Control+Shift+Lead - The Power of Simple

Are you a school leader striving for excellence? Do you crave actionable strategies and fresh perspectives to navigate the challenges of education today? Get ready to take charge. This is Control Shift Lead, giving you something to control, something to shift your thinking, and something concrete to help you lead your school. With Jim Witchman of Inspired Edification and Adam Bush of AWB Education, your journey to empowered leadership starts now. All right, school leaders, welcome back to Control Shift Lead. I'm Adam Bush, joined as always by Jim Witchman, and we're both thrilled to be back with you again for our August episode. Jim, how's life as Jim Witchman been since we last spoke? I gotta tell you the last month has been a little slower. Yeah, I really appreciate you. Get to see a lot of things and tell a family. Yeah, that's good. Got to tell you though, get some pretty sad news recently, the old childhood hero Ryan Samberg passing away sixty five years old. Yeah, that one hit. That one hurt Hulk Hogan hurt me too, Coch. I mean, I yeah, it's like our childhood, right, they're kid take it away? I mean, no kid, I think about like Ryan Samberg. He kept everything simple m hm. He stayed with the basics. He was never flashy, and I think that's one of the things that people liked a lot about him. Yeah, and he's loyal to the Cubs. And and we're we were all loyal to him. Yeah. Yeah, Well, I you know sometimes and that's that's kind of a set of words I like to live by. That's the power of simple. You know. There's a lot of power in that. And I think as educators, certainly educational leaders, we forget about the power of simple. We want to do so much and just want to do it all and all the time. And it reminds me. And this this was a couple months ago. I think it was in April. Those of us in the State of Eyeoa that have coached football, we lost an icon. We lost coach Dick Tie who was at Webster City for a long time. Then it did a little coaching I believe at Iowa Falls and at Fort Dodge Saint Edmunds maybe, but was the all time winning US coach at the State of Iowa. I think Jerry pizzeti at Ank and he may have just caught him here fairly recently. But but coach Tie was was that guy. Yeah, And you know I remember watching him talk at a conference one time and about it. Basically, it is the power of simple. You know how many places he ran, Jim, I'm gonna guess at that time frame, maybe ten, Yeah, I think it was six six six, Yeah, that's it. And yeah, single wing you know, you. Have die, you have a. Crossbuck of some kind of sweep, just a handful of things. Right. But that was the point. The reason they were so good and the reason they won so many games wasn't because this town was this factory of football talent. It was because they were awfully darn good at six plays maximizing the talent into the player. Absolutely, that that power that comes with being simple, and I think we can learn from that as educators. I mean, whether it's a football field or in a classroom we're at PD or getting the year going as we're getting into the month of August, that the power of simple is really there. So you're talking about this guy who's got these football players, these these fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year old players. He understands that we have to keep it simple, keep it simple. An old kiss principle really matters, and it does, it works, but sometimes we forget about that. I just was googling while you're saying this power of simple, because I don't know if I've ever really heard that before, So I was going to give you credit. Yeah, if there's anything else that then that power of simple ability to bring clarity, focus, and effectiveness to complexity. Yeah, absolutely, I think there's a lot of I think there's a lot of merit in that. So when I think about the power of simple now that you mentioned, I'm just it connects right with our first control. Yeah, it does. Optimizing that first meeting agenda for when people come back. You want everybody wants to get everything in right away. The list is a mile wall. The list is a mile Yeah, one shot. We have everybody close together. Yet it's kind of like an interview as well. With an interview, we have people that come in answer questions and then they leave and no one really remembers them. They might say the purple striped shirt, the bow tie, the tie, but they really don't remember them. But then the one that comes in and leaves you with the story and their brain. It's more of an experience than vomiting of information, so to speak. A good walk away, a takeaway, a good walk away. Yeah, so I think about the optimizing the first staff meeting. We have superintendents, we have principles that are sitting there. They got their agenda, they got all this stuff. They gotta have breakfast for them. It's cute kind of. Which is good. Which is good? That's that's a good start. You bet. How many of them think about what we want our staff to walk away with versus how much I want to share with them, And a lot of times how much I'm want to share with him doesn't need to be shared that first staff meeting. In fact, we want to, like we talked about last months. I think it was last part last month. Yeah, we want our staff to be energized for that first day of school. We don't want to kill him