Transformative Principal

Welcome to Transformative Principle.

This is Jethro Jones.

I'm pulling some old stuff out of the vault for you today.

Stuff that is still relevant, even though I recorded it a while ago for the Transformative Leadership Summit.

Were you a listener when I did those?

'cause they were pretty awesome.

So today's episode is from that vault.

I hope you enjoy it.

I haven't released these publicly and.

Listening to them.

Again, I cannot believe how relevant they are.

So good stuff, and I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks so much for listening to Transformative Principle.

I am really excited to welcome Will Parker to the Transformative Leadership Summit.

Today he is going to talk about kras, and if you haven't heard of kras, they are something that Dave Ramsey does in his organization and.

And something that Will Parker has adopted in his school and done a remarkable job with it and inspired me to start doing it at my school.

But I still need a little bit of help, which is why I definitely wanted him here with us today.

So Will, thank you so much, um, for joining us and for talking about KRAS today.

Jethro, it's such a privilege to hang out with you and all of your Transformative Principal tribe.

Uh, this is so exciting.

Um, I am in northeastern Oklahoma, just about 15 miles north of Tulsa in a small school called ook.

Uh, high school, uh, we have about 35% of our students that are Native American.

Uh, and so we have a rich heritage, uh, with the state and with our, uh, native American tribes.

And, uh, we are a Title one school, but our kids are, are always improving and performing.

And, uh, I love school leadership.

And so, uh, I'm so glad I get to be a part of, uh, your leadership talks.

Well, thank you so much, and you also have a great website and podcast yourself.

Um, william d parker.com.

Did I get that right?

You did.

I've been blogging there for the last, uh, three and a half years, and, uh, last year put together a book called Principle Matters, the Motivation, action, and Courage Needed for School Leadership.

It's on my website.

And then also, um, I started a podcast in January and so I'm excited, uh, to, to watch, um, my listeners grow there and, um.

Can I put a plugin for my new book contract?

Absolutely, yes.

I just, I just, I, I just signed the contract with Solution Tree, uh, for a book that's gonna be on the power of messaging, and so I'm really excited about, uh, that prospect too.

That is fantastic.

So obviously Will is a multifaceted leader who's got a lot of good stuff going on, and let's go ahead and jump into the great stuff with kras.

Now, for those who aren't familiar, I'm gonna refer you back to his website and the previous transformative principle podcast, but will give a brief overview of what A KRA is and why you would want that in your school.

Sure.

When, whenever you talk about.

Managers in schools, or when you talk about school management, I think it's important that you distinguish between three things.

Uh, transformational management, instructional management, and organizational management.

And when you talk about kras, you're really talking about the organizational part.

You know, how do we organize school in a way that can be the most productive?

I always like to think about school as a larger picture of the classroom.

So think back to the classroom.

What are the processes and the procedures that you use in a classroom that your best teachers use in classrooms that, that make them look like they're magic and you know that they're not.

They're just very well organized and they understand the science and the art of teaching, and so.

Think about your classroom and then think about your school.

What are those same processes and practices and procedures that you can be using within the school at large to have that same result that, that, that magic where it looks like your school is
running smoothly all the time when you know that you're controlling chaos and you're making sure that things are moving as well as they can, um, considering all the different dynamics involved.

And so when I was making the transition.

Um, three years ago from, uh, assistant principal to high school principal, and I've been in school administration now for almost 12 years.

Um, and most of my experience had been as the assistant principal.

And so when I was making that transition over, I was looking at the organizational structure of our school, and I realized that there were a lot of people who played roles in our school who understood their roles.

But maybe other people didn't understand what their roles were.

Most school leaders feel pretty comfortable with what classroom teachers roles look like because we were classroom teachers, but how comfortable are we
understanding the role of the counselor or the paraprofessional, or the media center or specialist, or the office staff, or the clerical person or the registrar?

And so when I began to look at those organizational structure questions.

Um, even my other principals, my assistant principals or an athletic director, what were the roles that they were playing that were essential?

And how did, did I know those roles well enough that I could help define what each person was doing throughout the building.

So also, yeah, go ahead.

So does that mean that you, you are the only one who knows what everybody's doing?

