Welcome to the deep dive. This is where we take
that essential reading pile you've got and, you
know, really distill it into something useful,
some actionable insight. Today, we're digging
into some excerpts from Gary Ackerman's work.
It's all about school leaders, technology, and
this thing he calls spin. So our mission today
really is to unpack this kind of fascinating
paradox. We're looking at why these, you know,
highly competent leaders, principals, superintendents
often feel like they have to rely on a carefully
constructed story, sort of a positive facade,
you could say, to paper over some, well, pretty
deep systemic issues. And the really interesting
part, according to the source material, is that
this whole mechanism seems to get triggered overwhelmingly
by one specific area. Right. The area where they
feel, frankly, profoundly vulnerable. Information
technology. Yeah. And it's a crucial point because
Ackerman describes this spin, or maybe we would
call it careful framing, not as some kind of
character flaw, but more like a fact of life.
Something demanded by the job, by the whole organizational
setup. School leaders face uncomfortable situations
all the time, right? And there's this expectation
often from higher -ups or politically powerful
individuals, as he puts it, that they need to
frame those situations in a positive light. It's
almost built into the job description managing
perception. So let's start there with that vulnerability.
I mean, if a school leader is great at curriculum,
handles budgets, manages staff effectively, why
does technology management specifically trigger
this need for narrative control? What is it about
managing the school network or the tech infrastructure
that's so different from all the other things
they juggle? Well, the author really isolates
this well. He contrasts IT with pretty much every
other job in the school. The deep insecurity
here, it seems, it comes down to functional competence.
Can they actually do the job if needed? And the
finding is that out of all the jobs performed
in a school, managing IT is the one the leadership
is least prepared to assume if, you know, disaster
struck and they had to step in themselves. That's
such a powerful distinction, isn't it? Competency
versus just capacity. Like if a teacher calls
in sick, maybe a sixth grade teacher, the principal
probably could cover that class for a day. They
likely have that background somewhere. And the
source material really highlights this. It says
a leader could probably fill in for an admin
assistant, right? Yeah, or supervise the custodial
staff, maybe even cover for a specialized teacher
for a short time. They've got a baseline understanding,
at least. Exactly. And the source points out
the exceptions, the roles needing really specific,
often certified skills. Like the school nurse.
The school nurse, the bus driver, those are the
obvious ones. And right alongside them, IT management.
Wow. It just highlights this functional knowledge
gap. It's so wide that when a leader faces a
complex tech failure, maybe the network crashes
or there's a security breach or some big software
rollout goes wrong, they're basically paralyzed,
functionally speaking. The text describes them
as simply being stuck. Think about that. You've
got someone managing million -dollar budgets,
the education, the safety of hundreds or thousands
of kids, and yet the moment the Wi -Fi goes down
across the building, they're completely reliant
on someone else just to explain what's happening.
The managerial irony there is pretty thick. It
really is. And that paralysis, that feeling of
being stuck, that's the exact trigger. for needing
this facade, this spin. Because if you're paralyzed
by the complexity, you have to get information
from somewhere. Right, to present something to
the outside world. You can't just say, I don't
know. Exactly. You need a narrative. OK, so let's
trace that mechanism. How does that personal
knowledge gap turn into, well, what can look
like a public narrative failure? How does the
IT professional who's just trying to fix the
technical problem become the sort of unintended
source of the leader's spin? It seems to be purely
a function of necessity combined with the structure
of things. Because technology is the issue they
feel least comfortable deciding on, the school
leaders basically have to accept what their IT
people say and do, both about what the problem
is and what the proposed solution entails. They
just have to take their word for it. Pretty much.
And here's the crucial bit. They accept this
information because, as the author puts it, they
have no better information and no way to either
confirm or refute it. It's like, you know, if
you take your car to the mechanic and you don't
know anything about cars, and they tell you the
flux capacitor needs replacing because the chronosynclastic
infundibulum is misaligned. It's just nod and
ask how much it'll cost. Exactly. You have no
real choice but to trust their explanation. The
leader often has no internal objective way to
know if the technical story they're getting truly
reflects the situation's severity. Or, maybe
more importantly, if the fix being proposed is
genuinely effective or just... you know, kicking
the can down the road. So the leader gets this
technical explanation for why something failed
or why it's not working right from the IT department.
And because they can't actually verify the tank
details, they have to take that message, translate
it into something people can understand, and
immediately put a positive spin on it to present
to the school board or parents or the public.
Right. So the narrative control, the spin, becomes
necessary just to bridge that gap, the gap between
the leader's own lack of technical understanding
and the public's expectation that they're fully
in control and competent. And that creates this
sort of self -perpetuating cycle of reliance,
doesn't it? The leader takes info they can't
really verify, polishes it up into a positive
statement. maybe about decisive action being
taken, and presents that as effective management.
The whole external image is built on this foundation
of internal, unverified trust. Let's talk about
the social side of this. The author brings up
a really interesting point about whether leaders
actually believe their own spin, and suggests
maybe we shouldn't be too quick to judge them,
to blame them for seeming, well, maybe delusional
when they're defending these complicated often
flawed tech systems. That's a really important
psychological point, I think. We tend to see
delusion as like a personal failing, but the
source connects it right back to the immense
external pressure these leaders are under. Ah,
so they're not just making it up in isolation?
Not at all. The leader is absolutely not operating
in a vacuum. Their boss, maybe the superintendent,
the school board or other... politically powerful
individuals. They often have their own vested
interests, maybe political interests, in the
success of whatever tech initiative is being
discussed. The source says they want the narrative
of the spin to be true. OK, that changes the
whole dynamic, doesn't it? It means the leader
isn't just spinning alone. They're potentially
collaborating, maybe unconsciously, with the
system around them to maintain that positive
story. Like, they can't admit. that the big new
multi -million dollar tablet program is actually
a technical nightmare because everyone from the
company that sold it to the politicians who funded
it has staked their reputation on it working.
