EPISODE #286

The power of frameworks

You're listening to the school leadership reimagined podcast episode 286. 

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 social media, let's connect. I'm on LinkedIn @Robynmindsteps. I'm on Twitter @Robynmindsteps. I'm on Facebook at Robyn Jackson.

Please let's connect so we can keep the conversation going. Now. On with the show. How do builders like us make a dramatic difference in the lives of our students in spite of all the obstacles we face? How do you keep your vision for your school from being held hostage by resistant teachers, uncooperative parents, ridiculous district policies, or a lack of time, money, or resources? If you're facing those challenges right now, here is where you'll find the answers, strategies, and actionable tips you need to overcome any obstacle you face. You don't have to wait to make a difference in the lives of the people you serve.

You can turn your school into a success story right now with the people and resources you already have. Let's get started. Hey, builders.

Welcome to another episode of the School Leadership Reimagined podcast. 

I'm your host, Robyn Jackson, and I want to tell you something that happened recently. So I was talking to a principal, and she was telling me how overwhelmed she was. She was just saying she doesn't have time to do anything. She doesn't have time to focus on her own professional development.

She doesn't have time to do things like get into classrooms to give teachers support. She's dealing with a lot of discipline. She's dealing. You know, she just feels overwhelmed by district paperwork. When she does do observations, it feels like a chore. And she says she's working nights, she's working weekends. She just never has time to catch up or do the work that's really important. And even though she recognizes that she's spending a lot of time on chores, she just doesn't know how to get out of it.

And I was sitting there listening to her, and I really wanted to empathize. I mean, I really wanted to empathize. I just. I just couldn't. I just could not put myself in her shoes. Now, have I felt like that before? Yes. But it has been so long since I felt that way that it was really hard for me to empathize.

And Then I began to think, well, am I becoming, like, out of touch? Am I a bad person? Because I couldn't empathize when she's, you know, to the point of tears about just how overwhelmed she feels? And it wasn't even that I didn't have compassion, right? So there's a difference between the empathy. Empathy is being able to put myself in your shoes, being able to relate, to see things the way you see them. Compassion is feeling sympathy. For what?

You know, for your feelings of overwhelmed and wanting to do something to help. I felt compassion, right? Like, I'm not a monster. I did feel compassion, but I struggled to feel empathy. And I was thinking about it later on because one of the things I always worry about is, like, I don't ever want to get out of touch. I never want to minimize what people are going through and act as if it's not real because it is real for them. But I couldn't relate. And I started to try to figure out why I couldn't relate.

And the reason I couldn't relate is because once you are a builder, you just don't feel that way anymore. It's not like you feel it less or, you know. But the more you become a builder, the better you are at eliminating feelings of overwhelm. The better you are at eliminating the sense that you have to, like, work nights and weekends just to stay afloat. The more that you become a builder, the better you are at eliminating overwhelm. And so I thought today I'd talk to you about how that happens, because if you're feeling overwhelmed right now, first of all, I want you to know. I don't know that I get it, but I have true compassion for you. Because things are so different nowadays.

Many of you are dealing with things you've never had to deal with before. 

And the way that our schools have become polarized and politicized, the assaults that you've had to experience, verbal assaults or, you know, assaults upon your integrity. Like, I. All of that stuff is real. And it can feel very, very. I don't know if overwhelming is the right word. You can feel attacked, you can feel vulnerable, you can feel frustrated. But the.

So I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the sense of overwhelmed that you are just buried in work that is more chores than real work. I'm talking about the sense of overwhelm, where you feel like you never have during the day to do the things that are really important. I'm talking about the kind of overwhelm where you feel like you. There's more that you could and should be doing, but you feel so behind in all of the work that you have to play catch up on. I'm talking about the sense of overwhelm that comes when you feel like you're doing more to appease the district than you are to help your students succeed. That's the part that I can't relate to. And so I want to talk about why I can't relate to it, and I want to get it.

Hopefully what I share today will get you to the point where you won't be able to relate either, because you will have eliminated that. And then that gives you the energy, the time, the space, the bandwidth to really focus on the work that you were called to do, to be able to make the difference that you were called to make in schools. And it gives you the energy and time and bandwidth to deal with the changing climates in schools. So that's kind of what I want to talk about today. Now, I'll be honest. I hesitated to do this episode because, you know, once you admit that you. You have a hard time feeling empathic towards somebody else's pain, you know, you kind of set yourself up for people to think you're a monster. And so, you know, this is kind of a.

