EPISODE #276

Are you tweaking or are you transforming?

You're listening to the school leadership reimagined podcast episode 276. 

Hey, builders, before we begin, I have a quick question for you. Are We Connected on social media? The reason I'm asking is because, as much as I love giving you the podcast episode every single week, I'd love to take our relationship deeper. So if we're not connected on on social media, let's connect. I'm on LinkedIn at Robyn. Underscore mind steps, I'm on Twitter at Robyn. Underscore mind steps, I'm on Facebook at Robyn. Jackson, please, let's connect so we can keep the conversation going. Now on with the show you're listening to the school leadership reimagine podcast episode 275, you announcer, 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 leadership reimagined podcast. 

I'm your host, Robyn Jackson, and today I want to start out by having you imagine yourself in this scenario. Let's say that I offered you a job. It was a job in a coal mine. You were going to work below ground for nine months. You weren't allowed to come above ground. There's plenty of oxygen you can breathe down there. You have a whole little kind of network of cities down there. So you're, you know, there's a cafeteria, you're gonna have a room, but every single day you are gonna work 1012, hours straight. You will get food, but it'll be mediocre at best. Sometimes it'll be pretty bad. You'll get a really good, hot meal, maybe once a week. You'll get a shower once a week, and you will have to stay in your room when you're not working, but you're gonna be so exhausted, you'll probably just be sleeping and working, and that's all you're gonna do for nine months straight. Sounds pretty miserable, doesn't it? But let's say that at the end of that nine months I gave you a billion dollars, would you do it?

Now, I'm claustrophobic, so I'd have to think hard about that, but I know a lot of people who would say nine months harsh conditions, but then I have a billion dollars and I never have to work again. Yeah, Sign me up. All right, let's change the scenario a little bit. Let's say that offered you that same job, those same harsh conditions, but this time, instead of a billion dollars, I offered you $100,000 okay, so you work for nine months, you make $100,000 would you do it? Now, some of you might consider it $100,000 is still a lot of money. But you might be feeling like, okay, by the time I pay taxes on that, I'm really no better off than I that I than I am doing what I'm doing now. So I'm not sure I'm willing to go through nine months of harsh conditions for $100,000 okay, what if I offered you that same job, same working conditions, but instead of a billion dollars, or instead of $100,000 I offered you $10,000 would you do it? Now, in this case, most of you are probably going to say, No, I'm worse off at the end of nine months by doing that $10,000 that's for nine months of work. That's ridiculous. Now, what if you didn't have a choice? What if you got what you got, but you had to do it anyway? How would you experience that job? Well, if you were doing that job for nine months, for the $10,000 at the end of it, you'd feel pretty resentful, wouldn't you? I mean, you're working hard. You don't feel like you're getting compensated well for the work that you're doing. It's not worth it. And so you're there, but it almost feels like you're a prisoner. You feel resentful for being there, for being made to work under those conditions for such little compensation. 

Now, if you've got the $100,000 you might tell yourself, well, I mean, if I've got to do it, at least, you know, I'm making some money at the end. At least I'll have something to show for it at the end. And so the conditions are harsh. You endure it, but at least at the end, there's. Least a little something. It's not, it's not what you want by any stretch of the imagination. You're gonna break even at the end of it. But you feel like, you know, well, I mean, at least there's that. But if you were working for a billion dollars, that experience changes entirely. Because if you're working for a billion dollars the whole time, same harsh conditions, but you're spending that billion dollars in your head. If you're working for a billion dollars, you're eating the same food as everybody else, but while they're enduring the food you're thinking about when I have my private chef, I'm going to tell them never to make me anything like this. In fact, my private chef's going to make me this and that and the other when, when you're sleeping in that cold room every night, you're dreaming about the kind of bed you're going to buy and and you're dreaming about that yacht you're going to buy, and you're dreaming about all the homes that you're going to buy all over the world. You're dreaming about the trips when you're breathing that fetid air. You are dreaming about how you're going to be on the Mediterranean one day, the expectation that you have at the end of that work significantly changes how you experience that work. 

That's what I want to talk about today.

Because I think that we have had a lot of conversations, and they're already starting up all over again about working conditions, about how the year hasn't even started yet, and teachers are already feeling overwhelmed and burned out, and people are looking for ways to maintain teachers' momentum and their motivation. People spend a lot of time doing big splashy back to school events and experiences and speeches, trying to get people hyped up for this school year. And for a lot of you, that hype is already starting to wear off, and you've only been in school for a couple of days or a couple of weeks, and so we're looking at a really long year if all of that back to school hype has worn off. And what I want to argue is that when you think like a builder, you're not spending a whole bunch of time creating a whole bunch of hype. You've got to sustain motivation throughout and the story, the scenarios that I shared with you at the beginning of this episode speak a lot to how you do that. Now I need to be clear here I am under no circumstances, comparing working in a school to working in a coal mine, but the point remains the same. You see when if your teachers see the work as hard, and it is if they if they see the working conditions, it's not always pleasant, and sometimes they're not. Their experience of that hard work, their experience of those working conditions is really mitigated by their expectation at the end, if you have a vision that that is no vision at all, if you already started up the year, and all you're trying to do is maintain or you have no vision at all. And so people are looking and saying, things are getting worse, and there's no plan to make it better. They're going to experience the school year very differently. 

