David J Quinn
Florida Gulf Coast University
11/10/08
Organizational Change and Sustainability: How can educational leaders develop strategies for highly effective and sustainable organizational change?
Introduction
In this research paper, the author will identify methods for organizations to change for sustainability. The author will point out examples whereby educational leaders have successfully changed educational organizations for the long-term, and the author will analyze what it takes for educational organizations to sustain change. How did one college leader change minds in order to reestablish that college as a leader in higher education? How should principals cope with increased external demands such as No Child Left Behind? Why should educational leaders involve teachers in the leadership process to sustain change? Why should educational leaders not change everything when applying strategies for organizational change?
Literature review and research
Do we have to change people’s minds in order to successfully sustain change within organizations? Howard Gardner (2004) identified seven factors that he called levers to change minds. Reason, research, resonance, representational redescriptions, resources and rewards, real world events, and resistances play a crucial role in mind changing according to Gardner (pp. 14-18). The author utilized the example of Dartmouth College president James O. Freeman to illustrate how a leader applied these levers to successfully change a college. For research, Freedman applied the ideas of Martin Meyerson, who raised the standards at the University of Pennsylvania when he conferred the prestige of the presidency on scholars and scholarly activity (Gardner, 2004, p. 98). “Freedman faced considerable resistances when he was chosen Dartmouth’s president. In fact, the trustees had picked him specifically because the college needed change: when they had polled leaders in U.S. education, the trustees made the disturbing discovery that many leaders had little or no opinions of Dartmouth” (Gardner, 2004, p. 99). Gardner (2004) indicated that Freedman encouraged the admission of more students that possessed intellectual strength and/or particular talents or passions. In addition, Freedman supplemented the staff of the college with people that could recruit students from schools that had previously not sent students to Dartmouth. In order to reward students and faculty, Freedman addressed success publicly and offered ample compensation or other incentives (p. 100).
Another way that leaders can present their case is by appealing to deep questions about life, experience, and possibility. Clearly, this was one way that Freedman changed minds at Dartmouth. He developed intellectually rich standards that reflected the most important thinking of the past and challenged his constituents to meet those standards. (Gardner, 2004, p. 101)
Gardner (2004) indicated that Freedman’s experience as a lawyer aided his ability to develop a convincing case through weighing pros against cons to change the minds of alumni and students. For additional support, Freedman enabled the media to help make the case publicly (pp. 102-103). Howard Gardner (2004) pointed to the examples that Freedman cited in his speeches when he stated the following: “The particular examples that he used—American icons like Thurgood Marshall and Eudora Welty—stirred the consciences of his audiences and catalyzed them to identify with the policies he sought to implement” (p. 103) When faced with adversity when a school newspaper tried to attack Freedman’s wife, the president took advantage of the opportunity to denounce the publication and successfully decreased the power and influence of the publication (p. 103). Gardner (2004) summarized the story of Freedman by stating the following: “As I have said, the overall narrative—the story of change—that Freedman so carefully conveyed at Dartmouth eventually succeeded in bringing about the shift he envisioned for the school” (p. 103) .
Andy Hargreaves and Dean Fink (2006) cited Hargreaves and Goodson (2004) when they stated:
Most educational change theory and practice has no place for the past. The arrow of change moves only in a forward direction. The past is a problem to be ignored or overcome in the rush to get closer to the future. (p. 225)
However, Hargreaves and Fink (2006) argued that sustainable development “respects, protects, preserves, and renews all that is valuable from the past and learns from it in order to build a better future” (p. 226). The authors credited Louis and Miles (1990) when they stated the following: “Change theory must get in touch with its past, as a few of its practitioners have already done” (p. 226). Consequently, Hargreaves and Fink (2006) recommended that “whenever changes are being considered, sustainable leadership should look to the past for precedents that can be reinvented and refined, and for evidence of what has succeeded or failed before” (p. 226). Furthermore, the authors summarized that “Sustainable leadership and improvement is about future and the past. It doesn’t treat people’s knowledge, experience, and careers as disposable waste but as valuable, renewable, and recombinable resources” (p. 227). The authors pointed out the example of Greg Allan at Lord Byron High School as someone who implemented a plan to “raise the quality of the school’s environment and its products through opportunities such as mentoring, continuous learning initiatives, and involvement in improvement” (p. 229).
