Misconceptions of change management

Two major themes permeate much of change management. The heroic enlightenment of managers and leaders as the proponents of change and the undermining resistance of staff as the opponents of change.

Firstly, management and leadership are two different and disparate functions. Management is largely based on authority associated with a delegated role whereas leadership is usually based on (working) relationships. Few managers are actually leaders because of the likely conflict between role and relationship. Similarly few leaders are actually managers.

So how do those in charge (those with authority) change organisations? The most common approach is to produce a plan and communicate it to staff. The 'short-cut' version of this approach is simply to use direct force, often in the form of changed policies and structures.

Sometimes this approach seems to work, at least in part. Of course, this implies that the plan was, to a certain extent, well thought out and comprehensive, and hence. The manager is, usually to a greater extent, a heroic and insightful leader.

Closer examination will usually show that the outcome differs significantly from the plan. What has emerged is different from what was initially proposed, due to unforeseen circumstances or the resistance of those who are required to implement the plan.

In reality, it is not possible to predict what will emerge from a change initiative. Afterwards, the difference between intensions and outcomes are often readily explainable through 'retrospective coherence'.

Student at the Centre: student as client?

Most organisations tend to identify their clients as those people and groups outside the organisation who use the services or products that the organisation produces.

Student at the Centre is a good example. Paradoxically, Student at the Centre actually places the student outside the Department (and even schools) as shown by the lack of student voice in the everyday conversations from which the Department emerges. This paradox creates a dilemma for schools as reflected in their need to serve (educate), train, manage and report on students. So despite everyone's best hopes and intentions, it is possible that 'Student at the Centre' is like a nicely labelled but empty paper bag.

The client as an external role arises from the almost universal production paradigm that has the organisation as 'factory'. A more aggressive form of the production paradigm might be the organisation as 'army'. In either case command and control are frequently in use.

Minimal examination will show that it is clearly a nonsense to assign a fixed role of 'client' to particular persons , groups or other organisations. It just isn't that simple. In any organization, the best interactions occur within working-learning relationships. Everyone is both a client and a provider and these 'aspects of any working-learning relationship change from moment to moment in everyday interactions. Consider another example: the patient provides the doctor with information that he/she then uses to make a diagnosis and design a response. And this not really a linear process, rather it is an iterative process in which each party moves from provider to recipient on a moment by moment basis. 'Patient' and 'doctor' refer respectively to particular needs and specialist capacity within the working-learning relationship.

Thus ‘client’ is better understood as a momentary ‘role’ within dynamic working-learning relationships. It is not a fixed personal role, the 'client' is simply the next person,… in the process.

Clients and providers may exchange ‘roles’ from moment to moment as in the doctor-patient example above. This iterative movement occurs in everyday conversations in which knowledge, arrangements and actions are constructed. The collaboration of teachers and learners is another prime example. Rather than 'Student at the Centre' we need to make the success of teachers and learners working and learning together the centre of the Department.

Top down approaches

One of my sad experiences this year came from a conversation I overheard in a school. A parent asked about a minor aspect of the school's future arrangements. The senior staff member replied: "We don't know ... the Department hasn't decided yet."

This informal exchange illustrated the extent to which the Tasmanian education system has become a top down system. In earlier times, such minor matters would have been decided by the school as a matter of course.

Few Tasmanian schools are the purposeful creative places they used to be before the system became the client. This latter development is the inevitable outcome of the recent unchallenged top down approaches.

Despite their rhetoric, top down systems do not support leaders at all well. They may talk 'leadership' but the system constraints reduce leadership to management (implementing the system's decisions) and compliance. But there are still leaders in spite of this. And the leaders are paying a very high price in those schools that are trying so hard to be purposeful and creative. Many school leaders are quite exhausted by the competing demands of the Department and governments and the needs of the staff and students. An indicator and outcome is the low and shrinking number of applicants for Principals' positions.

And then there is the paradoxical phenomenon in top down systems that

• The less well top down interventions work, the more likely they will be applied and increased.

The common flaw in top down approaches is that they treat most things as simple when in reality most are not. See It is not personal and it is not simple below.

It is not personal and it is not simple

Promoting change from outside a system is fraught with difficulties for at least two main reasons.

