Invisible Infrastructure

I used to work for a person who talked about “infrastructure” a lot. He had grand plans and always felt like he needed more “infrastructure” to accomplish them. He would say, “I just need more infrastructure.” 

The truth is, he was not wrong. He just spent so much time talking about it that it still makes me laugh and it reminds me of the famous Saturday Night Live line, “More Cowbell!”

Without infrastructure, things cannot be sustained. This is true for buildings, companies, and people. There are plenty of non-examples I can give you. I think we have all been on a team that had the best of intentions but somehow unraveled. Sometimes those team fall short because of lack of vision, and sometimes it’s because resources are thin. In our experience, we have found that when it comes to professional development, the infrastructure of schools and districts is one of the key components for impact.

In ERG, our infrastructure was tiny and naturally expanded as our work grew. We had to figure out a way to make our thinking visible as we added to our team. We not only had to create systems of operations, but also make them so our consultants could easily do something similar to what we were already doing. 

It took several years before we could afford a branding/marketing professional. And even then, we were not sure how that investment was going to translate into actual sales. On the other hand, we always knew we needed a website that was easy to use and could show total strangers what we have to offer.

When I think about how this all connects to professional development, it is really simple. If people are using all their time and energy and resources on building the infrastructure of something, then they don’t have enough bandwidth to absorb any new learning. Building things can often take the space needed for learning. They will lack “absorptive capacity.”

According to Farrell, Coburn, and Chong (2019), absorptive capacity is a department, school, or district’s capacity to absorb, grow, and benefit from the new knowledge and skills. This means in some cases – where absorptive capacity is limited – no matter how amazing and incredible their professional development is, they just aren’t able to take it in. The research also found that prior knowledge, communication pathways, and strategic leadership knowledge are the three ingredients for success when working with an external learning partner.

In other words, the invisible infrastructure matters.

For Reflection:

• How are you growing communication pathways and strategic leadership knowledge?
• What do you need to get in place in order to benefit from an external learning partner like ERG?