In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about power. Power is an abstract concept -- it’s hard to put your finger on. But we all know when power is empowering or disenfranchising. And when the power dynamics aren’t designed to empower, everyone loses. This week, I talk with Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall, an educator and consultant who has done fascinating work on power. Here we chat about the importance of mindfully building or re-building your power structure to foster greater equity and empowerment and, in return, improve results and boost your bottom line.
About My Guest
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with specializations in English Education and Critical Literacy from Virginia Tech. She has more than 20 years in education, including classroom teaching experience, coaching/supporting teachers and leaders at a district level through many avenues, and supporting educational organizations. Most recently, Dr. Marshall served as the Director of P12 practice with the Education Trust in Washington, DC. She has served as the principal consultant of educational equity consultancy Liaison Educational Partners where she works to partner with districts, states and organizations to support increasing equitable outcomes for all students. Her experience in education has created space for her voice to be heard on issues across the nation as a sought-after keynote speaker and facilitator, panelist, national and international conference presenter, a thought partner to districts, schools and educational organizations, a co-host of an education equity podcast, and an author; with published articles in magazines and journals, and book chapters. Her ASCD-published book, Understanding Your Instructional Power: Curriculum and Language Decisions to Support Each Student, was released in February 2023 with more than 2,700 copies sold.
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Transcript
Kim Meninger
Welcome, Tanji. I am so excited for our conversation. I've been excited for this conversation since before I invited you to it when we were having our discussion a few weeks ago and you started talking, I was like, I need to have this person on my podcast because I can't wait to dive into your work. Before we do that, I would love to invite you to introduce yourself, just tell us a little bit more about you and who you are what you do.
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall
All right, well, formally, I am Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall, and casually I am Tanji Marshall, and my grandson calls me Nan, Nan, and my son-in-law, Mark, calls me Dr. T. So I'm all of those. And I love being that I'm an educator with over two decades worth of experience at both the classroom level. And at the leadership level, I have a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from Virginia Tech, and I came into education as a second career, I was going to be a buyer and buy all over the world and buy fancy clothes and handbags. And I got an epiphany. And it was, if I was going to work that hard, I wanted it to be about something that really was going to last in the world. And the person that I my husband, my now husband, who was a dear friend of mine, we were sort of dating. And I started and ran a tutoring program in our hometown. And that sparked it for me. And from there, I became a teacher, I got a master's degree in English education, then I got my doctorate. I now run educator, liaison educational partners, which is an educationally focused, equity-minded, educational consultancy. And we do three main things. We work on curriculum, instruction, and culture. And we really help organizations both at the school side, and if the organization side, look at their mission, vision and values for greater alignment by really examining policies, practices, and the dynamics of power embedded in the, their relationships and teams. And so we really help people deeply dig into themselves first, and then push it out to their teams. And we take a five sort of five framework approach to that we help people learn, then we help them plan, we help them apply the learning and the plans that they have sort of instituted and constructed, then we help them step back and do some evaluation before we go into full scale integration, in school language require their cycle of improvement. So we use a cycle of improvement along the way, so that people can really, really don't jump to solutions first, like we are very good with solution, I this, and I want people to stop for a moment and step back. And I want them to learn, really to get some understanding and analyze some critical aspects of their organization, what might be some key drivers that sort of blocking and barriers to success. And a lot of times those barriers to success, I have found in my work STEM at the people level, you know, a product is a product, and of course, you're going to tweak it, you're going to test it. But a lot of times also lasting effects are at the people level. And I know this to be true. If you get the dynamics of the power, correct. And balance and even everything else will fall in line. You know, we hear a lot about cultural responsiveness. Well, I take the posture of cultural responsibility. Because if you are responding to something, that means you're waiting for a thing to happen, and then you react. But if you're responsible, if you're proactive, you're already with your mindset going down the road thinking about how can I make the best environment for my people, right? And that could be your children, your students that you teach, it could be the teachers, your league, it could be your sales team, your It could be anybody within a team that you're leading. And so and we look at four main environments that are created when this idea of power is examined. And the first one is the one everyone wants. It's this one about being empowered, right? That is the, I call that one, the hashtag goals. We're all leading to get there. Right? The next one right