Why Are We Still Doing This? [280]

It happens every spring.

Enrollment season winds down, the pressure lifts, and for a brief moment, you can actually think straight again.

And then, almost immediately, it starts. The requests pile back up. The printed alumni magazine needs to go to the designer. The spring community newsletter needs quotes from the head of school. The event you've hosted every May for eleven years needs a save-the-date.

Nobody questions any of it. It just... happens.

I want to challenge you to do something uncomfortable this spring. I want you to make a list of every publication, event, and initiative on your plate and ask one honest question about each one.

Why are we still doing this?

Not "who started this?" Not "what's the history here?" Just: why are we still doing it?

I'll be honest with you. I've sat in rooms where someone finally asked that question about a long-running publication, and the silence that followed was deafening. Nobody could answer it. Not really. The best anyone could offer was some version of "we've always done it this way" or "the head of school likes it."

That's not a reason. That's a sacred cow.

Sacred cows are expensive. They eat your budget, your time, and your creative energy. And because they've been around so long, nobody feels like they have the standing to question them.

You do.

Spring is the right time to do this audit, before next year's budget cycle starts, before the calendar gets locked, and before another year slips by doing things that don't move the needle.

Start small. Pick two or three things that have always made you quietly wonder "is this worth it?" Pull whatever data you have. Look at open rates, attendance numbers, engagement, anything. Then write down what you would do with the time and money if that initiative simply went away.

That list is the beginning of a conversation worth having.

You don't have to blow everything up. But you owe it to yourself, and to your school, to at least ask the question.

Thanks,
Brendan

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