You're Either Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem!

As we start end-of-grade and end-of-course testing this week, we know there will be a focus on the results.  With all the challenges and opportunities this school year has encountered, we will all still be measured by the impact we had on student learning.  Through the continuous cycle of improvement, does leadership ever hinder the process of improvement?  Are we part of the problem or part of the solution?

 

This reminds me of the story of Dr. Semmelweis, a maternity doctor in Vienna around 1846.  This was "the start of the golden age of the physician scientist." This was the era when doctors were shifting from thinking of illness as an imbalance caused by bad air or evil spirits. They looked instead science and doctors got interested in numbers and collecting data.  Dr. Semmelweis was a maternity doctor at General Hospital in Vienna and wanted to figure out why so many women in maternity wards were dying from puerperal fever — commonly known as childbed fever.  He compared two maternity wards in the hospital: one was staffed by all male doctors and medical students, and the other was staffed by female midwives.  When he crunched the numbers, he discovered that women in the clinic staffed by doctors and medical students died at a rate nearly five times higher than women in the midwives' clinic.  The quest was “why”?  What was the root cause?

 

Dr. Semmelweis looked for every possible difference between the clinics.  He noticed women laid on their sides to deliver in the midwives’ clinic and on their back in the doctor’s clinic, there was a priest that walked through the doctor’s clinic and an attendant ringing a bell but not in the midwives’ clinic, and even the routes and routines of each clinic.  He made a hypothesis, tried the change, and came back to the drawing board each time.  Dr. Semmelweis had a colleague, a pathologist, that got ill and died from puerperal fever from a needle prick.  He then realized puerperal fever was not limited to only women after childbirth but was contracted by others in the hospital.  This still didn’t explain “why” so many people in the doctor’s clinic were dying from the sickness.  After digging a little further, he discovered that the normal routines for doctors during that era was to do autopsies and scientific research with cadavers in the morning and attend to patients in the afternoon.  The big difference between the doctors' ward and the midwives' ward is that the doctors were doing autopsies and the midwives weren't.  Semmelweis hypothesized that there were cadaverous particles, little pieces of corpse, that students were getting on their hands from the cadavers they dissected. And when they delivered the babies, these particles would get inside the women who would develop the disease and die.  So he ordered his medical staff to start cleaning their hands and instruments not just with soap but with a chlorine solution.  And when he imposed this, the rate of childbed fever fell dramatically. What Semmelweis had discovered is something that still holds true today: Hand-washing is one of the most important tools in public health. 

 

 
In education and all organizations, it’s important to keep working to the root cause of “why” and not simply to stop at “what” was the cause.  Sometimes we can have great intentions but actually may be part of what prevents performance increases.  Sometimes you can be so ingrained and involved in the work that we don't see the big picture or the potential alternatives/solutions.  No one does it intentionally, but the adage of “that’s the way we’ve always done it" permeates many educational settings even when we know something isn’t working effectively.  We hope that everyone comes to work and does the very best they are capable of with the knowledge, skill sets, and capacity they currently have.  It’s the job of administration to make sure we are always pushing to increase performance and build capacity.  It’s a function of leadership to make sure the ship gets to the right destination, not just management to make sure it runs well.  It's a function of leadership to make sure the organization has a solutions focus!  One of the best football coaches I ever played for or coached with said "There is no such thing as staying the same.  You're either getting better or someone else is and they'll go by you if you don't constantly try to improve."  The best way to move from a problem focus to a solutions focus is to start working on it.  Let’s make sure that we constantly reflect, constantly raise expectations, and constantly not allow complacency so that we are always striving to be part of the solution instead of being part of the problem!

Retaining Great Teachers and Leadership: Do People Quit Their Jobs or Their Bosses?

This time of year is always interesting and exciting with the personnel shifts we see in schools and districts.  Some people leaving, some retiring, some shifting to new positions, changes in leadership roles, changes in school and district office leadership, etc.  For some districts, it's offers a time to bring in new and fresh ideas, energy and enthusiasm, experience, and different perspectives.  For other districts, it fearful to try to staff schools when you are competing with districts that have a greater competitive advantage.  One of the most important concepts for leadership to understand is “why people leave their jobs.”  This was a topic at the BB & T Leadership, Distinguished Leadership in Practice, and numerous advanced leadership trainings over the years. 

 

The saying that most people seem to use is “People don’t quit jobs, they quit their bosses.”  While this quote has a good degree of truth to it, there’s more to the story and underlying cause.  It’s not the boss as a person many times that pushes the person to leave but instead the climate and outcomes generated by the boss’ or organization’s leadership.  There was an article in the January 11, 2018 edition of the Harvard Business Review that specifically looked at the dynamic of why people left their jobs for other positions.  Of course nobody wants to work for a horrible boss, but employees leaving because they disliked their boss only accounts for a small percentage of workplace transitions in the study.  The study went on to specifically analyze why people left their jobs at Facebook.  Goler, Gale, Harrington, and Grant (2018) said “But our engagement survey results told a different story: When we wanted to keep people and they left anyway, it wasn’t because of their manager…at least not in the way we expected.    The decision to exit was because of the work. They left when their job wasn’t enjoyable, their strengths weren’t being used, and they weren’t growing in their careers.  At Facebook, people don’t quit a boss — they quit a job. And who’s responsible for what that job is like? Managers.”  Managers didn’t necessarily mean the CEO, but referred to those in direct supervision or even temporary supervision of departments and sections of the workforce. 

