EPISODE #358

Hey, builders, before we jump into today's show, I need to know something. Are you and I connected on the socials? Because if we're not, we need to be. So connect with me. I'm on Facebook. Robinjackson. I am on Twitter. Robin steps.

I'm on LinkedIn. Robinjackson. Let's connect, and let's keep the conversation going. Now onto the show. You're listening to the School Leadership Reimagined podcast, episode 358. 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, Robin Jackson, and today is the last episode for a series we've been doing all month. And so I have two things for you today. The first is the answer, right?

So starting at the beginning of the month, I started telling you something that you already knew, but many of you have told me you just didn't have the words for it. I described what was happening with your kids and with your teachers and with your schools themselves. And I named these forces that are making an already hard job feel so much harder lately. And every week, I would end each episode without giving you the answer. So today, I'm going to give you the answer. Now. The second thing is that I have a big announcement. It's something that I have been sitting on for a while.

It's something that I think is going to change how you think about this work, about this podcast, and about what comes next. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to save the announcement for the end, because I think the answer has to come first, because the announcement, it only is going to make sense once you have the answer. And plus, many of you have been telling me, robin, what's the answer? So we're going to do that today. So let's start there. So here's what I've come to understand about everything that we've been talking about over the last four weeks. And just as a reminder, we started by talking about the students, and we weren't talking about the defiant kids because you already know what to do with defiant kids, Right? We're talking about the ones who have simply stopped believing that what happens in your building connects to anything else that matters to them outside of school.

Right? These are the kids who just do enough to get through. They're physically present, but mentally, they're. They're somewhere else entirely. And that checked out quality that no engagement strategy seems to touch, those are the kids we're talking about. We're talking about why that's happening. And what we realized is that it's not about the kids. And then we talked about what I've been calling the leadership ceiling.

And it's that specific, almost disorienting experience where you do everything right? You're visible, you're following all the leadership advice, you're doing everything that you were trained to do, and yet you're still not achieving the results you want for your school. And what we said was that that ceiling is not a personal failure. The ceiling is, you know, it's baked into leadership itself. But if you follow the leadership playbook, you will hit that ceiling at some point. And like I said in that episode, we can no longer tolerate the ceiling, because with everything that's going on in the world right now, that ceiling keeps getting lower and lower. And we're going to start hitting it more and more often if we don't do something different. Then we talked about the new teacher, because this isn't about teachers being like, you know, difficult or resistant or checked out the way we used to mean those words.

Right? This is something that's, I don't know, existentially different. Like this. This new teacher has watched their predecessors pour everything into a profession that left them burned out and feeling undervalued. And these new teachers did the math, and because they've done that, they are largely impervious to a lot of the tools that we've always depended on. You know, the vision speech, the culture event, the motivational speeches, right? They need something so different than what we've been trained to give them.

And it's something that leadership was never designed to even give them.

And so anyway, we talked about these three forces, and underneath them there was this one question, which is that if everything that you were trained to do was designed for a kid or a teacher or a world that no longer exists, what do you do now? Well, before I tell you what to do. Let me tell you what we've been doing, right? We've been trying to deal with the kids who are checked out by, you know, pulling them aside and giving them the motivational speech. And you know the one I'm talking about? Stay in school, work hard so you can have a brighter future. For a long time, those speeches worked. I mean, okay, not with every kid, but it worked enough that we kept doing it.

And it worked because somewhere underneath that conversation, students could see the math add up, right? Like, if they did their part, the world would do its part. But now the math ain't mathing anymore. Our students are. They're watching everything that's going on in the world, and they're concluding that the future isn't a place you can plan for. So the deal you're offering requires a belief in a future or later that they may not even have. So they're not taking a deal. And then we try to pour into our teachers.

We recognize them publicly, we give them leadership opportunities. We. We show them what growth looks like in our building, and we try to make them feel like this work is meaningful and that they can make a difference. And even when we've done that, we've watched some of our best people smile and thank us sincerely and quietly start doing the math on whether the working conditions and the pay and the demands on them, whether any of that is really worth it, because they've watched their predecessors burn out, and they've concluded, and in some cases quite rationally, that the old deal isn't holding up its end. Then, on the parent front, we build relationships. We pick up the phone, we show up. We try to be the kind of school that the parents back up when it matters. And over the past few years, we've watched these relationships shift.

