Heymann Consulting

12/16/2025

At the Florida Theater

03/28/2025

Maxims for School Success -- Jon Heymann
• You cannot "Burn Out" until you have caught on fire.
• Simplify Budgets: If they are too difficult to explain, they may be too difficult to manage.
• Expect students to be successful learners
• Give a poor teacher a good curriculum, and they will still do a poor job.
• Give a good teacher a poor curriculum, and they will still do a good job.
• Assume that students with behavior problems are very likely to be quite intelligent.
• Our worst addiction in America is the addiction to Mediocrity.
• We must be resilient, capable of bouncing back after major changes and critical analysis.
• There are pockets of excellence all over this country; find them and mimic their successes.
• Some schools are doing a great job with little resources. Find them and study them.
• Hire administrators with backbone who would run a school, not a holding tank.
• Choose principals who can lead; set standards, insist they be measured;
• In the absence of dollars, despair is not an option
• Fire incompetence
• Provide a career ladder that rewards hard and creative work, such as beginning instructor, experienced teacher, and master teacher.
• Design our programs to mimic success, instead of focussing upon failure. Do not ask, "Why can't Johnny read?", nor "Why is our school doing so poorly?" Rather we must ask, "Why can Alice read?, and "Why is that school doing so well?
• Multiply your Might, without becoming the Almighty.
• Only two letters separate a Winner from a Whiner.
• Loyalty is from the top, down, and from the inside, out.
• Raise your staff as you would raise your kids.
• Do all things in excess, and be accessible.
• Work hard enough to get fired, yet not hard enough to get anyone else fired.
• If ineptness hires no greater than itself, flatter yourself: hire greater than yourself.
• Life is not a solo trip. Listen to everyone, your foes as well as your friends.
• Spend 50% of your time out of your office.
• "Pop in" to offices, classes, and meetings unexpectedly.
• Learn the 20/80 principle: spend only 20% of your time with problems.
• Do not neglect the loyal, sometimes quiet staff.
• Train your staff more than yourself; they will in turn train you.
• 100,000 hours of our lives will be at work; enjoy them, don't simply endure them.
• Some days must be reduced to two epic words, "Oh Well"
• Maintain a high level of enthusiasm.
• Attitude wins over Ability hands down.

03/13/2025

Track with me carefully:
If you are a Leader.

1- Believe what you say you believe in; otherwise, others will not believe what you say you believe in.

2- Be happy, or others will not believe what you say you believe in.

3- Be happy, or others will not believe that even you believe in what you say you believe in.

03/12/2025

03/10/2025

I have had a fruitful and blessed career, or should I say, a wonderful calling. Not sure if this could be a calling, but I have never worked at a fast food restaurant, and I want to. FOMO

03/08/2025

Leadership insights:
• Anticipate greater internal motivation, but also prepare for more external distractions. Detours detract and distract—they waste our time.
• Recognize that enthusiasm is contagious, but misery loves company. Monitor your social barometer: who is drawn to you?
• Luck favors the prepared mind, and life rewards the pioneers:
• Leave no ruts; Blaze new paths.
• Leadership is like a basketball—when pushed down, we bounce back up. When pushed down harder, we bounce back higher.

03/05/2025

Great Leaders:
• Expect people to cheer for your success; however, as in sports, anticipate that half the bleachers will cheer for your opponent.
• Prepare for trouble. Don’t let it catch you off guard or throw you off balance. Prepare so you don’t have to Repair.
• Expect to be criticized—develop a thick skin when facing criticism, but maintain a soft heart when offering it.
• Want to avoid all criticism? Say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.
• “What on earth am I doing on the earth?” Go ahead – answer that.
• Leaders understand that missing the bull’s-eye is not the target’s fault; adjust accordingly.
• Be skilled in many areas, but excel in one; don’t let anyone catch up to your greatness. Olympians win by 1/1000 of a second (like Michael Phelps), and no one remembers who came in second.
• Perform at your peak. Work hard enough to feel the pain, but don’t harm anyone in your path.
• Set jaw-dropping goals. Make the crowd gasp.
• Throw darts from 60 feet away.

03/03/2025

Leadership: Great Expectations

Expect excellence to come closer within your reach, but anticipate perfection to drift farther away.
As time goes by, life tends to reward us for our achievements while keeping us humble for our disasters.
Expect temptations to rise, but also expect your ability to manage them to improve. Most temptations involve s*x, money, power, or a combination thereof. However, never overlook the subtle temptations:
• To become dull – never lose your new-believer fever;
• To rely on momentum – our past achievements are not a hammock but rather a launching pad for the future.

02/20/2025

Win the Argument, or Win the Relationship? Which comes first?

The book “Rare Leadership” (2016) is a classic. The authors, Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder (Ph.D. in clinical psychology) suggest that most leaders are trained in left-brain problem-solving but are undertrained in right-brain relationship-building.

It’s evident that many leadership challenges “have less to do with strategic planning than the ability to handle difficult relationships and upsetting emotions" (11).

They conclude the book by stating, ". . . we have found that nothing is more predictive of leadership effectiveness than personal maturity" (193).

In this book, they examine brain science and quote Chris Shaw, who claimed, "Leadership has become heavily influenced by managerial models so that the term 'lead' has come to mean organizational skills rather than people skills'" (20).

Let’s admit it: our biggest problems are mostly people problems followed by the lack of measurable production, which, of course, ties back to “People problems”. The authors claim that "Sandbox leaders” are grownups in leadership positions who lack the emotional maturity to create meaningful relationships with their followers (41). Again, they are not suggesting that striving for results is bad, but if leaders are entirely results-driven, the emotional wheels will eventually come off their wagon. Emotionally healthy organizations achieve results year in and year out.

Furthermore, "When leaders begin to be swayed by who is going to get upset, they are surrendering their guidance to the most emotionally unstable person in the group" (80).

They argue that "relationships are the root of joy, and joy is the jet fuel of high-performing teams" (15).

Leaders must endorse two primary goals: 1) get results and 2) build productive, positive relationships (89). Joy will emerge, and results will follow.