Episode 238: Leading with Clarity with Casey Watts

Darrin Peppard (00:00.888)

Hey there everybody, welcome to the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. This is episode 238 and my guest on the show today is Casey Watts. So leaders, let me ask you a question. How many times have you told your team, hey, we need to implement this with fidelity? Or maybe you've told them, we need to collaborate more, only to realize that nobody is on the same page.

If you're a regular listener to the show, you know, just a couple of weeks ago, I did a special episode specifically on those buzzwords that we say. And I talked about in that particular episode, how I was inspired by a recent guest on the show. Well, here is that episode. Casey Watts. Casey is that person who helped inspire that particular episode. And it came from the conversation that Casey and I had together on today's episode.

We talk about the quiet chaos that comes from a lack of clarity. Casey knows this extremely well. She is a passionate speaker, author, and thought leader. Casey has more than 20 years in education and more than a decade coaching educators and entrepreneurs and leaders. She is the creator of the Clarity Cycle Framework. Casey is also the host of the Catching Up with Casey podcast where she helps leaders bridge gaps, foster commitment, and create sustainable alignment. I had the honor of being a guest on Casey's show, Catching Up with Casey, and had an absolute blast with her. So of course I had to turn the tables and say, Casey, you've got to come.

onto leaning into leadership. So Casey and I are sitting down today in this conversation and we're going to dive into why clarity is the missing piece in leadership, the habits that actually make clarity stick and how can you transform the way your team works together? This is such a fun conversation and it is loaded with insights. mean, imagine me, a clarity expert, sitting down with Casey, a clarity expert.

Darrin Peppard (02:22.144)

you are going to come away with, you guessed it, a whole lot of clarity in this particular episode. Again, it is so much fun. Grab something to write with, take some notes. You're going to have a great time. So let's get right to it with Casey Watts.

Darrin Peppard (00:00.79)

Alright friends, welcome back into leaning into leadership. I'm sitting down with Casey Watts today and man, I'm stoked about this conversation. You know, sometimes we meet people that whether we realize it or not, we have just it's like we share a brain and Casey's big focus clarity. Casey's really big on teams. Casey's really big in leadership and man, we definitely have.

some things in common. this is going to be a lot of fun. Casey, welcome into the show.

Casey Watts (00:34.232)

Yeah, thanks for having me, Darren. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited about our conversation, talking all about like clarity and teams and all of the things that we share when we're watching each other on social media and LinkedIn and everything. It's like, hey, I was just thinking about that. I just writing about that the other day.

Darrin Peppard (00:53.078)

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you've definitely hit a few things that I've seen you share that I'm like, hey, wow, it's like Casey's in my brain. And I love that. So let's stick with the theme of clarity and maybe clarify or fill in some of the blanks, if you will. I talked before we jumped on. People already know a little bit about your bio, but fill in some of the gaps. Tell us a little bit about Casey Watts.

Casey Watts (00:59.064)

Yeah.

Casey Watts (01:17.238)

Yeah, I'm going to give you a really shortened version and use the word never because I am a product of the word never. Okay, meaning I my whole life I have said I tend to be a little bit of a stubborn person, but there are so many things that I say that I would never do. So I said I'm never going to be an educator. I don't like kids don't want to teach. Well, guess what? I became an educator.

I said, I'm never gonna be a mom before I'm 26. Well, guess what? I became a mom before 26. I'm never gonna drive a minivan, never gonna be a soccer mom, never, never, never, all of these things. I just recently said, I'm never going to build a course. Like that's just not a part of what I'm gonna do. Well, guess what? I am building a course right now. So I have learned over time, I gotta be careful with that word never, because typically when I say, that's never gonna be me, I'm never gonna do that, it ends up happening.

One of the things that I said I would never do was become an educator. Well, I became an educator and I have loved every bit of that part of my life. So I have been in classrooms, in leadership positions, coaching, and now I do entrepreneurship. And so my focus when I'm working with people across the nation is how do we bridge the gaps between the adults on campuses? That's my primary focus.

