The Hurdler

 Inspired by the Ten Faces of Innovation and my most recent team meeting. 

The Ten Faces of Innovation is a book by Thomas Kelly. It is noted as a book that is a "guide to nurturing and sustaining a culture of continuous innovation and renewal." It describes 10 personas necessary in an organization to drive innovation. In my time as an instructional coach, or a better description might be technology integration coach, I feel like I have cycled through all 10 of these personas at one point or another in the last 9 years. 

The personas are: 

Anthropologist

Experimenter

Cross-Pollinator

Hurdler

Collaborator

Director

Experience Architect

Set Designer

Storyteller

Caregiver

Right now the one that speaks to me most is - The Hurdler. Defined as a tireless problem-solver who gets a charge out of tackling something that's never been done before. When confronted with a challenge, the Hurdler gracefully sidesteps the obstacle while maintaining a quiet, positive determination. This optimism and perseverance can help big ideas upend the status quo as well as turn setbacks into an organization's greatest successes—despite doomsday forecasting by shortsighted experts. I don't know that I'm doing a lot of things that have NEVER been done before. I am trying to solve teachers' and administrators' issues or problems with technology. I really like crafting or co-crafting solutions with them. Just in the last 3 days, I have 4 different staff members come to me with 5 different issues or problems - "Here is the issue or problem. What tool(s) can I use to solve it?" Then lots of questions follow in order to make sure I have clarity on what they want the outcome to be for kids. It is so fun for me to choose an app and then test it to see if it really does what I want it to do. I love supporting teachers in this way. 

What persona are you?