends, did you know this about teacher resumes and the Story that teachers are told about them?)

But if you haven’t been a teacher, you may not know this about teacher resumes. You may assume that they’re pretty much like the resume that anyone would write in 2020, the kind that focuses on what makes you a great candidate for the role.

But teachers don’t really see the job as a role.

Teachers see the job as a calling and mission, and the job (as we observed yesterday) overlaps with the professional identity in a way that’s true of other calling and mission focused jobs (like ordained ministry in many religious traditions, or academics, especially in the humanities and social sciences, or some parts of the legal and medical professions). But most jobs aren’t like that. Most jobs are roles that you pick up at the beginning of your workday and leave behind at the end.

Of course you can have a calling and mission and a strong sense of professional identity in a role-job. Mr. N, the custodian in charge of the third floor at That Last School of mine, saw his work as part of his ministry – but he also saw the specific role (custodian for the third floor of That School) as distinct from his professional identity and his professional identity as only one facet of his overall identity. At church on Sunday, at the grocery store in the evening, he wasn’t “Mr N the custodian,” he was Mr N the person.

But for teachers, it’s so easy – so terribly easy – to get the role and the professional identity fused together. We talked about that yesterday, too.

With role-identity fusion, it makes sense to ask, “How do I apply for This Job as a Teacher with the following degrees and experiences?”

But you don’t! You don’t apply for This Job “as a Teacher” at all! You apply for this job as you, a person with this specific set of knowledge, skills, and experiences that will make you a great candidate for the role. You include the ones that are relevant to the needs of That Job Posting, and you don’t include the ones that aren’t.

But that is hard to hear when your professional identity is “Teacher with the following degrees and experiences” … or “Teacher of This Subject in This Room at This School.”

T and I connected recently, and we’re meeting soon to reframe her professional identity as she develops a resume and cover letter for a Job After Teaching that caught her eye. One important thing we’ve already done – even though the position is adjacent to education in important ways – is to name, frame, and claim the Story of what drew her to teaching, the Story of why it seems like time to leave, the “IT” that has her pretty sure that the time is near, and the Spark that wants to blaze back up into flame in her next right job. With that foundation, N can step out – at least temporarily – from the professional identity of Teacher and write a resume that isn’t “all about me as a teacher” but “all about the things that make me a great candidate for this particular role.” And N will be learning a process, too – a process she can use as she applies for other jobs and, eventually, when she finds herself called to create a role for herself.

What do you think? And do you find that you’re suffering from identity-role fusion at all?

“All About Me” by cardinalskate is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Sometimes life happens and there’s a change in your role or the context of the role … and sometimes it really isn’t personal. “We’re moving you from Room 209 to Room 212 next year,” That Administrator says, or “Enrollment is down, and we need you to teach a section of World History.” That’s never fun to hear! But when you have identity-role fusion, it can be totally overwhelming. “But I’m the teacher in Room 209, not 212! Room 209 is part of who I am!” says your fused identity. And it feels like you’re under identity-level attack. No matter what That Administrator’s actual intentions were, it feels like a deeply personal attack.

“I’m almost ready to retire,” said my friend W, almost 30 years ago, “but not quite. I think I’ll do one more year, maybe two.” In a quiet moment, she added this: “I need to figure out who I’m going to be when I retire.” W took things very personally – things that students and parents and colleagues and administrators said and did, even when they weren’t directed personally at W at all. That’s what happens when you find yourself in role-identity fusion. Even retirement, which W was genuinely looking forward to, felt like a personal attack sometimes.

But it doesn’t have to be that way! W’s friend M – but let’s call her Ms N – never suffered from role-identity fusion. And Ms N taught me an way to have space and grace (as she would put it) between your professional identity and your role.

She had built a professional persona, the “Ms N” version of herself. “Ms N” was the teacher version of M that allowed her to do what people in role-jobs do naturally: she could put on the teaching role when she arrived at work and take it off at the end of the day. “Ms N” wasn’t different from the M she was to her family and friends, but “Ms N” was a distinct version of her. “Ms N” was the secret behind her thriving for the twenty eight (“and a half”) years she taught, even when her teaching role and her specific context changed. Even when there was personal tragedy. And “Ms N” was the secret behind her ability to walk away when she knew it was time.

“Justin,” she said, “I’m retiring at the end of the month. I looked at that textbook, I thought about taking students through that textbook for three more semesters, and I realized I’m done. I talked to the retirement system people and they told me it would be $50 less a month if I retire now. And I can live with that.”

M was able to put aside her Ms N teaching persona when she knew the time was right. And, years before, M was able to leverage her Ms N teaching persona when her role changed – when That Principal asked her to teach some Spanish along with the English classes, and then, a few years later, when he asked her to teach Spanish exclusively. When That Other Principal moved her from Room ABC to Room DEF to Room XYZ.

