EPISODE #148

Are you doing the right work right now?

You're listening to School Leadership Reimagined episode number 148

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'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's leadership reimagined podcast. I'm your host, Robin Jackson. And today we are continuing our series looking at the school hierarchy of needs.

So far, we've talked about the first need, which is that purpose need which really gives you the clarity that your school needs to move forward. If you don't know where you're going, you can't move your school, you can't build a better school if you don't know what you're building. So that clarity component, that first level, the purpose level is where all problems start. We always start there whenever I'm going in. And I'm helping someone to kind of diagnose what they need to do to take their school and, and turn it into a school where 100% of their students can be successful. We always start there. What is your purpose, if we don't know what that success looks like for your kids, then when we do it, we don't know.

The next level is the people level, this is the one that everybody loves to go to and deal with, because people problems occupy a lot of our time. And and they they are they are probably some of the most painful and distracting things that we have to deal with. And so at that people component, it's really about how do we get cohesion? How do we help everybody develop the will and the skill that they need to move forward?

Once you've gotten that taken care of last time, we talked about the pathway component, which is the most ignored portion of what we do. And it's really about how do you figure out what is the right next move for your school right now? And how do you have a system so that you can always sift through the noise and figure out what is the root problem here and are we staying focused on solving the root problem, rather than getting distracted by all the other things that are coming our way.

So today, we're going to talk about the last piece before you get to success. The last thing that you have to have in place is you need the plan component. Now that sounds like okay, Lottie doll Robyn plans, we're good at making plans, we have to do SIP plans every year, and we have to do remediation plans, and we have to do recovery plans. And we have to do a Literacy Plan and on and on and on. We're really good at making plans. And yes, when you are trained like a leader, one of the things you're trained to do is everything needs a plan.

But one of the frustrations that I've been having lately is I've been looking at the kinds of plans that many of you have been asked to make by your state by your district. And I gotta tell you, those plans are never going to work. And you know, this too, don't you how many of you, and you can you're you're in the privacy of wherever it is you're listening right now. So you don't you don't have to worry about any of us telling on you.

But how many of you write one plan for the district and pursue another plan in your school?

It's like when I was in high school, we were required to write outlines for our papers. And many times I would write the paper first and then go back and write the outline. Some of us are doing that in our schools, because the planning process that's being required of us is not a process that actually helps us accomplish the things that we need to accomplish in our schools. The second piece of that planning component is that a lot of times when we create plans, we fail to execute on those plans. How many of you are right where you need to be based on the CIP plan that you wrote earlier this school year over the summer? Exactly.

And so today, we're going to talk about how builders plan differently and how this plan component may be the source of a lot of challenges that you're facing right now. And once you understand that, remember the school Hierarchy of Needs is trying to get to the root cause of your challenges so that you can do the right work at the right time and in the right way and solve them once and for all. And remember, the reason we're doing this is because we're trying to figure out what will it take to turn our school into a school where 100% of our students can be successful? All of our students deserve to be successful in school and so are we building a school When that is not only possible, but it is probable it is likely because we set the school up and design the school and built the school so that every single child can and is successful. So we're going to talk about that. 

But before we do a couple of quick announcements, builder's lab ticket sales are open, and they're already going people are getting their tickets together. And it makes sense because our summer builders lab typically sells out. And so the dates for summer builders lab are and I always mess this up. So let me go and you know, make sure I look at the calendar because I keep saying that it's the wrong date. But our dates for our next builders lab are June 27, through 29th. That's the last week of June. And it will be another builders lab 360 degree experience.

It's incredible. 

