The Unspoken Rules In Organizations

Many, many years ago, when I was a budding leader and classroom teacher, I was the department head of the special education program at our school. 

It consisted of 6 special education teachers, and hundreds of special education students. 

Part of my duties as the head of the department was the scheduling, and ensuring that each special education student had their needs met as per their Individual Education Program. ​

Many, many years ago, when I was a budding leader and classroom teacher, I was the department head of the special education program at our school. 

It consisted of 6 special education teachers, and hundreds of special education students. 

Part of my duties as the head of the department was the scheduling, and ensuring that each special education student had their needs met as per their Individual Education Program. 

At the time, we were also moving to a new automatic scheduling system school wide, yet this new fancy system wasn't knowledgeable about the individual needs of each special education student. 

I spent hours working with the teachers and their recommendations in order to create the schedule. 

When it was finally done, I emailed it to the school principal and scheduled a meeting during my planning time to talk with her about it. 

Much of that meeting is a blur, but one moment is NOT.

The moment when she took my printed out schedule, my beautifully crafted color-coded spread sheet, crumpled it up in a ball, and tossed it across the table at me.  

What are the internalized 'rules' we create from situations like that?

Mine was: Don't bother sharing my opinion because it doesn't matter anyway.

Today and tomorrow, I will be working with leaders around the ideas in the book The Fearless Organization and how moments like this lead us to feel unsafe at work. 

Have you had a moment like this at work? What unspoken rule did you internalize from it? 

Originally posted on LinkedIn

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