 

Sometimes change is individually, organizationally, or mutually beneficial when someone leaves.  There is also an organizational cost that goes along with these transitions where the organization can lose a huge investment in human capital and incur a large expense in training someone new to be able to perform at that position at an adequate level.  The biggest question is “how do we retain our irreplaceables?”  How do we keep our top performers and high achievers motivated, growing, challenged, and appreciated?    While money does have a degree of impact, it isn’t the primary reason most high-achievers leave their jobs.  On the flip side, mediocre or below-average employees rarely leave employers that compensate them very well.  In the end, many organizations often take the easiest route of promoting them in hopes they will do less harm in a different position.  Could you imagine a football team where the 5^th string tackle, 3^rd string quarterback, and 4^th string linebacker were the team captains and the waterboy was calling the plays?  It’s not good for a team if the starters and superstars are frustrated and want to leave or don’t perform up to their capabilities.  I don’t imagine a team with this type of approach would be very successful.  Is education really any different?  The simple key to being successful is great teaching and great leadership with high expectations for success! 

 

The Harvard Business Review study worked with a People Analytics team.  They crunched the engagement survey data to predict who would stay or leave in the next six months, and in the process learned something interesting about those who eventually stayed. They found their work enjoyable 31% more often, used their strengths 33% more often, and expressed 37% more confidence that they were gaining the skills and experiences they need to develop their careers. This highlights three key ways that managers can customize experiences for their people: enable them to do work they enjoy, help them play to their strengths, and carve a path for career development that accommodates personal priorities.  If you want to keep your people — especially your stars — it’s time to pay attention to how we design and support their work. Most companies design jobs and then slot people into them, education is no different. The best leaders sometimes do the opposite: When they find talented people, they’re open to creating or adjusting jobs around them to challenge them and to leverage their strengths for the organization.  I’ve always tried to make the most of our teachers and put them in situations that took advantage of their strengths, challenged and empowered them, and gave them opportunities for leadership and input.  One of the biggest frustrations as a leader is knowing you have someone special that can make an extremely positive difference for children and losing them because you weren’t able to design the work to give them opportunities to grow in the way other schools could or when your managers or assistants frustrated the top performers and high-achievers to the point they left.  It’s sad and a travesty for children when either one of these happen.  It’s almost like a player fumbling on purpose or a coach knowingly calling a bad play or kicking your star running back off the team without you being able to get them back. 

 

When I think of the moves I’ve made in my career, I’ve never left because of pay, hating my boss as a person, or because I didn’t like the people that I worked with on a daily basis.  I’ve worked with some great people over the years and I’ve been blessed, at five schools, to work with many people that love students and put doing what’s best for kids as their priority in all decisions.   Every boss I’ve had, I’ve learned something from…..sometimes what to do and sometimes not what to do, but always learned from them.  I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to work for five different superintendents, that each was willing to take a chance on me, and I’ve respected their leadership.  I think very highly of my current boss and my loyalty to him is unwavering.  Being able to work for him and the potential for career opportunities were what got me here. 

  

Why people leave spills out in exit interviews — a standard practice in every HR department to find out why talented people are leaving and what would have convinced them to stick around. But why wait until they’re on their way out the door?  Many times employees face a personal/professional trade off when they take a position deemed as a promotion, ending up sacrificing more time away from family and friends due to driving distance or work requirements.  Exit interviews consistently show that the same employees would’ve stayed if there was an opportunity for some type of advancement or challenge in their current organization.  In education, we often don’t have these opportunities available to be able to keep our top performers.  We don’t have teacher-leader positions that allow teachers to still work with students, their passion, and also leverage the strengths of what they do to help other teachers improve.  There aren’t positions within an organization to prepare people for the next level of leadership and the organization ends up having to go outside to hire instead of being able to do succession planning.  This is often true for both school and district leadership.  Do we have the positions to prepare teachers to be teacher-leaders and instructional coaches/interventionists?  Do systems design assistant principal positions/trainings and other school leadership opportunities to prepare them to be ready to lead a school?  Do we have mid-level district office positions that transition school leaders to be able to successfully take on the roles of district level leadership positions while still taking advantage of their strengths in leading a school?   Research tells us, through both engagement and exit surveys, that lack of relationship/trust with their boss, not enjoying the work, not being challenged, and not having the opportunity for advancement are the major reasons people leave their job for another job……all are a direct result of the organization’s leadership to some degree.  As a school leader, I want to do everything I possibly can to retain great teachers, great support staff, and great managers/leaders.  This is important for all levels of leadership to understand and work toward addressing prior to it being substantiated in another exit interview. 

“Success isn’t owned. It’s leased, and rent is due every day!”

The quote from J.J. Watt “Success isn’t owned.  It’s leased, and rent is due every day!” is one of the most true and accurate statements for any leader and anyone that wants to be great.   J. J. goes on to say: “Every single day someone’s coming for your job, someone’s coming for your greatness. If you’re the greatest, someone else wants to be the greatest.  So if you’re not constantly improving your game, somebody else is.”  Jim Collins says that “Good is the Enemy of Great!”  What they are saying is that we can never allow complacency and there’s always room for improvement, we can’t ever be okay with being just okay. 

There are no days off, there is no time limit on mental focus on improvement, there is no limit on improvement.  You've got to wake up every morning and say, "What can I do today to climb that mountain and stay on top of the mountain?" “What did I do today to be better than I was yesterday?”  The true challenger is yourself.  “What are you doing each day to get better?  The greatest thing is that this is about effort and not limited to ability.  We all control the amount of effort and focus we put into something.  It doesn’t matter what your current position or title.  Whatever you have, somebody else is coming for it, and rent is due every single day.  Somebody always wants a shot at your position or an opportunity to show they can do better.  Even when you’re on top, especially when you’re on top, there’s always somebody coming up from the bottom trying to push you off the pedestal. It doesn't make life easy. It doesn't make life quiet, but that's the reality.  The reality is that there is no such thing as staying the same.  Coach Ed Emory used to say  that “there’s no such thing as staying the same, you’re either getting better or someone else is.”  Such a very true mentality.  Even when things are going well and you’re on top of your game, you still must improve just as much or more than every single competitor, or they’ll catch you some day. 

