Accelerate Your Performance

How do you gather, analyze, and implement data in order to achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion? In this Accelerate Your Performance podcast episode, Dr. Janet Pilcher invites Angela Frazier Arthur, Vice President of Student Services at Waukesha County Technical College, and Sherry Simmons, Chief Diversity and Compliance Officer at Waukesha County Technical College, to discuss how they gathered data through surveys and translated it into actions to improve campus diversity and inclusion. In this episode, they dive into their three-year data-gathering period, what they have learned, how they gathered momentum for change, what obstacles they have faced, and advice they have for other leaders seeking to enact change and growth.

This episode addresses questions, such as:

• Why is gathering data an important step of the improvement process, and how might you start gathering data in your organization to seek growth and development?  
• How can you cultivate a culture of continuous improvement in your organization? 
• What impact can diversity, equity, and inclusion have on a campus as well as an organization?

Recommended Resources: Excellent Leaders are Intentional, Unrelenting Commitment to Improvement, Passion and Perseverance, & Sample 360 Feedback Survey

Recently, we hosted our annual What's Right In Education (WRIE) conference in Pensacola, Florida, where we heard from leaders in education across the country about the successes and struggles they have encountered on their continuous improvement journeys. In today's Accelerate Your Performance podcast episode, Dr. Janet Pilcher summarizes some of her favorite parts of WRIE and reflects on one of the key takeaways that surfaced throughout the two-day conference. To be an excellent leader and to be an excellent organization, you need to be intentional. Listen as Dr. Pilcher explains what this means.

This episode addresses questions, such as:

• What are the key traits that mark intentional leaders?
• How can you work to actively be more intentional as a leader and encourage intentionality throughout your organization?   
• What does being intentional mean to you? 

Recommended Resources: Unrelenting Commitment to Improvement, The Big Picture Synthesizing, Bullseye: Framing a Strategy Session, & Champion of the Goal

In this episode of the Accelerate Your Performance podcast, Dr. Janet Pilcher invites back a guest we have had the pleasure of hosting before, Dr. Jennifer Lowery, Superintendent of Tea Area School District in South Dakota. Dr. Lowery discusses how she has fostered growth in her school district through commitment to improvement, focusing first on culture and a commitment to excellence. Listen as Dr. Lowery shares the successes and lessons learned along the way.

This episode addresses questions, such as:

• For leaders beginning their improvement journey, where do they start?
• How might you open doors for the future generation of leaders and push the growth of your district?
• What results would you like to see from improvement processes, if you were to implement them in your district, school, or classroom? 

Recommended Resources: Build a Culture of Continuous Improvement, Improvement and Innovation, Continuous Improvement: Where to start?, & Improvement Action Plan

Steve Jobs once said there is something that separates successful entrepreneurs from non-successful ones... perseverance. What does it take to lead with perseverance? According to Dr. Janet Pilcher in this episode of the Accelerate Your Performance podcast, you need passion to fuel your perseverance and enhance your skills as a leader. According to Marcel Swamp, "Passion is the engine that puts perseverance into overdrive to think up big ideas, solve big problems, and make the world a better place."


This episode addresses questions, such as:

• Of the qualities marked by Level 5 leaders, which do you live out the best, and which one would you like to work on more?
• How can you focus more on the "people" and recruit those who are passionate?
• Why is it difficult to persevere without passion?

Recommended Resources: Different Types of Leaders, How Resilient Are You?, Communicate Clearly, With Simplicity, & Essentials for Developing Leaders

Two-way communication is key between leaders and board members. In this Accelerate Your Performance podcast episode, Dr. Janet Pilcher invites Dr. Nate Nelson, Superintendent of the Porterville Unified School District, and Lillian Durbin, President of Trustees at the district, to share with us how they foster a strong relationship and communication between school leaders and the board. Listen as they explain how two-way communication and investing time in building a collaborative relationship with your board can lead to innovation and positively impact a school district.

This episode addresses questions, such as:

• Why are collaboration and open communication important to cultivate between your board and school leaders?
• How can you build a collaborative relationship with your board?
• How can executive leaders foster a relationship with board members that is innovative and yields positive outcomes for students?

