A Priority Is More Than Something We Say Is Important
Series: Clarity Before Change
Organizations are rarely short on important work.
There are achievement goals, instructional priorities, professional learning needs, new programs, accountability requirements, organizational concerns, and unexpected issues that surface throughout the year. Many are legitimate and deserve attention.
The challenge is deciding what requires concentrated attention now.
When I think about priorities, I look beyond what is written in a plan or identified during a meeting. I pay attention to what happens after the priority is named.
Where is time being spent? What are leaders consistently discussing? What is professional learning supporting? What are coaches reinforcing? What gets monitored? Where are resources being directed?
Those decisions tell us whether something has moved from being important to actually being prioritized.
A priority becomes meaningful when the organization begins making decisions around it.
When Everything Feels Important
In improvement work, several plans and expectations can operate at the same time.
A school may have an improvement plan with identified goals and strategies while also responding to instructional needs, professional learning priorities, district initiatives, accountability requirements, student needs, and emerging concerns.
Each piece may make sense on its own.
The problem becomes visible when we look at them together.
The improvement plan may identify one priority while meeting agendas consistently focus somewhere else. Professional learning may emphasize another area. Coaching may concentrate on something different. Leaders may monitor several additional expectations.
At that point, I begin asking:
What is actually being prioritized?
The answer cannot come only from the document where the priority was written. It also has to come from how the organization operates.
People make decisions every day about where to place their attention. When the system does not make those choices clear, individuals begin making them for themselves.
The result can be a great deal of activity without the alignment needed for improvement.
Stated Priorities and Operational Priorities
I think there is an important distinction between a stated priority and an operational priority.
A stated priority is what the organization says matters.
An operational priority is what the organization’s decisions demonstrate matters.
You can learn a lot about operational priorities without looking at the improvement plan. Consider how the organization uses its time and resources. Pay attention to professional learning, coaching, leadership conversations, and monitoring.
Together, those decisions tell a story.
Sometimes that story reinforces the priorities identified in the plan. At other times, it reveals that several other expectations have gradually begun competing for the same attention.
This does not necessarily mean leaders intentionally abandoned the original priority. Conditions change. New needs emerge. Requirements shift. Unexpected problems require attention.
But every addition creates a decision point.
Does the new work support an existing priority? Can it be integrated into what is already underway? Does it require us to adjust something else? Or are we simply adding another expectation?
Those decisions shape what people ultimately experience as the organization’s priorities.
What This Can Look Like in Practice
Consider a school that identifies strengthening small-group instruction as a priority.
The improvement plan reflects it, and leaders communicate its importance.
Now look at what happens around that priority.
Professional learning focuses primarily on other initiatives. Teachers have limited collaborative time to examine student data and plan groups. Coaching conversations address several competing expectations. Walkthroughs do not consistently examine small-group implementation, and leadership conversations rarely return to the evidence.
Small-group instruction may still be the stated priority, but the surrounding system is sending a less consistent message.
Now consider what changes when the priority begins shaping organizational decisions.
Professional learning develops the knowledge teachers need. Collaborative time supports data analysis and planning. Coaching reinforces implementation. Walkthroughs gather relevant evidence. Leadership teams examine what that evidence shows and determine where additional support is needed.
The priority did not change.
The alignment around it did.
That is the distinction I want leaders to notice.
Priority Is Part of Creating Clarity
In my Systems Approach to Improvement, the work begins with Create Clarity: developing shared understanding of the current reality, desired outcome, priorities, expectations, responsibilities, and measures of success.
Priority-setting belongs there for a reason.
Before determining what deserves concentrated attention, leaders need to understand what is happening. They examine available evidence, identify patterns and gaps, consider what may be contributing to those conditions, and clarify the outcome the organization is trying to achieve.
The question is not simply:
What needs improvement?
Most organizations could create a long list in response.
A more useful question is:
Of everything we could address, what requires our greatest attention now, and why?
A need identifies something that should improve. A priority reflects a deliberate decision about where the organization will concentrate its attention.
That decision should become visible in the work that follows.