 

Michael Jordan, arguably the best basketball player of all-time, was at the peak of his sport for over a decade.  You’d watch him in practice, even at the end of his career, trying to be the first on the team in sprints for conditioning at the end of practice.  He’d always try to be the best in every inter-squad scrimmage.  He wanted to have the highest free-throw percentage, both in games and practice.   He even wanted to beat all of the stadium crew in pitching quarters.  Everything was always a competition and 1^st place was the only place for him and even then he always thought he could be better.  This mentality is what made him the greatest.  While he had tremendous talent, there were other players that had just as much, if not more talent.  Everyone in the NBA was chasing him and wanted to knock him off the top spot, but he was always working to get better and never complacent with his or his team’s performance.  Complacency was not a word in his vocabulary. 

 

One of the biggest problems in education is complacency. Success is simply a product of day-in-day-out application of habits and disciplined actions…..small steps each day to improve, paying the rent daily.  If your school isn’t performing the way you’d like, take a good look at where you are falling short. Chances are you’re probably a little behind in the rent in those areas.  Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”. In the Ancient Greek mythology, the story was told of how everything is achievable through consistent daily routine. What does it take to not be complacent and always push for improvement?  Four things come to mind:

 

#1 CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT: The secret of sustained success is continuous improvement. Marshall Goldsmith once said, “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There”.  This is a never-ending process. 

#2 PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH: John C. Maxwell said, “There is nothing noble in being superior to someone else; progress is becoming superior to your previous self”.  Always have a growth mindset.

#3 DREAM AND PASSION: Henry David Thoreau said, “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live a life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”  Improvement doesn’t happen in a status quo environment. 

#4 GIFTS AND TALENTS: Everyone has a talent or something that they are really good at.  Your talent is something you’re good at, that comes naturally for you.  Don’t try to change your style to fit someone else’s mold.  Accentuate your strengths and your students’ strength while you work on opportunities for improvement. 

 

I was proud of our team this week, not just for their scores but the attitude they took toward the scores.  In math, 75-85% of our students met or exceeded MAP growth projections.  While this is good, our team wanted to know what we could do help the @20% that did not meet to be able to improve for SC Ready (EOGs).  It would’ve been easy to be just be happy with the improvements and successes, but our teachers want more.  One of our consultants was doing a PD with our teachers and presented them with a chart of 9 different images.  She asked them which one shows their reaction to their MAP data.  None of them chose the images that were indicative of being completely satisfied with the scores.  Everything we do is about attitude and being successful is mostly about attitude and work ethic, things we control.  Great schools and great leaders are never complacent.  They celebrate successes and accomplishments, but are never complacent with the results.  The results take care of themselves when we do the very best we can every single day on being the best we can at each part of the process.  

 

If you really want to know the reason why some people succeed and others don’t, you need not look far-the secret is in their daily routines and attitude toward constant improvement. Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.  For something to change, something must change.  You can’t ever be okay with being okay and you must realize that you don’t from when you’re comfortable.  You must learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.   The questions are simple…. Did you, as a principal or instructional coach, give your teachers and staff the best you had to give that day?  Did you, as a teacher give your students the best you had on that day?  Did students give you the best they had to give?  Do you take care of rent each and every day?  

Teaching: Strategies vs. Process

Learning is key in education.  Lifelong, constant, on-going.  Reflection is one of the greatest things that drives learning.  Schools should be learning organizations where everyone in the school is constantly learning and growing, not just the students.  Even when things are going in the right direction and seem “good”, we know there are still opportunities for growth and improvement.  While we should celebrate accomplishments and successes, complacency should never be allowed or tolerated. 

 

When I was a younger coach, coaching football, I taught things the way they were taught to me when I was a player.  I was a pretty good offensive line coach, was very detail-oriented, and kids seemed to play hard for me.  I constantly learned and tried to find ways to coach that would help our players be successful.  Most skills were taught in sequences and in parts of the whole type approaches.  While there was a good deal of success, was it maximizing our capacity?  I had the opportunity to work with a couple of more seasoned (25+ years’ experience).  He taught the same type of blocking concepts in a much more holistic or conceptual way.   As I adapted to more of this type of approach, our players were even more successful.  What I learned was that this seemed to better prepare our players to be able to adapt to anything the defense might do to try to counter what we were doing on offense.   For example, if a defensive end widened a little bit, the tackle understood the concept of reaching/running him on a sweep and would widen his initial step and then knew how to redirect to reach or run based on hat and body position. 

 

The process of teaching styles/methods that changed in athletics is very relevant to what we see in classrooms and the approach many people take in trying to improve teaching and learning.  As a young and enthusiastic school administrator, I wanted to focus our PD on instructional strategies that engaged students.  While this isn’t a bad thing and was a good step in the right direction, it was only working on providing a small tool to go into people’s instructional toolbox and didn’t work on the process of how to build teaching capacity.  There’s no such thing as a “standardized student” and no single instructional strategy that works for every student.  If there was, we would all do that all day, every day.  It doesn’t hurt to help teachers or principals add instructional strategies, but one strategy isn’t the answer for everyone.  The key is to focus on the process of effective teaching.  Best practices in teaching have been consistent for decades, works in both face-to-face and virtual settings, and are student-centered. 

