Transforming Teamwork: Cultivating Collaborative Cultures

Discover how psychological safety, constructive conflict, and actionable learning create a powerful triple helix to transform teams!

In this ground-breaking resource, three experts in the field of education and teamwork each present one of three strands that, when woven together, support teamwork and forge collaborative interactions into a transformative way of working. You’ll learn approaches, processes and tools to overcome common obstacles to team effectiveness such as feelings of futility, anxiety, and poor morale. 

Drawing on research and practical experience the authors identify strategies and tools that show how to:

• Build psychological safety, where teams work towards resilient interpersonal relationships
• Use constructive conflict as a powerful catalyst for team learning and transformation
• Inquire into problems of practice to transform capabilities and produce actionable learning

Acquire ways to develop mindful, thoughtful, and constructive teams where authentic communication drives group awareness and clear processes and goals. 

Acquire ways to develop mindful, thoughtful, and constructive teams where authentic communication drives group awareness and clear processes and goals. 

DIANE P. ZIMMERMAN, Ph.D. is a writer and consultant focusing on entrepreneurial learning and schools that make a difference. She obtained her Ph.D. in Human and Organizational Development from the Fielding Graduate Institute. She recently retired as a superintendent of schools after a 36-year career in education that was rich in leadership, facilitation and conflict management.

Trained originally as a speech therapist, Diane worked early in her career as a teacher, speech therapist, program manager, and Assistant Director of Special Education in Fairfield, California. She subsequently became a principal in Davis, California and served consecutively in two schools over 13 years before being promoted to Assistant Superintendent for Personnel. In 2002, she began a nine-year journey as a superintendent of Old Adobe School Union School District, a small suburban elementary school district in Petaluma, California. She prides herself in moving the district’s teachers from contentious union interactions to cooperative collaborations as productive, interest-based educators who collectively set the highest standards possible for their school district.

Diane has been an active in professional development all of her career. While obtaining her administrative credential, Diane was assigned to Bob Garmston as her intern coach. This early career interaction turned into a life-long intellectual partnership and Diane joined the Cognitive Coaching consulting consortium founded by Bob Garmston and Art Costa.

Diane has taught in administrative training programs at several northern California universities and over the past 20 years has written and consulted in the areas of Cognitive Coaching, teacher supervision and evaluation, facilitation, stages of adult development, assessment of leadership skills, and constructivist leadership.

Leadership and mediation of conflict has always been a part of Diane’s life. She was encouraged to assume leadership roles throughout her career, from early work supervising in a family restaurant business, to her first teaching job in a new special education program, through her years as a principal. Throughout her career, she has been involved in handling divergent opinions and mediating conflict. She gained a substantive reputation as the “in house” expert in facilitation and her staff valued her ability to create learning communities long before “professional learning communities” were popularized

James L. Roussin, M.A.L.S., has been committed to improving teaching and learning in schools across the US and abroad throughout his professional career. He has worked as a Language Arts Teacher, Gifted Coordinator, ESL Coordinator, Curriculum Director, Executive Director of Teaching, Learning & School Improvement, Adjunct Professor, and Educational Consultant.

Jim is currently working as a Strategic Change Consultant and is the Executive Director for Generative Learning. Website: http://www.generative-learning.com

Jim helped to revitalize the Minnesota Staff Development Council from 1998 – 2004 and served as its President for four of those years. He has also served as a board of trustee on the National Staff Development Council (now Learning Forward).

He is a teaching associate for Human Systems Dynamics (an institute that is using complexity theory to impact organizational development work). He is also a learning facilitator for Leadership Development, Cognitive Coaching, Adaptive Schools, QLD (Quality Leadership by Design) - S.M.A.R.T. Goals, and Program Evaluation.

In February of 2006, Jim traveled to India on a Berkana Learning Journey to explore new forms of leadership that are emerging in global communities. And in 2009 he spent four months working in the Middle East with ASCD-Middle East in supporting the Ministry of Education in implementing new teacher development standards. J

Jim’s current interests focus on healthy organizations and human development through the lens of natural systems theory and complexity science.

James Roussin is the author of a variety of articles as well as a co-author of the book: Guiding Professional Learning Communities: Inspiration, Challenge, Surprise, and Meaning (Shirley M. Hord, James L. Roussin & William A. Sommers, 2010).

Robert J. Garmston is Emeritus Professor of Educational Administration at California State University, Sacramento. He is co-developer of Cognitive Coaching with Art Costa and co-developer of Adaptive Schools with Bruce Wellman. He has worked as an educational consultant and made presentations and conducted workshops for teachers, administrators, and staff developers on leadership, learning, and personal and organizational development in twenty-four countries on five continents. Formerly an administrator and teacher in Saudi Arabia and the United States, his work has been translated into Arabic, Dutch, Hebrew, Italian, and Spanish. Bob lives in El Dorado Hills, California, near his five children and five (bright and cute) grandchildren.