EPISODE #284

Boundaries vs Agreements

You're listening to the school leadership reimagined podcast episode 283. 

Hey builders, before we begin today's episode, I just want to let you know that we have opened up the final cohort for Buildership University for the year. So if you want to get your 100% vision completely created, get your entire staff to be aligned to that vision, to be committed to that vision, and to get a plan for how you will achieve that vision in the next three years, all done before you go home from the holidays so that when you come back in January, you can hit the ground running and really get started, then you need to join us. Go to buildershipuniversity.com in order to register.

And we even have a way for you to get started for as little as $500. Now on with the show. You're listening to the School Leadership Reimagined podcast, episode 284.

How do builders like us make a dramatic difference in the lives of our students in spite of all the obstacles we face? How do you keep your vision for your school from being held hostage by resistant teachers, uncooperative parents, ridiculous district policies, or a lack of time, money, or resources? If you're facing those challenges right now, here's where you'll find the answers, strategies, and actionable tips you need to overcome any obstacle you face. You don't have to wait to make a difference in the lives of the people you serve. You can turn your school into a success story right now with the people and resources you already have.

Let's get started. Hey, builders. Welcome to another episode of the School Leadership Reimagined podcast.

I'm your host, Robyn Jackson. And today, I was going to talk about something else, but I saw a post, I browse some principal forums on Facebook. I can't stay too long because they get kind of toxic.

But every once in a while, I like to see what principals are thinking and what they're concerned about. And I saw a post that caught my eye and was about setting boundaries. Now, I see these posts all the time on forums like this, where principals who are really steeped in that leadership framework go around and they say, I need to either hold a boundary or you're not going to violate my boundaries, or I need to set boundaries.

And we really think that we need to set boundaries in order to keep people from encroaching, in order to keep people from taking advantage. Usually, people decide that they need to set a boundary because they're frustrated with something. So, you know, people have been calling them all hours of the night.

They say, I need to put some boundaries around my time or parents don't pick up their children when they should be. And we need to put some boundaries around pickup time because they're taking advantage or teachers aren't doing what they need to do. So we need to hold a boundary around this.

And so the training, the leadership training that we receive says that the solution to any kind of encroachment is a boundary. And I get the thinking behind it. I mean, for years, I believed the same thing.

I thought that, you know, you need to be clear about your boundaries in your role. And so I did the same thing. I set boundaries around my time.

I remember, you know, being an assistant principal and putting some boundaries around my time. I don't work on from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. That is a boundary, I suppose.

And so I did it. But here's the problem with boundaries. There are a couple of problems.

The first problem is that boundaries are designed to separate. They're designed to keep some people out. Maybe it's to keep people out your business.

Maybe it's to keep people out of your time. But the idea of a boundary is that you are putting kind of a wall up around some part of you, and you're keeping people out of that. And when it comes to doing the shared work that we need to do in schools, do we really want to be keeping people out? Is that the way? It's hard to get a staff aligned.

It's hard to get a staff really working together towards a goal. If everywhere they turn, there's another boundary keeping them out of something. Isn't the whole point to invite them in to work together, to build together? When you look at teams and the way that they build, I would argue that they don't necessarily have what we would traditionally consider a boundary.

They do have something, and we're going to talk about that in a second, but I don't know if it's designed to keep people out. It's really anything that they have is designed to help them work better together. And so boundaries are about, they feel very protective.

They feel very me versus you. They feel like I'm on one side of the wall, you're on the other side of the wall. And that runs counter to this idea that we are all working together towards a goal for our kids.

So that's the first thing. 

The second challenge with boundaries is that it's your job to enforce boundaries. I mean, people can respect your boundaries or not.

And when you set boundaries, you have to be hypervigilant, watching out to make sure that other people don't violate your boundary. That's a lot of work. I mean, shouldn't the both of you be accountable for respecting something? But in a boundary, you set the boundary, you guard the boundary, you enforce the boundary, you hold other people to the boundary.

People can just decide to respect it or not. And so all the responsibility comes on you. So the moment that you create a boundary, you've given yourself another job because now you have to protect your boundary.

I mean, isn't the purpose of having a boundary to make your life easier, to be able to give you the time and space to do the things that you want to do? But now instead of doing that, you're constantly patrolling the fence you've erected, looking for encroachment. And again, that is just way too much work. I don't know, call me lazy, but I just think that the work of patrolling your life, looking for violators of boundaries, that's just not how I want to spend my time.

