EPISODE #308

You're listening to the School Leadership Reimagined podcast, episode 308.

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 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 need to ask you a question. How you doing? Because right now, everybody I talk to is stressed out. There's a lot going on in the world and a lot of that is seeping into the school building, and so people are really, really stressed. So I was going to do something else on the podcast, but I thought today what I would do instead is to just have a heart to heart with you about how builders handle tough times and to remind you that you've got this now. Before I do that, I do have a few housekeeping things to take care of. First of all, the 100% collective is open and it is growing.

If you are a builder. Someone reached out this week and said, well, I can't join the collective because I'm not a principal, but that's why we created the collective. It's not just for principals if you are a builder. So if you are in any kind of administrative role, if an assistant principal or a principal or a district person or a lead somewhere in your building and you are a builder and you want to get access to some of my favorite buildership tools and our monthly masterclasses, then go ahead and go to buildershipuniversity.com community and join the 100% collective. Inside, you're going to find all kinds of training. So there's the replay from the master scheduling masterclass. There's a replay from the five in five outs training. And that masterclass is probably the most popular one by far.

Although the master scheduling one is coming, it's approaching there. There are playbooks. Playbooks are, you know, kind of a step by step, here's how you do it. There's one on how to motivate anybody. There's a playbook in there on everything you need from start to finish with your master scheduling process, including a calendar, a year long calendar, so you can set up your master scheduling process. There's a playbook on how to do student focus groups. There are also tools and these tool are insane. Even if I just say to myself, my team is telling me I am doing way too much, but I'm having way too much fun.

So we have all kinds of tools. Like for the master scheduling masterclass, we have example master schedules that are directly aligned to the vision, mission and core value. So you know what that looks like. We have for the. There's one on interviewing and so we have one, you know, tools with questions that you can ask during interviews so that you can find the person who's gonna be the right fit. I mean, it's so much in there. I'm not done.

There is so much more that we're going to be adding.

Every single week we are adding new tools, new playbooks, and then once or twice a month we do a live masterclass inside of there. So when you join, you get all the masterclasses, all the playbooks, all the tools, plus the supportive community. In fact, today's podcast comes out of some of the conversations we've been having inside of the collective. So you do want to join that. Secondly, I've been telling you, I want to keep telling you so you're not shocked. There are changes coming to this podcast and they'll be coming in the next few weeks. So stay tuned. I think you're gonna love them, but stay tuned for those changes.

Okay, I think that's it for. Oh, one more thing. Every once in a while I don't. I'm not able to do this often, but every once in a while I take on private coaching and consulting clients. Usually it's someone who's at the district level and usually it's because they are trying to accomplish something specific. So they are trying to get their team aligned around something or they're trying to come up with their vision for the district or their department in the district. So if you're like in charge of elementary instruction, for example, getting a vision for that and then getting your team aligned around that vision, sometimes it's because they want to create a dashboard so that they can better support their schools. Sometimes it's because they are working on transitioning into that new position and not sure, you know, kind of how to hit the ground running.

Usually our engagements last for one month, maybe two months, and during that time we are getting something very specific done. I have two openings for the next couple of months. So if you are trying to get something done before the end of the school year, or you are looking at data and not sure what to do about it, or you're planning some summer stuff and you need some help with that, or every once in a while if someone's like, you know, trying to think through strategic planning, I can help you with that kind of thing. If that's something that you are working on and you would like my help, then all you need to do is you want to reach out to infoindstepsinc.com and say you're interested, and then my team will get with you to set up an appointment. We can talk about what it is you want to do and see if I can help you. So if you are a superintendent, director of secondary instruction or elementary instruction, director of professional learning, director of leadership, you have some sort of district position or you are in charge of a district, maybe you're an associate superintendent of something and you would like help and you have something very specific that you want to accomplish and you like my help doing it. Infoindsubsync.com okay, I think that's it. I hope that's it, because I really do want to talk to, you know, inside of the collective.

You know, I put a post up recently just asking people what's at top of mind and how's everybody doing? And people were talking about how stressed the adults were in the building and how that stress is starting to trickle down to the kids. It's creating, you know, anxiety with the kids. It's creating behavior problems with the kids. You know, there is a lot going on. And I don't care what side of the political spectrum you're on. The discourse has gotten vitriolic. Things are, are changing at a rapid pace.

For a lot of people, that feels chaotic. 

