[00:00:00] Dr. Jim: Thanks for joining us today. This is your friendly neighborhood town strategy. Nerd. Dr. Jim language around building a continuous improvement culture is pretty common in the private sector, but how would you start building that in the K through 12 space? And would it even make sense to apply this sort of thinking in the K through 12 space, given that.
You have a lot more stakeholders that you need to navigate, and all of those stakeholders have vastly different priorities that they want to accomplish the challenge in implementing this mindset in the K through 12 spaces that you can easily devolve into a culture that focuses on the wrong sets of outcomes, and those outcomes may not matter when you're thinking about the mission of a district.
So the challenge becomes building this culture while maintaining care for educators, students, and the communities that are at the forefront of what school districts do. Those are some of the things that we're going to tackle in today's conversation. We have Dr. Andy Volmuth, who is joining us to lead us in this discussion. Now a little bit about Andy. [00:01:00] He's actually served as a superintendent for the new Prague area school district since 2023.
Prior to his experience at new Prague Andy served for 16 years as the principal at Normandale Hills elementary. That school was a 2017 Minnesota elementary school principals association school of excellence in 2020.
Andy was recognized by the M. E. S. P. A. As a recipient of the Leadership Achievement Award for the West Suburban division. Prior to his experiences in Bloomington, Andy was a principal at Lincoln K through eight choice school and his educational career started as an elementary Teacher with the Minneapolis public schools district.
And he's a graduate or Concordia college and received his master's in education from St. Mary's university in Winona. And he received his doctorate in education from the university of St. Thomas after completing his dissertation on school choice programming in suburban school districts. Andy, there's a lot more that we can say about what you've done through your career, but welcome to [00:02:00] the show.
Glad to have you on.
[00:02:01] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: Dr. Jim, thanks for having me. Excited to be here and excited to share a little bit about my story and learn a little bit more about how to develop a continuous improvement culture as well. So thanks for having me.
[00:02:13] Dr. Jim: Super pumped to have you on. I'm pretty interested in seeing how this conversation develops because as a private sector guy I'm, Been there and done that when it comes to continuous improvement every year.
There is always something that you're working on as far as a key initiative. And I think within the private sector, I would make the argument that it might be somewhat easier to tackle given that it's the nature of the beast. One of the things that I'm interested in finding out is how you actually apply this in a K through 12 space.
But before we actually dive into that discussion, I think it's important for you to set the set the tone. And give the listeners a little bit more detail into your background and experiences that helped your helped shape your leadership philosophy.
[00:02:58] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: Yeah, again, thanks [00:03:00] for having me. And again, I can share my story. I'm by no means do I consider myself an expert especially in the role of the superintendent. This is my second year having the opportunity to lead what I think is a great school district the new Prageria schools. A lot of this is a lot of my.
My continuous improvement culture development, if you will, is based on my experiences starting in Rochester at a high performing school, Lincoln K 8 Choice, as well as my 16 years in Bloomington. And fundamentally, I think it goes back to, as you were talking, Jim, I was thinking back to as I was doing a lot of my graduate school work, the concepts of Jim Collins and good to great 2001.
I've read not only good to great, but a lot of Collins's other work. And it's built on that whole belief that how do we continue to try to make our organizations better? And in our case, I fundamentally believe that we exist as a school system. for the academic and social development of all of our students.[00:04:00]
That gives me great clarity as to how I approach the work. We are here to serve students and to make sure that we are giving them the best education possible so they can grow academically and both social emotionally. And so that clarity, I believe, is critical and foundational in how I've approached this work.
[00:04:19] Dr. Jim: So there's a lot of stuff to dig into in what you just said. But one of the first things that caught my attention was how you mentioned that you're heading into your second year. In your current role as superintendent, one of the things that I like about these conversations that I have with soups is that sometimes it gives the guests an opportunity to reflect on the road that they've traveled.
So when you look back at your first year, what are some of the things that you might have done differently? Knowing what you know now because this is your first superintendency gig. So if given the opportunity to do something different in your first year on the job what would some of those things have been?
[00:04:57] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: I don't, I think we have a half hour for the podcast. I don't [00:05:00] know if we have enough time to cover all the things that I would do differently. I think some of the best advice that I got going into this role, and I've been, thank I've been really lucky and blessed to have really good mentors, people who have helped me to get to this point, people who have helped me and be a resource, continue to be a resource to me today.
