Finding the Right Hoses
A bit of news: I started winding down my coaching and consulting practice last summer, when I decided I was ready for the next challenge. On Wednesday last week, I started a new job as an operations leader at a network of six charter schools. I’ll work on some key projects and eventually be the acting COO when the current one goes on leave.
In many ways, it’s been like drinking from a firehose. When I first opened my email, I already had more than 150 unread messages. Then, of course, there were the dozens of people I met while touring the schools and at the all-staff meeting on Friday.
Adding to the challenge is the fact that I haven’t had a wake-up-and-go-to-the-office job for six years. Hence, there’s even a learning curve on simple things like locating the nearest printer and knowing how quickly to retrieve your paper before someone else grabs it. On the first day, I nearly lost my buffer to arrive on time because I discovered too late that I didn’t have any cereal to eat for breakfast. It also took an embarrassing number of minutes to figure out how best to transport the water, coffee, and snacks I’d want for the day.
It’s a lot to get my mind around—though I’m confident I’ll nail the breakfast and water challenge going into week two.
Because of the deluge of new information, I found myself asking others, “How do you keep on top of everything?” Beyond normal information management, I knew how critical it would be to maximize consumption of the data that matters most and avoid missing urgent items that might be hidden under an innocuous subject line like “Maintenance update.”
When I stepped back to think about it, however, I came to see that drinking from a firehose wasn't the right description.
Instead, it’s about solving the challenge of finding the right hoses. Processing all the incoming data would mean little if it didn’t include the relevant information for what I need to accomplish. This is especially true since the critical data may be as likely to come through hallway conversations, direct observation, or unofficial channels as it would come via email.
Once you have the right hoses, it’s then about deciding which hoses to continue drinking from. At the end of day two, I told a friend I felt I knew only 2% of the information and people I needed to be effective. And honestly, that felt generous. But the more I sat with it, I saw that 100% was an unrealistic goal. Because the environment is dynamic and there’s always new information, tasks, and problems, there won’t be a magic moment when I’ll be completely on top of things. Instead, the best I can do is implement routines to shorten learning cycles and avoid getting lost in the chaos (and with so many humans, devices, and physical spaces in schools, there will always be something that needs attention).
Hence, the first thing I did after clearing the initial email messages was to schedule time for reflection at the end of each day. It will be time to review my notes and ask, “What’s really going on here?” with the goal of spotting subtle dynamics that may be obscured amid the constant stream of meetings and emails.
When I came up with that solution, I laughed to myself since it took a few minutes to identify it, even though it’s ripped directly from Everyday Strategic Leadership. It reminded me of talking to a client a few years ago about a leadership challenge he faced. He was stuck when it came to identifying solutions.
Coincidentally, our conversation fell on a week when he’d published a book about leadership—a book that contained the answer to his very challenge. He was so lost in the challenge that he’d forgotten that he’d solved it before. In fact, the reason there’s a whole section in Everyday Strategic Leadership on the benefits of planned reflection time is precisely because of how common it is for leaders to get lost in their work. Apparently, I needed to reread it myself.
Even though my new schedule isn’t designed to facilitate writing, my plan is to continue Monday Musings. I suspect the routine of writing will force the kind of reflection that helps me see the chaos, not just live in it.