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Revolutionizing Educational Leadership with Danny Bauer: From Positive Classrooms to Visionary Ruckus Makers | E199
Curious about transforming your approach to educational leadership? Join us for a conversation with Danny Bauer, the visionary behind Better Leaders, Better Schools and the new ruckusmakers.club. Danny shares his journey from promoting incremental improvements to championing radical, exponential change. He reveals the inspirations behind his latest venture and offers insights on how to foster a community of innovative school leaders ready to revolutionize education.
Discover the power of shifting focus from negative behaviors to celebrating positive actions in classrooms. We discuss the transformative impact of positive reinforcement, emotional intelligence, and the practical Positive Spotlight Tool. Through personal stories, learn how recognizing bright spots and practicing gratitude can create a more rewarding learning environment for both educators and students. Danny’s strategies provide actionable steps to reduce disciplinary actions and enhance classroom engagement.
Leadership is more than just steering the ship; it's about amplifying successes and inspiring your team to greatness. Explore a five-step tool designed to boost leadership effectiveness by celebrating and connecting achievements to your broader mission. We also delve into attracting and nurturing visionary "ruckus makers" in your organization, emphasizing the importance of psychological safety and collaboration. This episode is packed with strategies to foster a culture of shared vision and excellence, ensuring lasting, positive change in educational settings.
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Hey there, pbl Simplified audience. I'm your host, ryan Stoyer, and today we've got an expert spotlight for you. We've been in the series looking at model school. What makes a model school, what are the things that make them tick, what are their core values? And then we've been interviewing the movement makers that started this. They're people that are sometimes misunderstood, often driven. They've got a great vision, just like you, movement maker. They're just like you and they need support. And who better to bring on, I think, than Danny Bauer, who supports principles and innovative systems across the country?
Ryan Steuer:Let me give you a quick bio here. Danny's a three times bestselling author and host of the Better Leaders, better Schools podcast, ranks in the top 5.5%, so of all podcasts. So if you haven't checked it out, you need to his. His community is ruckus makers and they do school differently. So instead they make shifts from old, traditional and broken ways of education to new, resilient and different ways of education, which is what we're all about. It's who we've been interviewing. So, danny, thanks for being on the podcast. I think you're having a great time on our podcast.
Danny Bauer:Yeah, it's an honor, ryan, and I appreciate you having me on. My wife tells me too you should just say top 1%, it's good, you know it's good enough, and everybody says 5%, or thank you for getting the 0.5, right, so? But either way, I guess that's a function of ego, you know, and what I've learned over the years. We just had an event in Nashville. A lot of what I was teaching around the concept of sustainable leadership is the shedding of ego. You know it gets in the way and so, anyways, just sharing that. You know who cares about your show you know right.
Ryan Steuer:It might just be accuracy, but we'll go with 1%. Either way, it's up there. I think you've got one of the best names. I think Better leaders, better schools. When leaders get better, schools get better. I think it's a super important mission that you're on.
Danny Bauer:Well, you want to hear something crazy? I don't know if this sounds stupid. We could stop, but I hate the name. Oh really, yeah, do you want to hear why?
Ryan Steuer:I do because I legitimately, I kind of authentically, you love it. I do. Yeah, great name. It gets right to the point, I think. But why do you hate it?
Danny Bauer:So I used to love it and I liked it, you know, and loved it for the reason you did. It's pretty clear, sort of like who's it for and what the benefit is. You know, if you do improve yourself a bit, your school should improve. Well, I've been in the game now with, uh, better leaders, better schools um, nine years, almost almost ten, but actually by the time this show releases I think it might be the 10-year anniversary, which is like kind of wild yeah.
Danny Bauer:I think I will and I'll wear a little hat to anniversary had the the biggest shift in my thinking and leaders. Reserve the right, as data comes in, to change your mind. I'm not playing a game of incremental change, right? And what's funny? So I've had better leaders, better schools, forever, right? Pain point number one it's very long. So anytime you type it in as a website or my email it's just like super long. That's not a great reason to dislike it. The second reason is the funny thing I'm always talking about ruckus makers do school different. Second reason is the funny thing I'm always talking about ruckus makers do school different, and you already mentioned making shifts from old, broken, traditional to new, different, creative ways of educating. And that game is a game of exponential improvement, not incremental improvement.
Ryan Steuer:Yeah.
Danny Bauer:But the name you know better leaders, better, that's just, that's incremental. That's not the game I play. So that's the. That's not the game I play. So that's the challenge for me. And the funny thing is, you know, I pull on edges all the time. Ruckus makers are the heroes of my story and the opposite of that are the play it safe principles. Right, there's nothing wrong with them, it's just a different way of educating. They maintain the status quo and they do improve, but it's, again, incremental improvement. Here's the thing. It's doing what we've always done just a little bit better, right, and that's not the game I play.