below that those four quadrants. The next one are dimensions dimension two is what I call A agentic. Right, the agentic. One is you're developing your agency and the critical difference between agency and empowerment is you have to exercise agency in a particular way to live out being empowered because empowerment means you fully understand that you've got agency how to marshal it For yourself, and then you move forward in your actions, but you're thinking first, so that you make the decisions that are best in your own interest. Right. And then right after that is the power protecting, it's the one that is probably the most challenging to detect. at the school level side, it would be hard to detect because it would be in an environment that looks like it's really working well. on the industry side, that's going to be an A team, or a department that on the surface, everyone is what I call key King and confined at the water fountain. But when you kick the tires, and look under the hood, you have some serious relational challenges. But what makes it hard is in that protective environment, they are getting results. You know, that teacher, that building leader, that regional president, that team leader, they might be hitting their numbers, but you might want to think about what's the cycle of turnover? What's happening in the building? What's happening on the team? Are people wanting to stay or do they go at the earliest sign that they can leave? And then the other one, the worst one is disenfranchising, and I think of it this way, we both have been in school, I want to take you back to your BC days because we could, we could pick our courses, right, but every now and then we picked a course. And our very stomach would churn, the minute we thought about having to step into that classroom, there was something about the culture, something about the professor that really created a hostile learning environment that's disenfranchising, those hostile environments exist everywhere, on the school side, but they are evident on the industry side as well. And so those are the lenses that I really help people understand deeply, and then work through how to detect where they might be. And then we work through a plan of let's do a problem, a practice protocol on something, let's think about how we can deeply examine one lever of change. And then let's, let's do some planning around it, let's apply some critical principles or strategies. Let's step back and look at it and see what's happening. And then let's go forward and do some implementation and full integration of what we learn to make lasting change.
Kim Meninger
I am so fascinated by this, because the concept of power seems so ambiguous and like the way that you have broken it down, and, you know, it just feels so much more actionable. And I'm curious when you talk to people, you mentioned the, you know, power protecting place, I can imagine that everybody well, most people want to be at the empowering level, maybe even think they are right, but how much resistance do you encounter? When people have to? to own the fact that they're not there? Right? Like, what? How did you get them to a place of awareness where they can even realize like, oh, we have a problem here?
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall
Yeah, number one, one of the things I've developed and I'm really excited because it's going through a testing phase, is that actually have a power questionnaire. Ah, and so, you know, people say this all the time. People lie data doesn't. Right, like data doesn't lie, you know, I mean, and so really helping people tap into some critical areas. And so when I think about the power, think about power as an acronym, right, so the P stands for your position, right? Where are you your role and your responsibilities? What is that? And then oh, is your ownership? How are you owning that position that you got? Are you making space for others? Are you holding on to it very tightly? And then W is for the work? Do you know what your work is? How do you help others come with you on the work cycle, and then the E is for the wholesale environment itself? And then R is for the relationships? So we ask a series of questions, really, you know, meant to get at each of those five, so you can really begin and it's not an exact science because nothing actually is when it's qualitative and you know this, but it really gives you some insight. Am I a position holder in a way that, that negatively impacts the environment writ large and the relationships specifically, you know, am I holding on to the work and my owning my space but not allowing others to own theirs are coming to mind? Right? And so when we have those conversations, and then we look at some bottom lines, let me let me see your numbers. You know, if this was at the school level, I want to see your discipline numbers, I want to see your referral numbers, I want to see the teachers who might be having high absentee rates. on the industry side, I want to look at your, your employee satisfaction results. Look at that, right, I want to look at your attendance. Right, I want to watch you want Zoom, and see who comes off camera, and who doesn't come camera. Like I want to watch those things and be your guide on the side to help you see, oh, this could be an area of opportunity for you to ask some deeper level questions, particularly for new managers, and middle managers who are trying to sort of level up and don't know, really, you know how to navigate that. But new managers find this particularly important for them.
Kim Meninger
That's a really critical time to get them to write because they haven't had time to sort of build some bad. And in a sense, it's more, you know, they're sort of aspiring towards that, as opposed to being told that they're doing something wrong already, right? Because I would imagine that there's less defensiveness, when they're just starting out, they're when they're already in the role. And now being told, Hey, you're gonna have to make some, some changes, changes.
