There’s a well-worn trope in leadership circles that holds more truth than we’d like to admit:
When you discover you’re riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.
But in schools? We often double down.
We write a report. We call a meeting. We launch a refresh. We insist the horse is just resting.
These “dead horses” show up as programmes no one really believes in anymore, tech platforms we’ve long outgrown, or inherited projects that still cling on, even though no one can remember why they started.
And yet, many school leaders keep them going because it’s easier to do what we’ve always done than to question it.
Because saying “no more” can sound like we’re giving up, when actually it might be the boldest move we make.
Over the past week, I’ve been working with an international school community asking the hard questions:
What are we still doing out of habit, not purpose?
Where are we stretched too thin to do our best work?
How might we create space to focus, not by stopping everything, but by letting go of the stuff that’s past its use-by date?
Because here’s the thing: focus isn’t about shutting down what brings your school joy. It’s not about innovation taking the place of what you and I recognise as ‘school’. Focus is not about losing the beating pulse of what works well already.
Focus is about finally dismounting those dead horses so that the good stuff - the innovation, the creativity, the moments that matter - has room to breathe.