Assignment 2: External Scan — Private vs Not-for-Profit

For this assignment, I chose to interview two colleagues who were directly involved with leading change for digital learning initiatives—one from the private sector (PS) and one from the not-for-profit sector (NS). During my interviews, I kept in mind that there are many approaches and methods for managing change; organizations vary significantly in their structure, systems, strategies and human resources (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015, p. 234); and, organizations may measure success based on values rather than the bottom line.

Business Objectives and Outcomes

Two common reasons that businesses spend money on projects are to avoid costs or increase revenue. Although many companies use improving services to justify or get permission for new projects, improving services for customers usually leads to increased revenues and improving services to employees improves morale and reduces turnover, thereby avoiding costs (Russel, 2015, p. 11).

Private Sector (PS)

The PS company provides services to the public on behalf of the provincial government. To avoid financial penalties related to non-compliance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA) the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the PS company directed its Human Resources department (HR) to replace a failed classroom-style training with an online, self-directed FOIPPA training course for employees.

The training would be mandatory for all employees who would need to score 80% on a final quiz to receive a completion certificate. The PS purchased an LMS and hosted data onsite to comply with FOIPPA. It took four months for HR to create the online FOIPPA training and within two months 100% of employees completed the course. The training was available 24/7 for employees to reference and became part of the orientation activities for all new employees.

Not-for-Profit

The NS company develops leadership skills for the not-for-profit sector. To attract more participants to its core program, and thereby increase revenues, the NS company’s Board of Directors instructed the Program Committee to redesign the 9-month core program to appeal to today’s time-strapped workforce. Enrolment had decreased by 50% over four years due primarily to the intensive time commitment required for workings, team meetings, and experiential learning via hands-on grass-roots community projects. Feedback from business sponsors, participants and potential participants indicated that a shorter program with digital learning components (synchronous and facilitator-led asynchronous) would most likely increase enrolment. In addition, closer alignment between the experiential learning components and community needs would increase business support.

Al-Haddad and Kotnour (2015) research found that “change leaders are people with creative visions, who are able to foresee a new reality and how to get to it” (p. 239). The challenge for the NS’s leadership was that long-time volunteers who were unable to foresee a new reality resisted changes to the program and eventually left the program committee. Attempts to achieve mission- mesh, “the success of combining competing interests in collaborative projects” (Austin, 2001) eluded the NS for several months until new volunteers with a keen interest in developing innovative digital learning options stepped forward.

It took 18 months from the time the Board decided that the core program needed to be redesigned to an agreed-upon design for a four-month blended-learning program.

Change Model/Method

Neither company consciously chose a change model.

Lewin’s Method of unfreeze, implement, refreeze (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015, p. 249) fits the PS CEO’s approach. The CEO unfroze the failed face-to-face FOIPPA training by fast-tracking an elearning option; implemented the change and took the training to set an example for others to follow; then refroze the training and directed each employee to take the training until he/she achieved a score of 80%.

Luecke’s Method may best fit the NS’s process as it comprises “joint identification of existing problems and their solutions, developing a shared vision, identifying leadership, implementing change and finally monitoring and adjusting strategies for any problem in the change process” (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015, p. 250).

Conclusion

Some may argue that only the PS elearning initiative was a success since at this time the impact of the NS’s blended-learning initiative remains unknown. However, the NS interviewee would argue that the NS has achieved success by attracting a new group of volunteers committed to modernizing the core program and responding to the needs of the community. On the collaboration continuum, the NS has developed new “alliances that involve deep mission mesh, strategy synchronization, and values compatibility” (Austin, 2001).

The infographic below outlines key differences between these two projects.

References:

Al-Haddad, S., & Kotnour, T. (2015). Integrating the organizational change literature: a model for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), 234-262.

Austin, J. (2001, October 1). Connecting with nonprofits [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/connecting-with-nonprofits

Russell, L. (2015). Project management for trainers (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.

Assignment 1: Leading from the Middle

This blog post contains my reflections on my personal leadership. It was written for the first assignment of the LRNT525 Leading Change in Digital Environments. It addresses how I would describe my approach to leadership, how digital technologies have affected how I lead, and which theories of leadership I think work best in leading change within digital learning environments.

