How to make friends or piss people off!

Ahhhh Juanita you write again!!!

Read this til the end before making any judgement, it's hard to swallow but it's very true.....

Juanita writes:

You are coming into a new school, all excited and you are going to somewhere where they want you and you want to be….but whatever you do don’t say “In my last school we did it this way”.

Why?

It’s judgemental, it’s irritating, it’s not appreciating or valuing your new school.

It’s you saying that you know better. If you’ve been an expat for a while, you have a plethora of ideas and skills. Sit back listen and watch and before you open your mouth, think about how you are going to present it so it’s an idea from where you are and not where you’ve been.

How?

OODA……..a military term, so what you do is you OBSERVE where you are, get to know the strengths and challenges and get to know who’s who. ORIENT yourself, where do fit in the pecking order on the ladder? What’s your actual job, if you are classroom teacher, that’s what you do. If you are leader then that’s what you do. DECIDE, think about it, what do you know? What are your ideas? What are your skills? What do you have to offer? What is it that you have observed….bringing all your skills, knowledge and observations and formulate a plan. Then you put it into ACTION, how do you do this and who do you talk to.

Why do I say this?

I’ve done it myself, I’ve seen it happen and I’ve had to deal with this before. When I was in the Northern Territory teaching, there were so many people who came up from the south who would come in and think that we were all so backward that they had to save us with their ideas and knowledge.

In Abu Dhabi where you had a lot of people come in and do it, but it was in Jordan that I had to act before I could do OODA and had to double up on relationships and plans.

This goes for leaders as well, a leader can isolate themselves if they do not OODA regardless of what they walk into.

Relationships are the most important thing that you can begin with.

Without them your lonely, on your own, can’t do your work properly and will not become a part of the community and when you come into a place and you piss someone off with saying ‘in my last school, in my last school’ it will soon get out and people will not sit with you the lunchroom. Now this may not sound a big deal and a little high school but when you are thousands of miles away, a distinct lack of friends can make or break you as an expat.

So basically for the first 6 months, spend more time asking questions than telling people what you think.

Regards,

Juanita

(Did you make it to the end, I did and was nodding..................Cheers HB)