No.

And are you the only one who can define what they're doing?

No.

So let me, lemme give you an example.

Uh, let's say that you're a new teacher coming into my building and I've given you, um.

Uh, I've, I've set you up with, let's say you're a math teacher and I've set you up with a team and your math team, um, has helped you understand what your curriculum maps look like and what your goals are gonna be for that year.

And you have your texts and you have your resources and you're building your lessons, but you're a new teacher in our building.

So who do you go to for copies if you, or for paper if you run out, or who do you go to if you're having trouble with technology or who do you go to?

If.

And you name it, if you need to fill out a purchase order for something.

Um, most new people when they step into a building, don't know those dynamics because they've never been told.

And so when I sat down with my office staff, um, I wanted to be able to define all their roles, not because I was defining them, because they were helping me understand.

So let me tell you the story.

Um, when I read, uh.

Dave Ramsey's Entree Leadership the first summer coming into my new position, um, I had picked up that book because I thought, you know, it would
be great to get some insights on, on management from someone who's in the business world and see how those things can apply to the school world.

And so Dave Ramsey, as you know, is a huge leader on personal finance, and he's built.

A business around helping people discover financial freedom.

And so, um, his organization now has over 300 employees based in Nashville, Tennessee.

And they're a large organization, um, compared to my school's staff.

Um, and so my question was how does he organize this, these group of individuals to meet their specific goals?

And they're a for-profit organization and so their, their, their outcomes are a little different than mine.

But, but he had started, um.

Teaching lessons on organizational leadership to his own people, which resulted in that book Entree Leadership.

So when I picked up the book and he had a chapter on KRAS and he calls them key results areas I, I was looking at his samples and thinking, okay, what are the key.

What are the kres for my people?

And I decided instead of calling them key results areas, to call them key responsibility areas because, um, because so many of the people that I work with in those office positions are managing areas so that our kids can be successful and our teachers can.

So I pulled my team together.

Um, the summer before school started, I pulled all my office staff together first.

That would be my secretaries.

The ones that are in charge of answering phones or in charge of, uh, counseling and registrar responsibilities or in, are in charge of helping me manage, um, purchase orders or, or, uh.

Um, absence requests, and I ask each of them, can you help me write out a list of all the things that you're managing in each of your responsibilities?

And let's create a list of those things.

And then I sat down with my counselors and said, can you show me month by month the different areas that you're responsible for managing when it comes to assessments and testings and transcripts and, and, and, and therapy with students?

And my off, my administrators.

Can you guys help me?

Divide up these responsibilities that each of us are carrying when it comes to observations and evaluations and supervision and each of the areas maybe with reporting that each of us can carry so that not one person's carrying more than another.

And so once we had had those conversations, then I put together lists.

And if, um, if you're, um.

Viewers wanna see, uh, examples of those.

They can go to my website@williamdparker.com and just search in the search bar for kras.

And there's a series of posts, uh, where I link to samples of those.

Um, I've also got some examples in my book, but I just created Excel sheets where I listed out each person's responsibility areas.

And the, the wonderful thing about having those is that we revisit those every year.

Now.

We start before school begins, we sit down again as a team and we go through those and we ask the questions, who's still responsible for what areas?

What are you doing, um, that needs to continue.

What are you no longer doing that's still on this list that we can remove or who needs to be cross-trained so that someone else can help carry the weight if you have more weight than than you should be carrying at the time.

And what I've discovered is that having those conversations on the front end, it has made it a lot easier as we progress through the school year, because what most school leaders do by nature is we correct.

Mid performance or we create, we correct when someone messes up, um, or we correct in the final evaluation time when we sit down with them at the end of the year.

And so why not set those expectations at the beginning specifically so that throughout the year everyone knows who's responsible for what.

And that way too, you're not also guessing, okay, who's, who does this report, or who's the person responsible for this?

So I share those lists out with all of our teachers when school starts too, so they can see who's responsible for each area.

And then we visit those at the end of the year too, to talk about, okay, how did we do on those?

And where do we need to tweak and change?

So that's a, that's a quick summary.

Of, um, of, or the story behind, um, how we've started using kras.

Well, and that's a pretty fascinating thing, and it's more than just, um, a job description.