I really want to spend my time enjoying my life, doing work that really matters to me, making a difference. And I don't know that I have a whole bunch of energy to patrol my life, looking for people, looking to make sure that my boundaries are still intact. The third challenge with boundaries are that there's no exchange.

You tell other people this is a boundary and then they have to deal with that information. Now, some people are like, yeah, that's exactly right because it's my life and I get all of that, right? But if we're working together and we are trying to accomplish something together, I don't dictate to you how you treat me and then you dictate to me how I treat you. We're just standing around dictating to each other.

Shouldn't we be doing something more cooperative? Shouldn't we be doing something that really facilitates our ability to work together? And it's just, again, boundaries feel like it's an us versus them or me versus you. I'm telling you what my boundaries are and you're saying, well, I heard your boundaries but here are my boundaries. And by the time we're done, we've got so much of our work lives cordoned off, separated by these boundaries, there's very little common ground for us to come together to do the work.

So boundaries, great idea in theory. 

I get why people do them because sometimes people do take advantage. Sometimes you do need to stand up for yourself and boundaries gives you a platform on which you can stand to protect yourself.

So I get it. And I can't speak to what it does in the therapeutic world or what it does to personal relationships, but I just don't know that they always work at work. Now here's what builders do.

Builders recognize that there are times when we need to be accountable. I just did a whole two-part series on accountability and so you can check it out. Just go to schoolleadershipreimagined.com, I know that's a mouthful, but schoolleadershipreimagined.com slash episode 280.

And you can also do schoolleadershipreimagined.com slash episode 281, it's a two-part series. And the part one of that series, episode 280, shows you the exact tool that we use to create these agreements. So I'm not going to go through the tool today, but I want to talk to you about why agreements are better than boundaries.

So I've already spoiled it. That's the opposite or the solution to the need for boundaries that overcomes all of the pitfalls of boundaries is to have agreements. The difference between boundaries and agreements is profound, right? So number one, when you create boundaries, you separate people.

When you create agreements, you bring everybody to the table. You say, here is the challenge that we're facing, right? Because people are not, in my opinion, I like to believe the best in people, people are not running around looking for boundaries to violate. Most people are not doing that.

Most of the time, when you feel the need for a boundary, it's because people are trying to get their needs met in a way that is incongruent with how you want to live. Let me give you a concrete example that I see all the time. People say, you need to set a boundary around your time.

You need to be able, no emails and phone calls after hours, right? Why are people calling you after hours? Because they have a need. They have a concern. They're trying to solve a problem for them and they're calling you and you resent the calls because you're like, I need a life.

So what you have are two needs. 

I need help or I need support or I need a sounding board versus your need for privacy, a life, downtime, whatever. So you have two competing needs.

Your setting a boundary takes care of your need, but it doesn't take care of the need of the other person. But when you come to the table and you create an agreement, you can take care of both needs. You can say, listen, I need to have some downtime.

You need support. So let's talk about how we can get you the support you need without my having to sacrifice the downtime that I need. And you come together and you create an agreement.

Now look at how, look at how much more effective that is, right? When you do a boundary, what you're doing is you're saying, I can't take it anymore. My need is important, so I'm going to set a boundary and you need to go handle your need on your own. You know what happens when you do that? They might go handle their needs on their own in ways that are detrimental to the work you're trying to do in your school, right? But once you create a boundary, you're on the other side of the wall and you're like, you're an adult, handle it on your, handle it on your own.

But the problem is that even though they're an adult and you're an adult and you know, if the need goes unmet, the person who ultimately suffers is the kid in the classroom that you both are trying to serve. If your staff member needs support, but you have a boundary around your time that says, don't call me at home. So they don't call you at home and they figure it out on their own.

How can you be sure that they have figured it out in a way that, that is actually going to best serve your vision, mission, and core values, assuming you even have one? How can you be sure that they don't find a, a, a less productive way of getting that need met that you, that's going to create a bigger problem that you have to create down the, that you have to solve down the line. When you have a boundary, you're like, well, look, whatever. But my boundaries are intact.

This doesn't serve the organization. When you have agreements, you can put it all out on the table and solve the underlying problem. Cause that's another problem with boundaries.

Boundaries don't solve the underlying problem. 

They just create a space where you're more comfortable, but when you have an agreement, you can sit down, you can solve problems together, come to an agreement. And then here's the, here's another benefit.

Once you have an agreement, you're both responsible for upholding that agreement. When you have a boundary, it's just you enforcing. When you have an agreement, both of you are accountable to that agreement.

Both of you are responsible for upholding that agreement. It changes how people enter into the work. It changes how people, how people respect what the outcome of that agreement is.

