The Educated Inquiry

Chaos Creeps In

The food was so good and popular that a line would usually form outside the door before we would open at 4pm. Most nights, there was a wait time to be seated all the way up until close. While this was great for business, it stressed the kitchen. The cooking crew began making mistakes and couldn’t keep up with the rapid pace of the orders. The servers would get behind on their tables and not take the plates out in a timely manner. The dishwasher wasn’t able to turn over the dirty dishes fast enough to replenish what was needed. Soon, each night ended with everyone exhausted with an apology or two given out for a flared temper in a particularly stressful moment. Our cajun kitchen had become cajun chaos. Luckily, Cajun Ron had an idea, “We’re gonna add an expediter.”

Now, none of us had gone to culinary school so we didn’t know what an expediter was. Truth be told, at first I thought Cajun Ron had made up the word. But if you’ve watched awarding winning show The Bear, you know the expediter, or “expo” for short, is not only real, but an critical part of the restaurant system.

Expo Keeps the Flow

An expediter communicates with the cooks about dishes that are in progress and haven’t been started, commands the timing of their preparation, and keeps track of service for all of the tables in the restaurant. They are the link between the kitchen and the servers. They set the pace and the rhythm for the restaurant’s operation. And finally, they directly help where support is needed.

I was fortunate (or perhaps not so fortunate) enough to be tapped as the first expo. Luckily, by this time I had worked every other position in the restaurant at one point or another, so I not only knew what needed to happen at each individual station, but also deeply understood the cause and effect relationship each role could have with the others. It took a few nights for us to find our footing, but pretty soon we weren’t running out of any food or supplies, nobody was yelling at someone else for not completing a task fast enough, customer wait times were down, and the chaos disappeared.

I stayed at The Cajun Connection for ten years. I worked there all through high school and through my undergraduate program, driving back and forth from campus each weekend to cook, serve, or expedite. Don’t get me wrong, we were still incredibly busy and some nights were quite stressful. But it was also fun because we were now collectively successful at it. 

We were good at it. We were proud of it.

School Leaders as Expediters 

I often learn and process through analogies and see the expediter in a restaurant as a parallel to an effective school leader. I acknowledge it isn’t a perfect comparison since expediters aren’t supervising the other roles and aren’t the boss of anyone else like a school leader. There are times where educators in formal leadership roles are responsible for evaluating staff and holding all roles accountable to clear expectations as a supervisor. But outside of a leader’s supervisory responsibilities, I do think their role can be viewed as the expo of their campus. Allow me to explain my thinking:

As students and teachers return from Winter Break, the chaos will slowly start to creep in. And this chaos is different than the beginning of the year craziness. Leaders and their staff likely will begin to feel the increased pressure from a majority of the year’s deadlines taking place in the latter part of the year. Teacher evaluations, IEP annual reviews, state assessments, placement tests, field trips, graduation, end of year traditions and events, and more! The chaos begins to bubble because these extra requirements and events are added to an already full plate of priorities and initiatives set from the beginning of the year. Student (and adult) behaviors increase, patience wears thin, and it might start to feel like my cajun kitchen did where everyone ends their shifts exhausted and sorry. 

As leaders, we need to expedite the operation of our campus. It is on us to communicate to the staff about which priorities in progress and which ones we aren’t cooking yet. We need to command the prioritization of time and energy. Which tasks are immediately essential? Which ones are on pause?  Which ones do we need to prepare for because we will need to prioritize it soon? We need to command the timing of our collective work so each role is engaged in the right task at the right time. Sometimes, we may even jump in and provide moments of direct support when specific roles need it. And ultimately, we need to keep track of our service to our students to ensure that we are making a positive impact on all learners. While we aren’t at risk of receiving one star reviews on Yelp from our students, we do risk adversely affecting their learning if the chaos takes control.

An expediter doesn’t micromanage every role in the restaurant, but they do provide feedback and guidance on where to focus time and energy. They view the operation from the balcony and understand the connections between the immediate tasks and the long term outcomes. Just like the roles in a restaurant, I’m sure the staff members fulfilling various roles on your campus are working as best they can to accomplish tasks quickly and to a high quality. However, they may lack the balcony view and need guidance of where time and energy is best spent at certain times. To be clear, it would be an unfair ask for someone to take this balcony view and still focus on completing the immediate tasks demanded by their role. A cook isn’t simultaneously an expediter. 

So what does a leader as an expo look like in a school? Leaders not only clarify what to prioritize but also clarify what can or should be de-prioritized to make sure there is enough time and energy to truly tackle what is presently essential. Leaders set clear incremental goals with concrete, observable or measurable success criteria and monitor it. Leaders analyze student data and support their teams in responding to it in a way that maximizes meeting the needs of individual students. Leaders create coherence so that all staff members can be prepared for the task at hand, as well as the important tasks coming in the near future. Leaders foster the collective success of all roles on their campus.

My Inquiry

As the name of this blog implies, I will end each blog with the question(s) bouncing around in my head. These are the questions I’m still asking:

• What causes chaos in our schools and can we realistically control it?
• How do we as leaders make sure we aren’t adding to the chaos, but instead bringing clarity, coherence, and collective success?
• Does my expediter analogy fit for school leaders? Is this an appropriate lens to view this role through?
• What’s keeping leaders from being expediters?