Higher Performance Insights | BLAMERS OR BUILDERS?

October 8, 2025
higher performance insights

Your Institution Has 18 Months, and Here's What 23 Leaders Did on October 1st to Model the Way Forward

"We've got about 18 months to figure this thing out."

That's the window educational leaders have to transform proactively—or be forced to transform reactively in survival mode.


On October 1st, 2025, twenty-three district superintendents and college presidents stopped planning alone and started building together. Not the leaders waiting for perfect strategic plans. Not the ones defending comfortable systems. The BUILDERS—leaders whose institutions have grown enrollment 15-40% despite demographic headwinds, who've launched partnerships generating $50M+ in regional economic impact, who've redesigned curricula around employer needs that traditional institutions haven't touched.


What emerged in those 60 minutes wasn't comfortable. It was clarifying.


Here's what 1.7 million lost higher education students and 1.2 million departed K-12 students since 2019 actually tell us: Students didn't drop out. They opted out. Traditional education lost not because our teaching failed, but because our thinking stayed small while the world moved fast.


The market already voted. And it didn't vote for more performance optics.


The Four Types of Leaders


DR. JOE HILL opened with a framework that landed hard:



Four types of leaders populate education today. Coasters worship stability and avoid controversy. Climbers optimize metrics but often overlook whether those metrics matter to students. Dreamers create gorgeous strategic plans that rarely launch. And Builders—rare, hungry, idealistic—who possess what Hill calls "moral ambition."


"We've got about 18 months to figure this thing out," Hill told the group spanning Silicon Valley to Romania, rural Wisconsin to inner-city Arkansas. "We can be builders now, or be forced to build in survival mode."


The room went quiet. Not because leaders disagreed. Because they knew this was right.


Twenty-eight colleges closed in the first nine months of 2024 alone. Each closure eliminates 265 jobs and $14 million in economic activity. The Federal Reserve predicts 80 more higher education institutions will close by 2029.


The question isn't whether disruption is coming; it's whether you're prepared for it. It's whether you're disrupting yourself or waiting for someone else to do it to you.

The Identity Crisis No One's Talking About


Gordon Amerson Ed.D.Superintendent of Alvord Unified School District in Southern California named the elephant in the room:


"We fundamentally became educators because we wanted to pour knowledge from our heads and hearts into children. AI stripped us of being the smartest person in the room. We're having to address the identity of what it means to be an educator—that's the crux of the issue."


This is the real disruption. Not technology replacing teachers. Technology redefining what teaching means.


This explains why faculty AI training fails. We're teaching tools when the real issue is existential. The institutions succeeding aren't mandating AI adoption—they're facilitating identity transformation.


Lee Lambert, Chancellor of Foothill-DeAnza Community College in Silicon Valley, added: "It's not just labor in terms of unions. It's not just faculty. Its administrators, too. This is really a people issue—it's about us humans and our willingness to adapt."


The pedagogical shift:


Before: Faculty as primary information source (sage on the stage) After: Faculty as curator, mentor, coach (guide on the side)


Mike Beighley, Superintendent of Whitehall School District in Wisconsin, demonstrated what this looks like in practice:


"We're leveraging AI on depth-of-knowledge level 1 and 2 content—giving us more time with our educators to start building capacity to learn. We can now do applied learning we never had time for because we were too busy teaching content."

Use AI to handle rote tasks. Free educators to build what we never had time for: applied learning, mentorship, human connection.


Your 24-hour action: Ask three faculty members: "If AI handled all the content delivery in your course, what would you do with the freed time that would transform student outcomes?"


Design Backwards from Employer Reality—Or Watch Students Walk


Before: Curriculum designed around what faculty can teach After: Curriculum designed around what employers need graduates to do day one


Dr. Jermaine Whirl, President of Savannah State University, shared the strategy that's working:


"I was at the Federal Reserve Board meeting with executives from Mercedes Benz, Home Depot, Universal Studios. I asked: How are you using AI in your companies? Then we designed backwards."


The Mercedes-Benz reality: They don't interview humans anymore for initial screening. AI bots conduct thousands of candidate interviews simultaneously, 24/7. Their HR staff shrunk from 20 to 2—but those two need skills most business schools don't teach: programming conversational AI, scripting predictive analytics, embedding organizational culture into algorithms.


The Home Depot revelation: They're hiring English majors specifically for AI prompt engineering. Why? English majors craft prompts and scripts better than technical majors. Starting salary: $65,000-$85,000.


"That's a different conversation than worrying about AI taking jobs," Whirl said. "We're worrying about what you're teaching and what your students have to be able to do when they get to us."


