Control+Shift+Lead - Empower Your Leadership Taking Control in June

Welcome to Control Shift Lead, a lighthearted and honest look into the monthly mindset of school leaders, brought to you by AWB Education and Inspired Edification. Sit back and listen while we talk about planning, pivoting, hallway, hilarity, and heartfelt moments. This is truly ADMIN life unfiltered. Now Here are your hosts, Jim Witchman and Adam Bush. Hey, everybody, and welcome back to Control Shift Lead. I am Adam Bush here with Jim Witchman and Jim. It feels like June for school leaders is always just a mix of celebration and immediate future planning, doesn't it. It Not only is that, but it's also a great time you step take a breath. That's true, It's very true. All right, Well, let's get to our show today. We've got a fresh structure designed to empower every school leader that's tuning in to the Control Shift Lead podcast. So from here on out, each episode we're going to give you three things. We're going to give you something you can control, which is going to be an actionable step that you can take with you. Today we're going to offer a concept to shift your thinking and challenge your assumptions, and then we're going to equip you with a concrete strategy to lead your team and your own work with greater purpose. So, Jim, I like this idea. I think this concept is going to work for us. You know when I hear this, what do you hear? You read the intro like that? What I really like about it is it really kind of evolves into revolves around one topic, and that's perspective. Yeah. So often, especially at the end of the year, we think that we can't control a lot of things, but we've got to be reminded that there are a lot we can't control, where it be our actions or words, perspective in the way we're communicating with folks. Yeah, challenge that I thinking a little bit by shifting a practice, shifting a a perception that maybe we've had. And then also, how do we put this into play? Yeah, it's true. So it's true. So often we get to hear podcasts, we go talking with people and and we have all these grandiose ideas and then it's like, but but what do is how does how do we specifically put this into play? Well? And I think too, first school leaders, there's a lot of stuff we can't control, right and that's just the truth of the job. But there's a lot of things that we can control, and having that opportunity to really focus on that and understanding what those things are, it's going to help us. Help us lead our teams, lead our buildings, lead our school districts, whatever it is we're leading, it's going to help us move forward. I used to joke around and say middle management as a building principle. While there is some truth to that, how we lead in the building really is up to us. That's true. You have a lot more control than we think we do. That's true. For this section today, we're going to talk about things you can control. One of the things in the month of June that we can control is we're kind of now you get the people out of there, teachers out of there. I always make the joke people ask me about you know what you work in the summertime, like, yeah, it's perfect, do you kidding me? No teachers, no parents, no kids. This job is awesome. It's great. Phone calls, Yeah, it's just a bit. It's great. However, having that opportunity to really focus on what you can do or kind of reset ourselves a little bit, time to give yourself permission to do so, though. So I remember coming into June the first day when the teachers are on their on a little break, I guess you would say summer in classes, summer in their vacation mode. Some are running kids around, their own children, and so forth. I remember the office staff and me were the only ones in the building, maybe custodians depending on when their crew was in there at a time. I would sit in my desk and just listen. Phones weren't ringing, they were no Hey, do you got a second, Do you got a minute? It was just silence. And then there were times when I really didn't even know what to do. I had this great idea that was going to get everything accomplished there one day, and then just kind of write it out a little yit. Yeah, obviously didn't work that way, but I had to look at things a little differently. One of the things I found very helpful to me was I'd go to my whiteboard and I would just write down what I wanted to get accomplished that day, and just kind of like I'm going to start something. I'm going to start a project. I think I'm going to finish it all within one day administrators. You know, yeah, we don't. We don't get that opportunity to do. So within that, what I started to do over time was also add to that whiteboard reflections of what we accomplished this school Yearah. Sure, so we can talk about academics, but we could I always like to start with what did we do as a system that made the place better for the students and the adults, Not just the students, but leaning into the adults. What are those fun when when are the when do we laugh with each other? Yeah? And how do I replicate that? Just to make sure that we're intentional about making that happen. I see that because it's really easy to get focused on the academic goals, because of course that's always going to be part of the work we're doing. But if we don't take the time to stop and just all of the other stuff that's going on within a school building and a school day, it's really easy to get hyper focused in the in the goal work and that academic goal work. I think it's a really good idea. Jim. You know another thing I was thinking about too. We're just getting done in fact school district. We've got we've got about a day or two here where we still have teachers that are that are in the