Change is everywhere in education right now, especially as relates to technology use, online course development and availability. Each individual change case is unique with different stakeholders and contexts. Both Al-Haddad & Kotnour (2015) and Weiner (2009) make a case for ensuring that organizations undergoing change have alignment with the change process that they undertake, and stakeholder engagement in order to ensure higher levels of success. Al-Haddad & Kotnour share a startling statistic, that <30% of change processes are unsuccessful. Al-Haddad & Kotnour discuss the idea that superimposition of change from above is less effective than the engagement of stakeholders, who then become the drivers of change. Weiner refers to this engagement as the change valence, with the individuals seeing that the change is needed, important and worthwhile and themselves then becoming the drivers of change.
Change is less successful when it is imposed from the top down. Currently, we in BC are watching Ontario’s recently announced mandatory online course requirements for secondary school students. This is a top-down change imposed without talking to the stakeholders (teachers, students, administrators) about what will work for them, leaving the people who are going to be responsible for the change disenfranchised and angry. At this time, the provincial government of Ontario has mandated that each student will complete at least 2 online courses during their high school career, starting in grade 9. This change was announced before public engagement (CBC News, 2019) and before a framework was created for how the change will be implemented, without consultation of e-learning specialists, or a plan for how vulnerable learners will be included. I’m finding it hard to imagine how this can be a successful change (and how that will be measured) when the main change enablers (Weiner, 2009) are not aligned in support of the change: the content, the people and process.
I work in a post-secondary context in which our staff is experiencing change at many levels (managerial, faculty, and individual). As a college we are currently transitioning from old, siloed digital systems for tracking student records, finance, staff recruitment, and various other systems to a fully integrated, unified application portal that will allow us to do all previous tasks through a single sign-in. The leadership in our school has shown from the outset that this has been a thoughtful and systematic change that began with participatory action research (French, 1969; Helmich and Brown, 1972; Schein, 1969, Tichy, 1974 as cited in Al-Haddad and Kotnour, 2015), moved to ongoing development, and continues in semi-incremental cycles (Miller, 1982, as cited in Al-Haddad and Kotnour, 2015) as each new piece is rolled out. The leadership in this case appears to be aligned with a reflective model of leadership (Castelli, 2015) in that the environment is a safe one, promoting trust and confidence, there is ample opportunity for two-way communication, that the changes connect to the strategic plan commitments, and that there is training available to ensure the growth of individual staff members and the building of individual capacity with the new system. The change valence in our organization is high.
Leadership at our college has several roles within the change, not all of which can be captured here. They are responsible for building the framework of what change looks like in our context, and having the larger vision to see where we are going and why. Our leadership is in place to manage the process, look to the constituents to understand how well the change is progressing, and to take and incorporate feedback. In our school in particular there is an emphasis within the culture on Dweck’s (2007) concept of growth mindset. The leadership is responsible for building and finding ways to maintain and direct the culture and identity of the school, and creating an environment in which innovation, growth mindset and risk tolerance are part of the culture, creating a context that is more receptive to change (Weiner, 2009).
I recognize that they are not the same scale or category of change, but can’t help but compare the two change scenarios somewhat. I wonder at the Ontario government’s seeming lack of planning and engagement, what I see as a lack of leadership around mandatory 2 online course requirement. I am pleased when I look at our little community college, at the way our leadership is striving for best practices, doing what they can to keep the staff involved and motivated for this change that most of us believe will be in our best interest. It’s obvious to me that our college has a plan, whereas it appears that the situation in Ontario will plunge forward regardless of plan.
References:
(please note: I’ve tried to reformat the references but they keep showing up without spaces between them on publishing. My apologies.)
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for your post – I was really intrigued by your description of how your college leadership is approaching change. You indicate that to help create a culture more open to change “leadership is responsible for building and finding ways to maintain and direct the culture and identity of the school, and creating an environment in which innovation, growth mindset and risk tolerance are part of the culture…” Can you share any specific strategies that you think have helped employees (or yourself!) feel they can take risks and grow in their roles? Thanks!
Hi Michelle,
Thank you for taking the time to check in here.
I see our leadership as ascribing to a reflective leadership style (Castelli, 2015) due to the promotion of safe environment, value of open communications, connection of individual workers to the organizational mission, and the emphasis on relationship and willingness to grow and change.
The leadership at our college has, on an ongoing basis, consulted with staff and faculty as to what is needed, and how systems can be improved. We have an institutional subscription to thoughtexchange (https://www.thoughtexchange.com/), which has been used in large scale to work with all employees in the implementation of our strategic plan (Selkirk College, 2019) ensuring that the plan does not stay on the shelf, but becomes a living document that employees are aligned with, helping build our cohesive identity. On a smaller scale, thoughtexchange and Menti (https://www.menti.com/) were used in facilitated sessions about gender diversity and inequity in upper management. Members of the small scale conversation were made comfortable through safe/brave spaces (Palfrey, 2017) conversation. The use of computer-based tools allowed difficult thoughts to be shared anonymously (ones that might not have surfaced in another context).
Our college promotes growth mindset (Dweck, 2007) with students and staff through orientation to (initially introducing people to the concept) and ongoing support in conversations with students about their course work, their study habits, and their life circumstances. Within our staff and faculty, we recognize and share shifts we see in our students and ourselves towards growth mindset, sharing success stories.
At a faculty level, we’re invited to speak with our Chair about our projected and possible employment paths, including lateral and other moves within the organization. The openness we have in the Human Services faculty is different than in other schools, but through the Deans and Chairs committee conversations are happening that will allow for similar risk taking in other parts of the college.
As for innovation? This seems to be baked into everything we are doing. There is much cross communication between different schools about research with regular, well attended scholarship presentation opportunities. Our strategic plan has innovation as one of the commitments: “Innovation creates new thinking, new ways of delivering our programs, enhanced and flexible learning, and a willingness to expand our role in the community” (Selkirk College, 2019).
Not to say that this is all without challenge. Our College is distributed over six geographically disparate communities with six campuses and two learning centres. My personal opinion is that much of our success having a cohesive culture has come through the hard work it has taken to forge an identity that spans the Kootenay region.
Leadership, aside from consulting with us around and connecting us to the strategic plan, is personally accessible. Our President, remarkably, knows all of us by our first name. There’s a personable-ness and human-ness in our organization. Encouraging innovation, growth mindset and risk tolerance to be practiced on a daily basis, and our connection to the strategic plan are big factors in the creation of a cohesive culture at Selkirk.
References:
Castelli, Patricia Ann. 2015. “Reflective Leadership Review: A Framework for Improving Organisational Performance.” The Journal of Management Development; Bradford 35(2):217–36.
Dweck, C. (2007). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2nd ed.). Ballantine Books.
Palfrey, J. (2017). Safe spaces, brave spaces: Diversity and free expression in education. MIT Press.
Selkirk College. 2019. “Strategic Plan – Building Remarkable Futures.” Selkirk College. Retrieved February 23, 2020 (http://selkirk.ca/strategic-plan).
Hi Lisa,
I missed your response earlier this week. Thanks for sharing – it sounds like you have some fantastic leadership, and I appreciate you sharing some of the strategies that you think are working. It is always great to get insight from other organizations!