School: After Hours

S4 EP 15: Workshop Series: Transforming Culture Through Leadership feat. Juan Alvarado

• J. Lee, Youth Development • Season 4 • Episode 15

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In this episode, Juan Alvarado discusses the importance of building relationships with staff, parents, and the community to influence the culture of afterschool programs. He emphasizes the power of listening, having courageous conversations, and leading by example. Juan shares practical strategies for supervisors to create a positive and impactful culture, including praising staff, having positive phone calls with parents, and setting a high standard through personal actions. By focusing on building relationships and understanding the needs and goals of others, supervisors can effectively influence the culture and create a thriving environment.


Key topics discussed in this episode include:

*   The importance of continuous conversation and meaningful interactions with parents to build relationships and understand their needs.
*   The impact of positive communication and praise on students and staff, and the value of starting conversations with a positive note.
*   The significance of courageous conversations in addressing difficult issues with staff, focusing on calling out the problem while calling up the person.
*   The role of leadership in influencing the culture at a site, and the need for supervisors to lead by example and set the standard for their staff.
*   The importance of understanding the existing culture and working with staff to bring about positive change.

Guest Bio:

Juan is a highly respected expert in leadership and a Gallup Certified Clifton Strengths Coach. He is a U.S. Army war veteran with a wealth of experience training teams of thousands of soldiers in high-stakes situations. In addition to his military service, Juan has worked with school districts to improve team efficiency and communication, resulting in increased productivity and employee satisfaction. He helps leaders and teams overcome complacency and prevent burnout in the workplace through his "Blueprint to Leadership" course, which has created more confident and respected leaders in over 3500 school administrators. Juan has been featured on FOX, NBC, and CBS for his work in creating strength-based leaders and teams, promoting a positive culture in the workplace.

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Juan:

We constantly say, well, call them out, tell them what they did wrong. We can call out the situation, we can call it a problem, but never call out the person. We have to be able to call up the person. I'm going to ask you, I'm going to require you, I am going to call you up to the next level. This is the problem, this is how it was done, but in our organization, this is how we do things, and I'm going to elevate you and call you up to say I'm requiring you to do much more than have this type of conversation. You can't do that here, so I'm going to challenge you to do this instead.

Juan:

So I'm calling out the problem, but I'm calling up the person.

J. Lee:

Hello, hello everyone. Welcome to school after hours podcast. So we talk about all things related to out of school time programming and education. I am your host, j Lee, and we have the wonderful, the amazing Mr Juan Alvarado with us today. He's going to be talking with us about can get, can get, can get. He's going to be talking about leadership and we're also going to dive a little bit into culture building at the same time. But before we get into all the wonderful things, let's go ahead and jump into our community corner. Community corner is a segment of the show that allows guests on myself to share tips, advice or information on a specific topic with young people, families or community members. Without further ado, let's go ahead and get into our community corner conversation. Okay, juan, so for a community corner? This is my question for you. Are you ready? Yes, all right. So my question for you is why is parent and community participation important when it comes to after school program?

Juan:

So there is what I call like the three headed monster a good monster. Like monsters ink, like they're good monsters. Right, so the three headed monster is going to be your, your parents, your teachers and your after school programs, or those people who like coaches, things like that. You've heard the saying it takes a village to raise our children. So the issues that I see, even with my own children I have three boys but from my experience now, school program has been that there's organization and structure in the school place but then when they go home it's different. Right, right, I'll take a common core math. Right, teachers knew what they were doing in the natural school program. Staff were like what the heck, how do we, how do we teach this, how do we do this? And then you take them to the home and the parents don't know how to help their students in math. Well, when we get into alignment teacher, after school program staff and parents then we're able to support and surround and give that environment to the students.

Juan:

I kind of give the example of when you have a child and they go to grandma and grandpa's house or the babysitter. That's really lenient and then the parents come home, or the kids come home or the kid goes to spend the night at a friend's house and the rules are just different there. When the student comes back or the child comes back, it's like what happened, where were you? What happened to the rules, the structure, and it's like you almost have to start over. So I tell people, monday through Friday, the kids in a very structured school through after school program and the regular school day, but when they go home Saturday, sunday or for the evening to come back to school the next day, there's misalignment there. And so it's great to have parents, parent nights, parent involvement to say, hey, these are the things that we have implemented in structure.