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall
That's right. You know what I mean? And one of the things I asked people to do, is I want people to tap into their power orientations. Like, how did you learn about it? And the first place we learn about power and authority is where, at home, I learned about power and authority very early, it was never questioned who was in charge of my house, ever, never. And to this day, if I walk into my mom's house, I'm already taken back to who was in charge, right? I tell this story. My mom was an MC, she was fabulous MC, she just had this way of bringing an audience with her. And my sister and I was sitting on the front row. And we are just, you know, kicking around. We're just rustling paper. I think my mom gave us a 12-second eyeball. And listen, let me tell you, we had to straighten up and fly, right? Yeah, I'm saying. But that's where we learn it. Right. And when I became a teacher, I took that with me. Right now I have a grandson, who is not growing up the same way. He is learning about power and authority very early in a different way than my than I did. And even his mom did. Right? Because his mom lived in straighten-up and fly-right house. Right? That's where his mother live. But he's growing up in a house where he has a whole lot more agency, a whole lot more decision-making space. Right? And so that when he goes out into the world, it's not going to be anything for him to self-advocate. You know what I mean? He was getting ready to fund sorry, he was going to pre K and he had to meet his new pre-K teacher. And he was there explain to my daughter about lunch. You know, you go to school, they have the whole lunch room. It's a rite of passage, like school lunch is a rite of passage. And the teacher says to my daughter, hey, if here's a picky eater, you can bring his food. He was in earshot of that teacher, and II mediately. He said, I am not a picky eater. And do not call me that, oh, four years old. It's a very different way of understanding your power as a child relative to an adult. Absolutely. So when we have these managers that are new managers, or middle managers, they have a power orientation that they learned. And they need to be able to name that and they need to be able to I call it a memory lane. They need to walk down memory lane and go grab it. Because as I tell people who you are, comes with you everywhere you go, you like don't leave it in the car. It's not in the trunk. It's with you in your hip pocket. So you know, and there's a really famous thing that is attributed to a nice name, but it's not her saying just gets attributed to her. And the saying is we see things as we are not as they are. [Mm-hmm. Yes.] Yeah. So we don't see things as the things are, we see them as who we are, again, because who you are is with you, when you walk through any door you go through. And so, you know, tapping into that dynamic is game-changing, right? Because then you tap into that, and you get that alignment, right? You're inclusivity through the roof, just to be mindful. Right, your ability to appreciate the perspectives of others, through the roof, the stability on your teams, through the roof, right, the respect level of humanity through the roof. And ultimately, your bottom line is not even a question anymore. Because you can begin to work on developing skills that might be needed the heart skills, right? It was, Oh, what the soft skills? Well, this is a critical, soft skill. It's a critical, soft skill that directs all the other soft skills.
Kim Meninger
Absolutely, absolutely. And it's so interesting because when you gave that example of your grandson, I started thinking about how even in today's workplaces where there's so many different generations, right, there's so many misperceptions and complex because people who come from an older generation, call the newer generation entitled, and think that they're, you know, sort of overstepping in certain kinds of situations. And I just think it's so important, what you said of this is so much a function of our own experience and our own sort of expectations and relationship to power. And I'm assuming that the trend is going to continue over time that people are going to have a lot more comfort with self-advocacy and being a decision-making process. So it's partly, as you said, Before, you have to learn about yourself first, and then really think about, how do I knowing that this is the landscape that I'm operating within? Right? How do I need to adjust to that?
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall
That’s right. Yeah. And on the power of protecting sign, people protect themselves, right themselves and their orientations and who they are as people and individuals, they protect their position, right. But then they protect institutions, or they protect the culture of the institution itself. And so predict, and this is particularly salient at on the school side, like school, education is an institution. And there are just some mechanisms that are in place that people are hard-wired to protect. There are some cultural dynamics in place that people just can't name in an organization, but they will protect it. It's the unspoken culture that gets protected the most. Right like, well, that's just we just don't do that thing. Like it. We just don't do that. And nobody can harken back to the day when you didn't do it. Like when you did it. No one, no one can find the whole like, it's not written down. Right. It's called the hidden curriculum of culture. Right, that there's a per there are people who are, you know, drivers of that, you know, we talked about, you know, intellectual capacity, and we talk about, you know, there's going to be this called, like, holding on to, they hold on to a thing that is institutionally ascribed. But no one can find out where it is. But we all kind of live by it. We just kind of know it's there, right? So like, at the organization where I used to work, there was an unspoken rule that every meeting kind of started, like five-ish minutes late. So when I first got there, I came out of school. You can't be late at school, if you're late, Johnny's in the hallway, and that's a problem. That again, be in the hallway, right? I go into the incident, I go into this culture, and I'm dressed up and got my whole suit on the whole night. No one's wearing a suit. But it's not written down that we are casual. It's just kind of like you pick it up. Right? And then the whole meeting thing was always uh, oh, well, we're gonna all kind of gather. But then you have a person like me, who steps into that and I'm like, well, Johnny's in hallway, I can't believe. And sort of really, understanding the hidden curriculum of culture is critical. But that's a power dynamic because when a person feels a certain level of institutional, personal or positional threat, they will lean in and protect and they do it in very subtle subtle ways. That unless you know what the telltale signs are If you miss it, you miss it, but you feel it like you'll feel it. But you won't know how to name it. And so having this power framework gives names, it gives names, it gives a framework, it gives an orientation to it, that really can break down some silos and really open up environments. So they feel people want to have a great environment. Like no one creates a company to have a terrible work environment, no one's doing that, like I haven't met anybody who woke up and said, You know what, this is the day, I want to have a bad work environment for the people that I leave, no one does that, you and me. And so my role is to really help them lean in on a very deep level of culture that they may not have considered. And really help them see more broadly and more deeply. So that they can get they can do the things that they want to do. They can be a great company, they can have wonderfully high-performing teams, where everybody knows that they belong, right, and that they are valued and respected, and can be a productive member of a team. For sure.