Sustainable school leadership is insistent about firm principles that endure, not fixed programs that eventually disappear. Sustainable school leadership recognizes that cultural and linguistic diversity requires instructional diversity, and it understands that teachers learn differently just as much as their students do. (Hargreaves & Fink, 2006, p. 268)
I believe the important educational advances of the future will not come from new technologies, alternatives to standardized tests, the institution or abolishment of behavioral objectives, or refinement of minimum competencies. Significant change in schools will come from a reweaving of the lives of the pupil, teacher, principal, and parent into a richer social fabric. Significant change will come with a measure of self-determination for schools and the independence and interdependence of individuals within schools. Change will come when we learn to establish conditions within schools that will help schoolpeople welcome responsibility and use it wisely. (Barth,1980, p. 219)
A fundamental purpose of public education is to prepare children to live in a pluralistic society. A good way to prepare children for social diversity is to learn to live with it early, in an approximation of a pluralistic society where differences are acknowledged, respected, and used to advantage. (Barth, 1980, p. 219)
Coral Mitchell (1999) participated in a learning community as part of a research study and found that diversity was valued more due to “deeper professional conversation and broader understanding of one another” (p. 290). Anthony Bryk, Eric Camburn, and Karen Seashore Louis (1999) cited Sergiovanni (1992) who wrote that principals with a communal leadership perspective play an essential role by “nurturing a normative climate in which innovative professional activity is supported and encouraged” (p. 757). In addition, Bryk, Camburn, and Seashore Louis (1999) synthesized research by Bryk and Schneider (1996) and Spillane and Thompson (1997) when they argued that through trust the social resources of a school community became key elements in schoolwide improvement efforts and more generally in the efficient functioning of schools (p. 757). Don Leech and Charles Ray Fulton (2008) cited Blase (1987) who supported the importance of relationships by stating that effective principals nurtured participation through the development of trusting and respectful relationships with teachers. In addition, Leech and Fulton (2008) cited a Kowalski (1994) survey indicating that 80 percent of responding principals felt that school improvement was dependent upon teachers’ abilities to become participants in the decision making process (p. 636). Roland Barth (1980) challenged teachers, parents, and principals to think differently about diversity and policy when he stated the following: “If teachers, principals, and parents can acknowledge and value personal authenticity and accept the accompanying differences, I think we will find more success and satisfaction than if uniform standards and compliant behavior remain the dominant characteristics of education” (p. 219).
Robert G. Owens and Thomas C. Valesky (2007) identified four basic characteristics of change in organizations.
1. It is change that is planned and directed toward the achievement of specific higher organizational outcomes...
2. It is change that involves the whole organization—an entire school or school district—rather than merely pieces of the organization…
3. It is change that increases the capacity of the organization to more effectively confront the continuing need for change now and in the future, leaving the organization stronger, healthier, more resilient, and more adaptable than it was before…
4. It is change that is sustainable over time and, thus, has a permanence that differentiates it from the constant ebb and flow of fads and fashions that has historically been so characteristic of schools. (pp. 229-230)
Owens and Valesky (2007) indicated that the No Child Left Behind Act increased the focus of schools on the need for planned, controlled, and directed organizational change (p. 230). In addition, the authors argued that school reform and organizational change have a moral implication which consists of correcting existing errors or abolishing malpractice in order to transform organizations (p. 230). Owens and Valesky (2007) utilized Robert Chin’s three major strategic orientations are useful in planning and managing change: 1. Empirical-rational strategies, 2. Power-coercive strategies, and 3. Normative-reeducative strategies. The authors pointed out a significant drawback to applying Empirical-rational strategies at the school level.
The concept is that good ideas are developed outside the school and are ultimately installed in the school. Thus, there is much concern about problems of disseminating the innovation and of installing the innovation in adopting schools. At the installation level, those who favor the innovation see it as empirically proven and view adoption as rational; conversely, they tend to view barriers to installation at the school level as nonrational (if not irrational). It is at this point that the emprirical rationalist becomes concerned not with educational change in a broad sense, but with organizational change to facilitate the adoption process. (p. 240)
Both empirical-rational and power-coercive strategies of change share two assumptions: (1) that good ideas are best developed outside of the organization and (2) that the organization is the target of external forces for change. Implicit in these strategies is the notion that organizations, when left to their own devices, generally emphasize stability over change and generally are resistant to change; they therefore must be made to change. (Owens, & Valesky, 2007, p. 242)
Normative-reeducative strategies for change, on the other hand, posit that the norms of the organization’s interaction—influence system (attitudes, beliefs, and values—in other words, culture) can be deliberately shifted to more productive norms by collaborating action of the people who populate the organization. (Owens, & Valesky, 2007, p. 245)
Owens and Valesky (2007) credited Chris Argyris (1964) when they explained that organizations must perform three essential core activities over time in order to be effective. 1. Achieve its goals. 2. Maintain itself internally. 3. Adapt to its environment (p. 245).Owens and Valesky (2007) cited Goodlad (1975) when describing organizational self-renewal.