Let's say you do have a vision, but your vision is one of those visions we were taught to create, those those goals, those those incremental goals, where we're focused on raising test scores by 3.7% to fit into some state guideline, or 5% to to meet some some some hype that our district has us chasing right now. Well, then your teachers, they feel like, well, I'll work really hard, and at the end we'll show a 3.7% gain or a 5% gain. But is that really why people get out of bed and come to work every day to grow by 3.7% or 5% Yeah, they're not going to be any worse off at the end of the school year, but it's a lot of work to kind of basically break even, and let's not forget that when you're pursuing those small, incremental gains, every time you do, you are making a filthy bargain that says, yeah, we'll get these 3.7% of kids, or these 5% of kids, but those other ones are still going to fail. Changes how I experience the school year. Why am I working really, really hard on this new initiative, or why am I working really, really hard on this new program that is designed by design, designed to fail a certain number of kids. Now, contrast that with teachers who work in a school where a builder is at the helm, a teacher who works in a school where there's a 100% vision, same hard work, same tough working conditions, totally different experience, because when I'm working hard, but I know at the end of that 100% of our kids are going to be successful. Successful when I am trying and struggling with a new initiative. But I know this initiative is going to get us to 100% it's going to help me as a teacher reach every one of my kids. It's going to help me as a teacher be successful. It's going to help me as a teacher make a bigger difference. My experience of that work changes entirely. 

And so instead of spending a whole bunch of time looking for something to get teachers hyped up, what builders know is that the most important thing that you can give a teacher is a vision that's big enough to encompass their dreams. We can't always do something about the working conditions for our teachers, we should absolutely if we can, but sometimes it's outside of our control at the moment, but what we can do is build a vision big enough to overcome those working conditions. We can build a vision big enough to overcome the hard work that's involved in educating children. We can build a vision big enough that that our teachers dreams find space inside that vision. And so as the school year begins, one of the things that I want to caution you against is is is getting caught up in looking for Band Aid solutions, looking for things to hide, but it's the equivalent of taking those our workers at the beginning of the scene and saying, hey, yeah, we're working in a coal mine, and the conditions are harsh, and at the end, you're either going to get a billion dollars or $100,000 or $10,000 but hey, we're going to have Fiesta night, And the cafeteria doesn't change things now, they may appreciate Fiesta night in the cafeteria. Maybe, you know that is, it's a way to kind of brighten those miserable working conditions, but it's not changing anything. Because at the end, even if we had a whole bunch of Fiesta nights along the way, at the end of the day, I'm looking at working really, really hard, and what am I going to what's the reward at the other side? You see when I talk about 100% vision, it's not something frivolous, it's not a luxury, it's not a nice to have your 100% vision changes how your teachers experience the work. 

I've seen it over and over and over again. 

There are builders who have said to me, you know, they started out and their staff was kind of disconnected. And, you know, some of them were really hard working, but some of them have gotten really cynical, and the moment that they came before them with 100% vision, and they begin to align everything around that vision, the staff changed once. It didn't change because they they, you know, bought them, made them pancakes on the first day of school. It didn't change because the teachers got a pay raise by the district. It didn't change because the kids change or the teachers change. The only difference was that one minute that staff was working for a very mediocre to absent vision, and the second, then the next minute that staff was working towards a powerful vision, a 100% vision, there was a different promise at the end of the work. All of a sudden, because you changed the promise at the end of the work, the work now means something. I think this is something that gets overlooked a lot, a lot of a lot of leaders, you know, they look for these lofty visions that don't mean anything. And those visions were thin after a moment. They sound great at the beginning of the school year. All means all. I mean, who doesn't want that every kid every day, no matter what it takes again. Who doesn't want that? But when the rubber hits the road, when October happens, when something when something tough happens, when I have to stay late to grade papers, when a kid gusses me out, or when I have a tough day at work, all means, all every kid, every day, all those slogans that we like to say, they're not enough. What I need to know is that even if I go through all of this, I know on the other side of this work, I'm making a difference. I know on the other side of this work, every single kid succeeds in a tangible way. That's what makes a difference. 

Hey, it's Robyn here real quick. I just want to interrupt this episode for just a second, because if you are enjoying what you're hearing, then would you mind sharing this episode with somebody else? So all you need to do is just go to your phone, if you're listening to on your phone, or your podcast player, and then click the three dots next to this episode, and it'll give you the option to share the episode. Now if you do that, three things are gonna happen. First, the person that you shared with is gonna think you're a hero, especially if they're struggling with what we're talking about right now. They're gonna love you. Secondly, you're gonna feel good, because you're gonna get the word out about buildership and start building this buildership nation. And third, you will get my eternal gratitude, because I really want to get this out to the world, and you'd be helping me out. You'd be doing me a huge favor. So please share this episode with someone right now, who's who's dealing with this same issue, someone you think would really benefit. And now back to the show. 

