At our Christmas celebration this year, I got out the guitar as our grandkids wanted to sing Christmas songs.  Eliza is 5 and Harry just turned 3.  Harry loves to sing.  Eliza loves to sing – quietly.  So when we got to the last verse of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” (the traditional version – not the Jackson 5/Bruce Springsteen one), Eliza covered her ears and stopped singing.

And isn’t that what we do, too.  When things get to be too much, we just want to cover our ears, bow our heads, and wait until it’s over.

Or, some people want to go back to “the way it was.”

Sadly, we can do neither of those things.

Therefore. let’s reflect a bit before disclosing THE ONE THING I learned this year.  Reflection allows us to do one of five things:

  • Maintain what we’ve been doing;
  • Increase what we’ve been doing;
  • Decrease what we’ve been doing;
  • Stop what we’ve been doing; or
  • Start doing something new.

It’s interesting to note that if you’re going to do the second, third, fourth or fifth, you actually need to do 2 of the things on the list.  Otherwise, burnout results if you just “Do More.”

Also, if all you do is the first thing (keep doing what you’re doing), you’re going to keep getting what you’ve been getting.  Actually, you’ll get less, since the law of diminishing returns states that the more effort you put into a current practice, the fewer results you’ll get, so the same effort will make things worse.

Last year’s observations from 2023 remain the same, so let’s review those too:

    • People don’t read.  How ironic that you’re reading this.  People today want to see videos – they don’t want to read instructions.  And if something has a lot of text with not a lot of white space, it will be met with the most annoying hashtag ever – TL/DR.  Too long/didn’t read.  Our “soundbites” society and penchant for “Headline News” has trained people to glance at the headline and the first few lines of the article, and then they believe they’re read enough.  However, since writing today is taught to offer a particular “spin” rather than just reporting the facts, the real message is usually buried several paragraphs into the manuscript in the spirit of “storytelling.”  Storytelling is great when you want to teach a lesson.  In journalism, however, it’s called “burying the lead.”  Want to know more?  Let’s see if there’s anything about it on YouTube.
    • People don’t listen.  And, if they do, very few listen for understanding; they listen in order to respond.  If someone shares a situation, their story will be met with another similar situation by the person they’re conversing with.  People also don’t want to listen to speeches, but they will listen to podcasts.  Why?  Podcasts align with what interests them.  Most other things that should be listened to are rules or guidelines, and then people will hear what they want to hear.
    • People expect technology to do their work and work the way they expect it to work, rather than realizing they need to change their habits if they want to become more productive, and maintain security and compliance.  I probably don’t have to go into detail about this one, since many times, I have the same expectations, and get frustrated with things like 2 Factor Authentication (2FA), which means I now need to have my cell phone with me whenever I’m on a computer and need to access a program.
    • People expect immediate results.  I like to call these things, “miracles.”  I can’t do them…but I know a guy who did.
    • People need time and guidance to be able to change since we’re in an era of perpetual change, but, unfortunately, they don’t have the time to take steps to enable change.  Change happens. And if we’ve learned anything over the past four  years, it’s that we need to expect the unexpected and be prepared for it.  As we continue to see and hear in the news, there are many times that we cannot control the situations we suddenly find ourselves in.  Because it’s difficult to take time to reflect, reconsider, and open our heart to what we’re being called to do, we just “keep busy,” rather than not just taking, but making time for what really matters.

So what have I learned in 2024?  All these things combine to create one thing:

People want change, but they don’t want TO change.

What does that mean?  Recall that change is represented by the symbol Δ – delta.  And Δ = Δ2.  That is – one change will lead to more changes.  I’ve talked with countless school leaders who are looking achieve certain outcomes, but then expect everything else to remain the same.  It’s the converse of the fallacy of “The Silver Bullet” solution.  There is never just one thing to change that will create a desired outcome.  Refer to that list of 5 things we can do at the top of this article to see why that’s true.  It’s the essence of systems thinking, which is what this Web site, now celebrating it’s 20th year on the Web, is all about.

May we all be blessed with a safe, healthy and peaceful 2025, especially with some of the events we’ll experience next month.  Perhaps this is the year that we need to learn that God is in control – no matter what we think we may be control of.

© Michael V. Ziemski, SchoolAdvancement, 2008-2024 (Original Publication Date: 20241230)