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Janet Pilcher: Hello everyone, welcome to the Accelerate Your Performance podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Janet Pilcher, founder and president of Studer Education. 

Today we jump into the first of four rapid-fire episodes dedicated to the most important issues I know you’re facing this fall. Each week I’ll bring you actionable solutions and tips you can put into practice so you can focus on maximizing your impact. 

For this episode, let’s dive into how executive leaders can manage through fiscal uncertainty. There are many reasons your budget may be uncertain right now, but the way to protect your mission is to prioritize your spending with data rather than making decisions from emotion. We all know that and it’s very difficult to do. But in fact, data is the strongest shield against the political and social pressure you might be facing right now. 

So how do we operationalize this? I’ll give you three tips I’m sharing with my partners. See what they mean to you. 

Number one, protect what you measure. Which programs impact your top scorecard results? Remember, scorecard measures focus on those outcomes most important to driving organizational success. The focus on student success and experiences, workplace culture, family experiences, operational efficiencies, and financial stewardship are common to many of us. Once you identify these items that directly impact your scorecard results, ensure that we place the dollars that we spend on those highest priority areas around those measures that matter. This focus on the scorecard and those measures keeps students at the center of our financial planning. 

The second is determine where there could be wasteful spending. So the first is to protect what we measure. And the second is to determine where there could be wasteful spending. When doing so, ask if we have the most efficient processes that provide the least expensive way of doing business. Are we executing programs well or are we buying new ones as silver bullet solutions when the others don’t work? Being operationally efficient and assessing the programs and initiatives that are giving us the greatest return on the dollars invested can reduce unnecessary spending. So how do we dig a little deeper into that? 

And the third area is to be transparent. You know, today, most education executive leaders are facing budget cuts. It requires leaders to effectively communicate with internal and external audiences. So let’s be transparent by communicating what we know through the times that we’ve been together using a “why, what, how” approach. Talk about why certain cuts are being made, what evidence led you to these decisions, and how the cuts will be made. Use key words that show honesty and empathy for decisions being made. 

So if you’re facing budget uncertainties, what’s one tangible action you can take right now to gain immediate financial clarity? 

Now remember these tips. Protect what you measure. Determine where there could be wasteful spending and consider where there may be bad processes and poor execution of programs and initiatives. Finally, be transparent as you share information on the budget cuts. 

If you’ve been listening for long enough, you’ve heard me say that while we can’t control the external factors, we can bring trust and stability to our organizations in several ways. And by having clear important measures, leaders can make better financial decisions. They are disciplined to align spending to the actions that have the greatest opportunity of producing positive students outcomes. That’s what we’re trying to achieve. 

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Now this is a short episode, so if you want to hear more about making difficult decisions and building trust through transparency, I want to invite you to go back and listen to Superintendent Rob Clayton’s episode, Build Trust to Strengthen Culture. It’s from 2023, but it remains an invaluable resource on data-driven decision making. I’ll leave you a link in the show notes so that you can connect to Superintendent Clayton’s episode. 

And as always, I thank you for tuning into this rapid fire episode today on Accelerate Your Performance. I look forward to seeing you next time as we review three actions you can take to drive employee intention on our next rapid fire. Have a great week, everyone!