A lot of people have questions about what that means. People are worried about funding. They're worried about if they're going to have staffing. You may be experiencing hiring freezes or spending freezes. Maybe you're losing staffing right now. And then this is already a crazy time of the year, right? Because this is the time of the year where you find out so and so's not coming back, or so and so's got a promotion and so they're leaving.

And now you have a vacancy and, you know, or you're trying to put together your master schedule and you are going to have to have some tough conversations with people because they're going to be reassigned the next year. And we have testing and, you know, we're trying to finish the year strong, and we're looking at our strategic plans and saying, ooh, we didn't actually meet our numbers. And we're trying to scramble to figure out how we can still meet our numbers this school year. And, and, and, and so if you're feeling that right now, I want to remind you that when you are a builder and these things happen, you recognize that they're happening, but you don't panic because you can anchor in the model. So, you know, I talked about this in the Monday morning mindsteps this week. By the way, if you're not subscribed to that, you should get subscribed to that. Just go to mindsubsync.com subscribe. But in the money money mindsets this week, I was talking about it because I was thinking about, you know, the stress.

And I remember back when. Do you all remember this, or am I dating myself? When the Common Core first came out, and everybody was panicking because, oh, we're going to have to. In everything we do, we have a new curriculum, and there were all these mandates, and everybody was scrambling, and so everybody was redoing everything that they had already done to make it work with the Common Core. And I remember my publisher came to me and said, hey, Robin, do you want to rewrite? Never work harder than your students. Maybe there's another principle that's more Common Core, because that's what everybody was doing. Everybody.

If you had a book on eating rice with a spoon, you would rewrite your book to eating rice with a spoon and the Common Core. And so everybody was rewriting their book and taking their work and adding with the Common Core and the Common Core to it. And so my publisher reached out and said, do you want to do that? And I said, no, that's ridiculous. The seven principles, they still stand. They haven't changed. In fact, if you are anchored in these seven principles, you will easily make the transition to the Common Core. Well, you know, a couple years later, everybody started walking back on the Common Core, and districts started changing the curriculum again or, you know, quietly removing Common Core elements, and it went away.

Then people panicked again because they spent all this money and time and invested in programs that were about the Common Core, but like, oh, no, no, no, we're not doing the Common Core anymore. And people were panicking. And then there was the pandemic, and everybody was panicking during the pandemic. And again, if you were committed to the seven principles of effective instruction. And then by that time, we had the buildership model. If you were committed to these two models, if you were already doing it, then you were significantly less stressed about the pandemic. I mean, everybody was stressed out about the pandemic because it wasn't just a professional thing.

It was about our lives.

Right? So people were worried and scared and there was so much uncertainty. But there were the builders who were anchoring in the model, in buildership. Those builders were not panicking. And so as they were going through the pandemic, while their colleagues were upending everything. Oh, we're doing remote learning. Oh, we gotta change everything. Builders just kept building.

And as a result, the builders who were building during the pandemic, while everybody else is experiencing learning loss, the builders who were building during the pandemic, they actually saw gains, significant gains, 10% up to. I think we had a builder who. Who quintupled her growth. We had, you know, but at a minimum, people were getting 10%, 15%, 17% gains, while everybody else is losing. Why? Because they didn't panic. They stuck with what already worked. And I wanna remind you of that because I think we're entering another period.

It's different than the pandemic, but I think that that same level of stress, that same level of questioning everything you do, that same level of uncertainty is starting to happen again. And I wanna remind you that if things keep going the way that they're going and we have even more uncertainty and people begin to panic, builders don't panic. Builders keep building. You see, the beauty of having a model, a simple model, is that you can anchor in that model in times of uncertainty. You may not know whether or not you're getting funding. You may not know how many staff members you're going to get. You may not know what you can and can't teach in your school anymore. You may not know what's going to happen politically.

You may not know what's happening with the stock market and whether or not you're going to be able to retire next year, or whether you're going to have to wait and work another 10 years to make up all of the law. You don't know any of that. But here's what you do know. You do know that the secret to building a school that serves every kid and helps every kid thrive is very simple. You need three things. You need to have committed. You need to have a compelling purpose, committed people, and a coherent process. That's it.

You don't have to ask yourself, what do we do about this, what do we do about that? 

You just go back to what you already know. You go back to your model. So right now people are, you know, there's a threat around DEI work and people don't even want to say it, right, because they're worried about getting flagged and, you know, funding getting pulled. You know, so depending on where you are in the world, there's this threat around that. But you know what builders are doing, they're not worried about that because they're not focused specifically on DEI. They're focused on 100% student success. So when they're told you can't do this or you can't do that anymore, nothing changes because they are focused on 100% of their students succeeding.

