Managing Organizational Change for Schools

Learning Outcomes  Students are able to:  Describe the meaning of educational change/reforms  Identify the types of change agents according to scenario provided  Evaluate the strategies of change as suggested by Robert Chin  Utilize the Force-field Analysis to minimize the resistance of change  Apply the target of change appropriately  Elaborate the resistance of change

Terminology  Invention The process of developing new technologies, projects, or procedures for an organization.  Innovation Deliberate, novel, specific change, which is thought to be more efficacious in accomplishing the goals of a system.  Organizational change The process of altering the behavior, structures, procedures, purposes, or output of some unit within an organization (Hanson, 1996)  Difference between individual change and organization change: Individual change: determined by personality needs and values Organization change: Determined by more formal, structured characteristics of a system (Katz and Kahn)

 Government Transformation Program  Institutionalization is a process of making a change routine; it becomes part of the ordinary life of the school  Cycle of change: Freeze Unfreeze Moving

 Organizational innovation refers to organizations that strive to break through, change status quo, develop characteristics in terms of products, processes or services so that organizational performance can be enhanced. (Zhao and Ordonez de Pablos)

Michael Fullen  Educational change is a process of coming to grips with the multiple realities of people who are the main participants in implementing change. The leader who presupposes what the change should be and acts in ways which preclude others’ realities is bound to fail.

Books/Chapters Dealing with Change  The Third Wave by Outlet  Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives by John Naisbitt  Cunningham, W. G., & Cordeiro, P. A Educational Administration: A Problem-Based Approach. Chapter 3 School Reform. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.  Mark, Hanson, E Educational Administration and Organization Behavior. Chapter 12 Educational Change. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.  Lunenburg, F, C., & Ornstein, A. C Educational Administration: Concepts and Practice. Chapter 8 Organizational Change. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company.  Owens, Robert Organizational Behavior in Education. Chapter 9 Organizational Change. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Journals

Books

Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives John Naisbitt Industrial society moving to an information society 2. Forced technology moving to high technology 3. National economy moving to world economy 4. Short term moving to long term 5. Centralization moving to decentralization 6. Institutional help moving to self help 7. Representative democracy moving to participatory democracy 8. Hierarchies moving to networking 9. Power base of north part of U.S moving to southern U.S. 10. Either/or options moving to multiple options.

Megatrends 2000: Ten New Directions for the 1990s. John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene (1990)  This is a new version of the original Megatrends (1982) book  The new trends are: 1. Global economic boom of the 1990s 2. Renaissance in the arts 3. Emergence of free-market socialism 4. Global lifestyles and cultural nationalism 5. Privatization of the welfare state 6. Rise of the pacific rim 7. The 1990s as a decade of women in leadership 8. The age of biology, 9. Religious revival of the third millennium, and 10. Triumph of the individual.

Educational Reforms  21 st Century American Education Action in U.S.A.  Japan train the next generation with survival strength  European Union transform member countries into knowledge Europe  Singapore builds thinking schools and learning country

Elements of Innovative Schools  Schools excel when: Their leaders are empowered to think big The entire community (all stakeholders) share a vision of change They collaborate and explore best practices world wide

National Key Result Areas (NKRAs)  Crime prevention  Reducing government corruption  Increased access to quality education  Improvements in the standard of living for low income groups  Upgrades rural infrastructure  Improvement in public transportation

Education NKRA The four (4) thrusts: 1. 72% enrolment across 4+ and 5+ cohorts by % literacy and numeracy by 2010 (LINUS screening Literacy and Numeracy Screening) 3. Target of 20 HPS (High Performing Schools) by % of principals rewarded by 2010

Units of Change (Sergiovanni)  The individual Needs, interests, relationships  The school School climate and school culture  The workflow The change goals, the change targets, the change protocols, the curriculum and teaching requirements, and the supervisory and staff development support  The political system Administrative action, congruent reward system, budget available, teacher union acceptance, school board acceptance, administrative commitment, and community acceptance

The Change Agent  A change agent is a professional whose role is to influence the clients’ behavior in a desired direction  The responsibilities of the change agent vary from complex to simplistic and tough to permissive  The types of change agents: 1. White-hat Change Agent 2. Machiavellians Change Agent 3. Guerrillas Change Agent 4. The Hatchet man Change agent

