Welcome to this episode of the podcast Just thinking with yours truly. This is a special episode for me because it was four years ago almost to the day that I was here in these studios with the beautiful downtown Dallas in the background. And at that time, I was a guest on the podcast of JW Marshall, voices of e learning. But today, I'm hosting the show, and I have a very special guest, a friend, a colleague, and a soon to be published author, Leslie Lodder. So I'm not gonna even begin to introduce Leslie to you. She's accomplished so much in her career. I'm gonna let her tell you a little bit about who she is. So Leslie? Who are you? Thank you, Kevin. Well, first of all, I'm an educator. So that's why we're here today. I've I've worked in public school system, you know, beginning as a teacher. Of course, been a principal, assistant superintendent, and now I have the pleasure of being the chief academic officer at eight zero six Technologies. And in this current role, what I get to do, I'm so fortunate to to have the opportunity to work with school leaders all over the United States, and we spend time talking about continuous improvement. And about how to help schools grow. So that's why we're here today, and that is the topic of my upcoming book. Well, that's very exciting. And I'm so glad to have the opportunity to talk about your book. Before we get into that, though, I wanna know a little bit more about the your favorite part of the work you do? Oh, the best part of the work is when you spend time with teams that are are school leaders and they have breakthrough moments that they have those aha moments of, either understanding the root causes of their problems, or it could be, a time when they're bringing new people in and they're that vision statement, and they get that that feeling of excitement. And, oh my goodness, these are the things that we can do, and I just love that that light and that energy when they have those breakthrough moments. It's it's lots of fun. It's infectious, isn't it? It is infectious. Yes. I can tell that gets you excited. And so the, this idea of continuous improvement, there's a lot of talk about continuous proven out there. For some, it's even become a little bit of a buzz phrase. But what are some of the biggest misconceptions people have about, continuous improvement? It is a buzzword, and you do hear it in in lots of circles. But I think before looking at the misconceptions, you have to really understand what it is. And so continuous improvement is really, a commitment. It's it's a commitment by school leaders, the adults working in the schools, and trying to be better tomorrow than they are today. It's that constant look at what we're doing to make sure that it it is making the impact that we want And when it's not, then we make those adjustments. It's making sure that we really know who those children are and that we're giving them the things that they need in order to be successful. So it's it's not really an event it is something that is integrated and embedded. It it becomes a way of life in schools that are using it correctly. So to go back to the misconceptions, some of the things I hear are, oh, we do that. We we have a meeting scheduled in May and we do that. Of course. Yes. And that's about producing a document. You know, they talk about, we'll we'll have a meeting when those state assessments scores come in, and we'll look at our our test scores, we'll make adjustments on our document, and then we're done. Right. And that's not continuous improvement at all. Continue improvement is not about that document. The the document they produce is a great tool and it's a support but it's more about the conversations that occur. It's about the understanding that the adults get and and their ability then to take that information and move forward. That's what continuous improvement is. And it doesn't happen automatically? No. It doesn't. It takes leadership it takes leadership, and it takes time. It goes back to that commitment. And a big piece of this is culture. If you don't have the right culture in place in a school, you're not gonna be able to enjoy the benefits of continuous improvement. And, because it's continuous. We grow into these things. Yes. So, you know, it's it's not, just saying, oh, well, we tried and we can't do it. It it is taking a step where you are, really looking at the situation and then determining what's gonna be that next step to to make it grow and and to make us better tomorrow than we are today. So you might even fail a little bit along the way. Absolutely. And that's not a problem. It it all goes back to that culture again. You want a culture that is safe for you to try those things and Failure is gonna be a piece of it. You you look at any of the stories of, the big athletes or anyone. They'll tell you how many times they missed those free throws before they made them. And so it's all about an action doing something, and then stopping to check to see, okay, where did it work? Where did it not? How can I do this better next time? And then trying it again? So failure is not the end. Failure is just a piece of it, and you would expect that in order to get better. Love that. Failure a piece of it. So speaking of setting the right culture and tone, you've been a leader. As you said, you've been teacher, principal, Sure. Central office administrator assistant superintendent. Mhmm. You lead in the work you've been doing at eight zero six Technologies. And so How are you different from other thought leaders in your space? Well, one of the things