51This is probably the most difficult principle to follow. In an age when
paper and reports are so important, it is easy for the school leader to fall
into the paper trap, shutting the office door and concentrating on meet-
ing the demands of everyone who wants another piece of paper or e-mail
response.
Back in the early 1980s, most calls for reports and statistics came via
snail mail. Because those mailing the requests knew that they had to al-
low for delivery and return, there was usually a two-week time frame
for a response (but not always—sometimes the due date for a report had
already passed by the time the letter had been received). By the 1990s,
requests came by fax and the time frame for response was usually one or
two days.
Mr. Chen, our Brooklyn principal, remembers a meeting with the su-
perintendent where the principals complained about the number of items
they had to respond to within a short time frame. The superintendent
sympathized and said he would institute a new system. Those items he
and his office staff urgently needed would be stamped URGENT! so that
principals would know which items had to be addressed first. This worked
for about two weeks; then just about every item spewed from the fax ma-
chine was stamped URGENT!
By the new millennium, the fax was being phased out in favor of the
urgent e-mail. Given modern technology, perhaps this chapter might now
be called “People Are More Important than Responding to E-mail.” The
need to respond to requests, whether on paper or electronically, ties many
a school leader to his or her desk/computer station/laptop.
Chapter Five