 White-hat Change Agent Most change agents fall into this category The change agent has an engaging personality, maintains close bonds based on trust, and practises democratic procedures at all time. The steps to be taken by the change agent (Havelock) Relationship: Establishes a viable relationship with the client system Diagnosis: Determine whether the client is aware of his/her problems

Resources: Identifies and obtain the resources Solution: Generates a range of alternatives and makes a choice Acceptance: The change agent helps the client system to develop awareness and interests by describing, detailing, discussing and demonstrating and finally adopt the innovation Stabilization: Develop the internal capability to sustain innovation without the continued presence of the change agent

 The Machiavellian Change Agent The change agent might choose to be quite invisible, engineering events from behind the scene Rules for the agent (Baldridge) Concentrate your effort Know when to fight Learn the history Build a coalition Join external constituencies Use committees effectively Use the formal system

Follow through to push the decision flow Glance backward when the change is completed  Hatchet men Change Agents Their arrival on the scene is a clear signal that major organizational surgery has been called for In the field of education, we don’t see many hatchet men change agents

 The organizational Guerrilla Guerrilla change agents work from inside the organization, usually as an employee The guerrilla works against the formal leadership in an attempt to bring about change Of all forms of the change agents, the guerrilla is probably the least understood

Types of Change  Planned change Conscious and deliberate attempt to manage events so that the outcome is redirected by design to some predetermined end. Anyone can initiate a program of planned change, whether or not he/she is formally charged with the responsibility of directing an organization.  Spontaneous change An alteration that emerges in a short time frame as a result of natural circumstances and random occurrences It just happens No grand design directs the course of events

 Evolutionary change Long-range, cumulative consequences of major and minor alterations in the organization

Three Strategies of Planned Change (Robert Chin) 1. Empirical-rational change 2. Power-coercive change 3. Normative-reeducation change 4. Environmental-Adaptive (Fred Nickols) Empirical-rational change  The linkages between researchers and practitioners  It is related to knowledge production and utilization (KPU)  The aim is to bridge the gap between theory and practice  Research, development, and diffusion (R, D, and D)

 Power-coercive strategies Willingness to use sanctions in order to obtain compliance from adopters It requires that individuals comply with the wishes fo those who are in positions superior to theirs In empirical-rational and power coercive strategies, organizations are made to change  Both empirical-rational and power-coercive strategies believe that best ideas are best developed outside of the organization and the organization is the target of external forces for change

 A normative-reeducative strategy  Norms of the organization’s interaction-influence system (culture) can be deliberately shifted to more productive norms by collaborative action of people who populate the organization  The shift from a close climate to a open climate (Andrew Halpin)  Moving from System 1 management style to System 4 (Rensis Likert)

 Environmental-Adaptive Strategy Assumption: People adapt readily to new circumstances Change is based on building a new organization and gradually transferring people from the old one to the new one.

Force-field Analysis (Kurt Lewin)  Force field analysis is a management technique developed by Kurt Lewin, a pioneer in the field of social sciences, for diagnosing situations.  Diagnostic in nature  It allows the preparation of plans for specific action designed to achieve the changes sought  The success of such plans will depend on the clarity with which the likely consequences of proposed action are perceived  For major organizational sub-systems are: Task Technology Structure human

 Lewin assumes that in any situation there are both driving and restraining forces that influence any change that may occur  Driving Forces Driving forces are those forces affecting a situation that are pushing in a particular direction They tend to initiate a change and keep it going  Restraining Forces Restraining forces are forces acting to restrain or decrease the driving forces Apathy, hostility, and poor maintenance of equipment may be examples of restraining forces against increased production  Equilibrium is reached when the sum of the driving forces equals the sum of the restraining forces.

To carry out a Force Field Analysis  State the current situation  Describe the ideal situation  Identify where the current situation will go if no action is taken  List all the forces driving change toward your ideal situation  List all the forces resisting change toward your ideal situation  Interrogate all of the forces: Are they valid? Can they be changed? Which are the critical forces?  Allocate a score to each of the forces using a numerical scale e.g. (1) extremely weak (10) extremely strong  Chart the forces by listing (to strength scale) the driving forces on the left and restraining forces on the right  The viability of the change programme can be affected by decreasing the strength of the restraining forces or by increasing the strength of driving forces.

