How to create the perfect principal entry plan [Part 2 of 6]

If you think communication is about updates, not empathy, don’t be surprised when no one’s listening.

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Part 2: Communicate How Much You Care

There’s one thing that high-performing schools tend to have in common: good communication. Communication is how we facilitate everything else that we want to accomplish as a school community: our academics (which we’ll discuss in the next post), our culture (Part 4), and our operations (Part 5).

On the other hand, when communication breaks down, the damage tends to extend to these other areas, too. It’s important that we get this right if we want everything else to go well.

The biggest communication challenge that educators face is that we tend to have the wrong focus. We view communication as a checklist of district mandates and protocols from the central office that we need to pass along to our teachers and staff.

Sure, we try to make it engaging—perhaps we sprinkle in a well-timed joke that no one laughs at—but it doesn’t change the fact that we’re trying to get through a laundry list of information, and everyone knows it.

If you’re thinking this sounds familiar, you might realize that this is exactly what we tend to do to students, too—viewing education as a list of standards to force-feed into their brains. It’s not effective for students, and it’s not effective for our staff.

When we do try to deliver this information during staff or department meetings, we tend to get sidetracked by another challenge: a focus on ourselves. We’re all human, and we’re all highly sensitive to the way we’re being perceived by the people around us.

Are they listening? Am I being funny enough? Do I have spinach in my teeth? So-and-so didn’t say hi to me. Why hasn’t you-know-who shown up yet? Is she ignoring me? This inner monologue distracts us from focusing on the people in front of us.

Remember the old adage: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”?

It’s cheesy, but it’s true.

In the first 90 days, our primary goal is not to rush through a list of logistical to-dos or dominate the airwaves with our own plans and vision. It’s to communicate how much we care.

And to do that, it helps to realign our ideas around who, what, where, and how we’re communicating.

Who Is Communicating?

Communication has to flow two ways. Yes, as a leader we are responsible for communicating to our team. But in the back-to-school rush, we tend to forget that it’s just as important, if not more important, for our team to be communicating with us.

Your focus, especially in the first 90 days, should be on listening and learning, not on dictating and informing. This is the best opportunity you’ll have all year to get to know your team, to learn what’s important to them, and to understand their pain points.

My favorite way to get to know my staff is to conduct a Get-to-Know-You Survey. Incorporate this survey into your back-to-school professional learning days; don’t assign extra work for staff to do at home and cut into their precious remaining time before the school year starts. This small consideration shows them that you respect their out-of-school time, and it can provide a fun break from your typical back-to-school PD.

So what should go in your survey? These are the questions I encourage leaders to ask, but you might adjust these or create your own instead:

1. What do you want to know about your new principal?

2. What do you want me to know about you?

3. What is your favorite snack or treat?

4. What is your favorite song and who performs it?

5. When is your birthday?

6. Share three of your favorite traditions at [Name of Your School].

7. Share three strengths of [Name of Your School].

8. Share three opportunities for growth.

9. What challenges do we face as a school?

10. Who has been instrumental in shaping the school?

11. If you were me, what would you focus your attention on this year?

You can find a downloadable version of this survey on our website here.

Some of these questions might surprise you. They’re not stale or typical; they’re thoughtful and intriguing. Most importantly, they give you lots of fuel for integrating your team’s personalities into your school communication throughout the rest of the year.

Think back to when you were a teacher. Imagine showing up to a weekly staff meeting to find your favorite snack food available or to hear your favorite song playing in the hallways. Maybe you even play a game with your team in which you guess whose favorite song is playing before a meeting. Imagine that your principal asked about your favorite hobby or asked if she could come cheer you on at your church’s softball game.

This survey not only gives you significant information about what priorities you’ll need to address throughout the year, it also gives your team a chance to get to know each other.

I always suggest that leaders make an effort to sit down with every staff member for at least 15 minutes in the first week of school. If you’ve already done the survey, these meetings are a chance for you to follow up on their responses or ask for further clarification.

It may not be with just staff that you need to improve communication. Principal John Unger’s team at West Fork Middle School identified that there was a gap in communication between the school and parents, so they decided to create a family engagement committee. This group was responsible for making sure parents were in-the-know about important updates from the school and for planning events to create a stronger sense of community.

For John, the surprising upside to this initiative was that it took one more worry off his plate and allowed him to focus on other priorities.

What Is Being Communicated?

In the first 90 days, when you communicate to your staff, you should focus on communicating just two things: your vision for your school’s success and how you plan to tackle their obstacles and challenges. Both should be rooted in how much you care.