A few years ago, my husband and I were flying in to New York – the final stop on our honeymoon…

It was late December, and it was an early morning flight which meant not only was the weather terrible, it was also pitch black outside. As we began our descent, it became clear that the mild turbulence we had been experiencing throughout the flight was just the beginning. Overhead bins burst open, personal belongings slid across the aisles and the cabin lights started to flicker.

Our descent turned into a rollercoaster ride after the pilot literally pulled up the nose of the plane as he announced over the speaker that it just wasn’t safe enough to land and he’d have to ‘try again’. With nothing but pitch black outside our windows, we had no idea how far off the tarmac we were and people started to panic – including me.

The weird thing is I can recall with absolute clarity, looking around in that moment, everything suddenly going all Matrix slo-mo and thinking, ‘I could very easily lose my sh** right now. But I’m not going to. I’m not going to panic. I’m going to keep it together. I will not lose my sh**.’  It felt like an out of body experience.

I don’t know about you but, for me right now, life has way too many of these moments. Just when you think you’ve got a grip, or found a groove, you get blindsided by something that spirals your mind into a frenzy. You have no idea what lies outside of your view and you feel thrown into a situation you can’t fully grasp.

The next time you find yourself experiencing one of these moments – i.e. you find yourself in the middle of a turbulent ‘air pocket’ and you start to panic – say to yourself out loud…

I could very easily lose my sh** right now. But I’m not going to. I’m going to keep it together. I will not lose my sh**.

It sounds mad (so you may want to shut the door before you do so!) but it actually works!

Life, work – and the world in general – are crazy right now but I am determined to not only not lose my sh** but also to help you to not lose yours! We just need to keep it together until we can come in for a safe landing.

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Appeared in: Education Executive Magazine (@edexec)

If you’ve read my blog, or you attended my Confidence Building SBL Support Session then what I’m going to say next will be familiar to you – but I want to remind you of it! If you haven’t, and/or didn’t, then what I’m about to share with you is the best piece of advice I can give you right now.

Interruptions are a necessary evil in the life of a school business leader, but there is a way that you can deal with them that will help you to be more efficient and set some very important boundaries.
 
After giving up on a ‘Do not disturb’ sign – which I found to be rarely effective or, in some cases, too effective! – I implemented an ‘interruption management system’ that I have since labelled the ‘triage system’. When someone comes into your office, or approaches you to ask for ‘a favour’, or they start their sentence with ‘Can you just’ this is how I advise you to proceed…

• Establish a set of actions that you can designate to every possible interruption.
• Decide what you will deal with immediately (the true, fire-fighting moments that just can’t wait), what you will make note of to pick up at the next opportunity, and what can wait a little longer.
• When someone comes in to see you, get to the point as quickly as you can so you can ‘triage’ appropriately. If the tasks can wait, ask them to come back later, or tell them you will go and find them, or ask them to send you an e-mail, or direct them to another member of staff. When someone comes in, get to the point as quickly as you can so you can ‘triage’ appropriately.
• Don’t let them hover in the doorway – or worse, park themselves in your office giving you the full spiel of what they’ve done, where they’ve been and what they’ve tried already! By hearing them out, but firmly guiding them to the point, everyone feels heard, you’re available to deal with anything critical and anything non-urgent can be redirected as appropriate.

Making people take ownership of non-urgent issues can be powerful, over time, as you’re training them to solve their own problems. It’s also helpful if you need to break the same habit that I suffered from for longer than I care to remember; taking everything on and saying ‘Yes’ to things on the bounce!  
 
Ultimately, if you’re polite yet direct, and consistently apply this method, it trains people to be more respectful of your time as well as helping keep you sane.

Here are some useful ‘triage’ phrases to get you started:

• “Of course, I’ll look at this in more detail and let you know when I can get this done by.”
• “I’m working on something else at the moment but I’ll ask one of my team to look at this and get back to you if I/they need more information.”
• Depending on who is asking, and what the task is, you might say, “What would you like me to do first?” or, “I’ll check this out with the head and see how they would like me to deal with this.”
• “I can see why you’ve asked me about this but it’s actually someone else’s remit. I’ll pass it on/you should pass it on.”
• “I have a number of deadlines that I’m working to right now and, if you leave this with me, it just won’t get done in the time you’ve specified. If it can wait, that’s great. If not, it might be quicker to do this yourself/ask someone else.”
• “From what you’ve said, I’m not clear exactly what’s involved – can you please explain it to me in more detail so I can prioritise accordingly?” [This is particularly useful for the drive-by – the person that mumbles something unintelligible, drops a file on your desk like a bomb and then hotfoots it out of the room.]