 

 

A common instruction framework provides this common language and focus on the process of teaching across an entire school or district.  We use a CIF that incorporates effective questioning, writing to learn, classroom talk and collaboration, scaffolding, and a literacy foundation across all areas.  There are 251 different instructional strategies that were identified by the Gates Foundation that go along with this instructional framework.  Instead of trying to teach everyone in the building 251+ effective instructional strategies, we focus on the process of teaching that involve five components and requires that students read, write, think, and speak every day in every class in some manner.

 

Maybe for some people, this is too simple of an approach?  We have a habit of overcomplicating things in education.  What I do know…….it works, it works at all levels K-12, it works in multiple states, it works for all students, it works for all teachers, and it’s worked across a long span time.  Learning is as simple as connecting something that a student doesn’t know to something that they do know.   Everything is about students and should be student-centered.  Teaching is a process of helping students be successful.  Are we truly preparing our teachers and staff to be able to continue growing and improving if we don’t focus on the process of teaching?  Are we maximizing the positive instructional impact we can have on students if we don’t focus on the process of teaching?

The Struggle is Real: Complacency Kills

My wife and I went through Chik-fil-A this past weekend and were amazed at how they had adapted to become even more profitable during the Covid pandemic.  The logistics of how they moved two drive-thru lines, the adaptation to ordering on the online app and then having it delivered to your car, Uber for delivery, etc. were all amazingly efficient and productive.  The customer service and attitude of employees toward customers was pleasant and it creates an environment that is conducive to productivity.  Have our schools adapted in the same manner as this company with the opportunities presented by Covid?  Everything is in how we approach and frame situations…….are they challenges that seem insurmountable or are they opportunities for improvement and innovation?  The best way to overcome an obstacle seeming insurmountable is to start working on it. 

 

One of the most dangerous things for any organization is complacency….”that’s how we’ve always done it.”   The opportunity for change and improvement is critical for organizational success.  The ability of an organization  to be a “learning organization” is imperative and the ability of an organization to be able to synthesize data effectively and make changes based on data in a timely manner is a competitive advantage.  Most fast-food places are still doing business as usual and possibly have added a second ordering station, but haven’t they shown the competitive advantage to maximize the situation.  Pat Riley said “Complacency is the last hurdle standing between any team and its potential greatness.”  Complacency also goes to the heart of the difference in leadership and management.  Managers make some changes to help ensure the organization operates effectively and follow the template laid out for them.  Leadership requires vision, ingenuity, a disdain for complacency, tact to motivate others and empower them to act, and is focused on making sure the ship gets to the right destination and not just that it merely operates smoothly.  Greatness is allergic to average and doesn’t take place in the presence of complacency and mediocrity.

  

Four Causes of Complacency

1. Foregoing a “Moment of Insight”

Brent Gleeson, the author of Taking Point, says, “Most organizations that continue to succeed and innovate have a culture poised for positive change and taking a risk.”

 2. Maintaining a Sense of Overconfidence

Another reason why organizations stay in a state of complacency is due to an excessive sense of self-confidence.  I’ve often been asked “is it ever good enough for you?”  My answer is usually something in the neighborhood of good is the enemy of great.  We can always improve and should be pushing to improve.  Sometimes overconfidence stems from a false sense of security. “We’ve never had anything bad happen before, and the probability is so small that we can let our guards down.”  Teams take their cues from leadership, which means leadership must always be pushing to improve. 

 3. Having a False Sense of Reality

It’s human nature to be lulled into complacency.  Many times we aren’t as good as we want to believe that we are and we all have the ability to constantly improve.  Leadership have to be comfortable in being uncomfortable and transcend this to employees . 

 4. The Tendency to Make Excuses

Similar to having a false sense of reality, complacency thrives with people and in environments where excuses are made and accepted.

 

Complacency can be the most dangerous mindset to an individual or organization.  When you begin to work on “auto-pilot” mode, and stop paying attention to what you are doing, that can lead to taking short cuts and/or taking risks, not being proactive in preventing problems, not constantly pushing a climate of high expectations, etc. We’ve all seen or worked with someone that was one “auto-pilot” or “cruise.”  They don’t seek the moment of insight and instead wait for the ship to spring a leak instead of being proactive in preventing the leak or fixing it immediately when it starts.  These employees have a lack of urgency in ensuring the organization’s success and can be toxic to the culture of the organization.   Once complacency takes root in an organization, it’s hard to change course.

 

Seven Strategies for Warding Off Complacency

1. Be clear on your long-term vision (no more than two years out) and your short-term goals needed to make that vision a reality.
2. Have a specific plan for each day.
3. Give yourself specific time each week—no more than one hour—to think strategically and evaluate where you are and if you are heading in the right direction.
4. Challenge your team to think.
5. Encourage and reward innovation.
6. Create a formal process to learn from mistakes.
7. Invest time and money to improve your skills and knowledge.

 

The military has a mantra that “complacency kills.” In fact, signs with this message are often posted at their bases and outposts. They know that complacency in combat may mean the difference between life and death.  In the world of education, complacency means that we leave students behind, that we fail to educate students at our highest possible level, that we are okay with status quo, that we aren’t fully reaching our individual or organizational potential in any capacity (instructional or educational).   It was interesting to watch Tom Brady last season and then Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots this offseason.  Brady was determined to win this past season, especially in the playoffs.  It would’ve been easy to be content with his prior Superbowl wins and MVP awards, but the competitor in him wanted more and wanted to prove something.  After a disappointing season without Tom Brady, Bill Belichick has had a great offseason in signing free agents and upgrading the level of talent on the Patriots.  He’s over 70 years old, won Superbowls with multiple teams, almost has a Superbowl ring for every finger….yet he’s competitive to want to get better and win more.  Both are examples of great leaders.  Neither one is accepting of mediocrity.  Both are allergic to average.  Greatness is the standards for both, nothing less is accepted.  Leadership must squash complacency and create a sense of urgency for any organization to be great. 

