Supporting, Engaging, Empowering, and Seeing to Lead with Dr. Chris Jones

What's going on everybody? I hope this finds you striving and thriving and doing absolutely amazing. My name is Brian Martin. I'm a second grade teacher and host of the teaching champions podcast. Now, today's guest is gonna drop so many gems for you. And when you hear this conversation, you're gonna hear someone who is so passionate about what he does. You're going to hear how this high school administrator lifts his teachers and students up. And my guest today is Dr. Chris Jones. He's been an educator Massachusetts for 22 years. He was the 2022 Massachusetts School Counselors Association administrator of the year. He is an author of lager, a blogger, a podcaster, and most importantly, a family man. And get your notebooks ready because Dr. Jones is going to drop some great knowledge in this interview. This is going to be a fantastic episode today. I want to welcome Dr. Chris Jones to the podcast. Dr. Jones, welcome to the teaching champions podcast. Oh, thanks. I can't tell you how excited I am to be here. hearing some of your episodes and what you're about and the things you you stand for. I'm really excited to talk education with you today. The conversations that we have had before this, that we are very like minded, and I've loved every second of the conversation so far. And I know this is just going to be icing on the cake. So there we go. Can you please tell us your story, Dr. Jones, sure. My, my story is not like everybody else's, but come to find out it's kind of like yours. I education is a second career for me. Before this, I was a coppersmith after listening to different people in my family, telling me that I should really be a teacher, I decided to undertake that. But there was something more than just them telling me I should be a teacher. I was giving them tours of battlefields of civil war, battlefields, things like that. One of the things that really stuck with me as I didn't have a great high school experience I was I was disengaged. From the experience, I you know, I did my stuff, I wasn't a kid that got in trouble a lot or anything like that. But it just it wasn't for me, I was doing time, so to speak. So I actually chose the college I went to because my mother, thank God, it wasn't a matter of if you go to college, it was when you go to college, I chose the college I went to based on who was paying me the most money to play football for him. And just, you know, kind of went into what I was interested in. Afterwards, after, you know, getting near the end of college. And then after college, talking about education, I was also lucky enough to be brought up by a mother and a grandfather who were firm believers and you don't just complain about something, if you've got a problem with something, fix it, or shut up about it. And so it was it was basically put up or shut up time. And I'll never forget that when I first went into education, right, because you gotta go back and take courses and all this. So I'm, I'm working as a coppersmith, and so forth. And I still remember the call because my mother reminds me this all the time, when they kept telling me be a teacher, I said, you know, I'm more than willing to teach anybody anything, as long as you're willing to listen. But if you think I'm gonna go become a teacher and spend 90% of my time on discipline, and classroom management, you're out of your mind. I have no interest in doing that. So I'm not lying when I tell you my first phone call to her of my first teaching job was I got a job at an alternative high school. I I'll tell you though, Brian, that I got that job and fell in love with it. I never looked back. I loved working with those kids. And then I my next teaching job was in an inner city school. That's known, you know, pretty far and wide as having issues, regular urban issues. But I just loved it. And then I moved up from there so I can make a larger impact and become a principal and that's where I where I sit today. So amazing. The road and where it takes us sometimes we have a vision and then never always turns out exactly how we thought it was going to be. Yeah. And it's funny because people People do. People do put on those errors, right? They have those assumptions. When people talk to me, I can't tell you how many people when they find out I'm a principal, they're like, sir, you're the principal of high school. And I'm like, yeah, why and you're like, you don't remind me anything of what a principal of a high school would be like. And now, I don't know whether to take that as an insult or not. I choose to take it as a conflict. But um, then people after talking to me here that both my sons are going to vocation, vocational technical high school, instead of your public college prep high school. Now, the plan is they're going to college, and then they're going to voc tech. And people are surprised by that, because of all the assumptions are on education, which is, you know, just one more thing we need to get away from an education. I 100% agree with that. And I love that, that your your sons are doing that, because I think that's something we sometimes I think we can get so focused on pushing like college college college, in the vocations. I've had many conversations where the people that are going in the vocational fields, they're going to be set up, they learn that skill, and they can do great things after they graduate. Absolutely. My youngest one wants to be a blacksmith. So you know, so what am I doing, I'm getting him forging lessons. So he can learn to be a blacksmith. My oldest one wants to be an aerospace engineer. So he's an engineering learning about engineering. So it's, you know, just having that skill or that ability to do something, just in case your your college degree, so to speak, doesn't work out 100%. And I think like, you talked about how your high school experience wasn't that great. Hopefully, your children being in those atmospheres will be have a much better high school experience than what you did. You know, I gotta tell you, and I said this the other day, when it was more of a realization for me, and I kind of got teary eyed because I'm a gushing father, but I'm much better with it. Now, I promise I'm not gonna break down into tears on your podcast, I, um, my son did not have a very enjoyable experience in middle school, my oldest son. And it was a struggle man to get him to do work to get them to do different things like that, get his homework in, get good grades. And he went to this voc Tech High School. And this year, straight A's got into the shop that he wanted for his forever shop, they call it that's the one that he's got for the rest of time in high school, which was engineering. Totally different kid, he wrestles for the high school he's involved, he's looking forward to going back in the fall. Totally different kid, because of the experience. And that's the power that we have that we have to realize as