Tag Archives: leadership

Time on task

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A running joke as principal of a school is that the biggest part of the job is ‘other duties as assigned’. It’s the things you don’t expect in your day, like mopping up a mess, or being first aid attendant, or problem solving an issue you never dealt with before, and never thought you would. A vice principal I had many years ago said, “Being a VP is only a 4-hour a day job, the problem is you usually get almost none of that work done between 8:30am and 4pm.

The thing that I find most challenging is time on task… and staying on task. When there are 1,000 little interruptions in a day, it often takes time to get back into what you are doing. Something that could be done in 20 minutes uninterrupted can end up taking well over half a day to get done, and 25-30 minutes on task to do because each time you come back to the task you’ve got to figure things out again.

I had an issue recently where I was going back and forth with a parent on email. It was for something we are planning together. He sent me an email, I followed up with the planning with a teacher and got back to the parent… except I didn’t??? He emailed a week+ later asking for my response. I went to my sent mail, searched my drafts, the response I thought I sent wasn’t sent. I did have a response and exchange with the teacher in Microsoft Teams but did not send a response to the parent. Everything is good now, but I hate the idea that we were both waiting on each other and the holdup was me.

Stuff like that doesn’t happen often but when it does, it’s usually when I’m juggling too many things at once. The ‘other duties as assigned’ add elements of both surprise and distraction to your day and staying focused on all the metaphorical balls you are juggling isn’t easy.

Using the juggling metaphor reminded me of another metaphor a friend shared a while ago: “Stuff, not people.”

“Stuff, not people. When things get really busy, and you can’t do everything, things will ‘fall off the back of your truck’. When that happens, make sure that it’s stuff, and not people.”

As we head into the holidays, a stressful and very busy time for many, this is an important reminder… at least for me… that a list of tasks can wait, a lot of interruptions are important parts of my day. And while my tasks can feel important, they aren’t as important as the people I work with and for.

Imperfectly great

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Our open house last night was wonderful! Our students were amazing ambassadors for our school and really did an excellent job with their presentations.

I was discussing it with one of my teachers that did the bulk of the work supporting our students and we reflected on the presentation. My comments were that it was the the worst show we’ve done with respect to the technical side and the best show we’ve done with respect to the messaging.

The technical issues included long(ish) transitions/set up between parts of the show, a live feed failure (beyond our control), a microphone feedback pop right in the middle of a performance, as well as a few mic level issues. The thing is, these weren’t awful, they just weren’t up to our usual high standard.

When speaker Alvin Law came to our school a few years ago at the end of the show he said to me, “What kind of a school is this?” I was a bit confused by the question and he said, “I present all over the place, to big companies with massive budgets, and I’ve never had a sound crew so professional and have the sound work so well as with your kids today.”

I tell sound/tech crews that their job is to be invisible. When a microphone is too quiet, they get noticed, if a microphone pops with feedback or if there is a delay in setup, they get noticed. A good team isn’t noticed because everything works. Last night the tech issues were not awful, they just weren’t perfect. No one in the audience would point it out as disappointing, they would all recognize that this was a student run show and there were a few minor kinks.

That’s the thing about truly letting the students lead, it’s not always going to be perfect, but there is a positive vibe that is given off when students get to run the show, and ‘perfect’ is usually a less than realistic goal.

The overall presentation was really solid, in fact I think the messaging was very focused around student voice and you could hear that throughout the show. It’s funny because I can think back a few years to a show where everything went exactly as planned and the show was pretty much perfect. When I told my teacher that I thought this show was even better than the messaging of that ‘perfect’ show, he agreed and said, that show was too slick. It was polished but student voice didn’t come through.

We’ve gotten pretty good at letting students really lead. We’ve worked with perfectionists who stress about every assignment they hand in and taught them how some things need to be good enough, and helped them rethink the definition of done, while other things they do they should really make as perfect as can be.

While a big presentation to over 160 people should be as perfect as can be, when you are letting students run a show and the students who do so change every year, things won’t go perfectly every time. But the job is done. The presentation is over, and what we saw were some awesome kids, doing their best, and putting on a great show that really showed that they take pride and ownership in our school.

