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Chapter 3

The Complexity of the Change Process

The issue is not that individual teachers and schools do not innovate and change all the time. They do. The problem is with the kinds of changes that occur in the educational system, their fragile quality, and their random and idiosyncratic nature.

—The Consortium on Productivity in the Schools (1995, p. 23)

We are wise to believe it is difficult to change, to recognize that character has a forward propulsion which tends to carry it unaltered into the future, but we need not believe it is impossible to change…. We create ourselves. The sequence is suffering, insight, will, action, change.

—Allen Wheelis (1973, pp. 101–102)

Those who review the research for help on how to implement and sustain a successful change process are likely to become confused. Consider the following explanations that have been offered for the failure of school reform initiatives:

• The change moved too fast—people were overwhelmed.

• The change moved too slowly—people lost their enthusiasm.

• The change lacked strong leadership from the principal.

• The change relied too heavily on the leadership of a strong principal.

• The change was too big and attacked too much at once—people change incrementally, not holistically.

• The change was too small—organizations need a more aggressive, comprehensive shake-up.

• The change was top-down without buy-in from the faculty.

• The change was bottom-up without the support of the central office or administration.

• Gains were celebrated too soon, and the sense of urgency was lost.

• Gains were not recognized and celebrated, and the initiative lost momentum.

• Schools were unwilling to change—they were steadfastly committed to the status quo.

• Schools embraced every change that came along and careened from fad to fad.

• Leaders failed to develop a critical level of support before initiating change.

• Leaders mistakenly insisted on overwhelming support as a prerequisite for initiating change; this stipulation ensured implementation would never occur.

Each of these observations can, of course, be a valid assessment of the failure of a change initiative. Yet the paradoxes they present fail to offer guidance on overcoming obstacles to substantive innovation. What is the answer then? What must educators understand about the change process if they are to transform their schools into learning communities?

Both research and practice offer one inescapable, insightful conclusion to those considering an improvement initiative: change is difficult. After more than a decade of efforts to help schools reform according to the principles of the Essential Schools Movement, a weary Ted Sizer admitted, “I was aware that it would be hard, but I was not aware of how hard it would be” (1996, p. 1). The complexity and difficulty of change is a fact that cannot be overstated.

One of the most damaging myths that aspiring school administrators often learn is that the change process, if managed well, will proceed smoothly. That myth amounts to little more than a cruel hoax, an illusion that encourages educators to view problems and conflict as evidence of mistakes or a mismanaged process rather than as the inevitable byproducts of serious reform. Seymour Sarason (1995) tried to expose that myth when he wrote:

The decision to undertake change more often than not is accompanied by a kind of optimism and rosy view of the future that, temporarily at least, obscures the predictable turmoil ahead. But that turmoil can not be avoided and how well it is coped with separates the boys from the men, the girls from the women. It is … rough stuff…. There are breakthroughs, but also brick walls (p. vii).

Those who seek to initiate substantive change must recognize that an existing system with a well-entrenched structure and culture is already in place. In general, those working within that system will always resist, always fight to preserve the system. The fragmented, piecemeal approach to change that characterizes most school reform lacks the power and focus needed to overcome that resistance.

Thus, change is a complex and formidable task that is certain to be accompanied by pain and conflict. Many argue that pain is an essential element for initiating change, that the familiar status quo is always preferable to change until the traditional way of doing things results in considerable discomfort to those in the organization. We contend that a learning community can foster constant exploration of change as part of its culture rather than as a response to pain. But that does not mean discomfort either can or should be avoided. The change process is necessarily filled with uncertainty, anxiety, and problems—conditions that are certain to lead to conflict. In fact, the absence of problems and conflict, particularly in the early stages of change, suggests that the initiatives are superficial rather than substantive. As Michael Fullan (1993) has emphasized, “Conflict is essential to any successful change effort” (p. 27).

Attempts to persuade educators to participate in reform by assuring them that change will be easy are patently dishonest. Principals and teachers should be advised, and should acknowledge, from the outset that transforming their schools from the industrial model to learning communities will be difficult, regardless of how carefully they plan and how skillfully they manage the process. Still, they can make their efforts to change more effective by learning important lessons from the common mistakes others have made when they initiated the change process.

Common Mistakes in the Change Process

John Kotter (1996) of the Harvard Business School has identified the eight most common mistakes in the change process:

1. Allowing too much complacency. Kotter contends that the biggest mistake people make when trying to change organizations is to plunge ahead without establishing a high enough sense of urgency (p. 4). This is a fatal error because change efforts always fail when complacency levels are high.

2. Failing to create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition. Individuals working alone, no matter how competent or charismatic they are, will never have everything that is needed to overcome the powerful forces of tradition and inertia. A key to successful change is creating first a guiding coalition and ultimately a critical number of people within the organization who will champion the change process together.

3. Underestimating the power of vision. Vision helps to direct, align, and inspire the actions of the members of an organization. Without the clear sense of direction that a shared vision provides, the only choices left to individuals within an organization are to “do their own thing,” to check constantly with supervisors for assurance about the decisions they must make, or to debate every issue that arises.

4. Undercommunicating the vision by a power of 10. Without credible communication, and a lot of it, change efforts are doomed to fail. Three types of errors are common. In the first, leaders underestimate the importance of communicating the vision. They mistakenly believe that sending a few memos, making a few speeches, or holding a few meetings will inform people in the organization of the change and recruit them to it. A second mistake is divided leadership. While the head of the organization articulates the importance of the change, other leaders in the organization may tend to ignore it. The third mistake is incongruency between what key leaders say and how they behave. Strategies to communicate vision are always ineffective if highly visible people in the organization still behave in ways that are contrary to the vision.