Danny Bauer:So I've had that epiphany in year nine and I'm like, oh no, what have I done to myself? So? Long story short, that'll never get shut down. There's brand recognition. There's tons of useful resources. People still visit the site all the time, listen to the podcast, uh. But I have launched a new website called the ruckus makers dot club, right, okay, and I don't know if I'll start putting blogs up there. Probably will Right now. It's basically just a bunch of really cool swag, right, because I've been asked shirts, hats, all this stuff and different ways to connect with other school leaders. But I know we're here to talk about bright spots, so let me pivot us back that way. But I just wanted to let you know I don't like the name Better Leaders, better Schools anymore.
Ryan Steuer:Well, well, I like the reveal, uh, I think it's. I think, uh, it reminds me kind of a 10x is easier than 2x, type of thing.
Danny Bauer:Yes, right like we're in. I was in strategic coach, so dan sullivan wrote that book and, uh, his and his influence definitely started to rattle me. And then, uh, I'm also part of something called the category design academy and, at least from a business perspective, that's the best. Definitely started to rattle me. And then I'm also part of something called the Category Design Academy and, at least from a business perspective, that's the best investment I've ever made in my business and they've really changed my thinking a lot in so many good ways too.
Ryan Steuer:Yeah, there's some good tangents there, I think. Where are you spending your time and you're 20% 80% of the Pareto Principle, right? And what if 80 you spending your time and you're 20 80 the prado principal, right? And what if it's 80 of your time and in that, 20 of the most valuable right? That kind of 10x thing for sure. Yeah, uh, maybe that's a good place to launch our podcast today. Uh, so we're gonna.
Ryan Steuer:Okay, you know, we'll swing into bright spots, which I think is a place to, as we've been going through this, this series of model schools. I'm asking our movement makers, like, where are the bright spots in your school districts that we can share? And what I find is that the movement makers they're already amplifying bright spots. Like they see this idea and for me it came from the Heath Brothers book Switch when they're looking at large change process, the idea is you need to replicate and magnify the bright spots rather than go in and magnify the bright spots rather than go in and fix all the little holes and little problems. So you're trying to amplify rather than fix. So the Heath brothers, I think primarily out in the business world, although some of their books come back into education. But how do you think this applies to education? We're kind of in this a little bit, but this idea of magnifying the bright spots, how do we use this in change process? It's everything.
Danny Bauer:I mean, you know I teach a lot on the idea of the strangest secret. You know Earl Nightingale, 1950s and the first like gold record for motivational speaking, and the punchline of the strangest secret is we become what we think about. Right, and that's the funny thing is that, you know, a lot of folks try to just fix all the errors, the problems, the issues, right. And Nick Peterson, who wrote a fantastic 31-page book that changed my life, called Bumpers, right, 31 pages. Think about that, that 31 pages. You know that that might be the lesson for the you know the movement maker listening right now is that how do you communicate a powerful idea in as few words as possible? Books, we think 200, 300, whatever pages, 31, and this book changed my life. It also inspired me, him and Dan Sullivan, writing shorter form books, and so the last three I've written have all been 100 pages or less. So you get a result in as few words as possible, which I think people you know respect. So that's the thing is like you can spend your time and energy trying to fix everything, and you certainly shouldn't ignore problems, but if you can suspend judgment for a minute and test out, okay, what if I just focus on the bright spots. You know, what would that do for our culture?
Danny Bauer:I learned that as a teacher. Ryan, right, it was a discipline point of view. I don't remember the program or whatever discipline point of view. I don't remember the program or whatever Probably had the word compassionate, I'm sure, in there. But the thing is they taught us stop focusing on all the kids that are doing stuff you don't want and focus on all the kids that are doing the right thing, so coming on time, being prepared, organized, answering questions, engaging in the class. And a funny shift happened as a teacher when I started to do this. Not all, because there's some kids that are just really struggling, there's adults that are just really struggling, but the kids and adults in the middle what was they saw? Oh, danny only gives attention. Or in this case, mr Bowers, the teacher gives attention to people doing the right stuff. So if I want his attention because most of that behaviors, attention seeking behavior I need to be prepared or come on time and in it changed, it changed the classroom. The other thing that's funny about sort of classroom management, just a a quick, quick story here.
Danny Bauer:The second I learned that my presence impacted the entire environment. You know what I mean and started to really do deep work on me on the inside. Once I started that journey, ryan, I never wrote up another discipline referral. What changed? I changed. The kids didn't change, the behaviors didn't change, but how I responded. You know how personally I might take something or how angry I got or whatever. Right, I had new tools and since the things weren't triggering me, I could still give consequence, whatever, but I didn't have to throw them out of the class and all of that.