Juan:

You can still have structure at home. Yes, there's some leniency, but when we can get on the same page in the same book, on the same paragraph, everything's going to flow that much better. And so alignment is huge between pick your three-headed monster the parent, parent, teacher and our school parent, teacher, coach. But then to surround that student with that support, with that love, and here's the thing with the discipline. You can still love through discipline. And I never really truly understood that as a child, but as a parent myself, as a coach and now as a leadership mentor to a lot of programs is discipline is key, but you can still love through discipline. I tell people, how can I correct you if I cannot connect with you? Right Connection before correction, and when we can do that as a whole, we will have a better body of leadership which will then produce better youth in our cities and our communities.

J. Lee:

Can I have me tears out here? But, it's true, it is very very true that connection, especially, like you said, when children go home, or even when they're, you know, coming back from the weekend, it's like Monday. You look a real different.

Juan:

Thursday or Friday you look a little different, and I'll take it a step further and I teach this too is the environment won't always go home like the structured environment. School day, after school programming, things like that won't always go home, but we have to be careful that home environment doesn't come to school, and what I mean by that is when we talk about connection before correction and things like that is. I tell a story of and I learned this in the military and I learned this in the police department and it's a movie. Training day with Denzel Washington taught me this. They're wolves, they're sheep and they're sheep dogs and the wolves are out there to kill, steal and destroy, destroy the structure of a family, the structure of a school, people's happiness, people, things like that. So our jobs as educators, as after school program staff, that coaches, as police officers, as firefighters, as doctors, as whatever, is to protect our sheep. But the moment that a sheep leaves, our job is to corral them back to the flock right.

Juan:

And we might have to bark, we might have to nudge, but we never bite the sheep, because if we bite the sheep it looks no different than the wolf that bites the sheep. So when we say, hey, jonathan, sit down for the fourth freaking time, knock it off Now. We look no different than maybe the abusive parent or bigger brother or uncle or aunt or whatever at home. So we need to be really careful to keep that structure pure, that we are not to bite the sheep, or else we look no different than at home environment. So if we want structured environment to follow home, we can't let a home, a negative home environment, come into the school day where the educators or the teachers, where the child finds its strength and its support, to look like anything negative, maybe like a home environment.

J. Lee:

Worth its weight in gold. Worth its weight in gold. All right, we're going to go ahead and jump into our interview questions. Everyone, thank you once again for being here with us on the show. So I had the wonderful privilege of learning about you at the Booth's conference last year and then I've been able to follow your show throughout the year and kind of show, kind of one of my top picks, and I'm so happy that I was able to reach out to you Show.

J. Lee:

Thank you, but you know, just going to drop that on there right there you do that little tidbit of information. So thank you for being here. I appreciate it, thank you. No problem. So let's go ahead and jump into the interview questions, right? So my first thing is go ahead. For the people that don't know, you give them a little bit about yourself. You know the highlights, and we can go ahead and dive a little bit deeper into our conversation.

Juan:

Highlight. So I grew up in Los Angeles, california, before I left to the military, went to the military right after high school graduated following day, had a graduation party slash, go into a party and then left where I learned not only just basic military but intel, counterintelligence and intelligence school, so just a lot of strategic thinking kind of things and from there moved to the Central Valley in California where I live, with my wife now and three boys 15, dang, he's going to be. He's gonna be 16, holy Moly, just thought about that. 1514 and 11.

Juan:

And yeah, it worked in after school program for 11 plus years after the police department and grew programs, started programs, and now I get to travel and speak, uplifting their leaders and leadership to help them have better programs, better staff, things like that. But yeah, I've got this. I got to speak in a bunch of different states and a bunch of different really big programs, especially here in California, and yeah, that's pretty much it. I just love the fact that I get to help leaders and leadership pour into those people who they lead, whether that's directors into staff or staff for students. Nice, nice.

J. Lee:

So the conversation that we're going to be having today is for those first year and going into second year site directors, because you know it's a little tough. It's a little rough Going into that role, especially maybe transitioning from a staff role of probably being a site aid, even coming from an assistant coordinator or director role into a director role. It's a little bit different. You know, you call the shots here, developing culture. You may have the support, you may not have the support. So what I want to do in this time is kind of carve out some important information for those first year, those returning second year or even those that are transitioning to different sites in the middle of the year, because that's a little different.

Juan:

Yeah, yep.

J. Lee:

That is a little different, to give them a little tidbits, you know, on things that they can do to kind of build the best community and build the best environment that they can for themselves, but for their staff and for their students as well. So with that being said, let's go ahead and let me ask you this first question. So, as a first year supervisor or leader transitioning to a different site, what are some important things to keep in mind as the leader of that team?

Juan:

A couple different things. Learn right, listen and learn. Understand that this is not your. This is your new site, but it's not your old site. So don't make your new site like your old site. Can it be similar? Yes, but I can tell you right now, staff are going to say, well, that's not how we do it here. Our site is different, our students are different, and I see a lot of leaders that think, oh, I'm going to make it easy and I'll just do the same thing they did before.

