I received an email from an administrator in one of our districts a few weeks ago. The email signature read “Rigor, Relevance, Relationships”. For some reason the words stuck in my head. I started to realize that these three words captured the qualities that allow a project to be successful just like they allow learning to be successful in the classroom.
Rigor – You typically hear of a leader being rigorous, but what about the team members or students? It is very easy to observe the rigor of someone in charge, but I think the rigor of team members or students makes the most impact. Students, like project team members, are the people that perform the most amount of work on a project or assignment. It is teacher’s or project manager’s job to develop the critical thinking and problem solving skills in their team members. The solution to an assignment or project is not always a clear choice. They need to be able to take in information they find on their own and decipher what is helpful and what is misleading. Only then, they can organize the helpful information into a plan to help them get where they need to go.
Relevance – All project information, as learning curriculum, must have relevance. Meaning the information must be able to impact the decision making ability of the person examining it. The content of information as well as its timeliness must be relevant. In order for this to happen, the project manager, or teacher, needs their team members to understand why they need the information. This goes back to the adage, “What’s In It For Me?”. Team members and students need to understand how they are going to benefit from the information or assignment. For team members, it is how their activities are going to affect later project processes on the way to creating the deliverable. For students, it is connecting the lessons to real life activities so they will be better prepared for the future.
Relationships – While rigor and relevance are important, I think relationships are what makes the world go around as it is the cornerstone for success. In order for a relationship to be positive, there must be a mutual level of respect between the parties. When one respects another, that sets the stage for the other to go the extra mile to accomplish a task. Project managers that treat their employees as their own family and are willing to remove obstacles out of their team’s way gain respect from their team members. This respect makes team members willing to work the long hours when needed to see a project across the goal line. With some quick “Googling” you can find multiple studies that state students with positive attachments to their teachers make higher grades and have higher standardized test scores. When you are not experiencing the success you feel you should be, step back and look at the quality of relationships that you are building with those around you. This might be what you are missing.
I would love to receive some feedback on this topic. Are these words relevant in your district?