Find the Meaning in the Checklist

Well, you survived October and early November. Winter break is coming into view. And we all know that it is a fast descent into the testing season as soon as we get back. Before that momentum sweeps you away, I want to name something out loud. It is possible to stay human and connected to your vision even inside a system that can feel so compliance focused and exhausting. It’s important to find or even create meaning in a structure that does not always make room for it. This post is for the weary, not the rebellious.

The hardest part of finding room for any kind of creative work inside a compliance system is that typically that system just isn’t designed for creativity. It is designed to easily get the results it gets and to be easily monitored in that process. You know, that whole “what gets monitored gets done” thing. And yet, we work in a human centered industry and easy monitoring doesn’t always match complex and nuanced work. Daniel Pink told us all about the power of Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose as motivators. Pink also highlighted the core importance of creativity, empathy, and design in human centered work. Not a lot of those would qualify as being easy to monitor.

Seeing the System for What It Is

Working in a system, that by design must have a high degree of compliance, can be a complete and total grind. This is especially so when you feel the focus is compliance over people. (I talked a bit about this in Acting Amoeba and Talking Railroad.)

If you’re feeling a disconnect it’s probably because you’re one of the ones closest to the ground truth, doing, facilitating and leading the work with real human beings in the real world. You’re in the arena, if you know you know.

A blind faith in the system without any type of contextualizing or humanizing is a recipe for mediocrity. That shocks some of the people who designed those systems too.

The Job Behind the Job

Let’s focus on the education world where what gets ultimately monitored is student performance on standardized test scores. Surprise! Sure, we can all think of some other metrics but usually those are thrown in the blender with good old test scores for the final outcome.

Ok, now that I’ve triggered your fight or flight, let me shift us to some reflection and a little think aloud. So, when I think about what  the hardest part of working in this system is for me, it was and still is the “meta job”. To start, I had to do the actual job, that is make sure the kids were growing, learning, and getting those scores. Behind that though, there was an entire “meta job.” This job behind the job was all about telling people how I did the actual job. This other job was all about connecting the work we did to, in some ways, checklists to show everyone that we had actually done the work. Yes, even results from the actual job weren’t enough. Fidelity to the compliance metrics, the second job, was just as important it seemed.

A scene you may be familiar with:

“Honest question, Are you more interested in results or in compliance to the timelines?”

Response: “Yes”

“Got it”

(Check out Leading from the Middle, where I talk about that often when I felt the most stress it was because of this second meta job.)

Making the Mandate Make Sense

More often than not, I found myself doing the work (the first job) and then, not going rogue, but in a real attempt to find common ground, matching that work to the “official” plan.

I learned to start by taking the big mandate and doing a crosswalk with my own campus vision, mission, and culture. Think of it as a T Chart.

One side is the district or state initiative, the other are things that we were already doing directly related to that initiative.

Assuming best intentions can save so much stress.

When an initiative drops, wait, don’t panic. Look for  the rationale behind it. There is one even if it’s not intuitively obvious. Then find how you are already doing it and go from there.

The Strange Freedom of Boundaries

It’s important to look for ways to make any big initiative as contextual as you can.

There is a different way to look at things that might seem like constraints on first pass.

Those very constraints can be a relief.

Lessening choices doesn’t have to mean lessening creativity. There is a strange kind of creativity that happens when the box is already drawn for you.

You have clear boundaries that you can absolutely push things right up to.

You know the rules of the game. More than that, you also now have a clear understanding of what “success” looks like.

There is so much power and even potential motivation in this when communicating to your team. It’s the High Floor, No Ceiling” move and it can sound like this:

 “Y’all, here is all we need to do to be successful. But we are not settling for that are we?”

That floor, even if it is a high floor, is a tangible goal. It is a clear line to reach and it is a clear line to backwards design from in your approach to meeting it.

With that done for you, you have much more time, energy, and emotional wherewithal to be as creative about HOW you will do it.

But what if how you implement is another mandate? Same approach.

High Floor, No Ceiling. There will always be an opportunity to find ways to personalize and contextualize.

A Compass When the System Doesn’t Make Sense

Ok, you might have read all that and feel like I haven’t really addressed what’s really wearing you down. I can hear you. What if the initiative seems to have no redeemable benefits?

Here’s a silly flowchart to use. Is the initiative dumb because it was not your idea and it is maybe a better way to do something you know you should be doing? Or is it genuinely a bad move from above.

How do you know? First, get out of your own way and be real with that first question. Even grudgingly, can you admit that maybe you could learn something? A note, if you are the smartest person in the room, find a different room.

Next, lean into your organization’s vision and mission. If your organization posts a physical copy of the vision on the walls, pull it down and put it on a table. Do some serious thinking about this initiative through the lens of that vision. If it really does not match you have a couple options. Revisit and revise the initiative or change your vision. 

One seems awfully dramatic. And it should. Chances are, you can find some connections. If you can’t, you have some valid concerns to bring up

Pro tip though, while waiting for that vision alignment conversation, find a way you can align the actions to the vision. Model living the vision and mission, even in these circumstances. The trick here is you have to keep your job to do your job.

Euro pro tip: If this continues, it might be time for a reflection on how you fit in that particular organization. A very very wise leader once told me, “Never hold your allegiance to an organization that does not share your values. They certainly will not hold an allegiance to you.”

What You Still Control

A cautionary tale. One of the least effective ways to deal with a high floor is to play the “they” said game. Fill in the blank with whichever “they” fits for your context. Talk about a way to give up any kind of agency.

Ok, they sure did. What are we going to do about it.”

I love the phrase, if a frog had wings it would not bump its ass hopping. They do not…so they do.

Anyways, what are we going to do today to make things happen for our clients.

Think of it as earned optimism and earned autonomy.

A Way Back to Yourself

At the end of the day, this isn’t just about the system. It’s also about how the system feels from where you sit.

You’re feeling it’s compliance first and soul second (or third).

You’re not feeling in sync with what you feel in your heart and soul to be true and effective. Compliance over humans. Checklists over people. 

Today, find one thing you’re already doing that’s anchored to the real you, that IS aligned with that mandate you’re struggling with. Name the soul in the mandate. How is your creativity making its way into the system? 

You still have some agency in all of this. You have control. 

Find the meaning in the checklist.