EPISODE #178

Common pitfalls to avoid when crafting your vision

You're listening to the school leadership reimagined podcast episode 178. 

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 faith. You don't have to wait to make a difference in the lives of the people you serve. You can turn your school into a success story right now with the people and resources you already have. Let's get started.

Hey Builders, welcome to another episode of the school leadership reimagined podcast. I'm your host Robyn Jackson. And today I want to talk to you about why I keep talking about vision.

Yeah, I probably sound like a broken record by now. And to be honest, I never in 1000 years could have predicted that I'd be spending so much time talking about vision, especially when early in my career, I hated visions, I hated visioning exercises, you know, I remember being a teacher in a school and being brought together as a committee to to talk about the vision and getting stuck on all the wordsmithing. And the, you know, we need a comma there and a clause there and, and even because there was an English teacher being asked to kind of go through our finalized school vision and just edit it to make sure that it was clear and thinking this is a waste of time.

I remember being an administrator and aspiring administrator and going through my AP training and being told that I needed to have a vision. And so I had to sit down and write a vision statement that I was told I would need to apply for a job. And yet, no one ever asked me for my vision statement once I wrote it. So I spent all that time writing a vision statement. And quite frankly, it was a work of fiction, because I was writing all the things that I thought I should be saying that sounded like what a good principal would say. And it didn't really I never really spent time tapping into what I thought what I really believed. And so it was always time. So why is it that having those experiences and maybe you've had them too?

Why is it that I talk about vision so much when in reality, my past experiences with with vision, writing in a school have not been great? 

Well, today, I'm going to talk about that. And I'm also going to spend some time dispelling some mythology that we have around vision statements that I think are holding us back. And we're going to talk about the difference between maybe the way that you were trained to write a vision statement, and the way that you need to be thinking about vision as a builder. And so we're going to talk about that in just a second. But before we do, I have some exciting news. So speaking of vision, you know that we do the Free Vision workshops every single month. And people are really benefiting from that. I mean, we have some major breakthroughs. But a lot of times people can't get to the live vision workshop, there's too much going on the vision workshop. So usually in the afternoons, a lot of times people come and and if you don't get there right at the beginning, you know, we can guarantee that we're going to get to everybody shows up right at the beginning. But if you jump on late, you can listen in, but we may not have time to get to you because you were late. And you know, you really want to take advantage of it. But it's just hard. We have another option.

Now we are going to be doing something so cool. I'm so excited about it. We are calling it the 100% vision five day challenge. And during this five days, we are going to help you build a vision that is worthy of you worthy of your students worthy of your school. It's a 100% vision. What do I mean by 100% vision? I mean that this is a vision statement that guarantee success for 100% of your students. And the reason we're doing this is because I know that many of you like me believe that all children deserve to be successful in school. We want success for every single child. The problem is we don't set visions that include every single child. And so during this 100% challenge, if you take the challenge, it's really about tapping into making that promise. What does success really look like for 100% of your students and helping you develop a vision for success for 100% of your students? One that excites you one that that gives you goosebumps, we call it the tingle test, one that re energizes your work, one that actually drives and focuses the work of your school.

So over the course of five days, we're going to help you do that. And the way we'll do that is that every day at 7pm, starting on Sunday, October 23, every day at 7pm, I'm going to do a live training, the training will last 10 to 15 minutes. So not a huge, long hour of your time, and then I'll stick around and answer a few questions and get you started. And then every day, you will have a tiny assignment that you need to do, that's going to help you develop your 100% vision. And if you can't make it live, the training will be recorded and posted inside of a Facebook group. And it's a private group where we'll be there. And then in that group will not only going to post the training, but every day, you'll get a tiny challenge that you have to do something that's going to get you closer to that vision statement. And if you post that inside the Facebook group, by 3pm, the following day, you'll get feedback. So I'll be in the Facebook group, you can get coaching on your personal vision statement, if you can make it live, you can watch the recording, you can see what other people are doing. And over the five days, we're not only going to craft your 100% vision, I'm going to show you how you can share that vision with your staff in a way that creates buy in. And then we're going to develop a plan and outline a roadmap for how you can achieve that vision in the next three years. So by the time you leave the challenge, you're going to walk out of that challenge with a vision that excites you, you're going to walk out of that challenge with a framework that you can use to share that vision. So other people buy into that vision other people get excited about it. And you're gonna walk out of that challenge with a plan a roadmap for how you can achieve that vision for 100% success for every child in the next three years. And guess what, it's all free. I know, it's so exciting. I know you can't, you're ready to go.

