[00:01] SPEAKER_00:
Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.
[00:06] Announcer:
Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center and Champion of High Performance Instructional Leadership, Dustin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.
[00:15] SPEAKER_02:
I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by my guest, Dr. Ron Beghetto. Ron is a professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut and an international expert on creativity in educational settings. And we're here today to talk about his new book, Big Wins, Small Steps, How to Lead for and with Creativity.
[00:37] Announcer:
And now, our feature presentation.
[00:40] SPEAKER_02:
Ron, welcome to Principal Center Radio.
[00:41] SPEAKER_00:
Thank you, Justin. It's great to be here.
[00:43] SPEAKER_02:
So I'm wondering if you could start by setting up this question for us. Why is creativity important for school leaders? I mean, we know there are lots of books, there are lots of TED Talks out there about creativity in general. But what do you see as the key reasons that creativity matters for school leaders? Because, you know, as I see depictions of our profession in the media, in television shows, you know, school leadership is not seen by society as the most creative of professions, if you know what I mean.
[01:17] SPEAKER_01:
Sure. You know, creativity is something that we all use when we're faced with uncertainty and complexity and ill-defined problems. I think anything that defines a school leader's role is that it's filled with uncertainty, that it's a very complex and challenging job, and that school leaders on a daily basis face ill-defined problems. And so creativity is one way and probably the best way, I would argue, to respond to that uncertainty that leaders face every day.
[01:46] SPEAKER_02:
Well, I appreciate that idea of an ill-defined problem, because often when we think of problems that frustrate us, we tend to define them clearly in our own minds, but in ways that don't quite fit. I can definitely remember situations where I thought I was working with someone who was just being difficult or just didn't have the skill that they needed or just didn't like me. But as I got into that problem more, I realized that it was what you're saying. It was kind of an ill-defined problem where the nature of the issue wasn't clear. What needed to be done about it wasn't clear because exactly what was causing the problem that was manifesting itself wasn't wasn't clear. What are some of the warning signs that we're dealing with an ill-defined problem that requires not just decisiveness, you know, because I think that's our go-to.
[02:35]
Our go-to is to be decisive, to be strong, to bring the hammer down if we need to, to make a decision. But that doesn't, you know, that doesn't seem like it's the wise way to go when we do have an ill-defined problem. So help us kind of distinguish between a situation where we do just need to take action and be decisive and versus when we need to be a little bit more curious, a little bit more patient and creative because we have an ill-defined problem on our hands.
[02:59] SPEAKER_01:
This is something that I've worked on a lot with my colleagues as well, is accomplished creators, and this includes creative leaders, know when to be creative and when not to be creative. So as you mentioned, there are times when following a routine procedure or policy or obviously is the best path because it's the most efficient and there's no need really to be creative. And I think one of the best ways to kind of really illustrate this, one of my favorite examples is if you're on a routine flight over a body of water, the last thing you'd want to hear is the pilot coming on and saying, you know, I've been thinking about this creative water landing. I'm just going to break out even though we're in the middle of a routine flight. Right. So but if the plane was going down, then by all means, you'd want the pilot to break out all the creative stops.
[03:45]
So it is kind of reading the situation and realizing that something's not fitting and kind of not only trusting your intuition, but recognizing some of the signs. And so one of the biggest signs is when you don't know how to proceed, when you've tried what you've always tried in the past, but for some reason it's not working. It could be a phone call with an upset parent. It could be you're implementing a new initiative. And even though you've used kind of a tried and true method, for whatever reason, it's not working. And so once you kind of recognize that, then it's time to kind of step back.
[04:20]
And what I describe in the book is sit with the uncertainty and kind of look at that and assess the situation and kind of prepare yourself and others to engage in a new way of thinking in creative thinking and engage in possibility thinking. So it is kind of being able to kind of read your environment, to be aware, to see those signals. And the biggest signal is when you really don't know what's going on and what you've tried before just simply isn't working. So that would be the biggest reason when you would want to approach a problem creatively. The other time you'd want to do that is when you want to improve a practice. So things might be running smoothly, but if you and others feel like you could make some improvements and we can always do that, then that would be another time to kind of revisit what you're doing and think about acting and behaving in new and meaningful ways.
[05:10]
And so infusing creativity into those situations when you want to improve a practice or procedure.
