The 100 Percent Principal Podcast

Things are finally going smoothly in your school. The new systems are working. The fires have died down. And instead of enjoying it, you're waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Before you go looking for the next thing that's wrong, I want you to consider something: what if the things that no longer demand your attention are the clearest evidence that what you've built is working?

Because sometimes progress doesn't look like a big win. Sometimes it looks like nothing happened.

What you'll learn:

In this episode of The 100% Principal, I'm sharing Issue #027 of the newsletter, and it starts with a principal in Buildership University Office Hours who shrugged when I asked how things were going. Her school was running better than ever, and she didn't trust it.

We'll talk about:

• Why we've been trained to fix what breaks instead of building what won't
• The hero stories we tell about principals (and what Moneyball has to do with it)
• Why a good system quietly removes the need for heroics
• What it costs you when you tie your value to struggle
• How to recognize the quiet evidence that your systems are working

This is one of those episodes that's going to change what you notice when you walk through your building this week.

Resources mentioned:

🏫 Learn more about Buildership University: https://buildershipuniversity.com/

📬 Subscribe to The 100% Principal Newsletter: https://100percentprincipal.com

This episode comes from The 100 Percent Principal Weekly, my newsletter where every Friday I share one thing you can take straight into Monday to move the needle toward 100%.

You're listening to The 100 Percent Principal Podcast, where those ideas come to life.

Subscribe at https://100percentprincipal.com/

What if the five different staff problems you're dealing with right now… aren't actually five different problems?

One team is pushing back. Another agrees in the meeting but does something completely different afterward. Another is trying, but implementation is all over the place. And there's that team you have to constantly check on just to keep the work moving.

It's easy to see each one as a separate problem that needs a separate solution.

But what if they're all part of the same pattern?

In this episode, I'll show you why the recurring staff problems you're dealing with may be pointing to a bottleneck—and why finding that bottleneck can help you stop playing school leadership Whack-A-Mole.

I'll also introduce you to Serena, an experienced principal who thought she had a laundry list of problems across six very different grade-level teams. Once she stopped trying to solve them one at a time and identified the bottleneck underneath the pattern, every team started moving within one week.

Not perfectly. Not all in the same way.

But they were finally moving in the same direction.

YOUR 100% MOVE:

Choose one staff problem you've already had to address more than once.

Instead of asking, "How do I solve this again?" ask:

Where else is this same pattern showing up?

You may discover that you don't have five different problems.

You may have one pattern.

And that pattern may be pointing you toward your bottleneck.

FREE WEBINAR

The 3 Bottlenecks Keeping Your Staff From Getting on the Same Page (and What to Do About Them)

Join me live on October 8 or October 10 to learn the three bottlenecks that keep staff from getting on the same page, how to identify which one may be creating the patterns you're seeing in your school, and what you need to build so staff alignment doesn't depend on you constantly driving the work.

Show up live and you'll also receive my Staff Resistance Response Guide.

REGISTER HERE: https://buildershipuniversity.com/bottleneck

Because you don't need to get better at Whack-A-Mole.

You need to find out why the moles keep showing up.

#StaffAlignment #SchoolPrincipal #EducationalLeadership #LikeABuilder

What if all the strategies you're using are good…and they're still not going to get you the result you want?

Most principals have been trained to collect strategies: fill your toolbox, attend the conference, save the PDF, try the new protocol, implement the research-based practice.

But there's a problem.

A collection of good strategies does not become a system just because they all work.

In this episode, I'm breaking down the difference between a collection of strategies and a true system—and giving you a simple test you can use to determine which one you actually have.

You'll discover:

• Why "this strategy works" is not enough reason to add it to your school

• How we were trained to become collectors instead of curators

• The three things every true system needs: integrated, interdependent, and independent

• Why five strategies working is not the same as five strategies working together

• How to evaluate the initiatives and strategies already operating in your school

• Why adding another good strategy may actually make the problem worse

• How hidden bottlenecks can keep you and your staff working hard without moving forward together

Because your staff cannot align around a pile of good ideas.

They need a system.