So let me tell you how you can join the challenge, all you need to do is go to builder ship university.com/challenge. That's builder ship university.com/challenge. And sign up for the challenge. The moment you sign up for the challenge, you're gonna get a an email, and the email is going to give you all the details about how you can get ready for the challenge what things you need to do, how to join the Facebook group. And then every single day of the challenge, you're going to get an e mailed reminding you Okay, today we're going to be focused on this one, you'll be able to get on the training every day at 7pm. Eastern inside of the Facebook group, or you can watch a training later, if you don't, if you're not available at that time, you can watch it, then you can do the challenge assignment for the day. And it's something very simple. It's just one more step that moves you closer to that 100% vision, your vision elevator pitch and your 100% vision roadmap. And every single day, you'll do that, you're also going to get a workbook so that all of the information from the challenge is in one place. And you can use that workbook and refer to it again and again once the challenge is over. And like I said, it's all free. So all you need to do is go to builder ship university.com/challenge. And sign up. The challenge starts on Sunday night, October 23 at 7pm. Eastern, so you need to get signed up right away, because we're getting started this Sunday. And once the challenge is over, all the trainings come down, everything gets, you know, done, we're just doing it for five days, it's intense. But it's only going to take about 30 minutes a day, over the course of five days. And at the end, you walk out, like I said, with your 100% vision, you walk out with a framework that you can use to be able to share your vision with other people and get them to buy in and you walk out with a roadmap for how you can achieve your vision in the next three years. And of course, you get to spend some time with me and I get to spend some time with you, I get to meet you, I get to hear about what you're working on. And I get to support you. And it's the thing I love to do most in the world. So again, build USHIP university.com/challenge and get signed up.

Okay, so let's talk about vision and why it is so important. 

And let's also talk about some of the myths that that exists around writing vision statements. You know, at the beginning of this episode, I talked about my experience and maybe you've had that to where you have gone through this visioning exercise and the way we were trained to do it is that you need a vision committee right? So you you assemble this committee of people who occupy leadership positions in your school, and then you get together and you do a charter for the committee we got to come up with a vision statement and then everybody starts advocating for their ideas and and maybe you started out that conversation and you had a vision in mind for for where you want it to take the school but then the committee says no, we don't like that we want this and and so all of a sudden your vision starts getting reshaping in the into the into something else that you didn't intend And then somebody gets mad because their idea isn't included. And so to appease that person, you put their idea into the vision. And before long, instead of a vision statement, you have a vision paragraph or two vision paragraphs long. And you and you walk out of that, and nobody satisfied because everybody got a piece of it in and they support their piece, but they don't support the rest, or they're mad because of the wording wasn't right. And they you spend time massaging the wording, you have hours long debates about this word or that word when they're synonyms. And they mean the same thing. So if somebody's insisting that they don't mean the same thing, and it's awful, and by the time you're done, you're battered and bruised, because of the debates that you've had in that conversation. Not only that, you have a vision statement that doesn't look like the vision you started with doesn't look like the idea that you started with. And it be it's been massaged down. And it's so vague now and so generic that that we're thinking we could have kept the old vision statement, because this one is no better than the old one. And it goes in a book somewhere. And then nobody ever looks at it again. Or maybe you've done that you said I don't want to do that anymore. So you hire a fancy consultant. And the consultant comes in, and they facilitate this visioning exercise. And again, you come out with this beautiful fancy vision statement, you turn it into a poster, you put it on your website, and then nobody ever does anything with it.

Oh, it's no wonder a lot of people think that I'm wasting my time talking about vision statements. Because if that's how you create a vision, you're wasting your time for sure, I can see your point, I can see why a lot of people are saying Robyn, there's so many other more important things in the world other than a vision statement. Because when you do it that way, you end up with garbage. And you're right, it doesn't serve you you've wasted a lot of time and possibly money, creating something that goes in a book somewhere that goes on a shelf somewhere that but doesn't drive the work of your school.

