[00:01] Justin Baeder:
Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.
[00:06] Announcer:
Here's your host, director of the Principal Center and champion of high performance instructional leadership, Justin Baeder. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.
[00:15] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
I'm your host, Justin Baeder, and I'm honored to be joined today by Todd Whitaker, Jeff Zoll, and Jimmy Casas, authors of 10 Perspectives on Innovation in Education.
[00:27] Announcer:
And now, our feature presentation.
[00:29] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
Gentlemen, welcome to Principal Center Radio. Thank you, Justin. Good morning, Justin.
[00:34] Justin Baeder:
Honored to be here.
[00:35] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
Well, I'm very excited to talk with you about the book because this is a somewhat unique book with 10 authors that I understand grew out of a conference that you have been doing together. I wonder if we could start by just talking a little bit about the origin story of the book and the conference and how this all came together.
[00:53] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
Sure. Let me start, Justin. You know, Todd and Jimmy and I have been friends for quite a while. And about three years ago, we held our first What Great Educators Do Differently conference here in Chicago, where I am out in the suburbs of Chicago. And it was a great event. And we decided to keep those going.
[01:09]
We tend to do about three or four of those each year. And I think we've done over a dozen now in several different states and Canada. And at each conference, we have some of the same speakers and presenters, but we also invite different ones for each event. And last year at this time, we kind of decided maybe we could invite the speakers to be part of an annual collaborative book series related to the What Great Educators Do differently conferences. And so that's what we did. And last year, we had volume one.
[01:33]
We've kind of got the next four years mapped out for who will participate as authors in each edition. And just in December, the first edition came out. We try to... tie a loose theme, but it's awfully difficult because our speakers speak on a wide variety of topics.
[01:49]
But we picked the theme of innovation for year one, thinking that no matter what we wrote about, we would ask each author to kind of somehow talk about how that topic is innovative or how we could innovate with that topic, whether it was learning environments or culture or what have you. So that's how it started. The first one came out in December. We're kind of excited about it. Good people to work with and write with and always fun to work with Jimmy and Todd.
[02:12] Justin Baeder:
And Justin, I also like the fact that one of the things I know that we've talked about a lot is I know there's a lot of people right now who have an interest in writing a book. And I think just having the opportunity to invite people in who maybe have not been part of that process and give them an idea of what that would look like and feel like and the amount of work that would go into doing that, I think it gives them a little bit of an opportunity to see and understand what it would actually take to write a book if they were interested in doing that. So I mean, I think we feel really good about helping, I guess, potential authors. I know for me personally, having an opportunity to work with Todd and Jeff on our first book, What Connected Educators Do Differently, it really taught me a lot about the process and helped me understand what it would take to actually sit down and write a book. So I think that's something we feel really good about.
[02:54] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
Well, and it's great to see collaboration on such a scale. And I know that you're all experienced authors. And I know, Todd, what is this, about book 50 for you, roughly?
[03:03] Justin Baeder:
Something like that. Two of them are good. You just got to figure out which two.
[03:06] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
I love the collaborative angle here and the different perspectives on something that definitely has the potential to be nebulous or has the potential to be different things to different people and certainly in different contexts. So I wonder if we could just talk a little bit about some of those different perspectives that each of you bring to the concept of innovation, because certainly we understand the idea of needing to bring in new ideas. We understand the value of not simply bringing repeating the apprenticeship of observation, you know, the way we were taught as kids. But specifically, what are some of the big ideas that you bring to bear on innovation in education, respectively?
[03:42] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
Well, we each kind of picked a topic and, you know, it started with, you know, sort of an email chain between the 10 of us and, you know, hey, what are you going to write about? What are you going to write about? Some phone calls about that. And again, as Todd kind of talked about, we wanted a loose connection. We don't want 10 completely different essays or chapters, but We also didn't want to constrain people to write about a topic they didn't have some expertise in. So after a series of phone calls and emails going back and forth, we thought we had a pretty good 10 topic things.
