EPISODE #347

Hey, builders, real quick, before we get started, I want to tell you about something that we are going to be doing that I think you're going to love. And we've never done it before. So if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you've heard me talk about 100% vision over and over again, and I'm guessing you understand the concept by now. But here's the thing. I notice a lot of you understand the vision, but you actually haven't created your vision yet. You've tried. You've struggled with it, and I get it. Because creating a vision that's truly yours, one that's specific enough to guide decisions and clear enough that it creates true alignment and bold enough that it can drive change, that's really, really hard to do on your own.

So you end up with something vague, or you accidentally use language that you borrowed from a training or you might have even borrowed from me, and you're just not sure if it's strong enough. And that's why I have created something we're calling Coaching Week. This is not another training where I teach you about vision. This is a real working session where you're going to create your one vision, and you'll have me coaching you through the entire process. You're going to draft it, we're going to test it, we'll refine it, and then you're going to walk away with a vision that you deeply believe in. And this is going to be really personal because you're going to have me there coaching you every step of the way. It's only four days. It's $37 to join, and it starts January 27th.

And it's the only time I'm going to be running it this year. So if you've ever wanted to work with me and have me coach you personally, you can't get coaching for. For. For less than this. This is. This is an amazing price. And if you've been thinking, listening to the podcast or listening to me talk for years and thinking, hey, listen, I really need to create my own vision, this is your chance to actually do it, and you'll do it with my help. So go to buildership university.com coaching week buildershipuniversity.com coaching week.

And join today and get your vision done by the end of the week. All right, now onto today's episode. 

You're listening to the School Leadership Reimagined podcast, episode 347. 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 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, Robin Jackson, and today I want to start with a uncomfortable question. Is the vision that you are using right now for your school a borrowed vision? Is the vision that you're using right now, is it guiding your decisions? Is it creating alignment? Is it keeping you focused?

Or is it something that kind of lives in a binder somewhere and you never look at? Or maybe you have a vision and you're trying to use it and it's not working. And maybe the reason it's not working is because it's not actually your vision. So today I want to talk about what I see happening in a lot of schools, which is that we are operating, or trying to operate in using borrowed visions. Okay? So the thing is that a lot of principals, they have a borrowed vision. You've created a vision statement based on what your district told you to do, or you created a vision statement based on what you thought a vision statement should sound like, but something's not working. And if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you know that you need 100% vision.

And so maybe you've even tried to create one on your own, and it's kind of working, but it's not working. You get really excited about the beginning, but, you know, a month later, two months later, you're not really doing anything with that vision. And so I want to talk about that today. And by the end of the episode, I'm hoping that you're going to understand what a borrowed vision is, how it forms, and most importantly, how to tell if the vision that you have right now is truly your vision or is it a borrowed vision. And I promise this isn't about accusing you of anything. This is really about diagnosing something that you might not be able to see on your own. So let's start by talking about the idea of a borrowed vision. I've been thinking about This a lot lately, because here's what makes borrowed vision so insidious.

It doesn't feel borrowed. 

It feels responsible. It feels like you've actually created a vision. But there are. There are some subtle signs that you. That the vision you have right now may be borrowed. And I want to talk about, like, what a borrowed vision is by talking about four kinds of borrowed vision statements, right? So, like, if you're.

If you are operating from a borrowed vision, this is what it feels like. You'll. It'll feel like, okay, look, this is what the district expects, right? So you have a vision that the district expects of you. Maybe you were taught to write it as a smart goal. Maybe you were taught to create a vision based on a particular template. And you do it. And when you finish, you feel like, okay, I'm being a good team player.

I feel like I'm aligning with the district priorities. You. You feel like, okay, I've done the job. I can tick that thing off the list. It feels responsible. It feels smart. And you're often rewarded for creating that kind of vision through your district, right? The second way that sign that you might have a borrowed vision is that the vision comes out of this is what the data says, right?

So when you finish creating that vision, it feels very data driven, right? So you create a vision that's, you know, that's like, hey, our data says we need this, therefore my vision says we need that. It's focused on measurable outcomes, which is what we're supposed to be doing, right? You'll feel like, oh, yeah, this vision isn't emotional. It's idealistic. It feels evidence based. It feels rigorous. And so when you look at the vision, it feels correct.

And because it's anchored in data. But when you finish writing it, you kind of put it away somewhere. You revisit it from time to time. Not really driving the work, right? The third sign that you might have a borrowed vision is when you create a vision and you say, well, this is what successful schools are doing. So this vision is based on what is best practice. It feels safe. It feels like, okay, I'm not reinventing the wheel here.