My Approach

The Rational inventor is “non-directive in their handling of others and will take charge of activities only when forced to by circumstance” (Keirsey, 1998).

As long as I can remember, I have been asked to lead; for as long as I can remember, I have done so with reluctance. I prefer to work alone on my own projects or as part of a team to reach a common goal. I will step up to leadership where there is a vacancy and a need; however, as soon as another competent leader shows up I am happy to step aside.

To illustrate, in 2003 I was a Communications Manager who was designated the Acting Communication Director while my boss was away on a four-week vacation. After three days of my coworkers questioning why I had been left in charge, I asked who wanted to be the director and handed the role to the most senior manager. When my boss returned he was surprised that I have given up my role and seat at the Executive table, but also impressed that my actions had calmed the senior manager, raised the morale in the office, and ensured that our department continued to serve the needs of the organization. I avoided an internal power-struggle that would have jeopardized our department’s reputation and credibility.

I doubt that Sheninger (2014) had that scenario in mind when he wrote, “leadership is about action, not position,” however, looking through the lens of values-based leadership, I view my actions as “translating the cacophony of competing interests into a simple harmonious vision of a good end” (O’Toole, 2008). My actions supported the overall goals of the Communication Department and let me focus on my immediate work which was to oversee the creation of content for the organizations’ internal and external websites, including content-management training for 34 employees across the province—training that required employees to use new digital technologies.

Digital Technologies

It is difficult for me to compare the array of digital technologies available to us in 2018 with the technologies that were available to me in 2003; nonetheless, the new content-management system (CMS) at that time changed the process of managing web content from a centralized model, which required a programmer to update the websites, to a distributed model in which any employee who learned how to use the CMS, and who had the appropriate security permissions, could update the websites.

In my role, I partnered with the web-programmer in the Information Technology (IT) department to research and choose the CMS, create the distributed content-management strategy, and lobby for at least one person from each department to become a content coordinator. We then conducted training sessions via webinars and followed-up with trainees by phone and email.

In 2003, these digital technologies and training methods were innovative; employees were accustomed to travelling to head-office for training or having someone from head-office travel to them. The novelty of learning online was both exciting and disconcerting because high-speed internet was unavailable to offices outside of major urban areas. But we overcame those obstacles to raise the technical literacy in the organization and to give everyone a stake in maintaining the websites.

One leadership obstacle for me was that I was a manager who was lobbying directors to assign one staff member from each department to work with me on the organization’s websites. In other words, while I would manage the website activities I had no actual power over the employees who would work with me and therefore could not use a transactional leadership style based on rewarding employees for their performance (Khan, 2017).

Looking back on this project, I can see that my actions aligned with some of Sheninger’s (2014) pillars of digital leadership. I became a “storyteller-in-chief” (p.3) to share the vision of how the CMS would empower others and gave them a stake in keeping the organization’s websites up-to-date. My IT partner and I focused on “enhancing essential skill sets—communication, collaboration, creativity…critical thinking, and problem-solving” (p.3); we embraced professional growth and development (p. 4) and built a strong community of practice for web-content coordinators, similar to Sheninger’s (2014) personal learning network.

I can also see that my actions aligned with Huggins (2017) distributed leadership: “a purposeful approach to increasing [organization] effectiveness through the involvement of other formal and informal [organization] leaders in leadership activities.” (p.3). The directors (formal) explained the distributed content-management strategy at their staff meetings where they asked for a volunteer to be the content-coordinator or designated someone to that role. Those content-coordinators (informal) then proceeded to lead the process of collecting, editing, publishing, and maintaining content from their departments.

The centralized control of producing web content shifted to the distributed model over eighteen months. During that time, the CMS remained stable, there were no dramatic changes to learning technologies, and mobile devices were limited to palm pilots and flip phones. The media-rich digital learning environments of 2018 were not only out of scope, they did not yet exist.

Leadership Theories for Digital Learning Environments

For now, and for the foreseeable future, building and maintaining effective digital learning environments will require teams of skilled technical experts, instructional designers, and subject matter experts. A distributed leadership model may be appropriate in larger organizations; leaders within that model and lone leaders in smaller organizations may be most effective by using an adaptive leadership approach to understand others’ values, recognizes their struggles, delegate responsibilities, and include others in the decision-making processes (Khan, 2017).