Danny Bauer:So, bringing it all back to what we're talking about you focus on the good, you'll get more of the good. You focus on the bad. I promise you'll get more of the bad. And I have a tool I'm sure we'll talk about it later. It's called the Positive Spotlight Tool. It's for free download on the site, but I could walk you know the movement maker through it if you want. And that's a way to focus on the positive and get more of, basically, the promises. Get more of what you want when you want it.
Ryan Steuer:Yeah, I do want you to walk us through it, because I want to leave people with practical tools, but I want to say just a little, before we get to it, I want to hold you back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, hold it back. Right. It's like because there's this human element of us and kids to this whole idea. Right, because I remember in the classroom one time and you know, alex had a pretty difficult go and school wasn't easy for him, and one time I don't remember what I asked him to do, but I pushed him just a little too hard and he just says, you know, across the room he says, well, after you, mr Stoyer, I said well, thank you for you know, respecting me and saying Mr Stoyer, I really appreciate that, but I think you're going to have to go, so we.
Ryan Steuer:But it just reminded me of this idea of you know how we respond is so important, because he really, really he wanted some kind of conflict, right, that's conflict, right, why he brought this up. He wanted it and it's like, well, I don't think I'm gonna take that one alex, right, you know, and just a few yeah, right, and we moved on really totally yeah, it's a hook, don't bite the hook.
Danny Bauer:And I had that stuff happen all the time too, even though I think I was an effective teacher, had great relationships with students or adults. But it's a hook. And here's the thing. I taught sixth grade to seniors in high school, so I got a lot of experience between six through 12. There's nothing funnier than an adult who loses their mind and doesn't have control of themselves. It's very entertaining, probably more entertaining than the lesson you wanna teach, and so students and adults love people who are not very emotionally intelligent or healthy, because they're just wild and entertaining to just observe. So you know what I mean. If you don't want to be the show right or a clown, get your stuff together.
Ryan Steuer:Yeah, right, so there's that personal work that we need to do right as adults you know, to interact and drive our classroom in the right place.
Ryan Steuer:So let's come back to bright spots. Yeah, it doesn't seem like the natural place for us to go back to bright spots. Um, yeah, it doesn't seem like the natural place for us to go is to look for bright spots, right, like it took kind of a program right to come in for you to like, see the value of it same thing with me, right, and even in that instance we've been through some kind of uh, I don't know some positive reaction. You know, training, training, yeah, yeah, some piece like that, right, that had a top of mind. So why is it so hard for us to find bright spots, do you think? Is it like a human thing? Is it built into the system? What are your thoughts?
Danny Bauer:I know gratitude's a muscle, right, and so you could exercise it and it could get stronger, I think probably. Listen, I'm, you know, scientist. I can't tell you about, like, how humans evolved, but I think the assertion I want to make is that a lot of times it's just maybe survival. You know, I've heard people speak about this quite a bit. You know, and obviously back in the days of cavemen, right, like if you're going to get eaten by a saber tooth tiger, you know you need to know if that sound is really the tiger or if it's just the rustling of branches. You know it's about survival. Now, these days we don't have that kind of danger lurking, if we're lucky, depending on where we live. You know, I'm very fortunate here in Syracuse, new York, there's no tigers that are going to eat me, right, and it's a generally very safe area. But my point is my brain doesn't know that and it still wants me to survive. So I think that's what happens is that you know, it's just like sort of the human DNA and years of evolution just trying to keep us alive. I could be wrong.
Danny Bauer:The other thing too, and what's funny, you know, so funny, like I see a lot of posts these days, and they're very good posts. Social media phones are killing our kids, right, and there's research about how that's messing with their brain chemistry and the way they see themselves, you know, and there's a lot of negative outcomes. Here's what all those posts are. Adults are susceptible to the same stuff. They're just as addicted to the kids, you know, to the phones as the kids are, and it's messing us up. And if you're not careful with your feeds, right, yeah, there could be a lot of negativity coming through. Whatever you're into Facebook, x, instagram, it doesn't matter. But what people don't realize is how those products work, where we're the product and when you interact with posts, even just looking or liking and commenting, they're gonna feed you more of that type of post and before you know it, you got a lot of maybe at times, crazy stuff in your feed.
Danny Bauer:I actually quit twitter, uh, for, like, tune it. I had 10 000 something followers, right. I was like, oh man, this is a massive audience and people I could help and I kissed it goodbye. I recently rejoined a few months ago. So at hey, danny bobber, if you want to follow my very small account at this point, but it was interesting how fresh and clean. The feed was now too. I didn't have all the stuff, so I'm a lot more cognizant of how I interact on the platforms.
