This was an unfinished post I first drafted six months ago when I was still in education as a Deputy Headteacher. Funnily enough, it is as relevant to my new role as COO and so I looked to finish and post it. It is certainly relevant educationally, operationally, satirically and politically.
It may still resonant.
I am putting a marker in the sand here. This week members of the senior team were discussing various difficult situations we were facing that week. The conclusion: almost all difficult situations can be resolved with sufficient time, money or both.
An example. A perennial end-of-school-year difficult situation – space. Enough space. Space for staff to work, to meet, to recuperate. Who’s space? Where? Who is asking? Who moves? Do we share? Who misses out? And I could go on.
In every school setting I have worked, every school setting, the question of space has raised its head towards the end of the school year, in preparation for the next. Often resolvable in many different ways, if you have time and/or money, even the successful resolution are fraught, with ‘beneficiaries’ and ‘detractors.’ In past experience, I have moved, made, shared and redesignated space – but this is the first time where we simply do not have the space, the time or the money. In context, it is unresolvable.
So the marker and the point of the post – ironically, it is not about space.
Leading Unresolvable Situations
Almost every leadership book, articles, post or interview I have consumed has directed me towards the either winner or the successful outcome. With an unwavering faith in human capacity and conviction to find that solution. That and shaking the money-tree. (Is there an equivalent for time? Shaking the time tress?)
Where are the leadership books and articles that explain how to lead a difficult situation, without the required resource – time or money?
Hope is not a strategy.
Where are the leadership books that help us lead through difficult situations (those with the required resource) and now termed ‘unresolvable situations.’ Those where the outcome is less than desirable. Maintaining a clear vision, and staying positive, and resilient, and so forth, rarely alters the parameters of a difficult situation. No wishing we had more resource, more time, more space, create more resource, time or space.
So that is the marker – if I get time, I might just attempt to research and write a potential series of blog posts on leading ‘difficult situations.’ Could this be a leadership book that address a gap in leadership book market? How about ‘Leading Unresolvable Situations,’ because ‘Almost all difficult situations can be solved with sufficient time or money, but what to do, when you don’t have sufficient time or money (which is most of the time)’ might be too long for the paperback.
Ironic conclusion
And I am not unaware of the irony of this unfinished post.
Six months on from when I first penned this draft, I am beginning to think that the book ‘Unresolvable Situations,’ would represent a most welcomed Christmas book gift for a Labour cabinet minister.
Please share your ‘unresolvable situations,’ or ‘difficult situations’ experiences or examples that might be considered as chapter titles for the book. Difficult situations and unresolvable situations, that may or may not have turned out as “successful failures.” Apollo 13 Mission (1970)? How natural disasters are managed? Migration possibly?
What I do know is this, as the situational parameters change, so does the style of leadership required.
As the water hole shrinks, the animals look at each other differently.
Credit to Joe Davis for the longer book title and thought provoking conversation.