Now, here's how builders build vision statements. 

The first thing that builders do is they never subject their vision statement to committee. The mistake that I see a lot of builders make is they have always been taught you need shared vision. And so as a result, they they they take their vision statement. And they think that in order for vision to truly be a shared vision, everybody has to have input in creating the vision. And the thing I always tell people is that, okay, if you are ultimately responsible for achieving that vision, then the vision should only belong to you. So I would say to people, listen, if you don't achieve your vision, are they going to fire the committee? Or are they going to fire you? And if the answer is they're going to fire you, then you don't need the committee creating a vision that they're not going to be responsible for, for moving forward in the school, the vision belongs to you. And the way you know it is who gets fired if the vision doesn't get met.

So the first thing that that I think can really change the way that you think about vision is to stop thinking about shared vision in the traditional way that that we've been told share vision mean, which is that shared vision means it has to be created by committee. A vision does not have to be created by the committee to be shared. Shared Vision means that everybody knows the vision is working towards the vision feels like they have a part to play in the vision buys into the vision. And you can do that without subjecting your vision to a committee. And here's the problem with with putting your your vision to committee. The first problem is that many times you come in with a clear idea about what you want for your school. And by the time the committee is done with it, the vision that you created has no resemblance to the vision that's truly in your heart. And the problem is that you can't push back because you told the committee they would have input. And so you have to go along with what the committee says. And then you have to put the vision that's burning in your heart on a shelf somewhere because the committee says this is more important.

Here's the second thing. When the committee creates a vision, you feel obligated to let everybody have a say in the vision. And that's why we have these vision statements that have 25 clauses and 35 commas. Commas are not your friend and a vision statement. Because every time you add a comma, you're adding a new layer of complexity to your vision statement. But when you create a committee, you have no choice because this person over here thinks this part is important. But this person over here thinks this part is important. And how do you decide which is more important? You can't so you put both in. So at the end of the day, you have a vision statement that is so complicated, so convoluted, that no one can remember it and if no one can remember it, no one is pursuing it. 

The third problem is this when you subject your vision to committee What you're doing is everybody has a piece of that vision, but nobody owns the whole thing. So I feel very passionate about the part of the of the vision statement that I helped construct the part that reflected what I wanted to see happen in the school. But if I don't agree with what my colleague says, then I don't own that part of the vision. So at the end, instead of having a shared vision, you actually created more division in your vision, because I can say, well, I didn't vote for that part, I only want this part over here. And everybody is off the hook for the entire vision, because they're saying, well, that part I'd never agreed with. So there's, there's no shared ownership of the vision, people own their pieces that resonate with them, but they feel entitled to ignore the pieces that they didn't vote for. So you end up creating more division, you end up creating less ownership of the entire vision statement, by subjecting it to committee.

There's a final reason, when you subject to the vision to committee, and the committee comes up with your vision, then the committee hands it over to you to pursue it, you have now locked yourself into pursuing something that does not or may not fully align with what it is you want to do. So you now feel trapped by a vision. And the committee they're done. They created the vision. So they've washed their hands of it. They don't that the whole point of the committee was to create a vision statement. But at the end of the day, nobody owns it, because the committee's job and charter was to create a vision statement not to pursue it. And you assume that because it was created by committee, everybody in your school now supports it, when in fact, you the people who weren't on the committee say, Oh, is that what you all decided to do? Okay, great, that's fine. And then they move on with their lives. The people on the committee say our work here is done, we have a beautifully worded vision statement, they move on with their lives, and nobody owns the vision. And, and you don't even own it, because it wasn't your vision. It's now the vision that the committee said, I've heard principal say over and over and over again, I want to do this, but the committee saying I have to do this. And so you never ever get truly a vision that that's going to ignite your own passion that's going to keep you moving forward, you now feel worse off than you did before you have a vision because now you're trapped into this vision that is supposedly shared, but nobody shares it.

And now you are expected to pursue something that really doesn't speak to your heart.

