Policypersonnelpersonal

I was aiming to become the best school superintendent in the history of the world, so, of course, I went back to school to learn how to do that.  It was easy to see who the good teachers were.  The theory of how to be an effective leader was best taught by full professors, who spent all their time thinking Big Thoughts.  But the nuts and bolts of the job were best taught by administrators who put it a full day’s work, interacting with the nuts and bolts, who then taught a class at university for fun, or relief, or maybe both.

This was one of those instructors.  He’d bring in a case study, and let us hash it out.  Once we had exhausted all possible answers, or were just plain exhausted, he’d provide an answer to the situation in ten words or less.  The guy really was a Sensei of school administration.

That was the case one night, when the issue at hand had something to do with classroom management.  The students were whipping out ideas for policy change faster than you could blink, working ourselves into a particularly high fervor.  As we all gasped for a collective breath, the room fell silent, and the instructor said:

Never confuse a policy problem with a personnel problem.

And that was that.  In our haste to show how much we’d read that week, all the students forgot what we knew as educators.  Sometimes, the issue isn’t the school rule.  It’s the teacher who takes the rule too far, or sees it as pointless, or implements it in a way that has more to do with what they think of the student rather than in terms of what’s best for the student.  Those situations don’t require a new policy.  They require the principal taking the teacher out for a drink and talking about the situation.

Chances are you haven’t thought about becoming a school superintendent, but you’ve likely been in the same situation. You’re supposed to take the copy paper from the bottom of the stack, but you’re five minutes late to the meeting, so off the top it comes—just in time to turn around and see your stickler-driven colleague giving you the side eye.  The new employee heads out the door right at five, even though an extra 15 minutes would put them, and the team, three hours ahead of schedule tomorrow morning.  A great workplace becomes a shrine to silence when a new supervisor comes in with a design to make it leaner and meaner, emphasis on the mean.  Your fifth conversation with your child about taking out the trash still leads you nowhere. You think the system of your country is at risk, when it’s really just the guy in charge.

There are legitimate times to be overwhelmed by a system that just seems too impersonal, too unapproachable, or too inefficient, requiring you to go home, put the covers over your head, and try to wish it all away.  These are the times when it’s better to take a breath, look at the situation, and ask yourself what’s changed recently.  If your answer is “Bob.  Bob is what’s changed.”, it’s time to stop thinking systems, and start thinking Bob. That’s harder, but when it’s appropriate, it’s important.

Or look in the mirror.  If there are no new hires or rules, and we have a new feeling about familiar work, it may be our needs, wants, or interests that are changing.  That’s not a bad thing, but it too is an important thing to face, if that’s the case.

Citizenship

The goal makes sense.
Love your country early.
So five-year-olds learn to pledge.
Even if their tongues won’t wrap
Around indivisible
Let’s wrap them
In the flag.

And then, we’re thirty-four
At a meeting
Where patriotism is called for.
Everyone knows it, sure
And everyone recites it
With a tone and inflection
Of naptime
And milk and cookies.

If we studied it in high school
As the beautiful poem it is
We’d say it differently.
Not “And to the Republic (pause)
For which it stands”
But “And to the Republic (no breath)
For which it stands (no breath)
One nation (breath).”

It’s great the kids know it
Unless finger painting time
Was when we last considered
What it meant.

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