I'm putting myself out here, but I'm doing it because I want to be able to help. So let's go ahead and dive in. So the first reason why builders don't feel overwhelmed is because builders have spent a lot of time parsing out the difference between chores and work. Now, I did a whole podcast episode on the difference between chores and work. So if this is new to you, I will put a link to that podcast in the show notes. So go to schoolleadershipreimagine.com Episode 186. I mean, sorry, 286. We're in 286.

And you can. I'll have a link to that episode so you can see it. But when you sit down and you separate out chores from work, it helps you to prioritize your day. It helps you to allocate your energy in the right space. Doesn't mean that chores go away. We have to do chores. But am I going to spend an inordinate amount of time working on chores and neglecting the work? No.

Because if I understand what's a chore and what's work, I can get the chores out of the way and I can focus on the work. And so it changes how you see your Work.

I am not going to stay late and work nights and weekends and give up time with my family for a chore. 

I'm going to get the chores out the way and put systems to make doing the chores even easier so that they take even less time so that I can spend my time doing the work that really matters. And when you do that, you stop feeling so overwhelmed. Now, there's another feeling that comes in. A lot of times you get really frustrated because you, you know, you can. You start to recognize I'm spending too much time on chores and not enough time on work, but that's fixable.

That's something you can solve. Just recognizing that this stuff is chores and I really need to spend time on work is empowering. And it takes away that feeling of overwhelm because you. You recognize, no, this isn't the work. The stuff that really matters. This stuff over here really matters. And it empowers you to do things, to minimize your chores so that you can spend more time on. So that's the first thing.

The second thing, and this, I think, is a superpower that builders have, is stuff feels overwhelming when you don't have frameworks, and builders have frameworks. I was just talking to a builder the other day, and she was saying, it's not that stuff doesn't happen, but when it does happen, because I have a buildership framework, I know I can deal with it. I know I can fix it so it stops feeling overwhelming. It feels more solvable. The other. You know, a couple weeks ago, I felt myself starting to slide into a sense of overwhelm. There was a lot to do. I didn't know where to start.

And before I got to the feeling of overwhelmed, I stopped and I pulled out a framework, and I started, you know, going through and saying, okay, what are the chores? What's the work? What's our vision, our mission, our core values? And of the things that I have in front of me, which one of these things is going to best advance my vision, best move us forward in our purpose and our core values and our mission. And once I did that, immediately I stopped feeling so overwhelmed, and I just got to work, and I was able to knock things out. And it reminded me again that when you are a builder and you have the right frameworks, you can face the same challenges that other principals are facing. But because you have the right framework and you have a buildership mindset, what is overwhelming to other people feels solvable to you. And then you just say, okay, here's the framework I use that framework, and I solve it.

Those of you in BU know this, right? So in BU you learn 10 frameworks. We call them architectures, right? So you know where other people are worried about, like, I don't know what direction I'm going. You have a vision framework. When other people are worried about how am I going to get everybody on board with my vision and what am I going to do when people push back? You have your vision story. When other people are worried about how do I get people motivated and connect people to the why of the work?

You have a mission. While other people are worried about how do I get everybody on the same page and people trusting each other and working together and building some capacity in my staff, you've got core values. When other people are worried about how to get into a classroom, you've got your feedback architecture. When other people are worried about what to say to teachers, you've got the feedback frameworks. When other people are worried about how to get teachers to grow, you've got your support architecture. When other people are worried about how do I heal my toxic culture? You've got your culture architecture.

When other people are feeling inefficient, you've got your accountability architecture.

When other people are trying to figure out, what do we do next? How do we solve this problem? You've got your builder's blueprint and you've got your scorecard. When other people are worried about data, you just say, now, I don't need to overwhelm myself with data. I just create the scorecard and that tells me what data I need to look at. When other people are worried about keeping organized and keeping focused, you've got your meeting architecture, and I could go on and on and on everything that you're worried about. If you have a framework for how you solve that problem and you put that framework in place, then every problem feels solvable. So even if you're not in BU and you're not using the frameworks that we have in there, do you have frameworks that you can rely on and you can use over and over and over again to help you when you tackle a problem?

I think that is, again, the builder's superpower. It's that a builder's superpower looks to frameworks. We're not looking at scripts. We're not trying to find this protocol or that protocol protocol and trying to follow it step by step. A framework helps you to take a problem and figure it out, because you can apply a framework to it. I know that it sounds vague. Let me Try to give you a specific example. One of the frameworks that we teach in Buildership University is we teach a framework for sharing your vision story.