Last night was imperfectly great. The show was not as tight and seamless as we’ve had in the past, but it was authentically a student production. It had student voice, and I thought the messaging was the best we’ve ever shared as a school. Our students were awesome!

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Here’s a short video clip from the event.

Two wolves, 15 years later

The memory dates back 30 years, to the summer of 1993. The original writing dates back 15 years, a reflection on Remembrance Day 2008.

It’s one of my favourite pieces I’ve ever written, and it seems more relevant today than it did 15 years ago. I fear that we are farther away from peace in the Middle East than we have been since the 6 Day War of ’67, the summer before I was born. I wish there was a peaceful way forward, but I don’t see it. The good wolf is going hungry.

I’m not 100% sure the ‘two wolves’ story is Cherokee, and it’s sometimes shared as being told by a grandmother, not a grandfather. No matter the origin, it is the perfect backdrop to my post, and it speaks to the idea that these themes are nothing new to humanity. Unfortunately we don’t truly learn from our mistakes, and so history repeats itself… I hope that enough people will feed the good wolf that maybe, just maybe, we can find ways to live and love in harmony, rather than focus on hate, anger, and our differences in a way that make us act more like animals, and less like humans. Less like hungry wolves, no matter their disposition.

Two wolves

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. 

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. 

One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” 

“The other wolf is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.” 

“The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person too.” 

The grandson thought about this for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win? 

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

It was the summer of 1993 and I was in Israel playing Water Polo at the Maccabiah Games. Certain memories stick with me to this day:

  • 40,000+ cheering fans at opening ceremonies
  • Floating in the Dead Sea
  • Having a semi-automatic machine gun unintentionally, but repeatedly bumping into me on a dance floor
  • Masada
  • Visiting Jerusalem and the Wailing Wall

My first visit to Jerusalem held a surprise. We had a day off before the semi finals and our team decided to take the bus tour to Jerusalem. I was ‘tagging along’ rather than being one of the people who chose what we did, so I neglected to read the advertisement for the bus tour. I neglected to notice that the bus first stopped at the Holocaust Museum.

I hopped on the bus, camera packed, ready to visit the sights of this ancient city. Imagine my surprise when the bus pulled into the parking lot of the Museum. “Where are we?”

My happy-go-lucky-tourist-with-camera-in-hand attitude hit a plexiglass wall the moment I walked in the door. There in front of me, on a pedestal, was a plexiglass cube about 40cm³ filled with gold teeth. Early on in the concentration camps these were pulled from the mouths of Jews on their way to the gas chambers, but it was quickly realized that dead Jews don’t scream and so they started pulling these valuable gold teeth out after the Jews had been gassed.

The Hall of Names containing Pages of Testimony commemorating the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. Photo credit: David Shankbone

The museum tour was quiet and solemn. Two translated letters, one from a German Commandant and the other from a German Captain,  also stick with me to this day. Forgive my paraphrasing, this was over 15 years ago.

The one from the German Concentration Camp Commandant was sent to another Commandant inviting him to come and see the new gas chambers where they could now, ‘efficiently exterminate 2,000 rather than just 750 Jews at a time.”

Dehumanize the targets.

The one from the Captain was giving advice to other Captains and it said, ‘Be sure that when executing Jews by firing squad to have at least two of your soldiers shooting at each Jew. Although this may seem like a waste of bullets, it removes the guilt that your soldiers feel since they know that even if they did not shoot, that the Jew would still be terminated. The cost of the extra bullet is worth the removal of guilt from your soldiers and the boost in morale.’

Depersonalize the deed.

Both of these perverse letters have had a lasting impression on me because in their own sick way, they make perfect sense. If you are going to be in the business of murder, it makes sense to think of it as extermination, as we do not think twice about exterminating bothersome bugs. If you are going ask soldiers to be obedient and murder for you, it makes sense that you remove guilt from their task.

Rationalize evil.