right away, especially if the first time back in the district is that that meeting. They're thinking about their classroom. Really okay, so we got to honor that. Kend Of reminds me of a I was meeting with the superintendent in the Southern Region and he was so excited. He was this his first time in this district. That's his first. First first superintendent job or just first one here. I think it's his first superintendent. No, I think it's second superintendent job, but the first one. First impression, though still underst impression. And we're closer to his home. He's really excited. Let's goal super nice guy, yep. And you can tell that he wants to be the one that people can connect with. And as we're talking about it, everything he was saying was was great. I don't know if if all of it needed to be on that first day, but listening to him and he goes, you know, I'm coming in after you, Jim w and you do your keynote, and then I only have thirty minutes with him. I've got a lot to accomplish in thirty minutes. Now. I didn't know the power of simple at that time. Well, God, I gave you one from the next one. You did, You certainly did. But what I say, and what I said to him, was. What if what if you take all that information you want to get out and narrow it down to when people walk away and they go to that news reporter standing outside that auditorium and they ask, what's your main takeaway from this? Good idea, and what if that main takeaway was this guy believes in us because he knows we already can teach. This guy is going to listen to us because this guy cares about this job and he's really excited about it or is it? And then D D D D deep can tell me a lot of over was it over promised, under perform here or something like that. Yeah, yeah, power of simple keep it simp ball with that. So when you're doing your agenda, you can control when that looks like, we can control what that first impression is. Going to be, right, Yeah, absolutely. I mean I hate to give another coaching example, but I think back to again, like you know, when I was a young coach getting started, I thought, well, my halftime speech is going to be the thing that, you know, that wins the game for us, because that's what I've seen in the movies, right, And it's kind of like that too. I mean, that first impression it does mean a lot, but the takeaway needs to be more of hope. It needs to be more of excitement, not information. I mean the information that shared at that moment, it's just is it really going to even make it to the first day? I mean most important part. Yeah, I mean half of us are still sitting on a lawn chair someplace, right, I mean, at least mentally we are, but exactly. Yeah, that's interesting. Still good. What can we control of control? Shift lead? Yeah, our control is optimizing that first staff meeting? Yep. What is that walk away? That takeaway? When they get up you know they got it. What if you were to give them a formative assessment like we asked them to do in the class grooms, did they get the intended or do they just hear the Charlie Brown teacher? Yes? Yeah, So if you're coaching so with this particular example that trigger nicks, if you're coaching somebody. If I'm sitting here now at my desk after listening to this episode, I'm like, oh, okay, that makes that makes sense. How do I how do I dive into all of this stuff that I want to do? How do I choose what's the best way to really get to that? That's a really good question. One of the things I've done with them is we have a whiteboard in this room. Write everything on the whiteboard. Do you think is important? Now? Categories? What's so important? What's kind of important? I can share in September. Now I got two lists. Okay, love that. What's something I can share late August. In an newsletter? Or wait for it, what if I were to travel to the schools and they saw me in a smaller group sharing information. Sure, so what if we did that? So basically take all this information segment up a little bit, and then what's most important is that feeling they have walking out of the infensibility. I'm not alone. I've got people and this guy believes in me or this gal believes in me. And if we can do that with a shortened time frame or whatever that might that case might be, or the experience. I always think of experience versus Yeah, I've heard you say that before. I like that term. So what's going to give me the experience? And that's going to have a great first day? And that would be how I would do it. And then they'll comment back and forth with me a little bit. But then we just kind of walk it through when I'm not around, and then I'm not coaching. I asked them to reach out to a staff member, someone who's actually there. You know when people talk about user friendly, Oh yeah, I'm creating a document's user friendly. But forget, it's only user friendly if the user, the user finds it friendly, that's true. But if we got go ask the user, just like that we talk to a teacher, this is what thinking. What do you think of this? Yeah, I'm guilty of that. I was sitting here in fact today, this is I this is exactly what I was doing. I was like, Okay, I have PD coming up. I've got to get all my stuff lined up. I have all these hats that I wear in my role, and I have a lot of different, you know, moments of PD to do here in the near future. And so I