educators is that we have the power to give the kid a good experience in life, where they look forward to doing things or to really make it a drag for him and to give him a bad experience. That's fantastic. And as a dad, like taking off the educator hat, like as a dad to be able to sit down at the dinner table, and just hear your son talk about school and be excited about it has to be so refreshing. He, he brought his engineering notebook home the other day. I say the other day, I'm originally from Oregon, so the other day could be yesterday or three years ago. I um, he brought his engineering notebook home because specifically he wanted to show me his engineering notebook. And he's, he's flipping through it. And this is where I measure if I've succeeded as a parent or not, half of it I couldn't even understand. But he's so he's flipping through it explaining it to me, like, you know, it's it's old hat and I'm, I'm sitting like, yeah, he Okay, well, this one, we did all the Newtonian measurements, dad and all this. I'm like, yeah, yeah, Newtonian measurements, okay, got that. He wanted to show me this book that he'd been working on all year, you know, and this page connects this page dad, and this is this design, just beaming with mine. It just means a whole lot. And that's, that's a shout out to those leaders at that school to to make sure that that experience is happening. That's great. Love to hear that. Now, being a school administrator, I know that that school culture piece is so important to you that the kids are there. And just like your son, you want the kids that are at your school, to want to be there. You want the staff that's at your school, to want to be there to enjoy it. What are a few things that you've done to really fuel that school culture. The most important thing comes down to modeling. And I know that we've talked about that before. But really the thing, the thing I need to do if I want a certain culture in my school, is I need to model it. So like if I tell people to be positive, which is what I focus on, I focus on positivity. If I tell people to be positive, I better be positive. Another thing I focus on is respect. Look, we're going to disagree with people we're not going to like people those times are going to come up. But if we learn how to respect people, and we're respectful, then we can get through anything that comes up. So if I'm telling people to do that, well, I better be respectful. And I just approach people, as human beings that have vastly individual and complicated existences. And so what may be right for somebody or what somebody may be going through may not be for somebody else. I just had a funny conversation today with my dean of students about how there was an individual I met when I first came here, that comes across, as conceded, very smart, but conceded this person is a really nice person, funny, family oriented, and everything that if I had not taken a step back, if I just jumped with that assumption from the start the way that person came off, I wouldn't know them for who they are. So one of the things I do with my staff is I try to get to know them for who they are, rather than just that teacher in room 202. You know, my students talk about modeling and positive, I do arrival every day with my students. That's not typical for high school principals to do. I'm out there with my assistant superintendent every day, the two of us are out there directing traffic, saying good morning to every single kid, I see. striking up conversations, hey, nice job last night and a game, congratulations on this. and on Wednesdays, I have welcome sign Wednesday, I hold signs with positive messages and take pictures with the students and then post them all over social media, one of the things I tried to do is I tried to foster that positive mindset that you know what there are times that life is gonna get in the way that life is going to be bad. And we have a choice we can we can live in that. Or we can accept it for what it is and move forward and get better from that. So it's, um, you know, again, it's that whole piece of modeling, being positive, being respectful, and really gearing, meetings, activities, things like that, around that type of existence, for lack of a better term off, there's so much there. And there's so much that all of us need to remember. And, you know, I loved just picking out two of those. I love when you talked about being respectful, I just read or listened to The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. And yeah, yeah, super boat. And I think one of one of them that they were talking about is that we need to be able to communicate. And communication doesn't always mean that you and I are going to have the same thought or believe the same thing. But that doesn't mean that we can't put our idea out there. But do it in a respectful manner, that I listen to what you have to say. And I can listen to it in a respectful manner, that that respectful, you know, agree to disagree sometimes, but do it respectfully. Absolutely. You know, in like, I try to build a culture and especially my leadership meetings, I don't need to be right. I don't need to be the loudest voice in the room, what I am looking for, is the best answer in the room. So I encourage disagreement, I encourage people to argue the other side, because you want to make sure that you're getting what's right. And when people disagree with you, I actually see that as an opportunity. Sometimes, you know, you get defensive when somebody disagrees with you. That's a learning opportunity for me to look at it and say, what part of their disagreement is valid? How can I shape my thinking? How can I change because communication is tricky, right? If I'm communicating, and somebody's not getting my message, it's so easy to say, Well, I told him, I communicated. There's a breakdown somewhere, and it's my responsibility to make sure that my message is getting communicated, not their responsibility to receive my message. 