Remember, your time is valuable, you’re valuable and you’ve got more than enough to do without taking on everyone else’s to-do lists too!

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Appeared in: Education Executive Magazine (@edexec)

My husband loves to be right.

In the summer our smoke alarm started beeping so I set about looking for a new battery. My husband was adamant that the alarm was wired into the electric and, therefore, there was no battery.

I’m debating with him over my shoulder as I’m digging through a pile of useless keys and old chargers in our bits-and-bobs drawer while he is frantically checking the fuse board under the stairs.

Finally, I produced a battery and, after another long (and noisy) fifteen minutes spent debating underneath the still beeping alarm, he decided to prove – once and for all – that the alarm does not have a battery. He muttered quietly to himself whilst fetching a ladder; I remained quiet – hands on hips, eyes in permanent roll mode.

I didn’t know it was possible for someone to stomp up a ladder, but he somehow managed it! Over the screeching alarm, his words were barely audible, “Pass me the battery.”

This type of thing happens regularly. It’s earned me quite the reputation of ‘always being right’. I can see how it looks that way, but the trick to it is simple. I only nail my flag to the mast when I’m already 99.9% sure I know what I’m talking about – which makes me right 99.9% of the time!

If I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m the first to say, ‘I don’t know’ and ask someone who does. (Ok, this is usually my husband… He is right sometimes!)

As school business leaders we find ourselves in plenty of situations where we know we’re right, and we will die in that ditch if we have to; but there are other times when we just don’t know the answer.

Not knowing the answer can sometimes feel like SBL-kryptonite – and even worse, admitting it can make us feel like we’re bad at our jobs or that people will think we’re stupid.

Nothing could be further from the truth

Saying ‘I don’t know’ shows that you have self-awareness, that you’re secure in yourself, that getting it right is more important than what other people think and, more importantly, that you’re willing to find the answer. This will not only make people feel more confident in you, but also that they can trust you to get the job done.

Nobody knows everything – and the ones who say they do are lying! Confidence does not equal competence. Those who ‘talk the talk’ do not always ‘walk the walk’. We all know someone like this, and what do we think of them? Not much.

Assuming we should have the answers, and beating ourselves up when we don’t, is defeating ourselves before we even get started. The true power, in a world where everyone feels that being seen to be right is more important than actually being right, is to admit that we don’t know, and to commit to finding the right answer, the right way, or the right person to help us.

So, don’t worry about feeling like you’re on the back foot. Don’t worry if there’s an awkward pause. Nail your flag to your mast with just as much conviction as when you do know the answer and declare ‘I’m not sure but I’ll look into it’ or ‘I don’t know but I know someone who can help’.

People won’t remember all the times you said ‘I don’t know’, but they will know that you’re rarely wrong, always have an answer and are almost always, always right. Just ask my husband!

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Appeared in: Education Executive Magazine (@edexec)

“You need to feel the fear!”
 
Or so Joey and Chandler tell Rachel in Friends when she says she’s sick of working as a waitress and wishes she could get a job in fashion. They say that as long as she has that job, she doesn’t have the motivation to go out and get the job she really wants.
 
Watching this episode got me thinking about confidence, and about how sometimes we need the right set of circumstances to push us forward.

I’m a ‘feel the fear’ type of person. I do my best work under pressure (especially when I’m skating too close to deadlines) and some of the best things I’ve done are the ones that I crapped myself doing, or when the clock has been ticking and I’ve not had time to talk myself out of it. The magic happens for me when I’m pushed forward by circumstance, or other people who believe in me – even if I don’t.
 
Over time I’ve got better at generating that ‘fear’ myself – stepping forward before I think I’m ready, and speaking out when I’d normally stay quiet – but it does take work!
 
I’m not saying for a minute that you should quit your job – no way – but if you’re feeling held back somehow, think about what it is that you want to achieve and why you feel like you can’t. I know external factors play a part in this but, when it comes to building the confidence to deal with these, that’s down to us.
 