I'm using proven strategies. It might even feel strategic and informed, right? Because you can defend that vision because it's evidence based. And so that vision feels safe. But at the end of the day, it doesn't speak to your heart. It doesn't speak to the heart of other people. But you can feel like the reason you like it is because it feels defensible.

It doesn't feel inspiring, necessarily, but it feels defensible.

The fourth sign that you may be operating from a borrowed vision is if you feel like, okay, I need to create something that is realistic. I need to create something that protects us. So you set a vision that you know you can reach, and you put it in your documents so that you can protect yourself and protect your staff and your students. And doing that kind of vision feels like, you know, it feels, again, safe because it helps you navigate the political reality. They're not going to allow me to do 100% vision. I'm going to do a 3% vision or a 5% vision, because I know we can make that. And I'm worried about what happens if we don't hit that vision by the end of the year. And so in that case, you walk away with a vision that feels practical, it's based in survival, and again, it feels safe.

Now, if you are listening closely, you see a theme, right? One of the biggest signs that you are operating from a borrowed vision is that when you create the vision, it feels safe. And you've heard me say before that the 100% vision, one of the things that we talk about is that tingle test. That vision has to feel. It has to scare you a little bit. So if you. When you finish writing a vision, it feels safe. That's a sign that that's not really your vision, that some outside force is influencing your vision.

And it feels safe. It's palatable to the district. It's politically safe. You know that there are not gonna be any teachers pushing back, that your teachers are gonna hear the vision and they'll be like, okay. I mean, so it feels safe. That's a sign that you're working from a borrowed vision. Now, here's the thing about a borrowed vision. They're not evil.

They're not bad. They're not wrong. And that's why it's so hard to recognize a borrowed vision. In a lot of cases, the borrowed vision feels like the smart, responsible thing to do. It's what we were trained to create. But a borrowed vision is. It creates. It makes you responsible for somebody else's vision, not your own.

When you write a borrowed vision, it feels safe on the onset. But that borrowed vision means there's an outside force or outside factors that are governing your school, governing what's happening in your school, and governing your work. And the moment you create a borrowed vision, you are trapping yourself inside of somebody else's agenda. And that's what makes a borrowed vision so dangerous. Because it's really, really subtle, right? You don't even recognize it on the front. But if you create a borrowed vision that or you create a vision that is designed to conform to what your district says, it means that the vision isn't driving the work. The underlying agenda of the district is driving the work.

If you create a borrowed vision based on the data, the moment the data changes, the work changes. If you create a borrow vision based on best practices, once that best practice is debunked, then your vision is, you know, you've spent years building and developing something that is no longer best practice. And we've seen that happen, right? Reading instruction is a great example. Like, oh, for years we're going to be doing this and we're going to be focusing on whole language, phonics, blended science and reading. And every few years that is somehow debunked and you've built a whole program on something that no longer is considered best practice.

Think about Common Core, right? 

Some of us are old enough to remember what everybody's vision was, a Common Core vision, and I'm really dating myself. If they remember no Child Left behind, and everybody's vision was the, you know, whatever the guidelines were for no Child Left Behind. And then after, you know, that happens for a few years and things change, best practice changes and everything that you've been building goes away. So it doesn't endure, right? So what happens when you have a borrowed vision is that you make yourself vulnerable to other people's agendas. And so you're not driving your school, somebody else's agenda is, and you've cooperated with that co option by creating a borrowed vision. So here's the thing. This happens and it's so insidious that I really want to talk about it a little bit more and expose how it happens so that you can see it for yourself, right? So there you've heard so far, I've talked about kind of four kinds of borrowed vision.

And so I want to kind of talk about each one. And as I'm talking about each one, I want you to ask yourself, is that you. Can you see yourself in that? So the first one is there's a vision by compliance, and this is a vision that is shaped by what you're required to do. This is the vision you write because state requires it or the district mandate requires it, or there are accountability measures that require it. And so usually it happens because it'll sound something like, oh, we need a reading goal and a map goal and an SEL goal, or we need to close the achievement gap. So let's figure out what we're going to do to do that or we need to meet our growth target. So if your vision starts with any of that, that's a sign that you have what I call a vision by compliance.

Right now. It feels right because these things are important. You do need to meet requirements. Compliance is what keeps your school open. But here's the problem. When compliance becomes your vision, you're building towards somebody else's definition of success. So you're chasing metrics that they chose. You are creating priorities that they, you are focused on outcomes that they value.