It's, mm-hmm.

What is it that you're actually doing here at our school specific to where we're at?

And maybe there's a lot of overlap with a job description, but you're really focusing on.

The responsibility aspect of it and not just the describing of it.

And I think that that gives it a different meaning and, uh, emphasis when you, when you actually sit down and have those conversations.

Yeah, because you're right, it's not, it's not a job description.

Um, when we have those conversations, when we're doing hiring, um, what it is instead is it's a, it's, it's a, it's a, it's not even really necessarily definitions either.

It's, it's more of a, um, it's more of a guide or a roadmap for them in terms of what areas are you responsible for.

It's really simple, but, and it's amazing how something that simple can create, um, some, um.

It can create some comfort and some encouragement to the people that you work with.

And I've had more than one staff person tell me when we finish those conversations at the beginning of the year, thanks for revisiting these, it's helpful.

Or I've even had them ask me as we get toward the end of the year, when are we gonna sit down and go back through our lists again so that we know going into next year what, who's carrying a what?

And so they think about those things too.

Um, just a couple of weeks ago, we were interviewing for a new counselor position and, um.

I was so proud of my existing counselor 'cause we have two counselors at my school and one had moved on into, um, private practice and so we were hiring a new person in that position and my existing counselor set in with me on that interview and, uh.

And about midway through the interview as the, as the interviewee kept asking more questions, she finally said, you need to see a list of our kras, uh, because we've got these things spelled out month to month in terms of what our responsibilities are.

And I, I kind of had one of those dumb moments, like I should have brought this to the meeting.

And so I said, excuse me for a second.

I'll be right back.

So I just got up and went to my computer and I printed off.

That list and brought it back to the table and it, there was a visible difference in the countenance of the person we were interviewing.

When he started looking through that list, there was relief.

He was like, ah, this is really, really helpful for me to see exactly what you guys do month by month here with the responsibilities that you have.

So I've seen it, um, used to our advantage too, whenever we're recruiting, uh, or whenever we're trying to bring someone onto a team.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

So what does it look like to actually sit down and start having those conversations?

Let's say you've already been a principal for a while mm-hmm.

And you are at a school and now you're just starting that conversation.

How would you go about actually starting the conversation, explaining it to them and getting them on board with the idea?

Well, I think it's helpful to have samples.

Um, I'll just explain what I did.

And this doesn't mean it's the only way to do it, but here's, here's how I approach those conversations.

I. I sit down beforehand and I kind of create an Excel spreadsheet with some ca with some, with some titles on them in terms of, um, what, uh, which person?

Maybe it's office person one.

Office person two, office person three, and I begin listing.

What I believe are the d different areas that they're, that they're already managing or that I know that they're managing.

But then I send them an invitation, um, whether it's stepping into their offices or sending out something to a Google calendar or just saying, Hey to one
of them, can you pull everybody together today at 10 p 10:00 AM And I usually pick a time before students are here so that when we're working on that.

Beginning, we, we come back early, every state's different.

But in Oklahoma, uh, in my district, we bring our, our staff in actually 10 days before students return.

And it's wonderful because it gives us an opportunity to plan and it gives us an opportunity to sit down and have those conversations.

But even if we did not have that much time, I would still find a time before school began and I would pull them together.

And I would just start that conversation by saying, listen, um, I know that each of you manages a lot of areas of responsibility.

Can, I wanna give you this list as a, as a working document, and I would like you to fill out under your names all the different areas of
responsibility that you manage and, and think about it throughout the entire year, from month to month, what are the things that you're doing so that.

If you were missing, we know these things would not be happening.

And so, um, so each of them has done that for me.

There have been times when I've actually emailed out the list before the meeting and had them bring it with them so that they've had time to think and write those things out.

We've done this enough together now that we're just, we've just rehearsed it again every time we sit down.

But that very first time, um, I had created a partial list, shared it with them, asked them to fill out the rest of it, and then we actually sat down and talked.

Because those face-to-face meetings bring up things that you don't hear through emails or in just one-on-one conversations, because what happens a
lot of time when you sit down with a team is they begin to talk about areas where they're managing things, where there may be some tension or maybe.