Kim Meninger
So when you, when you say that, I mean, I feel like that's the, that's the thing that we all want, like you said, nobody wants to architect a system that's going to make people miserable, and what's going on, right, like I but, but I think about as you're talking, there's a spectrum, even just in terms of the dimensions that you define, but also like the inner work that's required for this. And when you talk about power protectors, right? That vulnerability required to recognize I'm getting in the way of what I actually want, or that I may have to lose something or that fear that comes with change, right? Like, is it? Is it necessary to be at a certain place already, in order to do this work? Or can you really start anywhere?
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall
I feel like it takes willingness. You know, in the me and I and I'll, I wrote, I wrote a book. And it was very, it was Ed focused. But the more I talked to people, the more he crosses industry and profession. And I lay out very clearly about who I was, I was a power-protecting person as an edge as a new educator. You know, I had my power orientation I cut I'd come into teaching from retail, which is, you know, high speed, high demand, you walk past wear black every day. And I mean, I literally wore black every day, teaching third graders I wore black every day. Okay. And like, you know, you have to like walk your kids down the hall. So I want you to imagine a mother duckling, who's walking down the hall and a string of little ducklings behind them. That was me. And I am walking at like, Top New York speed. And these little kids can't keep up. And I'm like, well, we got to get somewhere we gotta go to gym. I'm like, it's Jim. Rolex. I really had to, it takes a catalyzing event, I would say, I will say that. So you might be a disenfranchised and not realize it. You might be a preacher, power protector, you might be anywhere. But there has to be a catalyzing event that is so impactful, that it creates the need to pause, and you're left with no other choice, but to ask yourself a different set of questions. That's, that's the game plan. You got to you've got to be able to be willing to ask yourself a different set of questions. When that catalyzing event happens. It could be with a person, it could be with another person that you lead. It could be with a peer, it could be that your sales numbers have hit rock bottom, and you just can't figure out why. You know, it could be any, it could be any number of catalyzing events. But it is a catalyzing event that kicks it off.
Kim Meninger
That makes perfect sense because inertia is so powerful, right? And there's no nobody's going to put themselves through the discomfort of change unless there's something more compelling on the other side of it.
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall
Yeah, yeah. And maybe you got a really tough 360 vowel, right? Maybe your, your disc components are just so out of whack and on eBay, right? There's a whole bunch of things that could really create this space for a person to want to ask them different questions about themselves first, and then to the team and then out to the organization and things like that, for sure.
Kim Meninger
So you just made me think of something too. And you said asking yourself first, is this work that has to be done at the entire system level or can it be done in smaller pieces, pieces?
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall
There's no organization isn't ready to do it on a full scale. Because, because systemically, right, so forget systematic approaches to something, systemically, organizations are not set up to do that. Right, the better thing is to take the willing, right to take the willing, and then they become a catalyst to spread out from there. Like, oh, my God, you know, we did this things happen. We learned about our power, we did this, look at how it's impacting us, our relationship is this, we were able to do we have better, more open communication. Right? As a leader, I am more willing to ask for help from my, from people who work for me and my peers, I foster innovation, you know, I look for innovation, I am trying to get people to really, you know, teamwork, collaborate, authentically collaborate, you know, what I mean? Bring their ideas. I'm open to all of that. You don't I mean, and so I think it's, it's something of this nature is always better small.
