Trouble After School

I once worked with a company that provided after-school care for young children. As part of the program, there was dedicated time when the kids were supposed to do their homework. And yet, very few of the kids actually would.

Instead, they would all get up out of their chairs and start talking to their friends, which was very noisy, and which they were not supposed to do (and they knew they were not supposed to do it, but they did it anyway).

The program staff decided that the kids were “rule breakers.” So they decided to give them assigned seats, both as a punishment and to prevent them from talking to their friends, which was always too loud and disruptive. They also asked teachers (who were not part of the after-school program) if they could give the kids more homework. That way, they thought, the kids would be busier and not have time to goof off.

But the teachers said they couldn’t do that. They were already giving the maximum amount of homework allowable. The situation did not improve.

The company leaders told me about the problem. I organized a meeting for a few days later with all the people involved. My first question was, “Why aren’t the kids doing their homework?”

“They just have a lot of attitude, and they don’t want to listen,” the program leader told me.

“Have you ever asked any of them why they don’t do their homework?” I asked. Blank stare. No answer. Obviously not.

So we brought in one girl, who the leader said was “one of the better ones.” After establishing with the girl that she does her homework at home once she leaves the after-school program, I said to her, “Help me understand. Are you saying that you avoid doing your homework here even though you have plenty of time to do it? And instead you choose to do it at home when you could do any number of other things that are more fun?”

“Uh-huh,” she said.

Here’s how the rest of the conversation went:

Me: So why don’t you do your homework in the time that’s allowed during the after-school program, especially if that’s what you’re supposed to do?

Girl: Because it’s way too noisy in the room. I can’t concentrate at all.

Me: OK. Well, that makes sense. So what do you do instead of doing your homework?

Girl: Well, I usually just sit there. But sometimes I also go talk to my friends, and sometimes I get in trouble for that.

The after-school program leader was stunned at the girl’s answer. Her reason had never occurred to her.

I recognized, in the words of Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the great book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, “what looks like a people problem is actually a situation problem.”

I turned to the leader and asked, “Have you ever thought about what you can do to make the after-school room quieter? Or potentially give the kids a quieter place to do their homework?”

Immediately, the teachers and the program leader started brainstorming. And they found lots of ways to fix the situation. Working together with the school teachers, the program leader was able to secure a different classroom for the kids who wanted to do their homework quietly.

For the kids who didn’t have homework, or once they were finished with homework, this was another problem. According to the program leader, they didn’t want to play with the games the staff had provided. The leader rattled off all the games they had put out for the kids.

And then she said, scornfully, “We give them all these games, and yet they just won’t play with them.”

Once again, I knew that the issue was not the kids even though she was framing it that way. It was the situation. The environment. The games. The games were not fun for the kids even though the program leader thought they were fun.

I asked the girl, “Why don’t you and the other kids play with the games?”

“I guess we just don’t think they’re that fun.”

“What games do you like to play?” I asked. The girl named a few.

And bang. The program leader and the teachers in the room lit up. They said they could easily get those games—and they thought of several more, which the girl agreed were “cool.” They talked about how the kids could easily play the games with their friends in groups, which both the leader and all the teachers said was a great thing.

“Wait a minute,” I said to the leader. “I thought you said you didn’t want kids talking to their friends. Aren’t you worried that the volume is going to be too loud if they are playing games with their friends?”

Both she and the teachers jumped in immediately. “Oh, no,” they said. “When they are playing an appropriate game with their friends, then the noise level is fine. It’s only bad when they’re just socializing with their friends and don’t have anything to focus on.”

“So then do they really need assigned seats?” I asked. “I mean, if you’re saying that the problem is not actually talking to their friends but, really, it’s talking to their friends in an unfocused, purely social way, then it doesn’t seem like having assigned seats away from their friends really has anything to do with the problem. In fact, it seems like it might be causing other problems—like kids getting up out of their seats to go talk to their friends. You said that’s a problem, too, because the kids often ‘give you attitude’ when you tell them to go back to their seats and stop talking to their friends.”

“Wow,” the leader said. “I never really thought of that.”

After the meeting, the program leader decided to take away the assigned seats and allow the kids to sit with their friends when they weren’t doing homework. She and her staff made sure to give them fun games that the kids liked that allowed them to play with their friends in a group. This actually helped the kids focus and learn, which was the real goal of the after-school program. And it kept the noise level reasonable.

With these few tweaks, everything about the environment and the success of the after-school program changed. That change cut through the politics and animosity between the program leaders and the teachers. Previously, some of the kids who originally weren’t doing homework would wander the halls inappropriately, which led the teachers to believe that the after-school program staff were incompetent, while at the same time the after-school staff thought the teachers were just trying to cause them trouble.

Just by meeting together as we did, the program leader and the school teachers were able to show each other that they really do want the same things and that they respect and support each other. They also got buy-in from the girl we involved, who agreed to be a champion to help her friends do better.

Notice that these significant changes did not take any “large-scale change management initiatives.” They did not take putting the staff through leadership development programs. There was no additional training necessary. And none of the people changed.

All these changes came from one simple meeting, properly facilitated, with the right people in the room, that lasted less than an hour. And all the “problems” the program was dealing with previously were really symptoms that had been caused by clear misdiagnosis and clear mistreatment.

Obviously, not every problem in your company may be that easy. You may be saying, “I’m a top executive at a major company. What does this have to do with me? This is a story about kids, schools, and academic organizations. That’s not my industry. That’s not my business. Those aren’t my people.”

But you’re wrong. Your company’s situation is really very similar to this. As Bob Pike, a pioneer in the training world, says, “Adults are babies with big bodies.” And the after-school program company was a for-profit company with many stakeholders, just like yours.

Lessons Learned after School and from the Doctor

Let’s look at the general lessons this story gives us that you need to apply when you are working through the critical flaws in your company. We’ll look at the doctor/patient relationship as well, because it’s a very helpful framework when dealing with your critical flaws, which are very much like a disease in your company.

Diagnose Properly

Just as with the story above, and just like any successful doctor/patient relationship, turning things around in your company starts with a proper diagnosis. Without proper diagnosis, you may apply the wrong treatment. If you misdiagnose and apply the wrong treatment in your company, no one will actually...