Resiliency: Increasing Capacity Through Adversities and Challenges

 In a 1992 essay in the Harvard Business Review, Peter Drucker wrote that “Every few hundred years thoughout Western history, a sharp transformation has occurred.”  He went on to say “In a matter of decades, society altogether rearranges itself – its worldview, its basic values, its social and political structures, its arts, its key institutions. Fifty years later a new world exists. And the people born into that world cannot even imagine the world in which their grandparents lived and into which their own parents were born. Our age is such a period of transformation.”  What he was referring to is the shift to a knowledge society, but it is very applicable to the shifts and challenges that the education profession has overcome during Covid.  In a nutshell, that human beings and society are resilient in the face of adversity. 

 

Resilience is the human capacity to face, overcome, and ultimately be strengthened by life’s adversities and challenges.  This is not something that people either have or do not -  resilience is learnable and teachable and as we learn we increase the range of strategies available to us when things get difficult.  This is one of the lessons we’ve learned through Covid challenges in the past year.  The goal should be to be better, as an organization, at the end of Covid than we were at the beginning.  Schools should be learning organizations where every moment is a teachable moment and everyone in the organization is continually learning and improving.  Six things every organization can do to adapt and face new challenges head on are:

1.       Figure out what information is needed.

2.       Actively prune what is past its prime. 

3.       Embrace employee autonomy.

4.       Build true learning organizations. 

5.       Provide a much stronger sense of purpose.

6.       Be more mindful of those left behind.

As we face larger number of quarantines in one grade level, the question we must address is how to best work on the most advantageous solution and how to prevent it from happening again.  Everyone must get past the “blame game”, accept responsibility and ownership of the solution, and move forward on the solution together.  In Drucker’s 1992 article he said, “Ours is “the first society in which ‘honest work’ does not mean a callused hand,” Drucker noted. “This is far more than a social change. It is a change in the human condition. We’ve been headed down this path for more than half a century.”  Technology and outside-the-box thinking are critical to adapting to change to be serve our students during challenging times.  Change is inevitable and a guarantee in all parts of life.  Resiliency is key to adapting to change and overcoming obstacles and adversity. 

Then vs. Now: Best Practices Are Still Best Practices

This weekend I had the honor to be able to speak at the Impacting Student Learning Conference in Augusta, GA.  Any day that you get to work with teachers, principals, and leadership on how to help ALL students learn is a blessing.  The title of the presentation was “The Digital Era of Instructional Innovation: Increasing Student Engagement in Virtual and Blended Learning Settings”.  After 20+ years in education and seeing so much change, it amazes me how is still the same (in a good way).  The conclusion on the final slide has always held true that people are the most important part of everything we do in education.

 

While the instructional delivery methods may have changed and the level of technology integration has been exponentially increased.....Best Practices Are Still Best Practices!   One of the toughest things for educators to do is to "Keep It Simple!"  Simon Sinek talked about being the idiot in the room because he always wanted to keep asking questions until an idea or concept could be explained where everyone in the room could understand it, which prevents people that want to sound smart with the latest educational jargon from trying to talk over everyone's heads.  It doesn't have to be complicated to be Great!  In the years that we won the most games as a football coach, we probably only had a total of about 6 plays that accounted for 95% of the offense (3 runs, 2 passes, and a bootleg or play-action pass).  As the season went on, we got better and better at those few plays where we were almost masters of those and everyone on the team knew what we were going to hang our hat on.  The same is true for education.  More times than not a school will be highly successful if everyone on staff has aligned instruction, a common instructional framework that promotes high engagement, and constantly assess and use data.  Focus on standards and students.....it's really that simple!

    

One of the pieces of information that I presented was based on Hattie's "Visible Learning" research that links a quantitative measurement with every action by the adults in the school.  What's amazing is that the things that have the most negative impact on student learning hasn't changed much over the years, neither has the most positive factors.  The questions become: If we know suspension, retention, corporal punishment, summer vacation, transient enrollment, and non-standard dialect use don't work....why haven't we changed our practice by now if these obviously aren't best practices for students?  The next question is why don't we do more of the things that we know have a very highly significant positive impact on learning?   The research shows over and over the power of attitude and belief in that four of the top factors are collective teacher efficacy, self-reported grades by students, teacher estimates of achievement, and self-efficacy.  These factors go right along with the Effective Schools Research (Lezotte, Levine, Edmonds, Brookover, etc.) and the Correlates of Effective Schools with high-expectations for success.  

The final portion of the presentation was a digital variance of Marcia Tate's research on brain-based learning and how to engage students at high levels.  The 20 High Engagement Instructional Strategies have stood the test of time and continue to be highly effective in classrooms.  The #1 reason students don't do well in class is "Boredom."  It was boredom 20 years ago and it's still boredom today that is the biggest reason reported that students don't perform well.  If we know the retention rate of a lecture is between 5-10% and the retention rate of reciprocal teaching or teaching others is around 90%, why in the world to we want to hang onto the past and the way we were taught.  Most of the teachers in todays classrooms were taught in a way very differently than kids today learn.  As we learn to engage students and make students active learners, discipline will go down and student achievement will go up.  Don't overcomplicate it!  The final slide in the presentation really demonstrates, from research after research, the importance of people in every aspect of helping students be successful!  Great systems constantly increase the capacity of human capital.  The top two things that impact achievement are great teaching and great leadership, the top two school level factors are collective efficacy and making students active stakeholders, and the top factor in a classroom is student engagement.  Every top factors focuses on people.  The best two ways for a principal to improve a school are (1) hire better teachers or (2) make the ones you have better!  Focus on standards and students, keep building and developing human capital, and have a winning attitude and success will take care of itself.  Don't overcomplicate winning! 