Juan:

However, you get the best of the world that you were in, mix it with the best of the world that you are currently in, but you don't know that environment yet. So how do you get that information? You talk to students and you talk to staff. What did you like? What did you absolutely love about your last leader or director or manager or whatever? What didn't you like and this is not a gossip session, but it's I wish they would have spoke to me a little bit more. They would have carved more time, more support. I don't need. On July 2nd, she said this about me and she would always talk to the other staff about me or he would do this like it's not a gossip session, but it's.

Juan:

I felt a lack of support. I need some help. I need some guidance. Maybe it's personal, maybe it's. I have a special needs child at home and there's going to be times where I won't be able to make it in on time. Whatever it is, learn your environment right. I can take it back to like animals. If an animal is captured in or because it's injured, and they take it into a facility for, like a zoo facility, and they start to nurture that animal, they still have to give it an environment that looks like its natural environment and then train it to continue to hunt, kill, search for food, things like that, and then they go back and release it. So you're going to have to learn your environment where you are and learn the ropes before you go back into it and lead. So listen and learn, listen to your staff, learn from your staff and then get the best of both worlds and start to intermingle to try to make it cohesive, because I've always loved the fact of if you're going to move up even further from that position. You know what you learn from school A and now from school B, and now you're making new things, which it might be C. So now you're building a repertoire of your tool belt. The next thing that I would say besides listen and learn, I would say is which is a big one, which is a hard pill to swallow but, once you understand it fully, is huge. Your job is not to make people happy, your job is to make them better.

Juan:

And, yes, picture a kid throwing a tantrum at like Walmart or Target or whatever, or a baby crying. People with the baby will give the pacifier to pacify it here. Stop for now and pacify the situation the kid is throwing. I'm mommy, I want this, okay. Okay, I'll get it for you. Just be quiet, cause you don't want there to be a scene. That is a taking care of the symptom as opposed to taking care of the problem. Right, the problem for the child crying might be that it's hungry, it needs to be burped, it's tired or it's teething, right? So take care of the problem feed it, burp it, put it to bed, whatever, right, numbing cream for the gums or whatever. For the kid throwing the tantrum. It's a lack of engagement or rules or discipline. So we need to go back to solving the problem.

Juan:

But if I try to make somebody happy, it's not solving the problem. They're not gonna become better. So in work, if somebody just wants to be pacified or to make them happy, they're just gonna be content, and content is not happiness. Content means you're not happy and you're not sad. You're fine, you're good. Would you want fine or good pay, or a fine or good relationship, or would you want a phenomenal relationship, phenomenal pay, things like that? So don't be satisfied with good or fine. So if that's the case, I'm not gonna give my staff everything that they need to make them happy. I'm gonna give my staff everything to make them better. Being happy is the result of becoming better, right? So if you're saying I'm not happy because I just don't know how to communicate, well, I'm gonna help you with communication skills. I'm not gonna tell you what to say, because if I tell you what to say, that's gonna make you happy. If I show you and teach you and mentor you, I help you become better. And once you become better, you're like now I'm happy because now I know what to do, I know how to do it, I know why I'm doing it. So understand that as a new manager or new lead, you need to make people better. Your job is not to make them happy. As soon as we make them happy, then they'll start to step on us and then they start to take your kindness for weakness, and that's not the case. I want people to follow me because of my influence not because I give them everything that they want Because I've learned that there's two things that people want, slash, need, like again going back to the child, or even a staff.

Juan:

I need this. Well, that's what you feel that you want. But I know what you need, right, I just need help with my kids and get them to quiet down. Well, that's what you want. What you need is classroom management. So I'll quiet your students down. I'll make sure that they follow your directions for today, but you know what After today, you and I are talking and I'm coaching you on classroom management, because that solving the solution is not pacifying it. Yeah, so your job is to make them better, not to make them happy.

J. Lee:

Nice, nice. So for the people, pleases in the building, that comes a very hard check for that individual, not just mentally but emotionally, because you want them to be pleased with you.

Juan:

Right.

J. Lee:

But it's what they can't.

Juan:

Yeah, it's basically what you want now versus what you want most. If you really want them to be happy with you, then you can't, just you can't again, my kid's hungry. I'm not going to give him crap to eat, I'm going to give him something nourishing. Yeah, you might get here, let me give you something to hold you off, but if I keep on giving him junk, then he's going to start to crave the junk, right? I'm not here to make you a junk staff. I'm here to make you a phenomenal staff, right? And so, if you're a people pleaser, know that the pleasing is going to last longer. If you make them better, if you make them happy, then it's going to be. It's just going to be short-term and it's going to be very, very short-term.