buildings, then they're out there. They're out there for summer break. Kids are gone. But we have a lot of stuff that's going on around in the summertime. I mean the state of Iowa where we both reside. We have baseball, softball, and that goes all summer long. But even that, you've got band camps, you've got show choir camps, you got cheerleading, and got all of the stuff that's going on, and there's a great opportunity to just go and just see kids in action or just chat with kids off to the site. It's you're not their principal at that moment in time, right, You're just another person at the school district that's just interested in them, interested in their lives and what they got going on. And sometimes it's hard to get out of your office just to go do that stuff. It feels like we're breaking some rule, like we shouldn't be you know, we should be busy working, we should be planning. But honestly, just sitting out there watching practice for a little bestand at the fence and having a little chat with one of the kids one of the coaches. That's a good moment to be able to focus on that for yourself too, or give yourself permission to do that. Yes, I remember a the it was the middle school principle, so when they would go up to like the ninth grade or softball or the baseball starts right away. Yeah, And I remember going over to the next building where the school was and just sitting out on the fence. Not only did it take me back to the days of old. But that was true, which is good, that's all right. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. It was also great for me to comment when they when they saw me to connect with the students there a little bit more because they couldn't believe that I was there watching their practice or showed interest in them as a human beyond the classroom. And I can I mean, I can only imagine as a high school principal, you can just walk out the door with the ball, the ball diamonds, or even go to the gym for the got summer basketball going on or something. Yeah. Absolutely, their opportunities are all over the place. You just got to get out of your office to go see them. Yeah, you have to get out of your office to go see them. So when we do get that opportunity or make the time, is what I'd like to say, We make the time to listen to or watch practice and so forth. I think it is important that we kind of picture those those athletes or you know, those in the arts and the musicians and singers in the classroom, so that we get a great opportunity to see the whole child. Yeah, that's true. So one of the things we talked about giving yourself permission, and you were talking about being okay with the silence, it's also a time too where you can kind of kind of shut off school for a little bit as well, you know, be okay with taking some time for yourself. I know a lot of people they feel guilty about taking time off in the summertime, but in fact, I'm at the point now where the month of June I'm gonna have to take quite a few days because I get that angry letter from HR It says, take your days. You're not going to give days back, right, But I used to feel guilty about that, But honestly, that's what they're for, and it's a good opportunity for me to recharge the old saying that you you know, you can't pour out of an empty cup, right. I think that's really important for us to just take that moment for ourselves to try to make sure that we're doing the right stuff. So I just got in talking about seeing the students as a whole child, seeing them as a human, and so sometimes we forget to do the same for us. We're a principle, So we shouldn't be seen in the grocery store at ten am, yeah, when we might be grabbing a treat or whatever the case is, and that's okay, Or being anywhere outside of the building in the middle of the day, as far as that goes a little bit, just so I'm having that vacation day to maybe mow your yard in the middle of a Tuesday. Yeah, just something simple like that that could be really energeting to our batteries within this. So seeing ourselves as a human as well, not just the title, is very important. Lesson to be learned here. What we can control when we're moving into the month of June is that we can control how we're resetting ourselves. We're trying to redevelop that passion, that fuel that guides us within our buildings, within our leadership journey every single year. That part we can control, and we need to control that pun take that time to be able to reset ourselves a little bit. I think it's important that we are paying attention to the little things. So if I was a listener and I'm gonna say, walk away from here, So what are the things that can control? Yep, I'm gonna take care of myself. Here's the way to do it. Slow down, take a vacation day and stay at home. Go to the grocery store in the middle of the day. Is something mow the yard in the middle of the day. Here's something else that's kind of fun to do at school or even before school. Actually have breakfast. Slow down, let your stomachet digestive food. What's breakfast? Right? Is that right way for it? And it gets gonna get better? Oh buddy, what about thirty minute lunch? Yeah, maybe even forty minutes. I've heard about those. And what if what if we had that lunch with the office staff, because they you never get the opportunity to sit down break bread with people you work with so closely on a daily basis. And even crazier, what if we had lunch with our custodial staff is working so hard. Yep, they're going to take a break. You should as well time it up. When we get to know each other as humans, the custodians, the office staff, then we start to see each other as like I said, people, we get to know our families, and all of a sudden, that culture becomes easier to