The Catholic School Leaders Podcast

20 What Leaders Should Do This Summer
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Catholic School Leaders podcast, where we discuss leadership and Catholic education.

I'm John Mihalyo, the president and founder of Elementary Advancement Solutions, dedicated to enhancing Catholic education and connecting Catholic school leaders worldwide. Explore our services at www. elementaryadvancement. com to see how we can help your school beat its leadership, advancement, and growth potential. Thanks for joining us today on the Catholic School Leaders Podcast and summer is upon us. Uh, for a lot of our schools, they're either just finishing up or they've already finished up. Summer is in full force with you and, uh, it's just a great time of year. Uh, unfortunately, there's always that, oh, the kids are gone, but there's also that, whoo, the kids are gone.

We get a break and we can catch our breath for a little bit, but don't worry. August will be here before you know it and the kids will be back and they'll be ready to go and what you're doing right now is going to make such a big impact on what [00:01:00] next school year looks like. And so I want to talk a little bit today about what you should be doing as a Catholic school leader.

And I'm going to tell you now that whether you're a principal, a president, an advancement director, recruitment and marketing officer, assistant principal, dean of students, whatever the role might be, As a leader of a Catholic school, I think you're going to find something useful from this podcast because I've tried to put a little bit of something in for everybody.

So, here's some things that I would advise as a Catholic school leader that you make sure happen this summer, and first and foremost, Rest. Catch your breath. Spend some time with loved ones, friends, family, uh, whatever you do to just rest and relax a little bit. It's been a long year. Now that doesn't mean you can take three months off and come back in September and expect that everything is going to be Ready to go and just we're going to have a great year ahead.

Now, unfortunately, there is going to be some work that's going to go into this summer and you can't take the whole summer off, but there is something to be said about taking a [00:02:00] little bit of time for yourself and taking a little bit of time to spend with family, friends, loved ones, travel to see somebody, go visit a place that you've never been, go visit a place that you always like to go.

No matter what it is, just take a little bit of time to spend some time with loved ones, with friends, uh, relatives, whatever it is that you do, but don't forget to rest and just catch your breath a little bit this summer. I always recommend, too, that a leadership team retreat is always a great idea over the summer.

It's a great way just to bring key leadership team members together for, sometimes it's a half day, sometimes it might be for a couple of days, just to come together off site where you can just discuss where things are at with the school. Give a report on how things are going, give any new initiatives that you want to be starting.

It's a great time to do an analysis of where your school is at. A couple of years ago I had a chance to attend the Baldrige Conference of Excellence up in Washington, D. C. [00:03:00] And a lot of schools will say we're going to do a SWOT analysis for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, but everybody up there calls it a TOES analysis, and I'm kind of thinking to myself, a TOES analysis, their point being that if you look at your threats and opportunities first, and lead with those, that your strengths and weaknesses kind of That list will be a lot more fruitful to you.

So it's a great opportunity to do that analysis of where your school is right now. How are you meeting those, uh, goals that you had set for your school as part of your strategic effort, your strategic planning? Uh, where are you at with those things? If you're keeping score, where are you at? How far along are you and what adjustments do you need to make?

Maybe some of those goals you met before you thought you would and we say, Hey, we can check those off and we're moving on to something else. Maybe some of those areas you're falling a little bit short and you said we need to look at why we're falling short or maybe our eyes were bigger than our stomachs and and we maybe bit off a little bit more.

Where are we at with everything? A leadership team [00:04:00] retreat off site is a great way to do this. I always recommend this. You don't even have to be all business. It's a great way to do something that's fun and business all in one. I know one year I took our leadership team to an escape room. And it was a lot of fun for us to do a task that required us to work together as a team, come together to share a meal after that was done, and share stories.

Oh, it was great when you did this, or hey, you found this clue, or whatever the case might be. To get some laughs, to create that trust, to create that team bond with everybody, really, really helps start the summer off in a great way. Great time to do a leadership retreat. There's different options for you.

