c) How do I prepare for a good meeting?

Many books are written on how to conduct a productive, energy-producing meeting. The key for the new principal, however, is to think well about what you want to achieve (including how you want the participants to talk about the meeting afterwards) and to plan in advance all of the steps you will need to take to achieve your purpose.

Steps for pre-planning prior to the meeting:
1. State your purpose in writing.
2. Plan meeting processes, step by step, that will achieve your purpose.
3. Draft an agenda complete with purpose, activities, time limits, assigned responsibilities, and desirable outcome.
4. Discuss your proposed agenda with your leadership team or teacher leaders and ask for input; revise if needed.
5. Prepare materials (both informational and process materials)
6. Set up the meeting room in an arrangement that will support any group work that is planned and any tools (projectors, chart paper, markers, post-its, etc.) that will help the meeting share and organize ideas.
7. Arrive at the meeting place early to greet participants as they come in the door.

When you make the effort to prepare in advance, your meeting will be focused, your participants will be more inclined to make an effort themselves, and you will be more likely to achieve your purpose. You will also raise the bar for other administrators and teacher leaders who hold meetings at the school because of your demonstrated commitment to ensuring that staff time is valued and used well.

b) What makes a good meeting?

Since meetings are at the heart of your communications system, it is important to have clear in your mind how to judge when a meeting is good, when it is just okay, and when it is counter-productive (bad).

Here are some of the criteria for a good meeting:
1. The focus/purpose is clear, finite, and understood by all present.
2. The desired outcome/result and proposed ending time are stated.
3. Each step of the meeting is monitored for time and progress.
4. Everyone's input is sought, given, and valued.
5. Everyone knows what the next steps will be and what his/her role is.
6. Everyone finishes with a greater understanding of the issues.
7. Everyone has a sense that all of the different perspectives have been taken into account.
8. All participants have gotten to know each other a little better.
9. People feel positive and energized about the process and the result.

Criteria 1-5 are the responsibility of the person managing the meeting. Criteria 6-9 depend also on the participants' efforts. As the meeting manager, you can do many things to motivate your staff to help ensure that all nine criteria are met.

a) Why have a meeting?

If your meetings are to be both productive and energizing, you must have a clear purpose. Your purpose must require that a meeting be held. You will have determined that the only way to achieve your purpose is to hold a meeting. So what opportunities does a face-to-face meeting afford that cannot be more efficiently achieved another way?

What does a meeting offer?
1. People who speak get to be heard by everyone in attendance.
2. People get to respond to each other's ideas on the spot.
3. Props, demonstrations, performances, group activities can be used.
4. Participation by and reactions of all members of the meeting can be monitored.
5. Face to face communications can help to build working relationships.
6. Group problem-solving frameworks and decision-making models can be used.
7. Problem analysis and consensus-building processes can be used.

Well-planned meetings focused on a purpose can be both productive and energizing for the participants.

On the other hand, if all you want to do is provide routine information to a group, consider using email. If you need quick feedback (like taking the temperature on an issue), consider giving a handout to staff leaders/ department chairs and asking them to discuss the information briefly with their grade level team/ department members and get back to you.

Remember that meetings are your most valuable and expensive communications tool. Use them wisely.

Meetings & Energy

Meetings can be deadly. They can sap the energy out of the staff. They can make people lose the will to live, plot to come late and leave early, bring things to keep themselves occupied while they sit there and wait for the end of the meeting.

Meetings must be the heart of your communication system. They must be productive, motivating, and energizing. Because much of your time is spent in planning and facilitating meetings, in putting together agendas and activities that will lead to consensus problem-solving and decision-making, you must develop knowledge and skills about meetings to ensure that people look forward to participating in the meetings that you run.

Begin by asking yourself, what is the purpose of the meeting you are about to hold? What opportunity does a face-to-face meeting offer that cannot be achieved as well in any other way?