support each other. And when we're talking about a culture of support, we're talking about everything, not just some not just the principal supporting the custodians. Maybe Jim is supporting Aaron and supporting Jim. It's a great opportunity for that. That's great, That is great, Absolutely something we should be focusing on for the month of Jones. Perfect now throwing out a little bone, because principles, you really want to make Hey, buy the custodians lunch, No kidding, buy the office staff lunch every now and then. That little bit of money, it's all a long way for you. Great, It's probably the best investment I've had as a principal. Yes, hands down, absolutely, Okay, Adam, that was controlling. That was kind of lean into the next step of shift. The shift could be a really uncomfortable place for a lot of people. Because we're not talking about change, we're talking about shifting. The paradigms kind of come into place, so well, how can things happen? And I think of a great example of a shift mindset is I remember when I went transitioning from one school to the next and I was trying to get caught up on emails a little bit and I noticed that nobody emailed on weekends. I thought it was kind of crazy. It's telling my wife about this. Learn if it isn't anybody getting caught up on emails, am I the only one with emails? Well, it comes turns out that people just turned off and we became family members on the weekend. And then I learned that the sun comes up on Monday morning, regardless of the email's, work is still going to be there. Work is still going to be there. Absolutely. What I also learned is that when I'm sending emails out, I am actually draining my batteries and I'm draining the receivers batteries as well. Absolutely, Joe need to do it. So a shift is it's kind of into that thinking about how do we communicate with each other. One of them is so to take the with you don't email on weekends, absolutely, turn it off. Turn it off, turn it off. Don't email on holidays. Yeah, some have like evenings you were talking about the evening. Yeah, So, I mean I was a former administrator that I worked with here a few years back. He had he had put together a texting protocol with his leadership team as a as a assistant superintendent was a role that he was in at the time, and I thought this was a really good idea just to try to make things easier. And so it was like three things. It was like a one two three system. Right if you needed him right now, you would just text the word emergency. That's it. When I got to text anything else, which you know for foyer requests and everything else. Probably a good idea anyway for leaders to remember put lesson a text that's great. But he would just send the word or you would just send the word emergency, and that meant to him. Soon as I see this, I'm going to try to get to to be able to make a phone call quick because you need me right now. The second thing was or a little you know, a little less important, was something like first chance even just FC. It's all you're gonna send was FC. That meant that as soon as you get an opportunity, I need to talk with you. There's something going on, but it's not like the building's literally not on fire right now right it's we can get to this as soon as you get that opportunity. And then the third one was I think it was WYC, when you can and it might be the end of the day, it might not be till tomorrow. It's just we need to chat on something, so when you can get back to me. But that three pronged communication approach shifting to that versus always feeling like I always have to answer the phone every single time. Sometimes I get a call from a principal and I pop out of a meeting real quick and I popp okay, yeah, did you need something? Oh I just had a question for you, And like, oh, okay, I'm glad you're calling and I want to talk with you and I'll pop over and have that conversation. But I probably shouldn't have walked out of the meeting that I was just in. So having that communication protocol something like that, or the expectations, like you're talking about the email piece, what a great expect to have for our entire staff, like none of us. We're not going to send emails. If it's an emergency, it shouldn't be coming through an email anyway. So if we're just sharing information, do it during work hours or off that aren't close to it, a little bit before, a little bit after, but allow people to shut work off. The mental health components that go along with that, it's just huge. I remember some I work with some of the younger or newer to the profession, new administrative profession, administrators and assistant principles, if you will, They did not like the no emails on the weekend. They grew into learning, understanding and why and so forth. But when I think about the one, two, three, the emails, that what you're talking about is a practice that we are established. It's a practice that we're going to put humans first. But we're also going to keep it clear about when we need the support and when it's just nice to have. So we've got don't email on weekends, stay away from the holidays, maybe even don't email after six or seven six seven o'clock like that. By the way, when I first started up as a principal, I would text in the middle of night, thinking that people had all their phones on silent. Terrible idea, by the way, Yeah, because not everybody does. Yeah, and then you're setting up a structure for when we do communicate a one, two, three, And I believe I picked up on this. If it's an emergency, I need you now, So we're going to get it packed. The word emergency if it's something. That's what was the FC was first chance, first chance, first chance. I love the first chance one. So hey, it's not an