Some people might like to do it in June, right before the school is let out and everybody's kind of in that summer mindset. Others like to take July, where it's, hey, everybody's gone on their vacations and we're back now, and now let's kind of use this as a time to get into things. Others like to do them in early August, right before the teachers come back to [00:05:00] kind of build up momentum.

Whatever is best for you and your team, but creating that leadership team retreat where you can just come together. and just happen to have some open and honest conversations with each other is something that I guarantee you is going to help your school grow forward.

This next one is going to seem a little bit, uh, housekeeping in terms of, uh, saying, well, yeah, I would, no kidding, I would do that, but it bears reminding you that Take a day and clean your office. Go through all those files of the last 12 months, or maybe in some instances the last 12 years, and go through and say, what do I still need and what can I get rid of?

Give your office a good cleaning, a good dusting, a good, uh, whatever the case might be. It's a great time if you're going to move any furniture around to do it. Just get your office refreshed and new and get rid of all the clutter. It's a great time to just get rid of those things that maybe had been hanging around for a little bit too long.

Uh, like I said, it was something that I used to always do. I would clean up all my files, go through all the files. Hey, I don't [00:06:00] need this anymore. This is past. Maybe this is something I need to shred. Maybe this is something that, uh, I can just throw away. Whatever the case might be. But getting rid of that clutter is something that's going to start your year off as you start to plan next year off on the right foot because it's getting rid of unnecessary clutter that's just taking up space, not only in your office, but maybe in your mind as well.

So take a day, clean out things in your office, bring the big dumpster, bring a big garbage can in there and just fill it up, get rid of things that you don't need anymore. And, uh, it's a great opportunity and a great time to do that at the beginning of the year, beginning of the summer I should say, so that when you get into the dog days of summer where the new year is fast approaching, it's not something that you have to go back and do later.

The next thing that is just a perfect time to do it is over the summer is to do some sort of a communications audit. You have ways that you communicate with your constituents, with your families, with your students, with your alumni, [00:07:00] and obviously you hope that they're accomplishing what it is that you set it out to do.

But the summer is a great time to do an audit of all those different forms of communication. Look at your open rate on newsletters. If you're using some sort of a program or a software like MailChimp or Constant Contact or, I mean, there's tons of them out there and every school uses a different way to, to communicate with people.

What's your open rate on those? How many people are actually reading your newsletter? What are they clicking on? What's the things that are of interest to people? when you're looking at social media. Uh, are we scheduling too many things on one day? What's our, uh, like rate? What's the things that got the most, uh, traffic?

What are the things that got the most people excited, uh, that we posted over the past year? Uh, what are the things that people are looking to hear more about? What are the ways that we communicated, uh, Our fundraising goals, what are the ways that we communicated, the money that we raised, doing that big communications audit of any sort of communication your [00:08:00] school is currently doing is going to help you in the next year because obviously it's that old adage, if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around, does it make a sound?

And if you're, putting words out there and you're talking and you're saying all these things, but nobody's actually hearing the message. You're talking, but you're not doing a lot of communicating. And so there's a great article that I wrote, uh, about, uh, are you communicating or are you talking?

It's on my website at www. elementaryadvancement under the blogs. You can find it there. Take a look at it. It's a great way to see how your school is doing in terms of that communication. And summer is a great time to do that communications audit. Summer is also a great time to look at your handbooks to make sure there's no revisions that are needed or any updates that are needed.

Maybe some policies may have changed within your diocese and you need to update those. It's always a great time in the summer to take a day. It's time well spent to just do that. Overview and updates of any of your [00:09:00] handbooks, whether it be for students or faculty, uh, and that's a great time to do it.

Don't put that off till the last minute or else it's going to come back to bite you.

So the end of the year is upon you and I know that you just say, okay, let's, let's start thinking about next year and let's start getting into that, but I think it's really important to just look at what the last 12 months, what the last year looked like, and to do an analysis of that. Uh, coming together with your leadership team.

I mentioned about that leadership team retreat. That's a great time to do that. Uh, pulling together maybe some, uh, key members of your parent organizations, maybe your advisory committees or, uh, whatever. Any key leaders that you might have in your communicate, in your community. that you want to bring together to kind of do that analysis of what the last 12 months look like.

