Unit 11: Principal as Driver of ChangeDay 1

The Heart of Change

“People change what they do less because they are given analysis that shifts their thinking than

because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings.”

John P. Kotter, world-renowned expert on leadership

at the Harvard Business School

The Heart of Change

Unit 11 Outline

ÜEconomic, political, and social forces driving school change

ÜBreakdown of the Kotter 8-Step Change Model

ÜRole of the principal in designing, implementing, and anchoring a change process

ÜBolman and Deal’s lensing technique for analyzing stakeholder interests

Key Questions

Ü How can a principal effectively lead systemic change?

Ü How can a principal distinguish and balance the roles of change leader and change manager?

Ü How can a leader overcome resistance to change? Do you need everyone to come along?

Ü When is it appropriate to take the risks associated with a change initiative?

Ü How can a leader build and maintain momentum for long-term change?

Ü How do you achieve a “tipping point” in embedding improvements in a school?

Kotter’s Leading for Change

sequential and invariantUnit 1 – Urgency Unit 2 – Vision Units 3-10 Strategies

Ready Aim

Fire

Source: John P. Kotter

Instructional Change Initiative

Word Association Speed Round: “Urgency”

Urgency

Identify 8-12 words or phrases that characterize the term “urgency” – What do you associate with urgency?

Sources of Complacency

COMPLACENCY

Too much happy talk from senior management

Human nature, with its capacity for denial,

especially if people are already busy or stressed

A kill-the-messenger-of-bad-news, low-

candor, low-confrontation culture

A lack of sufficient performance feedback from external sources

Internal measurement systems that focus on the

wrong performance indexes

Organizational structures that focus employees on narrow

functional goals

Low overall performance standards

Too many visible resources

The absence of a major and visible crisis

Source: John P. Kotter

Complacency Activity

Charting: Urgency

What did you do to get people out of the bunker and ready to move? How did you start telling others, "Let's go, we need to change things!"

Characteristics of the Guiding Coalition

Ü PowerÜ ExpertiseÜ CredibilityÜ Leadership

Source: John P. Kotter

Creating a Guiding Coalition

Core Challenge: Get the right people in place with the trust, emotional commitment, and teamwork to guide a very difficult change process� Put together a group with enough power to

lead the change.� Get the group to work together like a team.

Desired New Behavior: A group powerful enough to guide a big change is formed and they start to work together well.

Source: John P. Kotter

Charting: Guiding Coalition

How did you get the right people in place with trust, emotional commitment, and teamwork?

?A vision statement simplifies many detailed decisions. It motivates people to take action by giving them purpose.

Develop the Change Vision and Strategy

Core Challenge: Get the guiding team to create the right vision and strategies to guide action in all of the remaining stages of change. This requires moving beyond number-crunching to address the creative and emotional components of vision.� Create a vision to help direct the change effort.� Develop strategies for achieving that vision.

Desired New Behavior: The guiding team develops the right vision and strategy for the change effort.

Source: John P. Kotter

Vision for your Change Initiative

Develop

Communicate

Implement

Maintain

Charting: Vision and Strategies

How did you get the guiding team to develop the right vision and create the strategies for the change effort?

Communicate the Change Vision

Core Challenge: Get as many people as possible acting to make the vision a reality.� Use every vehicle possible to constantly

communicate the vision and strategies.� Have the guiding coalition model the

behavior expected of employees.

Desired New Behavior: People begin to buy into the change, and this shows in their behavior.

Source: John P. Kotter

Charting: Communicating for Understanding and Buy-in

How did you use every vehicle possible to constantly communicate the vision and strategies?

Empower for Broad-based Action

Source: John P. Kotter

� Change the systems or structures that undermine the change vision.

� Encourage risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions.

� Get rid of obstacles.� Invest in people and increase skills.� Engage in honest dialogue with resisters.

Desired New Behavior: More people feel free to act, and do act on the vision.