Firstly, it is NOT NECESSARILY PERSONAL, but those who are responsible for the current situation naturally tend to experience proposals for change as (implied and) personal criticism. Our identity is closely link to what we do especially if we adopt an erroneous assumption that we are in control. Those responsible may be in charge but they are almost certainly not in control. Any situation is very largely the result of its history and prevailing culture. History and culture both enable and constrain what is possible. History includes factors well outside the immediate situation. Culture is reflected in the patterns of 'how we do things around here' and these are not easily changed. They have to be continually constructed and reconstructed. It is much easier to reconstruct the familiar than it is to construct something new.

Secondly, it is NOT SIMPLE. Changing a complex situation is never a simple endeavour. At best, those in charge may be able to moderate the direction in which things are moving. Attempting to just change to a different steady state is unrealistic. Being able to articulate such a state (as policy attempts to do) is not the same as causing the state to exist. When complex ideas are summarised they can sound simple and easy. The truth can be very different. Bureaucrats, proponents and the media have a real dilemma in this regard. They need to get the message across quickly and easily but the key understandings may be complex. and very difficult (perhaps impossible) to articulate briefly in simple terms.

I am involved in a classic example. An article in today's 'The Examiner' (local newspaper) has the headline "Ex-principal slams huge bureaucracy". In a conversation with the journalist I certainly criticised the thinking behind how the bureaucracy currently operates. But this thinking is the result of historical and cultural factors. The thinking is not isolated to the Tasmanian education bureaucracy - indeed it is almost universal. I was not aware that I 'slammed' the size of the bureaucracy. Proposing that a bureaucracy should be larger or smaller is usually a simplistic approach and therefore needs to be considered carefully. For what reasons might the bureaucracy be larger of smaller? What value would such a change add to the effectiveness of schools? At what cost (money, opportunity...)? On the other hand, it is true that the larger the bureaucracy the more officers there are in intervene (for better or worse) in what schools do. "Ex-principal questions bureaucracy" may have been a more valid headline.

And I did not 'slam' the people who work in the bureaucracy. I have worked with a large number of them over many years and I know the majority to be competent dedicated professionals, albeit working in difficult (perhaps impossible) circumstances. They are expected to 'be in control' and they are expected to implement 'simple' responses to the complex situations at hand. Like everyone else, they are caught in the middle. The impossibility of these terms of reference frequently results in simply requiring compliance, regardless of the best interests of those involved. In NSW, professional development for Principals is called 'compliance training'... at least they are explicit!!

The impact of the bureaucracy on the day to day operation of Tasmanian schools is certainly one of my major concerns. The last decade has seen continual intervention in the areas of system structure, curriculum, assessment and reporting. The cost has been huge in terms of time, energy, money, disruption, distraction, dislocation, disaffection, loss of knowledge and loss of social capital... The benefits are far less certain (see change and improvement). And the less certain the outcomes, the more likely the interventions will continue and increase.

Very few people apply for principal positions these days. Could this be a significant indicator of the poor health of the system? If so, then it ‘slams’ the current situation much more powerfully than I could, or would want to. It is important to start with a sound understanding of the current reality (good, bad or indifferent). As one of my mentors used to say, "There is a simple answer to every question and it is usually wrong".

Changing complex systems

It is best to think in terms of aspects of systems rather than systems per se. Indeed systems may not really exist but under certain conditions it is reasonable to think of the situation as being or containing 'systems'. That is, while systems thinking may be valid, systems may really be products of our thinking. That is, we can treat certain aspects of the situation 'as if' they were systems.

In the Cynefin framework, Dave Snowden suggests five types of of 'systems' according to the relationship between cause and effect phenomena occuring in the context.

• Ordered (predictable)
• Simple - cause and effect are widely known and understood
  
• Complicated - cause and effect are knowable (with expert assistance)
  
• Unordered (unpredictable)
• Complex - retrospective coherence may be discernable
• Chaotic - no coherence
• Disordered (or perhaps undifferentiated)

In addition the framework provides guidance as to the appropriate change strategy according to the cause and effect relationships involved.

While most human activity is largely complex or chaotic there are times and places where it may be valid to respond 'as if' the situation is a complicated system or even a simple system. This is largely dependent on the consistency of human activity and interactivity.

