EPISODE #334

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Let's connect and let's keep the conversation going. Now onto the show. You're listening to the School Leadership Reimagined podcast, episode 334. 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 to 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, Robin Jackson, and today I want to talk about something I think is really important and I was reminded of again because of, you know, two or three things that happened this week.

So let me tell you about the first thing. 

So the first thing that happened this week is that I, I was, you know, there's, you know, I have different partner organizations and one of the partner organizations with whom I'd been a long time collaborator sent me an email this week that just rubbed me the wrong way without getting into details. We had been working on something together, and then they sent me an email that was kind of an abrupt about face without any explanation. So I responded to the email and said, you know, hey, this is coming out of the blue.

I don't know where it's coming from. But the, the, the way that this is being handled is, in my opinion, not respectful or professional. And they wrote back and completely missed the point. Right. They thought that I was mad about the about face. Things happened, you know, we're in crazy times, and so I get that things change. What was hurtful was the way that it was handled via email. You know, if somebody had picked up a phone and called me and explained to me the situation, I would have understood.

It makes sense, you know, after all, we have a long standing professional working relationship. If I don't understand, then I diminish the collaboration. If we're truly collaborators, then I have to understand how things go and be a collaborator. But that's not how it was handled. It was very dismissive, and I'm not even sure they intended to be dismissive. But because it was handled in an email instead of a conversation, it came off that way. So that's the first thing that happened. The second thing that happened is we were in office hours and somebody was talking about a situation they had with a teacher.

And then I said, well, what does the teacher say? And they said, I haven't talked to the teacher. And I said, well, why are we talking about you? You need to go talk to the teacher, understand what's going on. Make sure that the way you're reading the situation is the way that it actually is. And so I can't support you or give you advice or anything, because we don't really know if what you perceive to be happening is actually true. Third thing that happened was I was talking to another builder and he was talking about the strategic one on one. So you may recall in a previous episode, I talked about strategic one on Ones.

And if you are a member of Buildership University or the Collective, you know that we have a masterclass on strategic one on Ones. We have playbooks and tools to help you conduct it. It's really a very powerful and frankly, overlook tool that builders use to talk to people, check in with them, see not just how is the work going, but how are you experiencing the work? Because that's important. It's important for us to understand that it's not just about the work. It's about the people who are doing the work. And how they experience the work informs the work. Right?

So we should be talking to people. 

And so all these things happened this week. And when I was thinking about what this episode should be about, I really thought we need to kind of, you know, revisit this idea that you need to talk to people. Which sounds so odd. It sounds odd that in this day and age, I would be saying something that should be so obvious to all of us that we have to talk to people. But I think that our world has become so digital that we have forgotten the power of analog conversations. Most of our interactions, if we can call it that, with people these days, is mitigated through an electronic device. We talk to people via email.

We text, we have zoom meetings. Right? We dunk on, you know, we like each other's post, or we dunk on people whose opinion we disagree with online. And it's really about scoring shots rather than having meaningful dialogue. As a culture, we have diminished the value of real conversation and we are not better for it. And it's creeping into schools or it has crept into schools, I would say. I, I don't know, I always thought like maybe I was being kind of a Luddite because I hate having meaningful conversations and texts. Like for me texting to say, hey, I'm running 15 minutes late, texting to say, hey, are you ready to go?

Or I'm downstairs. Those texts make sense, right? It makes sense to just send a quick text and do that. But if we're going back and forth too much on text, I just pick up the phone. Like I don't understand why we can't just. It would be easier and faster to just pick up the phone. You know, email is great for. Here's the information you needed, here's an update.

It's great for transfer of information. But email is not a conversation. And I've seen it happen too many times where people will write an email that they intended to say one thing but was received completely differently by the person on the other side. And because the email has us communicating devoid of the non verbal cues that really structure our communication, when we're trying to handle certain things via email, we're always at a disadvantage.

There is nothing that can replace sitting down with somebody looking them in the eye and having the conversation. 

