EPISODE #326

Hey builders before we jump into today's show. I need to know something Are you and I connected on the socials because if we're not we need to be so connect with me I'm on Facebook at Robyn Jackson. I am on Twitter at Robyn Underscore mind steps.

I'm on linkedin at Robyn Jackson Let's connect and let's keep the conversation going now on to the show. You're listening to the school leadership reimagined podcast episode 326 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 is where you'll find the answers strategies and actionable tips. You need to overcome any obstacle 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, we're gonna talk about my favorite time of the year, which is back to school time. I love back to school time It's to me better than New Year's for all of us. It's a new beginning We've had the summer to to rest and reflect most of us some of us work too hard this summer But I'm not gonna scold you about that because we spent that summer thinking and planning about the year You know when I was a teacher I used to spend a summer thinking about all the things I was gonna do with my kids for the year and how I was gonna try things differently and I Couldn't wait to get back to school so that I can get my classroom set up and really, you know Kind of make a bigger difference when I became an administrator I'd spend the summer tweaking the master schedule and diving into the data and revising the the school improvement plan and and Meeting with people and hiring people and you know, so but I've done all the work and now this is the moment We've been waiting for it The kids are coming back and and and now we get to give them an experience and every single year Just like in New Year's where we make New Year's resolutions right now is a time we're all making school year resolutions, right? So some of us have resolved this year.

I'm gonna get better at protecting my time I'm not gonna take work home every weekend. I am gonna like not open my laptop after 9 p.m I'm gonna be more present with my family. We've made that resolution for some of us. It's I Promise this year. I'm gotta get into at least three classrooms a day. Nothing's gonna distract me I'm just gonna stay focused and get into those classrooms for others of us. It's gonna be you know, look once a week I'm gonna sit down I'm gonna go through the data and or or it might be as simple as I'm not gonna have a messy desk this year this Year, my desk is going to be organized. I'm gonna get myself more organized and Even though we make these resolutions we all know That a month from now we are likely to have already broken those resolutions Right, and there's a very simple reason why and it's not because you're not disciplined enough and it's not because you're not organized enough And it's not because you've had too many distractions or you know that you didn't have the right It's not that it's a very simple reason and I want to share with you why we often break our school year resolutions and How we can make sure that we stick to them this year So in order to kind of talk to you about why I need to go back a bit So during the boot camp that we had a couple weeks ago. We had something called the builders roundtable.

So every day during the boot camp you had an opportunity to win a spot at the roundtable and there were like six or seven spots available and The roundtable was an opportunity for you to come with some other builders and get coached by me on a challenge that you are currently Facing and normally the roundtable is kind of done privately, you know, which is the winners but this year I decided to let people kind of eavesdrop on that conversation and During that conversation two Three Incredible things happened. I'm gonna share one with you now. I'll talk to you about the other two later because they were so good You know They probably their own episode, but I want to talk to you about one today because there was a principal who was there and she was trying to figure out what she wanted to talk about and You know the challenge for her was that she's a good principal She is she's not struggling she's not about to be fired. She's doing everything right according to her district She's doing everything by the book the way she was taught to do it So she this is not this is this is not somebody who was desperate for an answer, right? And so she's she's trying to think of what she wants to do for the coming school year And I find that to be true for most builders most people who are attracted to buildership are not attracted to buildership because they're Drowning right when you're drowning you just you just want to breathe, right? the people who are attracted attracted to buildership are attracted to buildership because They're they're good. They they they're doing a decent job They're they they're doing all the things that they've been told to do. They are doing leadership well, and Even though they're doing leadership.

Well, they're finding that leadership isn't enough.

So most people don't come to become builders because they're in crisis We mean some people do but for the most part the people who are in buildership University are not there because they're in crisis. They're there because they're in stasis They're there because they have been working really really hard and just not seeing the results that that match their work They're doing all the things right according to their district according to their training and yet They still are not at a hundred percent These are people who are looking at their schools and in some cases the numbers aren't great. But in other cases They're doing okay According to their district standard their district. So you're fine. You're in the middle of the pack you may be near the top of your district in terms of in terms of your students success or You're a charter school and you are you're outperforming the neighborhood public school and and and doing and people love your school or or your private school and and your parochial school and your parents are really happy with with the results that their children are getting in your school and so, you know Enrollment is steady or you're a private school where you're in a lead private school.