Confidence is a fluid thing and, in order to understand how to tap into it, it’s useful to spend some time unpicking the reasons why we feel that we can’t or shouldn’t do the things that we really want to.
 
Reasons may include…

• You don’t believe that you’re capable of it.
• You feel that the goal is too big, or unachievable.
• You’re worried it won’t work, won’t be good enough or will go wrong.
• You’re not naturally outgoing or assertive or [insert other appropriate adjectives!]
• You’ve had some bad experiences in the past and you don’t believe this time will be any better.
• You’re worried about what will happen if you do it; what people will say or think about you.

Understanding what’s holding you back is the first step to moving forward; whatever your reason is, ask yourself what you can do to create the momentum you need.

So…
  
What’s your goal?
What’s stopping you?
What’s the one action that you feel ready to take?
 
You don’t have to be a ‘feel the fear’ type of person to create momentum – it might be that you need to take smaller steps, or to unpick some of that negative self-talk, until you’re left with logic instead of doubt.

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Appeared in: Education Executive Magazine (@edexec)

Recently I read an article that said that 45% of what we do every day is done out of habit. Apparently, it can be even higher if we’re in the same environment, and around the same people, on a regular basis. And in lockdown, I bet it’s probably been closer to 90%!
 
Immediately, I was like… no, that can’t be right! Then I sat for a moment and thought about it.
 
If I set aside my morning and evening routines (which, though they evolve, are essentially habitual) and think about my work, the jobs I do around the house and the things I do in my downtime then, actually, yes, I do a lot of stuff automatically!

Habits create structure and routine; they keep us focused and give us comfort. They are learnt from experience – they help us to avoid something bad (eg. forgetting to do an important task, or turning up to a meeting unprepared) or reward us with something good (eg. that feeling of satisfaction we get when we’ve ticked something off our to-do list). Habits create feelings and responses and are a valuable tool.
 
Some habits are conscious choices, things we do because they make us feel good or because they help us to achieve something good.

But what about other types of habits? The subconscious kind, the ones that we don’t even question? The habits we’ve developed to survive in a context we can’t control? The habits that have grown to be so automatic that they’ve become a way of life – but don’t actually serve us?

So much, of not only what we do, but also what we think and feel, is automatic; conditioned actions and conditioned responses – and we probably do this a lot more than we think we do in the workplace.
 
Think about:

• The way you react when something goes wrong.
• The way you feel when someone says something negative.
• That thing you automatically do just to save the argument.
• That thing you automatically say just to keep the peace.
• That thing you never say or do because it’s just not worth the consequences.

These negative habits. and ‘automatic’ responses. create negative emotions yet we’ve convinced ourselves that saying or doing (or maybe not saying or doing) these things is the only way forward or that ‘This is just how it is’.
 
The good news is that habits can be broken; we may not be able to change what happens to us, but we can change how we respond.
 
First of all, you need to identify what triggers you; where and when does this habit, or automatic response, show itself? How does it make you feel? Is it attached to a person, a place or an event? What can you learn from this?
 
Then you need to focus on your desire for change. What is your goal? Why do you want to do something differently? How will you feel if you stop doing a specific thing or behaving in a particular way?
 
Then it’s time to make a plan!

• Ask for support. Is someone you know struggling with the same thing? Can you help each other? Do you have a friend or colleague that you can talk to, to help keep you focused? Accountability can help so much!
• Leave yourself reminders. Maybe you make a note in your diary or on your calendar. Maybe you set an alert in your ‘phone. Maybe you put a post-it note on your bathroom mirror! Whatever works for you to help your goal stay at the top of your mind.
• Start small. Don’t set yourself up for failure. Breaking a habit takes time. Slip-ups will happen! If you don’t do it every day, try and do it every other day. If you slip up, think of all the times you’ve succeeded and try again tomorrow.
• Incentivise yourself. If you’ve done something every day, or a set number of times, celebrate your success with something you love, or do something you enjoy and rarely get the chance to do!
• Replace negative habits with positive ones. What new habits do you want to develop? How will they serve you? How will they make your life better?

Whatever it is that you’re struggling with, you can break the cycle. Change is possible!

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P.S. Have you joined The Business of School Leadership Facebook Group yet? For practical support, advice, tips, tools & guidance about all things school leadership, join us in the community by clicking here.

Appeared in: Education Executive Magazine (@edexec)