My most favorite part of my job is learning from others. I love to sit at the table with fellow colleagues and administrators and pick their brain, collaborate on a project, create, problem solve, analyze, etc. I love team teaching with teachers and learning how they interact and impact their students in their classrooms. Fellow moms are also a powerful source of info for me to help me with the many trials and tribulations of motherhood. Therapists, well they are definitely very helpful too! They unlock secrets and superpowers that I never knew I had.
Now, through my digital courses, I am meeting leaders and administrators all around the world. It is so energizing and fascinating to learn about what goes on in their world and how they approach obstacles and successes. When I talk with all of these amazing groups of humans, I always ask the question, “If you had a magic wand, what problem would you solve?” I am always impressed by the thought that goes into answering this question. It is riveting and I often find I may have the same thoughts or perhaps they present something I never even thought of. In fact, I use their answers to create my blog posts and help me apporach my own problems with possible solutions.
I thought I would share some of the answers that I have heard from fellow moms and leaders around the world, of problems that they would like to solve, in hopes that maybe these ideas will help you too!
Here are some strategies that I have heard from other people and have also helped me along the way.
I am struggling with ways to Inspire and motivate the community I lead –
- Set up meetings to be a workshop structure focusing on one top priority. This becomes more of a working session towards something your community needs solved rather than a ‘sit and get’ meeting or a meeting full of housekeeping. Here’s a free guide that you can download to show you how to workshop your meetings.
- Shorten meetings and frequency of meetings and get straight to the point.
- Validate the work they do in a celebratory way.
- Co-construct success criteria of expectations so they have ownership and a say
- Honor their passions.
I am overwhelmed and burnt out with all of the jobs that I have to do personally and professionally:
- Set up automated systems whereever you can. I have a free start up and shut down system to your day guide that you can download to get you started.
- Watch the Home Edit show and declutter and area of your house or office that is stressing you out.
- Set up a control center in your house that has calendar, priorities, and important info that your entire family can check out.
- Set only three things to accomplish each day and reflect each night if you accomplished them
- Find a hobby to take you away from work and find your passion and purpose again.
- Batch jobs and set up white space in your calendar for down time
Time to Empower Teachers and Get Into Classrooms
- Set up leadership opportunities for teachers and teach them about leadership
- Provide templates for them to follow and make their own to help them with a roadmap for clarity. For example, our teacher leaders co-constructed a meeting template to help with clarity, productivity, and efficiency.
- Celebrate teachers often and the work they do with food and kudos and photos of their work
- Set space each week to get into one or two classrooms and actually team teach with them
- Delegate bigger responsibilities with leadership to teachers with support
- Set up mentorship programs and coaching sessions between teachers during meetings instead of always sitting and getting info
More Time…
- Ok…tough love here…everyone has the same amount of time in a day. You just have to learn how to prioritize how you spend your time. Remember more is less…Choose one top priority and chip away at it rather than trying to do all the things all at once.
- Batch certain themed tasks in a day so that you focus your attention more and get more done.
- Set boundaries with a timer and actually make sure you follow them so that you have down time too.
- Choose an outcome for each chunk of time that you want to get done or learn before you start so you know the end goal.
- Try to schedule a common prep for teams of teachers that is attached to a lunchtime so they can get an hour and a half of team time each week
More ‘Me Time‘
- Do one hobby that you love and can commit to.
- Schedule it in and keep that promise to make it happen.
- Set up some healthy habits to start your day.
- Eat from the earth
- Get some sleep and make it a priority.
I want a more growth minded culture in the community that I lead.
- co-construct success criteria on what it takes to contribute to their own professional learning and then set up actions and checkpoints to make it happen.
- pep talks on a rotation always help
- research and tap into the gurus on mental health, healthy habits, etc. and use some of their ideas as professional development
- Set up some fun activities throughout the year with food
- Validate and celebrate the work they are already doing
- Do some schoolwide fun events!
- Share what they do on facebook or google classroom.
- keep meetings, emails, tasks, short and to the point.
So there you have it! A list of possible strategies to tackle the ‘magic wand’ problem of the hour. I realize these are really hard questions to answer but somehow, some way there is always a way forward. The important thing is that we just keep taking the next step. As they say…small change is still change. Hopefully some of these strategies will help you in taking the next step.
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