Do you want the space and grace and comfort and ease that M had? Then you probably need some space between your professional identity and your specific role. You may need a professional persona, or you may just need to get out of identity-role fusion. We can work on that, or you can do it yourself – you know what’s best for you!

But your role is smaller than your identity, just like these theatrical masks are smaller than the actors who wore them. The Latin word for that mask is persona, and we’ll have more to say about it soon.

“Mosaic depicting theatrical masks of Tragedy and Comedy, 2nd century AD, from Rome Thermae Decianae (?), Palazzo Nuovo, Capitoline Museums” by Following Hadrian is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

What do you do when the world changes and your professional identity is no longer possible? If your job was just a role, you could leave and seek a different role – one that was a better fit for your professional identity – like the ancient actor taking off one mask and putting on a new one. But when professional identity and personal identity are fused together the way they are for so many teachers, that’s a daunting task. It feels like tearing off part of yourself rather than changing a mask. No wonder you’re hesitating! No wonder you feel so Stuck and frustrated, so full of anxiety and maybe even despair! No wonder you’ve been hoping for some kind of shortcut.

Remember U? He came to me last week because he knows he can’t be the teacher he used to want to be anymore. He knows he needs to change roles somehow… but what does that mean? Does he seek a totally different role outside of education, building a whole new professional identity to support it? Does he seek a teaching role in a new context, one that’s more aligned and more congruent with the professional identity he already has? Could he possibly change his existing role and re-find his Missing Spark where he is? U isn’t sure … and U isn’t alone.

Let’s call her X. X has been trying to change her role on her own. She’s had some good results, but she’s exhausted … so exhausted. The changes are good for many of her students, but some of them – the ones that need the change the most – don’t quite seem to get it. And just about every weekend, X finds herself with several hours of extra grading and a pile of extra planning to go along with the changes she made. That’s not sustainable and it’s definitely not the regenerative change she was hoping for. But what’s the next right step? X isn’t sure.

But let’s talk about D. She came to me back in early December with a similar issue. Less than two weeks later, we had found the part of D’s professional identity that had her stuck and frustrated. D’s role as the person who controls the process worked well in Old Normal times, but it’s not what her students need now … and it’s not actually aligned with D’s deep, true professional identity. Two weeks after that, D had a workable plan to change that role and readjust her students’ roles. And today, the first day back from Winter Break, she’s been sharing that plan – and starting to implement it – with the class that had her almost at the point of wanting to quit a month ago.

U and X and the others? You?

I’m here for them when they’re ready. And I’m here for you when you’re ready.

That kind.

“Foothills Parkway Community Day, November 8, 2018–Joye Ardyn Durham” by Great Smoky Mountains National Park is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

Depending on Where and When you’ve lived, you may have always known about that kind of Community. Or maybe you’ve dreamed of it, never quite believing it’s possible. Maybe you became a teacher, at least in part, because you hoped you could find or create something like that with your students, in your school or classroom. Maybe creating that kind of Community is part of your Spark.

It was for me. It was for U. It was for T and M and D and so many others. The subject or grade level you loved … that was important, but it was the means to the end of creating that kind of Community. And then Life happened and Stuff happened and it’s not that you forgot, exactly. There was just so much Life and so much Stuff, and creating Community can be hard.

It was hard enough in “good old normal” … and then came 2020 and the pandemic, and it seemed pretty much impossible.

“Behavior,” said one of my wise mentors, just about thirty years ago, “is communication. Those ‘bad’ kids with ‘bad’ behaviors are trying to tell you something important, the only way they know how.”

Time stood still as her words sank in. “They’re trying to tell me something! What could it be?” It turned out that they wanted the same thing I wanted – they wanted that kind of Community, that charged space or container where you can be free to become. They wanted to know where the boundary lines were, and they wanted to know that I could and would hold that kind of space for them. That’s when the Golden Years of Teaching started for me.

U used different words for the same experience. So did T. So did M, E, D, and N. So did every student and family and adult learner and teacher I’ve ever worked with, whether they’re commemorated (with an initial that isn’t really theirs) in this space or not. But all of us are talking about the same core Thing: the community we seek to co-create, the one where everybody gets to find their Spark and, as wise Otto Scharmer puts it, protect the flame.

You might have been afraid that the Spark was gone forever, that the Community was an unachievable fantasy-wish or fever-dream. But the Spark isn’t gone and the Community is seeking you just as much as you’re seeking it.

Let’s locate your Spark and connect you with your Community and connect the Communities in a living, joyful network.