219. Implementation is a Process with a Moral Imperative with Jenice Pizzuto & Steven Carney

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In this episode, we chat with Jenice Pizzuto and Steven Carney, educators, researchers, and co-authors of Implement with IMPACT. They dive deep into the transformative power of implementation science in education, emphasizing the moral imperative to bridge the gap between knowing what works in education and doing it effectively. 


Jenice and Steven recognize that while we often know what works through research and evidence, there’s not enough emphasis on how to implement best practices to bring effective, equitable, and just education. Their work addresses that gap and empowers educators to apply evidence-based education practices in their classrooms. 



The Big Dream 

Steven and Jenice envision a future of education where every child has access to high-quality, evidence-informed teaching, irrespective of their background. This dream involves dismantling normalized barriers such as resource gaps and opportunity divides, creating schools where students feel valued and capable. 

The ultimate goal is to radically reimagine how educators support teachers and leaders in implementing evidence-based practices, ensuring that every student receives the education they deserve.


Mindset Shifts Required

Empowering educators to implement evidence-based practices in their classrooms requires a major culture and mindset shift. Jenice and Steven highlight the need to avoid shaming and blaming, but embrace learning and growth. 

One big shift is for educators to embrace the idea that learning is not something done to us, but is part of who we are. So, implementation doesn’t happen by accident—it happens by design. Educators can co-create change and foster an environment where meaningful educational change is possible.


Action Steps  
To begin implementing evidence-based practices in their classrooms, educators can start with these action steps: 

Step 1: Build your implementation team. Research shows that implementation is much more successful with a team committed to the process. Build your team of champions for change, including diverse voices in leadership, educators, students, and other stakeholders. 

Step 2: Adopt a change theory. Change is difficult for all humans, no matter what the situation is. That’s why it’s important to understand human behavior and psychology and have a framework for change that helps guide your implementation process. 

Step 3: Create an implementation plan. Choose one initiative your school is currently working on and assess whether the implementation is being treated as carefully as the selection process. Invest time in building a plan, using your team and change theory to guide you.

Step 4: Understand barriers. Use qualitative data, such as surveys, observations, and learning walks, to understand barriers to change and implementation.

Step 3: Celebrate and reflect. Because change is challenging and implementation takes time, it’s easier for educators and leaders to feel frustrated, tired, or overwhelmed. Combat this by celebrating wins and reflecting throughout the entire process. 


Challenges?

One significant challenge in implementing evidence-based practices is initiative fatigue, where schools are overwhelmed by the constant adoption of new programs. Sustaining momentum is also difficult, especially when results take time to manifest. To combat these, it’s important for implementation teams to focus, break down silos, recognize it takes time, and stay aligned to your mission and vision.

One Step to Get Started 

Leaders can start by looking in the mirror—examine your current system and identify areas where it may not be serving your team effectively. By acknowledging these gaps, you can begin to build an implementation team and utilize the tools necessary to create a successful and sustainable change. Consider the initiatives in your school: are you treating this implementation as carefully as you chose this initiative? 

Stay Connected

You can find Jenice on her website, IMPACT Lead Succeed, or on Instagram. You can connect with Steven on LinkedIn or his website, IMPACT Learn and Lead. 

To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Implementation Planning Worksheet with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 219 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

Quotes: 

• 2:02 “This is born out of a moral imperative, so that we can help people stop the madness of “adopt and abandon.” And let's not shame and blame people, but let's help people to and through getting evidence-based practices to kids that need them… And that means we have to help adults.” (Jenice)
• 6:06 “I want students to walk into my classroom, where they've really seen value or are seen and valued, and they know that they're capable. I think we need to radically reimagine not just what we teach but how we support teachers and leaders to bring evidence-based practices to life.” (Steven)
• 15:58 “If you're going to be asking people to change, there's going to be predictable turmoil. And by adopting a change theory, you can treat them with humanity and forethought as to what's getting in the way, what are the capabilities, what are the opportunities, and what is the motivation?” (Jenice)

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TRANSCRIPT

00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Steven and Jenice, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. I'm so excited that you're both here in the same space virtually, and so we want to kind of start with you know what should listeners or readers of the transcript later know about you or keep in mind for our conversation today, just before we get into like the first big question, anything you want to share Go ahead, Jenice, I'll jump in after you. 