It's a framework that we use to help you to take some idea that you are trying to convey to other people and articulate it in a way that they can understand it, that they can see how it relates to them, and ultimately so that they can embrace it. So when people first come into Bildership University and they have their vision, they create their 100% vision, the guaranteed next question they have is, okay, but my staff is never going to go for this. How am I going to get my staff to get committed to this vision? And even like I was onboarding a new cohort for BU the other day, and I was telling them that between now and time they go home from winter break, they're going to have their vision and they're going to have their entire staff committed to pursuing that vision. And they looked at me like, yeah, that's never going to happen. And I can say with confidence it will, because we have a framework to help you do that. So the Vision Story framework helps you not to just present your vision, but it's a framework. It's a way of thinking about how you present any idea so that other people can hear that idea and it makes sense to them.

It speaks to their need and they can embrace it. So that framework we use to share the vision story, and every single time we do, people come back and they're like, oh, my goodness, I cannot believe how using that framework got people committed. But then they think the framework is over with. But the vision story framework isn't a script. It's a way of sharing an idea. And that framework can be used not just for sharing your vision, but for sharing any idea. So when people are saying people are pushing back on this thing that we're trying to do to pursue our vision, I tell people, take out the vision story framework. Use that framework this time.

You're sharing this part of your vision or this piece of the work. They go, they do that, they talk to people, and it helps people bring. It helps bring people on board. Once you have that framework, you're never worried about how you're going to share ideas or how you can be convincing and persuasive again. Because once you understand that framework, you can use it over and over and over again. I'll give you another example. So a lot of times people worry about, like, they have all these different issues going on in their school and they try to figure out, okay, so which one of these issues is going to be the issue that we need to tackle first? Because, you know, you can't tackle everything at once.

How do we figure out what is the core issue? 

How do we figure out what is the one thing that if we just focused on solving, that would make everything else in our school better? So we have a framework called the Builder's blueprint, which helps you kind of look at all the issues that are going on in your school and look at everything that the data is telling you and what you're observing and seeing and helps you get to the root cause. And then once you understand the root cause, then you can spend the next 90 days focused on solving the root cause and eliminating it from being a challenge. And in 90 days, it's solved. It's not just mitigated and it's going to crop up again. It's completely eliminate it so you never have to worry about that again. And as you do that, as you continually solve your biggest challenges over and over and over again, then it creates space in your school to be creative, to do the things that you really want to get to doing, because you're not dealing with the same problems over and over and over again.

Again, I don't know what your biggest challenge is. You don't know what your biggest challenge is, but you don't have to. You have a framework that will help you figure that out. And once you use that framework and figure it out, that helps give you focus. And once you have that focus, there's another framework. We call it the 6 ease of execution, to help you go through and systematically eliminate the challenge. So again, when you have the frameworks in place, then whatever you face feels surmountable. It doesn't mean that your problems aren't real.

It doesn't mean that they aren't complex and serious and profound. All those things are still true. But when you have the right framework, you. You have the ability to systematically solve those challenges and eliminate them. Hey, Robyn here. And I just want to break in real quick to ask you a huge favor. You see, I want to get the word out to everybody about buildership, and I could use your help. If you're really enjoying this episode, would you mind just going to your podcast platform and leaving a quick review?

You see the reviews, get the word. They tell other people. This is a great show. Other people who have never heard of school leadership reimagined before can hear about it. And you'd be sharing the word about buildership. So would you mind just leaving a quick review? It would mean the world to me. Okay, now back to the show.

So I'm a big fan of frameworks. I was just. We were having an internal meeting with the Mindsets team the other day and we were trying to tackle something and we weren't getting anywhere. And I was like, you know what, we're going about this the wrong way. Let's use our framework. And one of the frameworks that we use is micro slicing. Micro slicing is a framework that helps you look at all of the things that you're dealing with and figure out, if we just solve this one thing, does everything else get better? That's what we did.

We micro sliced our way through the challenge. 

We all came to agreement. This is the thing we need to work on. We had a framework, we used the framework. Done. Challenge solved. In fact, I use frameworks in every part of my life. I had to write.