Into the Storm GamePlan: Excellence of Execution

Two weeks ago we discussed our urgency to finish strong on testing and accountability this school year.  In reviewing our MAP data and seeing an opportunity to improve, our team worked to create the game plan for the remainder of the school year.  At the conclusion of our data dives, data drives, team meetings, and instructional staff meetings we came up with a three-part plan to make sure we do everything within our power to make sure our students are prepared.  To many people, this plan seems simple, but to us it’s focused and intentional in every aspect.  The plan was (1) Focus on Standards and Students, (2) ALL IN – Into the Storm, and (3) Keep It Simple! 

Focus on Standards and Students

        The two most important parts of increasing student achievement are standards and students.  We don’t need to overcomplicate this process.  Focus on the standards tested, especially priority standards, making sure whole group instruction is taught on grade level with small-group or personalized learning  differentiated on each student's level and targeted need is something we can all do that makes a huge impact.  Our data tells us very explicitly that our focus needs to be on reading informational text aligned to the RI standards we need to work on.  This will give us the greatest opportunity for improvement.  When we examine our outlier data, we see that we could improve 1-3 points in each subject/grade level simply by reducing the outliers past -10.  After having parent/student meetings with every student that scored -10, we see two common trends in that there was a traumatic experience in the home during that period from Fall to Winter testing and/or students struggled with virtual learning compared to face-to-face instruction.  The impact a great classroom teacher has on a student’s learning was magnified and the need to have most students in the classroom was clearly evident.  The need for the MTSS process and immediate social/emotional interventions is more critical now, during the Covid pandemic, than they’ve probably every been.  This means that we need to shift some duties and responsibilities around to allow our staff to work with students needing this support more now than ever and that we need to identify and act quicker than we ever have.  One interesting piece of data showed that when you removed the scores of virtual students, the students on a 2-3 days/week hybrid schedule performed as well as they normally do on a traditional 5 days/week schedule.  If we teach the standards, teach them on the right level, engage our students, and constantly do the process of formative assessment to see what our student know and don’t know….while supporting social and emotional needs, our students will be successful. 

 

ALL IN – Into the Storm

        Yes, “ALL IN” is borrowed from the greatest college football program in the country…the Clemson Tigers, but it’s so true in everything you do in life and the attitude you take towards a goal.  Part of being a team means that everyone is committed to a common goal and common vision, everyone does their job and their part to help the team be successful, and at the end of the day the name beside the score says “McBee High School” and not an individual’s name alone.  It takes a commitment from everyone on a team to be successful. We don't always control talent or ability, but we all control our attitudes and actions every single day!  We must all be positive and encouraging to build each other up and provide support that contributes to collective efficacy.  When one member of a team doesn't, it can destroy the moment of the entire group.  No one in our school should have the right to take away from the learning, safety, or well-being of any colleague or student.

        The “Into the Storm” mentality means that we are going to take challenges head on instead of running from them or hoping they just pass by.  We know we will MAP test at the end of the school year and this will give us a longitudinal piece of evidence of what was within our control in measuring where students started in the Fall and how they performed academically in the Spring.  We don’t know for certain about SC Ready testing accountability for schools in SC; however, we do know we will test.  Test or not, no matter how or if it counts, the bottom line is that it’s the right thing to do in making sure our students are prepared and that we start to close some of the instructional gaps that we know exist from the shutdown last spring and challenges during the pandemic. 

 

Keep It Simple

        This sounds much simpler than it sometimes is in education.  We have a tendency in education to make things far more complicated than they need to be and often confuse people with educational jargon.  Winning doesn’t need to be complicated, do a couple of things that have the greatest impact and do them well will usually put the team or school in a position to be successful most of the time.  We felt that it was very important to make our plan focused and intentional, to a level where students were an integral part of the plan and understood the plan and goals.  We decided to make sure our mastery trackers were focused on priority standards and written in simple “I Can” statements so that they were there for the students, not necessarily the adults.  At the end of the day, it’s what the students know or master that we are judged on.  With limited time left in the school year, focusing on priority standards is critical.  And at the end of the day, make it fun and competitive for students! 

  

        Below is our action plan for finishing the year strong academically.  Some people may ask why we’d share our plan but to us it’s not a secret and it’s not complicated to do this process to see our students be successful.  I remember as a coach telling our team that other teams could have as many tapes of us as they want and I’d even give them our playbook if they wanted.  To borrow a line from Bret “The Hitman” Hart from WWE wrestling, it’s all about “Excellence of Execution!”  It’s simple but it requires commitment from everyone on the team to carry out the plan to fidelity.  It’s important to have a great plan, but “Excellence of Execution” is also paramount!  I have complete confidence in our team and their commitment to seeing students be successful.  I'm blessed to work with some great teachers, great team players, a great support staff, and people who will do whatever it takes to help children!  While some people are hoping that we don't test or that it doesn't count, our team is eager to see the score at the end of the 4th quarter this year!

