Managing Innovation in Educational Organisations Andy Hockley, Hox & Erix SRL Quest Conference, Iasi June 2009

Agenda Innovation and Change – introduction Why do people resist innovation? Strategies for dealing with resistance (ADKAR) Educational Innovation Managing innovation in educational organisations Introducing multilingual programmes – a discussion

Change and Innovation What comes into your mind when you hear the word change? People have different responses to it. In the world today change seems to come at us from all directions and our response to it may be partly determined by whether: we think the change is a good idea the reason for the change is clear we feel we have the resources to deal with the change we are involved in the process we are confident that the change will be introduced successfully.

Your attitude to change How do you normally respond to change? Which of these words do you prefer – change or stability? Do you tend to see situations as opportunities, problems or challenges? When was the last time you adopted a new way of doing something? When did you last learn a new skill? How committed are you to becoming the best educator/manager you can be? Think of a recent technological innovation e.g. mobile phones or MP3 Players. How quickly did you adopt it?

Reasons for resistance Activity Give some of the reasons why people resist change

Reasons for resistance lack of support from key people purpose of change not made clear details of change poorly communicated people affected by the change not involved in planning change change introduced too quickly or too slowly key job characteristics are changed fear of failure people affected feel change reflects badly on their past performance lack of confidence in people’s capacity to implement the change

A way of dealing with resistance ADKAR Model Awareness Desire Knowledge Ability Reinforcement

A way of dealing with resistance ADKAR Model Awareness - Why do you think the change is happening? Desire - Do you support this change? Knowledge - Do you have the training you need? Ability - Are you having any difficulty implementing these skills and knowledge? If yes, in what areas? Reinforcement - Are you getting the support you need? Is there adequate reinforcement and support for the change going forward? In what areas do you need additional support or reinforcement?

Educational Innovation Reasons for Failure (Fullan) Believing that complex problems can be solved quickly Adopting innovations which have only symbolic benefit Responding too quickly to fads Misunderstanding resistance as an attempt to block, rather than as indicating a need for help and support Allowing pockets of success to fail through lack of support

Educational Innovation Strategies for Success (Fullan) Change is a learning process (and therefore needs to be regarded as such) Change is a journey, not a blue print – it involves not just one-off solutions, but continuous planning and adjusting Problems arise from the change process; these are natural and expected and must be identified and solved Change is resource hungry Change requires local power to manage it; it can't be managed by remote control from a central power source Change is systemic: it involves linkages and interconnections among many systems and issues in the organization.

Managing innovation effectively Activity Consider a change management process that you were part of. How effective was it? What could have made it more effective?

7 steps to disaster... How to make change fail: 1 Create a climate in which people are afraid to make mistakes 2 Practise mushroom management and only communicate via 3 Don’t explain why change is necessary or desirable 4 Make sure staff don’t have the time, skills and resources to carry out the change 5 Act yourself in a way that is contrary to the proposed change expected of others 6 Introduce new change initiatives daily 7 Focus on the blame/problem rather than the solution/objective

Managing innovation effectively Vision Implementation Reinforcement

Communication Different people want to know the answers to different questions. What is this about? Why is this important? How can this be done? What are the implications for me and others?

Discussion Introducing a multilingual programme Based on what we have seen and discussed here, how might we go about introducing a multilingual programme in our organisation?