What happens during those times, you know, when we first moved to a virtual training, one of the things we're worried about is that there's a lot of magic that happens in the room at our builders lab live and plus we you know, we spoil people we were always eaten we, you know, we have so many food presentations every single day, you know, the morning, the break lunch, the afternoon. And so we you know, we love the food, we love the interactivity, we love the electricity that's in the room, and we're trying to figure out is that something that we can still capture at builders lab, if you could have a way to do it. And in fact, I want to say that the virtual builders lab has its own magic it, you don't lose anything from being there face to face, and it has some things that the face to face doesn't have in fact, when we go back to face to face builders, labs, if we ever go back to face to face builders, labs, one of the things that we're gonna have to do is rethink some of those face to face experiences. So that we can capture the magic that's happening virtually, it's really incredible.

And over those three days, we will go through this builder ship hierarchy of needs that the school hierarchy of needs and and layer it against the builder Ship Model, we're going to show you how to take care of that purpose component because it's the most important thing when you leave builders lab, you're going to walk out of there with a clear vision for your school. We're working on that. And then not only that, you're going to know how to manage that people component. What does feedback look like? What does support need to look like? What does accountability need to look like? What is culture need to look like in your school. And then we're also going to look at that pathway component.

And we're going to do something called micro slicing, to help you practice and get accustomed to being able to look at a situation and quickly determine the root cause, so that you can choose the right pathway, the right problems to solve in your school.

And then finally, we're going to talk about that plan piece. And we're going to give you some tools to help you execute not just make plans but actually accomplish things. We're going to show you the way that builders plan that helps you have a victory every 90 days, when you leave builder's lab, you will have clarity around what is the most important work for you right now you will look at your current school situation. And you'll be able to diagnose exactly what that root cause is. And not only that, you'll have the tools and the support to be able to solve it. And we don't just leave your loved one, we'll just let us over, you know, three days and bye bye. Good luck. No, we spend the next 90 days walking alongside you sending you support sending you reminders, giving you additional coaching and support that you need to be able to do the work and builders lab and to actually execute it in your school.

So when you come to builder's lab, you're going to leave there a pro and understanding the school hierarchy of needs. And you'll know how to apply it not to just to your school in your situation, you'll not apply to any school you go to we've had a lot of people come to builders lab, and when they came they were an assistant principal. And then over the course of the next 30 days, 80 days, 90 days, they get a principalship. And so now they have to leave the school that they're in and take over new school, but because they were a builder's lab and because they understand the school hierarchy of needs and that model and how it works, they can immediately walk into their new school, and they they can hit the ground running, they know exactly what they need to do to move that school forward. And so they walk in with that confidence because they have a skill set that you can take with you with wherever you go.

We've had some people who started out as a principal when they came to builder's lab and then they get a superintendency. Within a couple of months of leaving builder slab again, taking the same skills that you learn a builder slab they go with you wherever you go, they make you a builder. And as a builder, you can go into any situation any school, and you can figure out what's keeping every one of our kids from being successful in the situation. And then you can get to building an organization that will support 100% of your students and help all of your kids be successful. That's what it means to be a builder. So to get your tickets go to mind steps, Inc. COMM slash builders dat Blap

Second thing, builder ship University, we are opening up a new cohort in April. 

And this is, you know, builder's lab is where you learn that model. And you get immersed into the model, understand the builder, the builder, ship model and the school hierarchy of needs. But builder ship universities where you actually execute. And so when you come in to build a ship university, you you're coming there to really uplevel your skills, the skills that it takes to be a builder. And you're also unlearning a lot of the junk that you were taught about what it really takes to make 100% of your students successful. And you're learning those things that actually work. 

Not only that, you're in a community of other really incredible builders who are doing that work, who are making things happen, you know, we we build a ship University, every single week, we're celebrating success stories, people are having these incredible victories all the time you learn from each other, it's a supportive community. You know, one of the things that we realize is that when you are a builder, a lot of times, when you pursue this, you're alone, you're different than other people, other people are stuck in leadership. And they're, you know, over they're pursuing their little 5% a year games where as builders are saying, 5%, that's too small, we need to get to 100%. And I'm actually a little bit of a weirdo.

