Lack of change is often attributed to a lack of understanding. Yet in many situations, we know what to do, we just don't do it. Despite this, our first instinct in getting people to change is to teach them something, when really the problem is not an understanding one.One of the reasons why thinking our way into change is limited is that we are lousy self-evaluators. Many of us tend to think we are better at things than we really are - known as a positive illusion, serviced by ambiguity in definitions of good. We don’t necessarily see all the shades involved in being good in different contexts - we may have fixed views or limited perspectives. As a result, we need to get people to see the situation as it is.
Kotter and Cohen found that in most change situations, managers initially focus on strategy, structures, culture or systems - but the heart of the matter is changing people’s behaviours which requires speaking to their feelings. Helping people, therefore, to see the problems or solutions in ways which influence emotions not just thought can be vital for engineering successful change. Rather than analyse-think-change, the sequence should focus on see-feel-change. It can, however, be hard to distinguish why people aren’t supporting change - do they not understand or are they not enthused?
Lack of change is often attributed to a lack of understanding. Yet in many situations, we know what to do, we just don't do it. Despite this, our first instinct in getting people to change is to teach them something, when really the problem is not an understanding one.One of the reasons why thinking our way into change is limited is that we are lousy self-evaluators. Many of us tend to think we are better at things than we really are - known as a positive illusion, serviced by ambiguity in definitions of good. We don’t necessarily see all the shades involved in being good in different contexts - we may have fixed views or limited perspectives. As a result, we need to get people to see the situation as it is.
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I recently read Switch: how to change things when change is hard by Dan and Chip Heath, which is about creating and managing change and decision-making. They begin by boiling the concept of change down to the fact that for anything to change, someone has to start acting differently. While change is commonly perceived as difficult, in reality we all regularly seek and embrace change in many areas of our lives - seeking new jobs, having babies, moving house or countries, embracing new technology. The Heaths put this schizophrenic attitude to change down to there being two parts of the brain - the rational and emotional side (the Rider and the Elephant as they call them) and often these are not aligned. For successful and sustainable change to take place both the rider (the rational side) and the elephant (the emotional side) have to be simultaneously engaged in a complementary way. Importantly, change needs to be engineered in a way that does not exhaust people. The self-control involved in many changes requires effort and exhausts people. When people are exhausted they are less able to be creative, positive, resilient or seek solutions to problems that inevitably arise. Changing things often involves replacing or adding to behaviours that have become automatic which requires little mental energy being with behaviours that require careful supervision by the Rider (at least initially) and therefore high mental energy. As a result, there needs to be crystal clear direction, without which the riders in us will stall and spin and not necessarily get where we are trying to go, as well as hope, a sense of achievability and regular celebration of achievement to keep the Elephant motivated. Finally, what often appears a people problem is actually a situation problem - instead of trying to change people, change the environment or the situation (much easier) and people will follow, making the path of least resistance also the path that leads to change. This forms the basis of their three part framework (see below), which my next blog posts will explore in more detail. I've just finished reading Ben Levin's policy booklet presenting a summary of emerging research on creating lasting, school-wide improvement in the quality of schools, with an emphasis on capacity building and an inquiry orientation to change. On a side note, I was interested (alarmed?) to see that the booklet is part of a series 'designed to summarize what is known, based on research, about selected policy issues in the field of education. The series was designed for rapid consultation ‘on the run’ by busy senior decision-makers in ministries of education, who need ready access to summaries of research that can improve educational policy' and therefore 'restricted in length – requiring around 30–45 minutes of reading time; and sized to fit easily into a jacket pocket or to be read online – providing opportunities for readily accessible consultation inside or outside the office'. While I'm aware that we all live in a fast-paced world and I am glad to see that are at least efforts among our politicians to be informed, I would hope that policy decisions about our education system are based on more than 35-40 minutes of reading from a pocket-sized booklet in a rapid consultation on the run.
Anyway, the booklet held some interesting ideas closely related to my current research, which I want to summarise on this blog. Levin presents some of the key lessons that have been learned over the last 20 years about effective, large-scale improvement in the quality of school systems operating from a sound base of universal access, reasonably capable teachers and adequate facilities and operating in an environment of relative political and social stability. Change He begins and ends by acknowledging that although change knowledge is increasingly understood and used, there are barriers to how successfully it is being used. He cites three reasons for this.
However, he argues, the shift towards wanting/ needing educational improvement that affects all classrooms and fosters sustainable quality and equity, coupled with poor results from previous reform efforts and a better understanding of how to implement change, means that change, and more specifically capacity building, will become more common place in such efforts. Achieving real and lasting change in student learning outcomes requires the focused, sustained and collaborative effort of all parts of the system, with careful attention paid to implementation as well as policy-making. He lists 8 key elements for an effective change strategy in improving school systems, which I will elaborate on in my next few blog postings:
Research and evidence-informed practice One of the things he highlights is that teaching, like any other profession, needs to develop its use of research evidence as a prime determinant of effective practice, something which I was reading about recently on Alex Quigley's blog: The Problem with research evidence in education and The Problem with research evidence in education Part 2. There is a growing knowledge base about what works and what doesn't work in education. Hattie (2008) and Marzano (2003) provide excellent summaries of the growing knowledge base about effective practice. Yet practice lags well behind still. Levin argues that while we should be looking to reference such sources more in our decision making, we should not be too discouraged by the gap between knowledge and practice - 'it can take many years to translate what research has unequivocally demonstrated to be effective into common practice'. We should therefore keep on trying. References Levin, B., 2012. System-wide improvement in education. Education Policy Series: 13. IAE: Brussels and IIEP-UNESCO: Paris. Hattie, J. 2008. Visible learning. London: Routledge. Marzano, R. 2003. What works in schools: Translating research into action. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. |
AuthorI'm an educator driven by the desire to see people realise their potential by gaining the tools they need to be successful. I love being part of a community of learners for whom there is always more to be known and understood. For me, learning and teaching is cognitive, social and emotional and takes the whole self. Archives
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