Danny Bauer:But, to your point, I think we're more negative because that's also what keeps us on platforms. That's why the news is negative, because if you got an enemy, if you got stuff to be mad about, you're gonna watch the entire show and, uh, want to see what happens tomorrow. Like, does that person, whether it's biden or trump or whoever you know, pick your flavor? Like I'm sure every news is like, this person needs to be locked up for whatever reason it does. You know they're all criminals, supposedly right, so right, but you can really get amped up into that stuff, yeah and so, um, I just try to be really mindful of that.
Ryan Steuer:So so maybe the takeaway on our you know our, our non-neuroscience podcast at the moment right is we don't know why, but it takes work to get to the bright spots right, to get to the positive thinking, right To get to the positive thinking you brought up. Earl Nightingale and my late mentor had challenged us to listen to the Strangest Secret every day for a month. It's just this positive message, right, that keeps pumping into you every day and decidedly is 15 minutes, and it made a huge difference for my month and probably my life really just seeing things differently, because for those 15 minutes I was pumped full of positivity and the rest of my feed is not going to intentionally do that in any way.
Danny Bauer:Right and we become what we think about. So it's great that we have that connection. Was that Dan who recommended doing that each day?
Ryan Steuer:Yeah, yeah, dan Miller, amazing. Yeah, I connection was that dan who who recommended doing that?
Danny Bauer:hd. Yeah, yeah, amazing.
Ryan Steuer:Yeah, I wrote forward to my book yeah, and, and just loved this, uh, this old record that he used to listen to. Right now I'm listening to you, you know, and just the decades of work that that you know, really one talk has done in 15 minutes.
Ryan Steuer:You talk about the brevity and, but yet impact, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, it was a great influence on my life and, uh, and that's, that's at least one piece that will always stick with me and I've passed it on to people that I'm working with too, right as we, as we coach so here's the interesting thing, ryan, in in a aha for the, you you know, movement maker, listening like success leaves clues, right, and so it's interesting that I could bring that up and you instantly know it.
Danny Bauer:And then there's a connection to Dan, and Dan learned it from somebody else who probably coached and mentored him, but I too had a to do. That reminds me, not daily, but monthly, and it's linked to the spotify playlist of that record, right. And so you know again, getting your mindset right is 100, the foundation of your success.
Ryan Steuer:So yeah, yeah you want to talk about the tool or yeah, let's do, I do. I want to jump to the practical side now. Um, so the top of spotlight tool uh, right, download comes to you. You get the tool and then you also give us a video to walk us through it. Yes, so I've got it pulled up. We'll link it in the show notes. So podcast, see it and and check it out. Um, why don't you walk us through a little bit how you use it and what, how you recommend it?
Danny Bauer:Right.
Danny Bauer:So you know, if you download it, you'll see there's there's five columns, three rows, so it's basically just five steps. The three rows is just, uh, can you do it three times, right, what we're going to walk you through. So every school teacher, administrator, you know, staff member they're probably fairly good at celebrating, right, and the problem is they stop there. That's only step one, so let's just, let's all agree on that like celebration, here's something amazing happening on campus, so the tool makes you go deeper. Step two is the significance, right, why does it matter? You know that this awesome thing happened, and digging into that usually when you dig into significance, you start getting those good feelings, that the same good feelings you get from a Facebook notification or whatever, right, like, oh, okay, this is good. And then endorphins are there and that kind of thing. So, depth significance, important. Step three, though then connect, and I I know, through the bright spots that you've had on the show prior to my episode and what's going to happen after. There's people doing really good work, and it's probably aligned to mission, vision and values too, right, and so the connect piece is this thing we celebrated the significance of why it matters. Now connect it to the big picture, whether that is mission, vision or values, you can choose. Choose your adventure right there, but connect the dots.
Danny Bauer:Amplify is then step four, which is how can you take it a bit further, right? So how many right leaders say, okay, let's celebrate this thing. Now, how do we get more of it? Right? What's the next step? Because you've done it, let's keep doing it. The whole point of the tool is to continue to, um, get more of what you want. I'm looking at the tool now and just kind of laughing because the earl nightingale quote is on the top of it too. So we're coming full circle.
Danny Bauer:So, amplify, what's the next step? And then the last piece as well. Because, leaders, you know, having simple tools like this to make the complex job easy, how are you going to communicate it out? Right? So, in not just in one way, but you know, brainstorm a variety of ways that you could communicate the same story, because there's formal ways like staff meetings and that kind of thing, or the weekly newsletter. But then there's all the informal stuff when you just happen to meet, like a parent in the community or connecting with a colleague in the hallway. So, just to review real quick again, you celebrate that.
Danny Bauer:Step one. Step two the significance. Why does it matter? Step three connect it to your vision and values. Step four amplify. Two the significance. Why does it matter? Step three connected to your vision and values. Step four amplify. What's the next step? And step five how are you going to tell the story? Right, because when you start telling the story, here's the thing If you tell a compelling story, people also tell that story. Right, and stuff spreads by word of mouth. Here we are nearly 100 years after earl nightingale uh created the strangest secret, and we're revealing the punchline on this podcast today, right? So you want to craft good stories, too, that people can retell as well yeah, so a lot of things to unpack.