But when you come to build a ship university, you are surrounded by other people who are not only believing that they could bet success for 100% of your students is possible. They're making it happen. They're showing these incredible gains. And you get all the tools that you need to be able to do that we have on Demand training.

But we also have, and this is probably everybody's favorite part of builder, ship University, every single week, we're getting together. And that's one week, every other week, we're doing office hours, that's where you can come and get personalized coaching from me.

And then the other thing we have that we just started is something called study hall. And that's where you come and you get work done. You're working with other people. And so during that study hall, you can be working on some aspect of build your ship that you're building in your school, whether that's your teacher dashboard, or interrogating your rubric or putting together, you know, kind of redesigning your discipline program so that it works for your students so that they're successful, you can bring that to office hours, I mean, bring that to study hall, and then you'll have time to work on it. And you'll have time to get feedback from us support suggestions tweaks that make it all the better. So study hall, I almost think is your secret weapon.

When you come to study hall, you can work some things out in a supportive and safe environment with other people who are pursuing that same goal. When you leave that study hall and you go back to your school, your school, you look like you have it all together, because you worked it out ahead of time, you're not working out in front of people, you can come back with confidence and say, This is what we need to do. And here's why. And that's what's happening a lot in study hall right now, people are coming and saying, I've got to get up in front of my staff tomorrow. And I've got to share my vision with them. Can you all give me some feedback on my vision story, and they say their business story. And then we give them feedback and help them tweak it. And they can practice it before they have to say it for the first time in front of their staff or someone is working on a new discipline policy. And they you know, let's put on a screen, let's take a look at it. Okay, so here's where I think it goes astray. Like Oh, that makes sense. And they go work on it. And when they're done, their discipline policy is done.

We're going to be doing some work in the study halls within the next couple of weeks over school improvement plans. And so the as you're working on thinking through your school improvement plan, coming to that study hall and getting this school improvement plan that's really aligned to your vision that really is going to move the work forward. That's the kind of work we get done in study halls.

So build a ship University is going to be opening a new cohort in April, I'll you know, stay tuned for dates, just mark your calendar start getting ready for it. And the reason we do cohorts is because when new people come in to build a ship University, we want to walk with them. It's not just like, open it up, go take a course if you want No, we feel like you need to have that, that that support. And so we bring a new cohort in and help you get an immediate success.

We start at the purpose level with getting your vision, your mission, your core values together, and then getting everything in your school aligned to that vision, mission and core values. And that process takes about 90 days. And during that 90 day time period, you're getting support, you're getting training, you're getting feedback, you're getting coaching you're getting, you're getting accountability to make sure that that happens.

And think about that. If you start in April, by the end of the school year, you could have some things really set up so that you walk into that summer planting season really, really strong and your next school year is going to be amazing. So to join or to get on the waitlist for that next cohort, all you need to do is go to builder ship university.com and you can sign up. Alright, I think that's it for the announcements today. 

Let's talk about this plan. 

So I've been really frustrated lately because I've been supporting a lot of principals and some different districts who are showing me their school improvement plans. And, you know, they're being asked to do things like, Okay, you got to do this fishbone. And I'm gonna be honest with you, I have no idea what a fishbone I mean, I know what it is right? I was an English teacher, right? So we, we, you know, that was one of the graphic organizers that we were supposed to use to help kids think through issues. I never understood it, I never got it. And then when it comes to school improvement planning, I look at the examples. And they just don't make sense to me, they feel like a lot of work. And at the end of doing all that work and get everything in the right place, you still have no clarity about what it is your school needs to do.

And then y'all have heard me talk about the five whys before, I'm not gonna harp on them again, here today, I don't want to offend anybody. I said something about the five why's to somebody recently, and they got hurt, like I talked about their mama. And I just think that those strategies lead you to the wrong conclusions. That's what leadership does, you go through other process, and they make you feel more confident about what is essentially a guess for where your school needs to go forward.