We do that today, after all we have ‘counter-terrorism’ and we do illegal things in the name of ‘national security’ and our soldiers die in ‘friendly fire’ and of course we don’t support this, rather we ‘support our troops’.

Which wolf are we feeding?

I’ve taught a student of the Bahia faith, whose family had to flee Iran in the middle of the night for fear of being murdered.

I’ve taught a student who hiked for three days in the mountains of Afghanistan with his pregnant mom, younger brother and father, as they fled the new regime. Mom was a teacher in Afghanistan, but when I met her she was washing dishes in a restaurant.

I’ve taught a Serbian who did her Grade 8 public speech on the cruelty of the United Nations. Her Grandfather and best friend were blown up in a crowded shopping mall by a UN plane. Her life was spared because she forgot her purse in the car and went running back to get it.

Who is the enemy?

My life has been very different. As an immigrant to Canada I moved to a mostly Greek neighbourhood and had three close friends that welcomed me into their houses and their lives. I followed these friends to a High School where, for different reasons, they all left by Grade 11, leaving me to fend for myself for Grades 12 and 13, (Ontario had Grade 13 back then).

I left high school with 5 very close friends: A Canadian born of Scottish decent, a German, an African Born Shiite Muslim, a Canadian Sunni Muslim, and a Canadian Jew with East Indian decent. Oh and as for me… my wife describes me as a Chinese Jew from Barbados… (I describe myself as Heinz57 or a mutt).

I wore a kilt in the wedding party for Ross, the Canadian Scott, and I lived with Kassim, the Shiite Muslim, in his house for 5 days leading up to his wedding, living as a surrogate brother and participating in every ceremony.

And as for being a Jew, I think most Jews would say that I am not Jewish. You see, Judiasim is a matriarchal religion and my Grandmother, my Mother’s Mother, is to this day a Catholic. She was happily married, a role model marriage like few I’ve seen, to my Jewish Grandfather until he died.

We can co-exist.

When I read Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat I was drawn to the ideas in his very powerful final chapter where he talks of cultures that are stuck on History rather than Hope. There can never be peace in the Middle East if History trumps Hope. Jerusalem taught me that: As a city with great historical significance to three very different religions, Jerusalem should be a sacred and holy place, not a place of hostility and tension.  But where we have ‘anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego,’ we have evil, and we will never have peace.

We remember.

There are parts of History we should not forget. After all, World War One was the ‘war to end all wars’… And so I am writing this on Remembrance Day for a reason. Whether it be concentration camps and the Holocaust or Hiroshima and Nagasaki or genocide in Russia, Rwanda, or East Timor… or any tragic historical event worth remembering… we choose to remember so that we do not repeat our mistakes. We must want and hope that things can be better. We must see lessons learned, not resentment and mistrust. The past will repeat itself if we do not see ‘joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith’… faith that tomorrow can be better than today.

And the battle continues…

“The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person too.” 

The grandson thought about this for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win? 

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.” 

May you always feed the good wolf.

Related: In Remembrance 2019.

The task of education today

This quote was shared with us in our Principals meeting yesterday:

“This is the task of education today: to confront the almost unimaginable design challenge of building an education system that provides for the re-creation of civilization during a world system transition. This challenge brings us face to face with the importance of education for humanity and the basic questions that structure education as a human endeavor.” ~Zachary Stein

One of our Assistant Superintendent’s added, “We are trying to build a utopian society in triage conditions.”

There is no doubt that it is much harder to be an educator today than it was when I started my career over 25 years ago. And as we navigate ‘building an education system that provides for the re-creation of civilization during a world system transition,’ we are bound to struggle a bit. How do we mark assignments that are written or co-written by AI? What skills are going to be needed for the top jobs of 2030? How different will that be for 2040?

Ultimately we want to support the education of students who will become kind, contributing citizens. But how do we do this in a world where Truth seems arbitrary to the sources you get it from, and politicians, religion, and corporations are all pushing conflicting information and agendas? I think this goes beyond just working on competencies like critical thinking. It requires mental gymnastics that most adults struggle with.