So one of the things that we have got to get over is this idea that shared vision means vision by committee. It doesn't shared vision just means that everybody owns it. And the experience that I've had working with people inside a builder ship University, who have created the vision, the way that we do it inside a builder, ship universities, this, they're always nervous, because they're like, you know, I'm not sure you know, shared vision. And when I come up with the vision myself, and Will people buy into the vision, and by the time they're done, they're like, Wow, this is amazing, because people, most people really don't want to be a part of building the vision, they just want to know you have a vision. And then the way you share that vision with them, helps them buy into that vision, and helps them pursue it. So what happens with the people and build a ship University is they take the risk, they say, Okay, we're not going to do it by committee, I'm going to create my vision myself. And then they work with us inside of build a ship University to craft this vision, that is a builder's vision that that that that clearly identifies success that that includes success for 100% of their students. And then we teach you a way to share that vision with others that creates that buy in. And when they do that, they are amazed because not only do the teachers get excited about the vision and buy into the vision, but they start sharing the vision immediately. They're like, okay, is that what we're doing as a school bet? Let's go let's go ahead and do it. And even the teachers who push back, they're not pushing back because they weren't a part of the committee or the meeting, you know, to have the vision, they pushed back because the vision makes them nervous, they push back because they've never heard a vision like this before, and they're wondering what it's going to mean for them. And that pushback is expected and normal.

That's a part of the process. But they're not pushing back in the ways that you often get pushed back when you have vision by committee. Someone's mad they weren't on the committee, somebody on the committee's magaziner I didn't get it's not that kind of pushback. Instead, they're legitimately wrestling with the ideas that your vision sparks, and that's, that's okay. You can handle that because it leads now we're all talking about success. We're 100% of kids, rather than do we need another common outcome or should there be a semicolon? So we got to get over this shared vision business. We do need shared vision, but that does not mean vision by committee. It means that you as the builder The person who is responsible for making sure that the vision moves through, you are the person who creates the vision.

Now the second piece of pushback off and get it so people say, Well, then, you know, Robyn, that doesn't make me kind of a dictator, won't people push back because I created the vision. And here's the thing, just because you created the vision doesn't make you a dictator, I always say to people, that you can be stubborn on the vision, but flexible around the details. And that's really what the role demands. It's your responsibility as the builder as the principal, as, as the assistant principal, as a superintendent, as the department, head of a district office, it is your responsibility to set the vision for the group of people you are building. And then you can be stubborn on a vision, but then you invite people to join you remember, builders don't say go or let's go builders say come. And so the vision becomes that first invitation come join me in building this together. And as people come, they say, well, listen, I know you're trying to get here. But you know, it might be better if we did this thing over there. And you're like, Okay, that sounds great. I don't, I'm not so concerned about the steps that it's going to take to build the vision. That's what we create together. But here's the destination. And I want to tell you what we say something all the time. It's one of the tenets of builders, lab and builder, ship University. And that structure gives you freedom. When you have structures in place, when you have parameters in place, when you know where the edges are of things, that gives you a level of freedom to be able to play within the edges. And so a lot of people feel like if I tell people what the vision is, then they're going to push back because it's going to feel like you know, you're there these boundaries? Why can't the vision be this thing over there? You know, what's really scary is being in a place where everything goes, anarchy whether there there's no there are no boundaries, that's what makes people get scared, people begin to contract in those situations. But when the boundaries are clear, I'm stubborn on the vision flexible in the details, then it allows people the freedom to really start getting creative, we know where we're headed, I don't have to figure that part out now. Now I can spend my time and energy figuring out the parts that make the most sense for me, I can start figuring out how am I going to help all of our students get to be able to read by a certain grade level, how am I kind of help all of our students develop a meaningful goals and pursue those goals. Now, teachers can get creative around the things that really matter to them, and around the things where they have the most expertise. So instead of feeling like a dictator, your your vision frees people up. And we see this over and over again and build it to be university. When people share their visions with their staff, the staff almost breathes a sigh of relief. And then they say, Alright, let's get to work. And when they realize that you really mean it, I'm stubborn on the vision, but flexible in the details, they start to get excited because now they can say oh, we can do this, we can do that we can do the other. And that's what your vision should be doing for you. It should be sparking these ideas. It should be making people more creative. It should be getting people excited about the work of helping every child in your school succeed.

