EPISODE #346

Hey builders. Before we begin, I have a quick question for you. Are we connected on social media? The reason I'm asking is because as much as I love giving you the podcast episode every single week, I'd love to take our relationship deeper. So if we're not connected on on social media, let's connect. I'm on LinkedIn @Robyn underscore Mindsteps. I'm on Twitter at Robin Underscore Mindsteps. I'm on on Facebook at Robyn Jackson.

Please let's connect so we can keep the conversation going. Now I'll with the show. You're listening to the School Leadership Reimagined podcast, episode 346. 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 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 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 first off, I want to say happy New Year. Welcome to a new year. I hope you had a good break. And now that we're all back at work and we're trying, some of us are still trying to figure out, like, what was I doing again? And.

But I hope you got some rest. I was able to rest. We had a. I had a couple of unexpected things happen during break. I had my whole break planned. We had a couple of unexpected things happen, but I still was able to get some rest. And I'm so excited to be back now. Last time, I shared with you the episode that I recorded at the beginning of 2025, and I had declared 2025 my year of boring, that during 25, I was not going to chase new shiny objects. I was going to keep things consistent.

I was just going to double down on what worked. No new stuff. I declared it to you. I declared it to my team. And now I'm declaring to you that on some levels, I failed. I failed at being boring. So this episode is going to talk about the ways that I think I failed. The ways that I some of the things that worked.

And there's a deeper insight into that whole be boring thing that I have been thinking a lot about. And I think it could be really helpful for you, especially now, because, you know, one of the reasons that I think I failed, and I'm going to use air quotes, failed at being boring, is because 2025 was not boring. Right? So there was so much happening in 2025. You know, I thought that, you know, I had figured some things out, and so I was going to go into the year and I was going to be calm. Things were going to be predictable. I was going to proceed at a measured pace. You know, I'd finally figured out, like, I'm not going to just keep reinventing the wheel.

I'm going to double down and do what matters. I'm going to practice what I preach. And so I thought that that's what boring was going to look like. So we had a whole schedule for the year all mapped out. And so we were just going to follow that schedule, and we had the products that we were going to be delivering to our clients and just follow that. That system. But very quickly, 2025 kind of blew up, and our clients had different needs, and some of the things that we had been using and using to serve our clients no longer met their needs. And so we had to shift.

We had to pivot. You know, the world kept changing, and things that were working suddenly stopped working. And there was a big shift in education that happened. And so I couldn't just kind of do the stuff that I wanted to do or thought I was going to do because the needs shifted. And so at that point, I had to shift, too. Now, I will say this. We did shift. You know, we started.

We were. We. We started noticing the shift pretty early on, and then we started adjusting to meet the needs of. Of our clients, to meet the needs of the people we serve. To meet your needs. And so we adjusted pre quickly. And I will say that it was stressful. I mean, by, you know, in the front, we were looking really calm, but behind the scenes, we were scrambling because some of the plans that we have for 2025 were no longer relevant, and we had to scrap the plans entirely.

Some of the plans that we have for 2025, we had to shift. 

Some of the things that we were going to do later in the year, we had to bring up to earlier in the year. So behind the scenes, we were stressed. I mean, I thought, you know, it was just. We were going to kind of coast through the year in A good way, you know, not do things to kind of upset the apple cart, but just stick with what we knew. But the world changed so much that what we knew and what we were, what we thought we knew, just. It wasn't relevant anymore. But here's the thing.

Because we were so clear about what it is that we did, our vision, our mission, our core values, because we were so clear about the impact that we wanted to have, the. The things that would help us operate in integrity, the. The identity that we had created. When we start making those shifts, we didn't do a whole bunch of that. We didn't reinvent the wheel. Right. We anchored in our framework. We went back to the buildership model, and we started looking and saying, given what our clients are feeling right now and what they're facing, what part of the buildership model is the most relevant?