was doing exactly that. Do you think I asked anybody? Nope, Nope, just me in my office. I'm just plugging away because of course I know all the answers, So why would I ask anybody right? Friendly? If the user flying, that's a good way to put that, that is, that's a good way. That principal team talking about their same thing, the optimizing that first agenda. Yeah, but I listened to him. We could tell it there's some talking about some struggles or whatever the case they're having, and he goes, I just want every kid to feel like they belong mm hm, so do it. What do you mean goo that first meeting, make it very clear. Yeah, if half your staff is new, make it very clear that you're going to stand for this is going to be a place where kids feel like they belong. So then we go through talk a little bit more, and then he talked about a teacher action or a staff member action, or even a parent action, and I said, how does that make him feel like they belong? And he looked at me and he's like, you're right, that could be my phrase, that could be my filter. Is that action helping kids feel like they belong? Or we part of the problem. Mmm, So that could be a great language of anchoring that. Yeah, I like that idea. It's funny as you're mentioning that, I was sitting here thinking back of I can't even count the number of times I have said to my staff the first three days, four days, first week of school, we're not doing hardly anything academic, right, We're going to just work on making kids feel welcome. That's all we're going to work on. We're just going to try to make kids feel welcome to be at school. Never really put that thought into doing the same exact thing with my staff. So everybody talks about the way culture is important to me, and I was remind people everybody already has culture. It's there mm hmm. It's your intentional actions that determine what type of culture you want. Yeah, And in the absence of being intentional, you're going to get whatever culture comes across, and then we have to swim in whatever that is. We want. We race to get out of the culture, but we're not willing to be intentional. Just like what you just talked about there, we have to be intentional with that first time when we had the last I take it was probably the last five four or five years, we redid everything and I did I need. I got help from the teachers because if you really want to know, as the teachers, yeah, exactly. So that first ninety. Minutes, though, that was mine. Yeah, and that ninety minutes was just what you talked about. It's connecting with people, getting people to see each other as humans versus titles. And then of course we would have shorter meetings, but they're more intentional. But we weren't wasting people's time. We were being really focused within that. Well, I think that's a good wrap up for that because certainly that is something we can control. We can remind ourselves that how that how what that kickoff looks like, how that first meeting roles, That is absolutely something we can control. We can choose to just overload people. I think you said vomit information. That's a good way to say that. Or we can choose to make that into an experience. Yeah, we can certainly do that. And I'm also going to say this to the viewers. They can definitely reach out to our viewers. They can definitely reach out if they want any questions, run anything, bias. We're going to be here to help, because that's what it is. It's really maximizing the talents we have and keeping great people in the profession. And if there's leaders or even teachers want to reach out, how do I get in, my principal, Naw, they gate this ash reach out. We're gonna help. It's free. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's a lot of power in talking with others, that's for sure. Okay, Jim, So we're gonna head to a commercial break here real quick. But before we do that, I wanted to give a quick lead into this commercial. It's going to start the break Okay, this is commercial. Is another podcast from friends of ours. They're from out east called Carpool to College. Whether Tara and Tracy it's not the good show. Those two are hilarious. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, there's a lot of great information and it's a quick listen. It's an easy listen. It's just one of those you can literally pop in the car on your way to work and pick up a few tips here and there. But I certainly would recommend that on. That is a really good show. I just love listening to people from New Jersey too, and they just don't tell us the way it is. They tell it the way it is true. So yes, listeners, you're going to hear a commercial for Carpool to College. Strong recommendation from Jemini for listening to that one. Where is your kid headed after high School? We are from Carpool to College two accomplished educators, college and career consultants and parents who guide families through the entire journey from freshman year planning to senior year success. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to Control Shift Lead. I know we started talking the control part of the optimizing your first staff agenda. Let's lead into shifts like shift our thinking a little bit. We have so many people that talk about words matter. Yeah. In fact, two good friends of mine just wrote a book recently. I guess it's called Words on the Wall, talking about by Castus and Cale Burke. Okay, so when you talk about him, it's really about looking at the words in the wall. Do our actions actually matched the words on their wall? Or they just worts on the wall. And it reminded me of a story of a former good friend. And it's actually a good friend of my current but a former colleague of mine, Jeremy Brayden. He was assistant principle, was the principal. And I like to say that because we both applied for the job and I. Actually got to do. Yeah, I'm sure you never brought that up with him, right, Well, actually I did bring that up lock and he and when I don't, he does, and yeah, good bantering we have. He's now a superintendent and never asked agree superintendent Hm. Anyway, he would say things like to me, I would always say. But but but but but and he goes, and so it's about eliminating the room. But because when when I'm saying something and I, you know, say the word, but I just erased judged it, just judged it. Yeah, I'm slowly and so within that it is. And in that simple replacement, I say simple because it took him a good two year, three years two. Yeah, he wouldn't leave. He kept saying a damn And that's a good point. So it kind of go. Let leads right into our shift, shifting our thinking. We want a collaboration, We want to be a staff that has clearly identified what our focus is. And in fact, in today's leadership, we have to build capacity and if in absence of that capacity, we are going to run ourselves to the ground. Oh yeah, that Superman cape that we all think we need to put on, Yeah, exactly. So the shift is really shift our thinking into this is my staff, this is my students, this is my school to ours, this is our team, this is our organization, this is we're just and the bottom line is we are simply adults trying to maximize the opportunities for our students, and we do that by collectively leading or taking charge of what we can control. Back to that control shift, lead, I guess you would say, so I think about this and I don't mean any disrespect at him, but I did hear a couple of times in your football story. Are you talking about your team. My team, my players? Oh yeah, you're You're not wrong. It happens all the time. I mean, as you're saying this right now, I was just in thinking to the back of my mind just today, I was talking about my awesome team up at the one of the buildings that I lead. And that's that's hard because part of it is the pride piece. I'm saying my because I'm proud of them. I'm proud of that work, and I know I need them. I know, darn well. If we're for waiting for me to do it all, we're not going to be very good. Knows, We're not maximizing our talent. It's right, it's not going to happen. But that is true because when I say my, that still implies some sort of ownership, like I'm still the leader, where honestly, if we're going to be successful, it's going to be because we are all playing a part in our work. Yeah, when I think about that, I think, when it comes down to it, there is ownership there. Mm hm. But it's like a collective owners collective ownership. Yeah, so what do you say other than my team? How do you do you have a phrase? Or well, honestly, now, then I put you on this. Yeah, you put me on the spot with it. I'm thinking, well, okay, but I got a drill our word hour into my head to use that because it's true. I mean, that's that's really what it amounts to. It's and it's hard and it's going to be hard to get away from that, because again, there is a pride piece when when we're successful. I know a lot of leaders we I think back to again, I'm just doing it all day. I guess parallem in the coaching mode. But I remember doing, you know, television interviews after a win. And I think I mentioned this in one of in a previous episode where I had a former coach tell me that when you lose, you take responsibility. When you win, everybody else did an awesome job, and you talk about how great the other coaches and players and all that other stuff were. I don't know if we always remember to do that as a educational leaders, it's not about ever passing blame. I think most of us are pretty good about taking the shots when we have to write. However, taking that extra step, and it's not just about praising people, but making sure that everybody, everybody's contributions are known and understood and valued for all of the work that we're doing every day valued. I really like that, like that a lot. Here's what we also have. It's not just the educators that we got to be sharing that with our parents too. I mean, we're all, like I said when I said, it's a team, all are maximizing our it's adults maximizing our now so we can optimize the opportunities for our students. So what are some of those phrases we can say, Well, how about this is what our this is what we do here, This is how we operate. You know, it takes all of us to maximize the opportunities for our students. We are are talking about, you know, instead of seeing my teachers, it's the staff. Yeah, they name the middle school staff, Prairi Ridge Middle School or or Riverdale Heights Elementary name the staff. This is who we are collectively, is our identity? Well, we can take that a step further too. I know I've had this conversation a lot of times where I hear teachers talk about my class, my kids, and especially