This digest compiles key industry resources and insights shared in our February 2024 Membership newsletter. This month we shared the positive side to gossip and the opportunity in harnessing it, boosting employee engagement, and the importance of family engagement in education.
Possip’s Manager of Knowledge and Content, Mandy Wallace, provides a compilation of what we’ve been thinking about this February.
We summarize each piece and suggest ways to leverage these ideas for better communication and engagement in your community.
Quick Links
- When Gossip Is Good – At The Table With Patrick Lencioni
- How Companies Can Improve Employee Engagement Right Now
- Parental Involvement in Your Child’s Education (oldie but a goodie)
What Are We Listening to
When Gossip Is Good – At The Table With Patrick Lencioni
Do you know Patrick Lencioni? A leadership coach best known for his fable-like management books like The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, this podcast unpacks the good side of gossip.
Given Possip’s name is built on positive+gossip, we found this podcast interesting. The human brain is hardwired to gossip. Using that impulse and channeling it productively can be a game changer.
As this podcast highlights, people sharing what they think enables processing and learning. What separates positive gossip from destructive gossip is intention, purpose and action:
- Intention – Is your intention positive? Learning, planning, constructing.
- Purpose – Do you have a goal you are working toward? Are you trying to solve a problem? Come up with a plan? Build someone up?
- Action – Is your gossip leading to positive action? If you are talking about an idea in a closed room, is that going to lead you to take positive action?
How can you harness the power of positive gossip to improve your team, your campus, your system?
What We Are Reading
I recently came across an insightful Harvard Business Review article on Employee Engagement outlining three strategies businesses can use to strengthen employee engagement. Possip can support you as you work to improve employee (in this case, teacher and staff) engagement:
Connecting Work to Values: Possip helps spotlight how individual contributions align with a school’s mission and impact, enhancing value alignment and purpose.
Reducing Stress: By collecting feedback on work-related stressors, Possip helps identify and address sources of stress, making work more enjoyable.
Worth a Read or Re-Read
Parental Involvement in Your Child’s Education
The Key to Student Success, Research Shows (Annie E. Casey Foundation). Our takeaway: “Decades of research have made one thing clear: parental involvement in education improves student attendance, social skills and behavior. It also helps children adapt better to school.”