Meanwhile, the majority of school schedules still put students into blocks of time based on the subjects they are learning. “Let’s think critically, and do challenging problems, but only in this one narrow field of study.” We aren’t meeting the design challenges we face today if that’s what we continue to do.

More than ever students, future citizens, need to understand complex issues from multiple perspectives. They need to understand nuance, and navigate when to defend an idea, when to compromise, and when to avoid engagement altogether. They need to be prepared to say “I don’t know,” and then do the hard work of finding out, when the accuracy of information is incomplete or even suspect. They need to be prepared to say, “I was wrong,” and “I am sorry,” and also be prepared to stick to their convictions and defend ideas that aren’t always the accepted norm.

That’s not the future I prepared students for 25 years ago. It is indeed an ‘almost unimaginable design challenge‘, and as we navigate new challenges we have to recognize that mistakes will be made… but not changing is far scarier than trying.

Do it well

How long will it take… to do it well?

What resources do you need… to do it well?

Who can help you… to do it well?

What can you put off… so that you do it well?

Some jobs just need to get done, others should only be done if they are done well. The work is rewarded with a job well done. So give it the time, put in the resources, get the support you need, and put forward an honest, concerted effort… to do it well.

Teamwork makes the dream work

It’s so much easier to enjoy work when you have a good team. When you have the opportunity to work with people who not only get stuff done, but also step up and implement ideas that move everyone towards a common vision, then you know you are in a good place. When others have strengths that complement yours, that fill in the gaps where you aren’t as strong, great things can happen.

Momentum is gained when there are more people who step up than don’t… When you have enough people interested not just in doing what needs to be done, but also doing things that make work better. They develop ideas and follow them up. They share in, and take the lead towards, building positive outcomes, and their interests align with the vision of the team.

Not everyone has to step up this way. It’s unlikely that you’ll be on a team where everyone is willing to step up and do extra. But when there is a critical mass of the ones who do step up, who find their niche where they are giving the team a little extra, who get excited about adding value, then teamwork really makes the dream work.

And to top it all off, this excites you to want to do more.

Do the thing

“Preparing to do the thing isn’t doing the thing.

Scheduling time to do the thing isn’t doing the thing.

Making a to-do list for the thing isn’t doing the thing.

Telling people you’re going to do the thing isn’t doing the thing.

Messaging friends who may or may not be doing the thing isn’t doing the thing.

Writing a banger tweet about how you’re going to do the thing isn’t doing the thing.

Hating on yourself for not doing the thing isn’t doing the thing. Hating on other people who have done the thing isn’t doing the thing. Hating on the obstacles in the way of doing the thing isn’t doing the thing.

Fantasizing about all of the adoration you’ll receive once you do the thing isn’t doing the thing.

Reading about how to do the thing isn’t doing the thing. Reading about how other people did the thing isn’t doing the thing. Reading this essay isn’t doing the thing.

The only thing that is doing the thing is doing the thing.” ~ Strangest Loop

It doesn’t matter if it’s a workout, a phone call, a challenging conversation, or even a blog post. The task won’t get done unless you actually do it. That said, if you want it done, it’s good to schedule it, it’s good to add it to your tasks, and it’s good to tell people and make the thing public. The quote above doesn’t dismiss doing these preparatory things, it just identifies that these aren’t enough.

The only thing that is enough is doing the thing.

Authentically empowered

In a recent post. Process, product, and purpose, I shared that there are some teachers coming to learn about our self-directed, inquiry based school. And that our students will be planning and presenting to these teachers. I wanted to expand a bit on the process.

One of our teachers shared this diagram with the students to help them:

Then yesterday they pulled me into their meeting to ask a few questions, (the teacher I mentioned above was teaching or he would have joined us too). The students asked me what my vision for the presentation was.