If you have your strategic plan, if you have your goals that you set, looking at did we reach those goals? If we didn't, why didn't we? If we did, what do we attribute that success to? Uh, can we do more of that? Or did we exceed our goals in certain [00:10:00] areas? Taking the time to really analyze what the next or the last 12 months look like, Going to help you moving forward as we start that next piece of things, and that's really to map out what the next 18 months are going to look like at your school.

Now you say to me, well wait a minute, you just said analyze the last 12 months, but as we're looking forward to look forward at the next 18 months, and you're correct on that, because I think as you're looking forward, always looking out 18 months in advance is going to help you and your school community know what's coming next.

If you're standing in the Uh, on the shoreline of the, of the ocean, and you're watching the waves come in. That wave that's already there and ready to, to crash down on you, is already there. And there's not a whole lot that you can do to prevent it from crashing down on you. Either you're going to go for a ride, or you're going to go for a tumble, or whatever the case might be.

It's too late to react to that wave. You need to be looking out into the water, and the, the surfers will do that. They're looking for their wave to come in. [00:11:00] And that's something that we need to be looking at as Catholic school leaders. is looking out five or six waves out to see what the waves look like.

Is this wave going to come in a little bigger? Do I need to move back? Do I need to move forward? Is this a wave that I can ride? Whatever the case might be, and I'm not a, I'm not a surfer by any way shape or form, but, uh, I have been in the ocean a few times and, and, uh, been hit by that big wave that you weren't expecting.

And as a Catholic school leader, we certainly don't want that no matter what our role is in the Catholic schools. So looking forward 18 months, and identifying what the next 18 months looks like, putting a calendar together, putting some goals together, identifying what it is that we're trying to do as a school community and how that contributes to our overall mission and vision that we set forth as leaders, whether it be as an advancement officer, whether it be as a principal, whether it be in our enrollment and recruitment, whatever the area might be in our Leadership realm at a Catholic school.

We are always wanting to look forward to [00:12:00] know what's coming next because, you know, obviously if we look at what it is that we're trying to do and we can accomplish it in five minutes, then it's probably not a very big goal. Uh, I think back to, uh, the, the show, The Office and, and Creed said, my goal this year is to do a cartwheel.

And after he did the cartwheel, It was like, well, I'm done for the year now. Uh, we want to set our goals a little bit bigger than just doing one cartwheel at the school for the next 18 months. If you haven't watched that episode, go forward, go and, and check it out. It's a really funny episode, and Creed is a very funny character on that show.

So as we're looking forward to the next 18 months, setting goals, For those next 18, next 18 months as a school, but also as individuals is something that's going to be very beneficial to us to help us achieve what it is that we're seeking. And as a Catholic school leader, we want to make sure that our goals are not only aligned, but integrated with one another.

and that our goals are moving us towards [00:13:00] that overall, mission that we have set forth, that strategic plan that we've set forth and that we're contributing to it as individual leaders within the school. And a great time to do that is over the summer to look at what our goals are going to be next year.

And say, okay, this is if, if I'm a principal, my goal is to, to do this, this is something that I'd like to do more of, or this is something I'd like to do less of sometimes, uh, as an Advancement Director, these are the goals that I'm setting for my, fundraising, or annual fund, or gala, whatever the case might be, these are the goals that I'm setting for that, or maybe it's an increase in donor participation.

If we're in our recruitment and marketing office, if our enrollment is at 60 percent capacity, maybe that goal is to get it to 70 percent capacity next year, or even more, but actually setting forth to look at how you're going to achieve those goals, because any, any advancement director can go, Hey, I want to raise a million dollars next year.

Great. How are you going to raise that million dollars? What's your strategy to get there? And if you only raise 25, 000 this [00:14:00] year, to go from 25, 000 to a million is a pretty big jump and maybe not a very realistic goal. So looking at what those goals are, sharing them with one another. Tell everybody on your leadership team what your goals are and share them with each other so that they can help you succeed and achieve those goals.

