Rethinking Leadership: Why “Doable” Might Be the Most Powerful Strategy in Education Today

Hello. This is Kevin Dougherty, your host for Just Thinking. I'm also the chief marketing officer for NeuroPoints. And today we have a return guest, Justin Richardson. We so enjoyed visiting with Justin the first time we decided we got to have him back. But before I say anything further about Justin, I'm going to let him introduce himself to those of you who don't yet know him. So Justin, welcome. Thanks, Kevin. Back by popular demand. Yeah, of course. Hey, I'm Justin Richardson. I am the soulful leader of a company called Waymaker Leadership Development. And I have an awesome team. We help support folks in education and beyond around just what it means to ground ourselves in leadership again, to really create systems that are soulful, to create conversations and support that's soulful. And that's kind of a catchall phrase, soulful. So maybe we can jump into that a little bit today, but that's what we do. So Kevin, thanks for letting me be on this with you again. I always enjoy my conversations with you. I do as well. You're a great friend, Justin. And I look forward to hearing what you have to share today. So let's kick it off with Justin, what are we thinking about regarding being a soulful leader? What does that mean? Oh, that's good. We might have to have a five part series on this, Kevin. But but I'll tell you, one of the things that I really enjoy, Kevin, is whenever I get a chance to hear another soulful leader and they say something, a little nugget or they share a thought or ask a question that provokes a lot of thinking in me. I had that opportunity recently and I wanted to share that gift with you the audience that's listening to us. I had a chance to speak to a group of superintendents. And there was a person who spoke before me, he's a football coach, Andy. He was kind of a local legend football coach. And he was sharing with the superintendents and he shared some research from a person named Jeff Janssen. Jeff Janssen talks a little bit about the commitment continuum. And he shared it in-depth. I'm not gonna go in-depth about it, but I did want to share a little bit about how Coach put this into play. And then I wanna see your thinking on that, Kevin. So do me a favor. If you guys are out there and listening, if you have a piece of paper, grab a piece of paper and turn it landscape. Kevin, do you have a piece of paper? I do, sir. Okay, grab it, turn it landscape and do me a favor, draw an arrow. I'll show you if you guys are watching, draw an arrow across there, just left to right, a continuum. There's arrows on both sides and take that same marker and put one little hash mark like right in the middle of it. And then draw equal distance, draw two to the left and two to the right. So now we have five little hash marks across there. Is that right? You got it. Okay, good. Good. So everyone at home is doing the same thing. Here's one of the things that, coach Andy said. He said, there's some research by Jeff Janssen. He talks about this commitment continuum. And he said, if you go to the far left hand side, label that hash mark resistant. Resistant. And what coach said was that people who are resistant, you don't have many of these in an organization, you hope you don't. And he said, resistant people are actively working against you. So that's kind of who they are. And then on that next hash mark, write the word reluctant. Reluctant. And he said reluctant people, they're not fully bought in. I mean, they'll do it. But if it doesn't work, they're gonna be the ones who go, told you so. I knew that wasn't gonna work. One in the middle, and if you go look at Jeff Janssen's, I'd invite everyone to go out and study it deeper. There's some other categories, but I'm simplifying it for us today. The one in the middle, write the word compliant. Compliant. And he said, what coach said about this, he said, These are the people who show up every day and do what you ask them to do. At the end of the day, they go So show up every day, do what you ask them to do. Then the next one over is committed. Committed. And these are your above and beyond. They always give a little extra. They do what you do and then plus some. And the last one over there is compelled. Compelled. And these people are really personally bought into where you're headed. As a matter of fact, if you go that far, just a little past compelled, he called that obsessed. So you know who you are. Okay, so that's and so Coach was talking about that. And hopefully, you don't have many compelled people in an organization either. That kind of creates chaos. And so Coach said this, he said, I'll tell you what, you give me a team full of and then he said one of those words. He said, We're going go win some games. Look at those words, Kevin. You guys that are with us, at those words and see what do you think Coach said in this? He said, Committed. I thought so too. He said, Compliant. Really? I don't think I like this guy. I'm not sure though. But I I'm with you. I was hooked, I'm curious. Tell me more. Here's what coach said. If you go look at the research on this, that Jeff Jansen takes it to a way different level on it. But I'm kind of curious about this. And what coach said is he said, I'll tell you what, you give me a group of kids who show up every day and do what I ask, run the offense and run the defense. We show up, we draw up. I'm going go win some games. He said, I'm always going to have some kids that are above and beyond. We're always going to have that. We're always