Ryan Steuer:I think the first one for me when I went through it was and I wanted you to go through all five steps, so I appreciate that, because then I want the leader, the movement maker that's listening, to be like well, that sounds like a lot, right, but one it's not. The tool is very clear. Danny's how to videos like four, four or five minutes, but you're getting so much more out of the spotlight, like if you you recognize, know, you recognize someone at a faculty meeting. You know three people before everything starts and everybody claps and it's done Versus.
Ryan Steuer:How can you connect that to show the significance and the purpose of what just happened connected to the mission, vision and values, this vision that you have, cause I claim the movement maker, it's your job to have the vision right. You're. You're crafting something that everybody wants to be a part of, something that's bigger than themselves. It's your job to have the vision right. You're crafting something that everybody wants to be a part of, something that's bigger than themselves. It's our job as leaders to craft that. So we need to bring it back. It's not just that. I saw, you know, susan, do you know a positive write-up on a student. That's important because that learner doesn't usually get that kind of treatment. And then it helps them the next three periods of their day and it references back to our vision to connect to every child every day, and you can put that out three times. So if you're doing this right and I think you're doing it you know consistently it's not more more time for you right, it's more impact. Is that fair, danny? How do you see people use this?
Danny Bauer:yeah, I mean it is a 10x impact type of thing I mean the the idea here you.
Danny Bauer:I really got into creating tools last year and I created 12 in a framework I call the automatic school. That framework doesn't matter, but the point is that I was providing tools to make the complex job simple right For movement makers, for ruckus makers, for leaders we love to support. And the whole point is, given our automatic ways of doing stuff right, you're just going to celebrate and leave it at that and you're missing so much when you could get so much more right. And since we're talking about bright spots, if you want to see more great stuff happening, just slow down for five minutes. You know, it's bullet points. You don't have to write Moby Dick and then that's. The thing is like, follow that five step process for celebrating people.
Danny Bauer:They say like, like positive praise is not very good if it's unspecific, right. And so this tool also forces you to think about why it matters. But again, connecting it to that vision, you know, and if you believe the assertion I made, that you know people will see that you're giving attention to folks that are doing it right, that will switch their mind too. Okay, I want to live out the vision too, to be recognized Because, at the end of the day, staff members from their leader want to know two things, you know, am I competent, am I doing a good job and do I belong here Right? Am I sort of like a part of this quote unquote family? So you can communicate those things by using this tool as well.
Ryan Steuer:I think so. I think it also gives you an opportunity to talk about your vision again. Right, I would claim that the leader's job is to talk about the vision all the time, until people can recite it back, until they're sick of it. And so, instead of just spouting it off at the beginning of the faculty meeting which might be fine now you get to connect it to the other work that other teachers are doing, other staff members are doing, and you're still talking about the vision and maybe a little more applicability. This is how the vision is being lived out over in you know, the West quad, right? And then that says oh. East quad says oh, hey, we should do that too. We want to live that out. Yeah, exactly, love the tool, love the simplicity of it. Really, exactly, love the tool, love the simplicity of it. Really, what do you think is a barrier to using it?
Ryan Steuer:I know somebody's listening thinking well, I've already got too much to do, I don't have an extra five minutes. But this is what great leaders do, right. Like I also know there are great leaders listening going oh, that's perfect. Like I'm going to put that, you know, on my clipboard and every time I walk around, like I'm'm gonna be able to bullet point that. That person that can't quite see the use of this, like what is the difference? You're like? Maybe you know that maybe they heard our unanticipated intro and said I don't want a 2x, I want a 10x. Like yeah, the great leaders make this a part of their system well, I don't know.
Danny Bauer:I hope not to offend any listener, but I'm not here to convince the unwilling right. If you don't think you don't know. I hope not to offend any listener, but I'm not here to convince the unwilling right. If you don't think you don't have time to get all this great, you know benefits and results getting more of what you want, people aligned to your vision doing the things that you want to see happen on campus and the results that you anticipate. If you don't have time for that, you know why are you even listening to this show. Are we here just to entertain you, to make the 30 minutes you ride to work feel a little bit better? Like, because you're not really. You know, again, it's incremental change. You know what I mean. So you have to ask yourself are you play a safe principle or ruckus maker? Do you want incremental improvement or exponential? If you want exponential improvement, use the tool. If you don't have time, I guess you don't, and good luck with your very average results. Right, like I'm not, I don't want to convince anybody. To be honest, if you want me to try, I will in 10 seconds, which is this pull up your phone, whether it's Android or iPhone and look at Screen Time app, right, and it's going to show you all the ways you waste your time, not making yourself or your school better. Right, and listen. It's not like I'm wasting time, like I do it as well. But my point is pull up the app and you'll find plenty of opportunity for five minutes to do the positive spotlight tool. So that that's my ten second convincing the unwilling. But otherwise, like you, probably don't have time.