And so people are fighting to get in but you feel like Even though you have a great school and people are fighting again and you're not fighting for kids and everybody if there's great reputation you feel like you could be doing more and usually people come to buildership because they feel like they could be doing more and so that's where the resolutions come in, right so most of the time we make these resolutions because we We feel like we should be doing more because we are doing all the things right, but we're still not seeing the progress So that was the case with Annie and he was you know, and he's a great principal But she feels like there's got to be more and she was really intrigued by this idea of a hundred percent becoming a hundred percent principal not just becoming a good enough principal, but really focusing on becoming a 100% principal which is what builders work to become. That's the whole point of buildership You want to become a hundred percent principal? So she's saying, you know Maybe it's really about feedback and you know I need to get better at feedback and you know We all tell ourselves that right like how many of you right now are saying I need to get Teachers more feedback this year all of us all of us are probably saying that one some degree Even if you get into classrooms three times a day You're like this year should be in there five times a day or maybe I should do a better job of writing because we feel Like if we could just find the perfect feedback formula to give to people then maybe maybe maybe we can break through To teachers this year.

So she's talking about feedback. And at first I fell into the trap I was trying to help her around feedback and give her suggestions to improve her feedback and that's leadership thinking and so for a moment, I admit I slipped into Leadership thinking and then it occurred to me because I was getting frustrated because I wasn't it wasn't the advice I was giving wasn't landing Then I realized the problem Because right now most of you are looking at what you can do this year to make this year better than last year and At best you're gonna get incremental improvement more likely you're gonna just it's gonna be more of the same and The reason is that you are trying to improve your feedback or your support or your accountability or your culture or You know your data or your PLC's and you're trying to do that And you don't have a clear vision for where you want your school to go first So when I was working with Annie I had to stop and I said, you know what the real problem here Annie is you don't have a hundred percent vision You don't really know where you're trying to take your school and she's like, of course, I know I'm trying to you know Help them grow and I said what's your hundred percent vision and she was trying to articulate it and she gave me a boilerplate Vision and I was like, that's not it. That's not it. And so we we pushed we we we we we Worked on it and we got her to our hundred percent vision She was able to state it and I want to pause here because a lot of you listening Have heard me talk about vision for a while. I'm always talking about vision right and he was like, okay, yeah, I get vision I have a vision But I am noticing especially when I meet you out in the wild that a lot of you who think you have a vision You don't really have a vision.

You have somebody else's vision.

You can recite to me a hundred percent You've been with me long enough to know what it sounds like, but it's not truly your vision It's something you grabbed that you heard somebody else say that made sense or heard me say that me that okay Yeah, I'll go for that. It's not truly your hundred percent vision and that was happening with Andy So we were pushing back pushing back pushing back and then finally we got to her vision and the moment She got to her vision and she thought of it. She's very thoughtful Principle like many of you right? So, you know, it wasn't like, you know It was it was a very cerebral moment first, she was just like, okay, that's my vision.

All right, I can stand it Then I said, okay now let's talk about feedback and all of a sudden she was like, oh, I get it Okay, now it makes sense. Now this I know I need to be focused here and not focused there I need to be doing it like everything that she was trying to work out around feedback became immediately clear once she had her vision So, let's talk about you All those resolutions that we make every year The reason that we often don't keep them is we're making those resolutions in a vacuum We are trying to you know We're trying to solve symptoms of a bigger problem. So we're saying I need to get more classrooms Well for why what what is getting him to more classrooms supposed to do now? You've been told that you know the the key to to good instructional leadership is getting into more classrooms But you and I both know that even if you get into three classrooms a week every single week school It's not moving a needle people, you know, you feel good and maybe you have a breakthrough moment with one teacher But is it moving instruction school? Why no, so why are we doing this again? What's so magical about three classrooms a week? What could you get the same results with two do you need to bump it up to four see those are the kinds of Conversations you're having if they're not rooted in the vision Some of us are saying hey, listen, I need to protect my time Do you know why you need to protect your time because you're trying to do all the things, you know Why you're trying to do all the things because you don't have a vision that helps you prioritize the work when you have a clear vision you realize that you have more time because you know to focus on the work that Matters and stop doing all the chores and focus on the work, right? So you're not just kind of doing things to maintain your you start when you have a vision you start to realize this is not Moving the needle forward.