You're worried about funding and am I going to have enough teachers? And I end, that's a big deal. But if you are a builder, what do you do? You build with whatever they throw at you. And the more you have coherent processes, the less you have to worry about staffing numbers because you can adjust. One of the things that we talked about at the master scheduling training that I think was probably the most powerful thing is that you can build a crisis proof master schedule if it's anchored in not your formulas and your numbers, but in your vision and your mission and your core values. It's a lot easier to build a master schedule that makes sense when you focus on the right thing. Most people give you a, you know, staffing formula numbers and you learn how to work the computer program and you plug everybody in and you do scheduling runs.

That's not master scheduling. Master scheduling is about being strategic and trying to figure out how do we allocate time and resources so that we can achieve our vision, our mission and our core values. If you are anchoring in your compelling purpose, then when you get some monkey wrench thrown at you and you've lost 0.7 staff and now you have to reconfigure the master schedule, you don't have to stress out because your vision, mission and core values will tell you what adjustments you need to make and what adjustments you don't touch. So it gets a lot. Decision making gets a lot easier when you are dealing with divisions, deep divisions in your staff. You know, at this point in the year, this is when like all of the pent up stuff starts coming out and people start fighting and you know, you know, or, or maybe you've been through already a tough period in the year and now everybody's just broken and bruised and limping towards the finish line. Well, what do you do? You.

You go back to your purpose. You get everybody focused on what we can agree about. We can't maybe agree about our. Our politics, or we can' what happened, or we can't agree about some of the stuff that we argue about in schools. But what we can agree about, because we've already agreed about is the vision, the mission, and the core values. Let's anchor in that. You see, the beauty of having this model and having this process and thinking like a builder is that it simplifies everything. In a world where things are so complex right now, that's what we need.

We need simplicity and we need certainty. 

And so you may feel like with everything going on right now, your instinct may be to just abandon the model and go back to leadership, because that's what you know, and that's what everybody else around you is doing. And I want to encourage you today to not do that, because if you do that, if you revert back to leadership, which is, I gotta figure this out, and spending late nights tweaking and worrying and stressing and doing this and doing that, in times of uncertainty, all you are doing is you are giving yourself a false sense of security. You can't anchor in that. It will always fail you. Just think about the last few crises we've endured. Look at what happened to the people who were leading and how they had to keep backtracking on what they said. And every other week it was something different.

Remember how during the pandemic, everybody was making stuff up and scrambling and didn't know what to do. And so every other day, there was a new message. We're going to be on for two weeks. No, it's going to be a month. No, we're going to go to hybrid learning. No, it's going to be full. All of that. What's happening?

That's because they were anchoring in leadership. And leadership doesn't anchor in anything. Right. Leadership is just about I have to look like I know what I'm doing. That's what leadership teaches you to do. Leadership teaches you to have. I have to look like I'm doing something instead of making progress. You know, someone was talking in office hours about how he had been thinking a lot about the difference between movement and progress.

And leadership is about keeping moving, whereas buildership is about making progress. Hey, builders, real quick, before we get on with the rest of the episode, I want to talk to you about the 100% collective. If you are interested in becoming a builder and developing that 100% mindset, then the 100% collective is for you. Not only do we have monthly masterclasses, live masterclasses, where I show you how to take some work that you are already doing, but do it like a builder. Do it in a way that is more effective, more efficient, in a way that takes the work and stops it from being drudgery and makes it actually something that feels meaningful, that moves you forward. We also have done for you toolboxes with all the tools you need to be able to implement. And we have step by step playbooks that lay out the entire process for you so you don't have to even think about it. You just take the playbook and you can implement it right away in your schools.

And we have a supportive community. So this is a safe place where you can bring your challenges. And there are other people, other builders just like you, who are encouraging you, who are applauding you when you win, and who are giving you their experiences as well so that you can learn from each other. If you are tired of just kind of going through and doing the work the way you've always been doing it, and you're ready to stop being a leader and to start building something amazing, the 100% collective is where you need to be. Join us@brewershipuniversity.com community now. Back with the program. And so you may have the temptation to go back to leadership, because leadership gives you an illusion of control.

Leadership gives you an illusion of certainty.