You know, in a boundary people can, you know, you, you say, well, my choice is I've created a boundary. People can choose to respect or not respect your boundary. Then you have to choose how you deal with them or what consequences you give them for respecting or not respecting your boundary.

It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a lot of work and it's, it's, it's not always useful. When you have an agreement though, you're both accountable. So you're not the enforcer that you both say, this is what we agreed to do.

And then you both are responsible for yourselves in terms of how you keep that agreement. So it doesn't mean that agreements never get broken. I mean, you know, I do live in the real world.

I recognize that they do, but they get broken far less than boundaries get violated. That's important. And again, if you look at schoolleadershipreimagine.com slash episode 281, I talk about how you can handle it on those rare occasions when people break agreements in a way that gets people back to the table and back to the agreement and helps you build stronger agreements and stronger relationships with your staff.

Okay. So having the agreement in place, um, it's, it's, you don't keep people out. You bring people to the table, you make everybody responsible for upholding that agreement.

And then here's the most important part. When you sit down and create agreements instead of boundaries, you actually solve the deeper issue. It's not just a matter of, well, here's a problem.

And a boundary often feels like a bandaid that makes you feel better, but doesn't tackle the issue. When you sit down and bring everybody to the table for the agreement and you tackle the issue and you solve it, it ceases to be an issue anymore. And so you don't need a boundary at that point because you've solved the issue.

Hey, Robyn here. And I just want to break in real quick to ask you a huge favor. You see, I want to get the word out to everybody about buildership.

And I could use your help. If you're really enjoying this episode, would you mind just going to your podcast platform and leaving a quick review? You see, the reviews get the word out. They tell other people, this is a great show.

Other people who have never heard of School Leadership Reimagined before can hear about it. And you'd be sharing the word about buildership. So would you mind just leaving a quick review? It would mean the world to me.

Okay, now back to the show.

I'll give you a personal example. 

I had an employee who would text me all hours of the night.

You know, at the time we were all doing a lot of traveling and mind steps. And so, you know, I may be in a hotel somewhere getting some sleep in a different time zone, trying to get myself ready so I can show up fresh the next day. I might get a text from this person at midnight, one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning, complaining about the, you know, the travel that this person was going through or something else that wasn't right.

First of all, what am I supposed to do with your complaint at one or two o'clock in the morning? And I used to get so mad because it would stress me out because they were always bringing problems to me at two o'clock in the morning. And I'm trying to, I'm on the road to, and anyway, I was, so the traditional leadership advice was I need to set a boundary, right? I need to tell my team, don't text me after 11. I got to, I mean, I don't go to bed at 11, but you know, don't text me after 11 because I need some downtime.

You know, send me an email if you have, you know, I could have done boundaries like that, but it wouldn't have solved the problem. It would have just created another barrier to a solution. It glossed over the problem.

I was asleep, but that other person who felt the need to text me at one and two o'clock in the morning still was sitting in all of the challenges that they were sitting in. So I remember, you know, I got another text. I was on a trip.

I got another text. I was like, yep, this is it. I'm done.

No, we got it. We got it. We're going to deal with this.

I was mad. And usually a lot of times when people have to set boundaries, it's because they're mad. It's because there's something that, you know, they just can't take anymore, which is a terrible reason.

I mean, to start a boundary instead of dealing with a problem, right? Usually the boundaries you create are more about giving you immediate relief from the fact that you're mad or frustrated than they are about you actually solving the problem. Okay. So I was mad.

The next day I get up, I go to breakfast. I probably told you this story before. And I'm telling my team, this is it.

You know, the team that was with me, part of my team was with me, this person was somewhere else. I'm saying, this is it. We, you know, I'm not doing this anymore.

I'm tired of all these complaining tags and da da da. 

And a member of the team said to me, like, you know, well, how would a builder handle it? And I said, I'm going to handle it. All right.

I'm going to do a boundary. And we were actually at a training by a former mentor of mine, Annie Hyman Pratt. And she was talking, she was the first person to introduce me to the ideas of agreements versus boundaries.

And I was still struggling with the idea because I, like you might've been steeped in that, or like you might be, maybe you're a builder, you don't think this way anymore. But I was trained like you were probably trained to think about boundaries and how, you know, the importance of setting boundaries. And so I was like, this is too touchy feely for me.

I'm going to set a boundary, that's it. And Robert was on the team and Robert said, you know, well, maybe you should try it. I mean, don't you tell people to, that they have this, you know, trapeze moment.

