Colleagues,
If you haven’t accepted the 96-hour challenge to make your organization better, consider stopping reading right here and use the time to ask yourself, “Why isn’t this the right week to make my organization better?” Yesterday, I laid out a challenge for you to make your organization better. You have 72 hours left to meet that challenge. What action will you take today?
I’ll suggest some additional actions tomorrow. Cheers! Frederick
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Colleagues,
In about 96 hours you will be reading Friday’s message in which I will ask you to reflect on how your organization is better than it was when the week started. This week, you can create a stronger organization! It isn’t rocket science and it isn’t even that difficult. Here are the keys:
Some examples of how to make your organization stronger:
Ninety-six hours from now, your organization could be better. If you are up to the challenge, please reply here and let me know what you are going to do! Cheers! Frederick Colleagues,
Many school administrators are overwhelmed by discipline issues this year. After 18 months out of school, many young people are struggling to adjust their behaviors. As a result, school leaders can’t get into classrooms, let alone follow up on their observations to help teachers grow. The fourth principle of strategic leadership is focusing on helping people get better. The third principle of strategic leadership is making incremental progress. Dealing with a typical office referral takes 10-45 minutes. Eliminating one office referral a day frees time for the leader to do two 5-minute coaching sessions or maybe a 10-minute observation followed by a 5-minute post-conference. If we can make incremental progress, we can invest that saved time into our people. Most schools have a few teachers who haven’t learned to manage their classrooms, and poorly managed classrooms produce excessive discipline referrals. So, one way to create progress is to choose one willing teacher and help them develop better management skills. Just one teacher. Then, take the time that would have been spent dealing with that teacher’s discipline problems and invest it in another teacher. This won’t “fix” things, but over time things will get better. Reflect:
Cheers! Frederick Colleagues,
I was planning to have the greenhouse done mid-October, but it may not be done before January. What happened? First, scope creep. Here is how my plan grew:
Second, I had other major projects going on. You may recall we has our floor replaced almost a year ago to this day. We then replaced the interior doors and I never finished putting up all the new trim and baseboards, which I am making myself. We are also rebuilding our inside staircase. In hindsight, I had no business tackling the greenhouse this year. Ironically, I have already invested long hours and close to $2,000 dollars into the greenhouse/shed and all I have is a partial skeleton and a big pile of lumber in my driveway. Despite all the resources, I have no functional greenhouse and am worse off now than I was before. This happens in organizations too. We see a need and begin a BIG change project. In doing so, we begin to neglect the other BIG change projects that we already had going, so they languish. In the end, we may have some improvements, but we also have a lot of wasted resources and burned-out people. Please be a wiser leader than me. Embrace small change. Cheers! Frederick Colleagues,
As I write this letter I have too much to do. I know I can’t get everything done. Literally, there is not enough time in the day to complete every task. For many of you, this is a daily occurrence. So how do we proceed? There is a fundamental choice to be made:
One path prioritizes purpose. The other path prioritizes urgency. Remember the three epiphanies:
After I finish writing this, I will spend several minutes looking at the things I need to get done. I will think about which ones are most important in helping me fulfill my purpose. Then I will choose my priorities. Oh, and choosing not to be intentional is a choice! Cheers! Frederick |
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