Participant Handout Packet · doesn’t mind rocking the boat (at the beginning of the change...

ESD Regional

Workshop

Year 2

Workshop 4

Participant

Handout

Packet

© Washington State Leadership Academy 1

WASHINGTON STATE LEADERSHIP ACADEMY

Agenda 8:30 – 3:30

8:30 Enjoy a Continental Breakfast and Conversation with Colleagues

Sign-in and Name Tags 9:00 Salutations

Norms and Learning Intentions: Leading for Sustainability

9:15 Recalling and Connecting Today’s Work with Prior Learnings – Change Leadership: Efficacy & Accountability Transformational, Instructional and Learning Leadership Hattie’s “10 Mindframes” Applying and Reflecting on Leadership 9:40 Sustaining Change and Your Leadership

Reflection Activity – “The Fun Theory” 10:30 – 10:45 Break 10:45 Leaders’ Change Competencies and Sustainability 11:45 – 12:15 Lunch 12:15 “Peeling the Onion”: Change Sustainability Impediments to Sustainability

“Leadership and Sustainability" – Fullan

1:30 WSLA Summer Statewide Workshop: Introduction 1:45 – 2:00 Break 2:00 WSLA Summer Statewide Workshop: Details & Planning 3:00 Success Criteria, Next Steps and Evaluation of the Day



Understanding the Change Competencies, Fullan, 2014

“Change Agent”: One who moves people and organizations forward

under difficult circumstances.

“Principal/Leader as Change Agent”: The leader’s role is to work through and help others

work through these ambiguities-sometimes by overcoming

resistance, but mostly by reassuring the potential losers that

there is something to gain; other times by helping the willing

gain the grounded confidence that is essential to success.

Protocol: READ, RETELL, RELATE, REFLECT

1. Form groups of 4

2. All 4 read “Introduction”

3. Decide who will review each change competency

4. Record the points on the advance organizer

5. Teach back the summary points

As a group, discuss:

✓ How does each competency relate to your experience as a

leader?

✓ How does each competency relate to your WSLA team?

✓ How might the change competencies factor in to your

leadership moves and with your team?



Advance Organizer

Read, Retell, Relate, Reflect

Read and record ideas Relate to your

experiences

Reflect on how to

deepen your skills

Challenge

the Status

Quo

Build Trust

Create a

Commonly

Owned Plan



Focus on

Team and

Self

Have a Sense

of Urgency

Commit to

Continuous

Improvement

Build

External

Networks

and

Partnerships



Kirtman, L., & Fullan, M. (2015). Leadership: Key Competencies for Whole System Change.

Solution Tree.

Introduction

Before looking at some of the elements within each of the seven, we can immediately

observe two fundamental issues in regard to the set. First, it is unlikely that a leader is

going to master these competencies by confining his or her leadership by trying to directly

improve teachers’ classroom instruction. Rather, an effective leader spends time on—gets

better at—all seven domains and their interconnections in order that the whole

organization generates measurable instructional improvement.

Second, there are orientations and skills in the set that will take a very long while to

master. If you are a young leader, get going on this personal learning agenda: develop

your career capital. If you are a more seasoned leader, examine which competencies

you are good at and which ones might represent weaknesses, and learn accordingly. In

either case, you will want to complete the leadership assessment inventory that Kirtman

uses in his work with schools. The inventory contains thirty-five sub-items across the

seven competencies (Kirtman, 2013, pp. 193–208). When you get inside the seven

competencies, you find items familiar to what we have covered so far in this book.

The point about all these competencies is that you need to assess your own profile,

appreciate and reinforce your strengths, and address those areas that are less well

developed. Kirtman’s book is one place to go, but so are professional development

courses that feature closely similar components. Perhaps the best way is to learn from

leaders who model these competencies and to practice them yourself with feedback

from others. When you develop new skills in a given area, you also become clearer about



it because skills reveal how a given phenomenon works. In short, skill development

creates clarity and fans passion. Here are the seven competencies.