But have you ever felt this way when you're leading, like you're just making it up, like you don't really know what you're doing, because you don't. And leadership doesn't allow you or give you the tools to figure it out. It gives you the tools to pretend like you do know what you're doing. It gives you the tools so that you can look like a leader, but without actually feeling the certainty that you crave. Whereas buildership says it's not about looking like a leader, it's buildership gives you a way to solve every problem that you face. This happens all the time in bu Office hours. People come to office hours and they're like, struggling, and I look like a genius, and I'm not. All I do when I'm listening to their questions or listening to their challenges is I just put on my buildership lens and I look at their challenges through the lens of the model, and the answer becomes very, very clear.

When you don't do that. You're making it up and you don't know if it's going to work or if it's not going to work. But the nice thing about having this model and using this model is you have evidence that it works. You've used it before, you've seen the benefit of the model. So you don't have to guess whether or not it's going to work. You trust the process. I think I say that more than anything else to builders. You trust the process because the process works.

You know, it's crazy when we're in office hours and people are coming on and they're like, I can't believe it worked. Like I did the thing. Whatever the thing is, whatever the part of Buildership that they just did. And it's incredible, right? So the people who are using the 5 in 5 outs process from the collective now, the success stories that are coming about, about how they're finally having conversations about re instruction, teachers are finally digging into the curriculum and looking at what's important. Everybody's aligned those success stories. People are like, I just can't believe it. And I'm.

And, and, and I still get exc. But I shouldn't, because it just works, right? So why are we trading what works, what we know already works, what we have experience seeing work for the stuff that we were doing before, that doesn't work. So you gotta fight the temptation to do that. Instead, you have to anchor in the model. And the model is very simple. Starts out with a compelling purpose. Your vision, your mission, your core values.

In times of uncertainty, people need to feel certain. 

And the way that you help people feel certain is you give them a. You keep reminding them about why they're here. The vision, the mission, the core values. This is what we're building. It doesn't change just because everything around us is changing. This is what we're building. Do we still believe in 100%?

So when your teachers start freaking out about the latest changes that are happening at the district, or worrying about, you know, whether or not they're going to be able to teach this or that next year, you go back to the vision, the mission, and the core values. You don't try to pretend like you have all the answers. That's leadership. Buildership says I don't have all the answers. Here's what I know for sure. I know we're still working on the vision. Is the vision still important? Yes.

That's why I work so hard with you, to make sure that you have a vision that is unsettled. Because in times like these, you need something you can anchor in. And that's what your teachers need as well. Your teachers need to see that the vision is still the vision. So why are we talking about all this other stuff and making up answers and commiserating with them rather than getting them focused on what we do know? We know without a shadow of a doubt the vision is still the vision. So is this still important to us? Yes.

Is our mission still important to us? The mission is why the vision is so important. Are we still committed to the same why? Yes. Are these core values still non negotiable? Yes. Well, if we don't know anything else, we know this for sure. And if you keep reminding your staff about those three things, while everything else around them may feel chaotic, they know they have a safe place to anchor.

And by the way, so do you. Because if you don't know what to do, if you're facing a tough decision right now, you go back to what's my vision? What's my mission? What are our core values? And you make a decision consistent with that and you can guarantee it's the right decision. If your decisions align with your vision, mission and core values, they are the right decisions. You know you're right. You have something you can stand on.

Why would you go back to leadership, making stuff up when you don't have to? 

Why would you go back to creating the solution of certainty when you have certainty right there? The next part of the model, how do we get our people committed? When people start acting up and doing all this other stuff, how do we get them committed? What we do when we get stressed, especially around people I've noticed, is that we go back to leadership, right? We become bosses again. We go back to everything. We tr.

We start writing people up and documenting and having courageous conversations and doing all that stuff. And it doesn't work. What we should be doing. It's only four things you're gonna do. Feedback, support, accountability, culture. Either if somebody's not doing what they're supposed to be doing, either it's because they don't know. They think they're doing the right thing and they're really not. And in that case you give them feedb, it's because they are trying to do the right thing, but they're struggling.

Give them support. It's because the right thing isn't clear. So you need a process in place. Accountability. Or they've decided, I know this is the right thing, but I want to do this thing instead. And in that case it's a culture issue. It's only four that, that, those. So it's very simple to diagnose and fix.

When you are getting pushback, rather than going back to, oh, I'm going to write people up and I need to have this meeting and that meeting and hear this. All of that stuff makes you feel really busy. It gives you an illusion of control, doesn't solve the problem. But here's what will feedback support accountability or culture? And the beautiful part about it is if you do these things right, not only does it address the immediate problem, but when you give people the right kind of feedback, you give them ownership over their practice, they begin to take more ownership over their practice. When you give them the right support, you empower them to get better. When you give them the right kind of accountability, you help them to get into alignment and stay in alignment with what you're doing. And when you start working on your culture, you get people meaningfully engaged in the right work instead of engaged in stuff that's tearing your school down.

