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

InventionThe process of developing new technologies, projects, or procedures for an organization.

InnovationDeliberate, novel, specific change, which is thought to be more efficacious in accomplishing the goals of a system.

Organizational changeThe 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 valuesOrganization 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:FreezeUnfreezeMoving

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. 2000. Educational

Administration: A Problem-Based Approach. Chapter 3 School Reform. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Mark, Hanson, E. 1996. Educational Administration and Organization Behavior. Chapter 12 Educational Change. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Lunenburg, F, C., & Ornstein, A. C. 1996. Educational Administration: Concepts and Practice. Chapter 8 Organizational Change. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company.

Owens, Robert. 1998. Organizational Behavior in Education. Chapter 9 Organizational Change. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Journals

Books

Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives

John Naisbitt.1982

1. Industrial society moving to an information society2. Forced technology moving to high technology3. National economy moving to world economy4. Short term moving to long term5. Centralization moving to decentralization6. Institutional help moving to self help7. Representative democracy moving to participatory

democracy8. Hierarchies moving to networking9. 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 nationalism5. Privatization of the welfare state 6. Rise of the pacific rim7. 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

21st 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 bigThe entire community (all stakeholders) share a vision of changeThey collaborate and explore best practices world wide

National Key Result Areas (NKRAs)

Crime preventionReducing government corruption Increased access to quality education Improvements in the standard of living for low

income groupsUpgrades rural infrastructure Improvement in public transportation

Education NKRA

The four (4) thrusts:1. 72% enrolment across 4+ and 5+ cohorts by 20102. 90% literacy and numeracy by 2010 (LINUS

screening Literacy and Numeracy Screening)3. Target of 20 HPS (High Performing Schools) by

20104. 2% of principals rewarded by 2010

Units of Change (Sergiovanni)

The individual Needs, interests, relationships

The schoolSchool climate and school culture

The workflowThe change goals, the change targets, the change protocols, the curriculum and teaching requirements, and the supervisory and staff development support

The political systemAdministrative 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 Agent2. Machiavellians Change Agent3. Guerrillas Change Agent4. The Hatchet man Change agent

White-hat Change AgentMost change agents fall into this categoryThe 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 systemDiagnosis: Determine whether the client is aware of his/her problems

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

The Machiavellian Change AgentThe change agent might choose to be quite invisible, engineering events from behind the sceneRules for the agent (Baldridge)Concentrate your effortKnow when to fightLearn the historyBuild a coalitionJoin external constituencies Use committees effectivelyUse the formal system

Follow through to push the decision flowGlance backward when the change is completed

Hatchet men Change AgentsTheir arrival on the scene is a clear signal that major organizational surgery has been called forIn the field of education, we don’t see many hatchet men change agents

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

Types of Change

Planned changeConscious 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 changeAn alteration that emerges in a short time frame as a result of natural circumstances and random occurrencesIt just happensNo grand design directs the course of events

Evolutionary changeLong-range, cumulative consequences of major and minor alterations in the organization

Three Strategies of Planned Change(Robert Chin)

1. Empirical-rational change2. Power-coercive change3. Normative-reeducation change4. 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 strategiesWillingness to use sanctions in order to obtain compliance from adoptersIt requires that individuals comply with the wishes fo those who are in positions superior to theirsIn 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 StrategyAssumption: People adapt readily to new circumstancesChange 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:

TaskTechnologyStructurehuman

Lewin assumes that in any situation there are both driving and restraining forces that influence any change that may occur

Driving ForcesDriving forces are those forces affecting a situation that are pushing in a particular directionThey tend to initiate a change and keep it going

Restraining ForcesRestraining forces are forces acting to restrain or decrease the driving forcesApathy, 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 forOrganizational Change

Lunnerburg & Ornstein, 1996)

Government interventionIt is top-down hierarchy reforms

Society’s valuesHerzberg’s hygiene factors such as salary, job security, working conditions, supervision, organizational policies, and status. The absence of these factors results in employee job dissatisfactionThe quality of work life: employee participation in the organizationThe values of equity and efficiency

Technological change and knowledge explosionPart of it is due to research and development efforts within an organizationA great deal of development comes from outsideDevelopment 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 inadequatePoor quality decision makingInappropriate leadershipNonexistent of motivation

People factors include:Poor performance of teachers and studentsHigh absenteeismHigh dropout ratesHigh teacher turnoverLow teacher morale and motivationPoor community relationns

Targeting Process ofChange Management

Elements of the targeting process:Focus of changeLevel of changePotency of changeImpetus of change

Focus of changeIts 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 changeWilfred Brown has identified four levels of an organization:Manifest organization: Portrayed by line-and-staff chart that represents the formal organizationAssumed organization: The conventional wisdom about how the system actually works Extant organization: How the system actually worksRequisite 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 reactionEssential 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

AccountabilityIf test score are low, teachers are blamed. This will lead to the wrong focus for initiating change

Goal displacementGoal 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 organizationThe domestication of schools builds in layers of protective insulation (can be penetrated but not easily)

Costs: Time, energy, moneyIn educational organizations, it is rather difficult to obtain accurate measures of benefits as they relate to costsSunk costs also act as forces resistant to change

Resistance cycleFour-stage cycle (Goodwin Watson)Stage one: resistance appears massiveStage two: The pro and con forces become visibleStage three: The battle between the pro and con is onStage 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 expectationsThree career motivational patterns (Presthus)Up-ward mobileIndifferentambivalent

Search behaviorThere is evidence that the present procedures are not working well and results in anxiety

Psychological systemsPsychological forces that generate forces towards change (Goodwin Watson):HabitPrimary (success from completing a task)Selective perception and retentionDependenceInsecurity and regression

Rejection stagesIgnorance/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 lowerarchyThe power in the lowerarchy can generate forces that resist changeLack of experimental ethic

Conditions for Successful ChangeTo 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