And what I've learned over time and being in the trenches, both as a classroom teacher and leader, is that there's typically two narratives at play. There's the narrative of leaders who are saying, you know, we've set expectations, we've set it time and time again, nobody's getting on board, no one will commit. And then on the opposite end of that, we have teams of teachers that are saying, we have no idea what's going on. We don't know what the expectations are. We don't know what's expected of us. So there's a huge gap in between

what our leaders are expressing versus what people are hearing from their leaders. And so in hearing this and seeing this huge gap, I was like, what is the missing piece? And time and time again, it came to me that clarity is that missing piece. And if I look back across my career, even considering the things that I said I would never do, clarity was always the missing piece. And so I kind of poured myself into if clarity is the missing piece, why is clarity the missing piece?

Casey Watts (03:41.59)

Why don't we know how to gain clarity for ourselves and create it for other people? And then what are the systems we can put into place so that we are able to gain clarity and create clarity for the teams that we're leading in a way that allows them to commit to the bigger purpose and allows leaders to be able to hold people accountable without micromanaging. So in a snippet, that's the gap that I can feel about who I am and what I do.

Darrin Peppard (04:07.406)

Yeah, well, and so much of that, you know, just it resonates so strongly, you know, I opened with, know, hey, you and I share a brain and I listeners I mean, there's so many of you have been listening to this show for a really, really long time. And you've probably heard me use almost every bit of what Casey just just shared. So I think that's really, really spectacular. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna go this direction, I think Casey with this and you talked about

that missing piece being clarity. And I go back to my first couple of years and I'm curious what your experience was when you transitioned out of the classroom into leadership roles. For me, it was one thing to transition from classroom teacher to assistant principal, but it was that move from assistant principal to principal where the lack of clarity really caught up to me. It was that just...

Casey Watts (04:57.462)

Hmm?

Darrin Peppard (05:01.486)

told the story on here a thousand times. I think I even told the story on your podcast, but you know, I thought I had to just put on the superhero cape and just solve everybody's problems. And I wasn't clear with what I expected. So it was almost impossible to be clear with what I expected of others. And there's no way they were clear about what it was that was expected of them. One, I'm curious about your experience specifically with that, but then two,

Maybe carry that a little bit forward with some of the leaders and teams that you're working with now. How do you see that lack of clarity and maybe we'll eventually make our way to some steps that people can take to really gain the clarity they need.

Casey Watts (05:48.44)

It's so funny that we're talking about this today because I just, have been, I don't know if anybody that's listening to this uses Marco Polo, but it's an app, a video chat app that I use consistently. It's pretty similar to Voxer except it's video format. And so if you're familiar with Voxer, it's basically Marco Polo, but with video. And so sometimes a lot of my coaching will take place on Marco Polo. So whoever I'm working with,

wherever they might be, it allows us the opportunity to meet together asynchronously and just chat about like what's on their mind, what do we need to bring clarity to, et cetera. So I was visiting with someone this morning, actually she sent me a polo yesterday, an assistant principal, and she was talking about PLCs and wanting them to be really effective. And one of the terms that, one of the questions that I asked was, well, let's talk about what...

What do you want the outcome to be? Like you have these people coming to these meetings, but what's the ultimate goal, hope or outcome? Let's answer that first, because we've got to figure out what that is before we can make any effective changes. And then we've got to start thinking, well, what's essential? Like if this is what you're saying you hope comes from these meetings, or this is what you're saying ultimately you want to happen and teachers to walk away with, then what does that mean is essential?

to happen during that meeting. And so it's fascinating because one of the terms that came out, and this connects to my own experience working in schools as an instructional specialist specifically, but one of the terms that came out was this term fidelity, right? And we hear it a lot. there are so many, there's the push for implementing high quality instructional materials right now. And

So many schools have either a new curriculum or a curriculum that they've been using that they want teachers to implement with fidelity. Well, one of the things that we talked about was, okay, you're saying, you're communicating to your staff, we want you to implement this with fidelity. But let's just think about that word in and of itself. Do we know that there's a common understanding of the word fidelity? Because if not, and you're saying we want you to teach it with fidelity,