[05:15] SPEAKER_02:
So when we see that we're in one of those situations of uncertainty, what are some of the response patterns that school leaders can turn to? Because obviously we have the the kind of decisive and plow ahead with our normal way of handling things approach that may not fit the uncertainty. What are some alternative responses to uncertainty other than decisiveness?
[05:37] SPEAKER_01:
Sure. So when you're facing uncertainty, it's a very uncomfortable experience. I mean, humans don't want to experience uncertainty. It raises concerns about risk. It raises concerns about how you might be perceived by others. You know, if you're the leader and you don't know what to do, then who does?
[05:57]
So I think there's a lot of fears that come up when you're experiencing uncertainty and justifiable fears. And so, again, that's probably another signifier that you're in that moment. And so I describe, you know, this kind of continuum between like little micro crises that you could experience where you thought a conversation was going to go one way and it goes another, or you might find yourself in a really big crisis as a school or district. And so you're going to feel those fears and you're going to be tempted to quickly resolve that uncertainty by either force fitting what you've done in the past or ignoring what you're experiencing. And so part of it is to avoid that temptation and, again, take the time to prepare yourself and others to engage in possibility thinking, to recognize that you're going to need to shift away from
[06:48]
you know, force fitting predetermined strategies or the ways you've done things in the past and start moving towards this more kind of open exploratory mindset. And one of the things I describe in the book that's based on work by Carl Weick is really this idea of having the courage to drop your tools. And so that's the idea of dropping the way you've done business before, the way you typically approach a problem and signaling to yourself and kind of giving voice to that, that, look, this is not working. We're going to have to try something new. And I think as a leader, taking the lead on that and recognizing other people are going to have some fear around this uncertainty. And if you can kind of give voice to that, normalize it and say, we need to slow down and really explore what's happening and why this is different than what we've typically done in the past.
[07:39] SPEAKER_02:
Yeah, I love Wyke's kind of sense-making story about dropping your tools. So if I'm recalling correctly, it's been a few years since I've read it, but there was this massive wildfire and the firefighters were surrounded and the normal things that they would do, you know, were failing. They were failing to stop the fire. It was surrounding them. They were out in the wilderness and they had their you know shovels and axes and you know the normal tools for a clearing brush and stopping the spread of the fire and one of their one of their leaders Told everybody to drop their tools and and run and that's and that's what he did. Is that right?
[08:14] SPEAKER_01:
That's right. And so the idea there is Unfortunately, a lot of those firefighters did not do that and so they could have made it to safety if they were unencumbered by all these tools and their equipment and gear and And so the question is, why wouldn't somebody drop their tools and run in a situation, even a life and death situation? And I think the way this applies to school, it's pretty clear, like even in a classroom, anyone that's taught before, if the lesson starts going sideways, sometimes we feel more compelled to cling even more desperately to our lesson plan rather than set it down. Or if you have a meeting agenda and you have five items you want to get through and item three is taking you in a different direction than you expected, you might be tempted just to plow through and get to item four and five. And so the idea there is to really be willing to let go of that.
[09:05]
And one reason we don't is because our identity is so wrapped up in it. So again, going back to the firefighters, you know, what kind of firefighter would I be if I dropped my axe, my pack and ran from a fire? I'm here to fight the fire, right? What kind of teacher am I if I didn't expect this and I set down my lesson plan and I, you know, admit to the students that this is going in a direction I didn't expect. And so taking in something in a different direction takes a lot of courage. And I think our own fears about how we're perceived, our own sense of identity can sometimes get in the way of leading in a more kind of meaningful way.
[09:37] SPEAKER_02:
So you have a four-part framework for responding to uncertainty, right? Could you take us through that framework?
[09:44] SPEAKER_01:
Sure. And I call it the SAIL framework, which is the Small Steps Approach to Instructional Leadership. And it can be expanded to, again, address a long-term problem or even a more immediate day-to-day problem. But the first part, the first principle, and what I always say is I'm not the kind of doctor that gives prescriptions. So these are principles of practice that allow instructional leaders to adopt them to their existing leadership practices. And so the first principle is sitting with uncertainty.