00:31 - Steven Carney (Guest)
We always like we're like who's going first Great. 

00:35 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
Well, I'm Jenice Pizzuto and I think what you should know about me is I'm not done yet. I'm still learning and growing and I just can't get enough of this learning and improvement. And the more I know, the more I find out that I need to know and that I am always at the heart of a teacher. I started out in primary education and then I've been a literacy coach and academic success person, scaled MTSS across 44 schools, then went nationwide and then kind of went into this whole implementation science dive which you know I was looking back just yesterday. It started in 2012. And since then it's been quite a wild ride and I am on the board of the Global Implementation Society, so that takes me into some global world which I really love. 

01:25
And then Steven and I, you know, just found out that there was something really missing in education and it was implementation science, but not just purely implementation science as it's been presented to the medical field and the health services. We needed that education flair, and so we are. Both come from learning forward background and focus on adult learning andragogy. So we didn't start out to write a book, but we saw this giant gap and said you know what we can do better, and we have to help people do better. So I think what you need to know is that this is born out of a moral imperative, so that we can help people stop the madness of adopt and abandon, and let's not, you know, shame and blame people, but let's help people to and through getting evidence-based practices to kids that need them, and that means we have to help adults. 

02:21 - Steven Carney (Guest)
Yeah, and I think I think it's also really important for listeners to know that, both Jenice and I, we approach this work with a really a deep sense of humility and curiosity as well. It is an evolving field. We've both spent years working in schools and districts, and one thing that we've learned is that there is no magic bullet, no single solution that will really fix education, but we do believe wholeheartedly in the power of intentional, well-planned change, and so you know, we don't see implementation as just about introducing new ideas. It's about making sure that they take root, that they grow and that they thrive. And, as Jenice said, I think our goal is to help educators navigate that change in ways that feel doable and sustainable, and I think that was the whole point behind this is that implementation can seem really daunting, and is it doable? And then, while always keeping equity and student success at the center, while always keeping equity and student success at the center. 

03:25 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
That's a perfect segue to the big first question that I typically ask, which is Dr Bettina Love talks about the idea of freedom, dreaming, and the specific quote that I love about that is she says their dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. And so I'm curious, with that in mind you know what is that big dream that you all hold? I know you both touched on it briefly, but do you mind kind of speaking to that dream for education and how we use implementation science perhaps? 

03:57 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
That is at the heart of the moral imperative information seeking around the failure that we have done institutionally to get students what we know works to them. Then you understand that our moral imperative is in that big dream of the critique of injustice is that we know what works. We have all the research. That's why we didn't need to write a book about PLCs or MTSS or PBIS or SEL, all the al. That's why we didn't need to write a book about plc's or mtss or pbis or sel, all the all the alphabets. We know what to do, but we have a huge gap between knowing and doing and we feel that was a social injustice and we wanted to make sure that we could. I love Steven said it's teachable, learnable, doable, fixing and blase we'll borrow those terms but things that are teachable, learnable and doable, so that busy administrators, busy teachers can actually get something done right and well, to get these evidence-based practices to the students that need and deserve them. We can do better. 

05:04 - Steven Carney (Guest)
This is quite the quote freedom of dreaming and it really touches the other work that I do on top of this. 

05:09
I currently run a school about generating upper mobility in our most marginalized communities. 

05:16
I love this concept, really, of freedom dreaming. 

05:19
For me, the dream is an education system where every child has access to the same level of high quality evidence, informed teaching and I think that that's why this book came about as well is really thinking about how do we implement these evidence and we know what works in education and how do we implement them right and well, and that students get that access regardless of their zip code, their family income or their background. I mean, I ultimately dream of schools where the barriers you know are normalized and things like you know resource gaps, or where the barriers we've normalized, things like resource gaps or opportunities, divides that divide us are completely dismantled, that divide us are completely dismantled. I want students to walk into my classrooms where they've really seen value or are seen and they're valued and they know that they're capable. So I think we need, you know, really to radically reimagine not just what we teach but how we support teachers and leaders to bring evidence-based practices to life. And again, that just speaks to the heart of the book which, to Jenice's point, the moral imperative there. 