Maybe the time management isn't well, like perhaps there's something that needs to be happening, but you've got two people that are out at the same time.

Or maybe you've set up lunches where it doesn't work because somebody needs to be managing something at one time and you don't have the right people where they need to be.

And so putting them all at the table together helps them work those things out.

Um, among themselves so that they have a better idea too.

And this last year I challenged them as well at the suggestion of one of my secretaries, um, to begin cross training.

And so I ask each of them, pick a category from your list where you are the only person that knows how to do that.

And then I want you to have a goal to figure out how to train the other people in this group how to do that.

So whether you wanna put together, um, a list or whether you wanna put together a lesson or whether you wanna put together an email description.

I don't care how you do it.

I just want you to put together something so that other people on your team know how to do this.

So, for instance, we had one person who was in charge of, um.

She was the go-to for the entire school.

Whenever students or parents needed passwords to log into our grade books, she managed, um, that database.

And guess what no one else did, and none of the other secretaries could ever answer that question.

If a parent called and said, Hey, can I get a password so I can log into my kid's grade book?

If that secretary was gone, they would have to wait.

So she came up with a description to Descr so she could explain the process that she follows.

And it wasn't difficult, it's just no one else had ever been trained.

And so once she created that process and shared it out, then other people could follow that same process to help a parent or kid.

When she was absent, she still, that was still her KRA, but she trained someone else how to do it in case she wasn't there.

Yeah.

Excuse me.

So one thing that, that I like about that is the idea of cross training and having them decide how to teach the other person.

Mm-hmm.

Um, I think one of the things that I have messed up on, uh, these last two years in doing our kras is making them into more of a book.

And they really need to be just a. Page or two mm-hmm.

Of what their responsibilities are and not have everything in there, but have all of the.

The things that they do, not how to do everything.

Is that how it should look?

Well, I agree, and I don't think there's a, um, textbook answer on how it should look because Jethro, you're gonna organize that KRA list differently than I will.

And, um, and I've seen other people organize theirs and they're just beautiful the way that they, that they set them up and, and make them look so polished.

And I'm a little less polished when it comes to how my lists look.

The, the key for me is, does it work?

Is it, is it a working.

Document that actually, um, that truly defines what those people's responsibilities are.

Um, and so that's something that has to be revisited over and over again.

Um, you know, it's the same thing, and I don't wanna transition too far away from kras, but it's, it's the same mindset that I have when I'm, when I'm sitting down with my admin team and we're scheduling out, um, observations and evaluations.

And walkthroughs for teachers because what I have, what I found in my, in my first years of school leadership was that I tried to wing it.

I tried to get into as many classrooms as I could and do my observations when I could and follow up when I could, and guess what happened.

They all got pushed into a crunch time, and then when a dead, when the deadline was hitting, then I'm trying to finish up all these visits and observations and get all my signings in at the same time.

So now I sit down in the summer and I map out a year in advance.

When I'm actually gonna be doing my, my formal observations and follow ups with my teachers and I give myself windows.

I don't like set the date, but I set weeks.

I set a weak, uh, window of, of when I know I will be with that teacher and be having conversations with that teacher.

And because, um, because we set those, those deadlines in advance, then we're bound to that.

Uh, and it's not, not in a bad way, but in a good way to prioritize those times so that we're protecting those times from other things that are happening too.

So KRAS are the same way.

When you define out ahead of time what those responsibilities are, then you've protected that person also because they know that's their responsibility.

And if someone tries to add a new, and you know how schools are, we come up with a new idea, so let's just give this to this person.

Well, they've already got a list of to-dos, and so how is that gonna fit on that long list that they already have of kras?

And so it's, I think it's fair to them and it, and it, and it's, um, it's honoring to them to, to be able to sit down at the beginning of the year so that everybody kind of knows.

So for instance, you know, Oklahoma's experiencing a lot of budget.

Cuts.

Right now.

We, we we're an oil rich state like Alaska, but with the, a barrel of oil being, uh, as low as it is right now, we've had a lot of revenue shortfalls.

And so we are a billion dollars.

Uh, we're less than this time last year in terms of, of revenue.

So that means schools are tightening their belts and we've had to do a lot of, um.