What do they need right now? And on some level, even though it was stressful, because we're scrambling and running around and doing things that we hadn't planned on doing because we anchored in the model, my team said, yeah, we're stressed right now, but at least we're not inventing anything. At least you didn't go in your thinking cave and say, hey, all this stuff we were doing, just blow it up. We're going to now do something else. At least you're sticking with the model. And so even though it didn't feel boring, when I think about it, on some level, it was boring in a way because we weren't chasing shiny objects. We were sticking with what we knew worked. We were responding to the situation in front of us, but.

But we weren't responding out of panic. We weren't responding by saying, oh, you know, one thing isn't working, so we have to toss out everything and start from scratch. And I think that the temptation always exists for schools to do the same thing. So, you know, 2025, I'm not the only one who experienced it. You've told me this was a crazy year. And the kids were different. Their issues were different. Budgets you counted on having got taken away and then put back and then taken away.

Policies were shifting in real time. Curriculum was changing. Parents and how they interacted with schools were changing. What you could say in a classroom, what you couldn't say in a classroom were shifting really quickly. The world was shifting outside. So kids were coming in with new baggage. Your teachers were experiencing new levels of stress.

So you know what I'm talking about.

And the difference between the way that leaders handled that disruption and the Way the builders handled that disruption is, at its heart, fundamentally boring. Because what leaders did is they said, oh, the world's changing, so we have to change. And they changed everything. They grabbed new programs. You know, are we doing science of reading? Are we doing phonics? Are we doing something else? Are we doing PLCs?

Are we doing data teams? Are we calling them something else? And so people were completely changing their program and trying to respond to what was happening on the outside. And what builders were doing instead is they were. They. They kept building. They. They consistently doubled down on what is our vision, what's our mission, what's our core values, and then how do we anchor in those?

And they use their vision, mission, and core values to make decisions. So even though they were responding to what was happening in the world and how the world was changing, builders were responding from their vision, mission, and core values, not in spite of their vision, mission, and core values. And even though that doesn't feel boring at the time, it's fundamentally boring. You know, my sister's a musician. She's an opera singer. And she. I remember when she was in grad school, in her school of music, and she was at this, you know, big time music school, and I went to visit her and she had all these musician friends, very cool, you know, musicians. And she had a friend who was a jazz guitarist.

And he would practice for hours every single day. And one day we were in one of the practice rooms and my sister was practicing, and then we were leaving and we saw him in a practice room and he stopped by and he would spend hours every single day just doing scales. You know, do, re, mi, fa, sola, ti, do. But in guitar language, right? Every single day, hours. Sometimes he would get up in the morning, he said, and he'd practice until the sun went down. And a lot of it was just scales. And I was flabbergasted because, you know, when you saw him perform, he was.

I mean, it was. He was, he was genius. You know, he could improvise, and it was amazing. It was not never the same thing from one night to the next. How is it that you can be that in performance, but in practice you're just doing the boring scales? And to me, that just seemed like torture. All day long, every day in practice rooms with your guitar just doing scales. And he said to me, if I don't understand the scales fundamentally, if it's not just a part of who I am, then, then.

Then I can't improvise. You know, you have to understand how the Notes work together in practice so that you can exploit that on the stage. And I never forgot that because first of all, I thought, how boring. But second of all, how brilliant, right? Because when you saw him perform, he was brilliant. He wasn't practicing improvising. He was able to improvise because he understood the fundamentals. The same thing with my sister.

I would go to her voice lessons. I still do this to this day. I go to her voice lessons in her practice. And I'm always struck because during her lessons and during her practice, she's doing a lot of vocalise, she's doing a lot of scales. Now when I see her perform, she's doing this amazing stuff, but in practice it's all the boring stuff. It's the scales, it's the vocalise.

So what does that have to do with you? Right?

I mean, I think that what's happening here for is that I had a wrong conception of boring. I thought boring meant easy. I thought boring meant no stress. I thought boring meant that I could just kind of go to work every day and I'd have this consistent experience. And sometimes boring is that. But when life is not boring, then boring means something deeper. Boring means that you continue to practice the fundamentals so that you can improvise. Now, what does that mean for you?