Casey Watts (08:02.188)

then what they are believing potentially is, okay, I'm gonna take this back to my classroom. I'm gonna turn it page by page, day by day. I'm gonna teach exactly what it says in the way that it says it, which eliminates the need for us to have these PLC meetings. Because why am I meeting to talk about this if you're telling me to teach it with fidelity? Because in my mind, fidelity has this specific meaning. So when we...

there's a lack of clarity and so often it's just around this jargon that we hear day in and day out and we make the assumption that, well, they're educators, they've been in the education space, surely we all have a similar definition for this term. When we lack clarity around what that definition is, we don't have a common definition, then we're creating this underlying, like what I call in the book as quiet chaos, right? Like there's not necessarily a visible chaos.

But because everyone's going back to their classrooms with these different understandings and implementing things in the way that their understanding allows them to implement it, then we're creating this chaos. We're not on the same page. And so I feel like I have experienced that myself just in being a new leader. How many times have I assumed that when I say you're going to implement it with fidelity, we know what that means. Or here's an even, even more simple example.

How many times have I said we're going to analyze the data, but I haven't been clear about what that means. What about that new teacher that's coming on? When you say analyze data, okay, well, what does that even look like? I don't know what you mean by that. So I'm just gonna kind of play along and follow what everybody else is doing until it looks like I know what I'm right?

Darrin Peppard (09:45.048)

Right.

Darrin Peppard (09:53.379)

Yeah, no, think yeah, I love that so much because man, you're taking me back through through my career. And yeah, the dreaded F word, right? I mean, that the F word in education is fidelity. And so many people might as well be a four letter word because, you know, it's almost like it's like saying fidelity is a directive, like you will do this lockstep. And I like how you talked about that because

Casey Watts (10:04.408)

All

Casey Watts (10:19.841)

Yes.

Darrin Peppard (10:22.73)

I certainly I mean I got that directive downhill from you know from above me when I was a building principal that your teachers need to do this with fidelity well okay what does that even mean and you know the PLC piece is a great example too I mean tons of the different groups that I work with certainly you know they're they're doing PLC work but they haven't necessarily and I have some that are doing a really good job of defining here's what

Casey Watts (10:31.128)

Right.

Darrin Peppard (10:51.634)

A, a PLC really is. B, here's what we really expect for outcomes. And C, this is how we expect protocols and processes to actually go in the PLC. So much so that in a couple of cases, it's this particular assistant principal is the driver of PLCs across the board in the building or whatever the case may be. That lack of definition, I want to maybe go a little bit further here.

that lack of definition with some of those terms, you actually gave me an idea for maybe a blog post or maybe a podcast episode or maybe both, where just let's just dive into some of the jargon we use. And let's talk about gaining clarity or more importantly, let's talk about how leaders can define those terms. Because here's the example I'll give and then I'll let you just kind of

a of years ago, one of the one of the districts or rather one of the buildings that I work with one of the high schools I support in our very first meeting, you know, what's the goal? Hey, we want to increase rigor. Okay, what does that mean? Not that they didn't know what rigor means. I'm not saying that. But how do you define that? And what have you done to define that with your teachers? And, you know, what have your teachers done to define that for your students? I mean, if you don't know what that really means,

Casey Watts (11:58.456)

Right.

Darrin Peppard (12:14.252)

then how do you know if it's happening? What are you looking for when you're in classrooms? How do you get feedback? How do you coach it? How do you support it? So anyway, that's just one simple example. You've already used PLC and you've used Fidelity. So I don't know, run with another one. What's something else? We need to be really good at defining to gain clarity.

Casey Watts (12:22.604)

Yeah.

Casey Watts (12:36.45)

Yeah, we do need to be, we need to be really great at defining it, but all of these terms. The other thing I think we need to be really good at, and I'm gonna give you a couple of examples of how this affects team collaboration, but I think we need to ensure that there's ownership in some of those definitions. So in, there are absolutely cases where I as a leader need to communicate, this is what we mean when we say this. I think there are some terms that definitely,

require that communication. But then there are some terms where we need to almost as though we're in the classroom, we need to kind of pre-assess what are people already believe or know about this term. And I'm gonna, the one that I think about so often is tier one instruction. And we hear it all the time. We hear it all the time. I was working with a group in Los Angeles last year and one of our

Darrin Peppard (13:22.189)

yeah.