that I see that's very important is to make sure that the continuous improvement framework and the the documents that are produced, and the content that goes in it, that all of that is just as simple and as clear as it it can possibly be. What we see happening sometimes in schools is you, have an assistant superintendent, and they, have a need for this piece of data or information. And, and so, you know, the conversation is, would it be great if we just could add this on. And then that person leaves. And you've got another one that comes in. They don't know why that's there. Right. But they don't wanna get rid of it. If it was important to someone, it's probably still important again. But I'm gonna go in this direction, and here's this piece that I'd like to add. And before we know it, we have snowballed into something that is very unmanageable. And so if we are going to create conditions where schools can grow and principals can grow and students can grow and learn. We've gotta make sure we keep that scaled back and keep things just as as simple as we possibly can and as clear as we possibly can. So how do you help schools and school leaders with the scale back and making it more simple. It becomes a natural part of continuous improvement because we want to analyze and, everything that we do. And so one of the things that we do is we do an evaluation. And those can happen at different times of the year, you can take a particular program or a strategy and do a simple evaluation. And with that, you wanna look at the impact that that occurs. And you also wanna make sure that there are steps there where they could determine if this something that we want to strategically abandon. It creates some safety and it gives people the courage to do it when they've walked through an evaluation, and they use a, theory of action or a protocol where they've looked at all of these pieces to determine if is this really giving us what we want or what we need? And when you walk through that, it makes it so much easier to say Okay. We we're gonna make the choice or the decision to strategically abandon this piece because we we are going in another direction or we see that our students need something else or teachers need different training. And so it just becomes a natural part of continuous improvement that we don't continue with everything all the time. We just can't carry that. And there are seasons when things are very effective in schools, and then we need to let them go. Easier said than done. Right? Oh, yes. So said that no. But those words are kind of burnt into my brain now. Strategic abandonment. Again, easier said than done, but incredibly important if we're really gonna move the needle for teaching and learning. You know, another thing that I think about when you're talking about continuous improvement is this whole idea of the implementation dip. So we've decided to go in a different direction. We're gonna try this new strategy, this new approach. Mhmm. But be prepared, there's going to be an implementation dip. Mhmm. And as educators in my experience, we tend to wanna drop once that dip starts. Mhmm. Right? That's why we call a veteran teacher. Someone has been at it for three years because if seeing the implementation come in, The dip, we drop. It dips, we drop, we dip, we drop. So we teach the teachers status quo. That's right. Just keep going. That's right. So, How how does that come into the work that you do when people struggle a little bit with the implementation dip as they're working through this continuous improvement process when you're starting with a new strategy, you need to plan that out and and think about how that feels right now as we're getting started with the professional learning or, you know, whatever happens there at the very beginning, and and think about what is going to happen within the next ninety days. And then within the next ninety days. And we talk about that that you start something. We may not see anything in ninety days and then the next ninety days, we may actually see a dip. And what are we gonna do when that happens? So, we anticipate those pieces being in there. And making it okay Yes. For that dip to occur. And then you recognize it. Oh, that's where we are. We see the implementation dip. Let's record that. Our expectation is it's not gonna last forever. It's gonna come back. Leslie, that is so powerful because that really, helps to reinforce the important of those formative reviews throughout the process. Right? Absolutely. Critically important. And a lot of times in continuous improvement, we don't take the time to schedule those formative reviews and have the thoughtful conversations and even anticipate that there may be dips. Right. There may be some failures that we experience. So I love that. So, what's some advice that you have for people that are out there that are focusing on continuous improvement for their schools and stricts. Just just in general, what would you offer? Well, one of the things I would say is don't forget to look for strengths and assets too. Because, in any framework or format that you have, it's always asking for what are the strengths, what are the, problems And usually what happens is we very quickly think about something that is a strength and we just kinda gloss over it because as educators, we wanna get into those deficits, find find those problems. Yes. Because we're fixers. Yes. We we want children to, excel and do well. And so we wanna identify those problems and solve them so that we can move on. But, you know, strengths can help