[04:12]
And the authors all had an idea of how they would focus on innovation within that topic. Chapter one is mine. And I talked about professional learning, a passion of mine. And so I just kind of said, you know, hey, I want to write about professional learning. And then I wanted to kind of go a little deeper and say, how can we innovate in that area? So my chapter just focuses on that, and I kind of offer 10 ways we can be innovative in the way we offer professional learning, just like we're trying to do in the classrooms with our kids.
[04:37]
We should be doing the same thing for teachers. I think, Todd, you were next with culture.
[04:42] Justin Baeder:
Yeah, and it was kind of interesting because even though it's about innovation, in my heart, I still feel like there are core things. You know, that's what the whole, what great principals do differently, what great teachers do differently, all came from is that there's certain things because so often we look at events. You know, we'll see a principal doing this one event and there's nothing wrong with kissing a pig. I mean, that's a neat thing the kids like, but that's really not going to change your school. And it's sort of like, and I even talk about things like classroom arrangements that now furniture and alternatives on furniture are Well, you know what's funny? If you go in your best teacher's classroom, some of them use alternative furniture and some of them don't.
[05:19]
And if you go in your worst teacher's classroom, some of them use alternative furniture and some of them don't. When we just see that, we realize there's got to be something else besides the new, catchy, latest thing if we really want to have lasting change in there. So it's really looking at how can we alter the culture of an organization today? Versus jumping on the latest event. Yeah, Justin. So, you know, one of the things that I often when I think about the hiring practices that we have, here's how I always look at it.
[05:45]
Like when all of us went to principal school, one of the courses that none of us took was how to hire great people. Right. Or how to hire talent. And so this, too, is a skill set. And when you begin to think about it, at least it's been my experience that I believe the most important responsibility that we have as school leaders is to hire the best people. Yet I believe it still is the area in which we invest the least amount of time in terms of importance.
[06:14]
And I think people forget that culture really can move very quickly if during the actual interview process, during the selection process, that we're actually modeling those behaviors in our organization as the leaders that we want to see repeated. And so I always think of the John Wooden quote that says, that the most powerful leadership tool we have is our own personal example. So this innovation is more about not what are we looking for in candidates, but how are we behaving as the school or as the employees during that process? So it really has an emphasis on our own behavior, and are we modeling those behaviors? And if we're going to talk about the importance of relationships, relationships, and relationships that we always talk about, then are we actually investing that amount of time in our candidates from the very first moment that we make an initial contact all the way through the final selection process?
[07:07] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
Let's dive into that topic a little bit of innovation in hiring, not just in terms of who we're hiring, but in how we're hiring. I think that's so critical in such an overlooked area that really is an afterthought for a lot of organizations. We treat hiring as a hassle. We have this vacant position. Now we need to fill it, but often that's not our top priority. And I work with people who are in the job search process, looking for admin jobs, or maybe they've been a principal for a decade and they're looking to move into a senior leadership role in a district.
[07:36]
And people always contact me in a panic. They freak out after about four or five days saying, you know, I had this interview. I thought it went really well. I felt like I was getting good feedback, but it's been a week and I've heard nothing. And they said they were going to make a decision. And I always have to tell them, Believe it or not, it's completely normal for the hiring process to take a lot longer than they tell you it's going to, and for there to be a lot less communication than you would think is normal and appropriate.
[08:04]
And it really does feel like an afterthought, like we just don't put enough effort, we don't put enough intentionality, we don't have the level of care that we would expect that we need to get the people who are going to move our organization forward. So what advice do each of you have for us on hiring and on improving a process that honestly hasn't changed very much in decades and is not given the attention that it needs?