[10:16]
So the minute you kind of experience uncertainty when you don't know what to do is the idea of taking time to sit with it. And so I provide a lot of examples and a lot of strategies for how you might sit and work through the uncertainty and prepare yourself and others to move into the next phase, which is engaging in possibility thinking. And the beauty of a possibility thinking is it really helps you move away from what you're currently experiencing to new possibilities, what could or should be. And so this is, again, an improvement focus. If you want to move away from the way you've currently been doing things and you want to improve into new directions or if you really don't know where to go, if you're stuck in a situation, this is where possibility thinking really comes in handy. And so in that chapter, I really unpack how you set up ground rules to help yourself and others think in new ways and to actually give voice to people who might not feel like they have voice, to challenge your and others' assumptions.
[11:08]
So I have several little techniques and strategies of how you might flip your assumptions and how you might even reason backwards to move forward. So ways of thinking in possibilities and new directions that can really help you break through to some new alternatives. And then this next step is what I call pruning possibilities. So once you've generated possibilities, how do you determine which ones are the best? And so how can you like kind of prune your kind of ideational garden, if you will, and identify those possibilities that maybe initially look strong but actually have some weaknesses or those that might have looked weak initially that actually have some hidden strengths. So how do you kind of clear the path to identify those ideas and possibilities that you can really put into action?
[11:53]
And the final step is taking measured action. So no matter how great an idea is, if you can't put it into practice, it really doesn't have value. So I talk about taking small steps, establishing modest milestones using what I call small data. So the example I give is like if you have a Fitbit or Apple Watch, that's an example of small data and how powerful that data really is because it's personalized, it has a very clear target and it allows you to make timely adjustments so if i set my you know step goal of 10 000 steps and i'm at 900 steps before i go to bed well i might have to wander around the house to hit that extra 100 or 200 steps to meet my goal so finding ways to kind of actively monitor and make necessary adjustments and take steps that aren't so risky that um you're not going to be willing to take them.
[12:43]
So take these kind of challenging but meaningful small steps towards implementing those new possibilities. So those are the four components. Sit with uncertainty, generate possibilities, engage in possibility thinking, prune those possibilities, and then take measured action.
[12:58] SPEAKER_02:
Well, Ron, if we zoom in to kind of principle two and principle three there about engaging in possibility thinking and then pruning those possibilities. I know for myself often when I get to, you know, one promising idea, it's easy to kind of kind of stop with that idea and just think, OK, well, now I now I know what to do. But you're saying we actually need to generate more more possibilities than we need and not stop when we just have a solution there. but really get creative with, you know, with kind of, do you call it brainstorming a list or help us with that?
[13:31] SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, generating a list of ideas. And I think one of the things that people often recognize is that creativity is about kind of brainstorming and generating ideas. Something that we sometimes fail to recognize is the more difficult and essential task of being able to evaluate and critique those possibilities. And so if you look at all the creativity problem solving models and even design thinking, there is this kind of two part phase. One is generating possibilities and then the other is kind of evaluating those and selecting the best ones. And so the idea then is to really recognize that creativity and creative thinking and creative problem solving and this model itself really necessitates being able to critique ideas that are generated, possibilities that are generated.
[14:19]
And so in the book, in that printing possibilities chapter, I help outline some ground rules that'll help people evaluate the ideas and perspectives that are being offered, but do it in a way that still keeps it open to identifying new possibilities. Because sometimes when you're critiquing ideas, that's when you really get at the core of the problem. So you might think you're addressing one problem But when you're evaluating, you discover that there's actually a deeper underlying problem. And sometimes that comes out through the critique. There's a particular strategy that I talk about in that chapter that's called a premortem. And this was developed by a psychologist by the name of Klein.
[14:56]
And it's a really powerful strategy. I've used it with a lot of school leadership teams. Once you feel like you have a direction to take, the premortem strategy is to give everyone a chance to write down, and they can do this anonymously, on a strip of paper to imagine if this was going to be just a fantastic failure. So if our new plan, whatever it could be, a new teacher evaluation approach or it could be a new fundraiser approach or whatever the case may be, to imagine what would happen if this thing spectacularly failed and what would be the cause of that and have people write those kind of concerns down and then to take those one by one and read them as a group and work through how you might address those. And that's a really liberating thing because once you get to that phase where you feel like you have an idea, nobody wants to be the yes but person and kind of the spoil sport.
[15:54]
But this gives people a chance to give voice to something they may have been sitting on for several days or weeks or months and just didn't have the opportunity to express that concern. And it can really head off problems down the line and actually strengthen the initiatives. And also kind of address some concerns that people have to make sure that they have the courage to actually take the next steps. So in the book I talk about those components that are really helpful in putting ideas in action, finding hidden strengths in seemingly weak ideas, all those kinds of things that will really set you up for taking the steps necessary for successful implementation.