at a secondary level, we work really hard within like MTSS processes right to share kids. We're all teaching kids, so we divide and conquer a little bit, and we're trying to do some remedial work or extension work or things like that. I remember having that conversation with somebody about how do we get away from this. It's my classroom, I shut the door. It's my responsibility to get these kids to learn, versus that shared responsibility. And part of it was like we intentionally did more learning walks, We did more opportunities for people to get out of their area and go see other areas and not just be there, not just check the list because the state says you have to do this once a year or anything else. Actually having a purpose to why we're there, to try to learn and to provide feedback. Again, that's going to help me as well as well as the person that's that's getting the feedback from me. Four letters MTSS. Everybody hears them. But what is it? Act A mean? Yeah? Right, So if we look at intentional interventions, no teacher has the answer for everything. Mm hmm. However, let's think about it. If we're in a school and we have three third grade sections, is it our job to get one of those all the way through, whether what kind of intervention is needed, or is it to get all of them? So I think about that as a system, we should be collectively looking at third grade or when on the state list or whatever the case is. The fourth grade didn't pass the specially at dn D all it didn't. It doesn't say the teacher's name, It says the school's name. Good point trim. So we should be working together as a school. So if I'm a pe teacher, our teacher, band teacher, there's a lot of ways that we can incorporate that is natural, that has it gives a common vibe in helping kids. What instruction looks like in all classes should have a common language and a common excit. I didn't say identical, common common, big difference. Again, words matter, weird how that comes up? Yeah and over again. I could even say our words matter when it comes to that. So we've got shift go moving from single ownership to collectively building capacity amongst all of us. Well, and the shared success piece too. You were talking about, you know again, when we get the negative news, you know from state testing. It is about the school. It always is in that way some groups here there, but we always kind of forget about that too. We talk about the success piece. There's a lot of success that happens in the school. Everybody has a part of that, even if it might show up a little bit more in one certain area. Everybody that has had an impact on every one of those students, which is going to include every cook, every custodian, every teacher, everybody. Everybody is going to have some sort of an impact on those students which led to that success. So why aren't we celebrating it together. Success doesn't happen unless we're intentional. Culture happens regardless, The go to we want doesn't happen unless we're intentional. Academics learning or not learning is going to happen some kind of by chance, but it's not going to happen to the capacity we want if we're not intentional. Words matter, language matters. Shift are thinking from my ownership to our collective ownership. I love it. I love it, and it feels like, oh, that's just something kind of simple to do. It's not. I mean, that is a that is a shift and not only thinking, but it's also going to be a shift in how we do business on a daily basis. So moving forward, you're going to catch me every time I use the word button, and I'm going to catch you every time you say my. My go effect perfect. It's a deal. It's a deal. All right. We're going to head too. Another commercial, real quick here listeners this one, Jim. Another podcast. I do want to mention another friend of ours, doctor Lisa Hill, has her show Vice. Principal on Office. No, it's just gonna sound like a thing might well, you know, I'm not gonna she would slap me if she was sitting here. I'm not gonna call her old. I'm gonna call her experienced. Experienced. She has done a lot, and I'll tell you what. She's got a ton of stories and that that show is hilarious because she's although she changes the name, she'll say that at the beginning that she changes the names to protect the innocent. She doesn't hold a lot back when she starts telling the stories, and lord, I know she has a lot of them. I've never heard Lisa hold back. He's curious about when it will there be a story from what one of us up there? And if so, will we know? Yeah, well, I'm always listening for clues. I'm like, oh that could maybe not maybe, oh maybe not. If you so, if you're driving down the road, do you want something to listen to? Something comical? Educator or non educator basically has that book that we always say we were going to write. Yep, she's got it, she's got it, she's playing she's writing it. So yes, absolutely check out Vice Principle on officed. Hi. I'm doctor Lisa Hill, a longtime educator of nearly forty years as a teacher, counselor, professor and vice principal. And I've seen just about everything public schools can throw at you, and now I'm sharing my tales on my comedy podcast, Vice Principal Unofficed. It's where school leadership meets laugh out loud. Stories from underwear required parent teacher conferences yes really, two staff