And sometimes it happens slowly, but sometimes, quite frankly, it happens overnight. And those relationships have become more and more adversarial. And we've wondered, what did we do wrong? And most of the time, we didn't do anything wrong. It's just that trust in institutions is dissolving everywhere. And our schools are institutions. So here's what all three of those moments have in common. Every strategy that we were trained to use, you know, the student talk, the teacher motivational strategies, the parent relationships, those things were built on an invisible agreement that everybody understood.

These agreements, they functioned almost like invisible contracts, right? 

And here's what they sounded like. You know, students work hard, and the future rewards you. With teachers, that contract sounded like, invest in this profession, and it will be Worth it. And to parents and families, it sounded like the school is on your side. So these agreements were the floor, and we've been building on that. We've been leading on them, right? We've been motivating on them.

We've been planning on them. Except that lately the floor started to disappear. And so that's what we've been doing, and it's not working anymore. Those old contracts, they're gone. And I don't think they're coming back, unfortunately. So you cannot motivate people back into a contract that they've identified is broken. So what do you do? Well, you got to stop trying to restore the old contracts, and you need to build a new one.

That's what your 100% vision does. Your 100% vision becomes the new contract because it doesn't ask students to trust in a predictable future. It gives them something real to build right now, today. It doesn't ask teachers to believe in the profession's old promise or its old identity. It gives them them work that's worth doing for its own sake right now in this building. And it doesn't ask parents and communities to trust institutions. It makes a concrete promise and it shows progress towards it. The old contracts required the world to hold up its end of the deal.

But the 100% vision doesn't need the world to do anything. It creates its own floor. And inside of your building, it's real with your people. So no matter what's going on outside of your school, everyone can continue to count on your 100% vision. That's it. That's the answer. So you see, when I launched School Leadership Reimagined eight years ago, I didn't call the podcast that because I thought leadership needed a few tweaks. Right.

You know, from literally the first episode, I've been saying the same thing. Stop leading. Start building. That idea didn't come at the end of eight years of figuring things out on the podcast. It was there from year one. So this podcast has always, always been an invitation to step back from the day to day urgency of the work that you're doing and ask a deeper question. What if we've been what we've been trained to do isn't wrong, but it isn't enough. What if there's a different kind of work?

Not better leadership, but something genuinely different entirely. 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'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 being building something amazing, the 100% collective is where you need to be. Join us@bearerhipuniversity.com community now, back with the program. Something that actually gets every student to 100%.

So for eight years together, we've been exploring that question. 

We've named the leadership ceiling. We've defined buildership. We've looked at it from every angle. We've been reimagining leadership and it's been worth doing. But something's changed. The world shifted. The contracts we've been relying on are gone. And because of that, any margin for error that we may have had, that's gone too. The luxury of treating buildership as an interesting idea to explore.

Well, something that we can think about and talk about and consider and do it from a safe intellectual distance. We don't have that luxury anymore. We can't afford to keep reimagining anymore. It's time to build. And I think about what happens at graduation. You know, you've learned everything you came to learn, and then someone stands in front of you and they say, well, you know, it's now enough. You are ready. Go do the work.

Well, that's this episode that's today because you've been sitting in these ideas with me. Some of you have been doing it for eight years. You understand the leadership ceiling. You've you felt that moment when you've hit it? You've been preparing, whether you knew it or not. And I want to tell you now you're ready. The new teacher is not going to wait for you to finish working out the theory your students don't have another year to give you. While you sit and contemplate the concepts, the old contracts aren't coming back.

While you figure out what to do next. This today is graduation. It's a graduation moment. And what comes next isn't more exploration. What comes next is the work. Which brings me to the second thing I promised you at the top of this episode, the big announcement. And I have to say, listen, I am fully aware that today is April 1st, April Fool's Day. The timing's bad, but trust me, this is not a joke.