1. Challenge the Status Quo

Challenging the status quo includes the willingness and ability to question common

practices, take risks, explore innovations, and not let rules slow down action. These

leaders have an eye on the end game, which in our case is improving the learning of all

students. They tend to challenge current practices that are not likely to increase student

achievement. They are willing to take risks to achieve results and are more interested in

motivating people than in following narrow rules. As they develop the skill set—the seven

competencies—they are in a better position to challenge the status quo effectively

because they create the conditions for overall success. You might say that such a leader

doesn’t mind rocking the boat (at the beginning of the change process) because he or she

has the other six competencies to rely on.

2. Build Trust Through Clear Communications and

Expectations

I like to adapt one of Stephen Covey’s insights, “You can’t talk your way out of what

you’ve behaved yourself into” (2004), by saying that you can’t talk your way into trust. I

mean that you can only “behave” your way into it by naming, modeling, and monitoring

your trustworthiness. You name trust as a value and norm that you will embrace and

develop in the organization; you model it in your day-to-day actions; and you monitor it

in your own and others’ behavior.

Note that trustworthiness goes beyond integrity to include real competence as well. You

have to be true to your word, but also very good at what you do. According to Kirtman,

spreading trust also entails mastering directness and honesty about performance

expectations; following through with actions on commitments made; ensuring clear

understanding of key communications; and being comfortable in dealing with conflict.

3. Create a Commonly Owned Plan for Success

In this third skill set, Kirtman confirms what many of us have found about implementation

plans: far too many of them remain only on paper. Time and again, we have seen

implementation plans that look great

visually but are too complex or general to give any guidance in action. As I advised in

Motion Leadership, “beware of fat plans.” When plans are elaborate, they rarely are



clear enough to be understood and actionable. When plans focus on a few clear goals

and corresponding actions, they are much more likely to stimulate action.

Kirtman highlights working on buy-in or ownership of the plan; monitoring how well it

works, making corresponding adjustments and engaging in regular two-way

communication; and having clear measurement for each key goal in the plan. Plans on

paper might look great, but they mean nothing unless they come alive through practice.

It’s important to remember that implementation plans are not for the planners; they are

for the implementers. Thus, as I concluded in Motion Leadership and as Kirtman implies,

plans have to be “sticky”—concise, actionable, memorable, tied closely to action—

thereby becoming internalized by all.

At the beginning, it is less important that the plan meet everyone’s approval than that

the plan starts a process of buy-in. The starting aim of the plan should be to focus a

leadership team on the task of building capacity for success. The development of

professional capital as described in Chapter Three is essentially a process for creating

skilled, shared ownership. Furthermore, because engagement of all organization

members is required for success, the plan should be systemic in the sense that it affects

everyone. Monitoring should concentrate on keeping track of whether actions yield

engagement and results. Every plan should be alterable, as ongoing needs require.

Although approval doesn’t need to be universal at the start, if the plan is really working,

it should steadily become internalized among those who take part in its implementation.

4. Focus on Team over Self

Change-agent principals who focus on team over self hire the best people for the team

(invest in human capital), build a team environment (social capital), support the learning

of all staff, and seek critical feedback. They hire people who don’t simply take orders (or

worse, passively ignore directives). They foster group norms such that people feel free to

raise concerns and offer alternative ideas. As the principal focuses the talk on solving a

problem instead of on complaints and scapegoating, the school builds trust among its

working members. They come to trust the process because it proves itself more times

than not. As Kirtman says, “These leaders hire the best and never settle for less” (p. 7).

The quality of the team uplifts everyone.



5. Have a Sense of Urgency for Sustainable Results

In Chapter Two, I said that although not all urgency is productive, a high sense of urgency

does matter and needs to be targeted in a manner that mobilizes people to tackle core

issues. As we saw earlier, Cal Newport observed that passion itself does not necessarily

lead to results and becomes a problem in the absence of skill. Passion without skill, he

said, is useless if not dangerous. The message for leaders is to build professional capital as

part and parcel of passion and urgency.

In the context of his seven domains of competence, it makes sense to me that Kirtman

placed urgency as number 5, because the preceding four domains make organizations and

their leaders more skillful, enabling them to push effectively for greater urgency. As those

skills become stronger, Kirtman’s leaders have no compunction against demanding action

and results. By building their own skills and those of others, they earn enough leadership

capital (which in effect is decisional capital for leaders) to “get away with” decisive action.

