What to Do Before You React

When the numbers change, the shift rarely arrives quietly.

It appears in a meeting agenda, in a dashboard update, or in a line of red text on a report. A dip in attendance. A benchmark score that slips. A subgroup whose results no longer look as strong as they did last year.

The change may be small. It may even fall within the range of what the system has always produced. But once it becomes visible, the atmosphere changes.

People look up. Questions begin to form. Someone asks what went wrong. The expectation that something must be done settles into the room.

Last month, I argued that reacting quickly in these moments often makes things worse, not because leaders lack care or competence, but because they feel responsible for the outcomes in front of them. 

Action signals concern. Movement signals control. Silence, by contrast, can feel like neglect.

Under these conditions, reaction becomes almost automatic.

But the central challenge in these moments is not speed. It is judgment.

Leaders are being asked to decide whether the change in front of them represents meaningful information or routine fluctuation. And most are forced to make that decision without a clear rule for doing so.

This post is about what comes before reaction: the discipline required to decide whether a change deserves action at all.

The Invisible Decision Leaders Are Making

When the numbers change, it feels as though leaders are being asked to decide what action to take.

But that is not the first decision being made.

Before choosing a response, leaders are making a quieter, more consequential judgment: whether the change in front of them represents something meaningful.

Is this evidence of decline?
Is this proof that a strategy worked?
Is this a problem that requires intervention?

These questions often remain implicit. And because they are implicit, they are rarely examined.

Leadership mistakes arise not only from choosing the wrong action. They arise from assigning meaning too quickly very often before there is sufficient evidence to justify it.

A small dip becomes a diagnosis.
A short-term rise becomes validation.
A single data point becomes a narrative about effort, competence, or commitment.

Movement begins to stand in for meaning.

Once meaning is assigned, pressure escalates.

If the change represents decline, something must be fixed.
If it represents success, something must be reinforced.

Interpretation turns into urgency.
Urgency turns into reaction.

Why Reaction Becomes the Default

Schools operate under conditions of visibility and accountability. Outcomes matter. Students matter. Reputations matter.

When leaders hesitate after a visible shift in results, it can be interpreted as avoidance. When they pause to study patterns, it can look like uncertainty. When they choose not to intervene immediately, it can appear as indifference.

Under those conditions, reacting quickly feels not only safe, but responsible.

The move toward action is rarely impulsive. It is structural.

But reacting without understanding is not leadership. It is urgency filling a vacuum left by the absence of a decision rule.

Signal vs. Noise: The Distinction Leaders Need

Before reacting, leaders must separate signal from noise.

This is not merely a technical distinction; it is a leadership discipline.

Noise is routine variation, the natural up-and-down behavior of a stable system.
Signal is evidence that something in the system itself has changed.

Most school data contains far more noise than signal.

Attendance fluctuates.
Behavior incidents spike and dip.
Assessment results bounce up and down.

That movement alone does not indicate improvement or decline.

When leaders react to noise, they are not responding to change. They are tampering with systems that have not changed at all.

And tampering creates instability.

The Question That Slows the Moment Down

Before asking, “What should we do?” strong leaders ask a different question:

“If nothing had changed in the system, would I expect results like this?”

This question shifts attention from the latest data point to patterns over time. It replaces explanation with interpretation. It creates space for understanding before action.

Sometimes the answer is yes, this result is unexpected. That is when investigation is warranted.

Often, the answer is no. The result falls well within what the system has always produced.

In those cases, reacting does not improve performance. It introduces pressure, noise, and confusion into a system that is behaving exactly as designed.

Pausing Is Not Inaction

Pausing before reacting is often misunderstood.

It is not ignoring data.
It is not lowering expectations.
It is not indecision.

It is discipline.

Pausing protects teachers from being judged on variation they cannot control. It protects leaders from making promises the system cannot keep. It protects students from constant shifts that disrupt learning.

Most importantly, it preserves trust.

When Action Is Required

None of this means leaders should never act. It means there should be clear underlying logic when action is taken.

When data shows a meaningful signal, something outside what the system normally produces, leaders should respond deliberately.

And when outcomes are consistently unacceptable, even if stable, reacting to individual data points will not help. What is required is thoughtful system redesign, not urgency-driven fixes.

Either way, understanding must come first.

Putting It All Together

The most damaging decisions in schools are often made immediately after the numbers change, not because of the numbers themselves, but because of how leaders interpret them.

Three ideas can change that pattern:

Big Idea 1: Not all variation is meaningful. Much fluctuation is routine.

Big Idea 2: Reacting before interpretation creates instability, not improvement.

Big Idea 3: A clear decision rule allows leaders to pause when everyone is looking at them.

In the next post, I’ll show how to answer the signal-or-noise question using data over time, without becoming statisticians or adding complexity.

For now, the leadership move is simple: When the numbers change, decide whether they signify something meaningful before you decide to do something.

That pause is not avoidance.
It is leadership.

Whenever you’re ready, here are three ways to continue the work:

1. EMAIL JOHN
Have a question, an improvement idea, or a moment where the numbers changed and you weren’t sure how to respond? I regularly exchange ideas and resources with educators across the country and beyond, and I’d welcome hearing what you’re working through.

2. IMPROVEMENT ADVISING
If you’re looking for a thought partner who understands the realities of leading complex school systems, I work with leaders to strengthen decision-making, interpret data wisely, and build systems that improve over time—without adding noise or unnecessary initiatives.

3. WIN-WIN: THE BOOK
Win-Win is an improvement science text written for education leaders. It equips readers with the concepts and habits of mind from W. Edwards Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge to help them improve systems, not just react to results.

***

John A. Dues is the Chief Learning Officer for United Schools, a nonprofit charter management organization that supports four public charter school campuses in Columbus, Ohio. He is also the author of the award-winning book Win-Win: W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge, and the Science of Improving Schools. Send feedback to jdues@unitedschools.org.