J. Lee:

That is great, oh, that's great. But hold on, everybody, we're going to come back. We're going to take a quick break and we're going to come back. So go ahead, get your drinks, you know, get your popcorn, get your tea. If you need to, go ahead, take care of yourself and come back in like no less than like two minutes, all right. So tell them in a minute.

J. Lee:

Are you a program director or thinking of starting a program? Maybe you need new curriculum that focuses on character development or technical skills. Maybe you need help establishing effective program logistics to have an impactful program culture or, overall, you just need a program evaluation. Well, school after hours consulting case here to help, contact us at schoolafterhourscom and our contact information is in the show notes. Hope to hear from you soon.

J. Lee:

Hello, hello everyone. Welcome back to the show. We have the amazing Juan Alvarado here with us. We are going to be talking about leadership, you know, tackling all these things with culture, building at sites, all the wonderful things, and specifically speaking to our first year staff, second year returners for leadership, but also those that may be transitioning to a different site. You know, what went well at one place may not go well at the next. If you were preview to our previous conversation in the first half, you know did touch a little bit on that. So from there, let's talk about leadership. So we did talk about being a leader and the one thing that you said is listening, you know, being aware of the space as you're coming in, but also finding out what your staff needs but what your student needs. Which leads me into my next question for you, juan what are some of the things that new supervisors can do to build relationships with the community and parents, cause that could be a little iffy.

Juan:

Yeah, um, any communication in any relationship is built off of continuous conversation. So when parents come in, it's not just hey, how's it going, I'll have your son or daughter here, right, when they pick them up, but really communicating with the parents especially if they have other kids right, there's other children. Hey, what's your name, do you play any sports? Things like that. And then you can see, right, becky coming in with her son, jackson, to pick up you know, I'm using my own family here as an example picking up Levi, and all of a sudden mom doesn't have Jackson. Hey, where's Jackson? Jackson's usually here with you. Oh, he's at baseball practice, right. So now Jackson comes the following day with mom to pick up Levi. You can say hey, jackson, how's baseball going? Right, it's the little conversations that, like it's meaningful, right. And I and I attest this back to it's funny Back to when I was in junior high.

Juan:

I was in seventh grade. There was an older girl that I liked who was in eighth grade and she was a teacher's assistant for the office and she came in because I need to get picked up for a doctor's appointment, and then she's like hey, when the teacher hey, we need one to the office. And then you get escorted to the office, right. And on my way to the office with this girl, she was like where were you? Yesterday I came into the office to give somebody else a nose and I noticed that you weren't in class. And I was like the hottest girl in school, knows who I am and notice that I wasn't in class, right. And it goes back to the same thing, like you feel valued because somebody saw you, somebody understands who you are, cares about you and noticed that you weren't there. So there's impact there. So how do I have impact and influence on somebody? I continuously have conversations with them and let them know that I care.

Juan:

Right, it's the conversations when you've had a bad day with their child, right? Hey, we had a pretty uphill battle today with Levi. There was some getting out of the seat. There was talking back. There's a little bit of attitude. He said some things that weren't appropriate. We're going to let that go, you know. This time I just want you to let you know what happened. But then you also need to have those conversations with today. Levi was out fricking standing. He was helpful. He helped the kid up. There was a kid that was being bullied and he came and he got in the way and he said something and you know he was just very helpful, very loving.

Juan:

A child hears no or something negative 400 times a day. By the time they're 18, it's over 2 million times that they've heard no or something negative. So how do we combat that with something positive? So when we're talking about like community and having that building relationships, I want, as a parent, I want to know that my child is being taken care of and that I'm getting reports and I'm not saying micromanaging and like, hey, you know, every day I come in and say hey, today was a seven, today was an eight, but there's valuable time, there's valuable information. Here's the other thing is listening to parents and the vocabulary that they use. I use this when we talk about marketing with students, when we're trying to get more ADA, more attendance into the program is listening to what the kids are saying and the vocabulary that they're using and then utilize it the same way, right?

Juan:

So I've had parents where they say I'm just having a really tough time with Levi. He just has attitude. I don't think he's very confident because he never looks you in the eye and blah, blah. Now I know I need to build confidence and Levi, I need to get him to look people in the eye. I know that they find that respectful, so when I'm talking to this parent, I need to look at them in the eye. There's verbal cues out there that we need to know and understand.