They get away with it because they have proven themselves to be trustworthy and

competent. As Kirtman found, they are anxious to move initiatives ahead and can be very

decisive, use data to support their actions, and reinforce a clear systemic direction for the

organization. They want results, but results that are authentic. The previous four

competencies help develop the skills and motivation required for the group to be effective

at getting results that can be sustained. Within this group action, members appreciate it

when leaders “take charge” expressing and acting on a sense of urgency.

6. Commit to Continuous Improvement for Self

Effective change agents have steadfast purpose, but they are alert to evidence. When

the Economist recently reported on personality tests for managers, they highlighted one

aspect of a Korn/Ferry test: that what good leaders have in common is “a willingness to

let new evidence change their views” (“Emotional Breakdown,” 2013). I suspect that

leaders with deep passion are sometimes blinded by their fervor and thus do not remain

alert to evidence that could cause them to rethink how they might approach a given

situation more effectively.

Think of “continuous improvement for self” as your ever-present backup plan. If you are

going to be decisive, you had better be always learning. Kirtman notes that in being

committed to continuous improvement for self, outstanding leaders wonder how to get

better results, seek innovative ideas from all team members, take responsibility for their

mistakes, and are in general preoccupied with learning to become better and helping

team members do so as well.



7. Build External Networks and Partnerships

In Chapter Four, I discussed this seventh competency, building external networks and

partnerships. Keeping the individual school focused, changing, yet still in running order is

one priority; but change-agent principals know several reasons for also staying

dynamically plugged in to the external world: they get new ideas; doing so keeps the

pressure on; and along the way, they often need outside partners for political and

technical reasons. When you have partners, such as districts that are different, you are

more likely to encounter new ideas—what Steven Johnson (2010) called getting ideas

from “the adjacent possible,” a term he borrowed from chaos theory.

Moreover, it is not a bad idea to contribute to the betterment of the bigger picture. To

make a contribution beyond your own bailiwick is a basic human virtue. Selfishly speaking,

if you don’t help improve the system, your neglect will come back to haunt you, or your

grandchildren.

References

Bryk, A. (2014). Improving: Joining improvement science to networked communities. Paper

presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association,

Philadelphia, PA.

Bryk, A., Bender-Sebring, P., Allensworth, E., Lupescu, S. & Easton, J. (2010). Organizing schools

for improvement: Lessons from Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Cole, P. (2013). Aligning professional learning, performance management and effective

teaching. Seminar Series 217. Melbourne: Centre for Strategic Education.

Dufour, R. & Fullan, M. (2013). Built to last: Systemic PLCs at work. Bloomington, IN: Solution

Tree.

Fullan, M. (2013). Stratosphere: Integrating technology, pedagogy and change knowledge.

Toronto: Pearson.

Fullan. M. (2013). The new pedagogy: Students and teachers as learning partners. LEARNing

Landscapes, 6(2), 23-28.

Fullan, M. (2013). Great to excellent: Launching the next stage of Ontario’s education reform.

www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/reports/FullanReport_EN_07.pdf

Fullan, M. (2014). The principal: Maximizing impact. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.



Fullan, M. (2015). Freedom to change: Putting your inner drive into overdrive. San Francisco:

Jossey-Bass.

Fullan, M. & Boyle, A. (2014). Big-city school reforms: Lessons from New York, Toronto and

London. New York: Teachers College Press; Toronto: Ontario Principals’ Council.

Fullan, M., & Donnelly, K. (2013). Alive in the swamp: Assessing digital innovations in education.

London: NESTA; New York: New Schools Venture Fund.

Fullan, M. & Langworthy, M. (2014). A rich seam: How new pedagogies find deep learning.

London: Pearson.

Fullan, M. & Quinn, J. (2015). Coherence: The right drivers in action. San Francisco, CA: Corwin

Press.

Hargreaves, A. & Fullan, M. (2012). Professional capital: Transforming teaching in every school.

New York: Teachers College Press.

Kirtman, L. (2013). Leadership and teams: The missing piece of the education reform puzzle.

Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Kirtman, L., & Fullan, M. (2015). Leadership: Key competencies for whole system change.

Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Leana, C. (2011). The missing link in school reform. Stanford School Innovation Review. 9(4), 30-

35.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (2013). Teachers for the 21st Century:

Using evaluation to improve teaching. Paris: OECD.