Uh, we haven't had to have, do a lot of reductions in my district, but across the state, uh, schools are seeing fewer teachers now with bigger class sizes.

And we've had to do some adjustments in our offices too.

So we've cut not just in, in, in, in teaching areas, but we've cut in administration and in office assignments.

So we've had to readjust some of our office assignments, so, so.

We've actually are gonna be one person shorter in some of our clerical areas because that person was moved over to another area.

So guess what we get to do?

Um, as school begins this summer when we return, we're gonna sit down and have those conversations of, okay, now how do we readjust those kras based on being what person?

Short.

And I've already sat down just yesterday with one of my staff members who is not in that clerical mix, but she has a responsibility area.

Um, as a media center specialist where she's got some real skills in technology and so she's actually gonna be taking on some of those kras from this person whose position's being absorbed.

So I'm already having those conversations, but as I am, that's the language we use, which is okay.

I know we need to sit down and look at your kras.

Um, but as we do, what do you think, if I added these couple of areas to yours, how, how do you think you could manage those?

And it's, it's just, it makes the conversation a whole lot better because they're a part of that decision.

And then, you know, on the front end, because it's gonna be in writing.

Now this is what that means, and it also provides opportunity for them to get trained or to meet with that person and, and, and to receive some, some feedback on how to do that well.

So a couple things about that.

Number one, since it's a living document that's shared with the Excel spreadsheet, with all everybody's duties, they can see what other people are doing and so they can say, oh wait, I do that too.

So we're both doing that.

Maybe that's okay.

Maybe that needs to change.

Maybe one person needs to be in charge and the other person can.

And be crosstrained.

Right.

But Right.

Being able to have that there, I think is so valuable for your team.

Yeah.

And how awesome that now that you're losing a person, you can just sit down and say, this is what that person used to do.

Mm-hmm.

Who, how are we gonna divide this up?

And Yeah.

That's, that's awesome.

Yeah.

That's, that's really a good benefit.

In fact, when I, when I transitioned from assistant to.

To a high school principal.

The, uh, the veteran secretary who had been with the principal was at 14 years, and she had take, she had decided to move on into a
different job offer, and so I was stepping in new, even though I was familiar with the school, I was stepping into a new office position.

And I had to hire someone new into that position.

And so when she came in, and thankfully the secretary who was leaving was willing to stay and train her, that's the same year that I adopted those kras.

And it was so helpful to build that list with her in terms of what those responsibilities look like.

And tweak those.

And revisit those.

And so yeah, it's a living document.

And, and, and when we do find people that may have been, um, both responsible for a specific area, we decide who's the point person.

Who's the person, who's the person that is the point person for that area?

For instance, like, um, because we're a high school, we run eligibility lists so we can see who's eligible for participating in, in activities in sports.

And so even though more than one person knows how to do that list, we have a point person, they're the point person for that, um, every week so that we know at a certain time every week that she's pr, that she's producing that list.

And if she's absent, we know it's not happening.

So somebody's gotta pick up the slack.

Yeah.

And so a follow up question to that is if somebody's absent and they're not able to do it, but what do you do when you have the KRA and somebody's not doing what's on the KRA?

Mm-hmm.

How does that conversation look with the KRA as opposed to without it?

Sure.

Um.

I'm trying to think of an example because, and I'm not saying this because, um, because my staff is perfect, right?

But, but, um, I have a fantastic group of people and so I, I honestly can't think of a time when one of them wasn't managing their area.

And, and this is why, um, because, um, when we have those conversations on the front end.

That, that's the area that they're managing.

Um, if they're not managing it, something's gonna fall apart.

I mean, these, you know, how essential every part of school is.

And so, um, so, um, but let me just give it for instance, if I did have someone who was not following through on those care, well, actually, I can think of an example.

Um, and I'll, and, and since this is a, um, a, a leadership conversation, uh, I knew, you know, some of the times other people watch these things and so I wanna protect confidentiality, Saul.

I'll frame this in a way that doesn't, that doesn't violate anyone's privacies.

Um, but we did have a, a position, uh, change a few years ago and we had a person that had changed job responsibilities and was being shared among more than one school.

