The 8 Systems Every School Needs

Sometimes you've got to take your own medicine...

I've been so busy teaching Principals and District Administrators how to put systems in place to help them achieve their goals that I've gotten lax on my own internal systems.

This week, I've been taking time to revive my systems and revise the ones that aren't working.

Whoa!

Not only have we immediately become more productive at Mindsteps, but we've started to see some new opportunities that have been just sitting there all along that we've previously overlooked.

The same is true for you. Once you put systems in place in your school, achieving your vision for 100% of your students in the next 3 years suddenly doesn't seem that hard. In fact, with the right systems, achieving your vision will feel almost inevitable.

So if you don't have good systems in place, I urge you to start implementing them immediately. For Builders, there are 8 Key Systems you need. We call these "Architectures" and they are critical to ensuring you achieve your vision in 3 years or less with the people and resources you already have:

1. Your Alignment Architecture ensures that you are making decisions that are in alignment with your vision, mission, and core values (and stop wasting time on decisions that take you out of alignment).

2. Your Feedback Architecture ensures that you are getting into the right classrooms at the right time and that you are giving teachers feedback that is differentiated, developmental, and deliberate so that you can see tangible growth in every teacher.

3. Your Support Architecture ensures that you are helping every teacher grow at least one level, in one domain, in one year or less.

4. Your Culture Architecture ensures that you are eliminating toxicity from your school culture and deliberately engineering a healthy school culture.

5. Your Accountability Architecture ensures that everyone is doing the right work the right way -- even when you're not checking.

6. Your Planning Architecture ensures that you are focusing on the right work -- and not wasting time pursuing goals that ultimately won't move you towards your vision for students.

7. Your Execution Architecture ensures that you stay the course even when distractions and life get in the way.

8. Your Communication Architecture ensures that you keep everyone in the loop so that they can stay committed to achieving your vision for students.

If you take time to Build these 8 systems, you can be sure that your school will make significant progress towards your vision each year.

Ignore these systems and you'll waste a lot of time this year putting out fires, duplicating work you've already done, spinning your wheels in frustration, and not seeing real progress towards your goals.

It's just that simple.

How do I know? Because this summer, I got lax about our own systems and experienced every one of the above pitfalls.

The moment I got refocused on our systems, it was as if the heavens opened up and breakthroughs rained forth. (I'm only being slightly dramatic here).

So, if you don't have systems, you need them ASAP. That way, you can start achieving your vision for 100% of your students right now #LikeABuilder