Juan:

But I will add this this last part is we all need to work intentionally and with purpose, and so when our programs or our students or our parents aren't striving for something, then our programs and our relationships fall flat. Right. If I'm working on my relationships with my students, I want to know what they want, what they're fighting for, what they're looking forward to, what they're looking to strive for. And when we can have these little moments of accomplishment, then we can then brag about them to their parents and things like that. So we can say, hey, he had a 2.0 and we were striving this week to get a 2.3 and we got a 2.3. Right, when we're moving forward in a journey, together we build relationship with students. When parents are like man, I just want him to get better grades. Okay, what is a better grade to the parent? What does success look like to them? I just want them to get from a 2.0 to a 3.0. All right, now I know what we're striving for. Hey, mr Alvarado, we've been working really, really hard with your son or daughter or whatever. We're halfway there. We're at a 2.5. Now dad or mom gets excited because we are moving forward.

Juan:

So what is the journey that you need to have with your students, with your community, with your parents? I know at certain schools or whatever they, sometimes it's beautiful to find their communities picking up trash. It's, you know, getting rid of graffiti or whatever. Cool Then. That's what we're going to do with our students, with our programs. But, again, everything is leading in a journey. Where and what is your, your journey in that? Where do you lie in that?

J. Lee:

And then where is?

Juan:

your students and your parents lie in that, to know that we're moving together for the common goal or purpose.

J. Lee:

Right, and too often I feel like we reach for the negative rather than the positive when it comes to having conversations and building relationships, not with just the students, but also with the parents as well. I know, in one of a couple of the sites that I've worked at, the thing that was stressed to us the first phone call that you made to a parent should be a positive phone call, not a negative.

J. Lee:

Because there's a bunch of things going on during the day and you don't know when's the last time that parent or that child has had a positive talk or encouragement about their child. So you always want to reach for the positive first. So therefore, you're building a rapport with them. So when you have to give that conversation like look, something may have happened today and I just wanted to inform you and let you know about it, you already have invested in that relationship kind of give them that news.

Juan:

Yeah, for sure, and it can save a relationship. Right, the kid might be getting just reamed at home. You never do this and your room is dirty and your grades are falling and you just have attitude, blah, blah, blah. Like when are you going to like, get your act together? We're hearing that as a kid. But then when the teacher calls and says, hey, we had a really good time and a really good thing, it's like oh, there's something there. It helps the relationship. It's a conversation starter. Hey, tell me, tell me more. What happened at school. Your teacher called today and said that this and this happened.

Juan:

So now you're really in a relationship with, between a parent and a student, because you're giving them a conversation starter. Yeah, it's all about deposits over withdrawals, right? Everyone wants to be able to get more deposits into their bank account, their emotional bank account, right? And that's a lot of withdrawal, right, so, for sure.

J. Lee:

So that curves me to my next question, dealing with staff, right? So when you're having these conversations, the same way that you want to praise your students, you also want to praise your staff. But what happens if you have to then have those difficult conversations with staff? And I know you did a show on it and one of the things that you referenced, too, was not calling out but calling up- yeah. So you can go ahead and share that with us yeah.

J. Lee:

Things that you want to do as far as developing your staff in that sense.

Juan:

Yeah, to develop your staff, you have to develop yourself first, and I taught this just yesterday about the words that we use. Right, and I'm going to do this with you right now, and you can finish this sentence for me, sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never it hurt me. Yeah, which is a bunch of crap because it does right so much so if I can get serious for a second. Words have caused people to take their own lives.

J. Lee:

If I'm just being real right.

Juan:

So words definitely don't just hurt, they kill right and they also kill motivation. They kill hearts, they kill thought processes, they kill minds. But here's the other side of that coin. Words also lift up and motivate and inspire and bring life and give life. And so our tongue is a very critical weapon. It can hurt or it can help, it can slow or it could grow right, and what we speak and what we hear affects our thought process. So you said something which we all do. I did this, I probably in this podcast episode, and I think we might have, I might have done this last week and I constantly catch myself and because I'm aware I catch it with other people and I'm starting to catch it with myself but you said how do we deal with staff, deal with?

J. Lee:

stuff.

Juan:

Not work with you, not communicate with you, not mentor you, not help you? How do we deal with staff? Like I said that the other day, like Friday, I was talking to my wife and I said, how are we going to deal with the kids, with the situation? And I was like you did it, like that's a tough word, right, how am I going to deal with it? My mom said it to me. Well, what are we going to do with you? Or same thing with like shame on you, like when you think about shame on you, like when you really think about those words for shame to be put upon you, like dang gum, like that's, that's crazy.