[08:26] Justin Baeder:
You know, obviously, we're going to generalize a little bit because there's certainly districts out there that are doing a fabulous job in terms of modeling and what that selection process looks like. But in my experience, again, I'm sure Jeff and Todd would agree. They are the exception, not the norm. So I think first of all, you have to start with kind of like this mindset. Like to me, that interview process should leave candidates leaving that interview, looking back saying, God, I really want to work for that organization. I mean, because they've experienced, right.
[08:53]
They've had an experience that they've not had in other schools. And so to me, that's part of that culture, right? Creating this experience for people and how we behave and during that process that makes people want to be a part of that. And so that's how I begin to look at it. It's interesting the comments you made, Justin, because I would completely agree with you. I cannot tell you how many times I work with principals, especially during the spring semester, like right now, when people start complaining about how tired they are of having to do these interviews and how many resumes they have to look through and how many interviews and all the amount of time that it takes.
[09:23]
And I try to help them and understand, look, that is actually the this is like should be your favorite time. Right. This is an opportunity for you to bring people into your organization to find the right talent that makes the right fit for the rest of your team. And so I think that's a big part of it. And it's interesting also that you make the comment about how many times people interview and then they're frustrated because they haven't heard anything. And to me, that just kills us.
[09:44]
Right. I think that says something about all of us in our profession. And so I think communication during the process is just as important. If you're going to tell somebody, hey, we're going to contact you on Monday, then contact them on Monday. And if you're doing references and you can't get a hold of somebody, you simply say, hey, look, I'm having a hard time getting a hold of your references, but I want to call you today because I told you I was going to call you. So give me a couple more days.
[10:04]
I'll call you on Wednesday. So. Any of those things that happen during that process to me are just things that I think simple things that we're forgetting. And of course, there are obviously steps that we talk about in the books that we think that you ought to take in terms of when you're following that process.
[10:18] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
I had a friend who was hired at Zappos several years ago. Zappos, the shoe company that was acquired by Amazon for, I think, a billion dollars. And the hiring process at Zappos involves a long training period. So after you're hired, you go through, I think, a month of training. And then at the end of that training, they say, OK, now we will write you a four-figure check to walk away and not work here. They believe so strongly in culture and in hiring people who want to work there, who they want to work there, who are going to be a good fit, that they will actually pay people not to take the job and just walk away after their training if they feel like it's not a good fit for them.
[11:00]
You know, I don't think we're probably going to adopt that particular, you know, here's a check to quit after 30 days approach. But what are some ways that we can use the hiring process to build the culture in our schools, not just find qualified candidates, but actually shift the culture in the direction that we want it to go?
[11:17] Justin Baeder:
One reason we're challenged so much in hiring is oftentimes we hire during the time of year we're tired. So we're so willing to settle. You know, and we'll hire off the sub list and nothing wrong with the sub list. It's just you want to expand your pool, not contract it. The other thing to think about is induction of new teachers starts during the interview. People think it starts during the induction process.
[11:36]
It's too late. When do I have the most leverage with a candidate during the interview? And let's pretend, Justin, I want my teachers in each other's classrooms observing each other in a nonjudgmental, non-evaluative way. During the interview, I say to you, Justin, what would you think about going into some of our outstanding teachers classrooms and just stealing ideas? I cover your class or we get a sub and they come into your room and just you can swap ideas like that. What would you think about that?
[12:00]
Well, Justin, I know you'd like a job in my school because you're interviewing. So what are you going to say during that time? You're going to say yes, aren't you? And you start and you know, it's weird. You think it's normal. You think everybody's doing it.
[12:12]
Culture exists in people's mind. There is no such thing as culture or climate. They're both in people's minds. You start, and guess what the first thing you say to me when you start in August? Hey, Todd, when do we start that swap? And now your vision of culture is different than the veteran's vision of culture.
[12:26]
And I want to start with new people and the best people, because the new people don't know it's new, and the best people will do it and do it right. So if you go into the best teacher's classroom, how many ideas do you have? You have dozens of good ideas. And if the best people come into your classroom, at the very least, they're going to pretend they got good ideas. Because they're going to value you. They're going to take care of you.
