Two-Thirds Vote

05/03/23 • 5 min

[00:00:00] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: There's a saying in Congress about two thirds vote. It's not even a saying. It's a rule, really. And in the growth path, we have three of us, and so there's three co-founders of the Growth Path education, myself, Renee, and John. And most of the time, all three of us. Are in agreement as we are building this company together.

And so today we were discussing our assessment activity that we do with superintendents and their teams, and we were having a pretty intense discussion around the terms. and payment and money around that part of the business. And we were on a conference call and I could tell that two of us were very aligned.

And so for about 15 minutes we went on and on around how we charge, why we charge, what we charge, the amount of people at the table. how school districts are funded and on and on and on. And the thing that became clear at one point is that me and one of my team members were going back and forth for about 15 minutes, and one person was quiet.

And so when I asked, I said, so what do you think? , that team member said, I'm not comfortable with this, but if this is the direction that you two want and you two have more experience than I do and this, and I can, I can go with it, but I, I'm not comfortable with it and I don't like this part and I don't like that part.

And, and the other person that I was in agreement with said, okay, well yeah, I get that, but okay, we're going to keep moving. and I knew that this was not the place and space for us to finish that conversation. And so delicately, I said, we're not in a rush and we're gonna pause. If one of us is not uncomfortable, we owe it to ourselves and to each other.

to con come back and to continue this discussion at a later time because we didn't need to have it settled. It was a conversation through a, um, about a potential client that hadn't even committed yet. Right. We were, we were planning conversations for some client meetings that we have this week, and so after I said that, after I said, you know, I don't feel this is.

Something that we should decide right here and now, and I don't think this is a conversation that we're ready for that quote, two-thirds vote, and however I said it in that moment was directly from my heart because I know that in order to really build something that lives beyond, me. That's legacy. That changes the world, that supports our nation's highest leaders and the challenges they face that we must, as the core team, as the team leading the work, must also be on our own growth path together.

And so what that means and what that looks like is taking time to sit with discomfort and uncertainty. . And then when you're consensus building on a team, you're not looking for checking every single box, but you want more boxes checked than not in alignment. Consensus is about alignment. Consensus is about understanding.

Consensus building is about conversation and collaboration. And so as I'm building these companies, , these critical conversations must be tended to and nurtured just like we do with our clients, our students, our family, those we love and care about. And so that is how I'm building in public today.

Previous Episode

Leadership

[00:00:00] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: Welcome to today's Build in Public podcast. I'm Stacy Gonzalez, and I'm currently building two businesses simultaneously, which is not recommended for most people. However, I tend to not be most people, and so today is Friday. and it is the end of a long work week and there's been much progress made, um, in both of the businesses.

But for me this week, the focus really was on the education work that I'm doing on the growth path. And that work is work to support our school leaders work to help. Um, those on the front lines, leading public education in brave, bold, and innovative ways. One of the things that I'm learning for myself through this work is that it is requiring of me to be brave, bold.

And a new leader in a new way. You see, I spent 20 years inside of public education working my way up from a classroom teacher into the highest offices in some of the largest school districts in Illinois. And. While I had a really good ability to understand the nuance of education from a headspace, um, just an and, and a good ability to multitask and, and project manage and lead teams and people, and I did that at a great personal cost.

To myself. And so now what's really cool is I've got myself, Renee, and John. John is the founder of the Growth Path. He's been working with corporate leaders and corporate teams on this growth path, and Renee and I have partnered with him. to bring the growth path to the education space. And the interesting thing about education is once you build a solution that is quality, that begins to have a little bit of momentum behind it.

Doors. Doors begin to open. And this week I had just some really interesting doors open. And through those, through those meetings and conversations, it illuminated a bunch of things for me. But one thing that I did not anticipate was some of the missteps that I took as a new founder. Someone trying to build an entire company.

And that misstep, that miscalculation was in the area of my integrity. And I have a very, I have three core values, trust, communication, and integrity. And I violated my own integrity, um, between John Renee and I. And as a result of that, I needed to, for myself and for the team, um, have some conversations with them and own, own the fact that I lacked integrity in a decision and a choice that I had made.

And in the past, well, first in the past, I probably would've not even have done anything about it. I would've let it go. I would've swept it under the rug and been like, oh, it's fine. It's fine. But instead, I thought about the situation, um, reflected and knew we had this important meeting today at 10 o'clock.

Um, or I can't remember what time exactly, but we had an important meeting. So half an hour before the meeting we were gonna pre-game about the meeting and I knew that I had to out myself and open myself up to sharing my misstep, make no excuses about it, and allow myself to just share that with the team.

And it was so interesting cause I spent a lot of time and got some insights from my coach on how to approach this. And at the end of the day, once I actually met with the team and shared what I shared, they were like, oh, okay. I mean, it was, it was almost as if, um, they got it. They got it and they made the space for me.