emergency, but whenever you get a chance pretty important. But yeah, we need to talk to you absolutely, and then the w y C when you can, when you can. So when you set you set up this structure and we could probably even relay it to the walkies that we have in the school. I've been in as a as a leadership coach. I've been in schools where administrators would use the walkie talkie to talk about students. Terrible idea. I'm not a good walking because the radio is in every classroom. Absolutely everybody's here on this. I've been in a system where the principal would radio the lunch or do they want from the local restaurant for this secretary to go pick it up. By the way, that's a horrible practice if you do that at your school. Don't do that. But people hear this, yeah, And so setting up a very like a one two three process of what are you saying on the microphones? When are you saying it? Or the radios they should say and then the texting. This all can parlay into when we're doing our fire drills tornado drills and you have to do the all clear, all call, zone check. Instead of having each zone tell me when they're ready, we have one person calling and checking in each one. That person is not me, the lead principal's say, designated person. I always had the lead secretary, lead office administrator, and she would when everything was ready, she would when the building was clear, and she would call zone one, zone two. And the zone leaders can only say one of two things clear not clear. Ye, that's it. That's it. Good idea efficiency and again back to your one two three, it's clear, it's common. We all know what we're talking about here. With that, so shifting the mindset from being thinking that that's not an area that we really need to touch base, but really kind of lean into our users with radios, our users with emails and our uses with texting. Well, and the month of june's a good time to really put that plan into place because you're going to roll it out in August or through staff when they come in here, and then you just got to be consistent with that. That's the other things when I've talked about that with email in the past, where I've told people like, hey, listen, if you're sending it to me in an email, and email is for sharing of information, that's it. It is not for a communication tool. It is not something to have a conversation with. It is simply sharing of information. So I will get to the sharing of information, but if you're needing an answer from me, it can't come through email, especially if you need it today or anytime in the near future, it can't. As much as I'd like to get back to every single email every day, most school leaders, it's it's kind of a competition, like, well, I haven't checked email in three hours, so what are we have? Sixty seventy how many did I get? It's And that's just the truth. The other thing to think about with email communication too is and I've heard this from some other leaders that I've worked with, too, where they say, you know, the only time I can get to email is after nine o'clock at night. Well, how am I supposed to send emails? Well, every single email program out there allows you to schedule them here days, right, so schedule the emails. It's fine if I have to do the work because that's what my schedule allows me to do, and I choose to do that, and that's okay if that's what it works for me. But again, I don't need an answer right now. I shouldn't want an answer at nine pm at night because if it's if that's what it is, then this is not sharing information. I'm I need to pick up a phone. If it's that. Important that I've got to do it, you'd bet so schedule that email to go out during that moment of time where we've decided is okay to have emails go out? Schedule those things. I believe we've evolved past this, but I do know of a couple of administrators who kind of put a feather in their cap. We're sending emails at four thirty in the morning because staff would talk about it. The administrator learned that they weren't talking about it like he was a hero for work. It's so hard. They were saying, just kind of the opposite. This guy is not balanced. He's telling us to balance that he's not balanced. Yeah, And as administrators, when we need our sleep, and and we all joke because many administrators are looking at four to five hours of sleep, and when we say it out loud, it certainly is not a merit badge and we laugh about it and shouldn't there either. It's not fun It actually isn't funny, but it isn't funny. And we need to do better job of supporting each other and making the norm be more of get that seventh hour of sleep. Absolutely, and if you're struggling with keeping your mind slowing your mind down, there's great ways to remedy that. As a card carrying member of my monthly session with a therapist, that's a great way to start. But as colleagues, we also got to lean into each other. So what is it that's that's weighing on you and let us let us help. Yeah, that's good. I think that focusing on that communication piece. Like we said, Jim, it's a shift for a lot of us. I know it is, because you really have to spend some time and effort and energy to make sure it happens. It can't just be throw it on a piece of paper. You actually have to do it. You've got to stick with it. You get to stick with it. It's really hard, but shifting that mindset of your staff, shifting that focus, it's going to pay off with. Anything we do. If we're not practicing it at it, it's not gonna get it's not gonna improve. It's going to be exactly what you said. And then when things get really messy, we're going to fall back into the clunkiness, and then we are going to be a part of the problem of making it worse. Yep, absolutely have to be intentional. So we