Recommended Resources: Running Plays to Achieve Success, Building Trust to Enable Success for Boards and Leaders, Working With the School Board, & The Power of Collaboration 

Communication can be one of the biggest challenges for an organization. In this Accelerate Your Performance podcast episode, Dr. Janet Pilcher shares several tips on how leaders can work towards being better communicators. She explains how to quickly get to the heart of a topic when communicating and how to do it concisely and with simplicity.
 
This episode addresses questions, such as:

• What are the components of strong communication?
• How can you work to communicate more precisely and efficiently?
• What are some areas of communication that you may fall short in and could further develop?

Recommended Resources: Better Communication, Not More Communication, Communicate With Precision, What Do We Really Need to Know?, & Communicate The Right Way

How can you appeal to both logic and emotion to properly communicate and cascade the right information to the right people at the right times? This week on our Accelerate Your Performance podcast, Dr. Janet Pilcher invites back Dale Shaver, Director of Waukesha County Department of Parks and Land Use, and Laura Catherman, Director of the Waukesha-Ozaukee-Washington Workforce Development Board, to continue their discussion on how they implement their Playbook for Success to continuously build trust and enable success between boards and leaders. They explain the importance of leading with the why, not the what, when defining your organization’s story, and how to define that why in simple terms. Listen as Dale and Laura describe how to run your strategies, identify the key decision-makers, and look for potential roadblocks.

This episode addresses questions, such as:

• Why is it important to define your story?
• What can you do to start implementing the Playbook for Success and build trust between your board and leaders?
• How can you "arm yourself" with your best team and work on building that team? 

Recommended Resources: Building Trust to Enable Success for Boards and Leaders, Trust: Consistency of Leadership, Working With The School Board, & The Power of Collaboration

"A kind act, a selfless sacrifice, and a sincere connection may make a difference in someone's day... in someone's life." This week some of our colleagues have been struggling with sadness, grief, and the pain of loss. In this Accelerate Your Performance episode, Dr. Janet Pilcher explains the value of kindness and the profound impact it can have on ourselves and those around us. She also takes time in this week's podcast to walk us through a favorite meditation, which she refers to as the love and kindness meditation. Finally, we would also like to dedicate this podcast to the loving memory of Michael Owen.

This episode addresses questions, such as:

• How might you use kindness to help someone or even yourself this week?
• What impact can kindness have at work and in the world around us?
• How can we show up each day more present and more intentional in acts of kindness?

Recommended Resources: Small Things; Gig Difference, Supporting Employee Health and Wellness, Build a Sense of Belonging, & The Best Gift We Can Give

The health of a school district is a leading indicator of the health of a community. That's what our guests in this episode of the Accelerate Your Performance podcast share. Today, Dr. Janet Pilcher invites Dale Shaver, Director of Waukesha County Department of Parks and Land Use, and Laura Catherman, Director of the Waukesha-Ozaukee-Washington Workforce Development Board, to discuss how to build trust between the leaderships within schools, such as superintendents and principals, and their school boards. It involves great intentionality. During the conversation, they discuss the playbook for success they implemented to help get all players on the same page and moving in the right direction. Listen as they share how they go about selecting strategic playing cards from their playbook and when they say it's time to run the play.

This episode addresses questions such as:

• How can leaders help get everyone on the same page and moving forward when there are strong and opposing opinions?
• How do you clearly identify your what, and how can that be aligned with other leaders and/or the school board?
• How can organizations use data to tell a compelling story?

Recommended Resources: Essentials for Developing Leaders, The Power of Collaboration, Working With The School Board, & Trust: Consistency of Leadership

There is a subconscious behavior that is common in organizations and can be dangerous to the culture. It's called We/They communication. We/They communication occurs when a leader or employee positions themselves positively at the expense of someone else. We've all done it at one time or another, probably not realizing that it is harmful. We/They communication can have damaging consequences for an organization's culture. Let's begin this school year by focusing on how to stomp out We/They culture through building a culture of continuous improvement. In this Accelerate Your Performance podcast episode, Dr. Janet Pilcher discusses tactics on how to overcome We/They communication and examples of how to identify and adjust your communication in ways that promote unity.

This episode addresses questions, such as:

• What does it take to stomp out We/They culture and replace it with a culture of continuous improvement?
• How do We/They statements create division, and how can it negatively impact workplace culture?
• Why is it important to focus on positive communication and connect the dots for employees in ways that create unity?

Recommended Resources: Stop Placing Blame, Build a Culture of Continuous Improvement, Eliminate We/They, & Replace We/They With Ownership and Practice