Savannah State's response? Require IBM AI-search certification across all freshman courses. Day one. Psychology majors. English majors. Engineering majors. Every graduate leaves job-ready for basic AI functions employers demand today.


Stop asking "What can we teach?" Start asking "What do employers need graduates to do on day one?"


Your 24-hour action: Email one employer in your region. Ask: "How are you using AI, and what skills do you wish our graduates had on day one?" Listen without defending your curriculum.


Create Immediate Value—Not Just Deferred Promises


Before: Student investment pays off in 2-4 years (maybe) After: Students earn credentials, employment, and income while learning


Bradley Barrick, President of Montcalm Community College challenged the fundamental value proposition:


"If you take an accounting class and all you get is three credit hours toward an associate's degree that's two years away, what value are we adding?"


His answer: Embed industry certifications in every course.


  • Accounting course → Tax preparation certification → Seasonal employment earning $200-$500 per return
  • Biology course → Farm licensing → Agricultural work at $15-$22/hour
  • The college pays for certifications


Students aren't just earning credits. They're earning income while they're learning.


"Information is everywhere, but transformation happens through relationships," Barrick emphasized. "It happens through mentorship, it happens through community. We're not just delivering content—we're trying to reach the whole student."


Kate Ferrel, President of Nicolet College in Wisconsin, applied the same principle earlier in the pipeline:


"We partner with K-12 districts starting in fifth grade with intentional touchpoints. There won't be a single student in our catchment area who hasn't had conversations about careers, trajectories, work-based learning."


Notice what she didn't say: "We created a dual enrollment program." Every college has dual enrollment. Builders create systematic pathways that make college invisible to fifth-graders and inevitable by graduation.


The pattern: Students are leaving traditional education because value is entirely deferred. The builders are creating concurrent value—credentials, employment, income—alongside degrees.


Your 24-hour action: Identify one course where you could embed an industry certification this semester. Start with the conversation, not the perfect plan.


The AI Tension Nobody's Resolved


Not everyone in that room agreed on AI implementation—and that's valuable.


Dr. Jake Trippel, Dean of Concordia University-St. Paul College of Business and Technology, brought a corporate perspective:


"I just came from New York speaking to hundreds of executives. Believe me—corporations are struggling just as much as education with AI. We can learn 5, 10, even 25 times faster than we ever could before using these technologies."


But Manoj Patil, President of Little Priest Tribal College, issued a stark warning:


"Our best students at Harvard and Yale—they don't want to use AI. They're building the code for others to use, but they don't use it themselves. Why? The more we depend on ChatGPT to write an email, the more cognitive decline we'll see. The national average ACT is the lowest in history."


The builder's answer isn't choosing sides. It's designing when and how AI enters the learning journey at different developmental stages.


Dr. Nathan S. Schilling, CSBO, Superintendent of Lansing School District in Illinois, just built a $26 million primary center doubling down on play-based, low-screen-time education:


"At what point do you shift and start adding technology and AI? Where's the merge point?"


The question isn't if students will use AI. They already are. The question is: Who's designing the learning journey that makes AI a tool for human flourishing rather than human diminishment?


Don't ban AI. Don't embrace it blindly. Design the developmental pathway.


Build Ecosystems, Not Just Institutions


Before: Institutions optimize their enrollment (zero-sum competition) After: Regions choreograph student pathways (positive-sum collaboration)


RICK BAILEY, President of Southern Oregon University and retired Air Force colonel, reframed everything:


"The best place to hide a needle isn't in a haystack—it's in a stack of needles. That's the paradigm shift we're in. For students, it's not about accessing information anymore. It's about finding the right needle in an endless sea of needles."


We've been optimizing institutions for information scarcity. AI created information abundance. Our value isn't access—it's curation, context, and connection.


Martin Mahan, Superintendent of Fort Smith Public Schools in Arkansas, demonstrated ecosystem thinking:


He partnered with University of Arkansas - Fort Smith, Baptist Hospital, and Mercy Hospital to create the PEAK Innovation Center. Not a partnership on paper. Systematic integration where students get immersed in hospital classrooms regularly.


"Every program in that facility is concurrent credit or credential credit for career abilities. As they walk across the stage, they're quickly employable in this community."


Jermall D. Wright, Ed.D., Little Rock School District Superintendent, faced closing another high school. Traditional response? Consolidate and cut.


Builder response? "We're creating a brand new virtual-hybrid high school with untraditional staffing, untraditional curriculum, and untraditional paths to graduation. We're competing with the homeschool and micro-school movement."


The pattern: Highest-performing educational ecosystems don't compete for students. They choreograph student pathways across institutional boundaries and measure collective impact, not just individual enrollment.