[12:45]
And all of a sudden you start. And in your mind, the mutual swap is natural. So in your mind, there's a culture that's different than the existing culture because your vision of it is different than what exists. And you see how powerful that is during an interview versus once you've been started. Just think if you started in just one month, just one month. And I said, what would you think about going in teachers classrooms?
[13:07]
In your mind, there's a really good chance you'd go, what did I do wrong? especially if that's not a practice that exists in our school on a regular basis. And now I've lost my chance to bring about a change in culture because of the fact that I didn't have that vision in my mind to help get that vision in your mind during the interview.
[13:22] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
Justin, you mentioned Zappos, and I'm a big fan of Tony Hsieh, that book that he wrote, and touching on culture and leadership. And again, our book's on innovation. I think the idea of giving someone $2,000 to quit working for us is pretty innovative, right? That's an innovative new idea in the hiring and selection and retaining process. As you say, the schools probably won't have the opportunity to do that, although it might be wise. But I want to remind us and ourselves and our readers that innovation doesn't have to be that outside the box.
[13:53]
Sometimes innovation is just the questions we ask in an interview. And I think Todd was a big influence on me early in my career when I started hiring when I was a principal. And you talked about hiring for fit and I get that and I want to hire for fit, but it also scares me a little bit if we don't take that the right way. Hiring for fit. I've been in some schools where the teachers I had on the committee thought that hiring for fit meant we wanted to get someone in our school who was just like us and who fit in with us. And we want that.
[14:25]
We want them to fit in with us, but we don't necessarily want to hire someone who's just like us. In fact, all things being equal in terms of excellence, I might want someone who's polar opposite of us, but who will still fit in with us. So one simple way to be innovative is to think of that word fit is we want to hire somebody who is so excellent, we want to fit in with them every bit as much as we want them to fit in with us. And I think the question, Todd, that you kind of helped me work on way back when was something along the lines of, you know, when we hire somebody at the school, Justin, we want to hire somebody so excellent that the minute we hire you, we want the school to become more like you as opposed to you becoming more like our school. What is so amazing about you that I would like our entire staff to become more like once we hire you?
[15:16]
So something along those lines. And so we sometimes think of innovation as being some new bell and whistle kind of thing or offering $2,000 for somebody to quit after they started. But innovation doesn't have to be that outside of the box. Innovation sometimes just equals being intentional, intentional about the questions we ask, intentional about our philosophies on hiring, intentional about the way we communicate with candidates with whom we're interviewing and recruiting. So just a few examples that innovation doesn't have to be some crazy outside the box thing.
[15:49] Justin Baeder:
The thing to realize from your example that you gave, Justin, is maybe the innovation is the communication with the person that they're not being successful. And that doesn't cost anything. And how many of us really don't ever get that, have never gotten it, and have not communicated it with others? Because I think that's a powerful way just to share Here's where we're at. We're uncomfortable with your progress. We feel like we'd prefer you to not be here.
[16:13]
That doesn't cost you anything. And that may be the innovation, not you find a note says there's $2,000 if you'll leave in your mailbox. You know, that may not be innovation, even though that's an innovative concept.
[16:23] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
Looking at that onboarding process and thinking about what matters first, what matters at different stages. And I think about our evaluation systems and how we send the message that basically you need to be excellent in everything from day one, even if you're a brand new teacher. And often the reality is that there is a steep learning curve. And I'm thinking about a principal who's a friend of mine who worked with a student population that experienced a lot of trauma. And what they brought with them to the classroom often presented a lot of challenges for teachers. And there was a pretty steep learning curve for teachers to understand, you know, how do we respond to our students' needs?
