In July 2024 I stepped into the Co-Director role at our school, Ithaca Suzuki Music Education, or ISME.
We have 7 teachers, 3 administrators, 130 students and growing. We are a school with an amazing history– one of the first Suzuki schools in America– and also in a new chapter. In the spring we converted ourselves to a Not-for-profit business and have moved into a new space. A lot of big things, and a lot for me to learn as I expanded my role from being a faculty member to being in a leadership and administrative position.
I want to share the five biggest lessons I’ve learned in stepping into this role.
As I write this, I realize there is so much overlap from excellent teaching to excellent leadership. So, whether you are teaching your own school or managing a school of hundreds, I think these lessons will be applicable.
Have a vision so big that everyone can fit their dreams into it
Small businesses face the same challenges as big businesses. But big businesses solve bigger problems and can often pay better. In order for another individual to join your team, they need to feel like they can fit their own life vision into your vision. I think this is the reason Suzuki was so successful.
Honing a compelling vision and then communicating it effectively is hard work. I think it’s easier to craft a vision and bring people on board than it is to cast a vision for a team that is already assembled. But that is the work of leadership. It has been essential for me to take the time I need to hone meaningful vision.
A few we’ve come to that feel comfortable to stand on. 1) We’re building a school we would want to work for. 2) We’re building a school that takes care of the whole Suzuki triangle (parent, student, and teacher). And 3) We could do it alone, but we’re so much better together. We’re using the structure of the school to its fullest capabilities.
Communication = “over”communication
Saying one thing, one time, to one person feels like “normal” communication to me. Saying one thing, dozens of times, to hundreds of people does not feel “normal.” But for one person to hear something once, I must say it 150 times. I’ve had to redefine normal and think strategically about how to get messages across to all people.
I’ve learned to schedule certain frequencies for reaching out to new families, old families, recognizing birthdays, and connecting families to each other.
It is much better to work backwards from what is optimal for an individual (the ideal customer experience), that what should I add to my plate. Because my understanding of the “normal” communication is so skewed.
Newsletters and announcements through multiple mediums have helped with this. We also now have just one place where we store information that needs to be shared to staff, faculty, parents, and community members. So that helps.
Make impeccable agreements
Do what you say you’re going to do. Write that agreement down. The moment you know you can’t meet the agreement (this is okay and understandable), renegotiate that agreement with all stakeholders. Renegotiating is normal and expected. What is unacceptable is forgetting, ignoring, or knowing you can’t to something but pretending you can.
My definition of overwhelm is “Agreeing to do something that you know you can’t.”
I got this idea from 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.
Handle the recurring, but pour your energy into the one-time project that will change everything
Sarah and I have taken on a lot of the day to day, recurring administrative tasks of the business. For example, we pay the bills, deposit checks, make copies, and run all of the marketing for the school. It is very easy for these recurring tasks to overwhelm my work week.
The longer I’ve been in the role, the better I’ve got at compressing the recurring tasks, batching them, and making them “appointments” in my schedule.
For example, it works really well for me to use Mondays to 1) take attendance, 2) pay bills and update QuickBooks, and 3) prep our staff meeting agenda. On Thursday I batch all marketing and posting. I know that those tasks will be taken care of in those windows. That allows me to clearly see the wide open spaces I have left in the week to tackle one-time projects that would benefit the organization.
I have a lengthy list of one-time projects that could be beneficial. At the beginning of the week, and with Sarah’s help, I identify the most beneficial one-time project that could change the course of our school.
In my mind the school is a three legged stool. There is 1) marketing (getting people in the door), 2) fulfillment (great teaching for families) 3) operations (keeping the lights on). Within each of these three areas there are levels. The highest level is mission and vision. The next is strategy (what are we doing and not doing to fulfill our mission). The next is management. Management of people, to-do lists, technology, and other resources. The final is action. And action could be on necessary recurring tasks or these one-time projects.
Sometimes I feel I get so caught up in the recurring daily tasks that I lose sight of the mission, strategy, management, and one-time projects. By asking, what one thing could I do to most benefit our families and teachers, it helps me get back in touch with the overarching mission and strategy.
Leave a little in the tank
I can oscillate on the extremes of frenzied work and then exhaustion and overwhelm. One of my biggest goals, partly out of necessity, is stable, sustainable work output.
It is hard to do more when you’re exhausted, so my work has been doing less when I’m energized. The easiest way for me to make actionable steps on that is to allow myself to leave fuel in the tank. To leave right on time when I know I have more I could do.
These have been drilled into me in the first 5 months. They are not “should dos,” they are the gravitational pulls of how people and systems work. I’m learning to work with human flow, rather than against it. And the reason I am able to share them, humbly, is because I was struggling the wrong way first.
Excited to see what the next year has in store.
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