Kim Meninger
And I think you're absolutely right too and I'm thinking about it even term in terms of like, adoption of new technology, or something where you've always got your early adopters, you're really enthusiastic people who are at the forefront, then you've got your laggards and your skeptics, right? So I love what you're saying about getting those, those first people who are really on board to then demonstrate the value of making these changes, and then you start to change the minds of the other people who are a little bit further behind.
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall
Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, it works. That's how it works. It's a fascinating, it's a fascinating body of work. I look forward to partnering with lots of folks really talk about it, you know, and I'm glad that we're talking about it. Because the more people hear about it, the more they're like, Yeah, that makes so sense. And here's the thing. The minute somebody hears about the concept of power protecting, they can name 10 people off the top of their head themselves included without blinking and I go, Yeah, that's it. That's it. That's it.
Kim Meninger
That’s so true and just a good point. And it's, and that's what I was thinking about earlier when I was talking about how you have taken this concept have broken it down, because you think power and you just, you get overwhelmed by it, the where do you start? Right? And I think that just having a framework to, you know, sort of help people, what are the behaviors? How do I know where I fall?
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall
And that's exactly what I do. We talked about dispositions. We talked about environment. And we're talking about actions. Right? So when you are in a power-protecting environment, what's the disposition of the leader of that environment? Right? How do you know it when you see like, what's the behavior? Like, what's happened? What's the environment feel like? Was it look like, feel like, right? And in schools, we do a lot of like, walkthroughs, we use things called walkthroughs. And we look at instruction. And we watch same principle, right? You go and you watch and you just sit and you're watching. And you look at meeting a jet, you look at meetings, you, you look, like I said, you know, you look at the Zoom screen, you know, there are ways to really tie that together so that a person who's leading can begin to learn, hey, you know, I noticed this over here, I noticed a lot of unevenness over here. And then to top it all off, we talk about the use of six different types of power, like types of power. So I've got my four dimensions, but then I coupled them with six types of power. So we talked about Reverent Power, right? You like you and I, you know, we have Boston College in common. That's a reverent power that we are now equalized on. Right? We have something immediately in common. We don't have to like, oh, Harvard BC, we're not doing any of that nonsense, right? Because we went to the best university in... Anyway. We talked about that, when we talked about reward power, you know, how does a leader use reward to manage behavior, and you have to do all of them, right? Like the reverent one is around relationships and commonality. But sometimes if you lean too hard, you're going to create imbalance someplace else. [Yeah.] Right? If you lean into reward too hard, too heavily, then you create people who are intrinsically motivated. Right? And so they only deal with carrots, you know, then we talk about coercive power. Well, sometimes you just gotta get in there and think that you just gotta get in there and do it. But if that is your modus operandi you create that disenfranchisement. And then we go on to talk about others. And so, you know, we really want people to understand what they're doing with their behavior. And why, why are you doing this? You know, and what's the effect on other people and your bottom line? Right, like, we got to get clear, this is about your bottom line. You know, in schools, the bottom line is, you know, student outcomes need to be improved for reading and math across all grade levels, you know, reduced absenteeism, you know, what I mean? Like, higher motivation. On the org side, it is bottom line sales, you gotta sell stuff, you know, I'm a former retailer, we have some gloves, period, full stop. I mean, that's it, how many gloves are just selling? And what color and what size? You know, so at the bottom line, it's about the numbers. But the numbers only tell you one part of the story. You know, I mean, you've got to, you know, as a researcher, you've got to lean into a mixed method approach. But that takes into account the quantitative data, for outcome understanding, and then the qualitative data for understanding correlation and cost.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, and you know, I think about this a lot, too, is that I have an undergraduate degree in psychology as do you. So we know this stuff because it's interesting to us. And we learned it and but you think about how many people in the business world today who never studied any of this, it's not intuitive to them in the way that it is to us. And so a lot of what you're describing is, is enlightenment in a way that, you know, there's always resistance to change. But if you don't know, it's almost, you know, in and of itself, when you talk about power, another form of unconscious bias, right? Because you don't, you don't know that your power style, or your approach to power is driven by your own experience, and that it differs from somebody else's, right? Like, you may be banging your head against the wall, wondering why you can't get your team on board, you can get the results you're looking for, but you already know, no idea what to do differently,
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall
You'd have no idea you have no idea. And so this really helps people get an idea. Right? Like, get an idea? Oh, well, we got to do you know, we got to do DEI, and we got to be this. Yeah, you do have to be that. But you've got to also be it in an authentic way that is not undermining the humanity of another person. Right, like, you've got to be clear about what it is you're doing, and, and how that's working, you know, on that side with your teams, you know, with your teams, and you know, maybe, maybe you're on the HR team, maybe you're on the development side of the business, maybe you are on the sales side of the business, right? Maybe you're on the product development side of a business, and you just cannot get the team working together the way that it should, because somebody is holding on to a thing that they don't realize [yes] and I'm here to release you.