[16:56]
How do we create a sense of safety for them and for other students when we're dealing with the consequences of that trauma? And it was one of those things where they said, you know, we are going to hire the right kind of people for this school. We are going to hire people who want to work with students. We're going to hire people who know their content area. But one of the things that we are going to have to intentionally teach whoever we hire is how to work with our students and how to kind of learn our way, our culture here of responding to students' needs. So I just think that that kind of recognition of the learning curve and the onboarding that needs to take place can be a great focus for that, kind of just looking at it in a different way.
[17:36]
Jeff, I wonder if you want to just kind of give us an overview of the rest of the book, because there are 10 chapters from 10 different authors on different aspects of innovation. So give us kind of a quick tour so we get a sense of the rest of the book.
[17:48] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
Sure. And you know, as Jimmy said at the beginning, some of these are brand new authors who are nervous about this, who had never published anything in their lives. And some of these are folks who have published a book or two. So we had a good mix of people in different roles, different areas of the country. And the next chapter was Tom Murray, a good friend of ours, who's written quite a bit. And he talked about learning spaces in his book.
[18:08]
The next chapter was from Star Saxteen. And Star talked about how we can innovate in the way we assess and provide feedback to our kids. Then we had a chapter from Kirk Humphreys. And Kirk is a sixth, seventh, and eighth grade math teacher here in the Chicago area. He was one of the new authors who had never published before. And Kirk talked about innovating in the math classroom.
[18:29]
He's a master teacher and really offers some good ideas on how we innovate in the classroom. specifically in the area of math. The next chapter was Shannon Miller. And she talks about how libraries can and should be hubs of innovation in our schools. And then we had Katrina Keene. And I think this was her first published piece, too.
[18:47]
And she gave a little personal experience about how when she was trying to innovate as a new teacher, she kind of got shot down by some colleagues and administrators. And she shares that personal story to begin the chapter and then give some ideas on how we do that. And then Dwight Carter, former principal in Ohio, good friend of ours, who speaks on all kinds of good topics. He talked about how we should innovate in terms of building our personal skills. And then the book closes with LaVonna Roth. And LaVonna, who's so well known now with her Ignite Your Shine movement, kind of talks about how we can take risks and push boundaries in our schools.
[19:21]
And that kind of. Sums up the other seven chapters and a great, great group to work with and always an honor and treat to work with Todd and Jimmy.
[19:28] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
I'm struck by how many different opportunities there are to innovate at different points throughout the school, right? Like I think often as administrators, we think in a top-down way. We think, what do I want to bring to my school to make everyone innovate? But the feel I'm getting from your book is that there is innovation everywhere. breaking out all over the place that we need to unleash, that we need to encourage, that we need to catalyze. And I wonder what closing advice you have for administrators who want great things to happen in their school.
[19:56]
They don't necessarily want to be the driver of all of those. What are some good first steps or good mindsets for administrators who want to encourage innovation in their school?
[20:06] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
One way I would say is something that Todd sort of suggested off the cuff when he was talking about hiring and interviewing, and that's getting teachers and other teachers' classrooms believe it or not, that's still an innovative idea because it's not happening in most schools. And I tried to make that happen in most schools where I served at any role. And again, being non-evaluative, non-judgmental, just changing the culture so that teachers being in other teachers' classroom became the norm and not the exception. We may have to sometimes provide coverage or something like that for teachers to make that happen. But I think that's the way we innovate in our schools and we replicate bright ideas that we're seeing in classrooms and validate the practices that we're doing in our own.
[20:46] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
And that is one thing that I remember mentioning during the hiring process. I want people to get into each other's classrooms. And Todd, it was exactly what you said. The teacher immediately agreed with it during the hiring process. And then when I made that opportunity available when the school year started, guess who was the very first person to take me up on it? It was that new hire who was an experienced teacher.
[21:05]
It was just what we do here to her, even though she was the first.