100% 100% and I love how you said that's looking at when people are disagreeing with you. Well, what points do they make that are valid? And we don't always want people because if all we have it is yes, people, then there's danger in that. Yeah. So you don't want to be surrounded by people that are just gonna agree with you all the time. Because you're never gonna grow. Yeah, absolutely. And what I also loved is you talked about approaching people as people, and each and every single one of us is different. And I think that is so powerful for for everybody to jump on that. Well, they talk about, you know, we get so stuck in the idea of everybody has to be treated the same. And that it face value. Okay, so maybe it sounds a little warm and fuzzy. But really, if you look at it, if you kick the tires on it, that makes absolutely no sense. Because if you talk about equity is a big one right? If you talk about equity, awesome, I love equity. But that means people need to get different things and other people if you're going to be equal for them, so they need different, they need different things based on who they are as people who they are as learners when you get in the classroom. So I, you know, the idea that you can't treat people different is just a fool's errand. I agree 100%. Now, one of the big things that I think going into this next school year, because I think a dangerous last school year, everybody thought, you know, the pandemics winding down last school year, at the beginning and August or September, you know, it's just gonna be easy, and ends out where everybody's saying, you know, this might have been the toughest school year ever. And one thing that I would like is, could you tell us about the biggest challenge from the past year, you got some time. The biggest challenge from the past year, I think, is just a malaise that set in, among students and adults, I think just everybody had had enough, everybody was tired, way more tired than they even thought or knew or understood. And so what we looked at, as we looked at a decline in that academic mindset, of academic success, and I'm not, I'm not like, Oh, you got to get an A, you got to get 100 type of guy, just the effort. We looked at a decline in that we looked at a decline in culture was tough. Students Learning how to interact with people, you know, for so long, we call them keyboard cowboys, right? Kids would get behind the computer, adults would get behind a computer, and rip off insults do different things like that, because they were shielded? Well, you spend a year and a half behind a computer, and they come back to school, in that social environment. Now, they still have the feeling that they're behind a computer. So they're doing these things to people in person without the thought of repercussions or anything like that. So we struggled with some of that stuff. And we struggle with the idea of involvement. Just people wanting to be involved in things to go to events that we were hosting to, to get involved in advising clubs to join clubs. Those were real struggles this year coming out of the pandemic. So do you have any strategies that you're going to put in this year? Or have you thought have the wheels turned it on how to handle any of those, I am so glad you asked that. Like I said, you have any time we're, we're split, we're opening up our year, different, completely different this year. We have we're bringing in some speakers, and then we're going to do some follow up work with it. But we have a freshman first night that's basically like a ninth grade orientation a week before school starts. And so the kids come in, they meet with mentors that we have assigned to them. We talk to them with their parents, they go off with their mentors, do scavenger hunts, meet teachers, stuff like that. And that while we talk to the parents about expectations, and so forth, and how to navigate high school this year, we're we're also having a speaker that specializes in adolescents and work with parents and adolescents. We're having Ed Garrity, he's his name. And he's going to talk to the parents and the ninth graders about that academic mindset that I mentioned that we we've had some issues with, about that culture about how how you can be successful in school and how you can help people be successful in school, help your kid be successful in school, and how to interface with people and that whole respect piece, and that being a leader within peace. He's gonna give a talk that night, and then he's gonna follow up two months later with just the freshman class for an extended period to go over the same thing for two hours, and check in how they're doing and give them more tools to move forward. And then when school starts, we have a training for our staff a two hour training for our staff. In individual Henry Turner, he's the principal of a high school near here, he's going to come in and do a two hour session on belonging and community and equity and diversity. And so that'll be a workshop with the staff to deal with our increasing diversity at our school, to give staff tools to help when they hear a racist comment when they hear a marginalized group being left out. They they'll have tools to act on that in a confident way. And then the our first three days of school is no academics. The first day of school, we're going to have another speaker JC Paul will talk about student voice, the importance of student voice he's going to do he's going to talk to the whole student body, but then he's going to do a special two hour leadership training with the leaders of all our groups. It's probably about 100 kids. And then we're going to add kids in that have struggled. So they have the models of leadership and things like that. And then the next day they're going to do relationship building skills and games. to staff get their syllabi, and then that Friday is a half day anyways, we're having another guy come in Roy steel, to talk to them about social media and their online presence. Not that it's evil not to do it, but that it's a useful tool. But you're branding yourself. And so what is your brand on social media, if you, if you do really bad things on social media or bad things on social media, and people see your name, they think you're a bad person. And so we'll do that. And then we're going to hit the ground running, but no academics, the first three days, we're really going to have that massive push to get culture back on track. That's fantastic. Now, I want to talk about your book that you just came out recently. Could you tell us a little bit, what's your book about how it came about and who it's for? Sure. The title of the book is seeking to lead and it's capital S, capital E, capital E stands for support, engage, and empower. It's about just what it says it's about supporting, engaging and empowering those I serve, or those I lead. You know, it's funny that you say who it's who it's for. I wrote it. And originally, it was the idea of for teachers, because, you know, as you get further up, and I explain this in the book, as you get further up in leadership, you step further away from the students. And if education is about students, how do we continue to impact the students, I found through my own experiences, once you know, through a lot of a lot of reflection and all that stuff, I found that the best way to do that is by supporting engaging and empowering teachers. And because if I can get teachers to a point where they feel supported, they're engaged in the work that they're doing in a vision of the school. And they're empowered to make decisions and actions on their own, then they, they're more excited to be here, and they're more passionate about what they're doing, they can get to what they do. And that's teaching kids that's, you know, after discovering people's why they got into education that lets them lean into and live more of their why. And that helps me that helps me achieve my