CEDO 565 - Leadership and Planning - Week Four

Orchestrating Change

The week has been filled with activities, readings and surveys where we think about how to affect continuous, effective change.  Chapter 5 of Gabriel's How to Thrive as a Teacher Leader explores improving environment, climate and morale to rally an organization around sustained quality improvement initiatives.  If either of these are poor then change will meet resistance.  In an earlier post I brought-up the 'Ready, Fire, Aim' approach which seldom works.  To solve problems one needs to conduct in-depth data-analysis, reflect on causation and gather input from all of the stakeholders.

It takes the entire system and its component parts motivated and pulling together towards the goal(s).  A leader should examine how change will impact all of the domains within a system and formulate an action plan which is realistic and allows for flexibility during implementation.  Many a battle plan is cast aside once the fighting begins. If the system is behind the cause and domains understand the end game, then forces can be realigned in the field to achieve objectives.


Many leaders enter an organization and attempt to make change without careful root cause analysis of underlying problems.  In our readings from McREL, data analysis and stakeholder reflection are necessary to understand where the system is today before establishing action plans.  Once a vision is established, and corresponding mission statements, the specifics for how to bring about enduring change can be implemented.

This past Monday our Study Group played the Change Game simulation for a fictitious school.  The goal was to bring about as many benefits to the school using what we knew about the various school personalities and specific activities.  Each activity cost a specific number of resources and they could never be recouped or won back.  Energy out was just that - energy out.  Well, our group did not do so well.  I think if we had taken the time to review the school personalities and had conducted our data analysis and system reflection first we might have garnered greater benefits for the school.

The simulation was a valuable lesson in that it parallels how institutional change is attempted by many leaders.  CEOs, Team Leads and Principals can fall into a trap where they feel that the mandate given by their superiors requires them to do it all.  Effective and continuous change, especially a change in the culture, is best served when all of the system components pull together in common purpose.   Team and team inter-relationships need to be healthy and professional. The leader, instead of trying to play every role, acts as the conductor leading an orchestra.  They understand the interplay between all components and helps them work together to create beautiful sounds that do not detract but complement the actions of one another.