Danny Bauer:You're so busy. You know what you know. Let me say this to you. I'm gonna get a little bit in their face. People that talk about how busy they are are low performers period full stop, right on the world stage I was taught by dr Michael Gervais executives, olympians, professional athletes nobody that does anything real talks about how busy they are. Right? You said how's my summer? I didn't say busy. We're all busy, we're all doing stuff, right? So on the world stage, you know what people talk about. If it's not busyness, they talk about recovery, rest, because you can't pour from an empty cup, right? So if you're too busy, busy, good luck with your average results.
Ryan Steuer:That's where I'm at with that it's actually one of the reasons I bring you on, danny. I love it you did. You had a similar statement at some point the last time I had you on and we'll oh really that, yeah, I'd said we got some feedback from a listener that said, hey, could you recap? You know your major points at the end so we can get some takeaways. And you're like, yeah, no, if you're listening, you should be taking your takeaways from this and applying it to your work.
Danny Bauer:That's like yeah like that uh, yeah, well, you know, I mean, everybody's trying to get like. They look for hacks. And here's the thing if you buy any program, right, that says this is the shortcut toward whatever result, it's, it's baloney, right, that's the nice way of saying it on the show. There's no shortcuts. Yeah, there's no shortcuts. All right, you work hard. It takes time. You get results. Can you achieve things faster at times?
Ryan Steuer:sure, but there's no shortcuts, okay so, danny, while we've got this uh welcomed rabbit trail right here, so this is I was thinking about this stuff preparing for the podcast, right, so your work, yeah, with movement. You've got ruckus makers, we've got movement makers. Yeah, right, so, when you like, what do you think our job is in? Like, are we attracting the right people to support them? Are we attracting the Cynthia Brunos of the world who are ruckus makers and going to go to work, or are we converting people from you know, one side of your? What's the principle? The play it safe principle? Are we trying to convert some of those people to ruckus makers? Are we finding ruckus makers and supporting them?
Danny Bauer:I'm only trying to find ruckus makers right, yeah and uh. Um, I love cynthia and and it'd be interesting to see who else you know is cross-pollinating type of thing in our worlds. But again, not trying to convince the unwilling, it's kind of just like turning on the light and seeing who gets attracted to it. You know what I mean. That's kind of a cool metaphor, since we're talking about bright spots, I'm saying here's exponential results, here's this positivity and here's all these great things you could accomplish and enjoy right positivity and here's all these great things you could accomplish and enjoy right. And if that's a line for you, then let's keep jamming right.
Danny Bauer:Like folks that say that I'll never work and that kind of stuff. I just don't, I don't have the time and I don't want to debate. You know what I mean. Like you're either with me or not, and if not, god bless you right, do your thing. I'm not going to waste time also trying to. You know why didn't they listen or download the tool or sign up, and I don't. It's all good, like, just life is short, this is a finite amount of time, so I only have time helping people who are ready. Now there's folks, I think, that are not yet there and open-minded, and so they can turn into movement makers and ruckus makers for sure. But if people are like dug in and they're an open-minded, and so they can turn into movement makers and ruckus makers for sure. But if if people are like dug in and they're good to go and they're happy with what they're doing, I don't want to. I'm not trying to ruffle, you know, ruffle their feathers, so it's all good. Yeah, does that answer the question?
Ryan Steuer:yeah, I think so I I think, okay, I think it's helpful for listeners as well. I mean, I I like it, I appreciate it, but I I think our listeners right, movement makers, they're starting a pbl movement of some kind and and they will be misunderstood at some point. I think it's going to happen. So in some ways I think we need to be prepared for that. Um, you know our movement makers like they understand, um how to stand, but sometimes it's as we connect people from around the country, there's a bit of a loneliness that can happen in that and they just get so energized when we can connect right. I'm sure you know in your masterminds right, just part of the, the benefit of a mastermind is being with people that are in this space, yeah, doing hard work right in a different way.
Danny Bauer:I can't imagine why anybody does it alone, right, like I'm in different programs for myself, you know you are too. And then we offer these communities, too, community and cohort-based learning. That's the future, right, like that is the way. So you can go fast, go alone, right, you could go far, go together. So it's all these like different edges and you just have to choose. You know what you're about, so. But here's the thing, though, even though I'm not there to convince the unwilling, I have to acknowledge that I have a distinct benefit. Like everybody, I had the pleasure of working with they all. They chose to be there, like nobody made them be there, and that's different than a classroom teacher who hears your kids right, you don't get to choose that and a school leader who, like, hears your staff.