why. Which is, you know, to, to improve the educational experience for all those involved, by being purposeful, acting with integrity, and building character. And if I can get teachers that, you know, the Sunday night, dulls the Sunday night where God I gotta go to work tomorrow, it starts from four in the afternoon. If I can get people to a point where that's not the case, where they I'm not looking for cartwheels coming in Monday morning, I'm just looking if they can sit there Sunday and say, Yeah, well, you know, I got school tomorrow, and be fine with it. Teachers and students, then great. And so that's, that's what the book is, the book talks about how I do that, and different techniques I use to do that, and to build culture in the building. Now, my editor, at the time of writing the book, informed me she's a teacher. And she informed me that she was starting to use some of the things that I wrote in the book in her classroom. And she said, it's definitely something that's applicable to teachers and students. And I got to thinking about that. Because in the end, right, a leaders main job is to work ourselves out of a job, we want we want to be replaced. And the way our world is today, the way the culture is of the society that we live in, it's taken a negative turn. And it's gotten kicked in the teeth a couple of times. And so it's, it's, it's living in a little bit of that negativity. Boy, did we ever need leaders more than we need them now. And so if we can start creating leaders by supporting, engaging, empowering students in the classroom, think of what type of people they'll be when they leave school. And what better position will be in, you know, two 410 years down the road. And I had an in depth conversation with her about that. So the book really is for leaders of all sorts, because I firmly believe that teachers are leaders in the building. And so especially teachers can use it with students in their classroom, and create that environment in their classroom so that they are producing leaders from year to year that just grow stronger and more confident in their ability, because they've been empowered, which is the end game. That's a very well said. And I would agree. Like as I dived into the book this week, I looked at it through the lens of a teacher, and how could I use all of these different components to help my students and I love how you said, you know, our ultimate goal is to create leaders. How can I create these students into better leaders? So down the road is they're going to take over for us and make our world a little bit better. So I love that. Can we dive into the different components a little bit more? If you're asking me to talk about my book, Sure, I'd be happy to do that. Oh, great, then let's, let's dive into that first piece support. Now, what are ways that you offer support to your educators and get them to feel comfortable so that they can accept that feedback and comfortable, where they're willing to go out and be innovative, try new things, and really model that for the students? Sure. It comes to a couple of things. I mean, the first thing you want to do you talk about, so they're open to suggestions and things like that. And that feedback is you have to build trust, you know, trust I and I say that trust is the loudest voice in the room, when a person asks themselves, is this person really trying to help me? I mean, because to help somebody, you have to have their belief that their best interest is what you're after, you're not playing gotcha, you're not trying to evaluate or anything like that. And that's a very real fear in education these days. So you have to build that trust. And then you have to look at it as a difference between coaching and mentoring. I know, I know, you have a sports background, I have a sports background. You don't want to be a mentor to teachers, sometimes as leaders, we look at trying to build be mentors. That's more of a friendship type relationship we want to be, we want to be coaches, because yes, you have that good relationship, that trust and relationship, but you need a result. Because when it does come down to it, right, I mean, that's the reality, you need a result you need to, you need to be successful with teaching students in the classroom. And another way is communication, just all kinds of methods of communication that you can use, where you're open, and you're clear about what you want. So if you have trust, and your coaching instead of mentoring, and you're communicating those, you can really get to that other piece of how you give feedback. Now, when you give feedback, it's really important that you give feedback on progress. I always say that when when I'm giving feedback, I do want to I do, and I'm not a big sandwich, advocate guy of oh, well put the bad news between the good news. I'm not an advocate of that. What you want to do is, when you're when you're giving feedback, you want to praise and give encouragement for the success. And you want to personalize the success, where you d personalize the shortcomings. So what do I mean by that? I mean, if I'm if I'm talking to you, Brian, and I noticed, you know, I'm giving you feedback in your class, and I think that you need to improve your transitions between pieces of your lesson. I'll say, Well, you know, Brian, I noticed you were doing this. And people have had a lot of success tightening up transitions when they do this. So now I'm giving you feedback, telling you a way to improve, but it's not about you, so you're not as defensive. And then when I give you praise about what you're doing, maybe you you have a really good starter in your lesson that I personally said, Brian, that starter you use. I love the way you use that. And the way you implement that. And now you personalize that and you're like, hey, yeah, I have a good starter, and you feel good about yourself. So your brain automatically is more open to what you're talking about. And it doesn't matter. That's why don't believe the sandwich it doesn't matter what order or anything like that. If you depersonalize shortcomings, and personalized successes, the person is much more open to receiving both of them. And then when you're talking about it, when you have a person's strengths, and you know what they're strong at, and you give them little pointers about how to get a little stronger, and talk to them about that they'll start to open up about where they're a little weak. And once that once that gap opens up, the whole idea is to build a bridge over that gap to connect that gap and sit and tighten it up. So what you do is when you have that, you get them involved in it and they pointed out and they point out what they need and how they can get across that and then you get out of the way and provide it for him. And then you circle back around. And you praise any progress they've made in getting to that improvement. Again personalizing and then D personalizing where they still need to shore up some