Your 24-hour action: Identify one "competitor" who could become your most valuable partner. Email them asking: "What's one thing about serving students that keeps you up at night?"


The Governance Challenge Nobody Wants


Ric Dressen, roundtable facilitator, issued a critical warning:


"Foundationally, governance in an AI world is essential. We're federally saying no governance at a federal level because we want AI wide open. That puts pressure on you as a leader and your boards to say what the safe guidelines are, what the secure guidelines are, and what the potentials are."


Translation: While Washington debates, you must decide now.


"Rules are tools," Dressen emphasized. "If we can create the borders, we can play very innovatively inside. But if we don't, it's wide open and the dangers really fall."


The institutions thriving aren't waiting for federal policy. They're establishing AI governance that enables innovation within guardrails.


The Non-Negotiable: 20% Strategic Thinking Time


Hill's mandate to every leader:


"You had to have the title of president or superintendent to be on this call because you are the strategic thought leaders of your system. If you default on that, irrelevance will come quickly. 20% of your time must be strategic thinking."


Not operational firefighting. Not email management. Strategic thinking: environmental scanning, scenario planning, ecosystem relationship building, innovation incubation.


Research confirms: High-performing organizations have CEOs spending 28% of time on strategic activities. Low-performing organizations? 11%.


Hill's closing challenge: "Go build something the market really can't ignore. Cause everybody's just watching the market right now. Build something so irresistible that they can't ignore you."


Here's What's Next


The 23 leaders in that October roundtable didn't wait for permission. They didn't wait for the perfect strategic plan. They started building—together.


We're meeting again on November 5th. Limited to 25 voices because the conversation can't scale beyond intimate strategic dialogue.


Here's the uncomfortable question those leaders are answering: Is your strategic plan designed to defend what you have, or to build what students need?


Because students have already voted. And they didn't vote for more performance optics.


The leaders in that room aren't optimizing their institutions. They're disrupting them before someone else does.


When you plan alone, you optimize your institution. When you build together, you transform the entire educational ecosystem.


Coasters? Climbers? Dreamers?


Builders passing on your left.


Your turn: Tag one leader from a different educational sector who should see this. Who's your uncommon collaborator?


If you're a superintendent or college president ready to join the November 5th Builder Roundtable: Email info@higherperformancegroup.com with your name, institution, and one strategic question you can't solve alone.



#EducationalLeadership #BuilderMindset #AIinEducation #HigherEducation #K12Leadership



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Higher Performance Insights | THE MULTIPLICATION GAP: Why Your Good Cabinet Isn't Great (Yet)