going to have some kids who are the other side of that. But he said, if I've got a big group of my team that show up every day and do what we ask them to do, we're going to go win. And I thought, Okay, that's really interesting to me Because the connection I made and this is where coaches message stops. This is Justin from here on out. But I was really thinking, Kevin, how does that apply to schools? See, I really was thinking, if we had a campus where teachers showed up every day, and to the best of their ability, they ran the game plan that was put together, and at the end of the day, they go home. Could we win? What would that look like? I've been asking people along the way whenever I share this is what do we have? Does that make sense in terms of the teachers and the makeup of a campus? And do we have a large group there in the middle? And what I've heard over and over again, Kevin, from some of the conversations is that we do have a large group in the middle, Justin. As a matter of fact, as we continue to hire more and more, especially in this generation that we're having more and more teachers who are coming in and having kind of that balance that we talk about almost. They come in, they do something at the end of the day, they're ready to go home. There's other stuff going on. I was thinking, what might it look like if we really tried to build systems around this thinking. Okay, so I'll give you a couple of examples. And I would love if you guys are listening to pause it and talk to a neighbor. This is a good time. Do you get it? Do you understand it? What do you think about that? And actually, Kevin, because we don't have a ton of time, but I want to flip it back over to you for just a second. Whenever you hear that, what was going through your mind or what connections were you making? And then I'll come back and share a couple of stories. Yeah, thank you for the opportunity to reflect on what you've just shared. My sense is that it made me think of James Clear and just focusing on that one percent of improvement sort of every day. And like you, I went to committed first because I thought, yes, you need people that are committed and have some level of passion. Maybe they're not obsessed, but they've got that drive and that grit and energy. But then I thought the other side of that is those individuals can also burn out more readily. They can get injured, they could get hurt, they could be overwhelmed, stressed. So I can see the thinking behind having the majority of your folks be compliant and how that can move things forward kind of a la James Clear, just that one percent each day. And you don't even see it. It's like I go to the gym and work out. I don't see anything, but I'm going four or five days a week. And I know things are happening, but I can't see it because it's happening over time. That would be my frustration as the leader because I'm anxious to have those results happen quickly. Okay, okay. So I love that thought. What I've heard from folks is that we do, we have this growing group in the middle. And I was visiting just the other day. I mean, think about this. If I am a district leader, I've been a district leader. I've done this. I can't tell you how many times. I'll send out a note to all of the principals, and I'll say all the elementary principals, we're gonna build this third grade thing. So I want you to send me one third grade teacher from your campus to the central office. We're going to come together, and we're going to build this third grade team or this third grade thing. And who do the principals send me? Look at that continuum. I'll tell you, they send me the people who are compelled, maybe almost obsessed. Send me their rock stars, right? So now I'm sitting here, I've got a room full of rock stars, and we build this rock star thing. And then we say, great, now go back to campus and implement it. And guess what? It falls apart. And it falls apart sometimes, Kevin, I'm really wondering, we building systems that were built for those that go above and beyond always? What if we built systems that were built around those people who show up every day, do what we ask them to do and go home at the end of the day? And over and over again, Kevin, I've done this. I've been part of it. I had a call from a district recently. They said, Justin, it's been a long time since we've done some PLC training. Would you come out and do some PLC training for us? And I said, well, tell me what you mean by PLC. Because that varies in places. They talked about the typical stuff. I mean, it could have been one of the books that were written on this. And so I said, what do you expect people to do whenever they're together collaborating? They said, well, we want them to look at the data that students are walking in the door with, know a little bit about what they know already, and then plan really engaging tier one instruction and then assess them, analyze the data from the assessment, build an intervention plan for this and implement the intervention for not only those that missed it, but for those who need acceleration too. Blah, blah, blah. I said, great. That's awesome. How often do your teams collaborate? I said once a week for forty five minutes. And they're not doing it? They said, Well, Justin, they'll I mean, they go extra, they do the No, some do. A bunch of people don't, Kevin. One of the things is I think if we're building systems that require above and beyond, and we're giving it to a majority of our staff that are compliant, showing up every day doing what we're asking them to do. And then we're