So one of the things we always say in our training is that you're going to have a trapeze moment where you have to let go of something that you used to believe in order to reach for something that you now believe that's better for you. He says, you're just having a trapeze moment. Don't you always talk about trapeze moments? Now I'm going to tell you what is the most annoying thing in the world is when you have somebody who uses your own words against you, right? So he backed me in a corner because I do say that, but you know, he says, how can you ask other people to be open in those moments in your workshops when you are sitting in a workshop and you're not open to it? I mean, so I, I had no choice.

I had to go ahead and do it. So during lunch break, I had a call, um, with the, with the team member. And instead of, instead of holding a boundary, I sat down and we negotiated an agreement.

What I found was that, that the team member thought that the team member was looking for an opportunity to commiserate. Um, because if you know, if you're not in this life, right, where you're on the road all the time and you know, the, the consulting life, everybody thinks it looks glamorous from the outside. It's not glamorous.

It's, I mean, that road is brutal. And sometimes you just need somebody with whom you can commiserate. And so we sat down, we talked about, she said, I was just looking for somebody to commiserate.

And I immediately saw her complaints as not something that I needed to solve, but an opportunity to commiserate, which took the pressure that I started feeling off immediately because it wasn't that she was asking me to solve these problems. It was, she was looking for somebody with whom she should, she could commiserate. And so we talked about that and I said, I don't feel very commiserative that, did I just make up that word? Yeah, commiserative.

Um, I don't even know if that's a real word, but I don't feel like commiserating at two o'clock in the morning. I'm tired. I want to go to sleep.

So can we, can we talk, can we agree, um, about, you know, when it's time to commiserate or how to do it? And we, we created an agreement about how we communicate about that sort of thing. It was a half an hour conversation. And the moment I had it, I immediately felt lighter.

I was excited. But you know what else? 

The thing that, that, that really struck me is I actually enjoyed her more. I understood her more.

I liked working with her more. I felt closer to her. I felt like we were on the same team.

She said that she felt the same way. And so as a result, our work relationship got stronger because we now had an agreement. We now understood each other.

If I had gone and set a boundary and said, now look at here, um, you can't be texting me, uh, you know, doing the things that we normally do. Or even if I had set the same, the same equivalent, but I used work appropriate language, I think we need to set a boundary here about our time and how we text each other, which is the same thing as looking here, stop texting me at one o'clock and we're the same thing, right? So if I had done that, I would have pushed her away. I would have created division.

But when I went to the table and treated her like a valuable colleague and sat down and really got to the root of the matter and made an agreement together about how we were going to proceed forward, it made our working relationship better. It helped us to understand each other better. And I never got another crazy text like that again, never.

So I, that was the first time, it's probably why I tell the story of the time, because it was really a profound moment for me. It was the first time I realized that the way I had been trained about setting boundaries and holding boundaries and all of that wasn't serving me. Because a lot of times when I set boundaries, I didn't feel better afterwards.

It didn't change how I saw the other person. All I did was erect a fence and lock the gates. I didn't have to deal with that anymore.

But it didn't make the relationship with the other person better. It didn't enhance our ability to work together towards the goal for our kids. And so my challenge for you this week is that if you feel like you need to set more boundaries, maybe what you need is an agreement.

Maybe instead of shutting people out, you bring people to the table, you solve the problem instead of glossing it over with a boundary, and then you find a way to work together better on behalf of your children, like a builder. I'll talk to you next time. Hey, if you're ready to get started being a builder right away, then I want to invite you to join us at Buildership University.

It's our exclusive online community for builders just like you, where you'll be able to get the exact training that you need to turn your school into a success story right now with the people and resources you already have. Inside, you'll find our best online courses, live trainings with me, tons of resources, templates and exemplars, and monthly live office hours with me where you can ask me anything and get my help on whatever challenge you're facing right now. If you're tired of hitting obstacle after obstacle and you're sick of tiny little incremental gains each year, if you're ready to make a dramatic difference in your school right now, then you need to join Buildership University.

Just go to buildershipuniversity.com and get started writing your school success story today. Hey, real quick before you go. If you enjoyed today's episode and you know someone who would really benefit from what you heard here today, maybe they're struggling with a thing that we talked about in today's episode, would you take a moment and share this episode with them? You see, not only will it help us get the word about buildership out to more people, but you're going to look like a rock star because you're going to give people something they can really use to help them get unstuck and be better at building their schools.

Plus, it would mean the world to me. Thanks so much, and I'll see you next time.

Thank you for listening to the School Leadership Reimagined podcast for show notes and free downloads visit https://schoolleadershipreimagined.com/

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