talked about what we can It's another thing we could slide that back into what we can control. True is we have to practice our shifting. Yeah, what we're doing with that, that's good. All right, So Jim, section three of this podcast. All right, so we're going to talk about something we can take away for a leadership when we're leading. We're into June. We're into June, but August is coming right around the corner. So for me, I'm in a district office administrator for the vast majority of the hats that I wear. As in the district office setting, I'm doing some planning, We're trying to get some stuff ready to go. But I also know that all of a sudden, my principles are going to be coming back, and right behind them, their teachers are going to be coming back, and right behind them, the students are going to be coming back. So I've got to prepare for August because once August comes around, I pretty much need to get out of their way. It's time for them to get going. I'm glad he's a district person. You said, I got to get out of their way. One of the things that I've learned is a building principle that i've despised is emails from district office in August. Yeah, and I kind of goes back to that which you're talking about sharing of information. If they're sharing in from information, that's that's fine. Just know that I'm not going to read them because my number one focus is I want the teachers to be one hundred percent prepared for day one in school. And I know that how our professional development is it, you know, it goes all over the place, comes to do we introduce anything new in August. My theory on that has always been no terrible idea to do so, so I apologize out there for the people who are doing that and the reason why though. I want our teachers prepared to get to know their students from the information they have church. I want that room prepared, I want lessons prepared. I want that experience of what is it going to look like that day one where we're starting to build relationships. I want every child going home after the first day of school cannot wait to get back the second day, and of course I want that for the second to third, third to fourth and so forth, but really leaning into that first day, all right, well, then that gives us a really good idea here. I mean, when we think about August meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, they just never end. But if they're meetings, that's not really accomplishing what we're talking about. You were when we were talking about the show and getting things ready to go to day Jim, I thought you had a really good point there. I want you to explain that here. It's not the meeting, it's an experience. It's the experience we should be looking at August as an experience. When our teachers come back, we want that to be an experience, not a meeting. When our students come back, we want them to be have that be an experienced, not of the first day of school. So how do we do that? That's really what we're looking at here. So often as a principal, we always say, we often say, we can't plan the agenda until we know what the superintendent's going to tell us. Okay, so first five, ten, I don't know what any years it was as a principal that first meeting was. I hated it. Oh sure, so I'm the principal and I hate it. I can't even imagine what it was like for a teacher. I come in and for two and a half hours, I vomit information with a slide show behind you. Probably well, no, I was in the nineties. We didn't that power play was just starting to come out. You know. It was worse than that. It was just an agenda and bullets and so that we we shifted and when we do something different, we we the teacher's night, you know, a leadership team. We would put together an email, but it had all the information in there and we would set it for people to read it at their own conveniens. Then we could have some questions, but the leadership team helped answer the question. So it wasn't a meeting, it was you know, what do you need to know in this? So now we've filtered out a lot, there are certain things that we have to connect with. So thinking about an experience. So when people come back, what happens with every meeting, no matter what the topic is, what happens in that first meeting is people are talking, got to catch up a little bit, got to catch up, which is okay, it's great. So why not make that experience longer than the first five to ten minutes of them coming together? And then you're getting frustrated because you're trying to get them under control and like, oh, you wouldn't let your classroom do this, blah blah blahh Yeah, I've been there, done that. I get it. So let's lean in onto that energy. We can stifle it, sit down, keep your mouth closed and vomit information, or we could capitalize it. So that first that give me an hour and a half. That ninety minutes. That ninety minutes was an experience. It was connecting with it wasn't those I wouldn't come hokey icebream, but there were there were activities that were withth intention. So we would be talking about reminding people what we said August was going to be like, because we already told them in May, so there was no surprises. It wasn't Hey, what book did Jim read? And I know a lot of people like to do themes. I was never the theme guy because I didn't want to have school years to be a start stop, start stop. I want it to be this is just what we do here. And so if you do have a theme, making sure that it's not a start stop, it's just continuation of the work you're doing. Well, why wouldn't it just be defining your purpose and your passion? And doesn't that just your theme? Really? So why we're back here right exactly right? We lose that a little bit, that purpose of passion, So