areas. And you just keep circling back around. There's so much there. And I love all of that and I love the fact that you talk about like D personalizing things that they can work on but personalizing that praise. And, and and it makes me think about to when when, you know if I was talking about behaviors with one of my students and they struggle with a certain things that needed to be addressed. And I have a little one on one time with it. That student. I try and depersonalize that where I'm talking about that behavior and I'm naming that behavior but that's not you, and letting them know, you know, I care about you. And we did that with our basketball players too, in a way, where, you know, sometimes the coach had to fire him up, it was just, you know, tough practice the head coach fired him up a little bit, we would always say to the players at the end, be concerned, when he stops getting on you. He's getting on you right now because he cares about you. And you know, when he stops getting on you, he stops care. And that kind of goes along with that D personalizing and personalizing. But like you said, it revolves around that trust, and having that trust in that relationship. So though that is fantastic. Now moving on, you said support and then engage, what are ways that you found to be successful in that engagement piece? All right, so the the engagement piece, I do a lot of bragging on my teachers in my school on social media. So I would tell everybody, one of the biggest things about engagement is recognizing people for the good work they do and the hard work they do. Because when you do, you're going to do more of it, they're going to buy into that and they're going to notice or while they're going to know that you're noticing that they're doing that work. And so they're going to continue to do that work. It's when it's when we feel taken advantage of taken for granted or undervalued that we stopped doing those extra things. If we're constantly being bragged about and we see that we're valued, we continue to do those. I start off every faculty meeting, my faculty meetings are different than your your typical faculty meeting. I start off every faculty meeting with gratitude. And I call it gratitude. But what it is is shoutouts. So now through that month, I've picked out different things. And please people listen to this, don't wait a whole month to give people shout outs. But on a larger scale. I pick out some of the things that stood out to me over the month. And I shout them out to faculty and I just say, hey, I want to give shout outs for this for that for that. And then I open it up to the faculty. And so the faculty starts giving each other shout outs and say, hey, if none of you have seen this person do this if you I spied somebody else doing this this other day. And that's how we started the faculty meeting. Because again, it's that mindset. And then they're they're more open to learning. They're more open to doing different things are discussing some of the harder things that you have to discuss. Now. We had a faculty meeting near the end of the year last year. And I had everybody go outside, we all went outside to our courtyard. And I said, here's a faculty meeting, I had it, snacks and everything served. And I said grab something, we need time together just to kind of decompress as a faculty, it's a beautiful day out. Everybody out in the courtyard, I just have this to say I made a quick announcement and said good luck to the people going on the international field trip over break. But you know what, hang out with each other, there's no agenda, just sit and talk mix between departments and all this. And I said, that's all I have to say, and somebody raise their hands. So you know, I call on him. And they said, Hey, why we're here, I just want to give a shout out to I was like, what, and they just organically started giving everybody shout outs across the faculty. So there's that piece so that I mean, that piece works. People want to be recognized. Now. I know there are the things like the love languages, and some people are more comfortable with it and others. As a leader, you got to figure that out. If somebody doesn't want to be called out in front of faculty, you can't call them out. But man, talk to him in person, don't just do the thank you note, talk to them in person, look him in the eye, and tell them specifically why you want to give him a shout out and why you didn't want to give him a shout out. It's important to recognize or you tell them that you recognize how they like to be how they'd like to be shouted out or recognized or anything like that. The other piece of that. And so that's a lot of surface level engagement. The other piece of engagement is you want people engaged, as they move to be empowered. You want them engaged in the vision of the school. And so you have to do your work on a couple of things. One, you have to do your work on what their Why is why they got into education in the first place. When I it's funny when I did my doctoral research, one of the side findings I had and talking to people was this vast array of lies, why they got in and they were more engaged. The closer whatever was happening in their building had to do with why they originally got into education. And sometimes it was subconsciously where it was like that lightbulb moment why we were talking but so what you need to do is you need to find out people's personal why for getting involved in education. And then you need to show them how that why is connected to the overall vision of the school. Because then they see themselves as part of what you're all doing there. So any any type of vision that you have, they're connected to it. It's when they're not connected to it that you get disengaged people, people going through the motions, increased absences, all that stuff where they don't really want to be there and be part of it. But if they see that they're connected to it, they have a personal piece of ownership in what you're doing much larger than a t shirt that they wear. So they can memorize it for the next accreditation visit that comes in. And that's that. So those are the two pieces of engagement, that surface level, shout everything out, make sure they get excited and build that culture, but also the idea that they're connected to it at a deeper level. That's powerful. That's powerful. And I love how you talk about that surface level where you're making shouting it out putting it on social media, and it started with you, where you modeled for them. And you open up your faculty meetings, and you're paving that path where you're given a few shout outs, and then other people are following you. And you get to that point where you're having it outside. And you're one faculty member just shouted that out, spontaneously, that's all about that, that culture that you're building. And then I also love how you said, know your people, just like we want to know our students. And if you can