And when you do that, it feels like you're constantly feeling pressure, you're constantly jumping through hoops, you're constantly trying to do things because they said so. Imagine getting up in front of your staff with your beautifully compliance written vision and trying to sell it to your staff because that's what you'll end up doing. You'll feel like you have to sell it to your staff and they can smell the compliance in it. And so you're building a school culture around compliance rather than a school culture around excellence. Somebody else is pulling the strings. So when you create a compliance driven vision, you are trapping yourself into a reality where you are constantly jumping through other people's hoops. And that's what makes the work feel hard. That's what makes us feel so exhausted.

That's what makes us start wondering, is this, this, all this? There really is. So if you feel it all, like every day when you go to work, you're chasing goals that somebody else said. You are jumping through hoops that somebody else created. You are operating on somebody else's agenda. That is a sign that you are operating from a borrowed vision. So I want to ask, I want you to ask yourself a question. If all the compliance requirements disappear tomorrow, would you still know what you're building or would your school be kind of adrift because everything you're doing is based on the requirements of the district?

It's a miserable way to live. 

It's a miserable way to run your career. Everybody there is working on jumping through hoops rather than doing the work that we came here to do. That's vision by compliance. Take a second. Are you operating on a vision by compliance? 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, you are already doing, but do it like a builder.

Do it in a way that'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 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 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@bearerhipuniversity.com community now back with the program. Here's the second thing. I call this vision by comparison. Right? Is your vision based on what other schools are doing? Right. So this is, you'll see another high performing school down the street and they have PLCs, so that's going to be our focus. The best schools use standards based grading, so we're going to implement that.

Or I've been listening for a while to this podcast and Robin talks about 100% of students will be reading at or above grade level by second grade. Well, I love that vision. That sounds so good. I think I'll have some of that. Thank you. It feels, it almost feels right because you're doing, learning from others is smart. Like we should look at what other people are doing and learn from them. And best practices exist for a reason.

So instead of reinventing the wheel, you hear something, you're usually hungry for more for your school. You hear about another school's success and you're like, oh, I'll have what she's having. But the problem is that what works in their school for their students and their teachers might not be what your school needs. Right?

So you have to think about what does success look like for us. 

And you don't want to get trapped into building their success. Not defining your own success. So I see this a lot, especially when I give examples about vision statements. People who buy into this idea of 100% vision Hear me give an example at a workshop or at a conference or in a speech, and they're like, oh, oh, that sounds great. And they grab that without thinking about whether or not it'll work for them. And I see it over and over and over again. You gotta do the work for yourself, right? You gotta think about what's gonna work for your school. Just because it looks good on somebody else doesn't mean it's right for you. So ask yourself a question. Are you doing something because it sounded good because you saw somebody else doing it and succeeding with it, and you want their same level of success, or you're doing it because you believe in your heart that's what you want.

You see, if it's borrowed from somebody else, the moment you hit a snag, you're gonna abandon it and look for something else. If it's truly yours, the moment you hit a snag, you can anchor in that vision, and that vision will guide you through the snag. So it's really important that you own the vision. Okay? So we talked about vision by compliance. We talked about vision by comparison. Now I wanna talk about the third kind of borrowed vision, which is what I call vision by inheritance. Now, a lot of schools are stuck here.

This is what happens when the vision was already in place when you arrived, and you don't want to rock the boat. So you walk in and you say, well, they already have a vision. They spent a whole bunch of time committed to the vision, or they paid a big consultant for that vision. I don't really want to mess with that because I don't want to open up a new can of worms, right? Or this has always been our focus, so I don't see any reason to change. Or this was in a strategic plan three years ago, right? Because continuity matters. It's important when people are invested in something that you recognize that.

But a lot of times those visions that you inherited aren't even really visions. They're aspirational statements. They're slogans. They're these vague things. I remember working with the principal one time, and she said, well, I walked into the school, they already had a vision. It was painted everywhere, and it was like every kid, every day, no matter what it takes. It was. The teachers repeated it.

They had T shirts, so I can't go in and change that vision. And I said, well, no, you don't have to change that slogan. The slogan can still exist. But that's not the vision. It is just a slogan. I don't even know what it means. They don't even know what it means. And I bet if you started asking them what it means, you get all these different answers.

Don't go and change the slogan. 

Say, here's gonna be the vision of our school and this is our mission. And you move that slogan to where the mission is, which the miss can be more aspirational. And you create a vision that actually drives the work. Right? So if you are worried about rocking the boat, there are ways to deal with that. And, you know, a lot of times when I'm coaching principals around their visions, I don't say, blow up everything and start from scratch. You want to build on what you have, but I'll help you figure out how to build on what you have in a way that works and makes sense for your school, but still gives you the vision that.