Kim Meninger
But it’s just so important because I just think that, you know, a lot of times if you're super results-oriented, you think that the, the people side is, oh, that's fluffy, right? Like, that's a waste of time, we don't we don't worry about that stuff. But this is just reinforcing the idea that you have to look at the intersection between people and results in order to get to where you want to be.
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall
Because people are the way people are the conveyor to the results. Like when you go to the airport, you get your luggage on the conveyor belt, humans are the conveyor belt of your results.
Kim Meninger
Exactly [in theory] it's so true. And I know there's no precise answer to this question. But I'm curious if you have thoughts on if there are people who are thinking, This sounds amazing, and I'm busy, and I've got a million things going on in my life. Like, I don't know that I can make the time commitment, like what do you think about when you think of how this fits into all the other responsibilities and demands of our time? Like, is it are there and I'm sure you're gonna say yes to this, but I'm just curious like how you argue how you handle an objection from somebody says, we don't have time for that, right? We've got is are there ways of making it sustainable? Are there ways of making it? doable, so to speak?
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall
Well, my, my response to it is, Well, you certainly don't have to make time. What are you happy with your results? So fine, don't, don't make the time. I don't want you're right, you're 100% correct. Do not make the time and then call me in six months because your results are going to be worse than they are now. Because you will not have taken the time to end, this isn't an investment in your people. Right? Do you want better results? Do you want to stop the leaky bucket of people leaving because that's its own investment cycle? Right? Because every time you have a person who comes on board, you have to spend money to train them, where you give them 90 days or whatever. And if you don't catch it within the first 90 days, and you're on the hook. [That's right.] You're on the hook. And then okay, fine. And then what? And then what? You mean, so yeah, you're right, you don't have the time. And then I will, I can't wait for you to call me in six months.
Kim Meninger
That's a perfect answer. Because you're absolutely right. I often that is often my response to people who say, I don't have time, it's like you don't try not to do this. Because you're, you're gonna be spending time on something. And if what you're spending your time on is not working. Keep doing it. But…
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall
And then my question would be right, then why are you what are you power protecting right now? Right now in your resistance is a form it's its own form of power, protecting? What engines of this institution? Are you protecting right now? Right? What part of yourself? Are you protecting right now that you do not want to invest in other people who don't want to protect? And because you now hold the purse strings to it, you are the barrier to somebody else's advancement. But okay, go ahead. Go ahead. I love that for you. I love that for you. Alright, so what wonderful. I love that. So, yeah.
Kim Meninger
So I'm thinking about this in terms of, you know, this is the, this is your work that you have been focused on and like so for people who are riveted and want more of what we're talking about, what's the first step? Do they reach out to you like, where do we go next?
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall
Yeah, where do we go next, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn, I'm on LinkedIn, Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall, on LinkedIn, you can email me liaisoneducationalpartners@gmail.com, you can reach out to my assistant at throughtheireyesconsult@gmail.com. and set up a discovery call, I'd love to chat, love to keep going, and be a great partner in this work to really get people moving to create the environments they set out to create every day.
Kim Meninger
And I'll put those links in the show notes as well, for anybody who's interested. And I just thank you so much, Tanji, for being here, but also for the work you're doing is so important. And I think it's foundational to all of the other things that we claim to want to change and fix. Right. And you had talked about it earlier, too, of inclusivity just is a byproduct of what you're talking about, right? Like, you know, we're trying to solve things at a very superficial level without getting to the root cause. And that's what I love so much about what you're doing. So thank you for, for, for your pioneering of this important work.
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall
And thank you for having this conversation with me. I appreciate it. And just for anyone who's listening, I am the book that kicked all this off is called, Understanding Your Instructional Power: Curriculum and Language Decisions to Support Each Student. But I promise you don't let the title get you hung up but you're going to be learning about school you might, but the gems in there are crossover-effect everywhere you go. We're celebrating a one-year anniversary. I'd love to be in conversation with folks about it. So yeah. Perfect.
Kim Meninger
And I'll make sure that that's linked in the show notes as well. Thank you so much.
Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall
The pleasure was all mine. I can't I can't wait to do it again sometime. Absolutely. All right, friend. We'll talk soon. Okay.