Danny Bauer:Now, there's things you can do, right, obviously to change things around, but at least initially, you know you have what you have. I think there's some interesting things around that you know you have what you have. I think there's some interesting things around that you know. In those contexts, how do you actually get the same great results and not change the pieces Like, what kind of leader do you need to become to not try to get rid of your students or get rid of your faculty, and that's it's kind of like opening a whole other can of worms.
Danny Bauer:But the relevant part to what we're talking about here is, I do believe you can convert critics and turn them into cheerleaders or enemies, into evangelists in a school setting, whether that's student or staff member. And what I mean by that is having an open mind, having curiosity, an open heart as well. Really, hearing this person and I know that they might annoy you and do stuff that is crazy at times but they say this idea for PBL, you know, on campus, just sounds terrible and they list the reasons why. Right, it might hurt to hear that. Try to hear the truth in whatever they share and see if there was a way to address these concerns. Right, they might just be giving you the roadmap for professional development that needs to happen on campus. And if you could, you know, a take it seriously, because a lot of times they're just shut down and not taken seriously.
Danny Bauer:And B, then actually provide some support around their concerns, you will see critics turned into cheerleaders, enemies to evangelists, and the moment that happens, right, then everybody in the middle or you know, just kind of lukewarm or whatever they join, because you've just converted your biggest critic, right? So that's something to consider in terms of leading a classroom or leading a building. For me, I'm running a business, so I just want to work with people who are ready, right? Yeah, so it's different context and I think it's important to distinguish that. Yeah, I think it's important to distinguish that.
Ryan Steuer:I think, yeah, I think that's fair. Uh, in in that school setting and you're looking at your staff, um, we often find like, when you do dig deep, if somebody's really digging their heels in, it's typically a question in a lot, of, a lot of instances because they love kids and they've seen what they do has worked a couple times for specific students. And if you can listen, listen. So we try to be at Magnify Learning. We're trying to be a skills building organization. So when you look at the innovation curve of your staff, you have some innovators that are going to run, but all the way back to the back end of laggards. You can't just fire the laggards, right, but how can you bump them up just a little bit in their skill set? Maybe they could bring in a community partner at the beginning of their traditional unit, right?
Ryan Steuer:and yeah now they're in a little bit, so there's definitely some nuances to the process.
Danny Bauer:So well, here's the other connection too. Right earlier in the show we talked about, people want to answer two questions am I doing a good job competency and am I a part of the family? Do I belong here, right? So usually when we innovate, that's now rattling the answers that they used to have. Sure, because as a staff member, I now need to become something new and I'm not sure I can do it Right and I'm not sure I belong anymore. So that's, from a psychological level, what I think is going on there too. And so you know, addressing those things and taking it serious can be a good thing. Now, if you know you've given your best shot and tried to address concerns and provided support and people still are pulling in the other direction, then it's to the not trying to convince the unwilling and focus on the people who are going right.
Danny Bauer:Man, I saw another talk the other day and I don't remember. It's killing me that I can't remember who was sharing this with me. It might have even been at my Nashville event, which is yeah, it was. It was Robin Jackson. I don't know if you're familiar with her. She does all the builder stuff, but she was just talking about, about, like, just start building and doing that and it's like it's that youtube um that derrick sivers did you know I don't know if you ever saw that like the first guy dancing on the hill, but people, just you know, they start to join. They start to join.
Danny Bauer:You build momentum. That way. You're not coercing, manipulating, strong-arming people like you have to do this. You start doing it right. And there are those people who are the early adopters. They just start doing it with you and you just build it. That way. It's a very positive way of doing change right and eventually folks want to join. Or it's like you know what, maybe this isn't the right spot for me, and that's okay too, but they come to that decision on their own as well, right, and that's a good thing, yeah that's right and I think that's where our conversation around bright spots, you know, I think that's where the strength is.
Ryan Steuer:We've started using some language around asset-based school development, like what are the assets in your school and what are the assets of your staff? And then the idea is that then your teachers will then look at the assets that are in their students. Right, students, building everybody up in this positive bright spot. Amplification love it, yeah, so it's a lot of fun well, do you do?
Danny Bauer:I just have a question real quick do you read books with like movement makers and that kind of thing within your communities?
Ryan Steuer:I'm just curious as far as a book study yeah, yeah, no, we haven't, I think, as the online community comes online, which will be pretty close episode actually. Yeah, so we've got a Facebook community, but we'll also have a some other private courses and resources that'll be a part of the membership and, and then I think, those.
Danny Bauer:I think it allows for some book studies to happen within that context okay, well, at least for the movement maker listening, and then for you, ryan, in case you don't know about this book but we're talking about like implementing change and motivation and this kind of stuff there's a book by a BJ Fogg called tiny habits.