Juan:

So, to deal with staff, I would then tell the leader of the individual the problem processing your mind and your thought process is that you have to deal with staff and if you're dealing with stuff, you have to deal with your problems, you have to deal with your emotions. Now I would say that we need to start training and working on those things so that you can become better leader when you start to work with your staff. Now, to answer the question when it comes to working with staff, mentoring staff, that we need to have those difficult conversations. I heard a mentor of mine teach me this way. They're called courageous conversations, and when we start talking about culture, this is big. When setting the platform for that is, we need to have a courageous conversation, and it's not just courageous for me to speak it, but it's going to be courageous for you to hear too. This is going to be a tough conversation. It's going to be tough for me to say, and it's also going to be tough for you to hear, and then like what is it the movie eight mile or M&M?

Juan:

At the very end said, at the very end of his rap battle he talks about I am white and I did do this and you guys did jumping, you did shoot me. And at the very end, he says now, tell these fools what they don't already know about me. Right, tell them something new that they don't like, that I didn't tell him already. I do that with my staff, with the staff. Hey, you might feel like you're back into a corner. You might feel that this is unfair, that you didn't have a voice in this, but I want you to make sure that you feel this way.

Juan:

You might feel this way and you might not like me at the other day, whether it's a how did he tell me? Whether it's a handshake, hug or a shrug. I want you to be cool with the conversation at the very end. Something happened today or something happened yesterday that we really needed to discuss the way you spoke to another staff or whatever. I'm going to give you your mic to be heard, but we can't have that stuff happen. I know that you might have been upset, they might have hurt you, whatever but I want to hear your side of the story. But letting somebody be heard, because we all want to be heard and understood, I think it's coming.

Juan:

It's teachers seek first to understand and to be understood. I want to be able to understand you, but in that when you were quote unquote, maybe reprimanding somebody, you're talking to them and there's something negative. Be clear that the person is always bigger than the problem. Like you're more important. The person is more important than the problem, and problems can be very severe, especially when it deals with another person. And so I had a staff one time that he we have it on video because there's cameras and it's on audio but he was so bad with his language and he cussed so much in his regular day in and day out that he didn't even realize that he cussed. Even in our conversation with him. He was like I don't know what's happening, Like I just think that you know I was effing doing this and I was like you just, you just did it again and he's like I did what. I'm like you just cussed, and he's like and he's trying to argue that he didn't cuss at the students and I'm like you just.

Juan:

And then in the conversation, like you did it again and he was just so deaf to it because he had constantly been doing it and so the reason why I said even though I just finished saying that the person is bigger than the problem, in this case, because there was three people I had to tell him that the person, the child, is bigger than the problem. When I'm having a conversation with somebody, sometimes it's the person I'm talking to, reprimanding or writing up verbally or written, writing them up that they're just as important as the problem. But there's other times when our kids, you know they are important in the problem. So I tell people I'm going to call out the problem, but I need to call up the person right and I'll tell them what they did wrong.

Juan:

We can call out the situation, we can call out the problem, but never call out the person. We have to be able to call up the person. I'm going to ask you, I'm going to require you, I am going to call you up to the next level. This is the problem, this is how it was done. But in our organization this is how we do things and I'm going to elevate you and call you up to say I'm requiring you to do much more than have this type of conversation.

Juan:

You can't do that here, so I'm going to challenge you to do this instead, so I'm calling out the problem, but I'm calling up the person, and I think it's different when people understand that I'm going to call out what was said, how it was said, but I'm going to motivate you as a person and require you to let's step up our game and call you up because at the end of our conversation, our courageous conversation, I want the person to be heard, I want them to be understood, but they also want them to understand that there is a standard here and they fell below the standard, which is why I'm calling them up. I'm one of inspire you and motivate you, that this is where you need to be.

J. Lee:

Right, right, exactly. Good point, good point, all right. So the last. This is for all the marbles. So we went over lifting of staff, positive building relationships. The last one is when you're getting to site building, community right and influence, and how does that cross over and how is that going to look, you know, is it in your image, is it in the image of the students, or is it all together? So my question for you is what can the supervisor do to influence the culture at their site? Being at this will be probably like their first time interacting on this level as a supervisor, you know, influencing the culture moving forward.

Juan:

Yeah, the culture is what it is, not what you say it is. Tonight, a lot of people will say, or our culture is this, this and this, and then you go there and then the staff for life. I don't like it here. Everybody does this and there's nobody that does this. It's like there's your culture right there. Your culture is not what you say it is. It's what it actually is.

