Understanding and Facilitating Systems Change Cardinal Stritch University EDU 575: Leading Organizational Development Dr. Jack Parker Dr. Robert Davidovich Copyright (Robert Davidovich, Jack Parker, 2010) This work is the intellectual property of the authors. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for noncommercial, educational purposes, provided that the copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that copying is by permission of the authors. To disseminate otherwise or to be republished requires written permission of the author.
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Understanding and Facilitating Systems Change
Cardinal Stritch UniversityEDU 575: Leading Organizational Development
Dr. Jack ParkerDr. Robert Davidovich
Copyright (Robert Davidovich, Jack Parker, 2010) This work is the intellectual property of the authors. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for noncommercial, educational purposes, provided that the copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that copying is by permission of the authors. To disseminate otherwise or to be republished requires written permission of the author.
Systems Change
When is it time to help our education systems become better?
andWhen is it time to help our education systems
become different?
Two Responsibilities of Leadership
• Get better Improve to get the most out of what is already
present.
• Become different Innovate to bring forth what is not present.
Improvement is not Enough
The important challenge facing school leaders, at all levels, is to realize that improving and innovating are both necessary and that both need to be a part of their leadership repertoire.
Source: Davidovich, Nikolay, Laugerman, Commodore (2010),“Beyond School Improvement: The Journey to Innovative Leadership”, Corwin Press
Becoming Different
Becoming different goes beyond continuously getting better.
It involves concepts such as:•Transformation
•Adaptive challenges•Innovation
Much of what we have learned about managing improvement, won’t help us innovate.We must learn how to lead for “becoming different.”
Innovation•What it is•Why it is important
Designing an environment that is a seedbed for visionary thinking and adaptive action.
Egg Video
Although we try, transformation cannot be externally mandated or directed. It can only be provoked. Change in internal meaning, not change by external mandate, is the source and catalyst for living system transformation.
- Stephanie Pace Marshall
Becoming Different
Becoming different is not just doing something new;
it is building capacity for doing things in a new way – to build capacity for ongoing
change.
S-curve: reveals what is involved in ongoing change.
S-curve Life Cycle
• What ideas in education are at the mature stage of the S-curve life cycle?
• What ideas are at the growth stage?
• What ideas are at the introduction stage?
S-curve Life Cycle
In innovative systems, the need for transformation is provoked here not here
Leaping to a New Life Cycle
Beyond Improvement
• To maintain relevancy with the external environment, we all must get better at addressing problems where current know-how won’t create the answers.
• This is leading for innovation.
Technical problems
Adaptive challenges
those problems where people apply current know-how to develop solutions (“best practices”)
challenges where a new way must be learned in order to solve the problem (“new, untested, and uncertain”)
Heifetz and Linsky (2002), Leadership on the Line, Harvard Business School Press
Technical problem (Improvement)•a solution is already known •the knowledge and capacity exist to solve the problem •a proven procedure exists to gradually teach someone how to do it
Adaptive challenge (Innovation)•the necessary knowledge to solve the problem does not yet exist•requires creating the knowledge and the tools to solve the problem in the act of working on it
Wagner, et al (2006), Change Leadership: A Practical guide to Transforming Our Schools, Jossey-Bass.
Adaptive ChallengesAdaptive challenges are addressed through new discoveries and new learning and they require adjustments in attitudes, values, and behaviors before they can be successful.
Heifetz and Linsky (2002), Leadership on the Line, Harvard Business School Press
Leadership Dynamic
What’s the work?
Who does the work?
TechnicalCreate
solutionsFormally identified
Adaptive Create meaning
Everyone
Leadership Challenge“Indeed, the single most common source of leadership failure we’ve been able to identify – in politics, community life, business, or the non-profit sector – is that people, especially those in positions of authority, treat adaptive challenges like technical problems.”
Heifetz and Linsky (2002), Leadership on the Line, Harvard Business School Press
Leaping to a New Life Cycle
What it takes to lead here and what it takes to lead here
are two very different things.
IMPROVEMENT
INNOVATION
Important DistinctionLeading for improvement and leading for innovation require very different leadership attributes.
Improvement values: •Quantitative measurement•Regulating•Stabilizing•Controlling variables, and •Standardization
Innovation at the other, less familiar/comfortable end of the leadership continuum values: •Ambiguity•Uncertainty•Letting disturbances create imbalance so that old ways can break apart – creating the space for renewal and adaptation
Dilemma
The principles on the innovative side of the leadership spectrum are counter to what we have learned about leading change in traditional, command-and-control organizations. This creates a dilemma both for leadership and for what employees expect from leadership.
Source: Davidovich, Nikolay, Laugerman, Commodore (2010), “Beyond School Improvement: The Journey to Innovative Leadership”, Corwin Press
American Heritage DictionaryEquilibrium. 1. A condition in which all acting influences are canceled by others resulting in a stable, balanced, or unchanging system. 2. Physics. The condition of a system in which the resultant of all acting forces is zero ….
Leader-centered Idea-centered
Leader’s role Create stability Use instability to create
meaning and relationshipsLeader’s
role
Important Mindset
Certainty and predictability Uncertainty and ambiguity Important
Mindset
Overarching value Control Trust Overarching
value
Command-and-Control Expectations• Reduce uncertainty• Eliminate disturbances• Analyze carefully • Correct deviations • Specify in detail • Coordinate carefully• Eliminate overlap• Power emanates from the top
Technical problem•a solution is already known •a proven procedure exists to gradually teach someone how to do it
Adaptive challenge•the necessary knowledge to solve the problem does not yet exist•requires creating the knowledge and the tools to solve the problem in the act of working on it
Key Elements:•Identity
•Information•Relationships
It Starts with Common Purpose
“Purpose and principle, clearly understood and articulated, and
commonly shared, are the genetic code of any healthy organization. To the degree that you hold purpose and principles in common among you, you can dispense
with command-and-control.”
Dee Hock, founder and former CEO of VISA
Leadership Paradox
“Great organizations keep clear the difference between their core values (which never change) and operating strategies and cultural practices (which endlessly adapt to a changing world).”
As a leader, your real work is to help your organization:Never change, while helping it endlessly adapt.
Jim Collins, (2005). Good to great and the social sectors: Why business thinking is not the answer. (Monograph). San Francisco: Elements Design Group
Leading Organizational ChangeGetting Better Becoming Different
Improvement-orientation: seeking solutions from within current capacities Purpose: Manage for results
Innovation-orientation: seeking solutions from outside of current capacities Purpose: Designing an environment that is a seedbed for visionary thinking and adaptive actionStrategy:•Create context•Disturb the system•Connect the system to itself
Success – a high performing, adaptive culture
Technical Problems
Adaptive Challenges
What improvement do you think would help make progress toward your goal by solving a major problem, and what innovation might address the major challenge?
Leading Toward the Future•As you look to your district’s
future, do you see what lies ahead as technical problems or as adaptive challenges?
•Are you hoping to help your organization get better or become different?
Your SIP Challenge: Technical or Adaptive?
Examining the main challenges and problems identified in your SIP, are you
dealing more with technical problems or adaptive challenges?