constantly giving them feedback that you're not enough. You're not doing enough. You have to do more. And what's happening to that middle group, in my opinion, is that we're starting to lose some of the joy, some of the happiness, some of the hope that's going on in education right now. And because we're giving people stuff that they can't do, and I don't mean that in a derogatory way. But they have boundaries, and they can't do it within those boundaries. And I think, too, one, if we're constantly giving people that feedback that you're not enough, then I don't think that that group and two things are going to happen. Either that group in the middle is going to leave or worse, they might slide back the other way on the continuum. One hundred percent. Hundred percent. Wow, Justin, this is really powerful. It's resonating with me pretty deeply. Just the very concept of not feeling like you're enough. And while that may not be the intended message of leadership, that's the message that's being received. And that's so demotivating And it can be exhausting. I think I can see why they might slip back down this continuum. Yeah. And I'll share with you the lady I was talking to about the PLC training. Once I asked how often they meet, I said, Do you think they can do that? She said, Okay, Justin, I get it. I get it. We need to make it simple. And I said, Maybe no, don't use that word because there's not much simple, Kevin, about what we do in education. Almost people don't like that. Right? And so one of the things I talked to her about is what if we use the word doable? What if we said what we're trying to create is something that's doable for the people who are compliant? And one of my friends said, Justin, I don't like that word compliant. Will you just make the story up without that word? And I go, No, because it creates a little emotional connection. But what if we made systems that were very doable by the people who show up every day and do what we ask them to do? And whenever we bring the third grade teachers together to build the third grade thing, then what if we just ask ourselves, can the people who are here right in the middle of that continuum, could they do what we just built in the time that they have with the resources that they have with who they really are? And if the answer is no, I think we need to go back to the drawing board. If the answer is yes, this is doable by those folks, then I think maybe we're on to something. Because, Kevin, what happens is if we create doable systems for those people who do that, then their confidence grows. They start to think I can do this. Maybe I want to stay in this thing called education. And I'll tell you this, too. I don't think that it puts a lid on the people who are committed. They're still going to go above and beyond. They're still going to be rock stars. But I think sometimes we approach our development from the lens of this is what rock stars do, so let's make everyone do this. And I just wonder if there's a different approach that could help us along with this. So I'm going to pause. I want to pause again, Kevin, and jump into the conversation with you. Yeah, no, I appreciate it because you've triggered a question in my mind. So when we think of great leaders or people that are effective leaders, a lot of times we think of individuals that are very committed and compelled, have strong vision and someone that people want to follow, that sort of thing. But I wonder, is there a disconnect if you have a leader that's on that end of the spectrum and you're trying to appeal to this majority that's compliant because we know if we do this, it's doable. Things will move forward. How does that leader adjust? Should they adjust? Is it a different situation when it's the building leader versus the teachers in the classroom? How does all of that come together? Yeah, awesome question. And I think part, yes, we want compelled leaders. We want people to be there. But I just think it's as simple as asking the question, is it doable? Picture that teacher right now that's in your head, it's on your campus. That is that person, man. They're rock solid. They show up every day. They do what we ask them to do. Just keep asking, is this doable for that person? And if it is, way to go. Let's roll. And don't put a lid on your rock stars. Keep going. We want them to do that. I think that's it. And Kevin, I would share this with you too. This is not a judgment on anyone. When it comes to education, when it comes to teaching, I am compelled, maybe obsessed. When it comes to doing my taxes, I am compliant, maybe reluctant. This is not about who you are as a human. I'm not sharing that. I'm just talking about the boundaries you have when it comes to the job called teaching and where people are with this. Over and over again, keep thinking, I was visiting with a group of social studies leaders recently. And the main person in charge said, Justin, we are losing more teachers in December than we ever have in the past. They're just putting the keys on the desk and saying I'm gone. And I said, that's interesting. Number one, I bet we're not losing them in December. I bet we're losing them October. Just giving you the keys in December. I said, What? Do me a favor. I said, we got some chart paper up and her team was in there. I said, write down all of the things you would want a social studies teacher to do to be successful in this school district. Like, what is it? I baited them a little bit because they got excited. They were listening out all these great practices they had. By the time they were