Greetings friends!
I took the last week off to visit my new grandbaby Olive! In retrospect it was a pretty simple decision to put my grandchild and family in the forefront and the podcast and newsletter to the side. What a joy, and a reminder about what is important. What a wonder a little baby can be. I am in awe of how curious she is at 2 months old, how when she hears her parents voice that she seeks it out.
I have to say, having grandchildren is one of the great joys of parenthood. And in our discussion today, Olivia, Lauren and I talk about decision making - inspired, again, by Dr. Tom Butlers newsletter. As we opened our conversation we realized that parenting falls into the realm of complex decision making - how I found the dropping the podcast for a week to be simple, and how as supervisors, Lauren and Olivia feel the dissonance in the decisions they make.
Here is the model Dr. Butler shared in his newsletter for context. As you listen into this episode you can see clearly how we are thinking about our own decisions - and how we want to lighten the load of the people we work with.
As we dug into the conversation here are a few of the key takeaways:
Not all decisions are created equally! Some decisions are just procedural and you find yourself just following a set of rules or a set of predetermined steps. Others are complex and weigh on you - when you make the decision you may or may not know the outcome.
As we recognize the various types of problems we encounter daily, from managing administrative procedures to handling complex relational issues. Lauren emphasized how important it is to have guidelines like handbooks and policy - they make some of the day to day decisions easy.
On the flip side, when making a more complicated or complex decision we need to know what we believe. Harken back to the mission, vision and guiding principles of the organization - and even our own core values.
The number of decisions educators have to make each day - and how exhausting that can be.
A major point we discovered is importance of being human and kind when we make decisions. How maintaining a human-centric approach in educational decisions keeps the people at the center and can highlight the importance of knowing your own values and principles.
What are areas that you need to batten down the hatches of decision making? For us we found some flaws in our attendance policy. As we reviewed the data we realized we could make a simple change to make the outcome for students and districts better. It was complicated. And, as with most of our decisions, when we thought about the outcome for the student we decided to make the change.
What are some of the decisions that are easy for you? That you have solid procedures and systems when it is time for a decision.
How do you include your stakeholders in the decision making process? Our teachers were a big part of guiding us to make the decision to shift the way we gather attendance data. While we can’t always take the time to include everyone in all the decisions we make as leaders, when we can - it goes a long way.
Here is the link to Dr. Tom Butler’s Newsletter. It always has some great nuggets of information. If you don’t already subscribe - take a minute to do it today.
Here are a few other things we are doing to keep the learning going:
PASCD Conference - November 19 - 21, 2023
ACTFL Conference - November 17 - 19, 2023
Cognia and NCAA Accreditation Process
Streamlining the Curriculum - Book Group
As always, we are here to support you if you can’t find a teacher or just need to think about how to make your own online learning experience authentic, relevant and engaging.
Thanks for listening in today!
Pat
Simple, Complicated, Complex