Into The Storm: Head On #BeLikeTheBuffalo

We recently received some disappointing mid-year data on our MAP scores and were reminded of it in a principal’s meeting.  We thought scores weren’t going to be quite as good as the previous levels of growth last school year based on a number of factors that were different in this Covid year and our learning curve with virtual instruction.  However, the level of growth was disheartening because we felt like we failed many of the parents that trust every day with their most prized possession, we felt like failed our bosses who trust us to make sure our school performs well, and we felt like we failed the very students that are at the heart of everything we do in education.  The simple fact remains that we didn't perform at the level we should've performed and we will always be judged by one thing....The Results!  The question then becomes what are we going to do about it…..?  This was a mid-year check, not an autopsy.  Great teams and leaders know how to handle adversity and how to adjust their gameplan at halftime to win in the second half.  

 

What we find is that life is going to have adversity and disappointments, but the key is how you handle those and move forward.  I’m reminded of a pre-season preparation talk I had with seniors when I was coaching.  The philosophy was simple in that we were going to be like a Bison/Buffalo.  Why like a Bison?  We don’t run from the reality of the situation, instead we embrace it and take it head on.  One of the most fascinating characteristics of the Bison is how they react when a storm is coming. While cows, their close relatives, huddle together, the Bison take the storm head on, traveling directly into its path.  The attitude and instinct of the Bison heading directly into the storm is very fitting and an interesting reminder of how to confront life’s obstacles. We all know that the worst thing we can do when confronted with a major challenge in life is to run from it.  Don’t run, don’t avoid it, don’t hope it goes away….Take it head on!

Two realities must be faced: (1) We need to be prepared to return to face-to-face learning 5 days/week and (2) We will be tested or assessed at the end of this school year. This has been made clear at both the federal and state levels.  To make a long story short, we decided to take this head on immediately.  Many times people procrastinate and the fear of the challenge becomes bigger and bigger to where it seems insurmountable.  Procrastinating or trying to ignore a challenge essentially makes a mountain out of a molehill.  But that’s not what the Bison does. Rather than waiting out the storm or running away from the storm, the Bison squares it’s shoulders and charges into the storm, taking it head-on in a tight herd together and running right through it. This has the effect of reducing the amount of exposure to the storm.  On the contrary, cows have a different reaction. They run away from the storm, receiving the brunt of the storm in the process.  In taking these obstacles on directly we learn what the Bison knows instinctually— when we address our challenges directly the perceived obstacles are often much less than we imagined.  Rather than running from reality or just waiting for it to hit, the attitude of our teachers and staff is going to be to take it head on and square our shoulders to take it head on.  We don't control some things and we accept that; but we control our preparation and everything we do to get ready for our students to test, we control our attitude and how we approach the challenge, we control if we are ALL IN as a team to take on the challenge, we control our focus on standards and students, etc.  

The first step in facing a challenge is to admit there is a challenge and make a decision to take it head on, owning the shortcoming and owning the solution to the problem.  The follow up has to have the same level of commitment.  After we create the plan to address the problem, we have to execute the plan to fidelity.  Leaders must inspect what they expect, in terms of how the team is going to take the storm head on. Every moment in education is a teachable moment and has the potential for growth.  So next time you are faced with a challenge or shortcoming, whether it be a complex situation or a difficult conversation you need to have with someone, follow the lead of the American Bison and avoid procrastination. Go directly toward the obstacle, embrace the challenge as well as your commitment to the solution. Take it head on into the storm!

Leadership is About Service: Authority versus Influence

What is leadership?  Are you a leader because you have a position or title of authority?  True leadership is far more than any title.  Someone can be granted a title from those above them in the hierarchy, but authority and influence to be able to lead is earned from those that work with you.  In doing my doctoral work at Liberty, we often heard about servant leadership and there was often a biblical derivative of the term.  As I’ve been in leadership for a long time, I’ve realized that I was in leadership long before I ever had the title of Principal or School Administrator or Coach or anything else.  My purpose was always to help people and serve as best I could.  Even without a title, I was a leader in many respects.  

 

Leadership is ultimately about service and helping others achieve their goals and helping the team to be successful.  Personal success is derived from the success of the team and from taking care of others.  Part of being in school administration or leadership is understanding the dynamics of micropolitical leadership.  The most influential leaders in a school aren't necessarily administrators.  Many times the most powerful leaders are teacher-leaders, mentors, and those within the staff that have earned the trust and respect of the staff through their service and helping others.  Many times when a principal says something, it’s viewed as a top-down directive and there is a level of compliance that comes with it.  However, the same thing echoed by a teacher-leader or leader inherently chosen by the group can be far more powerful and have far more influence.  This is one of the reasons that leaders must understand this dynamic and be able to use it for the good of the team.  Not only have the teacher-leaders and your best teachers earned the respect of the staff, they’ve also always put what is in the best interest of students at the forefront of every decision they make.  They always put students and the team first, not what’s easiest or most convenient for the adults in the building.  Those two things make their leadership more powerful than you can imagine within an organization.  While someone with a title might be the head of the organization, the leader from within that has proven servant leadership is the heart of the team. 

 

In relating this to the world of athletics, we watched Michael Jordan do this for the Bulls for many years.  Phil Jackson might have been the coach, but Jordan was the catalyst that pushed everyone around him to another level of performance.  In an interview for “The Last Dance”, Jordan explicitly said that he never asked a teammate to do more than he did or was willing to do himself.  He could’ve loafed through practices and turn it on for games, but he challenged his teammates 100% in practice because he knew that was the competition they needed in practice to be able to perform at a championship level.  We recently saw the Tampa Bay Buccaneers win the Super Bowl with Bruce Arians as the coach, but Tom Brady was the heart of that team that helped take them to the top level.  There was talent on that team prior to Brady’s arrival, but the heart of the team makes everyone else believe that they can win and they push the team constantly to perform at their standard of excellence.  To these great leaders, it’s about service and helping others to be their very best.