06:32 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
What a beautiful segue to this next piece. I was just thinking that I imagine there's a lot of re-imagining happening when we're needing to happen, I guess, to implement, like in the way that you all describe in the book, versus what's happening now and what leaders are doing now in terms of trying to here's this new curriculum, go do the thing right, or whatever it looks like in its current form, needs to drastically shift. So I'm curious to know are there key mindset shifts for leaders that you either touch on in the book or have just seen in practice that you're like these are the ways that we want to just be thinking differently about implementation 100%. 

07:11 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
And that takes me to. We talked offline about a section of the book, pages two to five, If you want to just talk about that shift, and it's called. There's two sections and it's called Shifting the Culture and then Growing the Implementers. And we start out with that concept because we have to shift the culture and grow, improve and build their what we call KSAs knowledge, skills and attitudes. Not just knowledge and skills, but attitudes in an iterative improvement cycle format. There's no blame, it's a learning and improvement. And if you read at least those two sections, then also dive into what we call deliberately developmental implementation. You're going to see that that's that shift. That's going to it. 

08:14 - Steven Carney (Guest)
It reimagines how we approach pd yeah, I'm just going to add to that by um. 

08:24
I think the other big shift, and I think the first shift and Jenice and I used to be familiar with the term that when we were doing work for Learning Forward that you know, we as educators have to embrace learning as something that's not done to us, it's something that we, you know, it's part of who we are, it's our brace. 

08:44
I think the same thing is with implementation is that implementation doesn't happen by accident, it happens by design, and so we have to move away from this idea that change is something done to us and start thinking of it as something that we co-create and you know, something that we co-create and you know, and that another big shift is really embracing the idea that implementation is a process and not an event, and I think we've said that multiple times throughout the book that it really is a process and too often initiatives fail because we expect results overnight, like we're in a result, we we're in that fast, we want to see results so stinking fast, and then we just we throw it out. 

09:28
So, but sustainable change, we know, takes time, it takes reflection, it takes adjustment, um, and then I think lastly, I would just add that I think that it also we need to cultivate a mindset of shared leadership. It's it's the topic that we've thrown around for many years in education, but I think it's beyond just the shared role leadership. It's the belief that everyone in the school community, from students to parents to teachers, play a role in implementation and moving the system forward. 

10:03 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
Absolutely, and I want to add to that in that that's why we have implementation teams as the backbone of this work and when you look at our impact implementation framework, we have what we call the outer circle, which talks about human learning center design elements, and one of them is meaningful leadership structures, and that's horizontally and vertically. 

10:25
So once that implementation team is formed, it's not the person with the title that makes it. It really is a dialogue and discussion and consensus format for decision making, for moving forward, to identify what are the facilitators of getting our new thing in place, what are the barriers and we need our teacher's voice on that. That's a co-creation, co-design, co-learning, because they know the barriers better than the principal, frankly, or especially the superintendent. But we also want to have that hierarchy of support, because that's what we need to do to be brave and collaborative. A lot of leaders have a hard time letting go, but we have a lot of examples of once you have, if you set your team up right, we come to these decisions collaboratively, collectively, and then you check it again in a few weeks to see if you need to make adjustments. 

11:20 - Steven Carney (Guest)
Can I just throw an example on that really quick. So in the school I'm running right now, we're about to implement a new practice around cell phone use and there's a lot of incredible research around, emerging research on the negative impact of cell phone use in the classroom or in schools or what have you and how we? You know, matter of fact, there's lots of states that are looking at banning cell phone use and da da, da. So, aside from that, we're looking at redesigning and doing some practice review, but it's to implement the practices we're putting in place. It's not just enough to get good implementation by just getting our leadership involved and our teachers involved. It also involves our students. 