Whether leading from the top or from the middle, whether by choice or necessity, leaders will need to recognize, appreciate, and leverage the wisdom of their teams.

References

Keirsey, D. (1998). Please understand me II. Del Mar, CA: Prometheus Nemesis.

Huggins, K. (2017). Developing leadership capacity in others: An examination of high school principals’ personal capacities for fostering leadership. International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership, 12(1). Retrieved from http://journals.sfu.ca/ijepl/index.php/ijepl/article/view/670/169.

Khan, N. (2017). Adaptive or transactional leadership in current higher education: A brief comparison. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(3). Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/3294.

Sheninger, E. (2014). Pillars of digital leadership. International Centre for Leadership in Education. Retrieved from http://www.leadered.com/pdf/LeadingintheDigitalAge_11.14.pdf.

O’Toole, James (2008). Notes toward a definition of values-based leadership. The Journal of Values-Based Leadership1(1). Retrieved from https://scholar.valpo.edu/jvbl/vol1/iss1/10/.

A4: Design Challenge Video

This is probably my last post for LRNT524 (I may add comments to blog posts in the coming weeks, even though this course will be over).

Here is the link to my Design Challenge video.

It is 11 minutes long. The last minute has examples of how to build 3D models of design principles with marshmallows and spaghetti. The original video was 13:38 minutes long; there are some really good moments on the virtual cutting room floor, but at the risk of losing points I chose to include the examples.

I hope you enjoy them. 

Differentiated Instruction for a Delinquent Blogger

In this final week of LRNT524, I find myself wishing that I had written more blog posts and been more engaged online with my peers.  The readings have been thought-provoking, and I have enjoyed the assignments…all, except the requirement to blog.

Why Am I Delinquent?

One of the readings that resonated with me was Differentiated Instruction and Implications for UDL Implementation by Hall, Vue, Strangman, and Meyer (2003). Although focused on the classroom, the principles of differentiated instruction apply to online environments, too.

Differentiated instructional (DI) methods” recognize students’ varying background knowledge, readiness, language, preferences in learning and interests” (p.3).

Hall, et al. (2003), identify the philosophy, principles, and practices of DI followed by the elements where instructors may differentiate their methods for different students–content, process, product, and affect/environment.  One of the practices that instructional designers (IDs) and instructors keep in mind for DI is “teaching up [which means that] students should be working just above their individual comfort levels” (p. 5).

Just Beyond the Comfort Zone

In this and our previous course, the activity that has been just beyond my comfort zone has been contributing to this blog–which has continued to surprise me given that I have been teaching online since the early 2000s; my area of expertise is interpersonal communication (verbal, nonverbal, written); and, I am extremely comfortable with technology.

It is only in the last few weeks that I have been able to figure out my reluctance to blog: my preference for learning in a closed environment (Moodle forums) has been challenged, and I lack the motivational readiness for writing blog posts which may be discovered, out-of-context, sometime in the near or distant future.

Design Challenge for MALAT: Differentiated Learning

So, I have a design challenge for the MALAT program: use the design-thinking process to create graduate-level online courses that address the challenges of providing differentiated learning activities to meet the “varying background knowledge, readiness, language, preferences in learning and interests” (Hue, et al., 2003) inherent in every cohort.

Knowing what we now do about learning and instructional theories and ID models, a design challenge might be fun. The difficult part for many of us would be to resist the urge to create solutions before spending time in the muddy areas of empathic design where learners interpretations, emotions, and everyday life activities ( Mattelmäki, Vaajakallio, & Koskinen, 2014)  underpin the design principles and eventual course design.

Do you think we could TAPPA, TAPPA, TAPPA an awesome course for a future cohort? Does anyone want to do this design challenge with me? Perhaps after we have graduated ;-).

References

Hall, T., Vue, G., Strangman, N., & Meyer, A. (2003). Differentiated instruction and implications for UDL implementation. Wakefield, MA: National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum. (Links updated 2014). Retrieved from http://aem.cast.org/about/publications/2003/ncac-differentiated-instruction-udl.html

Mattelmäki, T., Vaajakallio, K., & Koskinen, I. (2014). What happened to empathic design?Design Issues30(1), 67-77.