Remember that if you have 100 teachers and you hold a staff meeting of one hour, you have used 100 teacher hours. You want to make sure that your purpose is clear and that your end result has been worth the time.

Over the next few days, we will think about a) when a meeting is necessary or desirable, b) what are the criteria for a good meeting, c) how meeting sequences contribute to consensus building, and d) a suggested checklist for pre-meeting preparation.

C. Make your six-week calendar.

You have your focus areas and your goals. Now you need to put them into action. Take the school's six week calendar of events and see how to integrate your goals into that calendar.

Ensure that not only the school's activities are on your calendar, but also consider District activities which may involve you. District principals' meetings, steering committees, property or construction committees, governing board meetings, etc. You will not attend all of the activities or all of the meetings, but you will need to be aware that they are happening.

Putting together an overview on your six-week calendar will help you to see the scope of the task and to begin thinking about how to deploy your administrative team, how to communicate with all of the various parts of the school community, how to ensure that jobs are distributed evenly and take advantage of staff strengths and interests, and how to establish priorities for the use of your time.

As the principal you have a different purpose than you have had before, a new role to play at each event you attend. You will be taking a broader view of school operations than you have ever done. You will be looking for what staff need in order to do the best possible job and what students need to achieve at the highest levels.

As you make your calendar, ask yourself the questions. What days and times can you visit classrooms? How will you communicate important issues discussed at district meetings? What opportunities appear on your calendar already that will help you achieve your purpose? What other activities do you need to add? And what is the magic end-of-six-weeks date when you need to set aside personal time to review what actually happened and what you were able to accomplish during that time?

B. Set specific goals.

You have decided on your focus areas for the first six weeks. You are keeping the Ten Rules in mind. Now you need to think seriously about your goals. What exactly are you going to do? Here are some examples of six-week goals:

By the end of the first six weeks of school, [insert date], I will have achieved the following:
1. Be able to recognize, call by name, and know one important thing about every staff member.
2. Have met with each of the school's leaders (administrators, department chairs, cluster leaders, committee heads, etc.) to hear their interests, goals, concerns for the year.
3. Assessed the co-administrators' strengths, interests, and goal areas; assigned them as much as possible where they can build on their strengths.
4. Held one (or 2, or 3, or 4) lunch time meetings with students to share what is important to them.
5. Every Friday before leaving school, reflected on the state of the school, what I learned that week, what I would do the following week.
6. Held a meeting with every school group (all staff, department chairs, leadership team, student council, PTA, Site Council, etc.) to establish with them how meetings would be conducted and how communications would run.
7. Got into every teacher's classroom at least one time.
8. Read the School Site Plan, Accreditation report, assessment data, and other important school and district documents.
9. Established the calendar of activities and meetings for the whole school year (if it is not already in place).
10. Became familiar with school routines: attendance, tardies, progress reports, counseling, student placement, discipline, library services, special education, student activities, supervision assignments, evaluation processes, communications,use of technology, etc.
11. Refrained from telling people how things should be done based on my experience at a different school with different personnel.
12. Other
The only way to come close to meeting your own goals (in the midst of the school's day to day operations) for your new role is to always have a plan in the back of your mind. Know your focus. Know your goals.

A. Focus on your new role.

You have four primary areas of focus in the first six weeks of the first year. You need to achieve the following:
1. Establish the face of the school's leadership. (Smile. Show that you are happy to be there, that you are proud of your new school, and that there is nothing the school community can't make happen if they are working together. Be at one with your administrative team.)
2. Establish a professional, personal, working relationship with staff members, students, and parents. (Know your staff by name and position, know what they are proud of and what they are trying to do, identify and get to know your involved parents and students and their wishes for the school.)
3. Understand the strength of the school's programs. (Review the Site Plan, the most recent Accreditation Report, the District Strategic Plan, school and department goals; assessment data; survey results; observe in classrooms; listen carefully for the concerns and issues that are on people's minds; reflect on the most important areas of focus to move the school forward)
4. Build a positive and cohesive administrative team as well as a broader leadership team with understood roles and responsibilities and extended lines of communication.