Precisely. It becomes a kind of shared institutional
narrative, almost a necessary reality. If admitting
failure means huge political fallout or maybe
losing funding or just intense public criticism,
then everyone involved kind of aligns their story
to support the positive version, even if the
actual experience for teachers and students on
the ground is, well, terrible. So the leader's
apparent delusion isn't necessarily personal.
It's more like a high -stakes survival strategy.
In many ways, yes. They're delivering the narrative
that the system itself demands from them. It
really paints a picture of maybe systemic complicity,
where the sheer pressure to appear competent
across every single domain, including these highly
technical ones, just overrides the impulse or
maybe even the ability to be fully transparent
about deep technical problems. Yeah, if IT success
is the mandated outcome, then IT success is what
will be reported, regardless of the ground truth.
Which raises the big question then. If this dynamic
is so common, maybe even unavoidable sometimes,
for school leaders, is there a way out? Does
the leader just have to accept this situation?
Or is there a practical path forward? Do they
need to become tech experts themselves? Or is
there another way to break this cycle of spin?
Well, thankfully, the source material doesn't
just leave us with the problem. It does pivot
towards solutions, towards some constructive
encouragement. The author is quite clear. It
does not have to be that way. OK, that's good
to hear. So what specific steps does Ackerman
suggest? How can school leaders actually reclaim
some agency here and avoid relying so heavily
on this kind of framing? The overall aim seems
pretty straightforward. It's about gaining competency
and, maybe just as importantly, confidence in
this area. The solutions suggested really focus
on changing the fundamental relationship between
the leader and their technical staff. It's about
stopping seeing IT as this kind of mysterious
black box you can't understand and starting to
integrate it more fully into the core management
structure like any other department. Makes sense.
So what are the concrete actions? Well, the first
one mentioned is foundational, really. It's about
making good decisions when hiring IT professionals.
Right. Which sounds like basic good management
advice. Right. But hang on. If the leader lacks
the technical knowledge in the first place, how
do they even know what good hiring looks like
for an IT role? That seems like the original
problem again. That's the million dollar question,
isn't it? It's a real practical challenge. If
you can't really evaluate the technical claims
on someone's resume or ask deep technical questions
in an interview, you might end up judging based
on, I don't know, how confident they seem or
maybe superficial things. Or maybe just hiring
someone who sounds like they know what they're
talking about. Exactly, which is why the source
must mean something deeper than just running
a good interview process. So what's the next
step? This is where the second point becomes
really crucial, I think. It says, you must then
develop those IT professionals you hire. Develop
them into people you and your teachers trust.
Ah, OK. Trust. That shifts the focus. Completely.
It moves the emphasis away from the leader needing
to evaluate raw technical skill, which, as we've
established, they probably can't reliably do,
and shifts it towards evaluating things the leader
can assess. Things like integrity, communication
skills, collaboration, alignment with the school's
educational mission. So it's less about hiring
the smartest tech geniuses and more about hiring
a trustworthy partner. Precisely. If the leader
focuses on building a relationship based on transparency
and partnership, then they create an internal
way to verify information. If they trust the
person giving the report, they're much more likely
to trust the content of the report. And then
the need for that external positive framing,
the spin, it just naturally decreases. Because
the core information they're working with is
actually reliable and hopefully understood. That's
exactly the idea. Instead of being totally stuck
and reliant on an incomprehensible explanation
when the network fails, the leader has a professional
partner whose insights can be accepted, discussed,
understood, and then communicated onwards without
needing that heavy layer of, well, potentially
misleading polish or facade. It's fundamentally
about building an internal structure for truth
-telling around technology. Right, which then
allows the external narrative, the communication,
to actually follow reality rather than just responding
to pressure. It really is a fascinating insight,
isn't it? How that combination of systemic pressure
and a very specific knowledge gap can almost
force certain managerial choices. The core finding
seems crystal clear. that vulnerability and IT
expertise is the direct root cause of so much
of the spin required around school technology.
Yeah, it suggests it's often not about malice
or deception. It's more like a desperate measure
to manage overwhelming complexity when you lack
the foundational knowledge. A coping mechanism,
almost. Could be seen that way. And for you,
the listener, if you're interested in digging
deeper into these solutions, remember this deep
dive is drawing heavily from the work of Gary
Ackerman. He's really focused on this intersection
of leadership and technology for quite some time.
Specifically, the source material cited a few
of his related books. Right, you mentioned them.
Yeah, things like... technology in schools. It
isn't like this in business that was from 2022.
Also, efficacious technology management, a guide
for school leaders from 2018, and an earlier
one, technology -rich teaching from 2015. So
there's more context there if you want it. Excellent.
Good to have those references. OK, so let's leave
you, our listener, with maybe a final thought
to chew on this week. If a lack of core knowledge
in one really essential complex area, like IT
in this case, forces leaders into relying on
unverified information, and then using that institutional
narrative control, that spin, to satisfy powerful
stakeholders. Where else might this be happening?
What other crucial fields might be operating
as unchecked black boxes in the organizations
you encounter every day? Could it be areas like,
say, complex cybersecurity issues or intricate
financial regulations, maybe high -stakes investment
management? Are there places where the leaders
might be functionally stuck, just like the school
leaders with IT? And if so, does that mean the
narratives you're hearing about those areas might
be built on a similar foundation, a kind of unavoidable
high -stakes facade driven by a knowledge gap?
It's certainly an interesting lens to apply,
isn't it? Makes you think twice about the next
glossy official report you read. Definitely something
to consider. All right, that wraps up this deep
dive. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next
time.