By HPG Info • February 17, 2026
Last semester, I watched the same thing happen: The boss announced a major initiative. Everyone nodded. Three weeks later? Eight separate executions masquerading as one strategy. Your cabinet doesn't have a dysfunction problem. You have a pronoun problem—and it's costing you $400K in wasted capacity each year. Count how many times someone in your last meeting said "myself" instead of "me." Then count how many times anyone said "we." That ratio? It predicts everything about your team's performance. Here's the pattern: "The board and myself decided..." "Between the Provost and myself..." "My cabinet and myself are aligned..." Two syllables instead of one. Grammatically incorrect. Functionally revealing. We've inflated from "me" to "MYSELF"—and in that linguistic upgrade, we lost the only word that actually creates multiplication: "we." Your cabinet has a multiplication problem. Eight talented leaders who've mastered individual excellence but haven't built the collective infrastructure that turns good performance into breakthrough performance. That gap between good and great? It's about shifting from "myself" to "we." And most leaders never learn how because "myself" has been rewarded your entire career. THE DIAGNOSIS: GOOD AT ADDITION, MISSING MULTIPLICATION Let's talk about this like adults who've led talented teams that perform well but wonder "what if?" Tuesday, 9 AM cabinet meeting. Everyone's prepared. Updates are thorough. Questions are smart. The meeting runs professionally. (Everyone nods in agreement. The strategic plan gets approved. Then eight people leave the room and interpret it eight different ways. This is what we call "alignment.") But when you announce a major initiative, you can see the mental calculation behind eight sets of eyes: "How does this affect MY area? What do I need to protect? How much can I delegate vs. do myself?" Three weeks later, the initiative moves forward. Sort of. Everyone executes their part. Professionally. Competently. But it feels like eight separate projects that happen to share a name , not one integrated effort multiplying collective intelligence. Or this: Your CFO and Provost are both brilliant. They collaborate when required. They're not territorial. But they've never called each other just to think through a complex problem together. They coordinate. They don't co-create. (They schedule "sync meetings" to align before the actual meeting. Then debrief after. That's not collaboration—that's collaboration theater with intermission.) Here's Why This Keeps Happening You hired for individual excellence. You measured individual performance. You rewarded individual achievement. Then you put eight individual high-performers in a room and expected them to spontaneously operate as a multiplied "we." They can't. Because multiplication requires different infrastructure than addition. Here's what nobody admits at leadership conferences (because we're all performing competence for each other): You hired people whose entire identity is built on being individually exceptional. Then you put them in roles where their primary job is to make OTHER people successful. That's asking Olympic sprinters to suddenly care more about the relay team's time than their individual split. They'd rather protect their reputation as "the smart one" than risk looking average by actually multiplying with others. Your "good" cabinet is actively choosing addition over multiplication because multiplication requires vulnerability they've spent careers avoiding. The real problem? You've built a cabinet optimized for individual excellence in roles that require collective multiplication. The Team Intelligence Formula: TQ = IQ × EQ × PQ Notice it's multiplication, not addition. Any dimension near zero collapses everything. IQ: Individual competence. You hired for this. Your cabinet is brilliant. EQ: Common language for communication and culture. This is where "myself" performers fragment—eight people fluent in different languages trying to have strategic conversations. PQ: Understanding how each person is wired and how roles multiply. Your CFO doesn't have to lead innovation just because they're smart. When any dimension is low, multiplication collapses to addition. Your cabinet isn't broken. It's just never been built to multiply. THE FRAMEWORK: THE A/50 VS B+/3 PATTERN Your cabinet is full of A/50 performers —people who earned A grades by investing 50 hours of effort. Grinding. Perfecting. Out-working everyone. The formula that built their careers: More effort = Better results. A/50 performers struggle with collective multiplication. (And yes, they're exhausted. Which they mention. Frequently. Usually in the context of explaining why someone else's approach won't work.) They've been rewarded for individual excellence through heroic effort. They don't know how to operate in "we multiply together" mode because they're still counting contributions. "I stayed until 8pm Tuesday." "I sent three emails over the weekend." "My section is more thorough than yours." This is why your high-performer cabinet operates at 60% capacity despite 100% effort. Because A/50 performers can't multiply—they can only add and compare. B+/3 performers? They earned B+ grades with just 3 hours of effort. Not the highest grade, but remarkable efficiency. Smarter strategy beats harder grinding. Here's what they figured out: Study groups beat solo grinding (collaboration multiplies understanding) Asking the right questions beats reading everything (leverage others' knowledge) Good enough on time beats perfect too late (execution matters more than perfection) Who gets credit doesn't matter if the team wins (ego takes back seat to results) B+/3 performers default to "we" because "I alone" was never enough. They say things like: "What if we combined your approach with mine?" "Who else should be thinking about this?" "This got better because of what you added." They've developed the one skill A/50 performers never needed: multiplication instinct. (Your A/50 performers secretly think B+/3 people are lazy. Your B+/3 performers know A/50 people are inefficient. Both are right. Neither is winning.) "A/50 performers earned success by grinding harder. B+/3 performers earned it by thinking smarter. Your cabinet is full of A/50s trying to multiply. That's why good stays good instead of becoming great." If your entire cabinet is A/50, you've built a team of individual excellence that underperforms collectively. That's why multiplication feels impossible. THE 60% CAPACITY CRISIS Research shows leadership teams typically perform at 60% of their potential. If your cabinet costs $1M annually, that's $400K burning every year. Not from incompetence. From interference. High IQ leaders who lack common language (EQ) and understanding of how each person is wired (PQ). Here's the good news that changes everything: Your cabinet isn't broken. They're not resistant. They're not incompetent. They're operating on addition infrastructure while attempting multiplication work. That's a design problem, not a people problem. Design problems are solvable through architecture, not heroics. You don't need different people. You need different infrastructure. The talent is already there. The potential is already funded. You're just missing the multiplication system that turns "good" into "great." Your turn: The Multiplication Audit Think about your last three strategic initiatives. For each one: Did it fragment into eight separate executions? (+1 for each YES) Did anyone call someone ELSE just to think through a problem together? (+1 for each YES) Did results feel like stapled-together work or genuinely integrated thinking? (+1 if integrated) Score: 0-2: Addition mode. $400K+ burning annually. 3-5: Transitioning. Some multiplication happening. 6-9: You've cracked the code. You're multiplying. Drop your score below. THE APPLICATION: BUILDING MULTIPLICATION INFRASTRUCTURE STEP 1: The Pronoun Audit (15 minutes, solo) Open your last three cabinet meeting notes. Count pronouns: How many times: "I," "me," "my," "myself" How many times: "we," "us," "our" "If 'I/me/myself' outnumbers 'we/us/our' by more than 2:1, you don't have a team. You have a meeting where individuals report progress on separate projects that happen to share a budget." (If this exercise makes you defensive—"but context matters!" "But nuance!"—that's data too. Multiplication doesn't require defending yourself from your own meeting notes.) STEP 2: The Monday Morning "We" Ritual (20 minutes) Start every cabinet meeting with this question. You answer first. "What's one thing happening in your life—work or personal—that you're genuinely excited about OR struggling with? Real answer. Not your portfolio update. Something true about you as a human." Go around the room. Just listen. Don't fix. Don't problem-solve. After everyone shares: "Thank you for trusting us with that." Do this for 8 weeks. Watch your pronouns shift from "myself" to "we." STEP 3: The Multiplication Question (30 minutes in the next cabinet meeting) Put this on your agenda: "How do we shift from coordinating excellence to multiplying it?" Ask: "Was our last initiative eight excellent individual executions that got coordinated? Or one integrated effort where the whole exceeded the parts?" Then: "What would need to be true for us to multiply intelligence instead of just adding it?" Write down 3-5 agreements. This becomes your multiplication infrastructure. THE MATURITY SHIFT: FROM ADDITION TO MULTIPLICATION Immature leaders think: "My team is good enough." Mature leaders think: "Good is the enemy of great, and multiplication is how we get there." Immature leaders accept professional collaboration. Mature leaders architect collective multiplication. Immature leaders think "we" happens naturally among talented people. Mature leaders know "we" requires intentional infrastructure. "Immature leaders accept professional collaboration. Mature leaders architect collective multiplication. The difference is the difference between a cabinet that works hard and a cabinet that works exponentially." One produces solid results through heroic individual effort. One produces breakthrough results through collective intelligence. Your cabinet is good. The question is: Are you ready to build great? Real talk: Which of your cabinet members is an A/50 performer (heroic individual effort) vs. B+/3 performer (multiplication instinct)? Don't name names publicly—but if you counted and your entire cabinet is A/50, that's not a people problem. That's a hiring-for-the-wrong-variable problem. Comment below: How many of your cabinet members have multiplication instinct vs. addition mindset? Your honest answer reveals whether you're one hire away from transformation or one system away. Tag someone on your team who defaults to "we" before "myself"—they've earned the recognition. THE TEAM INSTITUTE : FROM ADDITION TO MULTIPLICATION IN 8 MONTHS Your cabinet just diagnosed the gap between addition and multiplication. That gap? It represents every strategic initiative that fragments, every decision that requires three follow-up meetings, every brilliant idea that dies in translation. This is the pattern The Team Institute was built to eliminate. While most leadership development teaches YOU frameworks to translate back to your team (hello, translation tax), we build the multiplication infrastructure WITH your entire team—through 8 monthly sessions that develop from trust to empowerment to collaboration to breakthrough results. We don't fix people. We multiply systems. The 8-Month Architecture: Month 1: Base Camp - Understanding your Team Profile Month 2: Building Trust - The foundation of multiplication Month 3: Empowerment - "We" distribute authority Month 4: Collaboration - "We" create together Month 5: Broadening Influence - "We" lead beyond hierarchy Month 6: Managing Change - "We" transform without casualties Month 7: Managing Conflict - "We" use friction as refinement Month 8: Developing Others - "We" multiply talent What's Included: Team {BEST FIT} assessment revealing addition vs. multiplication patterns Team 360 baseline measuring current EQ and PQ Monthly expert facilitation applied to your actual challenges Between-session accountability that embeds multiplication Executive coaching for senior leaders The Results: 3x performance improvement. 29% higher engagement. 27% better organizational outcomes. Zero burnout increase. The Requirement: Full team participation. You can't build multiplication with "some of us." YOUR NEXT MOVE If you're ready to transform addition into multiplication—if you sense your good cabinet could be great—let's talk. Schedule a 30-minute consultation to explore whether THE TEAM INSTITUTE will build the multiplication infrastructure your organization requires. This isn't about selling you something. This is about whether you're ready to build multiplication. [SCHEDULE CONSULTATION ] Found this valuable? Help other leaders discover it: → Repost with your honest answer: "Does my cabinet add or multiply?" → Tag a leader building multiplication infrastructure → Comment with your Multiplication Audit score The more leaders who shift from addition to multiplication, the better education becomes. Follow DR. JOE HILL and Higher Performance Group

