How is it that a teacher leader who has followed all the recommended steps to ensure collaboration with his or her team — establishing a SMART goal, studying instructional strategies, administering assessments, looking at assessments with a protocol — still encounters superficial levels of discourse that do not move beyond the “culture of nice”? Consider the following common snapshot of a team: Pat Carter leads a team of teachers that has set a goal to improve student writing. The team meets twice a month, has discussed articles about literacy and implemented literacy strategies, and is for the first time looking at student work. Carter uses a protocol to guide the discussion and asks her team, “What do you notice?”  One teacher responds, “I notice that the