What we don't see on the staff list

A staff list tells us quite a lot about a school.

Names. Roles. Responsibilities. Departments. Leadership structures.

It tells us considerably less about how the place actually works.

It doesn't tell us who people turn to when something goes wrong. Who organises things because they enjoy organising them. Who remembers why a decision was made five years ago. Who coaches the team, helps with the production or volunteers for the residential. Who quietly does their job extremely well and goes home. Who used to be involved in everything but no longer has the space for it. Or who has something rather wonderful to contribute that nobody has discovered yet.

None of this necessarily appears on the staff list.

But all of it forms part of the fabric of a school.

Finding our place

People find their place within a school community in different ways.

For some, the wider life of the school is one of the things they enjoy most. They like the fixtures, performances, trips, events and slightly chaotic moments when everyone has to pull together.

Others contribute differently.

And then there is Priya.

Priya teaches well. She marks conscientiously, plans thoroughly, and is entirely reliable with the things that are actually hers. At 3.15, she goes home.

One September, somebody asks her to run the Year 8 quiz club.

“I can't take that on this year,” she says.

Nothing more.

Nobody presses her. Nobody remembers it particularly.

The quiz club runs anyway, led by somebody else. Or it doesn't run this year. Either way, nothing collapses.

That is worth noticing, because it rarely gets noticed. We remember the people who say yes. We tend not to remember the people who say no cleanly, and were simply believed.

Priya hasn't withdrawn from the life of the school. She has [C1] been clear about the shape of her contribution this year.

Lives have seasons too.

There may be a year when somebody has the time and inclination to run a club, organise a residential and help with the school production. There may be another when caring responsibilities, study, health, family life or simply the need for firmer boundaries mean that their immediate role is what they have to give.

And sometimes people change simply because they change.

The colleague who once wanted to be involved in everything may no longer want that. Someone who previously kept work and home quite separate may suddenly discover a part of school life they thoroughly enjoy.

Perhaps the important thing isn't how much somebody participates.

It is whether there is room for people to find a way of belonging that works for them.

“Ask Sam”

And then there is Sam.

Something needs sorting. Someone is absent. A parent needs a conversation. A trip has developed a problem. Nobody is quite sure who owns something.

“Ask Sam.”

Sam will probably know.

And if they don't, they will probably know who does.

Most of this may have happened quite naturally.

Sam is level-headed. Capable. They know the school and have good relationships across it. They don't tend to walk past a problem because technically it belongs to somebody else.

People learn this.

Students learn it. Colleagues learn it. Parents may learn it. Leadership learns it too.

Being that person can be deeply satisfying.

There is pleasure in being useful. There is professional satisfaction in knowing that people trust your judgement. There can be enormous enjoyment in contributing to a place you care about.

The problem isn't that people ask Sam.

The more interesting question is what happens when “Ask Sam” becomes an organisational reflex?

When helping becomes expected

Nobody necessarily decided that Sam would become responsible for all these things.

Sam helped.

Then helped again.

A gap appeared and they stepped into it. Something went wrong and they sorted it. A colleague needed support and they gave it.

Often willingly.

But repetition changes things.

What begins as an act of professional generosity can gradually become part of how the organisation functions.

The request changes almost imperceptibly from:

Would Sam be willing to help?

to:

Sam usually does this.

And eventually:

Ask Sam.

This isn't entirely the organisation's responsibility.

There is professional agency here too.

Sometimes those of us who are good at stepping in also need to become good at stepping back.

One Tuesday, somebody asks Sam to sort something that, a year ago, would simply have been sorted.

“I can't take that on today,” Sam says.

Or:

“That doesn't sit with me.”

There is a pause.

Not hostility. Just surprise.

The request hadn't really been a request for some time. It had become an assumption, and assumptions don't expect to be declined.

Sam's return to the boundaries of their role can look remarkably like withdrawal.

It may simply be Sam finding out what the building does when they stop holding that particular corner.

If I continually rescue something, I may never discover what happens when I don't.