And then looking at what do you need. to help you achieve those goals. Maybe it's a community such as our mastermind groups. That's something that helps you to keep you on track. And that's a great way to do things. Maybe there's things within your own community that you're able to do. Maybe it's relying on other people that can can help you out and help you be successful.

I know as a principal you probably spend a lot of time with your assistant principals or your pastors. What is that support group that you need? If you're looking at your Advancement Office, and you're looking at your goals and you've been given a goal that is, this is very, very overwhelming. Get help.

Don't go at it alone. That investment that you make, I always said [00:15:00] it's cost versus value. Don't be afraid to invest in yourself and invest in your school on the short term to make the long term pay off. I used to always tell people if you, somebody came to you and said, hey, we want to write a grant for you, but we're going to charge you 100, 000 for the grant.

You would probably say, yeah, no, thank you. But what if by writing that grant got you, I don't know, 200 million. I'm being facetious there because that would be really to the extreme on both ends. My point being, if I told you you could get 200 million out of a 100, 000 investment, you'd do it every day of the week.

When you're looking at things, what's the cost of something and what's the value that you're going to get on the back end of things if you move things forward. And so go out, Find the support that you need, find the help that you need, whether it be, like I said, our master at elementary advancement, we offer our mastermind groups, we offer our coaching, our advancement coaching for schools.

Those are things we do to support schools. Maybe that's something you're [00:16:00] looking for, maybe it isn't. Whatever it is that you're needing, go out and figure out what it is that you need in your toolbox to accomplish those goals, and then make the investment in it.

One of the big things that we do as leaders of schools, whether, again, it's Principal, President, Advancement Officer, whatever the case might be at our schools. is we need to be good project managers, and I think identifying chairs or co chairs of future events, if you haven't done that already, is something that I would be doing over the summer.

If you have an event that's coming up in March or April or May, Uh, you want to identify that chair now so that you can start meeting with them and tracking their progress to kind of eat the, eat the elephant in one bite at a time rather than trying to eat it all at once in, in two months span ahead of time.

By getting things in place, such as chairs, such as, uh, special organizers of events, whatever the case might be, to not only fundraise, but to friend raise on your campus, to [00:17:00] identify those people that are going to be in charge of a particular component of your school is going to be huge. Asking them directly, hey, so and so, we have this event that comes up, we do it every year, and we thought you would be a great person to chair this event, or maybe co chair this event with so and so.

And is this something you're interested in by making that direct ask it makes one a lot harder to say no number two They're able to see exactly why it is that you want them involved with things and why you want to include them on things Here's the other component of that that I think All of our schools need to keep in mind.

We have people who have run the same event every year, and it's just what they do, and it's part of their, almost like what they're associated with. Oh, they always run Grandparents Day, or they always run, you know, whatever the case might be. Put it out there, though, to your community when the parents come back in the fall.

to say hey here's everything that we're going to be doing as a school this year. Would you like to [00:18:00] volunteer and would you like to serve as a parent ambassador for any of these items or any of these particular events or days or components of things? You have people in your community that want to be out in front of everybody and lead and be the cheerleaders and rah rah.

But you also have a lot of people that want to be behind the scenes and doing the work behind the curtain to make the performance go well. Give people in your community that chance to be involved. Now here's the other piece of that though, is if somebody says that they'd like to be involved, let them help.

I recognize that, uh, You know, much like when, when you have a survey that goes out and say, Hey, to your faculty, we need people to serve on committees. I guarantee you that 75 percent will say, I want to be on the social committee. Okay. Not everybody can be on the social committee, but we're going to have opportunities for people to be part of different components of our school, different events, different friend, raising events, uh, put it out there, tell everybody what it is that's coming up.

One, it's going to build excitement for things that are coming. Uh, if people see that, Hey, we're needing [00:19:00] help planning X, Y, Z event. And it puts it in the back of their mind to say, wow, look, the school's doing this. And it gets people excited about things that are going to be happening at your school in the future.

Two is it gives people that opportunity to be involved with those things and taking on a leadership role to make those things successful. And so it creates a buzz. It generates interest, but more importantly, it's getting that community to come together and many hands make light work. I know that probably in a lot of schools, I hear this all the time, well, the same 20 people do everything.