Juan:

If there wants to be a change or you're coming into an organization again or a new spot, you really need to listen to the staff and figure out what's needed, what's wanted, what's working, what's not. But you will always fall down to the level of your standard. Your culture will always fall down to the level of your staff. Your leadership will always fall to the baseline of your knowledge, and so your staff will also fall down to the level of the leadership. And so we have to understand where we set that standard. And so if we want a culture change or we want to keep something in culture, we have to lead by example.

Juan:

There was a story that I heard where it was an engineering firm and it was the engineering floor and they were making some of the machinery that they were doing and they had a lot of injuries and a lot of trash on the floor and they kept on telling everybody clean up their trash. When they're scrap metal around, pick it up, put it in the trash can. And the memos went out, the emails went out, there wasn't a huge difference and then they started to put signs up Pick up your trash, pick this up. We see this at gyms all the time. If you belong to a gym, people don't rack their weights, they don't put stuff back to where it's supposed to be, they don't clean it, and then the people will put up signs Rerack your weights, make sure you wipe up, clean up after yourself. And it still doesn't happen, right?

Juan:

The leadership in this engineering firm said you know what, when I go to work, instead of being in the big offices where the cool restrooms and the nice air conditioning is and stuff, and using the restroom, I'm going to use the restroom that everybody else uses down on the bottom floor and I'm going to walk the long way to my office. I want to use the restroom instead of using the one that's conveniently right next to my office. I'm going to walk down to the floor and use the restroom that everybody else is, and when I do so I'm going to talk to everybody and I'm going to just clean up. And so it took about a week or so.

Juan:

But they saw their boss walking in across the floor saying hi to people, engaging with them, picking up the pieces of scrap metal and the paper and stuff on the floor, and they started to throw it away and using the restroom. And somebody asked him why are you using our restroom when you have, like, your own personal restroom up there where all the bosses are? And he says it gives me a chance to say hi to y'all and it gives me a chance to clean up. Like, if I'm going to work here, then I need to set the example.

Juan:

And then those people started to clean up and they started to talk and say hi and wave. Instead of the head nods of like what's up, it became the hand waves, it became the smiles, then it became the talking of hey, how's it going? And how the kids? Conversation started and people started to clean up after themselves. So after a week, after multiple bosses started to walk the floor and set the example by cleaning up, then the employees started to do it.

Juan:

So if you want that change to happen in your organization and you want to build relationships with the students and staff and that's what you want your staff to do is build relationships you go out there and do it. You want your staff to start seeing things that you're seeing, then you need to start doing those things that you're asking yourself, that you're asking your staff to do. You know, I tell people you bosses want the best staff, but are you being the best boss? Employees want the best boss, but are you being the best employee Like? You need to start doing and being that very thing that you're wanting to be and to do.

Juan:

So if you want the culture change or you want to elevate the culture, then lead by example and do it. It's going to take some time, but everything takes work Right. If you can't go to the gym and lift the weight and you get stronger from it, you're the one that has to do that Right. And so if we want to change, you can't just point and tell we have to lead by example and do so.

J. Lee:

Right, right. Oh, that's so good. Oh, that's so good. I hate to bring this to an end, but y'all, we have to wrap up the show. Oh, thank you so much for sharing all these gyms for those that have enjoyed it. We are not done yet, though, so with this we're going to get a little bit more advice. We're going to go ahead and jump into our professionals lounge. The professionals lounge is a segment of the show that allows guests to share advice with other practitioners in the OST and youth development field about how they can begin growing their gifts and talents, but also develop themselves as professionals in the field. Here's our professionals lounge conversation. All right, everyone, we are at professionals lounge. We are at the end of the show, but before we leave, we're going to do our little question, all right? So everyone is what advice would you give first year supervisors when it comes to their professional development?

Juan:

The one thing that I absolutely hated doing. I dislike it now. I went from hated to dislike, but read Read.

Juan:

I hated reading in high school Hated. And then in the military and the police department you have this big old, huge manual. You got to read Hated it Like give me the abridged version. I think like chat GPT. Now you can like download everything. Like give me the five points that I need to learn. Like let's cut, cut the like, let me just. But I will tell you that I read and heard a stat that says after high school, it's like 17% of people will never or no, I'm sorry, 73% people will never pick up a book again. Yeah, crazy. And then it's like college graduates like same thing. It's like 70 something percent will never pick up a book again. And just crazy to know that. But they say that if you read a book a month in your area of that you want to learn in that you will become one of the top 1% expert in that field. And so I Was like no way, really. And so then I started to read. So the books behind me, there's two books.

Juan:

I know they're blurred out, but there's two books there's a green, green one and a yellow one, and the green one is Conscious classroom management. And then the other one is it's called the gap. What about this kid? And it's about dealing with. I did it dealing Handling. See, I told you I catch this stuff, told you I'm. I live what I teach and I teach what I live. Helping yourself, teaching yourself how to work with tier three students, right?