Higher Performance Insights | THE QUESTIONS I COULDN'T ANSWER IN 2025 (AND HOW I'D RESPOND TODAY)

By HPG Info • January 14, 2026
DR. JOE HILL President @HPG | Author of The TQ ADVANTAGE When Your Board Metrics Say "Winning" But Your Gut Says "Failing" I had the same conversation 23 times last year. Not in conference keynotes, where everyone performs as a "strategic leader who has it figured out." In parking lots after workshops. On follow-up calls at 7 PM. In texts that started "Can I ask you something that's been eating at me?" A superintendent, after crushing every board metric: "Joe, why do I feel like I'm failing at everything that actually matters?" A university president with the most credentialed cabinet she's ever led: "We can't make a decision without three meetings. What am I missing?" A college president at 11 PM (via text): "I spend more time managing my cabinet's dysfunction than actually leading. How did I become this person?" Here's what's frustrating: I gave terrible answers. Not because I'm incompetent—because these questions revealed problems I hadn't solved for myself. So I spent Q4 doing what I should've done in Q1: figuring out what I should have said. Turns out, the questions superintendents and presidents struggled with most in 2025 weren't about strategy, enrollment, or board politics. They were about survival while everyone watches you succeed. Here are the three questions I botched—and the answers I wish I'd had ready. QUESTION 1: "When Does Being Driven Cross Into Being Obsessive?" The Moment I Realized I Had No Answer Community college president—let's call her Rachel—after a Team Institute session: "I'm in the office 6 AM to 7 PM. Weekends. My cabinet says I'm 'inspiring.' My spouse says I'm 'unavailable.' I thought this IS leadership. But am I driven or just addicted?" I gave her the standard consultant answer about balance and boundaries. It was garbage. Because I was answering emails during our Netflix date night. I was "inspiring" my people while my wife wondered if I remembered her name. Glass houses, meet stones. What I Figured Out By December There's actual research on this—the dualistic model of passion : Harmonious Passion: Flexible and energizing Fills you up When you can't do it, you're disappointed but okay Sustainable forever Obsessive Passion: Rigid persistence even when it's destroying you When you can't do it, you feel shame When you DO do it, you STILL feel inadequate Major contributor to burnout (and divorce, and health crises your board will call "unexpected") Campus leadership selects for obsessive passion and calls it "commitment." Your board rewards it. Your community celebrates it. Until someone has a breakdown, and everyone acts shocked. The diagnostic? The Vacation Test. Can you take a full day off without checking email? If yes—when did you last actually do it? If you can't remember, you're not driven. You're hyper-optimized. And hyper-optimization always precedes system failure. Ask any Formula One team that pushed too hard without pit stops. 💡 "The same drive that got you the presidency is the exact thing that will end it—unless you build recovery infrastructure around it before crisis forces the conversation." What To Do Tuesday Morning (Not "Someday") Pick ONE recovery ritual. Just one: The Phone Kennel: Tonight, plug your phone downstairs. Don't bring it to your bedroom. (Sounds simple. Most presidents can't do it for three consecutive nights. That's diagnostic, not judgmental.) The "This Area Is Clear" Ritual: When you leave your office, say out loud: "Work time is done." Creates a psychological boundary your brain actually respects. The 3-Hour Sacred Window: Block three consecutive hours this weekend for something non-work that requires full attention. Coffee roasting. Long bike ride. Fiction reading. Playing with grandkids without your phone nearby. If you take vacations and check email daily, that's work with a view, not recovery. Your body knows the difference even if your calendar doesn't. Objection Handling: "But I LIKE working—it's my passion!" Great. Harmonious or obsessive? Can you stop without shame? That's the test. "My board expects me to be available 24/7." Your board expects you to lead for a decade, not flame out spectacularly in year three. They just haven't said it yet because you keep performing invincibility. QUESTION 2: "My Cabinet Is Brilliant Individually But Collectively Incompetent. What's Broken?" The Moment I Had No Good Answer Superintendent in Texas—let's call him Marcus (Marcus, your CFO was laughing when we reviewed your Team Intelligence results, so you know this is you): "Joe, every person on my cabinet has 15+ years of experience. Advanced degrees. Strategic thinkers. But together we can't make a simple decision without three pre-meetings and four follow-ups. What's broken?" I said something generic about communication and trust. Consultant garbage. The real answer? I hadn't figured out the math yet. What I Figured Out By December It's literally a math problem : IQ × EQ × PQ = TQ Most leadership cabinets look like this: IQ (Individual Intelligence): 9.1/10 → You only hire brilliant people EQ (Collective Emotional Intelligence): 3.8/10 → They can't disagree productively PQ (Positional Intelligence—role clarity): 2.5/10 → Nobody knows who decides what Result = TQ (Team Intelligence): 4.2/10 → Permanent impossibility despite impressive resumes That's not a communication problem. That's a multiplication problem. When any variable approaches zero, the whole