Robinson, V. (2011). Student-centered leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.



Michael Fullan: Leadership and Sustainability

• Any solution to sustainability must be efficient, sophisticated, powerful, and amenable to action.

• The solution will require us to use complexity and systems theory, and every

abstract concept must be accompanied by a practical strategy that illustrates the

concept in action.

• Solutions, in other words, must be theoretical and practical.

Eight Elements of Sustainability

1. Public service has a moral purpose / imperative a. There is improvement in the level/quality of service.

b. The quality of service is increased.

c. Service is delivered with equity and fairness.

d. There is a level of trust between government and citizens.

e. The service takes into account the needs of future generations while

responding to the needs and aspirations of citizens.

f. The provision of the service is consistent with the expectations of a diverse

society.

2. Commitment to changing the structures and cultures (context) exists at all levels

3. Lateral capacity is built through networks a. Principals and teacher leaders collaborate with other schools to learn from

and contribute to school improvements, not only in individual schools, but

also in the district as a whole.

b. Collaboration rather than competition is the motivation.

c. There are a number of obvious benefits:

• People learn best from peers if there is sufficient opportunity

for ongoing, purposeful exchange.

• The system is designed to foster, develop, and disseminate

innovative practices that work.

• Leadership is developed and mobilized in many quarters.

• Motivation and ownership at the local level are deepened.

• Complexity theory tells us that if you increase the amount of

purposeful interaction and infuse it with the checks and

balances of quality knowledge, self-organizing patterns

(desirable outcomes) will accrue.



4. Intelligent accountability and vertical relationships encompass both capacity building and accountability

a. Sustainable societies must solve (hold in dynamic tension) the perennial

change problem of how to get both local ownership (including capacity)

and external accountability throughout the entire system.

b. It will be difficult to get the balance of accountability right in terms of

vertical authority: too much intrusion demotivates people; too little

permits drift, or worse.

• Schools must evaluate themselves honestly.

• The information provided by a school’s self-evaluation and

development plan, along with outside inspection, should inform

outcomes about targeting support and challenges.

• It will be very difficult to combine self-evaluation and outside

evaluation, but this is the sophistication of sustainability – for the

latter to have a chance, the whole system must be involved in a

codependent partnership, being open to addressing problems as

they arise.

• Vertical integration is not the only coherence maker, but it is a key

one.

• Coherence-making makes complexity simpler. Gathering and

paying attention to quality data is learning toward coherence.

5. Deep learning is a part of the (new) culture a. Sustainability by definition requires continuous improvement,

adaptation, and collective problem-solving in the face of complex

challenges that keep arising.

b. There are three big requirements for the data-driven society:

• Drive out fear.

• Set up a system of transparent data-gathering coupled with mechanisms

for acting on the data.

• Make sure ALL levels of the system are expected to learn from their

experiences.

6. Dual commitment to short-term and long-term results exists Dual commitment to short-term and long-term results will create the virtuous

circle where public education delivers results, the public gains confidence and is

therefore willing to invest through taxation and, as a consequence, the system is

able to improve further. It is for this reason that long- term strategies require

short-term wins.



7. Cyclical energizing is prevalent a. Sustainability is not linear. It is cyclical – periods of energy and periodic

plateaus.

b. If we want sustainability, we need to keep an eye on energy levels (overuse

and underuse).

c. Positive collaborative cultures will help because (a) they push for greater

accomplishments, and (b) they avoid the debilitating effects of negative

cultures. It is not hard work that tires us out as much as it is negative work.

d. Collaborative cultures can become too intense and burn us out. What we

need are combinations of full engagement with colleagues, along with less

intensive activities that are associated with replenishment. If a system is to

be mobilized in the direction of sustainability, leadership at all levels must

be the primary engine.

e. The main work of leaders is to help put in place the eight elements of

sustainability: all eight simultaneously feeding on each other.

8. The long lever of leadership is evident • Foster and grow leadership capabilities to create a critical mass of leaders

• Put the “8 Elements” into practice.



ALIGNING OUR WORK WITH FULLAN’S

EIGHT ELEMENTS OF ACCOUNTABILITY

As you reflect on your district’s current work on the Problem of Practice and your efforts to

put in place system-wide change focused on improved student learning, what evidence can

you sight that supports the SUSTAINABILITY of your work?