Such consistency may emerge in complex systems from two main factors in the situation:

• attractors such as shared values, purposes.... around which activity and interactivity continue and emerge (change)
  
• boundaries such as rules and policies together with knowledge, artefacts...that constrain the activity and interactivity

Attractors and boundaries are sometimes confused or conflicting. Frequently, boundaries are used to control and to extract compliance, while attractors are used to inspire and motivate. Unfortunately, having established a (personal) image of what is to be achieved, it is common for management to see its initiatives as 'leadership' and the situation as an 'ordered system':

• either simple: "If only people would do as expected..."
• or perhaps complicated: "The experts know what needs to be done...."

The flaw in such thinking is that people cannot be simply instructed. Rather each one needs to (re)construct their knowledge, activities and arrangements in order to act 'as expected' or to do "what needs to be done". And this endeavour is enabled or constrained by attractors and boundaries both within the situation and elsewhere. They contribute to (enhance/constrain) the capacity of the system.

Thus it is wise to consider the matter of attractors and boundaries carefully in any change process. Simple attractors are potentially very powerful in fostering the emergence of new approaches and greater effectiveness and efficiency. At the same time boundaries may reveal the true purpsoes of the organisation and in so doing completely over-ride the attractors eg, the Tasmanian education's "Student at the Center" (intended attractor) has been annihilated by the Department's focus on structure, curriculum, assessment and reporting policies (actual boundaries).

Fallout from School Report Cards

It looks like the whole school report card thing will be a fizzer . I certainly hope so.

Nothing in the local paper except for my article. It is so easy to discredit the process as at least one Principal has done. Each school can cite many instances of nonsense from the reports hence the meed for sense making to be applied to the data (see my previous posts). For example, in one school the Staff Attendance was deemed to be "Trend Down" largely as the result of a staff member with cancer. No reasonable person would accept this data accurately reflected a decline in school performance.

My recommendation would be to promote as little interest as possible (at least one other principal has adopted this strategy) . And this is not simply to avoid the difficulties of the School report Cards. Rather it enables the school to devote its energies to the real task... dealing with the everyday things that are impeding the achievement of success and well-being for all. That is, genuinely placing the 'student at the centre'.

The main outcome of the school report cards process is likely to be significant underlying damage to the working relationship between schools and the Department (and Government) . This seems to be part of a very confused notion of 'Learning Services' that has emerged from the current Department structure and arrangements... it combines resourcing, supervision, compliance enforcement and well as professional learning... This complex mix of centrally controlled interactions with schools based on various 'carrots and sticks' is of concern in terms of its impact on

• the effectiveness of the schools
  
• the long term interactions between schools and the Department (and Government) and
• (psychological) OH&S for Principals (and staff), as reflected in the very small number of applicants for Principal positions

The OH&S issue arises from the fact that Principals frequently try to absorb the tension between

• the demands of the system / government, and
  
• the needs of the school and its people.
  

This phenomenon has been verified in research across the world. See also my previous posting on 'Schooling is not a service'

Schooling is NOT a service

In recent years the Tasmanian Department of Education has adopted a 'service' orientation. It has sections such as Learning Services - the section that supports, directs and supervises schools and colleges; and School Performance Services that monitors and reports on various aspects of schools. And then there is Adult and Community Learning Services, and so on.

Providing facilities, staff, other resources associated with education, and even programs, may well be deemed to be services. However this does not mean that education, especially in the form of schooling, is a service for at least two reasons:

• Firstly, schooling is compulsory whereas in service industries the clients of the service chooses whether or not to receive the service
• Secondly, education (the aim of schooling) is not simply the result of the services being provided - the 'recipient' is also a major contributor (perhaps the major contributor)

While clean offices and tattoos are frequently produced by service providers with minimal contributions from their clients the same cannot be said for schooling. At its educational best, schooling is a highly complex and collaborative endeavour involving much more that the programs (services) provided by the teacher on the behalf of the teacher's employer.

If this is so, then it is time to revisit the service oriented organisational culture that has been adopted by the Tasmanian Education Deportment. There are huge implications for authority and responsibility, leadership and supervision. change management, policy making, innovation... This means that better working relationships, shared knowledge and understanding schools as purposeful communities are the keys to school improvement.