This podcast is changing. So in two weeks, on April 15th, School Leadership Reimagine becomes the 100% principal podcast. Now, I know some of you listening right now are not building principals. Some of you are assistant principals or instructional coaches or central office administrators. You may be a superintendent. Some of you might even be teachers who are builders right in the classroom. And some of you are in completely different fields. And you're here because these ideas, they translate.

So you might be wondering, does this name change mean that the show is no longer for you? Well, here's my honest answer. The 100% principle isn't a job title. It's a decision. It's a decision to stop accepting that some people in your care will fall through the cracks. And not only do you not accept it, but you're going to start building conditions that make falling through the cracks impossible. And that decision doesn't belong exclusively to building principles. It belongs to anyone who has the authority to build something and the courage to commit to 100%.

So if that's you, whatever your role is, this show is still for you. It's always been for you. And listen, listen. I know for some of you, especially those of you who've been here for all eight years, this name change can feel almost like a loss. So let me tell you exactly what it is, because it's not a loss. It's a completion. School Leadership Reimagine was the right name for that season of our work together, right? We needed to reimagine.

We need to question. We needed to look at everything that we thought we knew about leadership. And we needed to ask, is this actually working? Is it actually getting us to 100%? So we've done that work, right? And the answer we arrived at together over eight years and 350something episodes is this leadership is the ceiling. Buildership is what comes after. And if you are ready to do that work, then you are a 100% principal, regardless of your job title.

So listen, after eight years, you've earned that title. 

And so the name is not changing because something is ending. It's changing because we are beginning something else. And here's what's also changing. And let me tell you what, this is the part that I am most excited about, right? So the new podcast is going to have a companion newsletter, and it's called the 100% principal newsletter. And every week I'm going to write one original piece, one idea, one principle ple, and one named insight about what it actually takes to build a 100% school. The newsletter is going to drop every Friday, and the podcast is going to drop the following Wednesday.

So every episode's going to be one complete thought and something practical that you can do that week to build 100% in your school or your district. So if you've been listening to the show for a while, you know the episodes that you come back to, these are the ones that you've sent to a colleague or the ones where you've paused in the middle because you just needed to sit with an idea for a second. That's what every episode of the new format is going to be. That's my promise to you. But here's something else that I've noticed over the years. I've been really. It's been bothering me, right? The best episodes, the ones you actually wanted to save and revisit and use.

Well, there's never been a really easy way to do that. So you might listen to the podcast in a car, right? And then you say, I want to remember that. And then you lose the thread and move on. And I never felt like I fully solved that problem before, but I think that the newsletter. The newsletter is how I'm going to solve the problem, because it's going to go deeper than the episode. It's longer. It includes diagrams and data and things that you can save and return to when you're actually sitting down and doing your work, right?

So every issue is going to name one 100% principle, ple. Principle, not pal. And it's going to be a counterintuitive idea that governs how 100% principles operate differently. And over time, those principles will accumulate into kind of like a library that feeds your real building work. So you can almost think of it this way. The podcast is kind of the voice, and the newsletter is where the thinking lives. So because of that, here's one thing that I want you to do before next week. I want you to subscribe to the 100% principal newsletter.

You can subscribe by going to 100% principal.com. That's 100. 100% P E R C E N T principal dot com. And your email address is the only thing I'm asking for. The first issue is going to drop Friday, April 10th. And if you've been with me through this series, if any part of the last four weeks has landed, I'm also gonna ask you to please invite a colleague to sign up as well, because this work is important, and I know right now that there's someone that you know who needs to be in this conversation. So next Wednesday, April 8, I'm dropping the official trailer for the new show. It's five minutes.

Everything we've been building toward for eight years compressed into something that you can listen to quickly, you can change. Share it with someone who hasn't heard of this podcast before. That's gonna happen on the 8th. Then on Friday the 10th, the first newsletter drops so good, I. I can't wait for you to read it. And then on Wednesday, April 15, the new podcast drops. Now, if you're already subscribed to this podcast, it's gonna show up in your feed. You don't have to do anything, right?

But here's what I do want you to sit with.

The reimagining that we've been doing for the last eight years, that is done. We've reimagined enough. Now it's time to get to work and start building like a builder. I can't wait. I can't wait for you to see what's coming next. 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 exciting, 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 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.