The other day, I got a request to write an article for a publication and there was some miscommunication and so they hadn't, they hadn't, I need to get it done quickly. They hadn't conveyed the deadline. And then they were like, we need it by next week. Now, writing an article is not, you know, a simple thing. You, to do something, to capture an idea, to convey it in a way that's understandable is really tough. And so I was sitting there and I was like, I don't have time to write an article. It takes, you know, a while, weeks, you know, to really get it good and honed. And I, you know, I haven't even started.

And I was about to tell them no, and then I was like, no, let's stop. You have a framework for even how you write. And so I just took, I just sat down and used the framework and came up very quickly with an outline of the article. Once I have that outline, I can just fill in the pieces and it's done. It's going to be good, it's logical, it goes forward. It's a framework. The challenge that I see for a lot of administrators is every day is a new day. Every day they go into work and they are reinventing the wheel.

Every time they face a new problem, they start solving the problem from scratch. But when you have a framework for how you, how you do a discipline, when you have a framework for how you tackle challenges in your building, when you have a framework for how you recover from failure, when there's a framework in place, then when you go in, you're not reinventing the wheel. You are solving problems so that you can create space to do the work you really want to do. I remember one of our builders, he used his core values as a framework for how he dealt with discipline. So every time his school had two core values, they were non negotiable. And every time a student got sent to his office, instead of looking at the discipline policy and doing the invest, he started with those two core values is the reason that the student was sent to the office because it violated core value A or core value B or both. And then he started his conversation, his investigation, the selection of consequences. He used the framework of his core values to talk to students and to apply logical consequences.

What was even more powerful is that every administrator knows that one of the big challenges that a lot of schools have is that teachers often send kids to the office for reasons that don't that the administrator doesn't believe should be handled outside the classroom. It could have been handled in the classroom. Not all teachers, but you have some teachers who do. Once he started using this framework, is this a violation of our core values? If it wasn't a violation of the core values, the kid stayed in the classroom. So it cut down on the number of referrals. And because he was handling it not looking at the discipline code, but he was really thinking about how this impacted the core values, it really reduced the number of suspensions that the school had. In fact, I think he told me that his school went from having the largest number of suspensions in the district to the smallest number of suspensions in the district in one year by just applying the framework to how they handled discipline.

So when you start thinking in terms of framework, it allows you to stop reacting to challenges and instead look at a challenge and say, what is the nature of this challenge? Do I have a framework that would be applicable here? And then apply the framework, solve the challenge, go on with your life. Now again, I hate. Sometimes I really struggle with sharing buildership ideas because they sound so simple. In fact, somebody said to me the other day, Robyn, you make it sound so simple. There's a difference between simple and easy, right? Solving these challenges is simple when you have a framework.

I didn't say easy, though. 

I mean, it still is going to require effort on your part. But when you are focused and you have a framework and you know, okay, first I'm going to do this, then this will happen, then I'll do this and this will happen, it takes a lot of the emotional weight out of the process. I was talking to a builder recently. And he had to make a really tough decision, one that he would normally stay up at nights and weekends, you know, kind of agonizing over, one where would have that constant pit in his stomach, you all know, those decisions. And he had to make a decision. But he used the framework of looking at his vision, mission, and core values. And once he did that, he realized the decision that was really obvious, what was the right thing to do, and then he went home and slept like a baby.

Because using that framework, he could be confident in his decision. It was controversial. There were still people who were upset about it, but he had a way to explain it and justify it. And once they heard it, then they realized, yes, this was the right decision. And the decision played out and turned out to be the right decision, because it was the right decision. He had the. And the framework told him that it was. So when you have the right frameworks in place, it helps you to tackle all of the stuff that you're tackling in a way that doesn't produce that constant feeling of dread and overwhelm that so many leaders are experiencing right now.

So, again, maybe I do lack a little empathy, because I know you don't have to stay there. There is a better way. And if you are feeling overwhelmed and don't ever have time to do the work that's really important. If you are making decisions that produce this sense of dread, if you're going into work every day and playing this giant game of whack a mole with one, as soon as one problem props up and you beat it, then another problem crops up and you beat that back down, and then the first problem rears its ugly head again, and you're just tired of that. Even though I can't empathize with that anymore, I do have a lot of compassion for that, because that is exhausting. And it drains you so much that you wonder whether or not this is the work you need to be doing. You wonder if maybe you should be doing something else. You wonder if you're ever going to have the impact that you came to education to have.