[16:36] SPEAKER_02:
Well, I love that idea of kind of pre-thinking through what could go wrong because often when we're discussing a particular idea, you know, how are we going to handle XYZ problem? How are we going to deal with this scheduling issue with our math block? You know, it comes up in a staff meeting, somebody proposes a solution or we generate a number of solutions and kind of zoom in on one to talk about. And then inevitably someone who maybe doesn't want to be that naysayer or maybe they do, but they raise an issue that does need to be dealt with. And I found that the reaction of a lot of people in that moment is to pull back and to say, well, maybe we shouldn't do this. And what I found myself doing as a facilitator in a lot of meetings like that is to say, well, that's not a reason why.
[17:22]
not to do it, it's a problem that we need to solve along the way. It's kind of an implementation issue. So what you're saying with the pre-mortem is we need to kind of not be afraid of those and not take those as an excuse or a reason not to act, but as simply a part of the planning process?
[17:39] SPEAKER_01:
Absolutely. And, you know, when I've used this in workshops and so on with groups, it's amazing how much emotion you can hear in those groups. You hear laughter, you hear sighs, you hear all these different things, but it really is a moment where they feel like it's okay to raise those concerns. Because I think the other alternative, the one you raised is true, that some people feel very deflated and nobody wants to move forward. The other alternative is they kind of demonize the person that brought that up. And that's just their way of kind of dismissing what could be a very real and serious concern.
[18:15]
So again, just thinking ahead to the future and just imagining that, everything that could possibly go wrong before you actually implement it is very powerful. It's something I used to do when I taught middle school. After I designed a lesson, I would think, okay, if I was a kid in this class and I wanted to destroy this lesson, if I just wanted to just bring it down to the ground, what would I do? How would I disrupt this lesson? And so that was a way for me to think about, okay, how am I going to use materials? What things do I need to be aware of?
[18:46]
And it's a similar thing on a smaller scale. And that's something that I want to also highlight with this book. These principles are something that teachers can use with their students. Students can learn them when they're designing projects. You can see kids use these in their own project teams to work through these kind of four principles when they're designing like project-based learning or design-based learning or doing things in maker spaces. Anything where the outcome is not necessarily known in advance.
[19:11]
these principles can be really helpful in guiding that process.
[19:15] SPEAKER_02:
Absolutely. And I love the design thinking angles that you're bringing to this. I'm reading a book on design thinking right now called The Achievement Habit by Bernie Roth from the Stanford Design School. And I just think that kind of reframing, you know, a lot of those different techniques that you've described and that he describes in his book about just kind of changing the way we're thinking about it from the traditional kind of you know, list and prioritize and be decisive to really trying to think about the problem differently, to anticipate, you know, the challenges that we'll face and how we'll overcome them. Let's zoom in on that question of how we prune the list, though, because, you know, if we're successful thus far, you know, we'll have more possibilities than we need. We'll have a surplus of ideas and we can't do all of them.
[20:00]
So what does that process look like? And especially in a team setting, if we're in a leadership team meeting, we have a number of ideas that have been proposed for solving a particular problem. What does it look like to prune that list down in a way that moves people forward and doesn't make people feel shut out if their idea is one that gets pruned?
[20:18] SPEAKER_01:
Sure. And something I talk about in this chapter that I think is really important in evaluation is setting ground rules so that people know what to expect and also are able to assume roles that they might not normally assume in their kind of day-to-day work in school. So when you establish the kind of ground rules and if you're inviting a lot of diverse perspective in to kind of evaluate ideas, You could have people that might not normally have a chance to critique somebody else's idea have voice in that space. And so ground rules kind of allow that to happen. And they set the stage for, okay, this is really about critiquing ideas and not people. And something that I use that I think is really powerful is this stem of what if.
[21:01]
So every critique has to be prefaced by what if. And when you do that, and I find this even in my own personal relationships with my wife and daughter, it's a useful tool just to raise the question of what if you tried this. And what that signals to people is it's just one possibility. And it moves away from this kind of very controlling language of you should, you need to, we must, which actually takes away people's autonomy and voice. And so if you just ask the question what if, when you're providing information an evaluative critique, it changes the tone completely. And it signals that this is still possibility thinking, even though we might be saying difficult things to each other about ideas.