That's it. That's it. You don't have to figure it out why I need a different conversation for this. No, no, you don't have to do any of that. Those four things which makes decision making a lot easier, which uncomplicates human relationships in your building, it's only one of those four options. Once you figure out the right option, you have the tools to be able to go ahead and do it. You don't have. There's no guesswork, there's no, oh, agonizing and trying to figure it out.

You have the tool, you implement the tool, you see the results. 

And then if things are not working the way they should in your organization itself, if you are struggling or you feel stuck as an organization, you need a compelling process. And the compelling process is only going to be one of three things. It's either going to be that you're not working on the right thing, so you need a different pathway. If you have the right pathway but you're not seeing momentum, then you need to make sure that you are doing everything to execute. And then if you're struggling with execution and you're not sure why, then you need to help your team. You need to up level your team. That doesn't mean change people on your team, but it does mean giving your team the support they need to take on the work.

So it's not all on you. That's it. There's not a problem you face in your building right now that can't be solved by either angering in your compelling partner, getting your people committed, or having the right processes in place. And in times of uncertainty, the worst thing you can do is make things more complicated by going out and trying to find another thing over here, another thing over there, another thing over here. The best thing you can do is take something very simple, something you know, it works, and just anchor and trust the process. So if you're feeling kind of crazy right now, I don't blame you. The world is getting crazier if you are stressed out right now, I get it. It's a lot to be stressed out about.

If your team is starting to feel stress and pressure and they're cracking under that stress and pressure, I get it. I see it all day, every day. But the solution to all of those things is the same. Trust the process. Now more than ever, you need to be anchoring in the Buildership process. It can take the complexity out of the work and keep it simple and straightforward. It can take the work that you already are doing and have to do and take that work and make it mean something. It can take the fatigue out of decision making and help you feel confident in the decisions that you make.

It can take the craziness of the world and create some coherence around it. It can take the impact that it's having on your ability to deliver for the kids you serve and make you much more competent at the work that matters most. That's what we need right now. So if you're struggling today, just want to remind you, you already have the Buildership process anchor in that process. And if you want support around that process, you've got a couple options. You can. Well, you can join Buildership University.

It's closed right now, but you can get on the waitlist.

But in the meantime, come on into the community and the community provides a safe place for you to talk about. You know, how, like in a lot of the principal groups, people are profiling or they're critical of each other. That's not the community is people are supporting. I love the conversations that I'm starting to see inside the community where people are really supporting each other. People can post about things that they're struggling with and there are other people jumping in and helping them find solutions. There are, because we're early in the community process. If there's an issue that you have, you know, you can post about it. And who knows, we may create a masterclass or a playbook or a toolkit to help you address that issue.

One of the Things I love about the community is it's not more work. It's about taking the work you're already doing and making it so much better. So you already have to do the master schedule. Why not do it in a way that is more coherent, easier? You can create a master schedule you're proud of. You're already hiring. Why not hire people who you actually are going to be excited about and proud to have in your building? You're already collecting feedback.

Why not collect feedback from students in a way that propels the work forward, the community? It's not about more work. It's about taking the work you're already doing and making it work for you rather than against you. And so if you want some support, if you want to be around people who are finding ways to create calm in the chaos, join us in the 100% principle collective. And again, you don't have to be a principal. It's about a mindset, the 100% principle mindset. And join us inside the community. Now, again, if you are struggling, just want to remind you today, you already have the tools.

You have the Buildership model. You don't have to figure this out. You just have to keep working the model. So those of you who are in bu, this is what we're going to be talking about. If you haven't been to office hours in a while and you are struggling, you need to come to office hours. You know, if you are in the collective and you're trying to figure it out and you're not sure the direction, make sure you're posting inside the community so that we can support you and surround you. And those of you who are not in BU in the universe yet, and you're not ready to join us yet, just keep remembering this.

Trouble comes, chaos comes, difficult times come.

That's a part of the gig. That's a part of the work we do. But it doesn't have to destroy you and it doesn't have to destroy your piece, especially if you anchor in the model and trust the process, 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 buildershipuniversity.com and get started writing your school success story today. Hey, it's Robin 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 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.