If these are your focus areas for the first six weeks, then what specific goals could you develop, what specifically do you need to do, to be successful in these focus areas?

Running Start: Six-Week Orientation Period

Take advantage of the first six weeks of school--the new principal's orientation honeymoon period. Here are three steps that will give you the best chance for a running start. (A. Get focused; B. Set goals; and C. Make a six-week calendar.)

Your school is likely to have its own established start-up policies and procedures in place. Most schools have years of practice in starting up at the beginning of a new year, assigning teachers and students to classes, registering new students, placing them in appropriate courses, distributing textbooks, correcting placement errors, handling complaints, etc. Existing staff will likely have put start-up plans in place before the end of the previous school year, before you even arrived.

Your role this year is different than it has ever been before. The new principal's role is to watch these procedures in action, to provide support and encouragement to everyone involved during this tension-filled time, to work with the staff to solve problems (if asked) as they may arise, and to put a confident, smiling, welcoming face on the school as students, staff, and parents file in to find their place in the new year.

Here is what your role is NOT: You are not in charge of the registration processes or of textbook distribution or of any other of the procedures that will be running in your school at this year's startup. You will not take over problem-solving that should be done by another member of your new staff. You will not undermine the efforts or decisions of the people who, later on in the school year, will need to be a part of your leadership team.

Now is the time to think about one of the natural strategies of the great leader. If you want the staff to step forward in the future, to provide leadership and take risks, then let them know they have your full support. When something goes wrong, be prepared to take full responsibility and work with people to make any necessary future adjustments. When something goes right, give full credit to the staff that went out of their way to make it happen. Your support will provide incentive for staff to step forward next time to make the school a better place.

Bottom line: Get focused on a whole new role for yourself.

Rule #10: Take care of yourself.

Nothing is more important than your good health, ample energy, and an alert mind to do this very important job. You must eat right, exercise regularly, and get some sleep. You must. Veteran principals become reconciled to the fact that the work never gets completely done. So don't let yourself get overwhelmed. Go take an aerobics class.

Schedule exercise on your calendar as seriously as you schedule any critical appointment. There is no better antidote to stress and no better way to increase your energy level.

Before you can take care of your school, you have to take care of yourself. No one else will. Everyone wants a piece of your time. The job can be all-consuming. The work never all gets done. You never again have enough time to do your best work. No matter how determined you are to schedule the important but not urgent things, somebody else's emergency will inevitably intrude. There are more issues than can possibly be resolved. And your past relationships with staff change as soon as you step over the threshold into your new job.

As a new principal, you can easily become overwhelmed. In this first year, you can sometimes think that the job is too much for you. But the fact is that every principal has gone through this same period of figuring out how to get organized so that the important things get done, how to stay healthy and positive, and how to be effective and have fun. You have gotten this far, so you can do it, too.

Rule #9: Take Time to Reflect.

Every week, set aside an hour or two to think. Review the state of the school for the previous week. What stands out in your mind as important (and I don't mean a list of activities)? How do the issues fit together? How are people working together? What was the state of communications during the week? Did all people know what they should have known? What should you be looking for next week? And while you're thinking, write down your thoughts and observations. Keep this in your personal reflections file.

The principal's primary role is to view the school's total operation and its effectiveness every day. No one else will do this. The principal, of necessity, thinks differently from everyone else because s/he is responsible for all school operations all of the time. S/He is the person who must see how all of the systems fit together, how practices and policies align with the values of the school, how different procedures either support or obstruct the goals of the school. The principal is charged with identifying those operations that are out of alignment and need to be addressed.