Leadership is about service to others. Leadership is a choice, a decision to put others ahead of yourself with a goal of helping them be successful. Leadership is more than a title or position, it's about influence and the willingness to help others achieve their goals. Great leaders build trust, are committed to people and processes, and are dedicated to selfless service.

 

Servant Leadership = Heart to Serve + Called to Lead + Courage to Serve

 

Many people don’t go into leadership for several reasons:  they’re content and happy with what they are doing, they don’t want to take on many of the challenges and responsibilities, they don’t want to feel like they are over their peers, they don’t want to have to do the corrective side with personnel, etc. Servant Leadership can be a powerful force once a person discovers their heart to serve, answers their call to lead, and summons their courage to engage.  These aren’t easy things for many potential leaders to face for some reason.  Servant leaders realize that it’s not necessarily being in charge of people as much as it’s about taking care of people within your charge.  There’s a bigger purpose to the work that leaders take on in helping others to be their best.  Leaders understand that their work isn’t always popular, but it’s always necessary to help the team be successful. Servant leaders understand that their customers are their allies and employees are the greatest resource they have.  They understand success comes from people and not programs.  They realize that what people/customers are actually "buying" from us in education is trust that we will always do what's in the best interest of students and that we will give 110% to see our students be safe and successful.  The way you view leadership ultimately shapes your attitude and actions!  

What We Can Learn From Watching Ships Sink: Water on the Inside is Far More Dangerous Than All the Water on the Outside

Three years ago I accompanied my wife to the EdTEch conference in Chicago, one of the largest instructional technology conferences in the United States.  We both went to different sessions that we thought could provide professional learning and growth.  One of the afternoons while my wife was in a late afternoon training, my daughter and I went to see the ports where Chicago touched Lake Michigan, which is one of the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world. One of the signs at Lake Michigan presented facts about the number of ships that have sunk and some that are still sitting at the bottom of Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes.  I later saw a YouTube video of a ship actually being sunk on the lake to dispose of it and render it completely out of service.  I thought to myself that we can learn a lot from watching ships sink that's very applicable to leadership and life. 

 

Over 97 percent of the Earth's water can be found in the oceans.  According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there are over 332,519,000 cubic miles of water on the planet. Of this vast volume of water, NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center estimates that's enough water to fill about 352,670,000,000,000,000,000 gallon-sized milk containers!  While that’s more water than we can possibly fathom, no amount of water in any of the oceans on the outside of the ship sinks a ship.  Ships don’t sink because of the water around them. They sink because of the water that gets in them. It’s the same with organizations and leadership.  The greatest advertisement for any organization comes from those within the organization, the best endorsement and evaluation for any leader comes from those closest to them, and those within the organization are the most influential in creating the perception of success or failure of an organization. 

 

Under Genghis Khan, the Mongols would catapult the dead bodies of soldiers infected by the bubonic plague over city walls during sieges. This is one of the earliest accounts biological warfare.  A fortified city or structure was safe as long as the disease was on the outside and didn’t get to the inside.  However, disease inside of the fort was deadly and spread to infect so many that the fort couldn’t survive.  In 1346, during the siege of Caffa, the attacking Tartar Forces (subjugated by the Mongol empire under Genghis Khan), used the bodies of Mongol warriors of the Golden Horde who had died of plague, as weapons.  Disease outside of the Caffa didn’t have any impact, but once it got within it was the beginning of the end.  Many historians, suggested the soldiers of Caffa should’ve catapulted the diseased bodies out immediately and limited exposure to disease as well as sending it within the attacking force.  Leaders have known since the beginning of time how deadly and dangerous disease within an organization can be.  It’s probably a good thing for many people that the violent nature of punishment for treason has changed since medieval times when traitors were beaten, hung, beheaded, and quartered (body cut into four parts and sent to different parts of the empire to display so everyone would fear punishment for that offense). 

 

In The Art of War, Sun Tzu said “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”  Many times, the challenges/obstacles and also the positive recognitions are created by people within an organization and closest to leadership.  These are often communicated from those within to those outside of the organization.  People outside of the organization accept this information as truth or fact because they believe those within a building know what goes on better than anyone else.  There are times when we face challenges from the outside that we can’t control coming at us, but these should not be created by people within an organization.  People within the organization that create challenges and undermine either leadership or the mission of the organization are toxic and impede an organization from improvement.  

 

 

Ultimately, the most important job anyone within an organization has is to make their boss or supervisor look good.  We do this by serving our customers effectively, fulfilling the mission of the team, being loyal to your teammates and leader, communicating positively to promote the good of the team, and knowing which information is confidential and should be not communicated outside of given circles.  Ultimately, the challenges within an organization can break an organization or destroy a leader’s credibility and vision for success more than anything else.  I’ve worked for a great superintendent that I’ve learned immensely from and one of the most relevant things I’ve learned is the importance of loyalty and everyone on the team pulling in the same direction together.  This reminded me of what I learned from coaching and sports about teams that play together and support each other.  As a coach, we made it to the 4th round of the playoffs and one game away from a state championship with a regular season record where we only got in as a final seed by the luck of the draw.  How did a team that barely got in the playoffs make it that far and be so successful in almost winning a state championship....because we quit fighting against each other and undercutting each other, instead we finally played together and for each other like a family.  It’s hard to row a boat to the finish line when someone isn’t rowing in the same direction as the rest of the team and especially when they row against the leader and team.  A leader and team can’t expect to be but so successful when they have to take on their own team members as well as the other team and outside challenges.  There’s a great leadership lesson to be learned from watching a ship sink and realizing the water/toxicity inside an organization is far more dangerous than any amount of water or challenges outside of the organization.