So we got to get over this vision by committee, we got to get over this fear that if I say the vision that it makes me a dictator, because in fact, you're stating that vision frees people up to get excited about that vision to be able to pursue their vision and be creative and bring their ideas to the table. So instead of shutting people down, you're you're declaring that vision opens people up. And then here's the other thing we gotta get we got to stop doing when it comes to visions. One of the biggest struggles that I've seen with people in both builders lab and builders ship University, when it comes to visions is they are so accustomed to hearing these visions with this flowery language. I mean, you know, I teach people all the time, I would win at vision statement, bingo by reading your vision statement, because it has all the key words it has, you know, student's full potential rigorous learning environment, global citizens, 21st Century Learning, lifelong learners, I could go on and on and on all those catchphrases, kind of strung together. And we think that's what a vision statement looks like. But if you have those phrases, and they're vague, and even if they're aspirationally, vague, if they're so vague, that nobody really knows what they mean, then nobody can pursue your vision with fidelity. Nobody can pursue your vision with passion because your vision says here's where we're headed. And nobody knows where you're headed because what does it truly mean to be a lifelong learner? Are you going to interview kids 1020 30 years after they leave your institution and say Are you still learning how do you know that somebody is a lifelong learner? How do you know that somebody is prepared for for for success in in a global society? Is it because they have a passport? Is it because they speak several languages? Is it because they studied abroad? What does it really mean to be prepared for success in a global society? of rigorous learning environment? That's about the school. But then how do you know that you have a rigorous learning environment? And what is the benefit to students that you have a rigorous learning environment? Do you see the problem here? When your vision statement is so vague? It sounds good, great. But when you ask three different people, what does it mean to have a rigorous learning environment? What does it mean to to help students take initiative and own their own learning, you're going to get three different answers.

And if your vision is so vague, that you can get all these different answers, then your vision isn't serving anybody. 

In fact, it's setting people up because everybody thinks they're pursuing the vision because they're doing what they think the vision is asking them to do. And when you go when you say, no, no, that's not it. They're mad because again, the language set them up. So if your vision sounds great, and it's vague and aspirational, but nobody really knows what it means it's wasting time, it's setting people up to to work hard at something that isn't quite what you're asking them to do. Or it's setting you up to be frustrated, because everybody's working in a different direction, because your vision doesn't give them the parameters to help them truly be creative and focused at the same time. So the reason you hear me talking about visions all the time, is because when you have the right vision, everything changes. It starts with the right vision. And I didn't realize this at first. And so when I first started teaching people, you know, when I was working on building this concept of builder ship, I thought the most important thing was we gotta get into more classrooms. Since I worked on creating this whole suite of feedback tools and resources, we have to give teachers the right support, or we have to help people be more accountable, or we have to build a great culture. That's important. But if you don't have a vision, first, give them feedback around what? Give them support to help them do what help them to be accountable to what create a culture around what if you don't have a vision? All of your efforts in your school are for naught Yes, you might get a small incremental gain. Yes, you might help a teacher get to be a better teacher in general. But are you moving your school forward? Are you changing lives for kids consistently? Are you making consistent progress? Are you serving 100% of your kids? You have no idea. If you don't start with a vision, everything else you're doing is a hope and a prayer.