We talked about that last time of the pathway piece. But once you have the pathway together, once you've done that, that that builders root cause analysis, we call it micro slicing, once you use micro slicing to get to the real root cause, the next step is okay, so we know the problem we need to be working on. Do have a plan for doing that do do Can we can we consistently execute. And here's the thing that I'm seeing with a lot of people, we write plans, we're good at writing plans, I was working with the principals. And I started talking about the planning component and the eyes roll, they said, Look, we have plans have a plan got a binder full of plans.

My problem is I don't have time to execute on the plan, I don't have time to do the work stuff comes up, or the district gets me something else. I have a great plan the beginning of the year, then the district comes along. And they tell me Oh no. Now we're going to do XY and Z. And they take me off my plan. I've been coaching a lot of principals lately who have plans and have been working towards their plans, and now they're demoralized, because some are their plans for things like our kids are going to show significant gains on whatever the test that they're being used, you know they've been using in the past is this year. And then the district comes in and says, Oh, we're not going to test kids this year, or oh, we're going to switch to another test this year. So all that work towards a test score increase goes out the window.

I've worked with superintendents or central office folks, well superintendents and central office folks who have a plan to move their district forward. And then the state comes in with another requirement. Or they're, you know, they have a vision that they're going to help all their schools achieve an A or B on the state scoring system. And then the state says, Oh, we're going to change the formula for how we decide what's cool is an A or a B, or we're going to get rid of A's and B's all together. And we're going to move to stars or bunnies or something else as a rating. And we're really rethinking how we rate schools, when this district has been working on moving their schools towards meeting those requirements for for their district. So things happen, we know that.

So how do you stick to your plans, even when things happen? 

So there are four things that builders do, and this planning component that help them stick to their plan, the first thing that builders do is they respect the change process. It's not some arbitrary thing out there builders understand that when you are trying to shift an organization, when you're trying to build something new inside of an organization, there's a really predictable process that's going to happen. And what what what leaders do is we kind of have an intellectual understanding of that process. But we when we are in the process itself, we don't recognize that this is a natural part of the change process. What do I mean?

Well, part of the change process is that the beginning there's a lot of enthusiasm, there's a lot of excitement for that. But there's always going to come a time, especially as people recognize that this change is real. And we're really gonna have to change some things and it's not going to be comfortable. You know, my mother always says nothing likes to be changed, but a baby. And she's right. I mean, when people like the idea of change, they don't like being changed. They don't like having to adjust or change to get the thing that they want. And when that happens, you will hit a wall. So why don't our plans plan for the wall? It always comes? Why don't we plan for that? Why? Why are our plans not flexible enough and and and, and and malleable enough that that when you hit the wall, the wall doesn't completely destroy everything.

I've talked to several several principals and superintendents over the last couple of weeks, who are frustrated because they've been working really hard all year long, and they hit a wall. Now, sometimes that wall is on resurgence of a new variant of COVID. Sometimes that wall is they're moving forward, and they enjoyed some initial support. And now people are starting to balk.

I was talking to a principal and she was saying, you know, the beginning of the year, I wanted every teacher to do these three things. And they all agreed, but then they quickly told me that three is too many. And they're too overwhelmed. And they really can't do it. And I'm asking too much of them. So I backed off. And I've only asked him for two things. Well, if you created a plan, and you thought that those three things were absolutely necessary to get 100% success from your students, why are you backing off just because people are complaining when their complaints are? Exactly, they're predictable there that you knew the complaints were going to come? Because that's the way the change process works?

Well builders do is we sit down and we map out our plans. And with respect to how change happens, what do I mean? Well, builders, when we're planning for something, we use this, this this rubric, or it's not really a rubric, it's a it's a heuristic of the what we call the 60s, when we're thinking about the change process, the first thing is Excite, people get excited, you got to get people excited about the change, in order for it to even have enough oxygen to move forward. And then this is the piece people skip, give people a chance to intentionally pick apart your plan, we call the Explorer stage. But it's really a point where people say, these are all the reasons why this will not work, let them get it out the way, a lot of times their concerns are legitimate. And when you listen to that, and include that in your process, your plan gets better.

