Chanukah: When the bullied can't rise up in personal defense

The holiday of Chanukah presents many lessons. In the main, these lessons stem from the valiant struggle in which a few Hasmonean fighters valiantly rose up against their Seleucid tormentors and successfully rid the land of their presence.

While Chanukah celebrates the defeat of the mighty by the weak, the many by the few, and the wicked by the righteous, many people, children in particular, continue to suffer at the hands of bullies and others who are, at least on the surface, mightier than they.

Thankfully, there are many resources that offer tips on how to deal with bullies and empower their victims to become stronger and turn the tables on their oppressors. In this HelpGuide post, the author(s) outline multiple strategies that victims can use to change their situation for the better.

education, relationshipsNaphtali HoffDecember 9, 2015bullying, education, response, chanukah, hanukkah Comment

Abundance Theory in the Workplace

A few years back, I had made the decision to shift careers from school leadership to that of executive coach and consultant. To that end, I enrolled in a doctoral program studying human and organizational psychology. In my first course, I was told to interview someone who was in the same field that I sought to pursue and ask that person a series of questions relating to their career path.

After doing some research, I found two successful women that fit the bill. While both were pleasant to speak with and generous with their time, one in particular, a coach and trainer, shared some things that really made an impression on me. She said that she had benefitted from others’ expertise when she had gotten started and was always looking for ways to “pay it forward” to other aspiring professionals. The fact that I was planning to move to her general area and serve similar clients did not deter her from giving freely of her advice. She even met me on another occasion over lunch to talk further about how to help me transition and grow my business.

This woman’s behavior not only helped me to get started but she also inspired me to rethink a lifelong script that had become part of my inner thinking and attitude. I refer specifically to Scarcity Theory.

business, coaching, relationships, leadershipNaphtali HoffDecember 7, 2015abundance, theory, mindset, leadership, leaders Comments

The Maccabee in You

As a leader, you know that leadership offers great opportunities to guide and inspire others, to set the agenda and see it to fruition. However, it also can place us in compromised situations, where we feel as if we have lost control of the situation around us and need to engage in damage control. There are even times when we step into a leadership role that did not previously exist in order to address a need, a problem or a concern, oftentimes a pressing one at that. Such was the case of Matthias, the elderly priest who assumed an expanded leadership role at a time of great national duress in order to save his nation and the Torah that they treasured.

In this article, I will aim to distill leadership lessons from within the broader historical context, lessons that we can apply within our own lines of work and our lives in general.

1. Understand the objective - For most of our nation's history, we have lived in exile (either in the literal sense or in our homeland under foreign subjugation). While in exile, we enjoyed varying levels of freedoms and autonomy, but were generally content to subvert ourselves to our host nation so long as we were given the freedom to live religiously as Jews.

Matthias and his sons had no interest in attacking the Seleucid forces. They had fled to Modiin, a small hamlet on the outskirts of Jerusalem, because they knew that it would give them a better opportunity to live a Torah-observant lifestyle than in the now-Hellenized capital. Knowing what was of primary importance to them is what drove their decision to relocate as well as all of their subsequent ones.

How being thankful can make their day… and yours

As we prepare ourselves for the Thanksgiving spirit, let us take a few minutes to think about who has made a positive impact in our lives, both large and small. Then see what you can do to offer thanks, such as by calling them up, sending them a quick note, or perhaps even a gift.

When you offer thanks, remember to specify why you are appreciative and how that made you feel or what that did in terms of assisting you in some way. Such added detail deepens the gesture exponentially and helps reinforce the behavior in others.

coaching, leadership, relationshipsNaphtali HoffNovember 23, 2015Thanksgiving, appreciation, thanks, love, peaceComment

PD: From epic fail to epic sail

The following list of suggested strategies are rules that we followed that I believe can help you deliver the kind of useful and meaningful PD to your teachers that they need and deserve.