12:12
This is a change that they're part of. It involves our parents this is a change that they're part of. And to do it right and well and to get a successful implementation, it's going to take all of those voices to inform on how's it going, what's working, what's not working, what do we need to tweak, what do we need to adjust so that we get there a lot quicker than simply just going off of the assumptions of the people who said we need to implement. 

12:43 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I absolutely love that you guys name in the book and here on just now, the shared leadership part, because I think that often in education we use terms like distributive's, like that's what my research was in the context of leadership. Yeah, so it's really exciting to hear this being put together in like this leader book. It was like actually this is what leadership looks like. Let's expand the team concept. And I also think the other thing that I'm connecting with is this idea of kind of adaptive leadership and adaptive challenges versus technical challenges. 

13:26
Right, I think a lot of times we just look at the technical things, like we're going to do the PD, we're going to implement the thing, and it's all kind of divorced from, you know, the hearts and souls of the people involved, and it sounds like you guys are really intentional about saying, actually those hearts and souls are really important and they're going to help us implement well, and so that's really heartening to me. I know in the book, several times you kind of I thought touched on this where we have like the implementation science formula for success for one, or even like the behavior change models that you had mentioned. So I don't know if you want to speak to any of those pieces, those formulas and things and the models that you brought in, but I just I felt like they were really responsive to what's actually necessary in schools. 

14:12 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
Thanks so much for asking. I want to go to the change piece. The formula for success is great and we can touch on that, but what you were hitting at is here's the thing change is personal, change is emotional and change is hard. We did some research. There's a fantastic book it's very thick called the Immunity to Change, by Keegan and Leahy. I don't know if you know it. It's very dense, but that's what our job was Like. We synthesized so much research. It's just crazy. But in that book they say only one in seven people think about this. One in seven people will change when their life depends on it, and they have the tools and the resources and the incentives. 

14:56
asking educators to change their behaviors, their attitudes, their actual actions. I think about when I go golfing, you know, and I try to change my swing. It was hard and I'd always go back to the lousy swing and get in the woods even though I wanted to change. And so I think about when we're teaching and we're trying these new strategies. It's like that golf swing Even if we want to, it's really hard. 

15:27
So if we don't have a change theory or change model or adopt a method of thinking of it as an iterative improvement process and involving the people that are doing the work and designing the work, we end up with adopt and abandon. 

15:44
So if you look at Chapter 2, talks about change theory and adopting there's two change theories that we present to teams to choose from One's the COM-B and one's the Nostra change process. It doesn't matter which one you pick, but if you're going to be asking people to change, there's going to be predictable turmoil and by adopting a change theory, you can treat them with humanity and forethought as to what's getting in the way, what are the capabilities, what are the opportunities, what is the motivation? That's the COM, com, those. Whichever change theory you pick, there's a lot of resources and activities to help you address the reactions you're getting from staff. They're frustrated, oh they didn't get resources, or there's anxiety they didn't have a vision. That's from the Nostra change process. So we really encourage people to treat your staff as humans and help them learn and adapt to the changes that are necessary to get the new processes in place. 

16:52 - Steven Carney (Guest)
Yeah, I mean, Jenice, you said that so well. I think the only thing I would add to that wonderful explanation is you know, these models also just help explain. You know why we get what we get, and so it's just helpful to be able to have a model to look at and go. Well, the reason why I'm not getting the behavior I'm wanting maybe it's dialed into motivation or capability or opportunity, right, and so it helps us go back and go. Where do we tweak and modify so that and it keeps it, it keeps the blame away from the people? And, more onto, how do we fix the implementation itself or the system itself in order to get the change that we're looking for, instead of saying, well, we trained them, we taught them and they're not doing it. Well, there's some reasons why they're not, and it's not necessarily reasons that they're choosing, it's just, it's just part of human behavior. 