why aren't we depended that first ninety minutes to kind of redevelop and what does that ninety I mean that that purpose and passion look like. So we want to get people back to their emotions of being a child. We want to get it remember those stories, and why don't we share those stories because we don't tend to do that during the school year. Kidding, but we could start being intentional with setting the stage of having the conversation. What was your example was what was your childhood memory when you were twelve years old? And sharing that experience of playing wolfle ball or kick the can? Yeah, And then you have a population of teachers who says, ask the question, what is kick the can? Exactly? And now we're taking what was your favorite game to play? I mean just music you listened to back then? Yeah, And then all of a sudden we start connecting and now we're giving them a conversations to have throughout the year when we're in the lunch, the staff work room, or whatever the case is. Within that. So I believe that we have an opportunity to build an experience. That's a good idea. And then for those other meetings that we talked about, they're just short. Well, and you're talking about sending stuff in an email again, we were just talking about it. What's the purpose of email? Well, it's to share information here and there is there's a lot of information that has to be shared. We have some new legislation we need to figure out what that looks like. I get it. There's always going to be the sharing of information at the beginning of the year. There's not much we can do about it. And I'm thinking from my seat in the district office, I have stuff I need us to get started on and get going. But again, a lot of that stuff can be in an in an email or one of the things that my district has done the last couple years, which I think is a really good idea, is front of that new stuff, any of the legislative stuff. We'll just our district office team, We'll throw together a slide show and just record us narrating it, send it out as a movie basically as a movie file to all of our staff, and like, hey, when you get a chance, we'll build in some time within the day for you to do some you know, you always have the annual trainings and all of that stuff. To take this in, you know, get that opportunity. We're sitting in a big auditorium full of people and we're presenting slides. Half the stuff people aren't going to remember anyway, correct, even if I give them a notepage, they maybe get the notepage back to their desk. Maybe maybe, But if I'm sitting there on my own time and I can just play this, you know, it's and I'm saying that's in a riveting you know, cinema or anything. But it at least does the purpose that we need it to do. But again, it's valuing the time of staff and just putting those things out there for people to get to it when they're ready. To get to it. So let's think about what the information that you typically share with with the schools and maybe principles as well. I've always tried to figure out how much of that information do they actually need in August or could some of that be shared in September in October. So I mean, I really don't know the answer always to that, but I always think about there's a take your legislator information that movie. Maybe that time isn't building in August, but maybe it's built in September or October or something like that. Even like some of the communications we talked about with the control and the shift earlier, keep it alive later on or something. Help revisit it anyway. But yeah, again, if it's not pertinent to the start of the year, I mean, every once in a while we do have some legislative changes that unfortunately we do have to do right correct gates, right correct, But no, you're not wrong. I mean, that's not overload people, because it is the old saying of drinking water through a fire hose. There's a lot of that, especially for our new staff. You know, not only are they trying to learn everything for their and also learn your school. I mean it's such a different language. Sometimes. That's a great point to bring up, is that the new faces that are coming in. We have these new teachers, they're nervous and they're excited. The last thing I want to do is give them a two hour meeting of vomiting information back there. We want to come second guess their choice for coming to high school. Yes, exactly, we want them. We know they're going to be exhausted. We know all this, so let's lean into that. I think sometimes when we share the information when we're not in the classroom, the sharing of the information becomes more of a checklist of I shared it, I'm done, I'm moving on to the next and we're going to remember that it's not going to be heard if we don't say it in the language of the listener, the timing of the listener, and is a listener prepared to listen? Yeah, again, what are our staff, our teachers are thinking about the very first coming back. It's going to be who am I working with? Reconnecting and that first day of school. That's it, Yeah, it's it. I can still remember the first days for me as an administrator when i'm you know, when I've taken a new position or a new job or something and I'm in front of staff for that first time, and how nervous I was. And now I kind of think back to him, like, why why was I nervous about? Let's just start right away this. We're going to be us. We're going to move forward. This is the way we do things around here. And it's not a show. I don't have to put on some big magic act up there. If that's the case, then I've might need to redefine what I'm doing. Anyway. A buddy of mine, Jeremy Braiden, we both work with him. Absolutely. He gave me the phrase, when you're going to a new school, you'll