I need to be spending my time over here if we're gonna get to 100% And so you don't have to protect your time because you've properly prioritized your time It builders real quick before we get on with the rest of the episode I want to talk to you about the 100% collective if you are Interested in becoming a builder and developing that 100% Mindset then the hundred percent collective is for you. Not only do we have monthly Masterclasses live masterclasses where I show you how to take some work that you are already doing but do it like a builder do it in a way that it's more effective more efficient in a way that takes the work and Stops it from being drudgery and makes it actually something that feels meaningful that moves you for it We also have done for you Toolboxes with all the tools you need to be able to implement and we have step-by-step Playbooks that lay out the entire process for you So you don't even think about it you just take the playbook and you can implement it right away in your schools And we have a supportive community So this is a safe place where you can bring your challenges and there are other people other builders just like you who are Encouraging you who are applauding you when you win and who are giving you their experiences as well So that you can learn from each other if you are tired of just kind of going through and doing the work the way you've Always been doing it and you're ready to stop being a leader and to start building something amazing the 100% collective is where you need to be join us at Buildership University comm slash community now back with the program You know, you're saying hey, you know, I really need to dive into the data this year There are people who are diving and re-diving into data and the data is not helping them at all right people I know people like oh they know their data the 2.1% here and five five here and 27 here and these are the bubble kids and it's not moving the needle so Getting more into the data without the context of where you're trying to move your school What vision are you trying to achieve? Means nothing a lot of people are like, oh, I'm just trying to get to 5% improvement this year for what? Why are you working so hard to move 20 more kids when you could be working just as hard and move all your kids? Why would you settle for 20%? But that's what we do. And so we think that if I just understood the data better Maybe I could move instead of 5% I can't move 8% would be for you.

Meanwhile builders are out here looking at the data in ways that are very strategic and Intentional and in doing so they're moving the needle 20% 30% 50%, you know it's talking to a principal and she was saying that she is She's had so many gains in such a short period of time By just having clarity around her vision and getting that alignment around her vision. She's worried. She's gonna get investigated So there we what we are wasting our time creating resolutions to help us conform more into what we think we should be and then breaking those resolutions a month from now and then beating ourselves up because we we didn't stick to our Resolution when in reality the resolution wasn't worth sticking to in the first place because it's not going to significantly or even Fundamentally change things in your school When you have a vision Everything starts to make sense.

I don't know how else to explain it. 

Everything starts to make sense and Suddenly you can see what work needs to be done suddenly your priorities are crystal clear suddenly the Thing you're not making resolutions anymore. You are making decisions and you're making shifts that stick so I Want to encourage you this year. I love the new school year. I love the excitement and energy of the new school year and It's a lot it's very tempting to start making school year resolutions This year. I want to I want to caution you. I want to tell you that If you do that as a setup, you don't need to do that. What you need is a vision Because if you have your hundred percent vision Then you don't need resolutions to make you feel like you're making a momentum You don't need resolutions to make you feel like this year is going to be different this year will be different because once you have The vision it becomes a lens through which you see everything that that's why I love the word vision, right? Because your vision it's like putting a set of glasses over your eyes. It helps you to see differently it helps you to to Understand where you need to focus and where you need to spend your time and where you're wasting your time quite frankly It helps you to to catch a hold of something bigger than you that propels the work forward When you have a vision you don't have to rely on willpower to move the work The passion around the vision will move the work it changes everything.

So if you're trying to go through the school year without having a hundred percent vision You're gonna the same school year had last year I hate to tell you that I am not trying to be a downer But that's the truth and You will blame the teachers and say well I just need to get rid of these teachers or you'll blame the parents They need to I need to get more parent involvement or you blame the kids or you blame yourself And that's what we do the most right? We're not most of us are not blaming other people a lot you do a little bit But not a lot most of us are blaming ourselves and so We spend the year trying to flog ourselves into submission and and and you should hear the way you talk to yourself Sometimes you know, I'm just I just I'm not I'm just I'm drowning. I'm just unfocused. I just need to get back. No, you don't The reason you're drowning you try and do everything instead of staying focused on your vision The reason you're not focused is because you don't have a vision that pulls you forward the reason that you're not doing a whatever Strategy of the year is the thing you fell in love with over the summer that somebody else used and it transferred their school And now you want to do it in your school, you know, I'm hearing everybody like right now PLC's So hot right? They're like, oh, yeah, we're all gonna do PLC's if you don't have a vision the PLC's I don't they're they're not gonna last there because what why are we why are we even doing that? The reason that PLC's work is because a PLC's role is to protect To identify and address threats to your vision if you are not doing that in PLC's you're just You're just getting together and having a conversation and maybe it helps and maybe it doesn't but when you every PLC is taking a look Where is our vision? Where are we with relationship to our vision? What's the biggest threat? How do we remove the threat? Then PLC's have focus then PLC's work.