launch confessions, and more. You won't believe. I'm telling it all with humor and a whole lot of heart. I also tackle the serious stuff too, like what schools really need to change and those behind the scene moments no one talks about. So if you're ready, to laugh, learn, and maybe even cry a little, but mostly laugh. Join me and my ninety year old mom, my unofficial co host on Vice Principal Unofficed. New episodes drop bi weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast picks. Trust me, this is one detention you'll actually look forward to. All Right, everybody, welcome back. We are headed to our lead portion of control Shift Lead. As Jim and I were planning for today, we decided on talking on cultivating a culture of psychological safety. Now we talked about culture today, and again I've heard you say this numerous times that we all have culture. Whether you like it or not, you have a culture. But we can certainly help grow a certain type of culture. But psychological safety is one of those that I'm not sure we always think about. Jim, what does that sentence mean to you? First of all, we have to be intentional with culture. We talked about that numerous times, because we're going to have one one way or the other. The intentionality is the part that gets us to where we want to go. When I hear you speak of cultivating a culture of psychological safety, first of all, I think of tongue twisters, because I can't forgive that top fast. It is tough. However, this is what we should be talking about with not just our students, but with our staff as well. And I think of the word vulnerable comes to mind all the time. So I'm not going to be vulnerable if I'm not feeling safe mentally or physically. I need our staff to be that vulnerable because I need them to feel comfortable to take risks, try some things because every learner, we know that the complexity is all that. So I was talking to a friend of mine. I was telling she's that Susan's a therapist and we're talking and I was mentioning to her about I think I leveled up when it became vulnerable with the staff, and I was talking about how I shared my true purpose. I one that has deep stories about Jim Witchman. Sure, and like the trauma growing up and some of the celebrations, but what I'm really truly passionate about. But basically what it came down to is I was becoming real. And she looked at me and she goes, I don't know if I really like the word vulnerable. It means like you're really exposed. Well, I can't. Yeah like that, She goes, what if you thought about open and authentic? And I sat there and I thought the authentic part was really open. It is like open minded, but the authentic part was, dang it, you're real. You're a human first. And when we're talking about how do we support people in and I mentioned this already, we're adults trying to maximize the opportunities for our kids. We get to do the thing for our colleagues. So as a principal, if I am authentic, I can be honest with you. I could be honest with myself first of all. Yeah, it has to start. I get the joke. When I became more authentic, we got really comfortable with ourselves, and we made the learning about the learning, not about what I was able to check off the list as a principal, meaningful learning for the staff because they told me what they needed soon as we had to shoot for. But when I became more authentic, the staff became more authentic. And I remember one time his teacher raised her raised her hand during a staff meeting. I was given directions and I hated given directions. It was so because my brain is going fast, my words aren't catching up with my brain. It's all this. I have to be really focused and intentional, and it never failed. I always had words going faster than what my brain was, and I got lost in all that. So the staff there reached out because, hey, Jim, we love the effort you're putting in to stay and focus there, but do you think Kathleen the assistant principal can get the directions move forward? Oh my god, multiple things happened. One, the teachers got clarity in their directions. Two we just lifted Kathleen up. And three you took off so much pressure of me having to put together to give those specific and clear directions basically maximizing the powers of everybody around versus the title having to give the direction. Yeah, and you said open to start that too. I mean we hear that you know, be real man, be real, which that it does take a little bit of courage at times. But the open piece, I like how you put you also have to when with your own mind, with your own you know, you've got to be open to what possibilities might be out there, not just exactly what it was that I plan that this is going to happen. That's interesting that you bring that up. I like that part of vulnerability. So when it comes to being open, one of the things I had to grow as an administrator was telling myself the truth. So you could think about that my personal life, my professional life. It was sitting with the truth. And sitting with the truth might mean that I'm not the best at X, but I could promise you I'm good at finding whoever that is. Now that I've come to terms with it, I'm also fine to say this to people. Hey, I don't know this answer, but I know that I'm willing to fight for it once we get it. I think people in this profession, unfortunately