Once you've gotten that out of the way, the next phase is that now you got to get everybody engaged, because so far you've been talking about and people will talk about saying all day, now let's do the work, let's start working on it. The key to getting people engaged that builders understand is that that has to be non evaluative engagement.

In other words, people need to have time to get engaged without you standing over their shoulder with a clipboard the feedback that you're giving them during that time.

That support you're giving them, it's not evaluative, so people have a chance to practice really try without worrying about getting it wrong, because they will get it wrong at the beginning. So you're there supporting and helping them. But you're also giving them feedback that gets them ready for the next stage where now we expect this behavior throughout our school. So now we're setting an expectation, you still have to have it perfect. But you cannot, you can't not sit on, you can't sit on the sidelines anymore, you you can't avoid doing it, everybody has to do it now. And then somewhere around expect an evaluate somewhere around expecting the behavior and evaluating behavior, you're going to hit a wall.

So when you prepare for that wall, you get ready for that you set people up, you tell people ahead of time, there's going to come a point, it's probably going to happen somewhere around here, we're going to hit a wall so that when the wall comes, nobody's surprised, you can say, hey, we told you that this wall was going to happen. But we have a plan for how we're going to power through.

Remember, we talked about this back in those early glorious days, and we were all excited about it, we knew the wall was coming. So don't get discouraged by the wall, the wall tells us we are making progress, the wall tells us we're at a really important crucial point in our process. And we have a plan to deal with it. And then the last part is embed and extend the things you've learned, you're going to now embed into your culture and you're going to extend to the next thing. So when you when you have that, that plan that really does recognize it's not a linear that the change that growth is not linear that that there are things that are going to happen along the way. So builders create plans and have a planning process that respects the cycle of change.

And that's what keeps builders from getting derailed by things that come up because their plans account for that I never understand those plans that say, Okay, we're going to be we're going to do this. And then first semester, we're going to do this and then next we're going to do that. And it just, you know, where I'm looking at those plans and saying at some point, something's going to happen. Why aren't you all thinking? Well, it happens every time. Why don't we incorporate that into our plans. So that's the first thing.

The second thing that builders do differently. During this, this plan component that keeps them from from from keeps their plans from being derailed is that builders always anchor their plans in their vision, mission and core values. That's why purpose is first, right. If you don't have a clear purpose, of course, your plans are going to fail because they're not anchored in anything, which means that your plans are vulnerable to whatever comes up. How many of you created a plan and then the district says we're going to do this or the state says we're going to do this.

So you go to a conference and you learn X and parents come by and they complain and so you do y and so your plans become this, this this garbled mess and you never can stick to things you start out in one direction something happens and you shift directions. So just your plan is an anchored in anything. It is baffling to me how people can write a CIP plan that isn't anchored in their vision, mission and core values. I don't even understand why you would waste your time. And I was talking to a group of principals this week and I was telling them I said right now it feels like you're serving 25 different bosses. You've got your students, you've got your parents, you've got your team You've got the teacher union, you've got the district, you've got community pressures, you've got state mandates and pressures, all of these things are controlling you or giving you placing demands upon your time.

It's one of the reasons why so many administrators are overwhelmed. 

But with builders, builders don't have 25 different bosses, builders have one boss, your vision. So when the state asked you to do this, you take whatever it is the state's asking you to do. And you sifted through your vision so that you turn that mandate into a way to move towards your vision. When the teachers make demands on you, you go back to your vision, and you sift their demands through your vision. And that shows you how to respond in a way that actually solves their problems. Same thing true for parents, for students, for everybody.