So you don't have to suffer under a vision that you inherited. Because when you do that, you are locked in, right? There's a limit, there's a ceiling to the work that you're able to do. What you want to do is build a vision that is yours. You have a right to own your vision. So you want a vision you believe in fully. You don't want to trap yourself into executing something you don't even hardly believe in or fully understand. So you want to ask yourself this question.

If I were starting this school from scratch today, would this be my vision or would it be something else? If the answer is something else, that's a sign that you have a vision by inheritance. All right, so we talked about vision by compliance, vision by comparison, vision by inheritance. The fourth one is vision by avoidance. This one I see a lot, especially in schools that feel like they're in crisis or struggling. This is a vision that's shaped by what you're trying not to do or what you are afraid will happen rather than what you want to happen. So this is a vision that starts out with, hey, listen, our kids aren't showing up for school. So Our vision is 100% of kids attending every single day.

Or our reading scores are dropping. So our vision's gotta be everybody reading on grade level or our parents are compl because we have SEL issues. So our vision is that we really are going to focus on SEL or we're really trying to prevent teacher turnover. So we need a vision that's going to inspire People right now, the reason that we often do vision by avoidance is because those threats are real. Avoiding disaster is a legitimate feeling, right? You're protecting your school. You're responding to what's happening in the world or the data showing you something that that's really alarmin and you feel like you need to respond. But when your vision is defined by what you don't want, you're not building towards anything.

You're just trying to prevent collapse. And that's survival, that's not buildership. So I see this all the time where principals come to me and say, well, my vision is this. And I'll say, well, okay, well why? And they'll say, because we're struggling with this. When you have a vision, a true 100% vision, that vision will help you deal with your problems. You don't have to wait until your problems are solved before you can create 100% vision.

Because 100% vision isn't merely aspirational.

When you have a hundred percent vision and you have the right hundred percent vision, one that you fully believe in, that 100% vision contains the solution to your problems. I remember working with the principal once and she was really, really struggling with a fractured culture. Really nasty stuff happening with the teachers. Teachers weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing and the kids were failing. And so she said, My 100% vision is that 100% of kids will be performing at or above grade level. And I said, in all subjects? She goes, yeah, all subjects. And I said, why?

She says, because we're a failing school and our culture's broken and I've got two years to turn this around or they're going to close this goal. So we got to get everybody on grade level. And I said, what do you really want? Do you want them on grade level on all subjects? And she said, you know what I really want? I just want them to be readers. I feel like if the kids can learn. She's elementary school.

I feel like if the kids can learn how to read and read well and be good readers, everything else gets solved. But you know, my math scores are down and my other skills are down and my culture. I said, okay, you can, you can do the other one, but that's not what you really want. So you're going to end up focusing on reading anyway. Why not just say your heart? I want all kids to be readers and I want our staff to be readers. And so you have that vision. Everybody's a reader in this school.

And that can help you address the culture issues that can help you address the issues with the kids. Test scores, that helps with everything. So that's what she did. Guess what happened? Math scores went up. Guess what happened? The staff started reading together and they weren't reading one of these books like how to Fix a Broken Culture. Right.

Because she just started a book club for staff members. And as they were all reading the same book, it was a, I think it was a fiction book or it was a book about kids, I don't know. They started having conversations with each other that weren't toxic. They started, started changing what was happening in their classroom because of what they were reading. That vision changed and addressed everything. So instead of creating a vision that's defensive, like here's what I don't want. What you want to do is you want to think about this. Is your vision about what you're building or about what you're preventing?

And if it's about what you're preventing, it's not the right vision for you right? 

Now take a second, and I want you to really think about the work you do, not the vision statement on the wall. Just what's driving the work every day. Do you have a vision by compliance comparison? Do you have a vision by inheritance? Or do you have a vision by avoidance? And here's what makes a borrowed vision so dangerous. A school can be busy, it can be well intentioned, it can be technically correct and still be building on somebody else's idea of success.

So even if your teachers are working hard, even if your kids are making progress, even if your data looks okay, even if you're meeting most of your targets, if you look around and you find yourself thinking, is this all there is? Then the answer is you are probably building somebody else's vision. And because borrowed visions always have a ceiling, you can't even execute it completely. You can't build something, something truly transformative, something truly meaningful with a vision that isn't yours. And what makes it so hard to see is that it doesn't feel wrong in the moment. And everybody around you is doing the same thing. And it produces some results sometimes, and often it keeps you out of trouble. But what's happening is that when you operate from a borrowed vision, you find yourself second guessing yourself constantly because you don't fully believe in what you're building.