Danny Bauer:I think it's a million times better than James Claire's atomic habits. Yeah, tiny habits, to me it just really resonated, and I think one of the big reasons is he has this model that the behavior you see is a function of motivation, times, ability plus a prompt. And I'm not going to break down the whole model for the movement maker listening, but just pick up Tiny Habits, because the big aha for me in that book, a lot of the things I ascribed to people's motivation wrongly actually had to do with ability and then the prompt to actually create the behavior I wanted to see. Once I figured that out and you can move those things within your control, the motivation usually goes up as well. So since we are talking about change and bright spots, I think Tiny Habits would be a great book to pick up.
Ryan Steuer:Yeah, great, great addition to the conversation and I love the nuance that you've brought the conversation to around. You know, as you're looking for bright spots, that staff member that seems like they're digging their heels in around PBL, like, yep, keep trying to find the bright spots right, like, and then you know, kind of really have that real conversation with with a person, because they're a person and we're we're trying to do good work for kids. So, yeah, get there. So, danny, as we, as we come to a close, uh, you've always got a lot of good stuff going on that you have for Ruckus Makers, the educational community. We talked a little bit about Innovation Labs. Is that something we can talk about now?
Danny Bauer:Yeah, thanks, thanks, ryan. So it's an experiment. We'll see how it goes. And as this show releases, there was a bigger launch of a community we built called the Ruckus Maker Club. It'll be closed for membership by the time this airs, but I am thinking of potentially reopening for like a window a couple days prior to an innovation lab, and it's a broad idea right now.
Danny Bauer:But the way I want the movement maker to think about it is you know, I run these events and they're good, like I'm just. I'm really confident in them, mostly because my really good friend, mitch Weathers, said facilitating live events is actually my superpower. So that was wild because I never knew it. And then I went all in on events and I'm getting really good feedback about those. But essentially we're going to do some of those events in a virtual space at least twice a year, maybe quarterly, and the whole point is to do school different, to make those shifts from old, broken, traditional to new, different and creative.
Danny Bauer:The thing is is that I don't evaluate nobody evaluates the type of shift you want to make, right, there's people that we've worked with before that have gone from very traditional rows to learning centers right, and in terms of shifts, that's probably like easier to do. There was also superintendent, you know, told his story about purchasing an abandoned amusement park and turning it into a learning laboratory. That's a bigger shift, right, but there's all sorts of shifts in between and probably beyond the amusement park. So what we will provide is a space, right, we will provide a framework, we will provide other movement makers, innovators, visionaries, rebels and ruckus makers to connect with and, essentially, having a lot of leaders focused for a very short amount of time on what's that shift you want to make, the innovation that you want to see on campus, and how can we see it through right.
Danny Bauer:So the last thing I'll say I think it'll be like see it through right. So the way, the last thing I'll say, I think it'll be like we're going to try teaching it virtually before doing a course or something like that, and probably teach like a six week cycle of improvement and then give you tools to evaluate, right, and collect data and stuff around that. But, yeah, excited to see what happened and, more importantly, just excited to see what happens and, more importantly, just excited to see the shifts that people come up with. Right, because I could come up with the tool, the framework and that kind of stuff, but I won't be there to do the work with you. Um, I know it's going to change campuses and so that's just going to be fun and then to tell their stories, like you are with the bright spots, you know.
Ryan Steuer:So yeah, cool, I. I love that because I I think back to kind of our bright, bright spells like magnified learning. You know, we started a decade ago. You know, teachers teaching, yeah, yeah, but we had we'd created space to have conversations like if we went to a conference. It wasn't he hey, I'm going to teach you this thing for 45 minutes. It was. Here's a big question, let's talk about it, and I think sometimes we get away from that. So the innovation labs to me sounds like that time to dream in a safe place with the right people. So that sounds exciting.
Danny Bauer:Yeah, it's going to be fun, so it will create a massively valuable result for you as well, super good.
Ryan Steuer:Danny, thanks for being on the podcast, as always. Appreciate all the resources and the insightful ideas. Appreciate it Right on. Ryan, thanks for being on the podcast, as always. Appreciate all the resources and the insightful ideas.
Danny Bauer:Appreciate it Right on, ryan. Thanks for inviting me. Always a pleasure to be here.
Ryan Steuer:All right Movement makers, you should be leaving this one inspired. That's our goal is to to inspire you to create your movement or keep your movement going, cause we know that inspired leaders are creating great outcomes for kids. So go out and lead inspired. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the PBL Simplified Podcast. I appreciate you and honor that you tune in each week. Would you please take two minutes to leave a rating and a review? When you leave a review, it lets the next person know that this is a podcast worth listening to. When they go into their player and search project-based learning, and PBL Simplified popped up. When they see those reviews, they know that high-quality, visionary leaders are listening, so they tune in too and they can find their way into the PBL journey. Thank you so much for leaving a review. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you. You.
