One Thing

Published on March 10, 2021

Last updated on November 11, 2024

[

Jethro Jones

](https://world.hey.com/jethro)

March 10, 2021

I was reminded today while reading Patrick Lencioni’s The Advantage of the importance of focusing on One Thing.

Several years ago, I read the book The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. In fact, I was even on the One Thing Podcast. 

Patrick Lencioni calls it a thematic goal. He says:

“A thematic goal is … Singular. One thing has to be most important, even if there are other worthy goals under consideration. 

— The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business by Patrick M. Lencioni
https://a.co/7JbBMrf

Learning, safety, instruction, and many things we do in school are worthy of consideration. 

In all things, there can only be one priority. The plural, priorities, is a misnomer. Once anything else is as important as a priority, it is no longer the priority. 

Especially in schools, there can be one priority. That’s all. We like to pretend that the one priority is education is student learning, but all our systems are designed for that to not be the case. I’ll rant on that another time. 

In talking about going back to fully in person classes in a school, many different goals could challenge for being named the priority. But, remember, there can be only one (1) priority. 

A contender for the priority for when kids come back is to keep them in school. 

If our one thing, our “thematic goal,” is to keep kids in school, then our actions that we are going to take every day is going to focus on making sure kids can stay in school. 

If our priority is something else, we are going to need to change our daily actions to match what our priority is. 

So, what’s your one (1) priority until June?