And your team will lack alignment because nobody really owns the vision. And they can see in you the lack of conviction in that borrowed vision. Right? You feel exhausted because you're carrying everybody else's expectations while you are simultaneously denying what you really want and what you really want to bring to the job. And so the work feels like drudgery because you've lost touch with what you actually want to build. So if you're listening today and you're recognizing yourself, here's what I want you to understand. It's not about just having a vision. It's about having a vision that you truly own.

You might have a vision on the website, you might have a vision that sounds like 100% vision, but if it's not truly yours, it will never feel right. It will never feel right. So I want you to think about this this week. Are you operating from a borrowed vision or are you operating from a vision you really own? And even if you're a builder, and even if you believe in 100%, have you created 100% vision that you own that truly drives your work? Now, the answer is no. We've got something for you.

We're calling it Coaching week.

And I'm going to spend a week coaching you on helping you create a vision that you actually own. So if you been wanting to have a vision for a while and haven't been able to join Buildership University or and you've been dying to create your own vision and you want to do this work, this is your chance. This is the only time we're doing it this year, and we are. It's going to be an exclusive coaching week. This is not like one of our free events where I'm just going to be doing a lot of teaching. You take notes and you get some aha moments. This is coaching, which means that it's a smaller group. We're coming together every day for four days.

We're gonna start January 25th, so Sunday through Wednesday. Then we'll have some time for you to kind of reflect, think, catch up. And then we'll have a bonus day on the following Sunday. So one week, Sunday to Sunday coaching. You're gonna get real time support coaching, feedback on your vision, and you're gonna walk out with a vision that you haven't borrowed. A vision you truly believe in. A vision that can drive the work. Now focus on people who are truly committed.

And to keep you from just signing up and not showing up, we are charging a nominal fee. It's $37. It's not enough to cover the cost of what we're doing because you're actually getting coaching from me, but it does help you show you're really committed and ensures you're going to show up and if you want to join us, the registration is now open and you can go to buildershipuniversity.com coaching week. I'll also put a link for it in the show notes. Now, here's the thing. We're trying this. We're going to see how it works. I've never offered this before, right, where you get actual coaching, where I'm not just talking about a vision explaining what it is, but you're actually going to get help and support in creating your vision with the idea that you walk away with a vision you own.

But here's the thing, you gotta commit to doing it, which means that even though we're gonna be getting together for about an hour a day over four days, and I'm gonna walk you through the process and you know, there'll be feedback built in. Even if you can't make it all four days, we will have those implement, you know, those implementation. Implementation days happening. So we're gonna go Sunday through Wednesday and then Thursday, Friday, Saturday, you'll have time to catch up. If you missed a session or you wanna revisit a session, you can. And then on Sunday, we're gonna pull everything together and everybody's gonna. And it's really important that you commit to it. And I know you're busy, but part of the reason that you feel like you're so overwhelmed right now is because you don't have a vision that's truly yours. I know that there are all kinds of other things going on right now, but what will help you anchor is having a vision in which you can anchor. 

So this is not for everybody, right? 

This is not for people who want to sit and get and do another free training. This is for people who actually want to get, get to stop operating from a borrowed vision and have a vision that will help you navigate the rest of the year. Now, things are crazy right now in the world, and that's one of the reasons why I'm doing this. It is now more important than ever to do this. Normally, vision is something we do in Buildership University. And I take time, everybody gets individual feedback.

But as I'm looking at what's happening in the world, as I'm looking and talking to principals and hearing the stress and anxiety that they're feeling. The solution is having a vision in which you can anchor that helps you navigate through all of this. So that's why I'm doing it. That's why we're doing something different this year. We're offering this opportunity for me to coach you into Creating a vision. Don't miss the opportunity. So go to buildershipuniversity.com coaching week and sign up now. Now, here's my challenge for you this week.

First of all, I want you to spend some time thinking about your vision. Not the one that's on the wall, although you certainly can think about that, but the one that drives the day to day work. What's really driving your work? Is it compliance? Is it comparison? Is it inheritance? Is it avoidance? What's really driving your work?

And I want you to think about how that feels. You see, when you have a borrowed vision, you are always dancing. You're a dancing bear. You are always doing somebody else's bidding. When you have your own vision, it helps you navigate all of that. So if you are operating from a borrowed vision, it's time to get your own. It's time to get your own. So ask yourself, hey, what's driving us every single day?

And if it's not a true 100% vision that you own, well, this is your chance to get one. It's time to stop operating from a borrowed vision and start operating from a vision that you actually own. 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 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.