Elements Evidence in Our Work

Public Service with a

Moral Purpose

Commitment to

Changing Context at

all Levels

Lateral Capacity

Building through

Networks

Intelligent

Accountability and

Vertical Relationships

Deep Learning

Dual Commitment to

Both Short- Term and

Long-Term Results

Cyclical Energizing



The Long Lever of

Leadership

WSLA Summer Statewide Workshop

SYSTEM CHANGE

Team Sharing Protocol

Overview and Success Criteria

• Presenting teams will share the trajectory of their work during participation in WSLA,

focusing on SYSTEM CHANGE and their process and progress in solving their Problem

of Practice.

• Listening teams will pose questions to the presenting team to elicit more understanding

of:

Data Use

Research

Collective Efficacy/Collaboration

Measurable Goals

Evidence of Progress

Impact on Student Learning

Culture Change

Accountability & Communication

Sustainability

• Teams and individuals will strengthen their leadership by asking effective, timely

questions “to create the compelling disturbances that generate new ideas and questions.” – Fullan

• Teams and individuals will depart with reinforced and/or new strategies, insights, skills

and ideas for continuing to lead and sustain system change in the future.

Facilitator Role: Start and end on time, facilitate the distribution of any handouts, facilitate the

protocol, appoint time-keeper.

Note – Round One - YEAR 2 TEAMS WILL PRESENT FIRST Round Two – YEAR 1 TEAMS WILL PRESENT

Round 3 – TEAR 2 TEAMS WILL PRESENT

You will have 10 minutes of flextime in the event you need more time in the 3 steps.



STEP 1

5 minutes

Introduction of the Protocol:

• Facilitator briefly reviews the protocol

• Teams will present in alphabetical order. Adjust the

rotation of team presentation, adhering to the 3 rounds,

if possible.

1. Round 1; Year 2 presents



STEP 2:

Team presents its

CHANGE work

20 minutes

Presentation:

Presenting team shares its work with the other teams.

Listening teams will take notes on the Protocol Sheet.

The presenting team covers the following information:

• What DATA and processes were used to uncover the

PoP.

• What RESEARCH was used to influence the ToA?

• Relative to COLABORATIVE TEAMING, how has your

WSLA team evolved?

• What are your MEASURABLE GOALS?

• What EVIDENCE is used (Yr. 1 - will be used) to

MEASURE PROGRESS?

• What IMPACT is/will your work have on higher levels

of learning for all?

• What CULTURE CHANGES are observable?

• Who is AWARE of the WSLA team’s work? (Staff,

students, board, parents, community, etc.)

• How will you SUSTAIN the CHANGE for the future?

• What are your plans to REPLICATE the CoI on

additional PoPs?

• What is one piece of ADVICE you have, which may

ensure other teams meet/exceed their goals?

STEP 2

Listening Teams

Write Questions and

Conference

Presenting Team

In Individual Teams:

Using the Coaching Notes Handout, listening teams review the

presentation and notate the questions to probe future action,

including but not limited to:

• Data

• Research

• Collective Efficacy/Collaboration



Listens

5 minutes

• Measurable Goals

• Evidence of Progress

• Impact on Student Learning

• Culture Change

• Accountability and Communication

• Sustainability

Listening team members will discuss their questions and choose

the top 5-7 questions to spur continued action.

Presenting team will listen to discussion, making notes of

points to cover during the Step 3.

STEP 3

Q & A

25 minutes

Facilitated Open Discussion: One large group or two smaller

groups

For the facilitator: If your 3 teams are large enough, divide the large group into two smaller groups. The purpose is to invite more voices into the conversation. Both groups then participate in their own open discussion, with the facilitator working with one group and one of the coaches with the other group.

• Begin the discussion with listening teams sharing their

5-7 questions.

• Presenting team listens to questions, considering

answers.

• Listening team asks questions a second time, eliciting

answers

• Coach notates for their team.

• Questions are given to the presenting team for future

consideration.

STEP 4

Closure

5 minutes

Closure: Large Group

The facilitator poses these questions for group reflection:

• What did you hear that was motivational?

• What are you curious about?

• How has this session assist with advancing your

leadership and your team’s work in the future?



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