17:47 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
Yeah, and we encourage you to use I'm working with a district right now surveys, interviews, observations, there's a section on learning walks so that we understand what the barriers are, because sometimes people want to do it, but there's a barrier in place, and so then we can dismantle those barriers so we can actually get to change behavior. It's pretty rare that people don't want to be about something that's going to help their kids. 

18:10 - Steven Carney (Guest)
Right. 

18:11 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
And I also love that expansive view of data. I don't know if you guys cited street data or not, but it makes me. When I was reading, I was thinking about street data and I'm like, right, it's all of the qualitative like just talk to people things when we often very much gravitate to numbers and like what is the quantifiable thing? 

18:28 - Steven Carney (Guest)
yeah, it's one of my most marked up books in education. So good old street data good old street data. 

18:35 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
Yeah, it's so good. You're not going to get outcome data until we know are we doing what we said we're going to do? And so that's co-creation. So an implementation team co-creates the monitoring tools. They know it like. Here's what it's supposed to look like, here's what we're going to monitor and observe, and that implementation team is part of the observation. It's not a principal coming and evaluating you. It's like are we doing what we said we're going to do? And that means the team is a part of that work. And then they they designed the learning that needs to happen as a result of what they find. 

19:03
It's not that hard, but we just don't. That's the mind shift right, so it's thinking about things differently. 

19:11 - Steven Carney (Guest)
But yet it is hard because it is so intentional. 

19:14 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
Yeah, it doesn't needs a plan, it needs to be intentional about it. It's not random. 

19:19 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Right. 

19:20 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
Or reactive. 

19:22 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Yeah, I think that's I. You mentioned the implementation teams and I I really wanted to get at that, cause that was my one of my bigger like aha moments. I'm like, oh okay, so I, just as an instructional coach and you know a person who does like facilities learning walks sometimes I'm always in like coaching or PLC mode and implementation teams are doing something distinctly different, and so I wanted to get a better understanding for myself and for people who are listening or reading the blog post later. But I wanted to kind of ask you guys about you know the distinction and why it's really important to distinguish implementation team versus like a PLC or more of like a learning focus team. Do you want to go first, Steven? Well, I want to think about this for a second. Like a learning focus team, do? 

20:07 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
you want to go first, Steven? Well, I want to think about this for a second, Well, and I'm trying to think, find the page where the we have a really great. 

20:16 - Steven Carney (Guest)
Oh, here it's page 85. 

20:17 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
Yeah, page 85 gives you a great description of the difference between a PLC and an implementation team, and before we get into that, I just want to say that there is solid research that was done by Fixin, blase, noom one other person or two, I'm forgetting around with an implementation team and without an implementation team. And with an implementation team, you can get to 80% implementation in three years. Now that may sound daunting. People don't want to take three years, we want the shiny object, but if we actually want to get the thing in place, we need that's what it takes. Otherwise it takes up to 14 year 14 years to get some, uh, 14% implementation in the years, and that is not acceptable, right? So you've spent and I actually we did an audit of a school district and they'd been doing PLC for 10 years and they were right at 13% implementation. So they'd wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars, I mean over time and on the initial training, on some of the follow-up trains, but they never actually got it in place. They were right where the data says so without an implementation team. That specifically the difference is. 

21:29
This team is specifically charged with championing the new thing the PLC, sor, mtss, to and through to sustainability and it's not their job to be the PLC lead. It's not coaching, because the team decides together what the learning is. It's not a coach. But within that, using an implementation planning template, you are going to say we need coaching. You'll identify what are the strategies to get to that and coaching and how we use staff and what kind of learning is going to happen to that. And coaching and how we use staff and what kind of learning is going to happen, what observations, monitoring tools are all a part of that and that's a team decision. That's related specifically to scaling the evidence-based practice. 

