5 Steps to End Email Overload

In my district there is only one email sent out to the district from the entire central office staff for the entire week. 

Yes one!  Not one from each person. One email that has all the information from everyone for the entire week.

Why it that?

The reason is simple. No one reads every email that is sent. In fact the more emails that are sent the greater the chance that someone will not read those emails. That’s the law of communication. Less is alsways more. 

Let’s go a step further. Not every blanket email is necessary. Nothing is more annoying than getting a blanket email that only applies to 50% of the organization, and you’re not one of the 50%. In fact blanket email overload actually leads to less communication and sadly less staff engagement. 

The more communication sent leads to less communication received. Conversely the less communication sent ultimately leads to more communication received.

LESS EMAIL = MORE COMMUNICATION

I mean let’s get real. Who likes getting tons of email anymore? In fact, email consumes my day for at least 2 hours per day if not more. If I feel this way about email, I have to assume that surely others do as well.  We, leaders, owe it to our followers to have great communication skills, and there is one way to optimize your organization’s communication.

5 Steps to End Email Overload for your Organization

Step 1 - Create a Google Doc and share it with the leaders and administrative assistants who send emails every week. Give them editing rights to the document. 

Step 2 - Set a deadline for everyone to enter their announcements on the document at least 2 days before you intend to send the one organizational blanket email from everyone for the week. 

Step 3 - Review the Google Doc with the team to ensure that everything is entered and compose your email on a blog, s’more, or newsletter of your choice. 

Step 4 - Email it out and communicate to your followers that they can expect to receive only one email per week with everything that applies to everyone. 
(special note - send it out at the same time every week) 

Step 5 - Ensure that emergency (or oops, I forgot) emails are rarely sent. 

Our folks are drowning in EMAIL.
Don’t let email be another brick that brings them further under the water. Create less emails that serve as the one stop shop of weekly information, and it will serve as a life preserver to keep them afloat.  It may perhaps lead them to less stress and more workplace success. 

Are You Limited by the Labels?

What do you see when you look at a student?  Are you influenced by their clothes, their hair, or their appearance?  Do you judge them by the attitudes or the language they use to address you?  Whether we like it or not, a first impression is always formed by what we immediately see, but great educators possess the innate ability to look beyond the first impression to dig deeper into that child.

Here is a great video by Dwayne Johnson that illustrates what an educator can do for tough kids when they look far beyond rough edges to help students find their purpose in life.

But What about the Labels We See?

When you see a list of students, are you influenced by the labels on the list?  

• When you are told that a student is LOW, do your beliefs about their potential instinctively drop?
• Do you think students with a G/T label have very few difficulties in learning and should be able to do most things quickly and with fewer tries?
• Do your learning targets change for students with a special education label compared to students who don't possess a special education label? 
• Do your expectations lower for a student when you see that he failed the state test in your content area for the last 3 years?  
• For students in an ESL program, do you make assumptions about their ability to learn based on their language proficiency?

Do Labels Lead You or Limit You?

If we're honest with ourselves, we are prone to make assumptions based on the labels assigned to students.  Furthermore, those labels influence our planning to lead them to excellence.  But the question we shouldn't ask ourselves is not if we look at kids differently.  The fact is that we do, and honestly we must.

What we must guard ourselves from is allowing labels to change our belief about the potential of our students.  We should continuously ask ourselves if labels lead us or limit us?  If they lead us, we are able to better personalize learning in such a way that addresses student deficients by leveraging their strengths.  If they limit us, we only see limitations shown by the label.  

Great educators are led by labels not inhibited by them.  They see potential not impossibilities, and they use labels to find innovative and creative ways to help every student discover their real label, EXCELLENT!!! 

Ending Random Acts of School Improvement (Bonus Podcast)

The other day I had the opportunity to lead the #divergEd chat on Twitter.  The conversation centered around this thought. 

Random Acts of School Improvement 

Will Never Help ALL Teachers 

Learn, Grow, and Excel

The reason for this statement is simple.  Random acts are not goal driven.  They're feeling driven.  In order to help educators grow in their craft, we must first have a system that identifies where educators are in their proficiency, a structure to help each teacher set targeted and specific goals for growth, and a support system of professional learning to help them attain their goals.   Without this foundation, school improvement initiatives will be haphazard, based on the latest craze, or which ever way the educational winds blow. 

Here's the reality.  
We would never be random or unpredictable in our approach to helping kids grow in their learning. We would have a roadmap (curriculum) to guide us toward our goal.  We would create instruction that is aligned to that curriculum which would include best practices to move our students down the road we call student success, and we would systematically design formative assessments to gauge our progress towards reaching our goal of all students learning at high levels.  Furthermore, we would create support systems when students "break down" on their journey, so that we can provide those students targeted instructional supports to get them back on the road to their destination.

So Shouldn't We Do This for Educators?
Well absolutely we should, but in many cases we don't.  The reason is simple.  As leaders, we are so focused on students, that we often overlook the people that actually impact kids, teachers; therefore we throw professional development at them rather than taking an intentional and focused approach to ensure that every teacher learns based on their needs, not our random whims.  We make assumptions that they aren't learners because their teachers, and therefore don't need the same targeted instruction, and prescriptive supports to address their areas for growth that we would provide for students.   The fact is this.  Educators are learners too, and the deserve learning that is intentional, purposeful, and ultimately effective in helping them grow by leaps and bounds.



How Can We End Random Acts of Improvement?
In my podcast with Dr. Chris Weber, I explain the reason why schools must create instruction,  intervention and support systems for teachers in the exact same way that create them for students and I outline why we leaders need a guide to ensure that Excellence in Every Classroom isn't a hope.  It's a plan.  Hope you'll give it a listen.

5 Elements of an Excellent "IT" Factor in Educators

Do you have what IT takes to help all kids excel?  It's hard to describe a teacher who has IT.  They have an unbelievable ability to make IT happen regardless of the circumstances. They exceed by generating amazing results in learning because they ensure that any kid grows regardless of the difficulties that they possess.

So Do You Have IT?

Intense Tenacity - an insatiable passion for inspiring your students to love the content you teach. 

Intentional Teaching - everything you provide your students has a specific purpose to hook students into learning. 

Inquisitive Tinkering - never satisfied, you are always thinking of a new and better way to help all kids learn. 

Individualized Targets - knowing the specific strengths and weaknesses of your students, you design prescriptive activities to help them reach their learning targets. 

Dotted I's & Crossed T's - leaving nothing to chance, your organization ensures that every minute is maximized and every opportunity is optimized. 

What's your IT Factor?

The best teachers have a zest for teaching but even more a zeal for their own growth and development. They yearn for new ways to guarantee learning for their students and they do it through constant commitment and routine reflection.  That's how they find their it