finished, the paper was full. And I said, so this is what a social studies teacher needs to be able to do to be successful. And then, oh, I get it. And I says too much, guys. Can your teachers do this? And the problem, Kevin, is that sometimes our expectations because we love all the stuff, we put so much out there that teachers can't get confident in what they're doing. Don't get good at it. You know what I mean? And then at some point, if you do something over and over again, you never feel like you're getting good at it. You say, I'm gone. I don't want to do this anymore. And so I challenged, I said, mark some things off. Really? What's at the foundation? They marked a couple of things said, No, try again. Go. And we got it down to where there's just a few things on the poster. I said, if our first year social studies teachers could do these few things well, would you be happy with that? And they go, yeah, we really would. And I said, then let's narrow it down. If these things are doable for our first year folks, let's get really good at them. And have bravery to say we're gonna focus on this and we're not gonna try to be great at everything. And so Kevin, and here's the deal. You asked me earlier what kind of soulful leader, what does that mean? I think that's it. I think a soulful leader creates systems that are doable for the real people that are on their campus. That a soulful leader honors the fact that some people want to go home and love their family. I think a soulful leader asked that question. Is this doable for our folks? That's one of the things, Kevin, I think, and it's not easy to do. It's not simple. It's complicated. It takes guts to have to say no to things because the district next door is doing it. And so is that over there? But to say we're not, these are foundational things and this is what we're going to be ridiculously good at. And I think when we do that, we start to empower the majority of our teachers on campus to be confident teachers and to go there. So yeah, that's what I've been thinking about, Kevin. And I have more stories to go if you want to. I'll hand it back to you. I definitely want to hear more. And it's taking me back to my principal days and having the Reading Recovery program in place. And reading recovery was very slow and steady, went away because people thought it costs too much money. But we had tremendous success in both schools where as principal. But part of the great benefit of it was, it was a system that was set up just as you described. We weren't trying to create rockstar readers necessarily. We just want kids that could read because this the kids that were in the program were your lowest ten percent based on the initial assessment of first graders. So we were taking the lowest of the low and we were taking them to at or above grade level in sixteen weeks. And it was every day. And the reading recovery teachers had to account for days not served. They had to be there. So that compliant component was critically important. And it wasn't about them being really gung ho or being at that obsessed level. It was a clear program and they needed to institute it. And if you trust the system, you're going to get great results. And did. So I'm really loving what you're saying. I will say I'm feeling very guilty looking back as a principal because I think sometimes I may have been guilty of unintendedly making people feel like they weren't enough because they were in that compliant stage. Me too, Kevin. I think one of the things principals that are listening in on this, go easy on yourself. And I think it's just fun to have the conversation with let's go. So I would invite anyone, Kevin, are that person, I'm that person. If we can connect with you, we want to. But I think also look at the committees that your teachers are serving on. And do you go to the rock star? Are they on five committees? And that one teacher who's there every day doing their They're not on any. That may be part of the like, watch for that. Because you know what it's like. We were probably those teachers on every committee that the district had to go in because what if I said, hey, principal, send me your third grade teacher so we can build the third grade thing. What if everyone sent me that compliant teacher? And we had a room full of them. And we said, let's build this third grade team. And they built something that the compliant teachers could do. And they went back to campus. Guess what? I bet it's going be implemented. And there's going to be some that make magic out of it. And there's going to be some that just are able to do this in a way that honors what's going on. I was having a conversation with a group of coaches, instructional coaches about this the other day. One of them said, Justin, it was kind of one of those teachers these days or this generation kind of conversation. And they said, I can remember when I was in the classroom, I got there at five in the morning and I stayed till eight at night. All my plans were laminated by the time kids showed up the next morning. I'm exaggerating that. But part of the question was, Okay, number one, is that the case now? Or do you see that in the majority of teachers that are on campus? And the answer was no, it's not. I said in the second part is, was that really healthy for us when we were doing that? I mean, we were really doing that or not, but maybe there's a better way to and I think there could be Kevin. If we built systems that were doable? We created confident teachers that were it's always going to require a lot of extra because that's just who