It was safe for me. And that was that. And the lesson for me is, and then things, things just naturally opened up, um, from that point on for the rest of my day. And it really reminded me that this whole. Business opportunity. Um, and the opportunities that I'm creating with these two businesses, is my work, my leadership, my life, my hope to have a, a restart.

A new way of being, a new way of, of thinking. Um, a new way of moving forward as, as a leader. in ways that I couldn't do before because I was so busy and I was running in a a million different directions. And even if I wanted to be this kind of a leader as an educator, I, I didn't have the capacity to do it.

I didn't have the awareness, I didn't have the insights. And so what I appreciate most about this opportunity, Is in these early stages, what building these businesses is doing. For me personally as a human, I am a better person who has greater integrity as a result of this work. So if you are joining me on the growth path, I invite you to self-reflect with me.

I'm using this, uh, podcast as an exploration. As an experiment and I invite you to to join in with me. So thank you. Thank you for listening and being here on this Building Public podcast.

Next Episode

Jethro Interviews Stacey about her experiences with this podcast

[00:00:00] Jethro: this is Jethro the producer for the Build and Public Podcast here, talking with Stacey about how it's been going and what she's thinking about the Build and Public Podcast. You've done 33 episodes so far, Stacey. That's crazy, huh?

[00:00:15] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: Yeah. Yeah.

I told my husband this morning at breakfast that my podcast is my playground and my, it's like my practice playground, and. After doing it 33 times, it's helped me not take myself so seriously. It's helped me have a space and a place to use my voice and process in a way that is safe. And so I've really appreciated this practice space.

[00:00:52] Jethro: What I think is funny is you're like this safe place where Anybody on the internet can go listen to it and figure out what I'm saying. That, that, to you is safe, is pretty remarkable.

[00:01:03] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: Thank you.

[00:01:04] Jethro: Yeah. So how do you feel about reception? Do you feel like people are listening? Have people reached out to you or mentioned it?

What do you think?

[00:01:14] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: No, I've not really heard anything from other people. I also think though, I've yet to figure out how to put contact info or anything like that. Like I sent you a potential opener. I don't know if you saw that or not, but like thinking about how do I frame an opener and a closer that's maybe prerecorded.

So that I don't have to every day when I start, have to worry about the opening and the closing piece. So cuz a lot of times I don't necessarily tell people about it in the podcast

[00:01:48] Jethro: Yeah, Uhhuh.

[00:01:49] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: The other thing that I was just thinking about is I wanna put it in a link to my podcast in my signature line, in my email. So I've been thinking about where are places and spaces that I can put this. As now I feel like, okay, pe people, if I put it out there, people are listening. This is where they can access it without me having to extra take extra time to think how do I promote it and where do I put it and do I tweet about it?

Do I, just some places I can put the info.

[00:02:19] Jethro: Yeah, so a couple things on that I would suggest. Number one, I would just have a script for the opening and the closing that you read each time, and then it will be it should be very short, like 15 to 20 words. And, hey, this is Stacey Gonzalez. This is in Public. You can connect with me here and then at the end, thanks for listening.

And. Blah, blah, blah, whatever you wanna say. Call to action, whatever. I think because you're talking so much about soul growth and your process through building that I think having people go to soul Growth and do whatever your lead magnet is there for. For that would be a powerful and worthwhile thing to do.

That's what it seems like to me. You can do whatever you want, of course. But that's what I think would be beneficial. Have a script and then just read that at the beginning and the end of whatever you do that day.

[00:03:16] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: Okay. And when you say have 'em go there, what? What do you mean by there?

[00:03:21] Jethro: Two, whatever you have set up for soul grow, soul growth of how people connect with you there.

[00:03:26] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: I see. Okay. Okay,

[00:03:29] Jethro: That to me that seems like the smartest place to send people.

[00:03:33] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: Okay. I see. Versus the B Podcast Network is, which is what I put at the front of it, I'll probably say as a part of the b podcast network.com.

[00:03:42] Jethro: Please do say part of the B podcast network, cuz we do want people to know that it is part of that. Yeah.

[00:03:48] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: Okay.

[00:03:48] Jethro: So the other thing that that I would suggest as it relates to that is you want people to connect with you on Twitter, on LinkedIn, and put that contact information in there as well.

And then that way you've just got this regular stuff that you're saying each time so that people know how to reach out and connect with you.

[00:04:12] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: Okay.

[00:04:16] Jethro: So what I'll do is I will get you a link that you can put in your signature that will get it out on all the platforms so that people can people can subscribe wherever they're comfortable. It's what I shared with morning motivation for educators. It's a similar link to that, that I shared in our base camp for the network.

So it'll have, Google podcast, Spotify, everything. And that's pretty easy to get and I'll get that for you so you have it. So what has been the hardest thing about doing this podcast?

[00:04:47] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: The hardest thing. Not knowing sometimes what to say, what to share. Days are really long and thinking what is the most relevant or salient or important thing that's top of mind wh...