Charting: Empowering for Broad-based Action

How did you use the core challenge to get to the desired behavior?Empower Broad-

Based Action

Guidelines for Generating Short-Term Wins

Ü Early wins that come fastÜ Wins that are as visible as

possible to as many people as possible

Ü Wins that penetrate emotional defenses by being unambiguous

Ü Wins that are meaningful to others—the more deeply meaningful the better

Ü Early wins that speak to powerful players whose support you need and do not yet have

Ü Wins that can be achieved cheaply and easily, even if they seem small compared with the grand vision

Ü Launching too many projects all at once

Ü Achieving the first win too slowly

Ü Stretching the truth

What Works What Does Not Work

Source: John P. Kotter

Benefits of Short-Term Wins

Source: John P. Kotter

1. Provide evidence that sacrifices are worth it

2. Reward change agents with a pat on the back

3. Help fine-tune vision and strategies

4. Undermine cynics and self-serving resisters

5. Keep bosses on board

6. Build momentum

Generate Short-Term Wins

Source: John P. Kotter

Core Challenge: Produce Short-Term Wins.� Plan for visible improvements in performance, or “wins”.� Create those wins.� Visible recognize and reward people who made the win

possible.

A good short-term win has the following characteristics:

Ü VisibleÜ UnambiguousÜ Connected to the change effort

Desired New Behavior: Momentum builds as people try to fulfill the vision, while fewer and fewer resist change.

Charting: Generating Short-Term Wins

What did you do to promote short-term wins that empowered people to act on the vision?  What actions did you take to promote short-term wins and help others feel able to act on the vision? 

Don’t Let Up!� Press harder and faster after the first success.� Be relentless with initiating change after change

until the vision is a reality.� Continuously support the people involved in the

change initiative

Desired New Behavior: People remain energized and motivated to push change forward until the vision is unfilled.

Consolidate Gains and Produce More Change

Anchor New Approaches in the Culture

Make It Stick!� Anchoring change come last, not first� Depends on results� May involve turnover� Hold on to the new ways of behaving, and make

sure they succeed, until they become strong enough to replace old traditions.

Desired New Behavior: New and winning behavior continues despite the pull of tradition, turnover of change leaders, etc.

� When new practices and behaviors introduced in a change process are not compatible with the culture, the new practices slowly give way and the change efforts become undone

� Cultures change only after people’s actions or practices have changed and people see the benefit of their new behaviors for a period of time

The Importance of Culture

‘Glows’ & ‘Grows’ by StageP

erce

nt

of

Par

tici

pan

ts t

hat

Cla

im a

GL

OW

Kotter Stage Implemented over Time

Urgency Coalition Vision

Communicate

Anchor

Make it stick

Short-term wins

Empower

N=140 (6 Cohorts)

Day One Summary

Ü The Kotter Change Model� How can the model inform and guide your work?� Which of the 8-steps have you seen leaders forget?� Which step(s) do you find most natural/intuitive?� Which step(s) will you find most difficult? How can

you plan to overcome difficulties?

Ü Review of pre-work for day twoÜ Complete daily evaluation

Unit 11: Principal as Driver of ChangeDay 2

Day 2 Key Questions

ÜHow can a school leader effectively lead systemic change?

ÜHow can a school leader overcome resistance to change?

ÜWhen is it appropriate to take the risks associated with a change initiative?

ÜHow can a school leader build and maintain momentum for long-term change?

Corporate Case Study Questions

ÜGroup 1: Was a sense of urgency established?

ÜGroup 2: Was a change management team/coalition created?

ÜGroup 3: Was a change vision created?

ÜGroup 4: Did the change management team communicate the vision?

Corporate Case Study Questions (cont.)

Ü Group 5: What kind of structural barriers existed for the change management team? What steps did they take to remove the structural barriers?

Ü Group 6: Did the change management team handle individual resistance appropriately?

Ü Group 7: Was the change management team able to create small wins?

Ü Group 8: Did the leadership anchor change in the

culture at NUMMI?

Resistance-Friction-Pushback

“Standards-based education is just the latest fad. We’ll return to the good ole days soon enough.”

“When the economy picks up, we’ll get additional funds for these special programs.”

“We’ve always done it this way.”

Sample Statements of Resistance and Complacency

Stages

Fear Mongering Confusion Delay Character Assignation

Emotional Aspects of Change

Resistant Actions

Emotional Aspects of Change

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Resistance

Resistance is not bad, it is inevitable. Your job is to find a way to embrace the resister and not allow him to stop change.