Casey Watts (13:31.768)

they were going through the clarity cycle framework, which we may talk about a little bit before we end this show, but we were going through the clarity cycle framework and part of that was really getting clear on what are the tier one instructional strategies we're going to implement in our classrooms to improve student engagement because student engagement was definitely a goal that they had. So I was doing this pre-meeting just to kind of assess where are we before I go in person to do work with these two

the middle school and the elementary school, where are they in terms of tier one instruction? So I asked the question, let's just talk about what is your common definition of tier one instruction? And I was met with crickets at first, like nobody wants to answer probably because they're afraid, my gosh, what if my answer is not actually accurate? And then in the, yeah.

Darrin Peppard (14:20.694)

Right. Probably two people like pretended they got a phone call. I got to leave the room, right? Yeah.

Casey Watts (14:25.644)

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Hold on. Hold on. mute my camera. All of the things, right? But then in the middle school, there was a teacher who was very vocal about everything. I he was then this is I think we could go on a tangent with this, but he was so so convicted in his beliefs that he answered proudly like Tier one is your

your most struggling students who need the most intervention. And I was like, well, it's clear we don't have a common definition of tier one instruction and we definitely don't have an accurate definition of tier one instruction. And so it was just that those simple things that we just kind of go day in and day out. Another one is instructional strategy. So when I'm meeting with teams of any kind, it could be leadership teams or it could be teacher teams. When I come across any

any kind of jargon that I'm like, okay, we could have differing definitions on this. We pause, we bring clarity to it, and they answer the question together and then they share out. Because I don't want to come in say this is what the term is. I just feel like it's in one ear and out the other, and it doesn't support, like if they're coming with these background experiences with a certain definition for this term, me saying this is what the definition is isn't gonna change that.

So they've got to take some ownership in collectively defining that together.

Darrin Peppard (15:57.625)

Yeah, for sure. Well, and you you led with a term that we certainly need good clear definitions around and that's collaboration. You know, had Dr. Chad Dumas on, my good friend Chad, a little while back and you know, I mean, obviously, mean, to me, he is the PLC guru and you know, that was one of the things that Chad talked about was, you know, first and foremost, you got to define what collaboration really means.

Casey Watts (16:07.702)

Yes.

Casey Watts (16:12.662)

Yes!

Darrin Peppard (16:26.318)

And if we, because let's be honest, we have groups who will say, oh yeah, we're collaborating and they're just sitting in a room or they're having an apartment meeting or they're whatever, right? Planning the Halloween party or whatever. What really does collaboration mean? And not just what does collaboration mean with adults, we talk about it all the time. Oh, we wanna see students collaborating. Okay, what does that really mean? What does it really look like?

I think folks, here's kind of the core of this. And then I wanna talk a little bit more about the Clarity Cycle Framework here in just a second. this really is what Casey's getting at. This is what, this is man, this is the table I stand on that I'll pound my fist on forever. Anything that you're sharing, anything that you expect, you gotta make sure people...

crystal clear about what it is that you mean. And if you don't know, there's no way that they know. So have somebody on your team who's willing to ask. It's probably the best thing I ever did when I had the opportunity to hire some assistant principals. I hired the person that ultimately followed me as the building principal as one of my assistant principals, and she pushed all the time. And at first she kind of frustrated me. No, I'll go a step further. She kind of pissed me off.

with, know, well, Darren, what does that mean? What does that mean? What does that mean? And but she really helped me to gain a lot of clarity. And I know our staff benefited from the fact that Annie pushed on me all the time. What does that really mean? Because we need to make sure they know what it means. And that I think is just super, super important. That's what Casey's talking about. That's what I'm talking about. And that's what clarity is really all about. So so Casey, let's let's maybe

Casey Watts (18:07.223)

Yeah.