The principal cannot address the issues alone. So you pose many questions: How do I develop an energetic and committed leadership structure that spreads two-way communications throughout the school? How do I deploy staff so that they can build on their strengths? How broadly can I delegate responsibilities and to whom? How do I develop an organization where people trust and depend on one another to do the right thing? How do I get useful feedback from staff and students on how we're doing?

The principal must have ample time to think ahead, to assess operations analytically, to plan processes that will move the school ahead and focus its people on where they are going next. You will get bogged down in the everyday trivia. You must raise yourself out of that sludge every week in order to think about the future of your school.

So remember Rule #9: Take Time to Reflect. This is the rule that determines greatness in the principalship.

Rule #8: Share Who You Are and What You Believe

A school is a moral place. Its people need to know that their leader is a person of integrity and compassion. Think of some of your most important learning experiences. Think of the stories that are most telling about who you are and what you believe. When it is appropriate to reveal something of yourself, share these stories and values with your staff. Share them with students. Share them with parents.

Know and be able to say what is most important to you, what you believe about learning and growth and people and schools. Make sure that you know the things worth fighting for. This will help you to distinguish between the things that are really important, that will not be sacrificed no matter what, and the things that are really of lesser consequence in the long run. This ability to distinguish the important from the merely convenient or irritating issue will serve you well. And it will help you to engage in conversations when you are asking for staff, students, and parents to tell you what is important to them, and what is worth fighting for in their school.

The principal is the guide and direction-finder, the moral compass, for the school. No one else is charged with examining how the school operates. No one else is charged with taking the temperature of the organization, monitoring its health, examining the influence of the culture on the behaviors and performance of the people. And no one else is charged with reflecting back to the people what they believe, why they are there, and what the values are which govern how they behave. You will find that when you remind them of their collective values or their vision (by telling them the things that they have said to you), they will listen very carefully indeed.

Rule #7: Help students and parents get to know you.

Students thrive when they are empowered, when they believe that they have the power to make their school the best learning place ever. Meet with the student government, get invited to classes to introduce yourself and discuss the issues of the day.

Ask students how they are doing and what they think you should know about the school. Get around to the student meeting places, make sure you meet the different groups--the morning groups, the lunch groups, the group that hangs out by the wall, the bus groups. Ask them what's the thing they like most about their school.

Ask them to think about one thing that would make it a better place. Laugh with them. Pull together diverse groups to discuss their issues. Pull random groups together for pizza with the principal during lunch.

Let them know that you will listen and that they will be involved in decisions that affect them. Teachers will take a cue from you about the importance of listening to students.

Parents also will be eager to tell you what they think is important, and they will want to know from you how you view school, how you value their children, how you will uphold the highest standards of learning while understanding the special needs and frailties of their children.

Take every opportunity to let parents know who you are and the values that you hold. Attend the neighborhood "meet the principal" coffees; be available at open house night; have the PTA president work to bring out diverse groups of parents to special topic meetings. You will be amazed at what supportive, energetic, and focused parents can do to enrich the learning environment of the school.

Rule #6: Make classroom visits a priority.

Tell teachers that you will get into every classroom within the first month (within the first week if the school is smaller). Let them know what you are looking for (people actively involved in learning, good things happening). Ask them what they would like you to see. Ask them to invite you to their classrooms if they have something special going on.

Time for classroom visits must be blocked into your calendar before your time is filled with administrivia and the urgencies of the day. Sit down with your master schedule and map out which classrooms you will visit on what day. Block a portion of three days a week for classroom visits until you have seen every teacher's classroom.

Make sure teachers know your purpose for these short visits. Such mini-visits are separate from the formal pre-conference, observation, post-conference cycle that is used in coaching and supervision. They are for the purpose of knowing your school as a whole, seeing teachers and students in action, understanding the life of the teacher as well as the life of the student in the school.

The classroom is the heart of the school. You cannot be effective as a school leader without knowing first-hand what is happening in every classroom. Show students and staff how important instruction is to you. Be there. Be visible. Be interested.

Rule #5: Learn the stories that underlie the culture.