Develop a 3-5 year plan. Before you do anything else, you need to know what your PD and growth-related goals are, for the short and medium range. Too often, principals live in the moment and make decisions on what feels right. Worse, they may feel obligated to offer “something” simply because it’s on the calendar. The risks in doing so, however, is that you can fail to deliver what is really needed. By developing a 3-5 year plan of the PD areas that you would like to focus on for your staff, you can approach the topic strategically and start to figure out such important areas as topics, schedule, budget and more. You can also loop back from time to time to reinforce and deepen previous learning, especially now that there’s been meaningful opportunity for them to practice.
Revisit the plan annually (if not sooner). We all know how quickly the winds could blow in the field of education. Yesterday’s “hot” topic can easily be replaced by tomorrow’s latest and greatest. By revisiting your list often, you can start current and see how such changes may or may not impact your thinking.
State and repeat: “One size fits none.” As with classroom instruction, PD also needs to be differentiated. We cannot expect our middle-school language teachers and our primary-grade teachers to benefit equally from the same presentation. Yes, some topics are generic and can be presented to an entire staff. However, there needs to be various examples for different sub-segments of the population to relate to. More about this later.

business, coaching, education, leadershipNaphtali HoffNovember 5, 2015leadership, training, professional developmentComment

8 qualities of strong mentors

Mentorship is a relationship that is created between an experienced professional and a less experienced mentee or protege. Its primary purpose is to build a support system that allows for the natural exchange of ideas, a forum for constructive advice, and a recipe for success.

Superior mentors possess most if not all of the following qualities:

Skilled and knowledgeable. Good mentors possess current and relevant knowledge, expertise, and/or skills.
Trust builder. The mentor establishes a high level of trust. He/she indicates that their relationship is about building capacity and offering support, not “zapping” the mentee for poor decisions or performances.
Active listener. A strong mentor knows how to listen. This includes using eyes and body posture to convey interest and attention. More about strong listening skills can be found here.

Connecting with parents

Many teachers use the relationships and the trust that they engender with parents to lay the foundation for student success. Unfortunately, in my years as a teacher and a principal, I too often observed an unhealthy dynamic between teachers and parents. Such teachers commonly found parents to be people that they needed to “deal with.” They viewed them as nuisances, if not worse. They wanted parents to stay out of their way and let them do their thing. After all, they were the experts.

Parents, for their part, can be quick to get upset with teachers for such things as rules, policies, perceived negative attitudes towards their child and, of course, poor student performance.

The sad reality is that the ones who suffer most from this tension are children. They need to feel the security of the rapport between school and home, rather than to be confused by an undercurrent of disharmony. As the African proverb states, “when two elephants fight, it’s the grass that gets trampled.”

education, leadership, relationshipsNaphtali HoffOctober 14, 2015education, connection, teachers, parents, relatingComment

There’s A Cubs Fan in Every Jew

There are times when we can be moderately negative about the imminence of mashiach’s arrival. Certainly there are no believing Jews who are not completely resolute in their conviction about the eventual coming of mashiach. After all, the most famous and commonly repeated principle in Rambam’s list of fundamental Jewish beliefs states, “I believe with a complete faith in the coming of mashiach. And even if he tarries, every day I await his arrival.” Every trusting Jew embraces this concept.

However, the idea of mashiach coming imminently, as in today, can often seem as far removed as a Cubs championship, if not even further. Consider this, from Rav Shimon Schwab, zt’l, who recounted his youthful perspective on the idea of mashiach:

Naphtali HoffOctober 14, 2015Comment

Connecting with our students

As teachers, we know that there is more to our jobs than sharing content and enhancing student skills. We understand intuitively that in order to fully reach our students we need to connect with them and create the right atmosphere for learning. The research of Dr. John Hattie confirmed this when concluding that the most effective way to improve education was to raise the quality of pupil-teacher interactions.

Below is a list of strategies that can help you establish healthy, meaningful relationships with your students and interact in a manner that is healthy and fulfilling.

Set the proper tone. Find ways with which to positively engage students from the outset. Greet them as they enter the room with a “good morning” and a high-five. Smile when you see them and let them know that you’re happy that they’re there. Convey the message that you expect a great day from them and anticipate their success.

Create a healthy learning environment. One of the most powerful educational quotes that I have ever read has nothing to do with teaching. The author, former teacher and child psychologist Dr. Haim Ginott, wrote about the central role that teachers play in making the classroom’s “weather.”

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