And one of the things that, that I will share that I still continue to reflect upon is I didn't have to have it all figured out. The day that I started, and in fact, I stood in front of our staff, our school community at the beginning of this school year, and I challenged them to think of 3 things, listening, leadership and learning and in particular learning what I have found in my.
In my years of being an educator and a principal and now a superintendent is that when we are learning as an organization, when the adults are learning, so too will the children. And so I really look at this as an opportunity for me to continue to learn and grow. There's lots of things that I would [00:06:00] change.
I would have done a lot more deep diving into the school district, but I did a lot of that prior to coming in. So I don't have any regrets, if you will, but I think that I approach this from a learning perspective. I am a learner. I'm the chief learner, if you will, and I hope that transcends the organization.
[00:06:18] Dr. Jim: It's interesting that you highlight learning as one of the mindsets that you have central to how you show up.
Tell me a little bit more about how you've embedded a learning mindset across the district as a way to achieve some of those higher end goals that you want to achieve as a leader and as a district.
[00:06:38] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: Yeah, I think that's a really good question. And quite honestly, that again continues to evolve, right? I don't think that work is ever done. I think that we continue to learn and grow. I've been open with the staff. My, my goal this year for myself is to learn more about AI. As a father, first and foremost to three middle and high school students, AI is something [00:07:00] that I think is just comes natural to them.
It scares me. And so my goal this year is to become more efficient, more knowledgeable and efficient with AI. So it starts with creating that culture. I was, I'm blessed to. Have the opportunity to lead a really high performing school district. But one of the things that, that we are doing over the last couple of years, the last 18 months now is to truly, really create some systems and structures that sustain us so that we can get pull or we can get really focused on teaching and learning.
Again, I go back to clarity about why we exist as an organization, teaching and learning. And we're not completely there yet. And of course the journey is ongoing. But at this point, we're really focusing on how do we create those systems and structures within the district at the district level that then filter into our buildings to, to ensure that learning is our top priority.
[00:07:48] Dr. Jim: One of the other things that I think would be helpful in driving this conversation forward is getting a view into the district itself. You mentioned that the district is a high performing district, but beyond that, what are some of [00:08:00] your observations in terms of the district itself and how it's different from other districts that you've worked in in earlier in your career?
[00:08:07] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: Yeah. I take a and this is just my perspective. I started my career by working for the Minneapolis public schools, and during that time, I think Minneapolis public schools was the largest, if not one of the largest school districts in the state of Minnesota. Then had an opportunity to be in Rochester, which had about 17, 000 kids.
And again I very much appreciated my time there. And then I moved to Bloomington and we were on 10, 000 kids. New Prague is about 4, 000 kids. If you had our early childhood programming, about 4, 200 kids. And I, I. I have learned very very early on that I believe schools are schools, kids are kids, principals are principals, teachers are teachers we have all these differences, but we are all very similar when you really unpack why we come to the building.
And again, I go back to that word I've overused already clarity. We're here to promote the academic and social development of students. So if we get. Past [00:09:00] the differences, we can really focus on the similarities that exist between our schools. And I think that goes back to my I'm a small town, North Dakota kid.
I graduated with 21 students in my graduating class and that's three towns put together. And so my mom is proud to say that I was in the top third of my graduating class. I don't know how big of an achievement that was. But it goes back to when I think about New Prague, I think about the importance of a school system in a local community, right?
It really becomes central to the community. And there's great passion in our local communities because it's not just New Prague proper. It's Elko New Market. It's the surrounding communities. There's great passion for our school system. I think our job is to capture that passion. And we talk about a prom, a proud tradition in order to create a promising future for all of our students.
So I really take that keep it simple stupid being me in this case approach to what I think can be Pretty complex and overwhelming [00:10:00] work that has worked well for me.
[00:10:01] Dr. Jim: One of the things that's interesting about this conversation when you talk about continuous improvement is that in my mind, I always go back to how G. E. Executed continuous improvement in the private sector. There are a lot of bottom line benefits that happened as a result of it.
But culturally, I think when people look at GE as an organization today, it can be a cautionary tale. And when we talk about applying the continuous improvement culture in the K through 12 space, that's a whole different set of circumstances that you have to deal with. So tell us about how you got started in building this sort of culture within a space that isn't typically known for continuous improvement in the sense that the private sector folks.
Understand it.