It means that every single day you make decisions that are filtered through your vision, mission and core values. So that when you have to make tough decisions, you've worked that boring muscle of decision making to the point where those tough decisions become more obvious and those tough decisions become easier to make. Because you're used to making decisions through the lens of your vision, mission and core values. What does boring mean? It means that once you have a vision, you're 100% vision. This is what we're going to do for every kid. Then you, it you get, you practice doing that, delivering on that every single day. So that when a shiny object comes by and somebody says, hey, we're trying this new thing and this will be great, you go to a conference and somebody talks about, oh, this is the new latest thing.

This is the research base. You can look at the research based thing and figure out quickly whether or not that's the thing your school needs right now. And you get used to saying no to all of the things that are distracting so that you can say yes to the things that your kids need right now. What does boring look like? It looks like continuing to keep the work from drifting off mission and making sure that everything you do is not just moving you towards your vision, but it's aligned with your mission. What does boring mean? It means that you're constantly anchoring in the core values. What does boring mean?

It means that you are continuing to repeat your vision story so that the counter narratives out there, they fall away because your vision story is so integral to the work that you do. What does boring mean? It means that you are giving teachers that one thing, feedback. And you're not getting seduced by all the things you could be saying in the classroom, but instead you're focusing on the one thing that matters most to that teacher at that point in their practice. What does boring mean? It means that instead of doing PD days where you're doing all the rah rah rah stuff, you are really dialing down to what teachers need right now. What is the one thing that's going to move your school closer to your vision and each, even though it might not be the sexy thing, you're doing PD days around the things that are gonna actually matter. What does boring mean?

It means building a culture where people are consistently coming back and anchoring in the vision, mission and core values. What does boring mean? It means that you are building true accountability by putting systems in place rather than making things up for everything that you do. If you are, you are not asking people to improvise at the system level so that you're giving them systems that they anchor in so that when they do have to improvise, the system is supporting them rather than the system falling apart. What does boring mean? It means equipping your team with the understanding of their role anchored in your vision so that they're able to make good decisions even when you're not looking. What does boring mean? It means that you have a decision making architecture that focuses on one thing at a time.

And so you run your meetings that way, you set your quarterly goals that way. You are so focused on eliminating obstacles to your vision that you don't waste a whole bunch of time talking about stuff that doesn't matter, chasing shiny objects here, doing stuff over there. What does boring mean? It means that you get good at executing. You're not just making plans and then making new plans and then making new plans to do the plans that you made before. Instead, once you make a plan, you sit down and you execute. And when you face an obstacle, you use your decision making architecture to remove that obstacles so that you can keep moving forward with your plans.

What I've just described to you is the buildership model.

And the buildership model is fundamentally Boring. It's what allows you to be boring. Now, I said at the beginning that I failed at boring, but when I really thought about it, I don't know that I failed. I think that what happened is my understanding of boring was different than what I think boring fundamentally is. I thought that once I decided to be boring, it would make things feel less stressful, it would make things feel calm. Being boring, anchoring in the buildership model, using that as a way forward doesn't mean that you will not face obstacles, doesn't mean that you won't face stress. What it does mean, though, is that you'll be able to deal with the stress differently than leaders do. The stress doesn't take you out.

The stress doesn't make you question your whole identity because you're anchoring in your vision, mission and core values. The stress feels manageable because you have your architectures in place, you have tools to deal with the stress so that you're able to look at what's happening, take a step back and say, okay, that's happening. Wasn't expecting that. That's happening. That feels a little stressful. What tools do we have to deal with that? And you go back to the model and you look at that and you say, that thing is a problem. Why is it a problem?

What's fundamentally at work here? And you use the buildership model to diagnose the problem and find the solution. And when you do that, the stress that you feel doesn't feel as stressful as the stress everybody else is feeling, because you already know there's a sol. And if you just take a step back, you can find the solution. So last year was stressful? Stressful for me. I don't know if it was stressful for you, but it was for us. But what was what?

But a lot of you didn't even notice how stressful it was because we were able to tackle the stresses that we were facing calmly because we had something in which we can anchor. Hey, 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 100% 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 is more effective, more efficient, in a way that takes the work can you that and stops it from being drudgery. And makes it actually something that feels meaningful, that moves you forward. 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 have to 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. 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@brewershipuniversity.com community now. Back with the program.