equation collapses. You keep investing in the variable that's already maxed out (IQ—hiring smart people) while ignoring the two that determine whether smart people can think together under pressure (EQ and PQ). It's like installing a Ferrari engine with bicycle wheels and wondering why you're losing races to Honda Civics. The pattern I've now seen 47 times: Monday 6:30 AM: Your CFO wants to "align before Tuesday's meeting" (translation: lobby before anyone else can) Tuesday 10 AM: Cabinet meeting where everyone performs collaboration while avoiding actual disagreement Tuesday afternoon: Three separate "clarification" requests (translation: renegotiations of what seemed decided) Friday: Everyone's exhausted, nothing's actually resolved, but calendars are impressively full, so at least it LOOKS like leadership is happening That's a Team Intelligence deficit costing your district or institution roughly $1.1M annually in wasted meetings, duplicated effort, and opportunities missed while you're stuck in alignment purgatory. Meanwhile, enrollment is shifting, your best teachers are wondering if leadership will ever actually lead, and your board is asking increasingly pointed questions about execution velocity. 💡 "Individual brilliance without Team Intelligence produces impressive LinkedIn profiles and permanent impossibility. The math doesn't care about your credentials." What To Do Tuesday Morning The Cabinet Intelligence Audit (15 minutes) At your next cabinet meeting: "Quick exercise. Everyone rate our team's ability to think together under pressure, 1-10. Write it privately first." Go around the room. Read answers aloud. If everyone says 8+: Somebody's lying (or everyone has wildly different definitions of "thinking together") If answers vary by 3+ points: You don't share reality about your own team dynamics If anyone says below 5: You've just identified why pre-meetings exist—people don't feel safe thinking out loud together Then ask the question that changes everything: "What would need to be true for everyone to feel comfortable disagreeing in THIS meeting instead of lobbying outside it?" The silence will be uncomfortable. Someone will deflect with process talk. Someone else will say "I've been thinking the same thing." That second person is your ally. Start there. Objection Handling: "We don't have time for this meta-conversation about meetings." You spent 47 hours last month in meetings ABOUT meetings. You don't have time NOT to fix this. Your problem isn't time—it's Team Intelligence producing a 47-hour Meeting Tax. "My team won't go for it—they'll think I'm criticizing them." Your team is currently "going for" a system producing permanent friction despite everyone working 60-hour weeks. They already know something's broken. You're not revealing a problem—you're naming what everyone already feels. QUESTION 3: "Why Do I Keep Neglecting What I Literally Teach Others?" The Moment I Realized I'm A Hypocrite This one's personal. I teach Team Intelligence to superintendents and presidents. Sustainable systems. Recovery architecture. "You can't pour from an empty cup." Then I worked through Thanksgiving. Answered emails Christmas morning. Ran on 5 hours of sleep and spite. The question a superintendent asked me in October haunted me all through December: "Joe, you teach this stuff. How do YOU avoid burning out?" Honest answer? I wasn't. I was just better at hiding it. What I Figured Out By December I interviewed Dr. James Hewitt , a human performance scientist who works with Formula One teams. He said something that gutted me: "I taught recovery to Fortune 500 companies while being 'always on' myself. 100+ flights a year. Missing family dinners. I genuinely believed I was the exception to the rule—until one morning in the shower, I found a lump." Cancer forced him to confront the truth: You're not superhuman. You're just a human who hasn't rested. The most dangerous leadership belief isn't "I need to work harder." It's "The rules don't apply to me." They do. Physics doesn't care about your board's expectations, your strategic plan, or how many people are counting on you. Your body will force the conversation your calendar keeps postponing. 💡 "You're not too busy to build recovery systems. You're too busy BECAUSE you haven't built recovery systems. There's a difference." What To Do Tuesday Morning Design Your Weekly Recovery Day Block ONE full day this week. Not "I'll try" or "maybe next week"—this week. Then: Morning: Something requiring full attention but not work (bike ride, elaborate coffee ritual, whatever makes you feel human) Afternoon: Something actively decreasing cognitive load (fiction, show-watching, napping—NOT business books or "personal development") Evening: Time with people who don't need you to perform leadership Critical Rules (Non-Negotiable): Phone stays in another room (not "on silent"—physically elsewhere) No "just checking email real quick" (that's work, which means you failed) If you work at all, even "just for a minute," you failed the assignment Objection Handling: "But I have too much to do." Then you've built an unsustainable system that will fail spectacularly—either next month or next year, but it WILL fail. Taking one day off either proves your cabinet can function without you (healthy) or reveals they can't (critical diagnostic you desperately need). "What about emergencies?" Define "emergency" as "can't wait 24 hours without significant harm to students, staff, or institution." Watch how shockingly few things meet that