[21:48]
And so those ground rules really help set that up, and I give a couple illustrations of what that looks like. And then once you have those ground rules, the key is to really look at all the ideas that have been generated. And again, like we say, we might have a couple that feel very strong, and we just want to jump ahead on those. And again, resisting that temptation Looking at ideas, even the ones that don't seem strong, there could be hidden strengths in there. And also looking at the strong ideas and looking and seeing are there kind of pieces of this that lack practicality or feasibility. And then when we provide the critiques, I provide some insights around that too, that you need to be deep, specific, and useful so that they can be actionable.
[22:27]
And then that's when you can set yourself up for moving into that premortem stage to where you can really start critiquing what seems like the most viable option and moving forward with it. But again, this is possibility thinking even when you're evaluating and through those, if you kind of have good ground rules and people are on board for following those ground rules and I think this is where an instructional leader plays a key role is actually moderating this process more than actually you know, sharing out their own critique. So really giving voice to other people. It's amazing the kinds of ideas that can emerge in this stage and almost take you back to a new direction. And sometimes that can be the case.
[23:08] SPEAKER_02:
I wonder if we could do an example of that kind of what-if critique. So if someone on our leadership team, we're having a discussion and we're trying to, say, solve the problem of traffic congestion in the staff parking lot in the morning, and someone has an idea to make it a one-way flow of traffic, what would a what-if critique sound like?
[23:30] SPEAKER_01:
Here's what a what-if might look like. So you can use what-if two different ways, at least. One is to raise new ideas. The other is to actually critique an idea that's been presented. So if you think about what if as compared to what somebody might typically say, such as we can't do that because how are they going to get back onto the main road versus what if we tried that? How are people going to get back onto the main road?
[23:59]
Or what if people get trapped as a result of that? So that's critiquing it by just asking a what if. But I think the power of this is really that you can introduce new ideas, that when you provide a critique, it can signal that this is just one possibility. So we could say, what if we tried that, but we also found a way to help people exit under the road? I mean, why don't you try? Let me bounce it back to you.
[24:26]
Let me hear your what if. So if I said, we need to do this one way in for drop off.
[24:34] SPEAKER_02:
So one type of what if question would be, what if something specific goes wrong? What if people can't turn back onto the main road? But you're saying a second type of what if question is, what if we did something else instead? Or what if we did something in addition to that? Like, what if we also inquire with the city about getting a traffic light put in to help with the...
[24:56]
the congestion. So it's both identifying the existing challenges with our existing solutions and in parallel to that, generating additional solutions that may be direct ways to address those existing problems, or they may introduce entirely different solutions that can be kind of reworked and recombined as the generativity process continues.
[25:18] SPEAKER_01:
Absolutely. So one way to think about that, what if it is, and I talk about this as a strength-based approach to evaluation. So if you think about improvisational performers, one of the things they're taught early on is the yes and.
[25:30] SPEAKER_02:
The yes and, yeah. That's what I was going to say.
[25:33] SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, so it's the same sort of thing. It's like, okay, and what about this? So what if we tried that during this time of the day and everyone knew that, and then we moved to this? So I think it is about kind of taking that up. critiquing it, offering new solutions, or using it as a way to bring awareness of potential problems that that might lead to. So again, it's a powerful stem that signals possibility thinking.
[25:59] SPEAKER_02:
Well, Ron, as we move toward the end of our interview here, I wonder if you could talk with us a little bit about the big picture of instructional leadership and how we can, as you say, kind of reclaim some of the creativity that can be in that role. Because this is a hard job. This is a demanding job. It has an enormous scope of responsibility. And often we feel like we're between a rock and a hard place, where there's a very specific policy that has to be followed, a very specific mandate, and yet very varied and real circumstances on a human level within the school that we have to deal with. What's your perspective on creativity within that broader context of instructional leadership?
[26:37]
What are some things that we can do to move creativity to the forefront of our approach and deal with what might otherwise be some kind of tough situations?
[26:48] SPEAKER_01:
That's a great question, Justin. And I think the first thing to recognize is as instructional leaders, you're already being creative every day. And so part of it is just kind of naming what you're doing. And creativity is really about doing new things within the constraints of the context. And so it's not just about originality. It's about doing new things that meet the task constraints of the particular situation.