22:18 - Steven Carney (Guest)
Yeah, lindsay, I would break it down into probably like four or five key areas. One is purpose and focus, the other one would be like scope of work. Well, let's start with purpose and focus. So, like a PLC is primarily focuses on improving structural practices and student learning and they engage in, like these cycles of reflection, analysis and collaboration where an implementation on the other really, on the other hand, is guiding and managing the adoption and scaling of those evidence-based initiatives. So the implementation team looks at the big picture, ensuring that the system, the processes, the supports are all in place to drive a sustainable change. So then you kind of then bring that down to to like what's the scope of work? Like the PLC, scope of work is really within the classroom level they're analyzing the data, they're sharing instructional strategies, they're adjusting teaching to meet, you know, the student needs. Where the implementation team really looks at the operation at the system level, they're coordinating across departments, identifying barriers, they're ensuring the infrastructure and the initiatives like professional development and leadership and resources are all robust and aligned. 

23:39
I think PLCs another way to look at this is think about time. Plcs often focus kind of like on the short-term, immediate instructional cycles, where an implementation team really looks at the long-term phased approach. If you think about, like in the book, the framework we have to side, plan, implement, so on and so forth, like those are the phased approaches. So the implementation is thinking through those phased approaches, which is over a longer period of time than those short term cycles. And then PLCs if you think about stakeholders, decision making, accountability. Plcs are typically teacher driven, where an implementation team is made up of a diverse mix of stakeholders and they're accountable for managing the overall success of the initiative itself. And let me think, if there's anything else, the only other thing I would say is that monitoring and adjusting. So PLCs monitor, you know, student outcomes and they make those frequent adjustments. We're implementation teams monitoring the fidelity of the progress of the initiative itself. 

24:57 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
That makes total sense. Thank you both for breaking that down, because I think I have a much better understanding now than I did at first standing now than I did at first. I appreciate it and I think what I love about it too is that the PLC elements, or like the professional learning elements, are still very much present, like that's still very much part right and it's not like these are exclusive. 

25:16 - Steven Carney (Guest)
Yeah, go ahead. Well, there is an overlap like collaboration. Reflection is an overlap where there's collaborative work and ongoing reflection. Data-driven is an overlap where the data guides the decisions. Student-centered is the overlap where you know both. The goal is to improve student outcomes. So there is definitely an overlap and I think that they work really well together. 

25:38 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Yeah, for sure, and I think one of the things that I had written down as one of my huge takeaways from the book is just the collective teacher efficacy impact on implementation was like very high, like that was a key piece of doing all this well. So you definitely need all of the pieces, so that makes sense. I'm curious to know if there's like a major challenge that you have identified. I'm sure there's so many challenges that people go through when they're trying to implement something, but I am curious to know what's like a big one that you have either like experienced yourself, coached others through, seen in the research, and how would you coach someone kind of through that or talk them through that particular challenge? 

26:19 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
That's a great question. It's staying focused. 

26:23 - Steven Carney (Guest)
Honestly it's? 

26:24 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
for me it's pretty simple. It's being willing to break down silos, to fund the, an implementation team, to stay aligned, align your work to your mission vision. So that's why, horizontally and vertically, it needs to be school board, any of the stakeholders that are part of that, because otherwise people are going to go aside, they're going to go to a different shiny object. But when you have this systemic look and generally really it's hard to do this at a school level, to be honest, because you're going to do what the superintendent and your boss wants and if we're not all focused on scaling and that's why scaling a framework like MTSS or PLC works really well because the school district is going to do it but and that is why we built the tool actually to the coaching piece this is why we came to having all these tools, because it was like, oh, why don't we stay focused? Well, you don't have an implementation plan, so we have an implementation planning template, there's a communication map, there's learning walks, so there's all these tools to help you stay focused and to build and develop your team, so that we see that there's interconnectedness and alignment throughout the district and you can report that to the school boards and to the superintendent. 

27:43
I have a school district that I work with. 

27:44
Once a month, different schools report their progress on their implementation plan to the school board because they're all involved, it's all synced up and it's all tied with their PLC, their SOR and MTSS. 

