Somewhere in the cobwebs of our memory old sayings live and every now again emerge into thought. Common wisdoms and witticisms learned in our youth can be reworked to give us guidance as adults. Experience has informed me of new truths about proverbial squeaky wheels. The concept of old is that the irritation of the squeak causes listeners to fix or stop the wheel from squeaking by giving it grease. The learning point was “squeak loud and often enough and you will get what you want” or “squeakers get more of what they want than non-squeakers”.
Consider this modification. Squeaky wheels get someone to listen and in a world of increasing noise being listened to matters.
Take Away
My organizational gene asks me to investigate why the wheel makes a squeaking noise. The squeak is a signal that some organizational operation is ineffective. What conjunction of moving parts is not working properly? Examine the organization in its parts. Fix it as a whole. Return to organizational effectiveness. Schools are organizations and this approach to problem-solving can work.
If the squeaker is a person, listen and look. What is the righteousness of their squeak? What complaint or grievance underlies the squeak? Is the response they seek a just response? Will it improve the organization or salve the person – is it a systemic improvement or a band-aid? To what extent does the medium of the squeak influence my interest in responding? People are complex squeakers and listening for and giving attention to these questions assists in resolving people-based squeaks.
My efficiency and “take care of it now” gene tells me that when a wheel on my bike, car, utility tractor or golf cart squeaks, get a new wheel. It is easier and more efficient to remove, replace and get moving than to investigate the cause of the irritating squeak. Most often, new wheels don’t squeak. Given time and wear, a new wheel also may become squeaky, but when the goal is to eliminate irritation, another replacement wheel will be the proven solution. Schools are physical plants and this works for an efficient management of facility operations.
If that squeak is a person, there is a threshold of squeakiness that can be borne, but beyond that threshold, a new person, like a new wheel, is an adequate efficiency response. This is a mechanistic approach to human relations and, whereas it may seem just, it breeds organizational dragons. Yet, it can work as a response to a persistent squeaker.
School organizations generate a lot of noise. Some noise is just operational clutter. Like dust on the floor, we sweep clutter aside. Some noise is infrastructural tension. We need to tend to sounds of equipment distress or the equipment will fail. Some noise is human interaction including normal work noise. Some joyful human noise is a sign of organizational success and other human noise displays organizational problems. I return to the wheel analogy. Like the difference between tires humming along the road or the screeching of a broken wheel bearing, all human noise in a school is not the same. If the first noise is a sign that all is well and the second is a sign that the wheels will fall off, distress squeaking in school can be a sign that the wheels of the school organization are in peril. We need to listen to our human school noises.
Why Is This Thus
Noise is commonplace. Although we can manufacture an environment that is completely soundless and soundproof, it is not a natural phenomenon. Noise is part of life.
We should treat noise that is noise as just noise. It is sonic chatter.
Noise can be meant to get our attention. We need and want to hear this noise. When we hear emergency alarms, we are taught to act. When we hear cries for help, we are moved to look and attempt assistance. When we hear pleasing and soothing music, we want to appreciate what we hear. When we hear words of affection and endearment, we sidle up closer. While physical noises get our attention, human noises need to provoke our listening.
Marshall McLuhan taught us that the medium can be the message. However, a message carried in an aggravating and unwanted sound is a medium that we do not want to hear. Like fingernails dragged across a chalkboard, we not only don’t like the message, we don’t like the messenger. Schools have their share of fingernail draggers.
We observe that humans have learned to be squeaky wheels. By nature or nurture, some people are given to accommodation or to squeaking. We see on a daily basis the ways in which school people absorb and accommodate irritations like a late school bus, incomplete school assignments, homework that seems like make work, test results and grades that do not correspond with expectations, costs and fees of school activities, and responses to personal requests. While schools cause a tremendous amount of teaching and learning success and satisfaction, there also are disappointments in how school works – in its real and affective treatment of people and their issues. Whether it is an irritation or a disappointment, teachers, students, parents and the community squeak to school leaders and some squeakers are satisfied and some are not.
To Do
Be a credible listener. One can take the time to hear a person’s squeak but never listen with an intention the respond. If squeakers perceive that is all you are doing, expect the wheels of your school to fall off. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day.
Be a just responder. Some squeaky people are happy in knowing you are listening to them. Listen with personal interest to what they say. Others seek appropriate and proportional responses that understand the cause of and apply a fix to a problem. Clinical fixes to organizational problems work and when they are done properly, squeakers are satisfied. Empathetic and supportive responses to human relations problems work and the personal care factor is as important to the squeaker as the fix. Some responders demand huge responses to small problems. An inappropriate fix thrown at a problem is as unjust as no response and may result in louder squeaking.
Look for and see the silent squeaker. You may not hear them and their needs, but they are present. The school leader who is sensitive to and responds to silent squeakers gives a hugely positive message to all squeakers. This school cares. Your wheels are superbly greased.
Discern the messages of loud squeakers. Those who make righteous noise need to a leader’s help to reestablish organizational effectiveness. Their noise can make everyone better. Discern the medium of loud squeakers. Those who abuse the medium of squeaking with unrighteous noise require a different attention.
Know when the squeak is about the school and when the squeak is about you. The truth is this – if you are the cause of the squeak and “the physician cannot heal himself”, a just response may be to get a new wheel. Lots of metaphors get mixed when we attempt to say that a school leader no longer is an effective school leader. Inordinate amounts of human and physical squeakiness can be a sign of ineffective leadership.
The Big Duh
Squeaky wheels in a school need listening to and sometimes just the listening is all a squeaker seeks. But, when attention to a squeak requires strong and proactive action, do what is right – respond to the squeaker and repair the organization. In schools, people are the organization. Be a credible listener and a just responder and squeakers will be informed of when and how to squeak. Squeaky wheels need more than a grease job.