And I get that. I really do. Creating that, uh, fear of missing out, those opportunities to come together. give somebody a great experience with something that they're genuinely interested in. If there's something that they're genuinely interested in, they're going to come out. A couple of years ago, we had a project where we needed some people to come and rebuild some picnic tables.

You would have been shocked to see the people that showed up. And I'll be [00:20:00] honest, most were dads with their power tools and their Saws and everything like that. It was the greatest thing in the world, and they had a great time doing it. They made some new friends. They got to see some people maybe they hadn't seen in a while, but it was an opportunity for them to do something they enjoyed doing while giving back to the school and doing something that was going to create some good at the school.

So looking at those special events, looking at those chairs that you're gonna have, and finding those key leaders, identifying those key leaders to Give people the opportunity to take on those roles within your school. Summer is a great time to do that, and obviously if that event's in September, I would hope that that's already in place.

But if it's not, get on that today. Don't wait any longer. Get those key leaders in place for your next school year. The last thing I would recommend to you, and it's a great thing to do over the summer, is to read a book. Find a book that you like, and I know the tendency is to read something, Oh, I don't want to do anything with leadership or anything with it.[00:21:00]

And I just want to read something that's a fiction or a novel or whatever the case might be, and I think those are great things to read. But look into reading a book that's going to make you a better person. A couple of weeks ago, I put out an article about the 11 leadership books that have nothing to do with education that I think every leader should read.

Maybe take a look at that. Maybe there's one on the list that strikes your fancy, and you say, Hey, I'm going to read this book this summer. there's nothing better as well after you read a good book, and this is one of the reasons I'm not anti Kindle or iPad or anything like that, but I like a physical copy of a book, because if I read a great book, I want to share it with somebody else and go, I read this book and it was fantastic, and here, you should take a read of it too.

it's a great way to grow our leaders, our readers. Find a book that you're interested in, something that's going to make you grow as a person. Uh, one of the books that I read, probably within the last year's time is, is a book, by James Clear, Atomic Habits. That's a great book. I, it did not make the [00:22:00] list of, of books that I recommended on my 11, but that's a great book that I'm seeing a lot of people quote all the time.

Um, there's so many great books out there, and obviously we can never, probably ever read them all. But find something and, uh, read it and, and, and grow as a person.

So I know summer is here. I hope it's a great summer. I hope that the school year was great for you. I hope you had a great school year. if there's ways we can help you at Elementary Advancement, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, elementaryadvancement. com. Schedule a time with us and, uh, let's have a conversation about how, uh, We can help you move your school forward, like I said, whether it be through our advancement coaching, whether it be through our masterminds.

Um, the schools we're working with are seeing great success, and we do try to limit the number of schools that we're working with. Uh, just to make sure that we do give you that personalized experience so that you can grow your school and that we're here and available for you. So, if we can, uh, set up a time to, to help you in any way, shape, or form.

Um, the main goal that, that we have here is just to grow Catholic education. That's the [00:23:00] name of the game and the thing we want to do more than anything else. So, Um, if I can help you, feel free to reach out, set up a time with me, I'd love to chat with you, hear what your goals are, and, uh, see if I can help you in any way, shape, or form.

I hope the summer's a great one for you. I hope that you get some time to rest. To relax, to look at really what the year that just was, but also look with excitement of the year that is to come. And I know it's going to be a great year for you. summer is here, enjoy it, take some time, spend it with family, friends, and just enjoy yourself.

You've earned it! Take some time to catch your breath, but also, looking for that next wave that's coming on the horizon. Next year is just around the corner. I hope you have a great summer, and I hope this podcast was helpful to you. If you did find it helpful, please, it would mean the world to me to share it with other Catholic school leaders.

give it a like, give it a subscribe, give it a comment, to help reach other Catholic school leaders across the nation, across the world. And, uh, it would just mean the world to me. So thank you so much for [00:24:00] that in advance. Have a great summer, everyone. Be sure to check back. Another podcast coming.