So, yes, buy the pancakes. Yes, give teachers a pick me up at the end of the week, if that's your thing. Continue to do it, but make sure you understand that that's that's not the work. Those are the nice to haves. Those are the extras. They're marvelous. Who doesn't love a Starbucks gift card, right? But at the end of the day, the real difference is the vision that you cast for your school the end of the day. The real difference is how aligned the work feels to the vision, where every single day, people can see that this work matters, that we are moving closer and closer towards that 100% success. Then yes, I'm working hard, but that hard work pays off in the difference that we get to collectively make in the lives of these kids you see the other day, I heard this, this quote, and I've said it already during this episode, but I can't get it out of my mind, your expectations of The future change how you experience the present, and we are so busy trying to to distract people from the present that we have ignored the fact that the only thing that will which is our expectations of the future. At the end of the day, I don't care, you know, let's go back to our coal mine example. I don't care if you go in and and you, like I said, Do you know fajita night in the cafeteria, and you let people above ground once a week, and you give them an extra blanket in their little rooms in the coal mine, at the end of the day, the work's still hard. At the end of the day, the conditions are still tough. The only difference, the only difference that really, really matters, is what happens at the end of that work. Now, I may be stretching this metaphor too far, so I should stop now, but what you need to be thinking about as a builder, yes, go ahead, do what you can to change the conditions right now, but understand that that is not the work. And oftentimes what happens is we get so focused on that that we end up running and jumping at the whim of everybody. I need this. I need that. I need that. And we're going around trying to appease people, and they stay dissatisfied. And the reason that they do that is not that there is something wrong with them, is that at the end of the day, even if the conditions change, the outcome hasn't changed. 

We haven't given people a vision big enough. 

So my challenge to you this week is very, very simple, are you keeping the vision in front of people, and is your vision big enough to accommodate their dreams, their goals? Remember, people's expectation of the future changes their experience of the present. So have you built the right expectations around the future? Are you asking teachers to work really hard for no difference at the end of the school year where where their hard work doesn't matter at all, and you still have the same outcomes for kids as you had last year and the year before. That's going to backfire. Are you asking teachers to work really, really hard so that things can be slightly better than they were the year before. Because if you do that, that's where cynicism hits in that's where people give up. That's where people stop trying. Because why am I going to work so hard for things to be only slightly better? That's where people get frustrated, and that's where people start acting out, and I don't blame them. They're working hard for what? Or are you asking people to work hard for something big, for something marvelous, for something wonderful to happen, for kids? Are you asking people to work hard and making sure that they're working the right kind of hard, not just working harder and harder at things that are working, but working hard at things that actually are changing outcomes for kids, because that's why we became educators to begin with. Your teachers want to make a difference. 

My question for you. Do is, are you building a school where teachers can make a difference? Do you have a vision that articulates what difference it is you want them to make? And then have you aligned the work in your building in a way that allows people to Yes, work hard, but their hard work actually results in a tangible difference in the lives of kids. That's the work, that's, that's, that's why we are here. And so my my question for you this week, and my challenge for you for this week, is this, do you have a vision that makes it worth it? Have you created the kind of expectation at the end of this work that keeps people motivated to do the work throughout the year? And if you haven't, that's where you need to spend your time, because that's what's going to make the biggest difference, not just for your teachers, but for you, your expectations of the future change your experience of the present. Does our vision create the kind of expectation that makes the present something that we feel like is worth it, and if it isn't worth it, you need a bigger vision. That's how you create the kind of expectation that makes the work worth it, because you have a vision big enough to hold your teacher's dreams. You have a vision big enough to make the work feel like it is actually getting us somewhere, because you built a vision not on some incremental gain, not on some you know, out out external demand, but on something that is truly transformative in the lives of your teachers and your students. In other words, you built a vision like a builder. I'll talk to you next time.

Hey, if you're ready to get started being a builder right away, then I want to invite you to join us at buildership University. It's our exclusive online community for builders just like you, where you'll be able to get the exact training that you need to turn your school into a success story. Right now, with the people and resources you already have inside, you'll find our best online courses, live trainings with me, tons of resources, templates and exemplars and monthly live office hours with me, where you can ask me anything and get my help on whatever challenge you're facing right now. If you're tired of hitting obstacle after obstacle, and you're sick of tiny, little incremental gains each year, if you're ready to make a dramatic difference in your school right now, then you need to join buildership University. Just go to buildership university.com, and get started writing your school success story today. Hey, it's Robyn here, and I want to thank you for listening to today's episode. Now, if you have a question about today's episode, or you just want to keep the conversation going, did you know that we had a school leadership reimagined Facebook group. All you need to do is go to Facebook, join the school leadership reimagined Facebook group. Now they're going to be a couple of questions that we ask at the beginning, because we want to protect this group and make sure that we don't have any trolls come in, and that it really is for people who are principals, assistant principals, district administrators. So make sure you answer those questions, or you won't get in but then we can keep the conversation going, plus we do a lot of great bonus content. I'm in there every single weekday, so if you have a question or comment about the episode, let's continue the conversation. Join us at the school leadership reimagined Facebook group, and I'll talk to you next time you.

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