People say to me all the time, Robyn, you know, I want my teachers get focused on best practices, best practices to do what do you know, many best practices are out there? Oh, well, no, no, no, we use Hattie's research. Okay, this has an effect size of this over that. Great. Why does that matter? What how does that affect size change lives of kids? The only way you know that is because of your vision. People tell me all the time, oh, we're doing this? And we're doing that. And we're doing this? And I'm like Those all sound great. To what end? How will it change lives for kids? Like, oh, well, the research says it makes kids lives better. How is that the right thing for your students? You know, it's an important well, yeah, everybody needs to know to read to what end? If you can't answer that, then all you're doing is working really, really hard, and a lot of different things and hoping that something will matter. But when you have a vision, it changes everything. Because of my vision is that I want 100% of my students to be to complete algebra by eighth grade, if I'm at a middle school, then what best practices I use to get them there is very clear. How I give teachers feedback is very clear how often I should be in a classroom, very clear. In fact, everything I do now has focus and purpose. And the same thing is true for teachers. If my vision is that 100% of my students will will, will be on grade level and grow at least one grade level every single year. Again, what best practices I use very clear what PD I do very clear what support teachers need clear accountability done. Culture done. Everything changes when you have a vision. So listen, if you're feeling, you know, I'm working really hard. I'm not seeing a lot of progress. I'm doing this I'm doing that I've had this training or bought this book. I'm doing all the things. I'm not seeing a real difference. I suspect the problem is your vision is just saying in the Bible. Without a vision, the people perish and the real He said that is so true is that if you don't have a direction for your school if you don't know what it is you're working for. And if what you're working for isn't success for every single child, all the work you do feels like a shot in the dark, you might as well be throwing spaghetti up against the wall and seeing what sticks. And that's the whole point. If you don't have a vision, you will work very hard, and continue to work very hard, and see very little results. And if your vision isn't clear, if your vision, if your vision doesn't say, This is what success looks like, this is what we're working towards your vision uses all this aspirational language, and you're trying to appease everybody else. And your vision doesn't give people that clarity. Then again, you're working really hard. And then you're like, why am I not seeing the results? Why am I working nights and weekends? Why am I getting into classrooms three and four and five classrooms a day, and I still don't see changes in teacher behavior, I still see test scores in the toilet, I still have discipline problems.

It's your vision.

And I've become the more that I do this work, the more convinced I am. In fact, when people come to me and they say, here are the challenges, I have this teacher that's doing X, Y and Z, I have increased in discipline problems. I've got this parent or this group of parents who are causing problems for me. First question I ask is, what's your vision? And if they answer, I don't know, let me look it up? Or the answer. We don't really have a vision or the answer. My vision statement is, you know, students will be successful and global citizens and bla bla bla bla bla, then I'm like, well, there's your problem, like no, my immediate pain is this parent or these teachers, or these test scores? No, those are symptoms of the deeper problem. Because until you have a clear vision for your students, everything is a symptom of that. You don't believe me? All right, here we go. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about a teacher who is acting out of is acting up? Well, if you had a clear vision for the teacher and at the school, if the school if you present that to the school, and everybody buys into the school, when you're given the teacher feedback, you can talk about that teacher's behavior, not that it's a violation of the contract, not that you need to be doing better. Not all it's for the kids and do it for the kids. But it's very clear, this behavior is out of alignment with a vision we're trying to pursue and our school. And that becomes crystal clear. When you go in and give teachers feedback, you're not just doing based on the rubric, and I gotta go into classrooms, so many times I have to be in class was five times a day or whatever it is, when you go into classrooms, every piece of feedback is this is what you're doing in the classroom. And this is how it is either moving you and your students towards a vision or impairing your students and your ability to achieve the vision. It's that simple. When you have a parent who's who's fussing about this, and that the other or questioning a decision that you make, you can say, here's the vision of the school, here's how my decision aligns with that. And it changes the conversation. Every problem you are currently experiencing every frustration you're currently experiencing, if you don't have a vision, that's probably at the root of the problem. It becomes that simple. And so that's why I'm such a broken record about the vision. That's why we do so many vision, opportunities for free. Because once you have the vision, it changes everything. It's almost like scales fall from your eyes. I'm doing a lot of biblical analogies today. But but if it's because it's true, when you have a vision.

And you get a vision that you're passionate about a vision that is clear, a vision that that promises success for 100% of your students. It's almost like you can start to see inside the matrix instead of trying to do all the things you have this focus and clarity that this is the most important thing for my school right now. When you have a vision, all of your decisions get easier. This is what people tell me all the time we build should be university we enter the first thing you do and build a ship universities, we get you a vision. And we help you start aligning things to the vision. And over and over again paper like you know, decision making is so clear now like once you have your vision you go on every day, and people like you know, all the people are coming to you. What about this? What about this? What about the other? And you're like yes, no, maybe because you have a vision. So the answers to a lot of things you're struggling with right now become clear. You have this, this clarity, and this focus that helps you make decisions, the right decision, and to do it very quickly. And so, I'm convinced after doing this for years now, I am convinced that everything changes for you. When you have a vision, if you don't, or you're not sure where you have one of those those visions with 25 commas and 35 semicolons and it was a vision built by him At or, or you don't know where you're headed, or you're feeling frustrated, or you're feeling overwhelmed, or you're feeling tired, because I'm frustrated, because you worked really hard last year, but the test scores just came back and show you didn't make the gains you wanted to make, or you're frustrated, because your staff seems fractured, and you've got everybody working in all these different directions, and you really want to kind of bring people together, or you're frustrated, because maybe your private school and, and getting students and recruiting students is consuming so much of your time. And, and and if you had a vision, that becomes your number one marketing promise, that's the thing that distinguishes your school from everybody else. Maybe you are frustrated right now, because you have teacher shortages, and you're having a hard time attracting the right teachers, and you're teaching classes or you're doubling up on classes, and you're you can't find good quality teachers, your vision becomes your number one recruitment tool, it helps people who are in the market and everybody's pulling in demand, and they have their choice of schools to go to, it helps people choose your school over the school down the street, because your school's vision is compelling. And it attracts the right people to your school.

