Perhaps the most terrifying law in the universe is the law of unintended consequences; this is far worse than anything gravity could do. Why? Because it is a law with an unpredictable outcome, and human beings hate uncertainty. In fact most of our activities are directed towards creating certainty. How frustrating, then, when what we do has outcomes we never foresaw or planned.
Nowhere is the more true than in the realm of politics and business. Only the other night on the BBC news a story was featured on Starbucks and their embrace of social networking. Naturally, proactive companies have embraced these technologies consciously and given out the usual spiel about listening to customers, two-way conversations and all the usual moral self-congratulatory PR. The story went on to depict, however, how this very media that they are embracing can so easily turn into a two-edged story: BP was cited as a case in point – the company’s complete failure to gauge the public mood and all their social media activities being turned in turn into parodies of the company that attracted far more attention and traffic than the self-justifying hype put out by the company. In short, from being a rock-solid company BP is now high risk. That surely is an unintended consequence of their efforts.
Nearer home, we have an even subtler event occurring. Talking to one of my educational colleagues, he reminded me that next year the new law kicks in which means that teachers no longer have to retire at a statutory age. Great – we all want more freedom, the cut off age was arbitrary any way, and this by creating more productivity reduces costs on the system, so what could be wrong?
If you saw the great Bruce Forsyth compering the dance programme on TV Saturdays you will get some idea: at 80 he is no longer the brilliant entertainer he once was, and the flow of his dialogue is clearly impaired – he has to ‘think’ about what he is saying before he can now say it. Imagine, then, that 80 year old in front of a first year Primary school class: they don’t want to retire, they are not going to retire, and the Head has to performance manage that.
So we have a situation in which over the last twenty or so years teaching has increasingly become a high pressure occupation: it is no longer about being a subject specialist who imparts knowledge to children. No, it is about far less content and far more process: teaching styles, special needs, diversity, accountability, performance targets, examination results, community involvement … need I go on? An infinite array of specialism, and alongside these an accelerated process by which young teachers can be head teachers within five years. What I am getting at is that teaching has become very much a young person’s profession: the energy needed to perform at this level is staggeringly more than was needed only 25 years ago. Thus, at the point at which we need an increasingly young teaching force and with head-ship average age decreasing, we are about to inflict an aging teaching profile on these young turks. What fun!
Between 2011 and 2020, then, expect some serious unintended consequences in the teaching profession – and probably in any high energy service profession – concerning performance, conditions of service, and dispute resolution. It would be quite good if somebody – anybody – might like now to try to think through what this all means and head off the problems at the pass.
The Mapping Motivation Series 