[00:10:46] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: I think it goes back a little bit to just who fundamentally I am. Like I talked about growing up in a small town, participating in sports, I'm fairly competitive person myself and wanting to make sure that, again, I [00:11:00] have a passion for ensuring that we're providing safe and high performing spaces for all of our students.
John Dewey talks about what the wisest parents want for their own child, or children. That's what society should want for all children. When we were at Normandale Hills, we had a saying that all kids are all of our responsibility, All the time. And that was from the administration to our cooks and custodians for our, to our teachers, to our paraprofessionals.
I want to make sure that every kid has the opportunity to receive a high quality education. And that just drives me. That's my passion. And that's why I get excited about coming to work. On a regular basis, I've been really lucky to work with great professionals. And I think that's true of educators.
Certainly I can get better as a superintendent. But I think that for the most part, I've been put in situations where I've been able to. To work with really talented people and they're doing the right things. They want to work hard. They work hard [00:12:00] on behalf of students. They want to do it collaboratively with families.
And again, my role and my play in that has been to create some systems and structures to give them what they need. And then also to accelerate. That collaboration on behalf of all students. So I think it goes back a little bit, Jim, to mindset. What is the mindset that we bring as leaders to the organization?
And then how does that transcend the organization so that continuous improvement isn't just something that we talk about? It's really something that we live and we do on a regular basis.
[00:12:29] Dr. Jim: So digging in a little bit on the mindset comment that you had tell me a little bit more about what is the shift in mindset that needs to occur in K through 12 to successfully execute a continuous improvement culture.
[00:12:43] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: I really think that leadership transcends environments, right? And so I've been had the good fortune to work in non profit, but I think there are a lot of similarities from the work that I would do in a for profit world, though I've never formally been in that world, so it's hard for me to say completely.
I think it [00:13:00] goes back to that mindset. One of the things that is critical to me and I found great successes is really thinking from an asset based perspective. We always want more. I always want more for our students, for our staff, for our families, for the greater community. I think that's natural.
I do that as a parent all the time. And though I think my wife and I have been fortunate to have three healthy kids and provide a lot for them, but I always want to give them just a little bit more. That's who I am. And that's a little bit of that competitive side. Going back to how that plays out into my role as a superintendent.
I think it's really important to remind people of all the great things that we have and whether it was my time in Minneapolis, Rochester, Bloomington, and now to New Prague, we still have a lot. We have a lot of resources that we need to leverage. And so instead of spending time and energy thinking about what we could get or what else we could have I choose to put my energies into being thankful for what we have, and then trying to maximize whatever that might be [00:14:00] on behalf of our mission, which is a, which is again, the academic and social development of our students.
[00:14:05] Dr. Jim: I like what you said there where the focus in mindset Is on how do we maximize what we have versus focusing on things that we don't have. So tell me a little bit more about how that specific mindset is important in the K through 12 context in building the right kind of continuous improvement culture that isn't toxic.
[00:14:26] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: Yeah, I have a good buddy of mine who's a superintendent in a district about this size, and when we talk, believe it, about superintendency types of things, he reminds me that the system craves the status quo. The system craves the status quo, and I think that's true of any system, whether it's in public education or for profit, to be honest with you, or nonprofit.
The system craves the status quo. And so in that continuous improvement culture, we have to continue to push on the system in order to create new opportunities for our staff. I think we have limited energy. I [00:15:00] know I do. I really proud of the work that I'm able to do, but it's not, it being a father and a husband is to me, the most important work that I do.
And so trying to think about how we maximize the time that we do have. And focus our energies on the right things, right? There's a lot out there, but how do we stay laser focused on what those right things are? And so that clarity around, in our case, developing students, giving them, making sure our buildings are safe spaces for them, making sure that they have the opportunity to grow academically and social emotionally to me is why we are here, right?
And that I hope that transcends into the rest of the organization. So there's more of a focus on why we're here. And then using the resources that we have. In order to maximize the experience for students. At the same time, it's my job then as the leader working with other leaders and community members to see if we can find other resources to bring into the mix.
But teaching and learning is central to our [00:16:00] work and try, I talk about classrooms as being sacred spaces. So how do we ensure that we continue to give people what they want or what they need in those sacred spaces to meet the needs of our students?
[00:16:10] Dr. Jim: It's interesting that you mentioned systems crave the status quo. And when you think about building this continuous improvement culture within a K through 12 space it's, your principles will end up making or breaking this. So how did you filter this down to the principal level so that they're actually active in building this sort of culture, what were the steps that you took?
