BOOK | Food Fix

Dirt

Over the past few years, I keep reading health statistics that concern me deeply. “Why?” is an important question for me to ask.  Contemplating those figures, a bright future for our children, or any of us, seems against the odds. Dr. Mark Hyman dove into the issue of our poor health and put his findings […]


READ ALONG | A Return To Love

Over the past two years of dealing with pandemic isolation, I’ve done a lot of thinking and reading.  When I asked myself what were the five most important books (outside of The Bible) I’ve read and truly incorporated into my life, here’s the list: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A COURSE […]


Creating A Culture That Is Friendly To Error

Create a culture friendly to error

Life is full of mistakes!  Unfortunately, most of us don’t like to admit when we’ve made a mistake.  After a choice I wish I hadn’t made, I’m usually ready to learn from the mistake and move on.  Enough said!  But…in our schools we need to create a feedback loop that encourages others to speak up […]


Planning Meetings With A Purpose

Planning Meetings That Matter

Have you been in a meeting where you squirmed in your seat and thought, “Why am I here?” Right!  Who hasn’t?  Painful, isn’t it? To plan meetings that matter for your next school year, ask yourself these two questions about each event: Why are we having this event? What do we want to do differently after our […]


Remember To Do This Every Day

Remember to do this every day.

My college professor walked into the classroom.  “Pop quiz for a hundred points.”  “What the name of the janitor in this building?” Only two out of about 45 students knew the answer.   “What I want you to understand is that everyone in whatever organization you are in is important. Know who they are and […]


What Kind Of Busy Are You?

What kind of busy are you?

What kind of busy are you? Seth Godin wrote in his blog that there are two kinds of busy: “When I’m giving a speech, I don’t have the ability to squeeze in a phone call, think about what’s for dinner or plan tomorrow’s meeting. I’m doing one thing, and it’s taking everything I’ve got. So […]


Fill Up Your Love Bucket

Fill up your love bucket

As parents, teachers and school leaders we serve the needs of others. From our “love buckets” we go around filling the needs of the children and the community members we serve. As we serve others we must remember to stop every once and a while to fill up our “love bucket”. We need to take […]


Reinforcing Clarity

Reinforcing Clarity

WWWD? In the 90’s the phrase WWJD became popular and it was common to see people wearing bracelets with the WWJD acronym for What Would Jesus Do? We can borrow an idea from that popular phrase to reinforce clarity in our organization. What we want our employees, when faced with a problem, is to be […]


Overcommunicating Clarity

Overcommunicate Clarity

Patrick Lencioni in his book, The Advantage, tells us of four disciplines that healthy organizations have.  When an organization possesses these four disciplines, they also have a business advantage: Discipline 1: Build a Cohesive Leadership Team Discipline 2: Create Clarity Discipline 3: Overcommunicate Clarity Discipline 4: Reinforce Clarity Here are common communication mistakes that leaders […]


Creating Clarity

Creating Clarity

What do we mean by having clarity within an organization? Patrick Lencioni in his book, The Advantage, describes clarity as the alignment of values, goals, strategies and behaviors so that there is little possibility for confusion, chaos or infighting within the organization. Lencioni tells us that there are six critical questions we must answer with […]