And so I'm not telling you, never send an email. I'm not telling you, never text. I'm not telling you, never put things down in writing. There is a place for that. I'm simply saying that if you are replacing human interaction with completely digital transaction, you are cheating yourself of not only a real opportunity to build real genuine relationships, but a real opportunity to understand what's happening in your schools. So I want to talk a little bit about the power of sometimes you just need to go down the hall, walk down the hall and talk to the teacher and look the teacher in the eye. And I feel weird about making that a whole podcast, right? Because it feels like it should be obvious. But nowadays, I don't know, I mean, there are a lot of younger teachers who say they actually prefer to communicate via technology rather than be in the room. So I feel like it's time. I think we can't get seduced by the ease of technology to the point that we no longer invest in face to face conversations.

So that's what I want to talk about today. So let's go ahead and talk about it. The first thing is that some things can't be conveyed any other way than face to face. Right? If I really want to show that I care about you, but I am not looking you in the eye and taking that moment to be fully present in front of you, listening to what you have to say and interested in what you have to say, then you will not believe me. Now, after I do that, after I make that investment in that relationship, then it can get reinforced by a quick text, how are things going today? Or quick email, just want to check in with you. But that can't be step one.

That is a follow up to what happened in that real time, face to face conversation. So the first thing I want to say to you today is that I'm not telling you not to use technology. I'm simply saying that is an enhancement to the real relationship. It can't replace the real relationship. Number two, I think that when you spend time, again, sitting across from somebody or alongside somebody, looking them in the face and giving them your full attention, it conveys that you value them all too often. Because we're so busy ourselves, it's hard. Like the fact that we value our teachers can get lost in how busy we are. You know, we see people in the hallway, we have these superficial transactions, hey, how's this going?

Hey, real quick. And then the only other time they see us is when we show up for a walkthrough with a notepad in our hands. And there is value in taking time to invest in the relationship so that when I do show up for a walkthrough, when I do sit down with you to have a feedback conversation, we are building on a foundation that was established outside of those times when, frankly, the power dynamic is imbalanced and the, the relationship is more formalized and fraught. When I come in and observe a classroom, if somebody knows that I have context for who they are, for what they believe, for what they're trying to accomplish in the classroom, they're going to receive my feedback differently than if I walk in without any of that context. I always tell the story about the time that when I first started giving teachers feedback and a teacher was upset with me because she said, you don't even know who I am. It took me a long time for that to sink in, but I've seen that happen over and over and over again. Even when I'm doing school visits and I'm going in classrooms and I'm working with teachers or I'm doing, you know, workshops with teachers, I always like to start by establishing context, letting them know that I see them, that I recognize who they are, listening to them before I come in and offer advice. And although we know that's true and we've heard the platitudes over the years, how often do we practice that?

How often do we let people know that we see them as people first, not just engines in our relentless pursuit for excellence? 

And I think that a lot of the pushback we get from teachers is not because they disagree with our feedback, but because they feel like you're giving them feedback without understanding their context. And so it's really, really important. You know, one of the things we do inside of BU and we're doing it right now inside of the 100% vision sprint, is we're working on how do we communicate our vision. And so we're building vision stories. And the vision stories, the thing that makes them so powerful is they don't start with you. They start with the person in front of you. And so I've asked the folks who are working through this now, I'm saying, who are your teachers and what do they want?

And. And a lot of people can't honestly answer that question. I don't even blame them because we weren't trained to even ask teachers that question. We were trained to dismiss what they want, doesn't matter what they want. We're here about the kids. Yes, it matters what they want, because if they're going to serve the kids, they have to show up. And if they are being dismissed and diminished in our buildings because we aren't taking time to understand what they want, but what will happen is that doesn't change the fact that they want it. We're just pushing it underground, and it shows up in really dysfunctional ways.

So we need to take the time to understand what do our teachers want out of this? Which is why I love the vision story, because it forces us to do that and to meet teachers where they are. We always talk about we got to meet kids where they are, but we're not modeling that in the way we deal with teachers. You have to meet your teachers where they are. Now, that doesn't mean that, you know, you're stroking them or you're avoiding giving them tough feedback or you're, you know, mollifying their egos. I'm not suggesting that. I feel like the. Even when we do those things, we're doing them because we skipped the first step, which is to find out what they want, to listen to people, to understand them.