[00:16:33] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: I think going back to my experiences, both as a graduate student I've also had the good fortune of working for several local universities and colleges, the University of Minnesota, Concordia University in St. Paul and developing principal leaders and superintendent leaders. And that's a work that I really enjoyed.
But one of the things that I have done, and so again when leaders are learning, so too will our students, right? When the adults in the organization are learning, so too will the [00:17:00] students is I walk people through a really reflective activity. When we're doing that to tape, what is your vision?
We used to have people write philosophies of education or philosophies of leadership. And working with a mentor of mine, Dr. Rick Dressen, who was a. long time superintendent in Minnesota. We created a place where we share, we have students right there, their vision. So my, my, my mission statement, excuse me, is to be a visionary leader who works to maximize the potential in an organization through creating a culture of continuous improvement for all.
And it doesn't mean anything to this podcast, but what it does mean is that it shows, I share it with you to show the clarity that I have. About the role I share that with the principles at the beginning of the year, and I asked him to think about this is who I am. And this is what I'm bringing to this space, especially when I was brand new to the organization.
And so it's those small things that add up. That I believe make a difference over time to how you create that culture that's focused on continuous [00:18:00] improvement.
[00:18:00] Dr. Jim: So when you walked your principles through that mission statement of yours, how has it received and what actions did they take as a result of you verbalizing that?
[00:18:10] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: Nobody threw anything at me, Jim, which is always a good thing. And I think it allows them to understand where I'm coming as a leader. And so it breaks down those barriers as much as I try to not be someone who's about a positional title, I all know that I'm writing their evaluations, so they're there that can be intimidating.
I try to minimize that and more make it about how I make it more about how we're going to work together to have them grow, for their own continuous improvement, their growth on behalf of The organization or their particular school. So I think it just gives them clarity about who I am and how I'm an approach to this work.
I would hope they haven't, they don't remember all of what I talked about and I certainly don't want to make it about me cause it's never about me. It should be about the students, but I think it just helps. I think it helped create that [00:19:00] relationship quicker and maybe at a deeper level.
[00:19:03] Dr. Jim: So when you look at that you've got the continuous improvement philosophy. You've built out a mission statement that you're verbalizing and you're saying all this stuff out loud. How does that show up in your interactions with your principle? Principles. And how you develop them.
[00:19:18] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: In my time in New Prague, I'm really fortunate to have some really strong principal leaders. Many of them have been here for years. So I'm learning along with them. We've hired some new principals but not a lot since during my, my short tenure here. But it's really putting them in a space to, to give them what they need to be successful for their own professional growth.
But then also what do they need for their staff to grow the staff? And I think that's still a work in progress, to be honest with you. We faced some challenges last year in terms of a budget reductions and just some other things just that, that sprung up in the year. So we haven't been as focused on as laser focused as I would like us to get [00:20:00] to.
But again, that's, that systems and structures work that we're doing. But I think it just shows them that they have the autonomy. They have the. The expectation is that they'll continue to be the lead learners in their building and then that filters through the, their particular buildings.
[00:20:14] Dr. Jim: You mentioned that your principles have been there for years and you're looking at building this continuous learning culture. You're talking about your mission statements from the other side of the table.
If I'm a legacy employee in an organization and there's a new, um, chief in town, I can easily fall back and say I can wait this person out and just keep my head down. So if you encountered it, what were the steps that you took to bring them alongside and get more momentum and moving forward with your vision and your mission?
[00:20:44] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: I think that goes back to how I've approached any time I've been fortunate enough to get a new position like this, whether it was as a principal or a superintendent, I go on a listening tour and I try to talk to as many people as I possibly can. And so I spent, I think five [00:21:00] days in New Prague.
I was still a principal. Thankfully my leaders in Bloomington allowed me to do that. Just sitting down and talking to principals, directors, union leaders. And I asked him three really simple questions. What's working. What's not, I don't want to know name names. I don't want to get into that, but what's not working.
And then my last question I think is the most important. How do we. Make this a better organization. And from the very beginning, it's that mindset that I am not here as the superintendent to fix the new Prageria schools. Cause I don't think it's broken. I think there's way more good than there's not, but how do you develop that collaborative approach with the leaders who are going to do a lot of the work?
And they're leading in their particular buildings, and they're creating the culture within your buildings. First and foremost, I think you have to have relationships. You have to have personal and professional relationships with people within the organization. And again, I've been thankful to work with really great professionals.