And if you're feeling that way, I want you to know that there is hope. And it comes down to, first of all, anchoring in your vision, your mission, and your core values. And secondly, putting some frameworks in place to help you to manage things when they come so that you can stay focused on the work that's really, really important and not spend all of your time buried in paperwork and busy work and things that ultimately aren't going to help you make the difference that you were called to make. I want you to know there is a better way. You need frameworks. And once you have some frameworks in place, then you can manage this. And maybe that's the big message of this podcast.

Everything that you're dealing with right now can be managed.

Not only managed, because maybe managed isn't the right word, because when I say managed, it feels like you're just. That's what you're doing right now. You're managing as best as you can. Maybe the better way is to say that everything that you're dealing with right now that is feeling so overwhelming, you can eliminate that sense of overwhelm. I think about Sue Forbes, who is a builder, and how she talked about how she started. You know, she's a huge elementary school and she started going home at 4pm every day. Or Tasha Lynn, who took her first laptop free vacation and she has a very challenging school situation and yet she's able to take care of everything at work and still be able to go home at a decent hour. Or Ashley, who took her first laptop free vacation last summer because she had these frameworks in place.

Or I think about Francina, who says that it doesn't stop challenges for coming. They still come, but you feel like when you have this framework in place, you know how to deal with those challenges so that they don't overwhelm you. And I see these stories every single day, and I want you to know that those are not isolated incidents. That's what happens when you anchor in your vision, mission and core values and you have frameworks to deal with these things. So I guess that's my message to you today. If you are feeling overwhelmed and you feeling like you're spending too much time on the work that is, you know, on chores. You know, I was talking to a builder the other day in office hours and she was just saying, you know, before she was feeling overwhelmed and now she. The only thing she feels is she gets frustrated from time to time because she's so busy.

She sees herself veering towards working on chores and that she has to stop and get back to focusing on the work. So if you're feeling that way and you feel like this is it, this is the gig, there's nothing else to this job but that. I want you to know that there are builders all over the world right now who are doing things differently and don't feel that feeling of overwhelm because they have the frameworks in place. And so if you will choose to be A builder and build a 100% vision and then get everybody committed to that vision and then put the frameworks in place that are focused on helping you achieve that vision. You can anchor in that and that will eliminate the overwhelm. So that's my challenge to you this week. If you are feeling overwhelmed, or if maybe you're not feeling overwhelmed right now, but you know it's coming, right? The closer we get to testing, the more the pressure is starting to feel to mount up.

Or you're starting to stay late because evaluations are due and you're working nights and weekends and you never have time to do the work you really want to do, or you never have time to even work on yourself and your own professional development. And you're saying, I would love framework frameworks, except I don't have time to go get the frameworks. So, you know, you get into this catch 22 where you know this isn't sustainable, but you don't have time to do something different, then I want you to know there is a better way. What you need to do, you have your 100% vision and you need to anchor in that. Anything that is not moving you towards your 100 vision is a chore. It's not the work. So start recognizing what's chore, what are chores, and what is the real work. Stop giving all your time, energy and focus to the chores and start focusing more on the work.

And then instead of tackling every single challenge as if it's brand new, take some time to put some frameworks in place.

Stop solving the same problem over and over again. 

If you find yourself solving the same problem over and over again, then you need a framework for that problem problem. And put a framework in place and then anchor in your vision, mission, core values, and use your frameworks to keep you focused like a builder. Now, if you want some help with that, you know, we're always here. We're going to be opening up a few. We do some workshops inside of Buildership University. And over the next few months, we're going to open up some of those live workshops for people who are not mbu.

And so if you are not on our mailing list, that's where we're going to be kind of announcing when these workshops happen. You need to go to school schoolleadershipreimagined.com and sign up for the mailing list so you won't miss any of that. And we're actually going to be teaching some of these frameworks and some of these live workshops and so you can get tickets to. If you're not a member of bu, if you're a member, you. Those workshops are part of your membership. But if you're not a member of bu, but you want to get into some of those workshops and learn some of these frameworks, then go to school. LeadershipReimagined.com Sign up for the newsletter and we'll let you know when the workshops start happening. All right, now go this week and let's not be overwhelmed.

Let's. Rick, because you've got this. You've got this because you're 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 buildershipuniversity.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, there are 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. Conversation. Join us at the School Leadership Reimagined Facebook group and I'll talk to you next time.

Thank you for listening to the School Leadership Reimagined podcast for show notes and free downloads visit https://schoolleadershipreimagined.com/

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