Juan:

No, students, that are just you're pushing your buttons. I read those two books and and within the next two months I became the trainer of trainers for After school programs, teaching not only after school programs, but I had schools bringing me in to teach their teachers and then after they're like how long were you in the classroom and how long were you an educator? And I'm like I Don't got my credential. They're like what? And people are like no way, and then some people that turn them away. And then other people were like how do you know so much about school?

Juan:

I was like as a child I used to go, and even as a teen and as an adult I would go with my dad to his classroom South Central a, I mean get Classroom full of rival gangs and stuff and I would see how my dad would work with students and then what I've learned from those books and then what I've worked in that school program did again working with those students and things like that. It was just different. So and what I teach and what I know in leadership is reading those books, finding out that the author has a workshop or an event.

Juan:

Going to those events like really Investing yourself. And this is the thing that's crazy. I just read the other day that the average person spends 20 to 30 dollars on coffee, 157 dollars a month on fast food and $57 or 54 dollars on streaming services Hulu, disney, plus Spotify, things like that. So 220 dollars on average a month that you're spending on something for your stomach right, your energy or your gut, and then your entertainment. And then you're wondering why you're not doing really good in life or your personal development. If you're to take the 220 dollars and buy a 20 dollar book, 10 dollar book, whatever, let's just say 10 to 11 books that you can get and read One a month, take a month off, but 10 or 11 books, one a month.

Juan:

You can be doping your personal development and I'm learning so much and doing so much that now I'm teaching the stuff. I'm teaching the stuff that I've read. I'm teaching the stuff that I've gone to, these workshops and these things Investing yourself instead of buying the coffee that's going to help you with your energy, read something on what you can actually eat or do that's going to give you energy, like for me, I was coffee every day coffee, or like a Red Bull or whatever, and now it's like vitamin D pills. Going for a morning walk, getting some actual natural vitamin D sunlight, and now my energy is through the roof, all because I want to educate myself. It's like stop taking care of the symptom and start taking care of the problem.

Juan:

So, if you're not getting anywhere, or you want to do more, you want to feel better, you want to be better. You want to do better. You want to make more money like. There's books out there that teach you how to make more money. Right right before this call, I was on a call with a mentor named Myron golden on how do I make more money than I did this last year? How do I become a better father than I was this last year? There's books out there like how to do it and people won't read them. I mean even the podcast.

Juan:

I can give you three to four things to do and people are going to be like, oh, it's really good, and then they're not going to do them.

Juan:

They're just not because we don't push ourselves. Jim Rohn says if you don't like what you live, change it. If you don't like what you drive, change it. Like you're not a tree you can actually get up and move. And so, when it comes to your personal development, to pick up a book if you don't like to read, like I did, get the audiobook. If your drive to and from work is 20 minutes, you have 40 minutes that you can listen to your, not an audiobook. When you're eating lunch on a 30 minute lunch, listen to your audiobook. Now you have the 20 minutes and 20 minutes and the 30 minutes. You now have an hour and 10 minutes that you can be in a book listening to it, like there's no excuses. I have a portable speaker. Put it in my restroom, put my audiobook on through the speaker, take a shower I bump that baby up so I can hear it through the shower and you know you take a 15 minute shower, 15, 20 minutes getting ready, like if you want to do something, like, let's, let's go, let's do something.

J. Lee:

Awesome. So why, if people want to get in such a soon, get more information? You know how they reach you.

Juan:

Yeah, so instagram is raise the bar ceo. So that's the company that I have. It's called raise the bar. Raise with the z are a, I, z, e raise the bar ceo. On instagram. We raise the bar is the website, so wwwwe raise the bar. Any one of those. You can reach out to me. I'm really good about reaching, but if you DM me, I'm right there like I'm. I'll reply and help you out as much as I can. But those are the two spots that are big and then linked in. I think linked in it's just one alvarado or rtb for raise the bar, rtb-1.

J. Lee:

Hello everyone, that brings us to the end of our show. If you like what you heard and you enjoyed our conversation, make sure that you're following us on youtube, but also hit that like button so we know what you are enjoying. You can also find us on other podcast platforms like apple podcast, spotify and google podcast. If you want to listen to our audio version as well, to get more behind the scenes stuff, make sure that you're following us on our social media accounts instagram and facebook, at school after hours. Well, that's all I have for today and the words of mr Arthur ash start where you are. Use what you have, do what you can. Until next time, y'all, bye, bye.