So while I feel like last year wasn't boring in the way that I thought, you know, like, I was really ready to commit to, like, almost being put to sleep. Right. But it didn't happen that way. It didn't. There was a lot going on, a lot of moving parts that we had to keep moving. I'm so articulate right now, but there were a lot of moving parts, and it meant that we had to do some pivots throughout the year. But what felt different about this year is that even though we did have to make some pivots, those pivots didn't feel like wild guesses and wild swings. Those pivots felt consistent with who we are, consistent with our vision, mission, and core values, consistent with our model.

And because it felt consistent, the stress didn't feel overwhelming. Yeah, there were deadlines we had to hit. Yes, we had to work late sometimes. Yes, we had to pivot. Yes. We had to look at a crisis that we didn't expect and try to figure out, figure it out. But because we had those things, we were able to do it. Because we had those things, we.

We didn't lose our. Ourselves, our identity. And we felt. This is hard to describe, but we felt a confidence. There were some times, especially early last year, where things were happening so quickly that it was almost destabilizing. And, you know, I remember feeling at one point a little overwhelmed by how quickly things were happening and how quickly things were falling apart. And normally that would send me into, like, just panic mode. And in the Past.

That's what I've done. I've always panicked and, you know, grabbed this and grabbed that and wasted time and money doing things that I thought were going to fix it and didn't. Or. And I'm susceptible to this. I don't know if you are, but I am susceptible that when I am struggling, I look to see somebody who's not struggling, and I just want to do what they do. Right? So I, you know, would normally look around and say, oh, they. They look like they've got it figured out, and I would just go to them, but I would grab their solution it without interrogating whether or not their solution would fit and solve my problem.

I was just so desperate in the past to make it stop, the pain stop and the panic to stop, that I would just say, well, what they're doing looks like it's working. Maybe I'll do that. And it might be working for them, but it doesn't mean that it's gonna work for me, because they have a different vision, they have a different mission, they have a different set of core values.

They have a different model. 

And so if I could just grab what they're doing and try to bolt it onto my vision, mission, core values, my model, it never worked. And then that would just make things work worse, not work worse. And now I've spent all this time, energy, and money on a solution that was never designed to solve my problems, and now I failed twice. And that's.

Even. That feels even more devastating because now you're like, oh, nothing I do is going to work. Have you ever felt that way? Like you. You do something and it doesn't work. You try something else, it doesn't work. And then you start to say, maybe my problem isn't solvable? No, that's not true.

Your problem's solvable. But you need something that helps you to figure out how to solve your problems, given your situation, your kids. And a lot of times we grab tactics without thinking through the real, without not solutions. So we will grab a tactic, not a solution. A solution means your problem goes away. So I feel like I'm rambling here, but I think this is really important, and I want you to get this. Being boring does not mean that you will not face stress. Being boring does not mean that sometimes things will get hard.

Being boring does not mean that you can just kind of float along and everything will go along as it always has done. The big lesson that I learned this year is that being boring, choosing to be boring does not mean that you will eliminate all the non boring stuff, the stress, the chaos, the destabilizing stuff that's happening in the world. Being boring means that when that stuff happens, you refuse to react and instead you re anchor in what matters most. Your vision, your mission, your core values, your model. When you do that, when you practice doing that in times of calm, then when things get chaotic, you are able to respond in a way that doesn't require you to completely reinvent yourself. You're able to respond in a way that stays consistent with who you are. You're able to respond in a way that actually moves you closer to your goals, even when you can't feel it at the time. So I think about last year and I think about the beginning of last year when we did have to make some big pivots.

You know, I started feeling guilty because I was like, I'm supposed to be boring. And my team even said, hey, this is not feeling boring at all. But because we were anchoring those pivots in our vision, mission, core values in our one plan, our model, then as we made those pivots, those pivots became assets. Those pivots actually moved us closer to where we needed to be. It wasn't just a temporary fix. Those pivots were so consistent with who we are that they became who we are. Even though we thought we were responding to a crisis, the crisis actually built something better. And so it didn't feel like it at the time.