When you anchor in that purpose component with your vision, mission and core values, that's your boss. And so when you have to write a CIP plan, and you have to use, you know, some weird state template and do all that other stuff, you have to stress out about it, make it serve your vision, mission and core values, and then the CIP planning process becomes rewarding, it's a chance to sit back and examine where you are with regard to your vision, and think strategically about what it is you need to do next.

So we have got to start anchoring our plans in our vision, mission and core values. And making sure if your plan is an anchor there, of course, it's going to be vulnerable. Of course, you're never going to finish it because it's not anchored in anything. The third thing that we need to do is that builders keep score. You see, when when you are creating plans, they look great on paper. But if you're not regularly going back and saying how are we doing? Are we making progress? And the suggestion we make is that you do it weekly?

As a part of your weekly meeting, you should be consulting your scorecard, what are the key pieces of data that you need to be watching? You no need to watch everything, you know, a lot of these data does I mean, that doesn't sound attractive, we're gonna do a Data Dive who's gearing up for that? Not me. But when you are being very intentional about looking at that data and using the data's feedback on how well you are executing on your plans, then that data can give you some guidance and direction about what you need to do that data can help you anticipate challenges that you're that are coming up, and you can solve them before they become big problems. And that data can give you opportunities to celebrate along the way because you realize that, hey, this stuff is really working. And if it isn't working, that data can show you why it's not working and show you how to fix it. So you still have a victory at the end of your planning period. So builders keep score.

The fourth thing that builders do differently during this planning component is that builders plan in 90 day cycles rather than yearly cycles. Now, I just wrote an article about this for education leadership, and we'll link to it in the show notes if you want to read it, so you can get more detail about it. But the difference between a CIP plan, you start at the beginning of the year, well, actually in the summer, and you just kind of imagine what a year is going to look like and what you hope it looks like. And then you create a plan for that. And of course, the year never looks away.

I mean, who had COVID, and a global pandemic on their 2020 Bingo card, or their 2019, bingo card? 

Actually, none of us, right. So what builders, students were saying, We can't predict what's going to happen during the school year too much is changing. Instead, what builders are saying is, we can reasonably predict what's going to happen next three months. So let's make a plan for what we're going to accomplish in three months. And that keeps you from putting off success, you know, like, oh, yeah, we'll get there, we were going to get that 5% gain. And, you know, honestly, we only really think about that little 5% gain that we predicted on our CIP plan in March and April, like right before the test, maybe February.

So we're only thinking about it for 90 days in the course of the school year anyway, what if instead, we said, you know, what, if we really want to see some significant test score gains for our kids this year? What's it gonna take? And what's the first most important thing pathway that we use that pathway components to figure that out? What is the biggest barrier that if we remove it more of our kids would be successful? And you knock that down in 90 days? And then at the end of 90 days, you've learned some things.

And so now you can say, Okay, what's the next one? And then you knock that down? And then what's the next one, and you knock that down? So that's what builders do. And so when they get to the spring and the tester out, they don't worry about Oh, I wonder if we're gonna actually eke out another 3% gain this year. They're excited about their teachers are excited about it, because they know their kids are better. Why? Because they've been hit with heading. They have a series of victories all along the way. And the last thing that builders do differently in this planning component that helps them to execute with discipline is builders have a pretty tight meeting rhythm.

Now, I know meetings aren't sexy, but they're powerful. And what builders do is they don't have wasted meetings. They have meetings that keep them on track with their plan. So the three meetings that I'd recommend there are really five. But the three of the most important ones that you should start with is that you need a weekly meeting. And we have we've done an episode on all about how to conduct that weekly meeting, we'll link it in the show notes. So you can get that episode and there's a download that comes with it. That gives you what that meeting agenda should look like. But in that that weekly meeting, you're saying, Okay, how are we doing this week? So you're looking at your scorecard, what is our biggest obstacle? And how do we solve it so that next week, we can make closer gains towards our plans, when you do that, you will hit your 90 day goals.