[21:08] Justin Baeder:
And I think we have to be cautious with words like innovation, even though that's the title of the book. We really want effective, you know, I mean, and we're so confused, you know, people say the smartest person in the room's the room. You know, that's an old saying, what's 50 years old, 75 years old, that people have jumped on and somehow we've gotten confused. And with that, you know, it ought to be true, but often it isn't, you know, in a grade level or in a department, is it really the smartest person in the room that leads it? Or is it the strongest personality? Or is the person who throws the biggest fit?
[21:37]
So as a leader, one of the things you have to do is I think you have to reinforce risk taking versus results. As a basketball coach, I took over a couple of teams that weren't very good. If I could only reinforce them when we won, we're not doing much reinforcing. But if I could reinforce them with when they tried, when they took a chance, when they went out on an edge, then I can reinforce anyone. And I think the other key is in our schools, everybody has teachers that have cracked the Da Vinci code. So I think the first step to innovation, if we want to think of it that way, is rather than something new, we just need to replicate the very best things we have.
[22:10]
That's so much more accomplishable than coming up with a completely new way to deal with things. Just think in your school, if all the teachers became like the best teachers, Don't tell me there's anything you could do that would improve your school more than that. And that's a much more realistic goal than coming up with something that nobody's ever thought of before. And I think we can do that. I really believe that's accomplishable because I've seen it in certain schools and settings. You know, I think oftentimes school leaders are trying to encourage people to be risk takers, innovators.
[22:36]
And then yet it's funny how many times people will come to us with ideas, especially even students. Right. And how quickly we shoot those ideas down for whatever reasons we shoot them down, like whether they won't let us allow us to do that. Right. Maybe we're talking about central office or the school board or whatever. So we don't have the money to do that.
[22:55]
I'm not sure that's a good idea to take the kids down to the city, whatever the issue is. So I think sometimes we talk out of both sides of our mouth. We tell people to be innovative, creative risk takers. And then as soon as they come to us with ideas, we come up with all these reasons why we can't do it. Right. So, you know, I kind of think about that as don't be the lid.
[23:11]
Don't be putting the lid on people. And I think we do put the lid on people quite often. And, you know, Jeff even mentioned that in the chapter written by Katrina Keene. But the final thought I'll share is this. I also believe, you know, Todd used the word effective, and I actually agree with that in terms of whether it's innovative or it's effective. But here's my point.
[23:28]
I believe that if you have a school that still has you know, we often say, well, we have pockets of excellence everywhere. Right. And we feel really good about that. I actually think that can work against us. I actually think that can be a culture killer because that means that some kids are getting it. Some kids are not.
[23:43]
Some teachers are getting it. Some teachers are not. So I think we need to take those pockets of excellence and take those people that I have that are talented. And how do we begin to utilize those talented people in our organization to continue to build our capacity? Because we should really see every teacher in our organization as a model teacher. At least we should be providing the support and the guidance and, quite frankly, have the expectations that they're always moving in that direction.
[24:09]
And that is the only way that we can move from a pocket of excellence to a system of excellence, because to me it's an equity issue.
[24:16] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
So the book is 10 Perspectives on Innovation in Education. And fabulous to see 10 fabulous authors coming together. So if people want to learn more about the book series and about the What Great Educators Do Differently conferences, where's the best place for them to go online to find out more?
[24:34] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
Our website for the conferences and other resources in the books are there as well as connected.org. And that's connect, E-D-D, connected.org. And of course, the book's on Amazon, and I'm always available via Twitter is probably the best way to reach me. And my Twitter handle is Jeff underscore Zoll.
[24:53]
Todd, Jimmy?
[24:54] Justin Baeder:
ToddWhitaker.com is my website, and my contact info is on there. And for me, it's JimmyCossas.com, and my Twitter handle is Cossas underscore Jimmy.
[25:02] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure.
[25:06] Justin Baeder:
Thank you, Justin. I'm honored. Thank you, Justin.
[25:08] Jimmy Casas, Jeffrey Zoul & Todd Whitaker:
Thank you.
[25:09] Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.