Perhaps somebody else steps forward.

Perhaps a process has to improve.

Perhaps a weakness that Sam's competence has been concealing finally becomes visible.

Or perhaps something simply doesn't happen... and it turns out that was survivable too.

That can be uncomfortable, particularly when our instinct is to help.

But there is a difference between noticing that something needs doing and accepting that it must therefore be done by us.

Capability, capacity and dependency

This may be where three things are easily confused.

Capability is what somebody can do.

Capacity is what they can reasonably give at this point in time.

Dependency is what the organisation has come to rely upon them to provide.

They are not the same.

A highly capable person may have very little current capacity.

Someone else may have capabilities the organisation has never noticed.

And an organisation can become highly dependent upon a contribution that was originally offered voluntarily.

That last one interests me particularly.

Because a capable person can inadvertently make a weak system look stronger than it is.

If Sam always knows what to do, nobody notices that the process isn't clear.

If Sam always covers the gap, the gap itself receives less attention.

If Sam holds years of institutional knowledge, nobody notices how little of that knowledge exists anywhere else.

If Sam routinely steadies difficult situations, the organisation may begin to mistake Sam's capability for its own.

Who is covering whom?

I know this feeling from hockey.

A strong player reads the game. They anticipate where the danger is developing, cover another position when necessary and make the extra run because they can see what is about to happen.

That's part of being a team.

But if the same player is continually making those runs, eventually it becomes worth asking why.

Is somebody else struggling?

Is the formation wrong?

Does another player need developing?

Are we using this player in the right position?

And sometimes there isn't another player sitting conveniently on the bench.

Then the answer isn't simply to redistribute the work.

You may have to change the formation. Prioritise. Protect a position. Decide which runs really need to be made.

Perhaps even accept that something cannot be done.

The useful question isn't whether the player can make another run.

It is whether they should continually be required to.

Schools operate with very real constraints. There isn't always spare staffing, time or money waiting to absorb something once a dependency has been identified.

But noticing still matters.

Because there is a difference between knowingly making a difficult decision about limited capacity and allowing one person's willingness to disguise the fact that the capacity isn't there.

The people we haven't noticed yet

There is another side to this.

If our organisational reflex is always “Ask Sam”, we may know a great deal about Sam and surprisingly little about everybody else.

The person sitting three chairs away may have coached sport for years. A colleague may love theatre but have never mentioned it at work. Someone may be interested in mentoring younger colleagues but assume there is no route into it.

We cannot assume that an undiscovered capability represents spare capacity.

Nor should every hobby become an organisational resource because an employer discovers it.

But perhaps there is value in asking.

Not:

What else can we get people to do?

But:

What do the people in this community bring that we don't yet know about?

And perhaps:

Is there something here they might actually enjoy being part of?

That feels different.

Seeing the whole team

Perhaps this is part of the work of leadership that doesn't fit particularly neatly onto an organisational chart either.

Knowing the people in the building.

Not simply whether they are performing their role effectively, but where they are growing, what they enjoy, what people seek them out for and what they may have quietly come to carry.

It also means noticing change.

The person who was everywhere three years ago may need something different now.

The new colleague who initially wanted to concentrate entirely on their classroom may be ready to look outwards.

The person everyone relies upon may still love what they do — but may need somebody else to learn how to do it too.

And the person who appears not to participate much in the visible life of the school may be making an enormous contribution somewhere we haven't thought to look.

None of this requires us to manufacture participation.

Community created through obligation isn't much of a community.

But it does require us to become better at creating invitations, noticing patterns and having conversations before capability quietly becomes dependency.

What the staff list doesn't tell us

A staff list tells us who works in a school.

It cannot tell us how those people fit together.

It cannot show us where trust sits, where knowledge travels, where somebody is growing, where someone has stepped back, where capacity is stretched, or where an organisation has become more dependent upon one person than anybody quite intended.

Those things sit between the names.

That is part of the fabric too.

And perhaps one of the more useful questions we can ask from time to time is simply:

What don't we know about the people in our building?