what you just mentioned at first, we think of that as a sign of weakness, and it's not. It's a sign of honesty. Yes, preach I love that, you know. I think that's part of it. We're so worried about not having all the answers immediately. There's and maybe part of its fact that my current role as a as a district office administrator I have. I have a lot of hats, and I know I mentioned that here on the show. I do do. I wear a lot of hats. I can't be an expert at all. What I can promise you is I'm gonna find the answer. I'm going to go out and do the work, and we're gonna together. We are going to do this work together and try to come up with a solution. But boy, it's okay for us not to know the answer right away. It's it's okay. That's not weakness, that's just that's just honesty. Well, it's maximize the talents we have around it. I learned not as early in the career as I wish I would have, but I've learned that if I'm operating and asking someone operating their strength zoned and their superpower zone, I'm giving them energy where I thought I was taking it away, and then I'm preserving my own. I think there's a phrase that I heard tonight, power of simple. Yeah, so I perspected sometimes it gets out of whack with a lot of things and we think one way, but really the power of simple is like a thread that goes all the way through here. So when we're talking about leading, maybe we should start with the power of simple. The power of simple when it comes to how do we keep people fit safe? What does that agenda look like that first time? What is that story we wanted to. Have and understanding that we're adults trying to maximize our team so that we can optimize our students. You know, you mentioned doctor Braden's and right, and I think it comes here too. When we really talking about psychological safety, what we don't want is fear of being wrong. I mean, and that's okay, even if we are wrong, that's okay, that's the point. What we don't want to have is our staff have the fear of saying something that is either judged immediately or isn't taken into consideration regardless of you know, what we're talking about. An old saying that I used to love was that everything incredible was once thought impossible. Okay, and that's that's very true. And sometimes we might get some wacky ideas that come out of teaching staff and like no, no, no, no, no, no no, Well it's not very safe. I'm not allowing people to have wacky ideas and throw them out there. Who knows, they may be the incredible thing down the road. But if we don't have the open and honest ability with our staff to be able to allow anything and everything to go out without fear of judgment, we're never gonna get to that psychological safety that we all claim we want to get to, and it might not be how we planned it. We might not have thought about. In fact, I hope we haven't thought about it, because again I'm gonna go back to what I said before. If we're all waiting for the thoughts to come out of my brain or are not gonna be very good, We're not gonna be very smart. There's just only so much space. I don't know if we want all the thoughts about you, you know, it kind of goes. It reminds me of a I do a lot of work with a disc profile too, yep, with that training and so forth. And what I've found out is people could see their strengths and then the parts with their now as strong end they call their weaknesses. And I guess think it's stop self deprecating that it's not what we're about. Yeah, you don't have weaknesses, it's just your strengths are here. Yeah. I'm supposed to be the best eye influencer ever. I'm supposed to be really solid, get stuff done, be determined with them. I'm not the world's best at planning, but I know people who are and that's who I'm going to partner with. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that idea. I think that's the part that leading forward as we move out of here today and as we move into most of us are getting staff back some point in time the month of August or certainly right at the very beginning of September, depending where you're at in the country. I think that's something that you can do. You can start with trying to do your best to just take all ideas in. Nothing is off the table. There's always an opportunity out there for exploration and have teachers try and fail. It's okay, It's okay if we fail. I know some teachers always worry about that, you know, going into a walk room. Ah, that wasn't my best lesson. Okay, all right, I mean, no one's getting harmed here. We're doing okay, it's all right. And we say golf and education learning is there are two places that you're never going to. Be perfect in. Yeah, yeah, you know, so let's think. About that along the way. We're set up a system that people are going to make mistakes. Students are like, we learn the best from those said, we celebrate in the way we're supposed to. So when we think about what if we want our students to come to school feeling respected, supported, in value, in in in in a place that we're going to lift them when they're down. What if the staff felt that Sara Berry same way about in them in their job is coming into as a teacher, they need to come in they're feeling respected, supported and valued and know when there's a hiccup, people are going to be right there to pick you up and walk with you instead