Building and Leading Teams
1. Establishing shared beliefs, principles, and ways of working
2. Ensuring clarity of goals, roles, and expectations
3. Building relationships that foster inclusion and trust
4. Ensuring Ongoing Development
Embedded Files
1. Shared Beliefs, Principles, Ways of Working
High-functioning teams are aligned around what they are working toward, how they work toward it as a team, and why it matters. This is key to effective collaboration, and to cohesion and direction.
I built the Learning Experience Design (LED) Team at Great Minds, a public benefit corporation that creates instructional materials that reach over 4.2 million students, from the ground up.
The artifacts below represent the underlying shared beliefs, principles, and ways of working we established, as well as processes for input and norming with new team members to ensure that the foundations on which the team was built continued to represent the team inclusively.
"Emilee has had and continues to have a profound impact on me professionally and who I am as a leader. She has taught me the power of leading with a strong vision, alignment around that vision, and what it takes to create a unified and motivated team." -Melissa White: Manager, Learning Experience Design Team at Great Minds, former Regional Math Leader for KIPP Jacksonville
"[Emilee's] leadership style not only promotes individual growth but also contributes to the overall cohesion and excellence of our team's output." -Chris Kjorness, Instructional Designer at Great Minds
"As her direct supervisor, I observed Emilee engage in leadership practices that resulted in a confident and empowered team, each of whom were able to leverage their unique strengths while also maintaining alignment and a cohesive team identity throughout decision-making processes." -Rebecca Sela, Director of Service Development at Great Minds
Team Vision and Mission Statement
Team Vision and Mission Statement
This is the vision and mission our Learning Experience Design team at Great Minds created together to define our goals and aspirations, aligned with those of the company. The vision and mission drive decisions, support prioritization, govern the way we work together, and drive feedback among team members.
Team Culture Values.docxTeam Culture Values
Beliefs about Math and PD.docxTeam Beliefs about Math and PD
What is success.docxDefining Success as a Team
Internal_PD Planning Template.docxPD Planning Template
LED Onboarding Schedule.docx.pdfNew Team Member Onboarding (co-created by existing team members)
2. Goals, Roles, and Expectations
Effective team leaders clearly communicate expectations, define team goals, regularly engage in two-way feedback, and consider team members' strengths, expertise, and interests in allocating projects and partnerships.
Before I built and led the LED team at Great Minds, I led a team of Regional Math Leaders from KIPP regions across the country as the Senior Director of K - 12 Math at the KIPP Foundation.
In addition to (LED) team and leadership goals, the artifacts below represent structures for ensuring team members understand their role and how it contributes to team goals, company goals and the overall mission; have clarity about expectations and timelines; are supported in managing their time and work/life balance; engage in strategic collaboration across teams that promotes working sustainably toward impact at scale.
"Emilee is the type of leader people seek out to work for. She leads with vision and sets purpose for the team, ensuring everyone is clear on what they are working toward and how they are going to get there." -Amanda Walker, Learning Experience Designer at Great Minds
Draft Road Map Planning Document.xlsxProduct and Services Road Map
Sample year-at-a-glance deliverables and team time/project allocation spreadsheet created in collaboration with the larger services team
Transition Plan.pdfLED Team Communication re: new structure with Team Managers
This represents an example of leading through change: transparent communication, clarity about next steps, and soliciting team input and feedback.
LED Goals 2023.pdfLearning Experience Design Team and Leadership Goals
All goals are nested within the larger team and company goals
Liaison Role Description.docxLiaison Description
Overview of goals and responsibilities of each liaison between our team and another internal team
Audit Process for National /State Specific PD
First page of a process for auditing national PD sessions for state-specific PD. This helped our team plan and prioritize, effectively support other teams in attending to multiple versions of their own work-streams, and even make proactive decisions to accomplish goals related to efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
3. Inclusion and Trust
Effective leaders know that different perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences strengthen teams and the work they do. They communicate transparently, and ensure that all team members' voices and contributions are valued and respected. They celebrate successes, engage teammates in meaningful team-building, and seek feedback and input regularly. They operate on the premise that clear is kind, and constructive is even kinder. They ensure that the team consistently attends to the vision, norms, and values the team has created together. Inclusion and trust are essential for each person to be their authentic, best self, and for teams to be better collectively than individually.
The included artifacts demonstrate a few ways that I have built inclusion and trust on teams that I have led.