connect their y to the purpose to that mission to what they're doing day in and day out, that gives them that purpose and encouragement and makes them want to be there. So we did a we did a great activity around that. And this was before the pandemic happened, where I had people get together in groups, I broke the faculty into groups. During a faculty meeting, I broke them into groups, and they explain to each other why they got into education. They talked about their why. And then I broke down, I came back and they shouted out and we talked a little bit about okay, why you why you Why use people that were comfortable. And then I combined groups into a couple bigger groups. And I said, talk about your why's with each other? And what connections you found. Because we're all connected. We're all in this thing called education. It's this larger umbrella. But how? How are we the spines to the umbrella? How do we connect everything. And so they talked about that. And then we got back they said, Hey, we found this in common and this in common and this and this and this and this? Well, all the while we're building our vision. And so then I sent them back one more time into three large groups. And I said, Now what you need to do is you need to create a story that explains your why tell me a story, because people remember stories, and they connect to stories. And so they worked for a while. And then we shared each group story that showed their why that groups while the common pieces of that why. And then we just it's a matter of putting the three stories together, and we got a story about why we exist, why we do what we do. And everybody is a part of it. That's fantastic. That's fantastic. And bring everybody together to create that story. llevant. Now let's jump into that last piece. So as support, engage, and empower. How about this empowerment piece? What's that look like? And how do you do it? Yeah, the empowerment piece is the is the icing on the cake, right? So when I when I'm thinking about empowerment, I try to look at where I'm in the way of people, the end result is to grow, and to get people to grow. So if if I'm not helping people grow, it's like a tight, loose grip on what's going on around. If I'm not helping people grow, a negative message is clearly sent when I'm holding them back. It's the idea that I think I need to be in control. So any little smaller leadership roles I can give to teachers, I give away. I look at where I'm in the way of somebody drawing, like if there are decisions and actions that I don't need to make for people, I make sure that they can make it and one of the ways that occurs is when I'm talking to them. If they come to me and ask me something. And I, you know, I answered, I'm like, well, and I'm thinking myself, of course, I look at him and I say, Brian, you don't need to come to me to ask me to do stuff like that. Just do it. And that constant messaging around, don't come to me for stuff like that. I trust you. Now, I didn't hire every single one of you. So it's a little difficult with them building that trust, but the people I hired and brought in, I said, Look, I hired you for a reason. I hired you because I trust you. I trust your judgment. If there's a time where I don't trust your judgment, you'll know just make the decision based on what you know to be best. And so I do different things like that to actually to empower to get to start giving them those ideas of empowerment. The other way I do it is the whole value added piece. So when they feel connected to the vision, the idea that they add value to the organs sation to the environment to the classroom, wherever they are, is huge. And so the way they can add value is by contributing, the way they contribute is by taking the reins leading. And so when they do that, that's just, that's the beginning of where I need to be. Because now, if you're empowering somebody, if you're doing it properly, they are going to fail. It's a natural part of the process. And so when, when they do fall down, though, the whole idea of the circle, what I use in my book, where I have it going in a circle, the whole idea is to get that flywheel spinning as fast as possible. As soon as they fall down, you step in with some of the things I've been talking about for support. And you make sure you support them, you personalize the success that they had when they were empowered, you depersonalized where they need to improve. And you give them the chance again, because if you don't step right back in and support him, think about a time where you've done something you failed, somebody asked you to do something, you fell short, everybody knew it, it wasn't a massive disaster, but everybody knew you could have been done a lot better. And they don't support you. Well, how ready are you to get empowered again, you're not you're going to you're going to be shy about it, you're not going to step forward again. So the whole idea is to step in and support and for leaders to do that, they have to realize a couple of things, they have to realize the product isn't going to be perfect. So they have to praise the progress towards the end result, they have to realize that it's not going to be done the way they would have done it. There's a reason they gave it away. You of course, you could have done it. But that's not not your end goal. So they have to never, ever, never, ever say, Well, I would have done it this way, or would have been better if you did it this way. That's that's not how you support somebody. So if they remember those two things, they give that person that chance, they talk about the progress that they made in focus on that and how to tweak it. People will be empowered again, because there's, I talk about release in the book as well, more towards the end, that I don't add in that flywheel, but the reap the release part is at some point, think of raising kids think of think of coaching, right, you have to step further and further away for that person to finally perform on their own at the highest level possible. So at first you're showing them, you may be helping them do it a little bit. And then then you step back a little bit, and they do more on their own. And then finally you get to step all the way away. Well, that's a little scary for leaders that might be responsible for the product. But they've got to believe in their people to do it. And they've got to support their people in a way that that that idea of of a less than perfect product coming out isn't going to be a problem. And so that's that's how you empower people, and you keep moving away. There are so many gems right there. And absolutely love it and what you're doing for your school, it by incorporating all of this is absolutely amazing. And I would you know, I read this book through the lens of a teacher, and there's certain things that I took. And I'm going to incorporate that this school year. So I definitely recommend if you loved all the gems that were dropped