See, Solve, Scale by Danny Warshay

From CLEE News June 2023

In reading Danny Warshay’s book on his entrepreneurial process, See, Solve, Scale, I found many connections to both how CLEE facilitates educators and leaders to scale what works and to our greater purpose - meeting the unmet needs born of inequities inside and outside our education system. 

Here are some of my biggest ah-ha’s from the book:

The first step in Danny Warshay’s process is to SEE the needs you are trying to meet more expansively. In CLEE’s methodology, this looks like a ‘data dig’ and ‘root cause analysis’ that utilizes varied data and analysis by multiple stakeholders. What Danny Warshay teaches is to go beyond asking people what they need or deploying another survey, and rather observe their needs directly. This opens our aperture to SEE beyond our assumptions and builds new understanding of what our stakeholders need from us.

The second step in the process is to SOLVE for the specific needs of your stakeholders, as opposed to solutions that are simply new, shiny, or trending. As CLEE directs people to start small to implement solutions, Danny’s approach reminds us to double check that these improvements are directly meeting the needs of our stakeholders. 

But what good are great solutions if you keep them to yourself or they are only serving a small group of students or stakeholders? In the third step, SCALE, Danny advocates to think big so that your solutions have an immense, rather than fleeting or limited impact. My ah-ha is that this doesn’t mean to just do more or work harder, it means you can open your mind to dream bigger, inviting in creativity and hope.

At CLEE, we have centered our growth on the idea that scaling isn’t just to get more work, it is to spread our practices and impact. Danny’s book helped me see that entrepreneurial mindsets and processes aren't just for the business world. It is just as important in education. Without scaling solutions that meet the critical needs of students, we remain as we are now - with pockets of excellent practices. Rather, we need to ensure that great practices spread and reach each and every student.

Join us in August to learn from Danny Warshay how to use the SEE step to observe the needs in your community to help inform CLEE’s scaling plan. This is incredibly exciting work, and we need lots of eyes, ears, and voices to shape the future.