Darrin Peppard (18:20.578)

Take that a step further. So now we know why the heck clarity is so doggone important. But you've taken it a step further with the clarity cycle framework. So take us through that. I really can't wait to learn.

Casey Watts (18:33.973)

Yeah, so, you know, we're, well, let me back up a little bit because we gotta come back to collaboration, clarity of collaboration. I'm gonna pause, like we're gonna talk about clarity cycle framework, but I wanna remember to come back to that because, man, I've got a couple of things to say. But, you know, we're so familiar with this phrase by Brene Brown, clear as kind, right? Like everybody knows the phrase. But I think so often we equate that phrase to clear as kind, AKA,

Darrin Peppard (18:42.265)

yeah.

Darrin Peppard (18:47.116)

I'm good with that.

Casey Watts (19:03.721)

I'm communicating it verbally and sometimes we equate it to having difficult conversations or uncomfortable conversations. And that's not really the intent of clear as kind. In fact, if you continue to read, think it's in Dare to Lead, Brene Brown goes on to say, we've got to paint done. And it reminds me of the difference between, I always go to the definitions of clarity from Miriam Webster.

And it reminds me of the difference between clear as kind and like painting done, because the first definition reads the quality of being easily understood, right? Like that's where leaders get caught up with, I'm communicating it, I'm saying it again and again, I'm setting the expectations, but nothing is changing. And we get frustrated. However, if you continue to read into the next definition, I love this definition, it's kind of what the clarity cycle framework aims to do, but it says,

the state of having a full, detailed, and orderly mental grasp of something. That's so different than just the quality of being easily understood. I can understand you, but walk away and not implement what I feel like you've said, because maybe I have a different understanding of it. So we've got to get beyond verbal communication and put clarity into action.

Darrin Peppard (20:25.966)

So let me just jump in on that. Not something I normally do interrupt, but I want to connect the dots with what you just said. To me, what you just shared super powerfully, leaders, this equates to what you want to see your teachers doing in the classroom. It's one thing for teachers to say, I taught it, I taught it, they didn't learn it. And kids actually taking what it is that they're delivering and doing something with it.

So if we want teachers to deliver instruction in a way that kids can genuinely take, talk, transfer that information into something, that's the level of clarity we want to see there. That's the level of clarity that John Hattie is talking about with teacher clarity, including the paint it done. So what does it look like when it's finished? What is an exemplar? What?

Casey Watts (21:15.745)

Yes.

Darrin Peppard (21:22.732)

you know, how will you be assessed? That's exactly the same thing that Casey is talking about with from leader to whomever, to your teachers, to your secretaries, to your bus driver, to your para, mean, whoever. That's that level of clarity. to me, you just totally connected those dots so extremely well. And if I misinterpreted how you were connecting those dots, tell me, but I really don't think I did.

Casey Watts (21:47.286)

Nope, nope, you interpreted it completely accurately. let's take a look at like that second depth. listen, and it's also, I was not always like a clear person. I've learned from that, even with my students. Kind of you talking about that made me think recently, there were so many times where I would send my students off to work and I would notice what's going on here because nobody's really doing what I just explained.

Darrin Peppard (21:52.79)

Because you were clear, that's why.

Darrin Peppard (22:04.258)

Yeah.

Casey Watts (22:17.183)

And so I learned this phrase over time, like, okay, how have I been unclear or in what way can I clarify what I just said? So I asked that with my students, I asked that with the people that I consult with and when I go to present, I'm asking that question all the time because I think sometimes we assume we're being clear, but again, we've got a paint done. So what does that look like with a clarity cycle framework? This is where we are trying to fulfill that second definition. We want people to have a full detailed

an orderly mental grasp of something. So in the clarity cycle framework, you'll notice that there are six steps. And while they are six steps that I take people, I take instructional leadership teams through, I really want them eventually to view them as habits that we're building in order to be clarity driven leaders. So those six habits start with determining your area of focus. Like what is the one thing?

that if we focused on this one thing, we could solve so many other things, right? Like what is the one thing? I know people have like their campus improvement plans and they have their SMART goals and everything, and that's great. But if we have, know, in your campus improvement plans, there might be three or four or five or 10 goals. Well, that's so much to feel like you have to tackle. What is our just, what's the area of focus?