we are. But that made the job as doable as possible with the real resources and the real time we have. Maybe we'll find out that folks want to stay in this a little longer. And wouldn't that be a beautiful thing? It would. You're also making me think of Doug Reeves and how he talks about continuous improvement. I put my hand over my heart when you say Doug Reeves. He's a good Boston boy too. But anyway, he talked about for many years narrowing down your goals for your school or district to a handful or less. And then I saw him at ASCD a couple of years ago and he said, one, if you can do one thing really well, it kind of speaks to this whole illustration that you shared with us. Just one, don't need to be a rockstar. We can do one thing better each year. You're gonna make the kind of growth, you're gonna be enough. Kevin, will you allow me one shameless plug? Yes, that's probably why we're here. So, yeah. Okay, good. We at Waymaker, we had opportunity to publish three books. I'm super proud of them. And that can be a conversation for another day with some of them. But one of them I want to share with you today and it's this. It's called Classroom Foundations. And the Classroom Foundations book was created for could be for new teachers, could be for teachers who have been in the profession for thirty years. But it was really built around this idea of creating doable practices for teachers. And we created this, there are four chapters in this, and they focus in on navigating classroom management, creating classroom management practices that are very doable for the teachers we have in classrooms today to look at understanding student behavior, teaching for mastery, and then finally understanding the learner. And Kevin, I know curiosity is near and dear to your heart. That's chapter four is all about how do we create curious learners in this. So this is about several districts are using this for some of their induction work first year, second year, third year type of teachers whenever they're doing academies for this. But anyway, shameless plug for that. If you guys are looking for something, if you were to say, okay, what would the four things be we wrote on our poster that we would do incredibly well? And can I get some help with that? That's some of the support we're sharing. So anyway, you can find that out on our website whenever we get it. Yeah, are bawaymaker dot com. So bawaymaker dot com. And there's a little store site on there so you can learn more about that. And that's also where they can contact us. Yeah, for sure. District wise, Harlandale is using it, Hereford is using it, Van is using it. San Angelo ISD. As a matter of fact, San Angelo just wrote a really nice article about this, the partnership we have around classroom foundations for this. So those are some off the top of my head. We've got several more. And some of the teacher prep programs, which I'm really proud of. Some of the alternative teacher prep programs are using this for their curriculum as they're working through parts of that too. So yeah, it's fun. That is awesome. Well, what I like about the districts that you just shared and having worked in the great state of Texas for so many years, I know where all of those places are, and they're not all in the same region. You've got a little bit all over the state and different size districts as well. It'll be interesting as you continue to get more feedback, what that looks like from this very diverse group of districts that you're working with. Yeah, yeah, thanks. And sorry if I left folks out of that list. I was kind of popping them off the top of my head. Well, think you have the smart So you didn't have a choice. So it's my fault if somebody was locked out. So, Justin, we try to keep our episodes around thirty minutes and we're rounding out our time right now. Know people are busy and have a lot of things that are vying for their time. But I wanted you to have the last word. Is there anything else, Justin, about what you're just thinking that you didn't have the opportunity to address on this episode? There will be others. Good. I can't wait. And Kevin, thank you for what you do, what you've done for a career to support educators and what you're doing continuously with this. So I think what's on my mind, Kevin, is I talked a little bit about instruction with this doable practices and instruction. What would doable practices around data analysis look like? I think we have layers of complexity with the data we're looking at. But if we were to put one or two or three pieces of data up here and said, Okay, now if we look at this, this is going to result in doable action. After we've been looking at this, what would that look like? And I'm going to give a shout out to a district I've been working with, La Porte ISD. We have been doing some deep work with La Porte, Doctor. Jackson down in that area. They're just an incredible team. But they're starting to I think we're starting to get to an answer for that. What is doable with the data we're actually looking at? So that's been fun. But that's what's on my mind. Can we get people to be brave about data practices that are tried and true and make them a little more doable for the real folks we have on campus? Well, I love that you mentioned LaPorte because Doctor. Jackson has been on the Just Thinking podcast. So a longtime friend and really excited to hear about the work you're doing with him because he's an exceptional soulful leader as well. Agree. Well, thank you so much for being part of Just Thinking today, Justin, and we will do this again soon.