"From the very beginning of my time working with Emilee, she has sincerely listened and considered my feelings and ideas, making me feel like a valued member of a team. She continuously gives constructive feedback that both elevates strengths and illuminates areas for growth in a way that is supportive and empowering. Emilee also leads by being a continuous learner and by taking the time to get to know each person on her team as a professional and as a human being, helping her to intimately know each person's strengths and leverage those seamlessly into each project." -Joe Roicki, Learning Experience Designer at Great Minds
"[Emilee's] intentional strategy around relationship building on a fully remote team has allowed us to create 3x more professional learning resources than originally tasked with. Because she had created the time and space to build relationships, our team could simultaneously leverage strengths and use feedback to push each other professionally. I've never been on a team where every person has grown exponentially in three years. I attribute this growth to her leadership." -Tracy Homm, Manager, Learning Experience Design Team at Great Minds, former Regional Math Leader for KIPP Philadelphia
"Emilee is an incredible advocate for others. She goes above and beyond to find answers to any questions her team has or works toward solutions when concerns arise. This has ranged from seeking out additional clarifications for company policies to developing clearer communication channels across teams that ultimately support everyone's work." -Amanda Walker, Learning Experience Designer at Great Mind
"During the 2012-2013 school year, my first year at Harlem Village Academy High School, Emilee served as the Teacher Induction Coordinator for all new teachers. The extraordinary combination of Emilee's excellent work ethic, unparalleled motivation, sense of humor, intellect, kindness, and overall dedication to making myself, as well as many others feel welcome calmed our jitters and was a breath of fresh air. Emilee provided us with guidance and support in a school with a unique set of needs and expectations, and this is what truly set her apart from other colleagues." -Kristen Rigazio, Physical Education Department Chair at HVA High School
Working Groups: I am an advocate for working groups to navigate challenges, respond to team needs, and generally ensure greater clarity, alignment, and direction. Working groups for the LED team were made up of representatives of sub-teams who gathered input and feedback from their sub-teams at strategic times, ensuring we discussed diverse perspectives and came to collaborative decisions in a manageable and efficient way. Working groups go a long way toward maintaining the cohesiveness and clarity of the team, as well as inclusiveness and trust.
The documents here represent two LED working groups I formed:
better aligning our team's expectations and ways of working with the company's performance review guidelines and expectations
evolving and differentiating our feedback guidelines as we diversified and evolved our team's work-streams
Feedback Working Group.docx
Partnerships: Whether it be a Regional Math Leader with a desire to pilot a more interactive module study process, a teammate facilitating a session for the first time, or an instructional leader going "all in" on filming a lesson internalization meeting for the benefit of the entire KIPP network, I'm ready to get right into the work with them - collaborating, co-facilitating, or co-planning.
Team Time: I schedule time with individuals and the team strategically and purposefully.
I structure individual check-ins to prioritize mutually agreed-upon topics essential for building trust, removing obstacles, and ensuring sufficient support.
Various team meetings have explicit purposes so that we are focused, productive, and respectful of everyone's time.
Team-building and teammate recognition are an intentional and consistent effort that all team members are committed to.
Team Building
LED Meeting Purposes
4. Ongoing Development
High-performing teams are comprised of motivated professionals who want to keep learning. Learning together and from one another builds positive team culture, fosters growth, encourages innovation, crowd-sources problem solving, and increases alignment. Teams who learn together tend to be more fulfilled, motivated, adaptable, and productive. And strong team leaders understand that they have as much (or more!) to learn as they do to teach others.
The artifacts below represent my commitment to team as a learning community that benefits team members personally as well as the goals and aspirations of the larger team and company.
"She has a knack for finding your strength and pushing you to leverage it in new and more effective ways. My growth under her has been significantly greater than any other period of my 15 years of work experiences. She encouraged me and found opportunities for me to grow-advocating for my teammates and I to have a maximum impact within and beyond our organization." -Chris Moses, Learning Experience Designer
"She helped me improve the structure of our data days and greatly increased teacher satisfaction. She helped me design a conceptual understanding PD that was very well received by leaders and math teachers. Emilee was both a coach and she was in the work with me." -Matthew Leftwich, Secondary Regional Math Leader for KIPP Atlanta
PD Club Learning Trajectory with Outcomes and Takeaways.docxSequence of Team Learning with Outcomes and Takeaways
Lesson Purpose Session
Lesson Purpose Session
Adult Learning Principles and Storytelling Agenda.pdfPrinciples of Adult Learning and Storytelling Session
PreK and Play as a Spectrum
Book Studies
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