learn, then you lead, and then once you get some rhythm going, then you serve. So he's talking about you don't come in and making decisions based upon your experience. You get to learn about the environment. You lead where it's needed and how it's needed. It doesn't mean dictate anything. It's like kind of what we talked about here. Yeah, the communications systems, the experience versus the and while you're leading, you're building capacity, and once the big capacity is being built, you really are serving where you're needed. And I think that those three learn lead serve. It's great advice really kind of talks about more than anything else, what that first month two months can look like. I tried my best to have the first two months planned out. Yeah in June. Now, there's some tweaking on that, but the gist of it was there so that when the staff was back I could be present for them, Yeah, not be shuttled away. Well, Jim, that kind of wraps up this episode of control shift lead. Give us a recap, real quick of what we talked about. Sure, perfect, Yeah, control shift leads. So for control, remember we talked about catching up on you, Like, what are you going to do to catch up on you when the pace is a little slower. Make sure we celebrate right, even the small things, whether it be checking out what's the athletics that are happening around your building, the hubs and everything. Eat breakfast, eat lunch, and even consider buying those custodians and office staff lunch. I like that one there too. And Chef we talked about how we use email and how we communicate with the one two three, with the emergency, with the first chance, with the when you get a chance kind of text you know, emails, and how that parlays over to the radio, the walkie talkie ky thing, and then lastly with the lead thinking about August and start planning in June what August could look like as an experience versus meeting. That's your one chance to get everybody together and lean in. And when I say lean in, I'm talking about when they come in and they're talking about recatching up on or catching up on how things are over the summer. That we use that to lean in and get to know each other just a little bit better, use that fuel for the fire for the year. Correct, that's awesome. How are you going to catch up on your yourself this summer at well? Tell you what going to go on a little bit of a trip at some point in time. My wife and I we're twenty fifth winning anniversary this year. And the sad part is and when when we got married, I was busy coaching baseball, So we got married on a Saturday and Monday back on the ball field. So this is probably the closest thing we've had to a honeymoon twenty five years later. And so she's put up with me this long. I think that's broby the least we can do, right, that's the least Caneah, Yeah, absolutely, kids coming home, all of that good stuff too. How about you? Where'd you see you going? We're going to go to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico. Yeah. Well, I've been out of the United States once, my wife once as well, but it's kind of looked out by the colleges because Puerto Rico. We're still here. Yeah, we're still here. One of the reason why I did that one. Got it, Got it? Got it? How about you? Well, I'm actually reading more fiction than I ever have. Oh, most of it's been leadership books, you know, yeah, or World War two, you know, nonfiction. But I'm working on doing a little bit more of that. And then my wife, I have a son going out to college and we're trying to get as much to it. Probably don't seem as much, we'd lie, but we do get to seem a little bit going to the University of Ibill Go Hawks. And then we have twenty nine coming up, so we're a twenty nine anniversary and we're looking for a quick little trip to either Chicago or Vegas. Other than that, I get the opportunity for work. I'll be in West Virginia. I'll be in Virginia. I'll be at a culturalized institute in Chicago, which I'm really excited about that. I'm doing some speaking out there with Jimmy Casas and the Associates and Earth that is actually I'm really excited about the number of schools coming out to connect with me and do some like many works for us out there. That's neat, So my energy bucket will be pretty filled. And then August, a lot of keynotes speaking in August, which I'm really blessed to be able to be a part of time the first day of school for many manool No, that's awesome. Jim, that's really good. Well, that brings us to the end of another control shift lead and our goal, as always is going to be to empower you with tools you can control, some fresh perspectives to shift her thinking, and actionable strategies to lead. We appreciate you spending some time with us today. Thanks again Jim for joining me here. This is always fun when we get together. This is Jim Witchman and Adam Bush wishing you a productive into your school year and start for a good planning for the summer. And no matter what, under any circumstance, please remember you're never alone. That's true, You matter. Thanks a lot, Adam form that allowing me to be a part of this you back. Look forward to connecting again. Thank you for joining us on Control, Shift Lead, brought to you by AWB Education and Inspired Edification. Please check back next month for another lighthearted and honest look into the monthly mindset of school leaders. Please take a moment to like, comment, rate, or review our show. We would love to hear the feedback and your stories of school leadership. If you want to find out more about Jim and Adams work, please check out the links in the show notes to get connected. Otherwise, thank you for doing the work that only a few are strong enough to do. We will talk with you again next time.