I remember the first time we did it at mine steps. We were blown away, we hadn't hit a goal in forever, and we were blown away. And not only that, we hit all of our we had some big goals for 90 days, we had all of our goals for that 90 day time period. And every time we use that process, we hit our goals. second meeting, you need to help you stay true to what those outcomes are that weekly meeting is you need a daily meeting.

Now the daily meaning we call the daily standup, we didn't invent that. That's kind of a name that's out there. But we call it the DSU for short. And your DSU should take 15 minutes. And it's just the key people on your team, getting together checking in and saying, what did we do today to move us closer to our vision? What do we do today to execute on our plan? Not what did everything I do? I had a bagel for breakfast. And then you know, I wanted though not all of that. What specific action did you take to move us towards our plan? When you do that everybody stays accountable. You don't run around chasing, checking correcting people.

And then the third meeting you need is a monthly review meeting and that mother review meeting, you're going to take a look back and say, All right, we've done some things are we seeing results, if not data shifts that we need to make, it's a kind of a broader view of your progress towards your plan. You do those three things you'll execute with discipline. And that's really what this plan level is about.

You see if you've done the work from the earlier stages of the hierarchy, if you've got a purpose in place, if you got your people on board, if you understand what the right work is to do, then it's only left for you to do it. And if you're not doing it, the first thing you want to ask is okay, we're not hitting our goals. We're not making our plans. Do we have clarity around our purpose? How we do we know we want to do we believe in it? All right. Do we have that cohesion with our people? Yeah, everybody's on board.

We were frustrated because we want to move forward. Everybody has the will and the skill to be able to do this. Alright, are you solving the right problems? Yet? We microsites we know this is the right problem to solve now. All right, then the next step for us to say, All right, then do we have a planning architecture in place that allows us to execute with discipline, if you don't, then put that in place. And you will be blown away at what you'll be able to accomplish in as little as 90 days.

So those are the big components of the builder ship. Hi, I mean, there's the school hierarchy of needs, I can't want to call the builder ship hierarchy of needs, because it tracks with the builder Ship Model. Those are the those that's the order that you should be using to think through your problems.

Any challenge you face?

First question, do we have a vision mission and core values? And are we staying true to that second question? Do we have the people are our team, you know, do they have the will and skill to do what they need to do? Third question. All right, we have that in place? Do we? are we solving the right problem? Is this something we should be dealing with right now? And then if it is, are we to have a plan to deal with it? And are we executing on that plan with discipline? That rhythm of going through and looking at all of your challenges through those four things is what gets you to success?

And next time, that's exactly what we're going to talk about. Because at the top of that hierarchy training triangle of success, it's we're going to talk about what does that mean? How does what does success mean for a builder? And how is it different than success for a leader? In the meantime, my challenge for you this week, is I want you to ask yourself, Am I Am I good at executing on my plans? You know, when I look up? Do I do I plan correctly? Do my writing the right plans? Do I have plans? You know, kind of are they anchored in my vision? Especially as you're reading many of your writing your school improvement plans this time of year? Or is it anchored to my vision? Does it just reflect something? Am I identifying something that I want to focus on for next year, that really is going to move my students closer to my vision, the mission and the core values? Second thing you want to know is okay, just my staff have the will and skill to be able to do this and if not do Am I putting things in place of builder willing skills so that they can do this work? Third, is this this the right work is are these the right problems to be solving right now? And then fourth? Don't have a plan do I do? Do I have a plan that recognizes and honors the change cycle? Do Do I have a meeting rhythm in place to keep me focused on my plan? Am I do I have a scorecard in place I know that I'm looking at the right data and using that data is really good feedback on how I'm moving towards my plan.

If you do that, you will be so amazed at what you can accomplish in your school. It starts with If your purpose thing getting your people on board, then finding the right pathway and then having an executing on the right plan. That's how you reach success. 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 builder ship 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.

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