Leading ChangeLeading Change

2010 Summer Leadership Institute2010 Summer Leadership Institute

Slides based on the book by John KotterSlides based on the book by John Kotter

Real 21st Century transformation cannot occur unless administrators free people to

• Lead with questions, not answers.• Engage in dialogue and debate, not coercion.• Conduct autopsies, without blame.• Speak up when they identify a problem.

Real Change

Daniel Pink, Author of DRIVE

VISIONVISION

What do you see?

• Imaginable (conveys picture of what the future will look like)

•Desirable (appeals to long-term interests and meaningful goals)

•Feasible (realistic, attainable goals)

•Focused (clear enough to provide guidance in decision-making)

•Flexible (general enough to allow for alternative responses)

•Communicable (successfully explained within 5 minutes)

An Effectiv

eVISION

1. Establish a Sense of Urgency

• "...no matter how hard they push, no matter how much they threaten, if many others don’t feel the same sense of urgency, the momentum for change will probably die far short of the finish line.  People will find a thousand ingenious ways to withhold cooperation from a process that they sincerely think is unnecessary or wrongheaded.”

-Kotter

Teacher 1

1. Sense of Urgency Everyone on my team and in my school feels the same sense of urgency that we do. We all believe in what we’re doing.

2. Craft a Purposeful Community There is a shared sense of purpose & trust among the members of my leadership team. We accomplish goals that matter and we have strong, well-articulated reasons for doing the work we do.

Teacher 2

3. Create an Effective Vision We have conveyed a clear picture of our vision and it appeals to the long-term interests of teachers and students. Everyone understands precisely what our vision is, and how we are going to achieve it. We are all moving in the same direction.

Teacher 3

4. Communicate the New Vision The new vision is communicated to ALL stakeholders with clarity and passion. It is two-way and feedback is solicited. We have clear, simple, memorable, often repeated, consistent communication from multiple sources, modeled by leaders, and we are open to questions, challenges and debate.

5. REMOVE 5. REMOVE ROADBLOCKSROADBLOCKS

• Formal structures that make it difficult to act.

• A lack of needed skills undermines action.

• Personnel and information systems make it difficult to act.

• Supervisors discourage actions aimed at the new vision.

ROADBLOCKSROADBLOCKS

John P. Kotter

Lack of confidence (resistance to change, poor planning and negative

attitudes)

Lack of competence(lack of effective training/coaching and time)

Lack of access to resources(hardware/software, ITF & technical support)

Major Barriers Major Barriers

(Hadley & Sheingold, 1993; Jacobsen, 1998; Newhouse, 1999; Beggs, 2000; Becker, 2000b; Rogers, 2000;

Pajo & Wallace, 2001; Beaudin, 2002; Snoeyink & Ertmer, 2002; Cuban, Kirkpatrick, and Peck, 2001; Sellbom, 2002; Sandholtz,1997; Warschauer, 2006 ; Moe & Chubb, 2009; and Davis, 2009)

BREAKING DOWN THE BREAKING DOWN THE BARRIERS OR JUMPING BARRIERS OR JUMPING

THE HURDLES!THE HURDLES!

Providing Leadership that encourages risk-

taking and nontraditional ideas.

Vision, Plan, Implement & Assess

• Leadership is Action• Networking / Transparency • Deep Understanding of Change

(Possibility)• Deliberate Practice• Innovation (Disruptive Innovation)• Understanding Our Place in Time

and the Bigger Picture

Leadership for 21st Century

Framework for PlanningFramework for Planning

6. Generate Short-Term Generate Short-Term WinsWins

in a long-term master in a long-term master planplan

VVisible improvements

PPlan and Create wins

RRecognize & reward people who make the wins possible.

Short-term, Short-term, Measurable Measurable

Successes?????Successes?????Visible

Unambiguous

Clearly related to the change effort.

Focused, Goal-Oriented, Data-Driven Professional Collaboration

7. Reinvigorate!We are using our increased credibility to change all systems, structures, and policies that don’t fit together and don’t fit the transformation vision. We hire, promote, and develop people who can implement the change vision. We reinvigorate the process with new projects, themes, etc.

Teacher 4

8. Anchor New Approaches in the CultureThe new style of operating is firmly grounded in our culture. People see the connection between the new actions and performance improvement. (This happens last, not first. New approaches usually sink into a culture only after it’s very clear that they work and are superior to old methods.)

Immunity Map

Step 1• The first step of the exercise is to identify a commitment

that is “important and insufficiently accomplished.”

• What is the most important thing that you need to get better at, or should change in order to make progress towards our goal of (fill in the blank with a school or team goal). Now, frame this as a commitment and write it in Column 1.

• Criteria for the commitment:

• It should feel genuine.

• It should be clear how this commitment relates directly to the stated goal.

• It should not yet be fully realized, meaning that there is plenty of room for improvement and future growth.

• It should implicate you as a team.

• It should feel important to all.

Step 2• In Step 2, recognize your counterproductive behaviors.

• What are you doing, or not doing, that is keeping your commitment from being more fully realized?

• Write a brainstormed list in Column 2.

• Guidelines:

• Keep the list to specific behavior

• Refrain from listing reasons about why you engage in these behaviors.

• List only those behaviors that undermine or work against your commitment

• You will list any behavior of anyone in the group – doesn’t have to be everyone

• You may feel inclined to want to attack this list of behaviors, but without deeper exploration, it will be very difficult to change them. As you continue the exercise you will begin to uncover what is keeping these behaviors in place.

Step 3• In step three, we identify our competing commitment(s).

• Start by imagining what it would be like to do the exact opposite of the behaviors we listed in Column 2. What do you think would happen? What are your fears? Write these fears in Column 3. 

• The fears that surface ought to point us towards a competing commitment. This may not be a commitment that we are aware of. In contrast to the first-column commitment, which is the sort of commitment you “have,” the competing commitment is the sort of commitment that “has us.”

• Draw a line underneath the list of fears and write what you think may be your competing commitment. You might have more than one.

• Criteria:

• This commitment should make you feel uncomfortable—in other words, it isn’t something you would want put on a plaque.

• It should be clear how this commitment is self-protecting.

• It should show how your countering behaviors make perfect sense.

• Once you are finished, you can draw two arrows that connect the first and third columns. These arrows represent the countervailing commitments that cancel each other out and keep us stuck and “immune to change.”

Step 4• In Step 4, identifying the big assumption that is

underlying your competing commitment

• Your big assumption is a kind of rule or prediction about what will happen if you act in certain ways. To identify it, you take your competing commitment, reverse it, and replace the words “We are committed to…” with “We assume that if...” Next add a “then…” and complete the sentence.

• The big assumption should…

• Show why the 3rd Column Commitment feels absolutely necessary.

• End calamitously

• Display a constricted world.

• Overall, it should make our stomachs tighten…that’s a good sign!

Step 5• The final step of the exercise is to

determine how best to move forward—that is, how to take steps towards change at our school.•In order to move forward, we might:

•Observe the big assumption in action.

•Stay alert to challenge the big assumptions

•Design a test of our big assumptions•Run the test and discuss the data openly

Bibliography• Kotter, J. (1996). Leading change. Boston,

Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.

• Kegan, R, & Lahey, L. (2009). Immunity to change. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.

• Pink, D. (2010). Drive. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.

By: Dr. Ann Davis, Melanie Honeycutt and Donna Sawyer