So we determine an area of focus and then we analyze that area of focus. So step two is analyzing the area of focus so we can set some goals. In other words, here's the problem we're solving. What goals are gonna help us to address that problem? After we set those goals, we move into the third step. We wanna build the habit of gaining insight from our people. This is something that's missed all the time because we determine our area of focus and goals and then we just communicate them to people and we try to, we expect them to follow through.

Well, people aren't going to follow through and commit, which is what we really want them to do, if they haven't felt a piece of ownership of this. Gaining insight and going to them and saying, here's our area focus, these are the goals that we're considering, tell us what's on your mind about this. Where have you seen this as being helpful in the past? How do you see it impacting us if these were our goals moving forward, et cetera?

Casey Watts (24:40.469)

Then after we've gained insight, we take all of that insight that we've gained, we move into step four, and that is casting vision and scripting critical moves. In other words, how are you consistently casting vision so people are reminded of our area of focus and our goals, and how are you scripting critical moves? Chip and Dan Heath talk about scripting critical moves in their book called Switch, How to Change Things When Change is Hard, and it is basically, we're taking this broad thing,

In order to gain clarity about this broad thing, leader, we gotta break it down for you and then we have to communicate those small pieces to our people so they know this is where we're headed, but more importantly, this is how we're going to get there. And even more importantly, this is how I contribute to that as a contributing member of this professional learning community. And then after we've cast vision, scripture to critical moves, the fifth step, which is often missed, and I'm sure you have some things to share about this is,

celebrating systematically and providing feedback regularly. And when I say celebrating systematically, what I mean is we have systems for celebration that are directly correlated with our area of focus and goals. Your jeans past day, your diet coke, cart, whatever, those are great. Keep that. But how are you celebrating in really intentional ways? And then also how are you providing feedback so that people can make

progress toward your area of focus and goals. And then the last step is just calibrating and sustaining. Like how are we making sure this doesn't become just a poster on the wall or something that we said we wanted to do but we never were able to fulfill it, right? So those are the six steps. Again, I like to see them as habits that we're building because I don't want to go through a step and never come back to it. For example, I always want to gain insight.

from my people. want that to become a habit because it creates clarity for me and it allows me to be able to create clarity for my organization. So that in a nutshell is the clarity cycle framework.

Darrin Peppard (26:46.062)

Yeah, I love that so much. it, I mean, it makes me think of a handful of schools that I'm working with right now. One in particular, just that last piece, especially with not only, you know, celebrating intentionally, but, know, just continuing to, you know, stay focused on and, and update and, and that kind of thing around those specific goals. In their case, it's five pillars and you know, they, they're, they're being very intentional. We just, just had a coaching call this week.

And, you know, in the conversation, they're being so intentional of recognizing and rewarding and reinforcing around those five pillars. But they were having a couple of struggles and, you know, even a couple of those tough conversations that are already needing to be had. And I brought them right back to let's talk about your five pillars, because now, you know, how you're going to coach that, how you're going to support that, how you're going to speak back to that is.

this is what we're really all about here. In their particular case, it's, you know, it's maybe it's some behaviors or something like that. Are these bringing us closer to our five pillars or are these pulling us away from those? And the longer that we stay focused on those things, I love that, that through the entire cycle that we're never losing sight of, this is who we want to be. This is how we're gonna get there. This is how.

Casey Watts (27:57.643)

Hmm.

Darrin Peppard (28:11.246)

This is what my responsibility, my role in that is. And then just those remaining pieces. I just think it's really super powerful. And I love that you've quantified it down into a very specific cycle and that you talk about it being habits, not just simply steps. Because the difference between building a habit and just doing a step is, okay, I did this, check. I mean, if I wanna...

Casey Watts (28:21.345)

Yeah.