5. Permitting structural and cultural obstacles to block the change process. Organizations often fail to address obstacles that block change. These obstacles typically include (a) structures that make it difficult to act, (b) in-sufficient training and support for people who are critical to the initiative’s success, (c) supervisors who do not endorse the change, and (d) information and reward systems that are not aligned with the new vision. Simply declaring a new vision is not sufficient. The organization must make every effort to remove the structural and cultural barriers that threaten to impede the implementation of that vision.

6. Failing to create short-term wins. Change initiatives risk losing momentum if there are no short-term goals to reach and celebrate. Most people will not “go on the long march” unless they see compelling evidence within a year that the journey is producing desirable results. Creating short-term wins requires establishing goals, identifying performance criteria, achieving the goals, and then publicly celebrating the results.

7. Declaring victory too soon. There is also a difference between celebrating a win and declaring victory. Until change initiatives become anchored in the culture, they are fragile and subject to regression. Handled properly, the celebration of short-term wins can give the change initiative the credibility it needs to tackle bigger, more substantive problems. Handled improperly, this celebration can contribute to the complacency that is lethal to the change process.

8. Neglecting to anchor changes firmly in the culture. Change sticks only when it is firmly entrenched in the school or organization’s culture, as part of “the way we do things around here” (see Chapter 7). As Kotter concludes, “Until new behaviors are rooted in social norms and shared values, they are always subject to degradation as soon as the pressures associated with a change effort are removed” (p. 14).

These eight common mistakes represent potential minefields for those attempting to traverse the perilous path of transforming a school from its industrial traditions into a learning community. Any one of them can destroy the change process. The critical question thus becomes, “What strategies can a school use to avoid these mistakes as it initiates a change process?”

Creating a Learning Community—Where Do We Begin?

Kotter’s contention that successful change initiatives require a sense of urgency can, of course, be troubling for those who are considering school reform. Most educators simply do not seem to respond to warnings of impending doom. The rhetoric of A Nation at Risk was, after all, an explicit attempt to alert America to an alleged national crisis, and yet it failed to evoke much response from teachers and principals. Currently, both disparaging critics and critical friends of education warn that public schools are in peril. The chairman of IBM blasts public education as a “bureaucratic monopoly” that has been given one last chance to save itself before being “abandoned across the board” (Gerstner et al., 1994, p. 22). And after 10 years of research on the relationship between the public and its schools, the president of the Kettering Foundation made the following conclusion: “The research forces me to say something I never thought I would say—or even think. The public school system, as we know it, may not survive into the next century” (Matthews, 1997, p. 741). Phil Schlechty (1997) is among the reformers who warns educators that unless they move quickly to transform their schools in dramatic ways, “public schools will not be a vital component of America’s system of education in the twenty-first century” (p. xi). Nearly one in four Americans, when questioned on whether public education can ever be reformed, believes that finding alternatives to public education is preferable to further reform efforts (Elam, Rose, & Gallup, 1997). Yet, in spite of such urgent messages, there is little evidence to suggest that contemporary educators recognize a pressing need for change.

Many contend that it is impossible to create a sense of urgency in school administrators and teachers, and they point to a history of failed reforms to support their contention. As the argument goes, there is virtually nothing that can be done to shake educators from their complacency and convince them of a critical need for change because public schools represent virtual monopolies in most communities, compulsory attendance laws assure schools of a captive audience, and many teachers are protected by tenure and seniority laws that seem to give them lifetime job security. Most of the present-day calls for school choice, charter schools, open enrollments, and the abolition of tenure reflect the argument that, under current conditions, there is virtually no motivation for educators to take any change initiative seriously. Proponents of these alternatives contend that unless schools feel “the spur of the market,” they will never change (Gerstner et al., 1994, p. 85).

Is a sense of urgency a prerequisite for change? If so, is it possible to shake off the prevailing complacency and create that sense of urgency among the personnel in public schools? Can this be accomplished even in schools with good reputations and evidence of widespread community support? The answer to these questions is a reverberating yes. “Urgency” need not be the equivalent of “crisis” or “panic.” Certainly a struggle for survival can generate a feeling of urgency, but that feeling is likely to be short-lived. Motivation for change will last only until the crisis is averted. More enduring catalysts for change are a powerful sense of purpose, a widely shared vision of what an organization might become, and a collective commitment to act in a way that will make that vision a reality. A culture of continuous improvement does not require a persistent state of panic. Schools can certainly become organizations that are characterized by a consistently high state of urgency and the absence of complacency if they are guided by a compelling picture of a future that is clearly superior to the status quo. The concept of the professional learning community can provide that compelling picture.

Summary

Managing the change process requires the ability to operate within a myriad of paradoxes. Those who attempt to transform their schools into professional learning communities should recognize that change is difficult but not impossible. They must be prepared for the anxiety, the discomfort, and the ongoing conflict that always accompany change initiatives, particularly in the early stages of the process. According to Kotter (1996), the most common mistakes in the change process include:

1. Allowing too much complacency.

2. Failing to create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition.

3. Underestimating the power of vision.

4. Undercommunicating the vision by a power of 10.

5. Permitting structural obstacles to block the change process.

6. Failing to create short-term wins.

7. Declaring victory too soon.

8. Neglecting to anchor changes firmly in the culture.

Some contend that schools will never change unless those within them feel a sense of urgency. These critics call for doomsday strategies that threaten the very existence of public education. But while such a struggle for survival can generate a feeling of urgency, that feeling is likely to last only until the crisis has passed. A more enduring catalyst for change is a compelling picture of what the school might become—one that projects positive images and practical alternatives that are clearly superior to the status quo. The concept of the professional learning community can provide that picture.