I said I would like it to be story based. That there are two stories to tell:

1. What’s the experience of a student – both their experience in a school day, and moving from Grade 9 to Grade 12.

2. What is their story? How can they share their personal stories of doing progressively more challenging inquiries?

I also made sure to ask questions about how they would do this and not just make suggestions. My talk with them was a discussion not a one-way sharing. They invited me to the conversation. My final suggestion was that I knew what they were planning was going to answer all the questions the educators asked in advance… So rather than addressing those questions directly, which would disrupt the flow of their narrative, they should end the presentation with a slide of their questions and ask if they missed anything or needed to answer any of them with more depth. They liked this idea as a way to start off their Q&A at the end.

That’s all the direction they got. I was in the room with them for about 15-20 minutes. They will create the presentation and they will want to show it to us before presenting. We won’t have to ask them to see it, they will ask us for feedback and input. That’s part of the process they’ve learned. Further to this, there are 6 of them and we didn’t pick a leader, we didn’t tell them how to organize themselves or the presentation. I did mention that the presentation should be cohesive and not look like 6 different presentations, but I gave no examples of what I meant by this. They didn’t ask, they understood.

If these were a group of Grade 9’s & 10’s we would have scaffolded this a bit more, but these four Grade 11’s and two Grade 12’s are now seasoned presenters. At least one of them will inject some humour into the conversation, any one of could will ‘wow’ the guests with the depth of their inquires, all of them will be incredible ambassadors.

And one final note: none of them are doing this for extra credit. All 6 of them are coming in on a professional development day when all their peers are off school, and they are doing this voluntarily. Why? Because we asked. Because they get to design it, and because they know they go to a pretty unique school and they want to share their story. If they didn’t get the chance to be authentically empowered in this way, it would have been unlikely that the first 6 students I asked all agreed to volunteer. They are six awesome ambassadors, sharing their stories, in their own way, and still meeting the goals of the presentation.

Our guests are going to have a great experience learning about our school from our students, while we will be in a room next door doing our own professional development.

Dropping balls

One of the most frustrating things is to realize that you dropped a ball. You are juggling so many things and one falls through your fingers. You miss it.

A good juggler can make the mistake a part of the show. A good leader can’t.

In this specific case it’s not that bad because the only person really let down is me. I can still pick the ball up, I can put it back into play, and the only harm is that everyone saw me drop it. A little embarrassing, but I can handle it.

I can make the excuse that I had just returned from medical leave and I had a lot of balls to juggle, but that’s not accepting ownership, it’s just making excuses. It was something that should have been prioritized. Other things were less important.

I just need to accept the mistake. I need to own it. I need to pick up the ball and put it back into play. The challenge is not explaining, justifying, or excusing, but owning my mistake. Then doing what I can to fix it.

This is harder to do when you let people down. It is challenging to face when others are counting on you.

Excuses are not the way. Own it. Do your best to make it right, and be sure to keep similar balls in the air in the future. That’s the best way forward.

Not going to win

We are always told to look for the win-win. How can you help both sides of an argument feel like they are getting what they want? The flaw in this is when one side just doesn’t want anything that the other side would consider acceptable. When one side is fixated on a specific outcome, it’s not about working to ‘a’ solution, it’s about working towards ‘their’ solution… the one pre-set and pre-loaded as the only perceivable resolution.

I recently had to deal with a conflict that seemed like it was at a complete impasse. I heard both sides of the argument and was able to negotiate a solution that was acceptable to everyone. It worked because I suggested a much longer timeline. On one side, the person would get what they wanted, but on a slower timeline. On the other side, more work had to be done but in a much more realistic timeline. Easy enough to do, and both sides agreed. In all honesty, I didn’t think it would go as well as it did, and it wouldn’t have if both sides weren’t willing to compromise.

But sometimes one side will be a complete ‘stick in the mud’. Negotiations are halted before they even start because one side refuses to make any concessions. The term “stick to your guns” comes to mind. The thing is, that often ends up feeling like a lose-lose situation.

I’m not saying that people always need to meet in the middle. In fact the middle is seldom the best place to land. But holding a hard line to make a point, or expecting concessions with no compromise seldom leaves anyone feeling that they’ve won.