Darrin Peppard (28:39.818)

lose weight if I want to learn to play the violin. mean it's not just, know, one time I did this check, you know, hey I ate a salad yesterday, check, I should be in great shape tomorrow. It doesn't work that way. You've got to build habits. I just, I don't know, maybe just go a little bit deeper on the habit piece because I just think that's really transformational.

Casey Watts (28:49.632)

Right.

Casey Watts (28:54.839)

Yeah.

Casey Watts (29:07.381)

Yeah, you know, when I developed this framework, was from someone who was about to go into, I think she was good about, maybe she was in the process of getting her principal certification. So she was watching everything that was happening in her current school. And so she came to me one day, and I write about this in the book. She came to me one day and she said, hey, how do you get, how do

how do you get everybody on the same page and moving in one direction? And I said just the blanket like, you know, I mean, you just have to like zoom out to see the big picture and then zoom in to see the steps to get there. And she did not take that at face value. She was like, uh-uh, no, you're gonna have to tell me more about that. And so that's really where the clarity cycle framework came from is, okay, she's asking about this and the steps, but as I started developing it,

You know exactly what you said. I think sometimes we, especially in education, because our plates are so full, there's so much going on, we want that fix. We want something that's going to steps that I can go through. People are eager for steps. But I could not write the book and say, here are the steps that you go through with people thinking this is a magic bullet. Because

It's absolutely not. And if I was to say to you, and when I work with people and I say, if I was to say to them, this is what you need to fix the problem and leave it at that, I'm not doing my job, I'm setting them up for failure because if they're coming at it as just steps, they are not going to see any real progress or change. They're gonna experience the same problems again and again and get back into that cyclical pattern that we're so familiar with. And so that's...

Absolutely why seeing it as a habit is so important for and when you walk away from the cycle if you don't remember any of the steps or the order they go in Okay, who cares? Do you know the habits that you've built as a leader? That's what's important to me

Darrin Peppard (31:16.632)

Yeah.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, it's not just a sequence. It's create the habits, live those habits and really, really dive into those. Let's let's talk about this just really quick. Our time is already flying away, which is fine. But I don't want to not get to this. So you've referenced it a couple of times. I mentioned your podcast. Share a little bit about about the book and about your podcast with our listeners and our people who are watching on YouTube. So

they know a little bit more about what that work is specifically about.

Casey Watts (31:52.94)

Yeah, well I'll start by saying if you were noticing, and I think this is really, really, if we get down to the grassroots of it, this is really where all of this came from. If you're noticing teams struggling to collaborate authentically, chances are there's a lack of clarity somewhere. And so the book was written for that purpose. Let's gain clarity. The book is titled The Craft of Clarity. You can find it on Amazon. The subtitle is Six Steps to Bridge Gaps.

foster commitment and create sustainable alignment. And when I talk about bridging gaps, I'm real, I am talking about student learning gaps, but more importantly, I'm talking about bridging the gaps among the adults on your campus. And then the podcast is all, it's just called the Catching Up with Casey Show. Just imagine we're catching up over a cup of coffee. And we on the show bring clarity to the seemingly small things in leadership that make a huge difference. So, you know, we talked earlier about those, that jargon.

It's just seemingly small things, data, tier one instruction, instructional strategies, small things, but they make a big difference if we don't bring clarity to it. And so that's what the podcast is all about.

Darrin Peppard (33:01.774)

Yeah, I love it. Folks, we'll put links to the show notes to every bit of that. So you can go and jump on all of those things. Start following Casey if you're not already. And we'll talk about how you can follow here in just a couple of minutes. But we're at that point in the show. Casey, I'm going to ask you the same question I ask everybody here. This is the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. So in addition to everything you've just shared, how are you leaning into leadership right now?

Casey Watts (33:26.793)

love this question. And I thought about it before I came on because I you're going to ask it. I'm going to tell what I'm actually working on as a leader. And it's I'm going to have a podcast episode about this. I have it planned out already. I'm working on my own narratives as a leader. So sometimes and I'll just tell you point blank, vulnerably, sometimes because of our past experiences, we create these narratives that aren't always accurate.