So what do your teachers want? Do you know? What do they see as their biggest obstacle? Do you care? And if you do, let's take the time to listen to them. You know, I was talking to someone actually, two builders this week, two people in BU this week and they both told me what a difference having those one on ones was made in their schools this year. So you know, I was talking to one builder and he was saying that last year felt I wish I recorded it was so good. He just said, you know, last year he felt like they were stuck as a school and this year he feels like they've achieved momentum because he understands his teachers so much better.

Taking the time to sit down, even for teachers that you don't particularly like or that you don't think are going to offer much insight. Spending that time and sitting down with teachers and doing those strategic one on ones makes a real difference. Right? I was talking to another builder and she was saying how the one on ones that sitting down with teachers and doing those one on ones was shifting her culture. It was becoming less of a sense of us versus them, us being the teachers, them being administration, and more of a sense of we're all in this together. And it helped her think through how she's doing PD this year. It's helped her think through how she's meeting teachers needs in a different way.

And so they feel more connected.

They feel like they're all on the same page and moving in the same direction just by sitting down with teachers and having these one on ones. I mean they're so powerful. It's such a simple thing. I don't know why more of us are not doing it and yet we're not. We just feel like we don't have time and I would argue you don't have time not to. Like half of the fires you're putting out right now could have been avoided had you been sitting down with teachers and having a rhythm of one on ones. You know, we, there's a whole system for how to do it inside the collective and when you join a collective, you get the system. So, you know, and it can show you how to get it done in probably two weeks.

And this is, you know, it's not a feedback conversation. It's not a, you know, you're not sitting there telling teachers or they need to work on. That's something different. This is about listening and we don't do enough of that. We don't just look people in the face, you know, 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 build.

Do it in a way that's 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. So, I don't know, I. I wish I had more, like something more profound to say, but I just think we've, we've gotten away from the basics, you know, Like, I was talking to somebody the other day and she says, I was writing an email and I had to put it in ChatGPT. And I'm like, what? I mean, so what's happening, right, is that our communication is getting more frequent, more immediate, but less real, right? So first of all, we're not looking people in the eye anymore. We're talking to them. We're, you know, there's always some sort of, some sort of middleman, something in between, some technology that prevents us from connecting.

And then we're not even using our own words anymore. We're having AI write our responses and AI is sanitizing everything. Don't get me started on AI writing. That'll be for another day. And listen, I think AI is a great and incredible tool, but sometimes people just need to hear something real, right? So rather than, you know, composing an email on AI and then hitting send and then having no control over how it's being received or no opportunity to follow up if it's being received in the wrong way. Step away from your computer, walk down the hallway, have the conversation with the teacher and build the relationship. You can get more accomplished that way.

Instead of thinking you know what teachers want, ask them. Instead of waiting for something to blow up before you know how teachers really feel. Be proactive and put a strategic one on one system in place so that you have regular check ins with teachers so that you can intervene with them before or things blow up in your face. I don't know how to make that more profound. That's it. We, there's a place and a time for email. There's a place and a time for text. There's a place and a time for memorandums of understanding.

There's a place and a time for all of that. 

But there's also a place and a time for a real conversation. So that's it. That's my challenge to you this week. Go have a real conversation if you want. If you want to communicate to people, talk to them. If you want to stop putting out fires, prevent the fires by talking to people before they come into your office all upset. You know, I mean, you can deal with it now and prevent it or you can deal with the blowback later.

Up to you. But I'm telling you that a simple conversation goes a long way and can save you a lot of headache later on. While I'm at it, let me just say the same thing about kids, right? You know, I worked in a school once. I, I tell this story. I was, when I first started consulting, I was at a school, I was at this school all day long. And there were red flags all over the place, which, you know, but one of the red flags, which I didn't even realize was a red flag that I was, you know, talking to kids and in classrooms all day. And the kids kept calling the principal Charlie, now the principal, even though I was there that day, even though I've been hired to come in and do the work, the principal wasn't available.

So I had the assistant principal all day. And so the kids kept calling the principal Charlie. And I thought it was odd they were calling him by his first name. But I said, maybe it's a school where they do that. They would refer to the principal as Charlie. Charlie wasn't there. So the end of the day, close to the end of the day, the AP who was kind of steering me through the school I said something about Charlie and she goes, charlie? And I said, the principal?