But when you are confidently anchoring in your vision, your mission and core values, even when it doesn't feel like it, you know that it is actually moving the work forward. And that gives you a peace and a confidence that it's not available to other people. And it's what makes builders invincible. Yeah, I said it. Invincible. Because if you continue to anchor in your vision, mission and core values and you then nothing is going to blow you off course, nothing is going to stop you. And that's a discipline and a practice that I'm going into 2026, doubling down on. Normally I get a new word every single year.

This year I'm not doing it. 

This year I'm going to go deeper on the word that I had for 2025. This is another year of boring, but bigger boring, right? Not just like, just not just the calm, the peace, the floating down the river, the sticking with the stuff that you already know, but going deeper. It's not just about boring tactics. It's about the boring anchor. It's about getting more and more ruthless about vetting every new thing through the prism and lens of our vision, mission and core values. And if it doesn't align, being brave enough to say no, even.

Even when it's tempting, it means that when times are hard, refusing to panic, refusing to just unilaterally adopt the prevailing narrative out there and asking myself, what's true for us? What's our vision? What's our mission? What's our core values? And taking the stuff out there, all those messages, those competing messages out there, and sifting them through the vision, mission and core values to determine what makes sense for us. Being boring is about when you have to pivot. Not just reactively pivoting, but doing it in a way that's strategic, so that as you pivot, that pivot becomes an asset for you later on. That pivot makes you stronger.

That pivot moves your school closer to your vision, your mission, and the core values. Being boring means really rooting in your identity, who you are, not just who you are as a school, but who you are, who you are as a builder. It's funny, we were having office hours a couple of weeks ago and one of our OG builders was on. We hadn't seen him in a while, and there was somebody who's a new builder in office hours, and she was asking us for some feedback on something she was working on. And one of the things that the OG said that I think is, I've been thinking a lot about ever since is that the feedback he gave her is he said, you have language in there that is incremental and you need to be preparing your teachers for the big gains that are going to happen because they will. That wasn't a pep talk for him. He's been a builder so long that that now has become a part of his identity. That's who he is, that's who his school is.

And it doesn't matter what school he's in, because he'll take any school and turn it into that. And he's proven it now. You know, Kevin has done this, I think, four, maybe five schools now, where he's gone in and done it because. Not because the school had the perfect circumstances, but because Kevin's identity is rooted in. In being a builder. And because he is a builder, he does builder stuff. That's what boring is. Boring is deciding to become a builder and then doing builder stuff.

Boring is anchoring so much in your vision, mission and core values that it doesn't matter what the circumstances look like on the outside. You know you're going to get There boring is being so relentless about your belief in 100% of your students that you don't let anybody deter you from moving forward. That's what boring is. So in some ways, being boring is a builder's superpower. Being boring is what makes you a builder. So I'm back for another year of boring. And I now know that that doesn't mean that we aren't going to face trials.

It doesn't mean that we aren't going to have to pivot.

It doesn't mean that everything is going to be, you know, roses and bon bons. What it does mean is that when things are good, we stay consistent. And when things are not so good, we continue to stay consistent. And we don't panic when things don't look the way we thought they were going to look, because we are anchored in our vision, mission and core values, because we are anchored in this work. And we know that regardless of the circumstances, it is, it will work when we stick with it. So here's to another year of being boring. Here's to another year of anchoring in the stuff that matters. Here's to another year of shifting our identity and shedding all of that leadership nonsense.

Here's to another year of becoming more and more of a builder in not just the way that we do our work, but in the way that we believe in our work. Here's to another year of just being boring. Regardless of whether the world is boring, we're going to continue to be boring like a builder. Happy New Year, everybody. 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, it's Robin here and I want to thank you for listening to today's episode. Now, if you have a question about today's episode or 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, there are gonna be a couple of questions that we ask at the beginning because we wanna 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 con conversation. Join us at the school leadership reimagined Facebook group and I'll talk to you next time.