Podcast Episode 35 (part 8): Do What Works

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part eight in the series titled “Complementary Contradictions.” Here is the transcript of the podcast.

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite sides of the same coin, or at least differ from each other, and we are pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. This week, in part 8, we are talking about doing what works; next time, in part 9, we will talk about what to do when it doesn’t work.

We all have things that we do over and over and over again without thinking about it. Usually, that’s because they are things that work for us, things that make our lives simpler. Things like the way we brush our teeth or put on our clothes. Somewhere along the way, we develop a pattern or method that accomplishes what we want to accomplish in a way that works well for us, so we keep doing it. That’s the idea we are discussing today – finding what works and then doing it.

At one point early in my school leadership, I came across what appeared to be a great idea. I was attending a professional development conference, and one of the breakout sessions was a presentation by a head of school in another school, in which he explained a program they had implemented that was transformative for students. It was a program that created a way for students to experiment with job-shadowing and internship experiences and to participate in learning experiences that would not be a typical part of an academic education.

After listening to this presentation, I believed it had great potential for my school. So, I went home from the conference and spent the next few months thinking, organizing my thoughts, and crafting a plan to implement a similar program. I talked with teachers and other school administrators I knew, created rough drafts, conducted surveys, and, in the end, rolled out a version of this learning and shadowing experience that would fit my school and my students. It included out-of-the-box learning experiences for students (like how to do basic home maintenance, an introduction to cooking, digital portrait photography, careers in animal science, and so on.), as well as opportunities that had been arranged for upperclassmen to job shadow in career fields related to the majors they were intending to pursue in college. And it was a success! Students loved it, parents loved it, and it became an annual component of their learning experience.

Then, in my calling, God moved me to a different school in a different part of the country.  As soon as I arrived, I knew that this had been such an excellent program experience that I immediately began planning how to implement it in this new place.  It was a different place with a different culture and different opportunities, but the idea was still just as valuable. I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel because I had already figured out something that worked.  I just had to evaluate and modify something that already worked, to fit it into a new environment and context.  And again, it was a success.

The point is that, in the world of my particular career field, I had found something that worked. I saw something that looked like it would work. I created a plan for implementation and carried it out, and it really worked! It worked so well, in fact, that I implemented the same program in the next two schools where I led, in a way that applied to each of those school settings. Because it worked so well, I continued to do it.

That lesson applies to your leadership as well. Over time and with experience, you often learn or discover ideas, methods, tools, and programs that work well. It is important for you to be aware enough that you see these things and then take the intentional initiative to do something that works. The first time around, there will be a larger learning curve as you explore and try things. Jim Collins, author of the books “Good to Great” and Great by Choice,” talks about firing bullets, then cannonballs. By that, he means that first, you fire test shots at the target by trying out ideas and getting feedback, and then when you have found the bullseye, you can focus your efforts and expend your energy. Using that process, you can hone in on what will work, and then you can do it and do it well.

Here’s the big idea:  wherever you are, put in the effort to identify what works. That may be something new that you have not been doing; it may be something that you have already been doing; or it may be something you have been doing that just needs to be modified. Regardless, figure out what works, start doing it, and keep doing it.

In the schools where I led, I would oversee the curriculum review process, which was necessary to ensure that the academic program was representing excellence, maintaining relevancy, meeting needs, and continuously improving. In that process, I was always asking people to think about what we were not doing that we needed to do, what we were doing that we no longer needed to do, and what we were doing that we could keep but needed to modify. Essentially, we were always trying to pay attention to what was working and what was not, and then making sure that we did what worked. That’s what you need to do. Find what works and do it . . . until it doesn’t, but that’s the topic for next time.