How to create the perfect principal entry plan [Part 5 of 6]

Most school leaders drown in operations because they try to do it all themselves — and call it productivity. This chapter shows you how to simplify, delegate, and score real wins by doing less ...

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Part 5: Pare Down to Scale Up Operations

When leaders start thinking about how to plan for a new school year, they usually think of operations first. That’s why I’ve saved it for last—because we have to plan for the important before the urgent.

Now that we’ve done that, let’s talk about how to handle the urgent.

It’s probably not hard for you to think of all of the operational challenges facing you: onboarding new faculty, welcoming students and families, establishing policies and managing district mandates, filing reports, creating the master schedule, and maintaining the facilities—just to start.

Three principles will help to guide us as we tackle the quickly-growing to-do list.

Less Is More

In 1960, Random House founder Bennett Cerf challenged one of his most famous authors to a bet: Write an entire book using just 50 words. The prize: $50.

That author was Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss.

The book born out of this dare became his most beloved children’s book, Green Eggs and Ham, and it has sold over 200 million copies to date.

The surprising and profitable lesson from this little experiment was that less is more. The greater the constraint, the greater the creativity required. With only 50 words at his disposal, Dr. Seuss had to access his creativity in a new way, and it led to a breakthrough.

What’s even more remarkable is that 49 of the words he used only had one syllable! The 50th had three: anywhere.

Dr. Seuss liked this strategy of using constraints so much that he employed it in all of his future books, too (Clear, n.d.).

While handling operations can feel like a chore, we can access greater creativity—perhaps even make it fun—by establishing constraints for ourselves. Constraints work because they force us to boil the task down to its most essential elements and change the way we perceive what we’re actually trying to accomplish. They help us shed the weight of “the way we’ve always done things.”

French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1939) knew the power of distilling an idea or a task to its most fundamental levels: “It seems that  perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away” (p. 59).

Dedicate just one hour per day to handling operations-related issues, or set aggressive deadlines for operations tasks. In his blog, James Clear (n.d.) describes how he commits to a schedule for writing articles ahead of time, and it’s forced him to get creative with finding time for writing: “Constraints force you to get something done and don’t allow you to procrastinate. This is why I believe that professionals set a schedule for their production while amateurs wait until they feel motivated.”

Delegate

You already know that I believe in trusting and empowering your team. Along with the academic priorities, we can also learn to trust our team to take on operational tasks or handle the “fires” that so often seem to come up.

Sometimes what we think are emergencies are really just distractions. Often, our pride and ego as the leader make us think we need to be involved in everything when in reality, our team might be just as (or even more) qualified to handle certain things so that we can keep the focus on our academic priorities and culture.

Delegating doesn’t diminish your impact; it actually multiplies it.

When delegating, you can define the boundaries and constraints of the task or project. You can establish processes and set expectations around when you want to be contacted. You know your people’s strengths and can tap into their passions and excitement. You get to give them decision-making autonomy and authority; you can empower them to show off their leadership skills.

This is a hard shift for many leaders who have been used to overperforming, taking on too much, and trying to manage everything themselves. They wonder, What role is left for me if I am delegating well to my team?

Their role is to provide direction and coaching. Their role is also to clear the path, provide resources, and recognize their team’s effort.

To help you decide what tasks are right to delegate, create a spreadsheet or table with five columns:

You can create your own spreadsheet or use the one I’ve created for you at buildleadershipmomentum.com.

Aim to give away a minimum of three operational tasks per quarter or a maximum of three tasks per month. Communicate intentionally about any expectations you have around the project, and check in with your team regularly to see what else they need from you in order to be successful.

I’ve also created a Delegation Masterclass that goes into more depth about when and how to delegate effectively.

Keep Score

Now, I don’t mean keep score against your colleagues or create competition among them.

The only person you should be keeping score with is yourself.

As you already know, there’s a lot to accomplish in the first 90 days of school. Even your 90-day plan, which we’ll create in Part 6, will cover a lot of detail on every aspect we’ve covered so far: yourself, communication, academics, school culture, and operations. You’ll need an easy way to measure your progress.

The best way to do this is to set your main priority for each day. Keeping track is easy: Just write your priority in your planner or set a reminder on your phone, and then check it off as you complete it. Every single day, Monday through Friday, you should have the potential to score a 5 out of 5 for the week.

Don’t calculate your score daily! Worrying about keeping score daily might distract you from your work or set too rigid a boundary. At the end of the week or month, add up what you’ve accomplished and divide it by the total number of tasks you set for yourself. As long as you’re scoring 80 percent or higher, you’re doing great.

Are you ready to turn the page to actually create your plan? You now have everything you need for a successful first 90 days of school.

Now, let’s get started.

Take Action: Get Your Tasks in Order

• Create a list of all of the operational tasks you can think of that you’ll need to accomplish in the first 90 days.

• Download the delegation spreadsheet I created or create your own, and then fill it out.

• For each task, identify the constraints and deadlines.

• Communicate with your team about what they can take on and what you will keep.

If this landed for you, here are a few ways to keep going.

Build your 90-day plan with Digital Danny. Work with him over the next 90-days or for the entire year. Two paths. Once choice.

He’s always available, never forgets, and evolves with you.

Listen to the Better Leaders Better Schools podcast. You’ll find over 10 years of conversations with the most interesting people doing the most interesting work in school leadership. Every episode is a Mirror Person who knows more than you about something you care about. Start anywhere.

Read the Final Part in this series below.