Isn't his name Charlie? And she just, you know, she said no and rolled her eyes. She goes, the kids call him that. I said, why? They said, you know, have you seen Charlie's Angel? Like, you know, Charlie, you never see him. You just hear his voice over the loudspeaker. That's what the kids were saying about the principal.

And I thought, oh my goodness, that is why I'm seeing all these red flags. That's why this school is so messed up, because the principal was not there. Now, if you're listening to this podcast, I know that's not you. I know you're not a Charlie. I know that you are there in the halls, visible in classrooms every single day. But we can also go to the other end of the spectrum.

You know, that principal's never there. 

And he was a voice and a loudspeaker, but wasn't really impacting instruction. The, the other side of that, and I think this is where we are as a profession right now, is we're always in classrooms, but our conversations are always about the latest walkthrough. Our conversations are always about, you know, research based best practices or about our MTSS data, or we're always having those conversations that we were taught to have that we're told it's going to move the work. We're just not having the conversations that maintain that human connection between the people we're serving. And that goes for how we communicate with our teachers, it goes for how we communicate with our kids, it goes for how we communicate with our families. We're missing the inter, the human, the humanity of it. All, right? So, yeah, we're having a lot of convers, we're having a lot of noise, we're talking a lot, but we're not having conversations anymore. You know, we come in with an agenda, right?

And I, I fight this all the time when I'm talking to principals because they're like, well, I'm trying to tell them this. And I'm like, slow down. What does the teacher in front of you want? And they don't know. And frankly, we weren't even taught to care. Like, it doesn't matter. It's about the kids. How can it be about the kids unless the person who is with those kids every single day is okay, Right?

Like, if you're really concerned about the kids, I gotta be concerned about the person I put in front of those kids every day. Right? So we on one end of the pendulum, we Never talk, we never see. And we're not visible on the other end of the pendulum, we're so visible and we're always talking, but we're not having conversations. There's gotta be a middle ground. And so that's my challenge to you this week. Talk to people. Find out what they want.

Find out not just how is the work, but how are they experiencing the work. It's not wasted time. Not only is it nurturing a relationship and building trust, it's giving you valuable insight. That's going to make you better, that's going to make you more effective in working with people. And if you're not quite sure how to structure those conversations, or what do I say or how do I set it up, there's an entire training and playbook and toolkit that walks you step by step through it inside the collective. You're always welcome to join the collective. Go to buildershipuniversity.com collective. I think that's the link.

You can join the collective there. We did all the work for you. You just literally take it, the playbook, and use the playbook and the tools. That's it. You don't have to figure anything out. There's everything you need to schedule those conversations and what you say in those conversations and how you follow up from those conversations. You don't have to think you can just do it. But so don't let the fact that you don't know how you're going to figure out how to do it with everything else you've got going on stop you.

There's a tool for that. Here's my point. You need to have a conversation. You need to talk about to people. Not a text, not an email. Look people in the eye and give them the gift of your presence. Not only that, you need to talk to your kids. I've been talking to years about focus groups.

You can do a focus group. They're inside the collective. The focus group playbook is there as well. Step by step, everything you need. You can also just go down the cafeteria and eat lunch with kids and not try to be funny and make your little jokes and come off as cool, but sit there and listen to them. What are you thinking about? How's your day going? What's important to you right now?

Now you need to talk to parents. You need to sit down. And, you know, a lot of times when we talk to parents, it's very transactional, right? Where, like, parents are like, hey, I need this for my kid. Okay, I got this for you. But how's your day going? How's the year going? What are the things that worrying about you?

How's this economy affecting you? You know, whatever. Talk to people. And when I say talk to people, I don't mean you have to be the one talking. What I really is saying, I guess this is what I'm really saying. Listen to people. Give them the gift of your attention.

They're gonna get so much out of it, but you're gonna get so much out of it, too.

That's it. Wish it could be more profound this week, but sometimes it's the simple stuff that we have to be reminded of that matters. So go. Get out your office, get out your script, get out all the frameworks, get out of all of that. Talk to somebody this week like a builder. I'll talk to you. 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 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 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.