Every great idea has a honeymoon phase. The spark, the rush, the moment you can see it coming to life.
And then it dips.
The dip is that uncomfortable, inevitable stage where the shine wears off.
Obstacles arrive. Feedback bites. People get busy. Time runs short. Budget runs dry. Emotions run high.
You start to wonder if the idea was really that good after all.
Most people take the dip as a sign to stop: to ditch the idea and chase a fresher, easier one.
They’re wrong. The dip is the work.
The teams we see succeeding in strategy or school transformation are not the ones with perfect plans. They’re the ones with clarity on the end-game, who push into the dip. They adapt, test, adjust, and keep showing up until the idea has grown enough roots to survive.
Prototyping often gets misrepresented as “failing fast” or “killing your darlings”. Ditch an idea at the first sniff of a despondent shrug of feedback.
But really, prototyping is about perseverance. It’s a way of trying small moves, gathering insights, and finding the breakthrough. The first feedback isn’t a verdict. It’s an invitation to keep working.
In schools, this is where strategy lives or dies; not in the writing, but in the living.
Too often, busy work gets in the way, and focus slips.
Or a muddled brand leads to too many competing voices with their own idea of what will fit in the school’s culture. Those misaligned voices crowd out focus, they crowd out novelty, and they kill momentum.
Most ideas will mature and flourish if you and your community can persevere through the dip, holding onto a clarity of purpose, staying curious, resisting the urge to abandon ship.
Others will naturally fall away. And you’ll know the difference because you stayed long enough to see it.
So, the next time you find yourself in the dip, don’t panic. Don’t give up. Work into the idea. It’s the only way it becomes real.