Maybe you're struggling right now. Because your teachers are tired and overwhelmed and under motivated. Your vision reignites their passion, no matter what situation you're in, once you create a builder's vision that 100% vision, things change, things start looking up, things feel different, the problems that have felt overwhelming, all of a sudden, you're like, oh, okay, I can see how to go through there doesn't mean you won't still have struggles doesn't mean that you won't still face challenges every single day. But armed with the right vision, the answers to those problems become clearer, the challenges get put in the proper perspective. And the work to move those challenges out of your way, become that work doesn't feel like it's in vain. Because as you remove those challenges, every single time you move a challenge out the way you get closer to your vision. So yeah, I'm not gonna get off the vision bandwagon anytime soon. And in fact, we're doubling down because I have seen with my own eyes, the difference the right vision makes. It's funny is that people who hear about what we're doing with educators, people in, you know, businesses, companies, government agencies, now they're starting to call us and be like, This is what we need, you know, you and I'm like, Well, I only and I'm focused really on my heart or the is with the principles and the superintendents, and the district office people and the assistant principals. That's the the administrators, Educational Administrators, that's where my heart is. But you know, they're saying, well, they don't know what their god we everybody needs a vision. And here you have this resource. And it's absolutely free. People always asking me, I'm not an educator, but can I come to the vision challenge? No, it's just for educators, you have this resource. It's absolutely free. Why wouldn't you take advantage of it. 

So, again, I'm going to invite you to join me, you can go to builder, ship university.com/challenge. And a challenge starts October 2320 22. So you need to get registered before then. So you can not miss a single moment. And every day, we are going to spend, you know, 15 minutes or so getting a really good training, that's going to be actionable, you'll have a workbook that you'll be using during the training, every day, you're going to be building a part of your vision, the first couple of days, we're going to be looking at your current vision, talking about why it's not serving you, and then helping you build your 100% vision. And then from there, we're going to say now, how do you sell it? How do you get other people to, to buy into to invest to embrace your vision? And then finally, how do you make that vision a reality in the next three years? So build USHIP university.com/challenge, don't just keep this to yourself, tell your colleagues if you if you've been listening to the podcast for a while and you you already have a vision, you feel really confident and you should still come to the challenge because we're not going to just be building the vision, we're also going to be talking about how do you how do you share that vision in a way that creates buy in and how do you create that plan. But you should also be sharing the love with your colleagues and maybe some colleagues who don't have visions like this yet, and you see them struggling? And you already know, the answer is to get a 100% vision and fight them to come join this challenge. It's absolutely free. They don't lose anything from being there. But they're going to get so much out of the challenge. So don't just keep it to yourself, share it with your friends as well. And let's come together and let's start a movement. Because if we can come together as a small group of educators and start saying it's important that every child be successful, that's why we're calling the 100% vision because it's a vision for success. For every child, if we truly believe that all children deserve to be successful in school, then let's come together and start this movement. Well, we, we draw a line in the sand, we say, we're going to stop with this incremental gains. And we're going to focus on success for every kid. And we're not going to make that some pie in the sky thing later on. We're going to work towards that becoming a reality in the next three years in our school, and watch this thing grow. That's how you begin to make success for every child a reality. Black a builder.

School Leadership Reimagined is brought to you by Mindsteps Inc, where we build master teachers.