Hot Take: Chats are the WORST...Stop doing things that don’t work

On a recent walk I was listening to a podcast when the subject turned to how big tech companies (Facebook, Google, etc.) are struggling with their cultures and part of it is a result of the chat channels they themselves have created.

It was an emoji head exploding moment 🤯

The birth places of tools like Slack and Teams couldn’t manage their creation.

Why are brick and mortar institutions like schools tolerating the mess of chats then too?

If not every week, then at least every other week, I speak with a school leader about the chaos, culture clashes, and crises that are born in chat channels.

Issues like:

• Large chat channels sharing rumors about possible threats in the neighborhood 

• Mental health teams sharing inappropriate details of kid behavior

• Snarky comments made in chat with no accountability

In brick and mortar institutions there are already redundancies for communication:

• Overhead paging systems

• Cellphones

• Walkie-talkies

• Landlines

And yet, somewhere along the line, we became convinced that because the technology of chats exists, we must use it.

For a while, I believed it too.

I thought about and coached leaders to clean up the agreements for the online chat space and to create clear systems for accountability.

But I felt that rub in my body, that voice saying, “Something doesn’t feel right.”

With school leaders already working hard to create and correct culture for in person meetings and learning, adding this layer of online felt like too much.

I also notice the toll, managing chats is taking on the nervous systems of leaders.

Day in and day out, they are checking email hourly, responding to texts, carrying their radios, and navigating the live and in person requests that are made of them regularly and now - they are being pinged by chats.

No wonder we’re all twitchy and on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

We are now a decade plus into a world with social media.  We have the data that phones and IG and TikTok are terrible for the mental health of kids and teens, especially girls.

We no longer have to give a phone to a kid because their peers have one.  We can tell our kids no with the same conviction that keeps us from handing them a pack of cigarettes.  (If you haven’t checked out the work of Jonathan Haidt, author of the Anxious Generation - I can’t recommend it enough).

If we slow down long enough, we can all probably find in our own experience the ways technology has reduced our attention span or added to our anxiety.

So now we’re accountable to thinking, really pausing to consider, what technology we use in the workplace and WHY.

We’ve seen what blind consumption of tech tools can cost us. 

Our tools should support our vision and mission, not drain our energy and leave us fighting tough battles on more fronts.

The chats must go!

And if you don’t work in a school or your team doesn’t use a chat service, the utility of this topic is in noticing the ways you have built your workplace to not actually support the culture and mission of your work.

Ask yourself:

• What systems don’t feel good?

• What have I adopted in my leadership just because it existed before me?

• If I could wave a magic wand and change one thing at work, what would it be?

You are the leader, you are FREE to change things up, to get rid of bad systems and to try something new.

Stay vigilant to any part of you that believes, “That’s just the way it is.”

Nope.

You are a transformational leader!

Buh-bye chats!

And anything else that no longer serves you!

Your coach,

Maggie