27:57
They've tied it all together in their implementation plan because it fits. This is the work they're doing. But because they knew that as their vision and vision, they're able to maintain focus, and because they meet monthly as a team, and because the district level team meets in trimesters, they maintain the focus and they're always looking at their SMART goal and they're looking at what progress they've made and coming back to it. So it's tied to their school improvement plan, it's tied to the district improvement plan, it's tied to the district improvement plan, it's tied to their funding and grants. It all comes together. So those things help you stay focused. If you don't have a plan and a framework and tools to guide you and the learning opportunities for the staff, that's when we shift and we just say, oh, we did it and we check the box and 10 years later we're at 14% implementation and we spent, you know, three, four, $500,000, or a million even. 

28:59 - Steven Carney (Guest)
Yes to everything you said and I think as I think about this question honestly, and I think as I think about this question honestly, I think one of the biggest challenges is initiative fatigue. You know, schools are asked to adopt new programs and it can feel really overwhelming and the danger that you know, as Jenice was alluding to, that nothing sticks because there's not enough time to see things through, and I think that's a big piece. Another challenge is really sustaining that momentum as well. So, like that you get it. You know people get excited at the launch of something and but how do you keep that energy alive, especially when results are taking time, because we want to see those immediate results and they're taking time. 

29:48
I think that's that's hard. And then but I mean, I have found and Jenice will say the same thing is that celebrating those small wins and creating the structures for reflection can help with that. But it's an ongoing process and I anticipate it will continue to be a challenge as long as schools are stretched really thin. So I think that if we can narrow down the focuses what is their book called focus, you know if we can narrow down the focus and not have smokers oh, that's right. Wait, that was a long time ago too, that came out, but, um, we're aging ourselves a little bit there, uh, so, yeah, so, initiative fatigue and then sustaining the momentum, um, you know, and so it's often that we may go into a system and help with their implementation, and that is the barriers that they have. 

30:45
So many other things going on as well, and like where, how do they pull the resources, the right level of resources? Um, we have a good friend of ours that has done some good research around professional development, implementation and, um, she had mentioned that for every, every dollar you spend a new innovation, you should be spending four times the amount on the implementation itself. And so you know, like that's impressive. And you know, really, focusing on the support structures that support the implementation efforts, all the professional development, the coaching, the constant, you know, opportunities to celebrate in the structures for reflection and so forth. 

31:32 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
That certainly speaks to my soul as like a PD provider and coach, because I often get requests to do like one-off workshops and I'm like I don't even like this, Like there's no, what are we doing? 

31:43 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
No, because it's actually harmful. Yeah, because it erodes trust and it erodes the cognitive ability and we know that it's not going to stick. There's, there's oodles of research. Linda Darling Hammond has new research, joyce and showers has previous research. It takes up to 50 hours, or up to 20 times, to be, to be, to get initial mastery, to build the, to build mastery on a new strategy 20 times. So that's why the learning walks and the team helps to build those opportunities together, and coaches are such an important part of that. And how, how, then the team decides how we're going to use coaches, what are they going to do and what are the strategies. It's, it's just so important. 

32:25 - Steven Carney (Guest)
I just have to say it takes me a lot longer I've been trying to get. 

32:28 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
I know, and that's for your most smart like I've been, I've been trying to get this golf stroke down for 30 years and I'm still not there. 

32:35 - Steven Carney (Guest)
So, uh, for some of us we're a lot slower than the 20 times, but I guess there's something to walk away with. 

32:45 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
Walk away with that and then be kind to people about having helped them through to and through change. Build deliberately developmental implementation, develop people, shift the culture. You know growth mindset you can have a growth mindset, but we need learning and improvement to shore up and build our skills so we can skill up to scale up. And our staff deserve those opportunities. 

33:16 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Jenice. I'll just follow up on that because I think that speaks to kind of our call to action. So we're going to do kind of a lightning round and the last few questions here. But I love to invite people to share just kind of one thing. If someone's listening to this episode on the drive to work, for example, and they're like, okay, I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna like do my day, what can I do today? I'm ordering the book, I'm going to get all of the tools and I'll put those in action, you know, this year. 

33:41 - Steven Carney (Guest)
However, in this moment today, what's one thing that I might do to start the momentum? I would choose one initiative your school is working on and ask are we? 