right here for everyone to check out Dr. Jones, his books seem to lead. Now. Thanks, I appreciate that, Brian. Oh, well, I appreciate all the knowledge and wisdom and diving into this book to the level that you did so so um, I can't wait to go back and re listen to this. But now, summertime, I love to read I know that your reader, do you have any book recommendations for anyone out there outside of your book, any book recommendations that you're reading right now that you think would be whether it's professionally or you know, just enjoyment wise, that you would recommend in any non educational podcast because, and I also recommend, Dr. Jones has the scene to lead podcast, and it's a great one. I've binge listened to it recently. So I definitely recommend that one as well. But any non educational podcasts that you would recommend. You know what I I don't listen to non educational podcasts really. I mean to I have a couple up but none that I can none that I can recommend because I don't I'm not a regular listener. I have a bunch of educational ones pulled up that I listened to. And if I was just gonna say go ahead and share some you know, let's promote some more educational podcasts. You know, my Sure. Transformative principle by Jethro Jones. principle matters. Then there's better leaders better schools. There's the School Leadership Series pot cast that one. And I was lucky enough to host that one for a few weeks. But that one is never more than five minutes of content every morning. So it's meant to be heard. And it's just something that you can it's one concept for five minutes that's talked about that has to do with leadership and personal improvement as well. I love that concept. Yeah. And it's, it's really, it's every day, it drops every day. So it's good stuff. But yeah, I mean, leader of learning, Big Ed idea. Those are some of the ones that I've listened to. But I, it's funny, because I listen to those in the morning. So I get up, I work out and then I listen to my podcasts and stuff like that. And I then on my way home, as part of my routine is a break away from work to get prepared for home. So I can be fully present with my family. I listen to something fictional. I listen to a book on tape or something like that as I drive home. And right now, the fiction book I'm reading is by Raymond E. Feist. He's a fantasy writer, very akin to Tolkien. And I'm rereading his riftwar Saga series. Magician's Apprentice is the first book because my oldest is reading that book for a summer read. And so I'm re listening to it because it happened more than yesterday. So I don't remember. But I listened to it so I can talk to him about it. So it sets me up for being present at home. And then I can have good conversation started with him when I get there. And talked about how you're listening to this book and having conversations with your son before in our pre meeting. But I love what you said right there. Just to jump in, is detaching yourself from school, you had that detachment from school so that when you're home, you're home, and that you can have those great conversations. I love that. That's, you know, it's funny, that's something else I did with staff that they weren't used to. I told them repeatedly that when they leave, they're done. They're at home with their family. I don't expect him to answer emails over the weekend, or anything like that. And it firstly were like, well, what do you mean, shouldn't we we'd be replying, I know, that's your, you're a person I said, and it comes, it does come down to training. So if you answer an email that sent to you at 11pm, at 11:15pm, you're telling that person that it's okay to email you and 11 and expect an answer back that night. And they were all like, oh, yeah, but you're not going to be mad. I said, No. 36 hours, answer your email, unless it's a weekend and take 48 hours. I said, but if you get an email Friday afternoon, now you can answer it Monday. That's, it's still gonna be there. So and that's something that's something I struggle with, obviously. But like I told my teachers, also, I have my cell phone on Do Not Disturb from nine at night, until five, six the next morning during the summer five during the school year. But the only thing that comes through on my phone, when it's on Do Not Disturb are my close contacts, my superintendent, my assistant superintendent, you know, things like that. So anything that anything else is really what kind of emergency could be popping up. And it just helps me not think about it, it just helps me step away from it. No, I love that. And I think it is the leader, you're setting those boundaries and making that acceptable for your staff. And just to add on to that, like, one of my teaching colleagues, amazing woman retired after for two years this year. And we were, we were out and we were walking, we were going to a field trip and we were walking in, you know, I was just talking with her. And I said, you know, how did you because super positive lady after and you figure last two years with COVID and everything, spent some hiccups thrown at these teachers, you know, how did you stay so positive? And she goes, You know, I got really good at leaving work at work. You know, when when you talk about that burnout piece, just like the strategies that you have to keep that mentally, you know, healthy perspective is having those boundaries, and your family deserves that time too. Oh, absolutely. My wife's a teacher. And she teaches she teaches seventh and eighth grade English. And she's been teaching on coming coming on 20 years now. And so it's good because I can say to her, Hey, I'm gonna send this email out to my staff. What would you think if you got this from your principal? And she can say, you know, I beg your house or whatever, but or no, that works. And she'd say, she does the same to me. She says, Hey, I got this from my principal. What do they mean by this? It's like, is there a backstory? Should I be mad or? And so we bounce things off each other that way, but other than that, we don't talk about work. We make a conscious effort not to talk about school at home. We want to make sure that our boys know they have us and that we're present there for them. And we're not talking about our job instead of them. And so that's how we that's how we kind of run our house and separate things. That's fantastic. Now, if you could have the listeners walk away with one thing from this episode, what would that be? Just one thing. Hmm. Um, I would, I would say the piece that I was talking about how everybody's human, and everybody is an individual. And we should provide and afford Grace accordingly. We don't know what's happening with people. And you know, sometimes, and I don't want to sound too cliche with that, but we really don't know if they're going through something bad if everything's perfect, and they're just that type of person or anything. So I think, you know, we should go beyond the idea of a first