standard. Most "emergencies" are just someone else's poor planning becoming your crisis. THE MATURITY SHIFT Immature presidents think: "I just need more willpower, more passion, more drive. If I push harder, I'll break through." Mature presidents think: "I need better systems, clearer boundaries, sustainable practices that multiply capacity without multiplying hours." Immature superintendents optimize themselves to death while their cabinets watch and learn that sustainable leadership is performance art. Mature superintendents build infrastructure that multiplies cabinet capacity without heroic individual effort. The difference isn't motivation. It's systems. One makes you busy. One makes you effective. One gives you an impressive calendar screenshot. One gives you a decade. One makes you a cautionary tale. One makes you a model worth following. Your turn: Which question hit hardest? What are you specifically changing Tuesday morning? Not "I need better balance"—that's consultant-speak performance art. Be specific: "I'm blocking Sunday completely. Phone stays downstairs." "I'm running the Cabinet Intelligence Audit this week." "I'm designing my first full recovery day for Saturday." Drop a comment. Tag another superintendent or president who's crushing metrics while quietly drowning. Repost with your one specific action. Because insight without implementation is just expensive entertainment that changes nothing. STOP LEAVING PERFORMANCE ON THE TABLE Here's what I've learned after working with 987 leadership teams: Your team isn't broken. Your team model is. You've invested millions in hiring brilliant individuals. But individual brilliance without Team Intelligence produces impressive resumes and permanent friction. The superintendents and presidents who've cracked this code aren't working harder. They're working human—with recovery systems, Team Intelligence architecture, and the courage to admit that sustainable leadership requires more than inspiration and long hours. If your talented team is performing at 60% capacity despite everyone's best efforts , the problem isn't motivation or competence. It's multiplication : IQ × EQ × PQ = TQ And when any variable approaches zero, your entire equation collapses—no matter how impressive your board reports look. The TQ Keynote: Transform Your Team From Friction to Acceleration This isn't another motivational talk about working together better. This is the math, the research, and the practical protocols that help leadership teams move from 60% to 90%+ capacity—not by working harder, but by thinking together. What You'll Discover: The TQ equation that reveals exactly where your team is stuck (and why traditional development hasn't fixed it) Five cognitive "BEST FIT" types every high-performing team needs (and which ones you're missing) Practical protocols for transforming cabinet friction into execution acceleration How to navigate complexity 40% faster than average teams (verified across 1,000+ leadership teams) Live team mapping exercises using actual TQ types from your cabinet This keynote is grounded in: Analysis of nearly 1,000 leadership teams across K-12 and higher education Research-backed insights showing 2:1 performance advantage for high-TQ teams A practical framework that creates measurable results within 90 days, not "someday" Duration: 2 hours Format: On-site with your full leadership team Investment: Book a conversation to discuss Why This Is Different 94% of executives believe collaboration is critical. Only 8% see results from traditional team development programs. TQ bridges that gap—because it treats team development as a math problem with a systems solution , not a motivation problem with an inspiration band-aid. Teams working with HPG consistently move from 60% to 90%+ capacity. We protect that standard by choosing partners carefully. If your team is talented but stuck, if you're crushing board metrics while quietly drowning, if you've tried everything except addressing the actual multiplication problem—let's talk. Book a TQ Keynote Conversation →Your community deserves leaders who multiply each other's strengths instead of working around each other's weaknesses. Your talented individuals can become an unstoppable team. But not with the same model that got you here. Book Your TQ Keynote Today! - https://www.higherperformancegroup.com/team-intelligence-keynote P.S. Stop Performing Sustainability. Start Practicing It. The questions I couldn't answer in 2025 revealed my own gaps—in recovery systems, in Team Intelligence, in sustainable leadership architecture. The answers I found by December might close yours— if you actually implement them instead of just nodding along. Your cabinet is watching how you lead yourself. Your family is waiting for the version of you that comes home fully present. Your future self is begging you to build better systems before crisis forces the conversation.  Whether you book the keynote or not: Stop leaving 40% of your team's capacity on the table while everyone works 60-hour weeks. The math is solvable. The systems are buildable. The question is whether you'll address it Tuesday or wait until Friday's crisis forces your hand. Next Issue: "Your Cabinet Doesn't Need Another Retreat—They Need Recovery Architecture" How one superintendent cut meetings 61% and increased results 3x. Not by working harder. By working human. Follow DR. JOE HILL and Higher Performance Group for insights that close the knowing-doing gap.
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