[27:13]
So I often talk about creativity, particularly in educational contexts. as more about thinking creatively inside the box of constraints rather than trying to think outside the box. Now, occasionally, if you want to do something radically different, like change the way schooling is done, yes, sometimes you need to build a new box, right? But still, in order to do that, you have to fully understand the constraints of the existing box. So I would say the vast majority of time instructional leaders are being creative by operating within their existing constraints. And again, that's when creativity thrives because it requires those kind of task constraints to kind of constrain the originality.
[27:55]
So I think that's the first thing to recognize is when you are being creative is when you're doing new things and you're still meeting the demands of your role as an instructional leader. And to help teachers and young people recognize that as well. that being creative doesn't mean drawing a pencil sketch on your math exam. It means coming up with a new way to solve the problem that meets the constraints of the mathematic problem. So I think helping people understand what creativity is in that context is something instructional leaders play a really key role in. And again, modeling creativity is probably one of the best things instructional leaders can do to support creativity of others.
[28:38]
I really don't think it's fair that we as instructional leaders or parents or teachers or coaches ask young people to be creative and try to give them all these tools to be creative if we ourselves aren't willing to take those risks. So there are risks involved because you're trying something new. You don't necessarily know how it's going to turn out, but you also have the support of those constraints, of the context. So part of it is making sure that people are meeting what the expectations and demands are but being able, giving them the flexibility to do that in sometimes new and personally meaningful ways. And so a little heuristic that I talk about in the book is knowing when to stand like mountain and when to flow like water. And I think instructional leaders oftentimes need to flow like water a lot, which means kind of doing new things within the existing constraints.
[29:29]
And there are other times when you have to be firm and stand like a mountain. That's kind of your integrity piece and say, no, this is the way we're going to do this. And so I think having that kind of awareness and flexibility to move between those things and model that for other people can help people kind of recognize their own creativity in those spaces.
[29:50] SPEAKER_02:
Well said. I know there is certainly no shortage of opportunities and challenges to bring our creativity to as instructional leaders. And I think, honestly, that's a lot of what keeps us renewed in this work is the new challenges that come up every day and that require that kind of thinking.
[30:10] SPEAKER_01:
Yep. And if I may just add one last little thing. So I would say the last component would be to recognize face even the most kind of challenging situations with the spirit of possibility thinking. If you can model that kind of what if we tried this, that can be so powerful. If people see you approaching these challenges and not jumping to force fit solutions, not ignoring the problem, but taking a moment and just asking that simple two-word question of what if. And if you can just do that day in and day out and model that for other people, it'll be, I think, amazing what things can be done, the ideas that can be generated in the new directions that instructional leaders can take.
[30:55] SPEAKER_02:
Well, what if people want to get in touch with you and find more about your work online?
[31:01] SPEAKER_01:
Nice transition. I would say you can reach me at my website. It's www.ronaldbaghetto.com. Or you can email me at ron.pagetto at gmail.com.
[31:14] SPEAKER_02:
And again, the book is Big Wins, Small Steps, How to Lead For and With Creativity. Ron, thanks so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio.
[31:22] SPEAKER_01:
Thank you so much, Justin. It's been a pleasure.
[31:25] SPEAKER_00:
And now, Justin Bader on High Performance Instructional Leadership.
[31:29] SPEAKER_02:
So high performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my conversation about creativity with Ron Beghetto? One thing that stands out to me is the importance of design thinking or of thinking about the problem that we're trying to solve in a different way rather than trying to jump into a solution right away. Because I think this is something that we're predisposed to, as I said in my conversation with Ron. We're problem solvers. We are predisposed to getting to a solution as quickly as possible. And often in the most difficult situations, it's not our decisiveness that's going to make us effective as leaders.
[32:09]
It is instead our thoughtfulness. It's our ability to generate solutions, to work together, to accept ideas from maybe nontraditional sources, and come up with solutions together that are better than what we would just come up with decisively. And that's, of course, something I've realized as a parent in recent years, that the first thing that comes to mind when I want to be decisive, when I want to handle a situation a certain way, often is not the best. And I think our staff is the best resource that we have available to us to make decisions together. So in our professional development at the Principal Center, one thing that we're working on at the moment is a set of trainings on how to make decisions together as a staff that include more people, that clarify how everyone is to be involved in decisions, and that build trust by following that process on a consistent basis.
[33:00]
So if you're not a professional member of the Principal Center, you can go to principalcenter.com join and gain access to that forthcoming training, as well as all of our professional development for school leaders.
[33:12] Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com radio.