Resistance Ethics and Behavior

Don’t scheme to keep potential opponents, even the sneakiest attackers, out of the

discussion. Let them in!

Don’t try to overcome attacks with tons of data; logic and yet more logic; or lists of

reasons why unfair, uninformed, or sneaky attacks are wrong, wrong, wrong. Instead,

do what might seem to be the opposite.

Resistance Ethics and Behavior

Don’t try to crush attackers with ridicule, counterattacks, or condescension, even when

it seems as though people deserve it, even when a part of you really wants to do just that,

and you have the skills to do so.

Don’t focus on the attacker and his or her unfair, illogical, or mean argument (though it will be

extremely tempting to do so).

Getting Past Resistanceto Buy-In

Visualizing the Discussion

Bolman and Deal’s FourLenses

Ü Structural� Allocates responsibilities to participants (“division of

labor”) and creates rules, policies, procedures, and hierarchies to coordinate diverse activities

Ü Human Resource� Looks at individuals’ needs, skills, and relationships

to find ways to get the job done while making the individuals feel good about what they are doing

Ü Political� Analyzes how to identify the needs, perspectives,

and interests of different stakeholders who are competing for power and scarce resources, and negotiate to get the work done

Ü Symbolic� Sees organizations as cultures propelled more by

rituals, ceremonies, stories, heroes, and myths, than by rules, policies, or managerial authority

Source: Bolman and Deal

Structural Lens

Ü Organizations exist to achieve established goals and objectives.

Ü Organizations work best when rationality prevails

Ü Structures must be designed to fit an organization’s circumstances

Ü Organizations increase efficiency and enhance performance through specialization and division of labor

Ü Appropriate forms of coordination and control are essential

Ü Problems and performance gaps can be remedied through restructuring

Source: Bolman and Deal

Human Resource Lens

Ü Organizations exist to serve human needs

Ü People and organizations need each other

Ü When the fit between individual and system is poor, one or both suffer

Ü A good fit benefits both

Source: Bolman and Deal

Political Lens

Ü Organizations are coalitions of various individuals and interest groups.

Ü There are enduring differences among coalition members in values, beliefs, information, interests, and perceptions of reality.

Ü Most important decisions involve the allocation of scarce resources—who gets what.

Ü Scarce resources and enduring differences give conflict a central role in organizational dynamics and make power the most important resource.

Ü Goals and decisions emerge from bargaining, negotiation, and jockeying for position among different stakeholders.

Source: Bolman and Deal

Symbolic Lens

Ü Activity and meaning are loosely coupled — events have multiple meanings because people interpret experience differently.

Ü Most of life is ambiguous or uncertain

Ü High levels of ambiguity and uncertainty undercut rational analysis, problem solving, and decision-making.

Ü In the face of uncertainty and ambiguity, people create symbols to resolve confusion, increase predictability, provide direction, and anchor hope and faith.

Ü Many events and processes are more important for what is expressed than what is produced.

Source: Bolman and Deal

Choosing a Lens/Frame

QuestionFrame if Answer is

YesFrame if Answer is

No

Are individual commitment and motivation essential to success?

Human resource, symbolic

Structural, political

Is the technical quality of the decision important?

StructuralHuman resource, political, symbolic

Are there high levels of ambiguity and uncertainty?

Political, symbolicStructural, human resource

Are conflict and scare resources significant?

Political, symbolicStructural, human resource

Are you working from the bottom up?

PoliticalStructural, human resource, symbolic

Source: Bolman and Deal

Self-Assessment

Leadership Orientations Scoring

Human-Resources—Family

Symbolic-Temple

Political-Jungle

Structure-Factory

Understanding the Lenses

Frames that Confront You

Event: a child is injured at school by a bully

1: We need to bring in parents to help us decide how to handle this big problem.

2: We need to have stronger punishments for those who bully others.

3: This will show our school in a very bad light.

4: Schools need to be safe places for kids

Jot notes, questions, concerns in margins57

Callent Middle School

Help Anna prepare an Action Plan for your challenge.

Use “data” to inform your recommendations. Explore and recommend specific action(s) related to your assigned Kotter change step

Fu

ture

s W

hee

l

Reflection

Considering everything you have read, heard and thought about during this unit, what are some major improvement areas for leadership of change initiatives in your school?