7 Circles for FOCUS

The 7 circles is an exercise that The 1 Thing uses to help you to focus on which area to begin. While The 1 Thing focuses on Purpose, Priorities, and Productivity for Profit, schools need to focus on the 3 P's for impact. I have adapted the 7 circles here for a school system:

The idea is to go through each circle and identify which of those you think is the priority area for you to focus on, or which one is where you can have the most impact. Which of the one or two circles is your top 20% to get to first. And within each circle, "What's the ONE THING that you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?"

There are multiple ways to do this. You can have a committee that tackles each one, or you can choose one that your entire team will focus on. In an earlier post, I mentioned my school building had taken to the part of the district mission of "For Each Student." We didn't actually use the 7 circles, but data showed us that we were not connecting with more students than we were comfortable with. So we made all of our actions around making sure EACH student had a connection in the building, and felt a part of the community.

We survey students about this a couple of times per year, and follow up with those who don't feel connected. Students that disagree with the statement "There is a an adult who cares about me in this building" are informally put on a list for teachers to work to make connections with. We ask staff to recognize a student on a weekly basis for doing something good, and our staff does an amazing job of identifying the under the radar kids.

By focusing on the connections of our students, we have made great progress in closing achievement gaps of senses of belonging and the value of the work we have students do. This leads to greater participation, sense of ownership in the school, and improved attendance, discipline, grades, and graduation rates.

This may end up being your school's ONE thing. Or your's may need to start on a different circle to tackle first. Or you may choose students, but go in a totally different direction. There is no wrong way to start, except for starting with too many things, or too big of a first step. As I said earlier, START SMALL, identify the first step, and then get to work on knocking over that first domino.

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