SAN CARLOS, CALIF. (Dec. 3, 2019) – The way teams work makes an incredible difference in an organization’s culture and effectiveness. For leaders who want help improving their teams, the new book “The NEW Team Habits: A Guide to the New School Rules” provides a step-by-step guide for building habits that help teams be more successful.
The book is co- authored by Anthony Kim, founder and CEO of education consultants Education Elements; Keara Mascareñaz, the company’s managing partner of organizational design; and Kawai Lai, one of the company’s founding team members. The NEW Team Habits is published by Corwin, a leading provider of evidence-based professional learning for K-12 educators, and is available at Amazon and Corwin.
The NEW Team Habits is a follow-up to the best-seller The NEW School Rules, which was co-authored by Kim. It provides battle-tested practices the authors have used with hundreds of leadership teams to build better habits for team learning, meetings and projects.
"Educators in schools and districts across the country work extremely hard for all the right reasons, to prepare our students for the future!" said Kim. "Our next evolution as an education system is to change the way we work. Teams are the node for change and have a ripple effect across the organization. If we want to have more inclusive, diverse, and learning focused organizations, we have to change the everyday practices we have as teams."
In the book, readers will find:
A five-step learning cycle for building team habits
Links to videos, readings, and other resources to build knowledge
Engaging team activities to drive learning
“We wrote this book because as we worked with schools and districts we saw some teams consistently able to achieve their goals and others not,” said Mascareñaz. “Leaders understand why new team practices matter, but struggle to build buy-in, transfer knowledge to others, and make changes that are the right size: big enough to make an impact but not so big as to overwhelm their teams. This book serves as a step-by-step guide to make changing team habits more fun and possible.”
About the Authors
Anthony Kim is a speaker and Corwin Press bestselling author, with publications including The New Team Habits, The New School Rules, and The Personalized Learning Playbook. His writing ranges the topics of the future of work, leadership and team motivation, improving the way we work, and innovation in systems-based approaches to organizations and school design. Anthony believes that how we work is the key determinant to the success of any organization.
Keara Mascareñaz is the Managing Partner, Organizational Design at Education Elements. She focuses on organizational design and how to build and scale a culture of innovation in large systems. Keara leads work in change management, leadership development, school design, and strategic planning. Mascareñaz is the toolkit creator for The NEW School Rules: 6 Practices for Thriving and Responsive Schools.
Kawai Lai is a designer, facilitator, and strategy consultant helping organizations make the abstract more concrete. She was a founding team member of Education Elements and is also a co-founder of VizLit, an organization with a mission to unlock the visual minds of students and educators. Formerly, she served as the Vice President of Innovation at the National Association of Independent Schools, a non-profit serving over 1,800 schools and 730K students across the country and abroad.
About Education Elements
Education Elements works with districts to build and support dynamic school systems that meet the needs of every learner, today and tomorrow. Education Elements takes the time to understand the unique challenges school leaders face, and then customize the Education Elements approach for each district. Ed Elements has worked with hundreds of districts across the country. They bring deep expertise, design thinking, expert facilitation and the spirit of collaboration, along with their extensive toolkit of resources and technology, to deliver sustainable results. Please visit http://www.edelements.com to learn more.