And so, um, I made the suggestion that we set down with that person and create K-A-K-R-A list since.

She, uh, wasn't gonna be with each of us every single day.

We were gonna be sharing her from school to school.

And, uh, what we found was that, um, because I helped develop that list, um, she was, she was following all those responsibilities for me.

Um, but she ne wasn't necessarily following for anybody else, um, as well, because they didn't.

They weren't using the lists, and so, so that accountability piece wasn't necessarily there.

So about midway through the year when I began to have conversations and realized that those same responsibilities weren't being followed at those other buildings, guess what I pulled out?

The KRA list because what are we gonna talk about if we don't have something in writing?

And so, um, so we were able to pull that list out so that we could have that meaningful conversation to encourage that job performance so that those other schools are being served like mine was.

And I'm not saying that mine was being served because of me, but I'm saying that list provides that accountability structure so that you have something to step back to when you're questioning, is this person really doing their job well?

Yeah.

Well, and it's like asking a teacher.

How do you discipline kids?

And the teacher says, well, I don't need to, because I give 'em my expectations upfront, right?

Mm-hmm.

So that this is the same thing.

So I'm sure that when you do find someone who's not doing it, you simply say, remember this thing that we agreed on earlier this year?

Yeah.

Let's make it happen.

Right?

Yeah.

So, you know, I'm sure that that is what it actually ends up looking like.

And you know, it's, it's so wonderful when you can.

Know what somebody is supposed to be doing, and then you can provide support so that they know how to do that.

And then if they don't know how to do something and it's on their list, then you either kick it off or you get 'em training so that they can, and then it's really specific, so you don't need to be frustrated with your secretary not meeting your expectations.

I worked with one principal who had a secretary who was.

Uh, always doing stuff and mm-hmm.

Uh, this principal appreciated it most of the time, but sometimes the secretary got a little bit ahead and the principal wasn't quite ready for that.

And so having some well-defined kras that included, you know, wait for.

This process to be done before you start this process would've, um, alleviated a lot of that frustration that didn't need to be there.

So I, I just love what you're doing with kras.

I think it's so valuable and, um, you've inspired me to make sure that I have that conversation in a better way.

This year by following your ideas here that you've given today.

So thank you so much for that.

Will.

You're welcome, Jethro.

Let me just, um, kind of wrap it up with this story.

Um, I was having a conversation with a, another education colleague, a school leader, and you know how those conversations go when you're, when you're getting frustrated with your staff and, and, and, and we all say these words.

If so and so would just get on board or if, if, if this group would just get on board.

And after I had heard that comment a few times, I finally stepped in and I said, listen.

Um, I think a more constructive, I think a more constructive thing to say in a situation like this is,

or a more constructive question is, how can I, as the school leader create the best environment by which people want to get on board?

Because I can, I can.

I can complain all day long about people not being on board, but am I creating the best environment possible for them to be successful?

And you know, as well as I do that you can create a fantastic environment and some people still won't be successful.

And that's how you have to coach people.

Sometimes you have to coach 'em to leave the team.

Um, but, uh, but one of the most important responsibilities that we have as a school leader is to create the best possible environment for our people to be successful.

And for me, KRAS is just a way to do that.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much again, will, for being part of this.

And, um, one, uh, if you would like to, uh, get more information about this again, go to Williams.

William d parker.com to check out his website and get some examples.

And then also you can sign up for the All Access Pass for the Transformative Leadership Summit.

You can have this to watch this video with your staff and start having these conversations so that they can get on board as well.

Any parting comments or final words will.

Yeah, well, I'll just put a quick plugin.

If, uh, people want to see examples of kras or if they want to, uh, subscribe to updates, uh, and free resources from my website, they can do that@williamdparker.com.

I have a free ebook called, uh, eight Hats, essential Roles for School Leaders that I'll Send You when you subscribe and, uh, in Jethro.

It is always so fun to talk to you because you're doing amazing things and you're connecting leaders.

And I feel like we've known each other.

I feel like we're friends and 'cause we are, we're connected and we're virtual.

So leaders stay connected.

'cause uh, you, you can't grow unless you are.

Cool.

Thank you again so much Will.

You're welcome.