Organization self-renewal postulates that effective change cannot be imposed on a school; rather, it seeks to develop an internal capacity for continuous problem solving. The processes of renewal include the increased capacity to (1) sense and identify emerging problems, (2) establish goals, objectives, and priorities, (3) generate valid alternative solutions, (4) implement the selected alternative. (p. 247)
Furthermore, Owens and Valesky (2007) explained organizational development and the concept of learning organizations by stating the following:
In fast-changing environments, such as those we confront today, school organizations must—as a matter of survival—develop increased ability to sense, even predict, the problems posed by their environments and invent solutions to them. Thus, develops the concept of the “learning organization”: an organization, whether it be corporate or educational, that learns to adapt to unfolding changes in the environment. This process of increasing the capacity of the organization, qua organization, to learn, to adapt, is often called ‘organization development’ (OD). (p. 247)
Coral Mitchell (1999) recognized the following: “One advantage of the learning community metaphor is that it positions school-based educators as active participants in evaluating, critiquing, and developing educational conditions and practices” (p. 284). In addition, Mitchell (1999) argued that: “The image of the learning community represents a fundamental shift in the philosophy that has shaped our understanding of educational change” (p. 285). “A hallmark characteristic of a learning community is a conscious, reflective, and analytic approach to current conditions and practices” (p. 286). Therefore, Mitchell (1999) identified that what is “central to the image of the learning community is the notion that people actually make some changes in what they do” (p. 287). Through citing Owens and Steinhoff (1976), Owens and Valesky (2007) listed a cluster of ten concepts that characterize the process of OD: 1. The goal of OD. 2. System renewal. 3. A systems approach.4.Focus on people. 5. An educational strategy. 6. Learning through experience. 7. Dealing with real problems. 8. A planned strategy. 9. Change agent. 10. Involvement of top-level administration. Walter S. Polka (2007) reiterated the focus on people by citing Blanchard and Warghorn (1997) who stated the following:
Everyone must take responsibility for understanding the concerns that they and other people have about change, and they must also be willing to ask for what they need and be there for others in their time of need. Effective change is not something you do to people. It is something you do with them. (pp. 13-14)
In addition, Polka cited Fullan (2005) who “corroborated this perception by insisting that sustainable changes in education are promoted by leaders who help people find meaningful connections to each other” (p. 14). Furthermore, the author quoted Fullan (2005) when he stated that, “They find well-being by making progress on problems important to their peers and of benefit beyond themselves” (p. 14). Mel West, Mel Ainscow, and Jacqui Stanford (2005) cited Cawelti (1999) who researched six schools in the United States that demonstrated success despite high levels of students with low socio-economic status: These schools understood that accountability, commitment and motivation grow with involvement, and they sought to develop teams with a strong sense of ownership for changes made in the schools (p. 79).
According to Chen Schecter and Ilana Tischler (2007), principals need to establish Organizational Learning Mechanisms (OLMs) that systematically continue after the principal is no longer around. In addition, Schecter and Tischler (2007) suggested the following phases to nurture memory during times of change:
Introduction of systematic and participative modes of collective learning based on information processing; An initial change process, categorized by principal’s modeling of how to approach and express new knowledge…A transition period that includes preparation for the actual transfer of authority. The new leader has to learn about the history, values, traditions, and assumptions of the ‘old’ school by inquiring into the standard routines and procedures before, during, and after the overlap period; and, a post-transition period featuring continuity and alteration of school culture and pedagogical practices as communicated through OLMs. (p. 4)
Conclusions
Ultimately, it is important for educational leaders to involve all the stakeholders in order to make sustainable changes in education. The leader needs to capitalize on the human assets already within an organization while maintaining an open-mind for diversity of teaching styles. However, some minds will need to be changed in order to account for the diversity in the educational populations of the new millennium. The leader who seeks to develop sustainable change should be willing to change and learn from other examples. In addition, the leader who seeks sustainable change should be willing to allow teachers to become leaders and involve them in the decision making process. Short-term fixes should and organizational overhaul should be avoided as much as possible when developing long-term change strategies. Overall, there is significant support for developing professional learning communities when developing organizations to sustain change for the future.
References
Barth, R. (1980). Run school run. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bryk, A., Camburn, E., & Seashore Louis, K. (1999). Professional community in Chicago elementary schools: Facilitating factors and organizational consequences. Educational Administration Quarterly, 35, 751-781.
Gardner, H. (2004). Changing minds: The art and science of changing our own and other people’s minds. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Hargreaves, A., & Fink, D. (2006). Sustainable leadership (pp. 225-273). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, Inc.
Leech, D., & Fulton, C.R. (Summer, 2008). Faculty perceptions of shared decision making and principal’s leadership behaviors in secondary schools in a large urban school district. Education, 128(4), 630-644.
Mitchell, C. (1999). Building learning communities in schools: The next generation or the impossible dream? Interchange, 30(3), 283-303.
Owens, R.G., & Valesky, T.C. (2007). Organizational behavior in education (Ninth edition) (pp. 224-266). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Polka, W. (2007). Managing people, things, and ideas in the “effective change zone”: A “high-touch” approach to educational leadership at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Educational Planning, 16(1), 12-17.
Schecter, C., & Tischler, I. (2007). Organizational learning mechanisms and leadership succession: Key elements of planned school change. Educational Planning, 16(2), 1-7.
West, M., Ainscow, M., & Stanford, J. (2005). Sustaining improvement in schools in challenging circumstances: a study of successful practice. School Leadership and Management, 25(1), 77-93.