impression, we should step back and look at why people act the way they do, which is much harder, or much easier said than done. But we should be focused on that. And there's a reason for that. And I can actually, this is a story I told you, I tell you, we're, we're all we're all here for a finite amount of time. And the idea is to use that time not to sound negative or anything, but to use that time to the best of our advantage and not to sit around and think about, we're going to be here forever, because we're not. So we need to make sure that the time we have each day is used wisely, and used to impact other people in a positive way. Our legacy is who we leave behind. And there was this man, here's the story that heard about this Rabbi that lived in another country in Europe. So this man leaves the United States, he goes to Europe, he chases down this rabbi, because he wants to talk to him. He wants to gain wisdom from them. And he goes through this hoop that who finds where the rabbi is gets the building, when the rabbi is gets. And when he gets there, he goes into this building, it's so opulent, this beautiful piece of architecture with just every you know, all the fineries and everything. And he goes up the stairs to this rabbis room, and he knocks on the door. And the door opens. And he walks into the rabbi to see the rabbi and the rabbi sitting on a rug in the room that has bare, there's nothing on the walls, nothing adorns this room. There's a small cop in the corner. And the guy is taken aback. He's like, what this this world famous rabbi, I just came up to his building, and he's sitting in this room. And he looks at the rabbi. And he says hello. And the rabbi says, Hello. And the rabbi looks at me says you, you seem troubled. And the man looks at me says well, Rabbi, excuse me, but he said, your your world renowned your wisdom is beyond all others. And I just would have thought you would have had more around you that you would have had more with you. And the rabbi looked back at him. And he said, Oh, you said, well, traveler, he said, I would have thought you would have had more with you. And man looks at him, he steps back and he goes well, but Rabbi, You live here, I'm just passing through. And the rabbi says, so am I. So my love that we're all just passing through. So what we need to do is find how you can make other people better find how you can lift others up, find how you can support others. And so when you do pass through, you've left a legacy of other people that will do the same for the multitudes after them. So my drop right there, Dr. Jones, thank you, sir. You know, I, I heard you on a couple podcasts. I was prepping for this. And I listened. And I said to myself, and I almost sent it to you I you know, when when you have a good thought you should send them and I did it but almost said, sent you and said I can't wait to talk to you. Because just listening to you. You're a good man. And I say that like you're a good man. And you've exceeded expectations. I have treasured this conversation. And you have so much to offer to so many I can tell how lucky the students and staff are to have you in at the house. So I just want to I want to thank you for everything that you've shared. And everything that that you talked about today. And you're a good man. You're a good man, sir. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. I would try. I'd stumble all over myself and try and tell you how much I'm humbled by that and I appreciate your kind words. But I was once told by somebody I consider a mentor that when somebody gives you a compliment, just say thank you and move on. Ya know it That's good advice. So Well, thank you for everything today, Dr. Jones, no problem. Thank you for having me on, I really appreciate it. This was such a fun conversation with Dr. Jones, his passion, his purpose really comes out in this episode. Now this is a teaching champions take where I'm going to give you three of my favorite gems from this conversation. And the first gem that stood out was when Dr. Jones talked about when he's trying to support his educators, and help coach them, he knows that in order for that to be successful, that there has to be a level of trust. And fact, he went on to say that trust is the loudest voice in the room, when a person asks, Is this person trying to help me in this jam goes way beyond the walls of our classroom, in every relationship that we have. If we want to truly help someone, then we have to create, we have to nurture a level of trust with that individual. The second gem was when we communicate with others, we want to make sure that we personalized success, and depersonalized shortcomings. And I believe this is such a powerful communication point, and one in which on a daily basis, we need to think about how we're communicating with those around us. Are we personalizing that success? Are we talking to them in the manner that they're most likely able to receive that message? Also, are we making sure that when we're discussing shortcomings, that we're addressing it in a manner that's deep personalizing it? Or is it being set in a manner that is more personal, and making it more likely that that person is going to become defensive? And tune out that message? So take some time today? And think about your most recent interactions? Are you personalizing that success? And are you d personalizing those shortcomings. And a third gem that I loved was when Dr. Jones talked about communication, being positive and being respectful. And he said that he wants those tough conversations, and that he doesn't always need to be right. He said that he just wants the best answer in the room. And when people disagree with him, he looks for what part of their argument has validity. And I think this is something that we can all strive for. Now these were just a few of my favorite takeaways, what resonated with you hit me up on social media and let me know what your favorite takeaways was. A big thank you to Dr. Jones for stopping by and sharing so much wisdom. You can connect with him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram at the handle at Dr. C. S. Jones. I'll leave all of his information in the show notes. And also be sure to check out his book scene to lead and podcast under the same name. You can also connect with him at scene to lead.com. And as we wrap up, I just want to say thank you for being here. Thank you for being part of the teaching champions community. We support we encourage we lift each other up. And if you think someone will benefit from this message, please share. And always remember that it doesn't matter if we're from rural America, to urban America, to Canada to Spain to Bahrain. We're all on that same team. We're all on that same mission. And we're always better together. Keep being amazing, my friends, and as you go out into the week, May step into your strength may step into your shine, and let's build our champions. Have a great weekend.