Take the Staff Alignment Bottleneck Assessment: https://builderbottleneck.scoreapp.com/

Find out the #1 hidden bottleneck that may be keeping your staff from getting on the same page so you can stop throwing good strategies at the wrong problem.

If this episode helped you rethink how you're approaching the work in your school, subscribe for more practical Buildership strategies that help you build a school where your staff does the right work, the right way, for the right reasons—even when no one is looking.

You stood in front of your staff, shared the vision, and watched everyone nod. So why does it feel like nobody actually agreed to anything?

In this episode of The 100% Principal, I'm sharing this week's newsletter issue, and it starts with a principal I coach who got blindsided months after his back-to-school meeting. He'd shared his vision. His staff nodded. No objections. Then a teacher looked at him and said, "I never agreed to YOUR vision." That one sentence is the whole episode, because it exposed something most principals get wrong about what a nod actually means.

We'll talk about:

• Why a nod in your August staff meeting was never the same thing as agreement
• The difference between "resistant to change" and "resistant to being changed," and why it changes how you respond to pushback
• Three questions to ask before you decide you have a resistance problem on your hands
• What happens to your school, your strongest staff, and your vision when you mistake pushback for opposition

This is one of those episodes that's going to change how you hear the next complaint that lands on your desk.

Resources mentioned:

📋 Take the Bottleneck Assessment — https://builderbottleneck.scoreapp.com/

📬 Subscribe to The 100% Principal Newsletter — https://100percentprincipal.com

This episode comes from The 100 Percent Principal Weekly, my newsletter where every Friday I share one thing you can take straight into Monday to move the needle toward 100%.

You're listening to The 100 Percent Principal Podcast, where those ideas come to life.

📩 Subscribe to the 100 Percent Principal Newsletter: 100percentprincipal.com

🏫 Learn more about Buildership University: https://buildershipuniversity.com

👥 Join the 100 Percent Collective: https://buildershipuniversity.com/collective

I don't know if this has started happening to you yet this school year, but I'm willing to bet it has.

Something you thought you had already handed off has somehow found its way back to you.

A meeting you weren't supposed to be facilitating.

A decision you thought had already been made.

A priority everyone agreed to, but you are somehow still reminding people about.

And every time it happens, it reinforces this little voice in your head that says, "See? This is why I have to stay on top of everything."

I get it.

Because if every time you step back, something starts to drift, stepping back can feel irresponsible.

But what if the fact that the work still depends on you does not mean it must always depend on you?

What if the work coming back is actually showing you something your school has not yet learned to carry without you?

That's what I'm digging into in this week's podcast The Work That Keeps Coming Back to You.

This episode came from this week's 100% Principal Newsletter where every Friday I send you one thing you can take straight into Monday that will actually move the needle toward 100%. Join me at https://100percentprincipal.com.

→ Subscribe at 100percentprincipal.com

Is your 100% Vision actually running your school, or just sitting on top of the same plan you had last year?

I sat down with a group of principals who had already written their 100% Visions and built their school improvement plans around them. But when I covered their vision with my hand and read the rest of the plan, I couldn't tell what promise they'd made to their students.

In this episode, I break down why so many principals believe in 100%, work hard to pursue it, and still end up reproducing the exact same work they were doing before — and I show you how to turn your vision into a filter that decides what stays, what goes, and what you can finally take off your plate without guilt.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why a bold new vision can make your staff feel pressure instead of possibility
• How to tell if your school improvement plan was actually built from your vision — or just labeled with it
• The difference between reacting to data and responding to it
• Why "be stubborn on the vision, flexible on the details" changes what belongs on your plan
• How to find the one obstacle standing between your school and its vision, and remove it in 90 days

Timestamps:

0:00 — Why your 100% Vision might be quietly making your job harder

1:15 — The plan that looked right on paper (a principal group's SIP, reviewed)

6:45 — What I'm Seeing: the "Temu version of Buildership"

11:15 — How We Were Trained: vision as slogan, not filter

15:30 — The 100% Principle: turning your vision into a filter

22:45 — What's At Stake: why an unfiltered vision becomes pressure instead of possibility

28:45 — Your 100% Move: the hand-cover test to try this week

Resources & Links:

• Join the 100% Collective: https://buildershipuniversity.com/collective
• Learn more about Buildership University: https://buildershipuniversity.com
• Subscribe to The 100% Principal Newsletter: https://100percentprincipal.com

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe so you don't miss next week's 100% Move.