Every school has its own quirks that make things for the outsider sometimes hard to understand. When something happens that seems odd, when a process looks strange or cumbersome or just unfamiliar or unnecessary, first accept it.

Respect the history. The practices, procedures, expectations, and fears of your new school are threaded with unspoken assumptions that have grown from past experiences and struggles at the school. You were not a part of those experiences, but you must respect them and the lessons learned from them. Your new mantra, as the new principal, becomes, "Tell me about that," or "Help me to understand what I'm seeing," or "What just happened?"

Be careful not to pass judgment on things you don't understand. Be governed by the law of positive intentions and professional competence. Believe that the people who have been working at the school are doing the best job they know how to do. Believe first in their positive intentions and their professional competence. There will be reasons why things happen the way they do. And before you can have any credibility for discussing them, you must understand those reasons.

Appreciate the quirkiness of your new school at least until you understand why things happen the way they do.

Rule #4: Know your school's leaders

Learn who on staff has influence and stature. Some of the school's leaders will have titles, will speak up in meetings, and may be quick to provide information via email. They will seek you out to ensure that you understand who they are and what is important to them and the school.

Some of the school's leaders will be quiet and unassuming. They will not distinguish themselves to you immediately. They will be observing, listening, reserving judgment. Other staff members will be talking with these unofficial leaders to find out their opinions and to get their advice on the issues of the day.

This informal network of influence can be very powerful when the school is on the move and changes are being discussed. If you get to know and understand the informal leaders, you will have an important additional avenue for trying out new ideas, getting feedback prior to making public statements, and a way to keep yourself from stepping on any hidden sacred carpets by accident. Stepping on a sacred carpet can set your planning back indefinitely. So get to know your leaders--both formal and informal.

Rule #3: Know your staff well.

Before the first week is out, learn the name, position, and one interesting personal thing about each member of the school staff. Make it a game. Tell them your goal and ask for their help.

A school is a people place. Unlike classrooms full of students, the adult staff does not change every year. Their good will, their talents, their knowledge, and their skills must be cultivated and developed further every year if the school is to stay current with the research and move steadily forward. This continual development and growth of the staff is a primary responsibility of the principal. No one else is charged with understanding the growth needs of the staff.

Calling people by name is a powerful message that you care who they are and what they do. The fact is, if they perceive that you don't care to know them well, then they can just close their doors and wait for the next new principal to come along. After all, it won't be that long. And teachers have been doing that for years as principals come and go.

Rule #2: Keep a smile on your face. Have fun!

You want people to take a look at you, the educational leader of the school, and feel good about the future. They don't need to hear you complain. They don't need to see you looking overwhelmed. They don't need to wonder that maybe you don't know how to handle the tough jobs. Regardless of how you feel at any given moment, recognize that you are on stage. Your behavior, your presence influences the environment of your school. It has an impact on how your staff, students, and community feel about being there.

If you are happy and confident; if you see the humor in the odd way that the world sometimes works; if you are able to point out the positive side of any challenge; if you are able to see clearly the most daunting tasks and not be put down; if you are able to come in each day and face staff and students with a smile on your face, then your school will take on your confidence and positive attitude. Let your staff, students and community know that there is nothing they can't do if they go forward together.

Rule #1: Don't talk about your previous school.

Nobody in your new school cares about your old school. In fact, they will find your mention of it more than one time to be offensive. They don't care what kind of programs that school had, how they made decisions, what wonderful things they did for kids or for you, or how generous (or not) their parents were. Nobody cares!

If someone asks about what you did in your previous school, remember: Nobody cares! S/He is just making polite conversation. Turn the conversation back and ask how things are done in your new school. Staff and students will be happy to tell you about their school, and they will be glad you asked. Your new school is WE. All other schools are THEY. And while WE can learn from other schools, never forget who you are now (and the colors you now wear).

Remember Rule #1: Don't talk about your previous school!