One of the narratives that I found myself creating is, especially presenting like professional development sessions and things, I think to myself, they don't have time for it. They're not energized by this. They want me to finish early. Like I have all of these narratives and it impacts how I show up for people. So the way that I'm leaning into leadership is really being aware of the narratives that I'm creating based on my past experiences and shifting that narrative.

so I can show up for the people that are showing up for me.

Darrin Peppard (34:28.258)

man I love that so much that is such an awesome answer I get so many incredible answers on the show but man that one is that one is definitely up there that's wow knocked it out part Casey outstanding so people definitely are gonna want to follow you catch up with you see what I did there how do people how do people follow and get in touch with Casey Watts

Casey Watts (34:33.85)

I bet.

Thanks.

Casey Watts (34:50.601)

It is so easy. It's just Catch Up with Casey everywhere. So you can find me my website catchingupwithcasey.com or if you want to go on Instagram or LinkedIn, that's where I'm gonna be. You're just gonna find me at Catch Up with Casey.

Darrin Peppard (35:04.268)

outstanding stuff. Again, folks, we're gonna have all that in the show notes for you. Man, this was so much fun. This was energizing. What a great way to kick off the day, folks. I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did. Casey, thank you so much for joining me here on Leaning Into Leadership.

Casey Watts (35:19.426)

Yeah, thank you.

All right, folks, what a fun conversation with Casey. Again, just so grateful that she came here onto the show and spent a little bit of time with me.

Those conversations around clarity are just so incredibly important. So make sure you check out Catching Up with Casey. Make sure you get connected with Casey, her website, her socials, all the things you need to know about Casey are down in the show notes. And now it's time for a pep talk. So let's stick with that topic of clarity today in the pep talk. Something that I've been working on recently.

that not really necessarily ready to talk about here on the show, but that I have leaned into a lot of connections that I have to kind of support me on my thinking around it, on helping me kind of shape what it is that I'm doing specific to this particular project. And I had a conversation with a friend today. I was in the car driving home from from being at a university in Kansas and on my way home,

I had a conversation with this individual, a really good friend of mine, Dave Schmidow, shout out to Dave Schmidow and Schmidow and I were having a conversation and he said something to me that as a clarity expert kind of made me blush to be honest with you because he gave me a little bit of clarity in an area that I've been a little bit struggling. And so I wanted to share that with you.

and tell you that this particular piece of advice is something that every single one of us can lean into in the work that we do each and every day. What Dave had said to me that I thought was just so, so crucial was you will never know unless you try. And specific to that, whether that's trying to launch something new, whether that's pursuing a different job, whether that's

Darrin Peppard (04:32.653)

launching a project in your school, whether that's maybe diving into a whole different space as an entrepreneur, that advice is sage wisdom. You will never know until you try. I just found that to be such a shift for my mind, this particular thing that I was wrestling with and struggling with and

and almost like I needed to make a decision on this or that or the other thing. And Dave just simply saying, Darren, you'll never know until you try and don't think of it as permanent. If you try and it doesn't work, move on. It was something that reminded me of a conversation I had with my good friend, Bradley Skinner, a bunch of years ago when I was Bradley's principal. He had asked me about trying something new in his classroom.

and he wasn't sure if he should. And I just told him, said, well, you won't know until you try. So try it. If it works, great. If it doesn't stop, move on to something else. But the more we think of things that way, when we go in with that open mind, that mindset that allows us to say, hey, you know what, maybe I will give that a shot. Why not give it a try and find out.

Very wise words. Awesome, awesome conversation with my friend Dave Schmidow. You can find Dave Schmidow right here on this show. You have to go back quite a ways. I'll link it in the show notes, folks. But I had Dave Schmidow on the show, I'm going to say it was somewhere back around like episode 53 or something like that. I'm probably wrong with the number, but I will link it for you in the show notes. And you could just pick up even more of that incredible wisdom from Dr. Dave Schmidow. So that's what I have for you this week, folks. Thanks so much for tuning in. Thanks for jumping into this conversation with Casey Watts. Wow, what a great conversation. hey, take that advice from the pep talk. You never know unless you try. Get out there, folks, and have a road to awesome week.