Your staff can be wonderful—and still not be fully aligned.

That doesn't mean you have a bad team. Your teachers may care deeply, work hard, and genuinely want students to succeed. But good people can still operate from different beliefs about what matters, which students can succeed, and what counts as success.

In this episode of The 100% Principal, Robyn Jackson explains why appreciating your teachers and challenging "good enough" are not opposites.

You'll discover:

• The difference between having a good staff and an aligned staff
• Why the back-to-school honeymoon fails in two predictable places
• How celebrations can become an unspoken transaction
• Why 100% must be treated as a decision rather than a goal
• How a 100% Vision creates urgency without creating blame
• A practical way to name the gap without putting good teachers on trial

Subscribe to The 100% Principal Weekly: https://100percentprincipal.com

If you're forwarding the same email for the third time, repeating the same announcement in every staff meeting, or getting on the PA system to say something you already sent in writing — you're not managing communication. You're stuck in a cycle, and it started before your staff ever missed a deadline.

In this episode, I break down why so many principals get trapped repeating themselves, why sending more information doesn't fix the problem, and what it actually takes to build a communication system your staff can trust — before the school year runs away from you.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why treating communication like a delivery service backfires, even when the information is sent clearly and repeatedly

• The real difference between giving your staff information and actually communicating with them

• Why "everything matters" ends up meaning nothing matters to your staff

• How to test any message before you send it, using three simple questions

• What your weekly staff email reveals about your school's real communication system

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and leave a review — it helps other school leaders find the show.

A principal brought her beginning-of-the-year PD plan to BU Office Hours recently.

Earlier in the summer, she had introduced her teachers to our Rigorous Unit Planning Process. The session had gone beautifully.

The teachers understood it. They were excited about it. She had even shared the idea with parents, who loved the thought of their children learning to think—not simply complete assignments.

Still, she was worried.

Her teachers would soon be expected to use the process for their own unit planning. What if they weren't ready? Did she need to provide more training?

It was a perfectly reasonable question.

But as we talked, I realized that another round of training might actually postpone the very thing she wanted to produce.

That conversation stayed with me because principals everywhere are planning PD right now—and many are working very hard to create engaging sessions that still leave teachers with the hardest part to complete on their own.

I call it great PD with implied homework.

In this week's episode, I explore why even excellent professional development so often fails to survive contact with real classrooms—and what to do instead.

If you're planning PD for your teachers this fall, this one may change what you put on the agenda.

Principals are constantly told to "do more with less."

But doing the same work with fewer people, less money, less time, and less support is not resourcefulness. It's making bricks without straw.

In this episode, I break down why shrinking budgets are quietly shrinking schools' visions—and how Builders keep pursuing 100% without pretending that resources don't matter.

THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY THE SUPPORTING STRUGGLING STUDENTS IMPLEMENTATION KIT

Strengthen Tier 1 Support by helping your staff create SUCCESS Plans that make better use of the intervention capacity you still have:

https://buildershipuniversity.com/implementation-kit/

WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER:

• What new RAND research reveals about the shift from school improvement to financial survival

• Why "maintaining our gains" can become a respectable-sounding way to lower expectations

• How eliminated positions create invisible transfers of work to principals

• The difference between being resourced and being resourceful

• Why programs, positions, and purchases cannot become the anchor for your vision

• How a principles-based ONE Plan helps you pivot without diminishing the result

• How to identify what your school should stop, redesign, or request when resources shrink

• The five questions in a one-page Priority Protection Plan

Budget cuts don't merely reduce what is available. They reveal which gains were truly built into the school—and which were being propped up by programs, positions, and purchases that worked only while the funding lasted.

A smaller budget may require a different pathway.

It does not require a smaller vision.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE 100% PRINCIPAL WEEKLY

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https://100percentprincipal.com