From Clarity to Action
Creating clarity establishes direction, but clarity alone does not produce improvement.
Once leaders establish a priority, people need to understand what it means for their work. Leaders also need to determine whether the organization has the capacity and systems necessary to support what people are being asked to do.
This is where the broader Systems Approach to Improvement matters.
Create Clarity establishes shared understanding and direction.
Build Capacity ensures people have the knowledge, skills, resources, practice, feedback, and support they need.
Strengthen Systems creates the structures, routines, roles, communication, and processes that support consistent practice.
Implement With Purpose moves the work from intention into disciplined practice while keeping actions connected to the desired outcome.
Learn Through Evidence helps leaders understand implementation, impact, barriers, strengths, and needs.
Adapt & Sustain uses that learning to determine what should continue, what needs strengthening, and what should change.
The priority does not become a separate process or a new framework. It creates direction for the work across the system.
A Priority Alignment Check
Once something has been identified as a priority, I would ask:
- What evidence led us to this priority?
- What are we trying to change or improve?
- Can people explain why it matters now?
- Are our goals and actions aligned with it?
- What are people expected to do differently?
- Do they have the knowledge, resources, time, and support to do it?
- Are meetings, professional learning, coaching, and leadership conversations reinforcing the same direction?
- What evidence are we monitoring?
- How will we know whether implementation is occurring as intended?
- What will we do if the evidence suggests an adjustment is needed?
These questions move priority-setting beyond naming what is important. They help leaders determine whether the organization has begun to organize itself around what it says matters.
Prioritizing Also Means Making Choices
This may be one of the more difficult parts of leadership.
Adding something can be easier than deciding what should receive less attention.
But organizational capacity is not unlimited. People have finite time. Professional learning has finite time. Meetings have finite time. Leaders have finite attention. Resources have limits.
When a new priority or expectation enters the system, I think another question has to follow:
What does this mean for everything we are already asking people to do?
Perhaps the new work strengthens an existing priority. It may replace something, integrate with work already underway, or require another expectation to wait.
Without those decisions, organizations can unintentionally create competing priorities while continuing to describe each one as essential.
That makes clarity harder to maintain and implementation harder to sustain.
A Simple Priority Check
Imagine walking into an organization without seeing its improvement or strategic plan.
Spend time observing leadership meetings, professional learning, coaching, team conversations, resource decisions, and monitoring practices.
Then ask:
Could I determine what this organization considers most important simply by watching how it operates?
Now ask the people closest to implementation:
What are the most important things we are working to accomplish right now?
Follow that with:
What are you expected to do that contributes to those priorities?
Compare their answers with what leadership intended.
The alignment, or misalignment, can tell us whether the priority has traveled through the organization and begun shaping action.
Implications for Leaders
Start with the need. Understand the problem the organization is trying to address and what the available evidence suggests before adding another program, strategy, or initiative.
Make the choice clear. Help people understand both the priority and why it deserves concentrated attention now.
Connect existing work. Look across plans, initiatives, professional learning, coaching, meetings, and monitoring. Identify where they reinforce the priority and where they compete with it.
Consider capacity. Naming something a priority does not create the time, knowledge, resources, or support necessary to implement it.
Protect attention. New issues will emerge. Leaders have to decide whether those issues strengthen the current direction, require an adjustment, or can wait.
Watch what the system reinforces. What leaders consistently discuss, support, resource, and monitor communicates importance, whether they intend it to or not.
Closing Thought
A priority is more than something we say is important. It becomes visible in the decisions that follow.
When an organization says something matters but its time, resources, expectations, support, and monitoring consistently point somewhere else, people receive competing messages about where to focus their attention.
That is why I would not assess priorities only by reading the plan.
I would also ask:
What would someone conclude matters most by watching how we operate?
The distance between what we say matters and what the organization consistently reinforces can tell us a great deal about clarity.
Before asking people to do more, leaders may first need to make clearer choices about what deserves attention and then align the organization around those choices.
Because creating clarity is not simply about telling people what matters. It is about building enough shared direction for people to act on it.
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