of like you mentioned, judging. What a great session. The power of simple, power of simple. I love it. I love it, I do, I think, I see and T shirts come. All right, well, Jim, this has been a good show. I've enjoyed our topics. Again, I mean I always like talking with you anyway, regardless of it doesn't matter. We talked about anything would matter, It doesn't matter at all. But to wrap up today, so just give you a quick little a quick little summary. We talked about things we could control, and that is the power of simple, that we don't have to do it all. In fact, we're going to be better off if we don't. Being simple, being focused to start the year especially is a wise choice and it's going to pay off, pay huge dividends for us. We talked about how to shift our thinking. We're gonna shift by being more intentional with our words. We focus today on my versus our It's not my team, it's not my group, it's not my students, it's our students. There's a lot of power in the collective approach to that, and how we can celebrate our successes and work together for all of our students. And then in our last segment here when we talk about leading, we talked about being open and authentic. Just be real, man, Just be you, Just be you. It's a whole lot easier anyway. There's no reason to put on a show. Just you, You just be you. So Jim, any last words you want to close with here tonight, or any other little piece of information we want to share with our listeners. You know, I started with the story of Rhy Now I'm going to end with the story of Ryan. I love it. My mom is in a care center hem Strode left side. One of the things that our family always did was sit around the TV and watch the cubs, watch the Tubby's WGN. We had three stations, ABC, PBS, and WGN, and when you're in the household where the poverty is very is the first word that comes to mind. Sure, But we had WGN, and we had the Chicago Cubs. And I was busily with my mom today and she was pretty choked up about Ryan Sambert and we were talking about it and how I used to draw numbers of my little brothers back the Cub numbers. He said he wouldn't even say the numbers. He would say the player, yeah, yeah, and he always got twenty three. And my mom what was special about that is my mom's talked about the kind of guy he was, and she would tell us that he was one of my first male role models back. Well, that's kind of heavy, yeah, but it was kind of cool. He was a good person and he left a legacy of not just on the baseball field, but doing things right. He kept it simple but simple, and I know the lesson I learned from him playing baseball as a youth that wasn't a great player. I played second base, and you know, darn well, I was emulating him, and I remember he told us to get ready positioned. Your weight is on the balls of your feet, so you can go left or right. Quickly. So that's that's what I did and kept it simple. Wasn't flash year left or right, mostly because I didn't have the talent to pole. Yeah, well that's okay. But he was great. He was the lessons there, the liston is there. And he was a simple dude. He was really a simple guy who took care of business. And I must give a shout out. One of the most famous games that. He played in wasn't the cub Cardinal game. It was the Ryan Samber game when he knocked two dang years off for Bruce Souiter at the end of the game and they won the game. So all you Cardinal fans. I'm one of these. But that's okay. I know, I know. Let's say I had a slide that either. Anyway, with that, I just want to tell you, I mean shout out to Ryan and his iron right in his family in the Cubs organization for how class they're handling everything. But I'm gonna tell you the same ist with what we do in schools. He's got power of simple. I really appreciate you bringing that up today. Yeah, I love it. Well, just another quick mention out there to everybody that is listening. Don't forget there's a lot of people out there that can help you, whether it's Jim or myself, or your next door neighbor or another colleague. I think sometimes we do try to put on the Superman cape. I just think we can do it all on our own. But that's just not the truth, Jim. No matter what, under any circumstance, we're never alone, and darn it, we matter absolutely. Hey, Adam, I want to say thanks for you know this, this partnership. I really appreciate the conversations and the stories bringing and the single wing I mean, the coaching of six plays. It's a great story that we could connect with and I appreciate all that. And listeners, I appreciate, uh, you know, popping in give sharing some comments with us, and we look forward to you next week. Again. We want to be the podcast that you deserve and you need, so feel free to reach out if you want to learn more ways or if you think you know that's all talk with some real actions. I mean I'm meaningful and manageable. You do so, and I promise you, Adam and I will reach out A lot. Takes a lot of guys, Adam, everybody else, Yes, Thank you. You've been listening to Control Shift Lead, brought to you by Inspired Edification and AWB Education. We're glad you joined us for today's discussion on empowering school leadership. To dive deeper and explore more of Jim and adams work, find us at www dot AWB education dot org. Thanks for listening. We look forward to connecting with you again soon