They're really good at what they do. And they're just good people. [00:22:00] I go back to my time in Bloomington and I know I've moved now to a different chair, but I'm really lucky and I think it's luck. And I think it's part of the culture that we've developed. I've never had to ask somebody to work harder.
During my time as a leader, I've asked people to slow down a little bit because they don't, I don't want to wear people out, but in quite a, and I'm being very honest, I've never had to ask somebody that I work with to work harder. And I think it's because of the, and I believe I had to be a pretty hard charging person who's pretty passionate about this work.
I think that has to, the culture development has to do, has to get some credit for that.
[00:22:34] Dr. Jim: So taking that a step further. So when we look at that mindset of answering the question, how do we make it better? What was the impact of that question? On the level of empowerment that you may have seen at the principal level and how did that show up at the educator?
Level as well?
[00:22:50] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: Yeah, I'm really proud, especially as a as a principal, because I had a longer tenure there that I was able to develop really great teacher leaders and some of those teacher leaders have [00:23:00] migrated into the world of administration but honestly, some of the people that I'm the most proud of.
Looked at me at, so they were maybe on the journey to become an administrator and they looked at me and they say I want to teach teaching is my passion. And I said, that's great because I believe we need teachers. We need leaders at all different levels of the organization from the administration to the teachers, to our support staff.
The more leaders we have, the better off we are. Maybe some people would be nervous if there was too many leaders. That excites me. My job is to then curate all the great ideas coming from those leaders. On behalf of the mission vision of that particular, in that case, that school, but being able to create leadership to empower them on behalf of the organization, I think can, it has a compounding effect that helps create that culture of continuous improvement.
[00:23:51] Dr. Jim: What I take away from your answer is that in a lot of ways, the, how do we make it better conversation or question was used as a [00:24:00] development engine for your entire organization to build leadership depth. So how did you systematize that? So you have line of sight into, okay, who are the emerging people within my organization that I might need to consider?
Hey, if there's a growth opportunity, this is a person that I might slot into those growth opportunities.
[00:24:17] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: Yes. Part of it is, this is a relationship business. I talk about, real estate is about location. I firmly believe that school leadership is about relationships. And it's that professional relationship, but it's also the personal relationship, knowing where people are at in their life when they're able to do some things, maybe when we can push and we can pull, knowing their time and talents, knowing what their passions are.
And so By having that background information and creating what I would hope is deep relationships with people I've been able to put them in positions where I think they can do work that is exciting to them that they feel empowered to do. And really create that synergy, if you will, across the organization.
And it's a, it's [00:25:00] about getting to know people. It's about understanding them. It also has to be about having real clarity about what we want and where we need to go. There are a lot of great ideas. I think at times continuous improvement gets bogged down because we try to do too many things at one time. And I would rather do continuous improvement initiatives or strategies, a smaller number with a great deal of fidelity. rather than doing a lot of things and a lot of flashy things over time. And so it's that long approach or a lot of that long view to this work that I think is critical as well.
[00:25:31] Dr. Jim: Yeah, I like your emphasis on focusing in on a smaller number of things with greater discipline versus all the things that might pop up. I really like a lot of the things that we've covered here. I think one of the things that I'm curious about is when you're building a continuous improvement culture. You're looking to answer how do we make things better?
You're filtering this down into the organization and empowering those people underneath you. How are you getting line of sight when it comes to progress against objectives?
[00:25:59] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: I'm going to [00:26:00] oversimplify. That's a really good question, Jim. I'm going to oversimplify it and it goes back to me for the importance of communication and the role that communication plays. I would. Hope that people think that we over rather than under communicate so that people have the information that's out there so that fundamentally, I think, is important.
And when we talk about communication, it's to do all different stakeholders within the organization, not just the leadership or the teachers or the formalized leaders. It's really everyone. And then the other piece, I think, to that question is it's clarity about what we're working on. Again, I see I think one of the challenges in public education continuous improvement is you don't see results over time.
You don't see results just like that. So you have to take that longitudinal view, that long view and chart out a plan and then stick to that plan with some benchmarks along the way to, to hopefully identify your successes. but also to continue to repel the organization forward through [00:27:00] additional strategies.
So it's not a short fix, right? These are longitudinal plans that you hopefully put into place. And results over time.
[00:27:08] Dr. Jim: So how often or what was your cadence when it came to communicating progress? How did you build that into your first year and subsequent years?
