Some Perspectives on Leadership and Change

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Some Perspectives on Leadership and Change

• A Presentation to
• PATL 1.4
• May 9, 2000

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Leaders know that...
Three things are required to manifest their
leadership
The ability to generate trust and
allegiance Followers who trust their leader to
do what is right and/or best An idea or purpose
around which both leader and followers have a
shared investment.
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Leaders...
Build bridges

• Between people
• Between ideas
• Between
  opportunities

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Leading People and Managing Systemic Change...
Is like the two ends of a snake.
When you pick up one end, you have to pick up the
other.
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In managing change, some things seem NOT to work
out...
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But, sometimes, they do...
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Why reform often fails

• Faulty maps of change
• Problems are complex
• Confusion of symbols for substance
• Impatient and superficial solutions

• Misunderstanding natural responses as resistance
• Attrition of successful models
• Confusing the parts with the whole

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Change is learning

• Loaded with uncertainty
• Risk-taking is critical
• You cant own knowledge you dont know or
  understand
• If there arent a lot of questions, be suspicious

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Strategic Lesson in Managing Change - ONE
The Gretsky principle You will miss 100 of
the shots you never take.
Managing change means you have to leave the
comfort of what is to determine if what could
be is better. No one can know until they try.
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CHANGE

• is a process, not an event.
• Guide the process there are no roadmaps

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The operative process is...
READY...
FIRE!!!
AIM
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Strategic Lesson in Managing Change - TWO

• Alter your expectations. Organizations cannot
  stop the world from changing. The best they can
  do is adapt.
• There are no inherent rights in managing change
  Take personal responsibility for helping yourself
  and others.
• Put your faith in the future. . .and in yourself.
• Embrace change, and develop the habits of mind
  you need for success in the Information Age.

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PROBLEMS ARE OUR FRIENDS

• Without problems to solve, people and
  organizations will gravitate towards inertia, and
  then entropy. Neither is an effective strategy
  for managing change.

Finding problems and seeking solutions energizes
us, and has the effect of releasing potential
inertia can only destroy
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Change is a problem-rich process

• The pathway to improvement is in changed
  processes.
• People will not willingly change processes
  without a reason to do so.
• The enemies of change are passivity, denial,
  avoidance, and conventionality
• Difficult problems often bring out the best in
  our thinking.

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MISTEAKS
Strategic Lesson in Managing Change - THREE
MISTAKES

• are inevitable

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Change is Resource-hungry

• Time
• Training
• Technologies

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Successful Change also sucks up...

• Energy
• Discretionary or marginal dollars
• Attention

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Strategic Lesson in Managing Change - FOUR

• Practice Kaizen -- (Continuous improvement).
• Kaizen keeps you reaching, stretching to outdo
  yesterday.
• Nobody can afford to rest on reputation anymore.
  Circumstances change too quickly.
• No organization can improve unless its people do.

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Managing Change Requires Power and Authority

• Someone has to worry about the process
• The process works best in a cross-functional
  group environment
• These cross-functional groups must be empowered

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Hold Yourself Accountable for Outcomes

• Do your part. Increased authority carries
  increased responsibility.
• Drive the organization directly toward the
  outcomes that count the most. This mindset gives
  you reason to clean out the clutter that prevents
  accomplishment.
• Avoid blaming. Avoid turf issues.

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Strategic Lesson in Managing Change -- FIVE
good
Know and communicate, in advance, what
looks like. You should have benchmarks of best
practices in hand and then be able to assess your
own performances against those standards.
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Think Systemically
and when you do, you have to think horizontally,
vertically, and diagonally.
How will this change affect the organization over
time?
How will this change affect other parts of the
organization?
How will this change affect other organizations
with whom we interact?
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Restructuring and Reculturing

• The very terms suggest a systemic approach
• First order changes are to address the structure.
  In schools, can you change the way you use
  technology in instruction without addressing the
  schools curriculum, staff development, program
  and performance evaluation practices, community
  relations, hiring practices, resource allocation,
  scheduling, grading practices, etc.?

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Restructuring and Reculturing - (cont.)

• A culture exists in almost all schools, perhaps
  except brand new ones
• Second order changes are to address the culture.
  In schools, can you change the way you use
  technology in instruction without addressing the
  schools beliefs about the power of technology,
  the normative expectations of what good teaching
  looks like, the values inherent in creating
  community, etc.?

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Strategic Lesson in Managing Change -- Six
Treat feedback as a gift. Systemic change can be
greatly facilitated when the leader
Asks
Listens
Thanks
Thinks
Follows-up
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Regardless of origin, all change is local

• The agencies for change cannot remain ignorant of
  the potential interplay with local conditions and
  circumstances and still hope to sustain the
  effort.
• A nation, state, or even a local board cannot
  implement a process of change of any order of
  magnitude. It will be done by people, you and me,
  wherever we are.

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Change as an Import

• Organizational change is not something you can
  bring in from elsewhere. You may tweak, borrow,
  or even adapt. However everyone needs to feel the
  pain and joy of accomplishing the change in their
  own ways.

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Strategic Lesson in Managing Change -- SEVEN
Dont settle for activity as change. If change is
to be effective, it must be both different and
better. How do you know its better? Its better
if it made a difference? How do you know it made
a difference?
EVIDENCE
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Strategic Lesson in Managing Change -- EIGHT

• Manage your own morale, and teach others to do
  the same. Weve got to get past the nonsense that
  when we are discontented, its someone elses
  responsibility to make us contented.
• When you put someone else in charge of your
  morale, you disempower yourself.
• You can carry a grudge to your grave, or you can
  get over it.

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Strategic Lesson in Managing Change -- NINE

• Be a fixer, not a finger-pointer
• Rather than trying to single out somebody to
  blame, assume ownership of problems.
• Let the solutions start with you. Finger pointing
  does not position us to do our part -- that only
  we can do -- toward finding workable solutions.

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Strategic Lesson in Managing Change -- TEN

• Very few changes are everlasting.
• Only 16 of the 100 largest companies at the
  beginning of the last century are still in
  existence.
• In 1956, of Fortune Magazines first list of its
  500 top companies, only 29 could still be found
  in the top 100 by 1992.

• During the 80s, a total of 230 -- 46 --
  disappeared from the Fortune 500 list.

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Strategic Lesson in Managing Change -- ELEVEN

• Speed up. Develop a reputation as one who pushes
  change.
• We live in an impatient world. Organizations
  must function with a sense of urgency.
• The single best lesson from the quality movement
  is the P-D-S-A cycle.

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Strategic Lesson in Managing Change -- TWELVE

• Accept ambiguity and uncertainty as certainties.
• Take personal responsibility for figuring out the
  top priorities, then point yourself in that
  direction.
• Give yourself permission to attack the
  priorities as best you understand them.
• Accept the fact that your work life is going to
  be fuzzy around the edges.

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Strategic Lesson in Managing Change -- THIRTEEN

• Become a quick-change artist.
• Shoot for rapid recovery.
• Increased flexibility requires instant alignment
  (or realignment).
• Mobility, not mourning, is an asset.

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Celebrate! Celebrate!Dance to the Music (14)

• Celebrate success
• Celebrate effort
• Celebrate allegiance and loyalty
• Celebrate noble failures
• Celebrate progress
• Celebrate risking and caring

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Somebody has to do something, and its just
incredibly pathetic that it has to be
us. Jerry Garcia The Grateful Dead