us too. And assets are so important, especially in this, period during accountability. Where there are so many negative things, pointed to schools. We we have to build on those assets so that we can bring joy back into the school. Amen. Oh my word. Yes. We need some joy. Absolutely. Yes. We do. And it's amazing how much those assets can actually help us as we're trying to eliminate the deficits. So we need to spend some time with that. It's not to gloss over the deficits. We need to know what they are. We need to dig deep into those. But we don't have stay there. We don't have to dwell there. We can identify those pieces, make sure that we're working to eliminate any of those barriers or anything that's in the way. But also let's let's celebrate the assets. That's so powerful, Leslie. You know, it's important with the educators, with the the leaders, the teachers, but wouldn't it be great if, that filtered to the students as well? Right? Yes. Yes. Asset based approach. Go ahead. You were gonna say something about that. Yes. You know, almost any teacher as they think back over there their history of working with students. Almost any teacher can give you the face of the student who, can't stay in his seat You know, he's he's busy. He's he's always got something to say. And, you know, those kids are often labeled as a student who can't keep their focus. But what about thinking a a little bit differently about that same child? What about thinking about that as being the child that has so much energy, he can get things more things done in a period of time than others can. And, or maybe think about him from the fact that he's always got a smile on his face and he's in good mood. Put that child in the front of the school, let him open the door. Good morning. I'm glad you're here. Welcome. Good morning. I'm glad you're here. Welcome. And help them build on the positive pieces, rather than dwelling on, don't do this. Sit down. Sit down. Be quiet. So it can make a difference for our children. Absolutely. That's so powerful. You know, clearly, this is an area of passion. For you. It is. Alright. And so that passion, I'm sure, is part of what motivated you to capture this in a book. Yes. Right? Yes. So talk to me a little bit about that, that process. Kind of you had the idea. You met with publishers and so forth. How how did all that putting this book together that's soon to be published? Yes. Well, first of all, lots of people have told me, will you write down. We you we record this. We need that information. And so that's that's what put the seed in my my thinking to begin with about recording ideas, great ideas. And, you know, quite honestly, they're they're not all my ideas. It's it comes from working with amazing educators everywhere. So it's really a collection of ideas from the smartest people that I know. And pulling all that together into a book. And, wow, it's quite a process. More than I knew. Going through and, you know, submitting your proposals to publishers and and then accepting one and start working through the process of getting getting a book published. I've learned a tremendous amount. So if I were to do this again, I would do things a little bit differently. Maybe write a book about how to get your book published. Maybe. Maybe. I thought I knew, but I obviously, didn't, and I've learned a lot, but It's on its way, and, it'll be out here in the next, few months. Well, we all can't wait. What's the title of your new book? Continuous improvement, without continuous stress. We can all do with a little less stress. Yes. I agree. I agree. So did you come up with that title? Where'd that title come from? Well, actually, it was, part of the publisher's idea to, put, to kinda have a contest. For both the the cover, the the picture on the cover, and also the name to put that out there and to the people who gave me the information to begin with. So I love that. Yeah, I'm pretty excited about that. That is so awesome. So where can people find out more about your work, the work that you do, we do at eight zero six Technologies. And, also, the work that you'll be doing is you get out there and start talking about your new book? Yes. Well, of course, eight zero six Technologies dot com would definitely lead you towards the, continuous improvement work that the whole company is doing. And so you can find out information there. And then as soon we're ready for pre orders, then then you can also find a link from there to our pre order, and it'll be it'll be on Amazon. It'll be easy to find. That's exciting. Well, Leslie, the title of this podcast is just thinking. So is there anything else about which you're just thinking that I didn't give you an opportunity to speak to in the course of this interview? I think in thinking about where we are in our post COVID world. Our educators are tired and and they're they've struggled to to get back to that sense of joy. And I would just encourage them to keep going, keep going, and and to realize and remember not everything is bad in school. There are so many good things that they're doing every single day, and they're making a difference for children. So keep headed in the right direction. Stay the course and know that there are way more people out there supporting them than creating the the negative publicity or or news. I love it. Focus on joy. Focus on joy for the educator. Joy for the kids. Leslie, it's been a pleasure visiting with you. I'm just thinking thanks so much for being my guest today. Thank you, Kevin. I appreciate it. It's always a joy to speak with you.