[00:27:17] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: I think it's talking about data. I think it's talking about the things that work and I, and again I think it's the caution to people that this is a long term plan, less is more, and when it comes to improvement not in school improvement for sure, I think it's a less is more approach.
And so how do you focus on what you identify as the things that need to work on, but then build strategies and build initiatives on top of one another? I referenced synergy earlier. There is a one particular thing that we're going to do. We can't bring in a new curriculum or we can't provide just one aspect of professional development, and that's going to fix a portion or an aspect of K through 12 education.
It's what are the different things that we're going to do over time to become more [00:28:00] effective in our instructional approaches. And it's communicating those, it's celebrating the small wins that take place, because if you're going to look at this from a longitudinal perspective, the system craves the status quo again.
And so you'll want it. There's the tendency to go back to the way we've always done things. And as a leader, we have to push up against that.
[00:28:18] Dr. Jim: We've covered a lot of ground in this conversation. I think one of the things that would be helpful is for you to think back to. What we've talked about building a continuous improvement culture in the K through 12 space. If there's another principal or superintendent that's listening to this conversation, what are the core elements of the framework that you put into place that they should consider adopting in their districts to accomplish the same thing that you've been able to accomplish so far?
[00:28:46] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: Yeah, I've never really thought of it that way, but I, three things came to mind. Relationships, again, professional relationships, and they also have to know. The bandwidth of your people that you're fortunate enough to work with. So that personally what are they [00:29:00] able to where can you put them in spaces where they're successful professionally and personally?
I think communication, I always say communication breeds trust and a lack of communication breeds mistrust. So how do you have a regular cadence of communication going on in the organization that is shared with all? But also then how do you communicate what your priorities are to within the organization at that particular time?
And the last thing that came to mind is empowerment of the professionals, right? The more that we can empower the people to do the work I think the testament of leadership is not necessarily what happens during their tenure. It's what happens once they leave. And what are the things that withstand the test of time?
Best practice hopefully withstands the test of time. So my hope is that the things that we put in place make this a better organization, but it's also, are they going to stick around once I'm no longer here, right? Because if they're good, they should. And if we've done it, we will have empowered [00:30:00] people to carry those things forward again, on behalf of the the betterment of the organization.
[00:30:05] Dr. Jim: I like how you've tied in, Long term sustainability as part of that framework and mindset. So I appreciate that. So if people want to continue the conversation with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?
[00:30:16] Dr. Andrew Vollmuth: Oh they could certainly email me. I'd be happy to pick up the phone and have a conversation with people. I love to learn from others. One of my. Professional goals this year is to continue my networking both within the local community in Minnesota, but also on a national perspective.
And again, I think leadership matters. I believe strongly in that. And I do think leadership transcends. And so my goal would be to learn from people in K 12, but honestly, I think I also learn a lot from people who are in for profit organizations or leading nonprofits, whatever it might be, because I think we, we have the same goal to make our organization the best as possible in our case for our students to learn.
The students and staff and families of the new [00:31:00] Prairie schools. But I'd be happy to have phone conversations, reach out with others. And I continue to, I look forward to learning with others along the way.
[00:31:07] Dr. Jim: Awesome stuff. So I appreciate you hanging out with us, Andy. And I think the listeners are going to learn a lot from this conversation. When I think back to the conversation that we had, there's a couple of things that stand out that I think are. Key factors that drive success in building a continuous improvement culture within the K through 12 space.
I think first is that sense of mission or purpose that you need to build within the organization. And one of the things that you mentioned is that a mantra of yours were was along the lines of all kids are all of our responsibilities all the time. And that Defining a north star for your organization in any organization is going to help you answer the why for a building a continuous improvement culture.
Because if you haven't connected deeply to the why of your organization, progress to that goal of [00:32:00] improving is going to be difficult to attain. But the other aspect of what you talked about that I thought was really important was your emphasis on embedding a learning culture within your organization leaders have to be constantly learning and applying what they learn, and it seems like you put an emphasis on that, which also helps drive that continuous improvement culture.
And as you mentioned, All systems love the status quo. So if you're not learning and you're not answering the why question, you're going to stay stagnant. So I think those are important lessons to draw from this conversation. For those of you who have been listening to this discussion or this chat, we appreciate you hanging out.
If you liked what we talked about, make sure you leave us a review. If you haven't already joined our community and make sure you do that, and then tune in next time where we'll have another leader hanging out with us and sharing with us the game changing insights that help them build a high performing team.