Pressures for Organizational Change Lunnerburg & Ornstein, 1996)  Government intervention It is top-down hierarchy reforms  Society’s values Herzberg’s hygiene factors such as salary, job security, working conditions, supervision, organizational policies, and status. The absence of these factors results in employee job dissatisfaction The quality of work life: employee participation in the organization The values of equity and efficiency

 Technological change and knowledge explosion Part of it is due to research and development efforts within an organization A great deal of development comes from outside Development of new technologies increases the accessibility to higher education such as continuing education courses, life-long learning and etc. ICT, smart schools, collaboration with British Aerospace and INTEL, e-book and etc.

 Processes and people  Process factors include: Communication which is inadequate Poor quality decision making Inappropriate leadership Nonexistent of motivation  People factors include: Poor performance of teachers and students High absenteeism High dropout rates High teacher turnover Low teacher morale and motivation Poor community relationns

Targeting Process of Change Management  Elements of the targeting process: Focus of change Level of change Potency of change Impetus of change  Focus of change Its tasks: from traditional forms of instruction to individualized instruction, Its structure: decentralization, departmentalization, communication channels and etc. Its technology: introduction of computer-assisted instruction and etc. Its people: new skills, values, motivation and etc

 Level of change Wilfred Brown has identified four levels of an organization: Manifest organization: Portrayed by line-and-staff chart that represents the formal organization Assumed organization: The conventional wisdom about how the system actually works Extant organization: How the system actually works Requisite organization: This is an ideal organization, the way how an organization should function

 Potency of change  It refers to the degree which a change requires a significant departure from existing condition  Level of potency depends on resources, time, energy, power, and goodwill that are involved in the change initiative  Impetus for change  Three types of change (Getzels): Enforced change: Cultural dimension outside the organization brings external pressure on the system to which it must respond. Expedient change: The mechanism of change is reaction Essential change: The mechanism of change is volunteerism.

Resistance to Change (Mark Hanson, 1996)  Resistance to change occurs at organizational level and at the individual level  Organizational level  The educational system Centralized vs. decentralized system  Bureaucratic organization Formal bureaucratic structure such as hierarchical levels, role relationships, standardized procedures, control from the top, values of disciplined and compliance and etc. Superordinates have rights and subordinates have obligations (Abbott) A study by Moeller and Charters found that teaches in highly bureaucratic systems had significantly higher, not lower, sense of power than those in less bureaucratic schools. Bureaucratic may not always be detrimental to change

 Accountability If test score are low, teachers are blamed. This will lead to the wrong focus for initiating change  Goal displacement Goal displacement refers to a situation when following the rules becomes the goal of the individual functionary or even of the organization itself (Robert Merton)  Domesticated organization The domestication of schools builds in layers of protective insulation (can be penetrated but not easily)

 Costs: Time, energy, money In educational organizations, it is rather difficult to obtain accurate measures of benefits as they relate to costs Sunk costs also act as forces resistant to change  Resistance cycle Four-stage cycle (Goodwin Watson) Stage one: resistance appears massive Stage two: The pro and con forces become visible Stage three: The battle between the pro and con is on Stage four: The supporters of change is victorious.

 Resistance to change at individual level  Vested interests Vested interests come in social (dissolve of inform group, social status), political (lost of power), economic (source of income) and psychological forms (insecure).  Mobility expectations Three career motivational patterns (Presthus) Up-ward mobile Indifferent ambivalent

 Search behavior There is evidence that the present procedures are not working well and results in anxiety  Psychological systems Psychological forces that generate forces towards change (Goodwin Watson): Habit Primary (success from completing a task) Selective perception and retention Dependence Insecurity and regression

 Rejection stages Ignorance/lack of dissemination (The infor is not easily available) Suspended judgment/data not logically compelling (I want to wait and see how good it is before I try) Situational/data not materially compelling (It costs too much to use in time and money) Personal/data not psychologically compelling (I don’t know if I can operate the equipment) Experimental/present or past trials (I tried them once and they aren’t any good)

 Resistance from the lowerarchy The power in the lowerarchy can generate forces that resist change Lack of experimental ethic

Conditions for Successful Change To Happen (Mark Hanson)  Anxiety, difficulties, and uncertainty are intrinsic to all successful change  Change is a journey where learning and adjustment must take place  Education change is a problem-solving process  Change requires resources: training, materials, new space, personnel, and etc.)  Change in education needs an integrated source of power to direct it. Therefore the management of change is better when it is carried out by a cross-role group