33:58 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
treating this implementation as carefully as we chose this initiative? 

34:00 - Steven Carney (Guest)
And if the answer is no, take a step back and invest time in building the implementation plan. Think about the peoples, the behaviors and the systems that we need to be put in place to make it really successful. So implementation isn't glamorous work whatsoever. It's detailed, it's deliberate and often behind the scenes, but if you do it right, the impact lasts beyond the initial rollout. So choose one initiative. 

34:27 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
And I'm going to say get a mirror. And what I mean by that is if you're implementation, if something's failing in your school, we need to look at the system, because teachers come, show up each and every day to do the very best. We may not have provided them with the resources. We may have provided opportunities to build the capacity to build their knowledge, skills and attitudes. They might not have the appropriate time. And so the other piece is if you see in that mirror that it's not working, don't fret. You can build an implementation team and start to use the tools to plan. It's never too late, even if you're like here. We started with somebody who's already 10 years into PLCs. Now they're up to you know 80% of people use it. It doesn't. So don't, don't. Don't be shy and you can come in and re. You can reshape something. But look in a mirror to see is your system serving your staff? 

35:22 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
That's so good. It makes me think of like kind of the um doing root cause analysis. I'm always like look for the gut punch, like you'll know when you get to the root. When you're like, ooh, that hurts me, to like face that hard reality about myself and my beliefs, like Hmm, that's like something that resonates. I know you are both working on your golf swings and so you could use golf as the answer to the next question, but I'm always curious what guests are learning about lately, and this could be related to your work, but it also could be totally different. 

35:48 - Steven Carney (Guest)
So what do? 

35:49 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
you think I am hooked on Adam Grant who, if you don't know Adam Grant, look him up. He is a social psychologist. He has two books. One called Think Again was my first dive into Adam Grant. I went to Little Dents and then Hidden Potential. I've got so many notes in that and he's about the hidden potential of teams and hidden potential in ourselves. And I am all about Adam Grant now and he has a podcast. So some of my learning is trying to infuse more Adam Grant-esque things into my life and work more Adam Grant-esque things into my life and work. 

36:31 - Steven Carney (Guest)
Gosh, you know I wish I would read things that are more like fun and not related to like my life, work and kids and what have you. But I'm currently in the process of reading the Anxious Generation, which I'll butcher his name Jonathan Hatt, or H-A-I-D-T. How do you pronounce that last name? Anyway, wow, really, if you want to understand why our kids are really struggling right now with so much anxiety and and, uh, mental health and what have you, uh, he, he makes this distinction between what we used to have, um, uh, basically, when we grew up, uh, that we had, uh, you know, lives where we played versus, you know, right now, their, their lives were consumed by cell phones and they could start scrolling when they're three. But tons of research that's in this book, so it's not just an opinion piece Really good. So it marks the case for some changes that we need to make in society to kind of help our kids with their, to address the level of anxiousness that they have. 

37:40 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I just requested that from the library this week, so I'm very excited. Thank you for previewing that for me, and then the final question I have for both of you, and we'll link to all this stuff too in the blog post for the episode. But where can listeners learn more about you, connect with you? We'll link to the book and the free resources in the book. So thank you for providing those, but what's the best place to get in touch with each of you? 

38:01 - Steven Carney (Guest)
Go ahead, Jenice, you got yours, I got mine. 

38:04 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
Hey, great, I am available at Impact Lead Succeed, which, if you just Google that impactleadsucceedcom and Jenice at impactleadsucceedcom by email and I'm on Instagram with Impact Lead Succeed. But just email me if you want to get together, if you want to just talk about learning and improvement. I love to geek out with other people who are learning and if you want some support, then we can also help you there. 

38:37 - Steven Carney (Guest)
And don't get confused by this, but we have very similar names. But it's impactlearnandleadcom and it's Stevencarneyatlearningandleadcom and it's Steven Carney at learning leadcom. 

38:48 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Amazing. Denise and Steven, thank you so, so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. 

38:52 - Jenice Pizzuto (Guest)
Lindsay, it's a pleasure. 

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