Those of you in a collective know this, right? So in the 100% collective we have a whole PLC training and a PLC playbook That helps you get PLC's that are really focused on the vision. But if you don't have a vision, you know, what's the point? so It all comes back to vision. That's why I talk about vision so much it's why it's the first thing you do when you become a builder is create the 100% vision because without that Nothing makes sense and you're left with Resolutions you're left with tactics you're left with a lot of I hope this works you're left with let's try this But you don't have that focus. You're not moving forward. So Consider this your yearly back-to-school reminder that before you do anything else you need to have a vision But once you get that hundred percent vision Then you can really enjoy back-to-school then back-to-school is truly exciting instead of nerve-wracking You know the the builders that are in Buildership University Well, you know I was checking in with them at office hours and They a lot of them have already gone back to school and have had kids for weeks and some of them are just starting But the thing that was universal amongst all of them in the conversation was that I did a simpler back-to-school this year But it was way more meaningful our Preservice week was incredible because we were focused on the vision. It seemed easier.

You know, you do all the hype and stuff I've talked about.

 You know, the cupcakes and the food trucks and all that I'm not gonna keep talking about it But you do all of that stuff because you don't have a vision you feel the pressure to create this hype Moment during back-to-school because you don't have a vision When you have a vision back-to-school doesn't need all that you can do it But you're not doing it as a substitute for something more substantive like a vision You're doing that in a way that enhances the vision. You're doing that in a way that that that Creates more momentum around the vision. And so the builders who have their hundred percent vision. They're like, yeah back-to-school It's been pretty easy. It's been really productive Preservice week was amazing I wasn't running around like a chicken with my head cut off the staff took over a lot of the work the staff is doing A lot of the thinking and I was there and able to facilitate and enjoy Preservice week and enjoy working with my teachers again. And when the kids came I was excited to see them I wasn't exhausted.

I was I was I was enjoying all of this process because I have a vision The builders who are working on their hundred percent vision. They're not making the school year resolutions instead They are they are building on the momentum that they've created from prior years because there's a vision there they are Excited because they can see the vision more clearly. They're excited because they have more confidence than ever about their vision They're excited because they put new processes and procedures in place that have increased their ability to achieve their vision But they're not making New Year's resolutions And they don't have to because you don't have to protect your time from your vision You don't have the vision protects your time for you You don't have to get in more classrooms because of your vision the vision tells you what classrooms you need to be in and when You don't have to you know Implement a new program because the vision helps you to figure out what needs to happen. You don't have to put you know worry about district initiatives because the vision shows you how to take every new district initiative and Turn it into something that serves your vision You don't have to worry about the data because the vision tells you what data to look at It all comes back to vision so That's my challenge for you this year. I want you to enjoy back to school. You deserve to enjoy back to school. I Want you to feel like the work you do is making a difference I want you to enjoy the momentum rather than starting from scratch every single school year I want you to be able to make good Decisions decisions you can be confident in and make those decisions quickly I want you to be able to feel like you're finally making progress But that only happens When you have a vision and so This year. I wish you all a wonderful back to school. I Think this can be an incredible year, but it all starts with the vision And so if you don't have one, this is it.

You know, this is the secret.

This is the secret to me and able to stick with things this year This is the secret to making this year the best year ever it starts with a vision. So go out and Spend the time don't just grab somebody else's vision That's not don't just don't just go and and throw a vision and think it's gonna happen It has to be a vision that you really love and it means something to you It has to be a vision. That is your vision not somebody else's vision your vision But when you do that You can go into the school year with confidence You can go into the school year with feeling creative and energized and excited and that can be that that Energy is it's going to it's going to to infect everything around you so that everybody starts to feel it And you can go into the school year with calm confidence In other words, you can go into the school year 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 buildership University.com and get started writing your school success story today Hey, it's Robyn here and I want to thank you for listening to today's episode Now if you have a question about today's episode, you just want to keep the conversation going Did you know that we had a school leadership reimagined Facebook group? All you need to do is go to Facebook join the school leadership reimagined Facebook group now they're going to be a couple of questions that we ask at the beginning because we want to protect this group and make sure that We don't have any trolls come in and that it really is for people who are principals assistant principals district administrators So make sure you answer those questions or you won't get in but then we can keep the conversation going plus We do a lot of great bonus content. I'm in there every single weekday.

So if you have a question or comment about the episode, let's continue the conversation Join us at the school leadership reimagined Facebook group and I'll talk to you next time.