Forces of Influence: How Educators Can Leverage Relationships to Improve Practice, Feb/2020

In Forces of Influence, Fred Ende and Meghan Everette contend that schoolwide success starts with relationships—not only between students and adults, but also among all adults up and down the education hierarchy. It's by leveraging these relationships that educators can influence outcomes and effect real change.

But how can educators make sure they exert their influence astutely and sensitively, navigating education's priorities and pressures while keeping their work focused on the mission? This thought-provoking book helps readers navigate this tricky terrain, introducing four "forces," or levels, of influence and explaining how educators can use them to support one another's practice and push for positive outcomes for all learners. The authors

1. Explore each of the four forces--the pull, the push, the shove, and the nudge--and explain why they work and what research shows about their effectiveness.
2. Introduce the Forces of Influence Leadership Matrix (FILM), a framework that identifies how the four forces connect and helps readers determine when to use which force, with whom, and how.
3. Provide advice on how to course-correct by switching and layering the forces for positive results--and how to recover from setbacks.
4. Offer copious tools to support this work, including role-plays, self-assessments, templates, and questions to spur reflection and action.

Everything educators do requires them to build, sustain, and leverage relationships. With this guide, they no longer have to wing it.

ENDORSEMENTS

Written in a light, conversational tone, this book effectively explores how to cultivate and leverage professional relationships in ways that benefit coaches, leaders, and schools. Through an examination of four specific forces, Ende and Everette provide a manual for understanding strategic ways for influencing others toward improved personal and professional growth. An excellent tool for anyone in a position of influence, this book contains practical tips toward fostering group dynamics that are built on trust, mutual respect, and effective practice. Enhanced with authentic stories from professionals in the field of education, this resource can support the type of healthy collaborative relationships that are essential for effective schools.

—Pérsida Himmele, coauthor of Total Literacy Techniques and Total Participation Techniques and Associate Professor, Millersville University

In Forces of Influence, Fred Ende and Meghan Everette skillfully describe how to maximize the power of relationships to initiate successful school change. With joyful prose, Ende and Everette thoughtfully review the important literature on influencing and leveraging relationships and share an innovative and fresh framework to motivate school colleagues, enriched with stories of practice and real-world success strategies. Their “Pull, Push, Shove, and Nudge” framework, supported by self-assessments and practical templates to advance our understanding of key concepts, is a significant contribution to the literature on relationships and school change. School administrators, teacher leaders, and coaches should all add Forces of Influence to their toolbox of relationship-building strategies.

—Harvey Alvy, NAESP National Distinguished Principal, Professor Emeritus, Eastern Washington University, and author of Fighting for Change in Your School

Research shows effective leaders do more than just talk slower and louder to effect change; they leverage relationships, emotional intelligence, and trust to serve as catalysts for change. The best leaders, though, often do this so deftly that we fail to appreciate what they’ve done or how they’ve done it. With compelling insights, vivid real-life examples, practical tools, and good-natured humor, Fred Ende and Meghan Everette unpack the subtle art of interpersonal leadership—showing how to give others the right push at the right time to move them out of their comfort zones, offer gentle nudges to change their thinking, or lead by example to pull them toward better practices. For anyone seeking to expand their repertoire of relationship-building and people-influencing strategies, this book is a go-to resource—one you’ll want to highlight, dog-ear, and keep in a handy spot on your bookshelf (or e-reader) to refer to time and again.

—Bryan Goodwin, President and CEO of McREL International and coauthor of Balanced Leadership for Powerful Learning

Forces of Influence is a book for every educator who wants to amplify their impact by building more meaningful and powerful relationships with other educators. Ende and Everette share practical tips and takeaways that you can implement immediately. After reading this book, I find myself seeing my relationships through a different lens.

—Alyssa Gallagher, Experience Designer, Leadership + Design and coauthor of Design Thinking for School Leaders

Fred Ende and Meghan Everette have created an essential resource for any educator who is committed to strengthening their professional relationships. Full of concrete examples and actionable information, Forces of Influence provides educators with tools to help them build relationships at all stages of their career. This book is a must-have for any educator dedicated to improving their craft and becoming an agent of change.

—Monica Burns, author of Tasks Before Apps and founder of ClassTechTips.com

 This carefully researched and well-written book provides educators with a toolkit for building relationships within the schoolhouse. The authors clarify how teachers and administrators can use their role to influence others and contribute to the entire organization. The questions raised in each chapter will help teams reflect, plan, and grow!

—Steven M. Weber, Associate Superintendent for Teaching and Learning, Fayetteville Public Schools, Arkansas

What is more relevant to classroom teachers and teacher leaders than a book about relationships? Every teacher knows the impact that building strong relationships has on successful learning. Forces of Influence is an easy-to-read book by two highly effective educators who use their own relationship as a vehicle to share their insight for others to benefit from. It doesn’t matter if you are in sales, education, the medical field, or any other profession: the common denominator to all of them is relationships. This book is a go-to resource that can be read start to finish or serve as a great backdrop to any professional learning community discussion.

—Michael Dunlea, elementary teacher, NBCT and PAEMST, Global Learning Ambassador and 2012 NJ State Teacher of the Year Finalist

If you are a professional seeking to build on your relationships for positive outcomes, the framework and examples in Forces of Influence will help you be strategic and thoughtful about how to accomplish that. When I read this book, I was inspired to reconsider many of the interactions I have with my coworkers and how I might make those interactions more productive. It's a readable, light take on something that affects everyone: relationships with colleagues.

—Anna E. Baldwin, 2014 Montana Teacher of the Year