Leading in a Culture of Change

Information for this page was taken from Leading in a Culture of Change by Michael Fullan - Josey-Bass Publishers, 2001: San Francisco

Change

Michael Fullan begins his discussion of Leading in a Culture of Change by stating that the more complex society gets, the more sophisticated leadership must become. Complexity means not only change, but rapidly occuring, unpredictable, and nonlinear change - the kind of change that tends to significantly upset the static systems of public schools. He goes on to describe the leader's dilemma; the conundrum of, on the one hand, failing to act when the environment around you is radically changing, while on the other hand making quick decisions under conditions of mind-racing mania, which can both lead to ineffectiveness and stagnation. Fullan proposes a theory of leadership that examines five synergistic themes of the the change process: moral purpose, understanding change, developing relationships, and coherence making. The picture below graphically represents Fullan's leadership framework.

Moral Purpose

Moral purpose means acting with the intention of making a positive difference in the lives of employees, customer, and society as a whole. Moral purpose is about ends and means, doing the right thing for the right reasons. Mora purpose rests on the premise that you will be a leader without followers if you don’t treat others well and fairly.

Understanding Change

Fullan writes that understanding the change process is exceedingly elusive. He posits that effective leaders have the right kinds of sensitivity to implementation of initiatives, in other words, they know that change is a process, not an event. There are six guidelines to understanding the change process listed below, which can be examined further by clicking on the link to the new wiki page for Understanding Change.

1. The goal is not to innovate the most.
2. It is not enough to have the best ideas.
3. Appreciate early difficulties of trying something new - the implementation dip.
4. Redefine resistance as a potential positive force.
5. Reculturing is the name of the game.
6. Never a checklist, always complexity.

Relationships

Fullan has discovered in his research that the single factor common to every successful change initiative is that relationships improve. His basic premise is taht if relationships improve, things get better - if they remain the same or get worse, ground is lost. Thus leaders must be consummate relationship builders with diverse people and groups - especially with people different from themselves.

Knowledge Building

Knowledge creation and sharing requires a collaboraitve culture. In Sweet Home, we define Fullan's concept of knowledge building as "learning", and the construct that facilitates it is the professional learning community. Fullan writes that the new work on knowledge creation and sharing reflects an amazing congruence with three themes:

• People will not voluntarily share knowledge unless they feel some moral commitment to do so;
• People will not share unless the dynamics of change favor exchange;
• Data without relationships merely cause more information glut – turning information into knowledge is a social process, and for that you need good relationships

In the Arlington Admininistrative PLC, knowledge building starts with analyzing data, both result data and cause data.

Coherence Making

Effective leaders help faculties to make sense of the inevitable "messiness" that accompanies all change. Fullan observes that there are often hidden benefits in the messiness - creative ideas and novel solutions that are generated with the status quo is disrupted. Fullan describes that helping to make coherence out of the "chaos" of change is really a matter of timing for leaders. There's a time to disturb and a time to cohere, the the theme of coherence making defines strategies for both actions.

Fullan's 9 Elements of Successful Change

1. Define closing the gap as the overarching goal (achievement gap & income gap)

• To be effective leaders have to be on the dance floor and the balcony simultaneously

2. Attend initially to the 3 basics

• Literacy
• Numeracy
• Well-being of children
• Link the cognitive and emotional environment

3. Be driven by tapping into people’s dignity and sense of respect

• Respect is the motivational starting point
• Suspend judgment and be less pejorative

4. Ensure the best people are working on the problem

• Most difficult circumstances are not attractive from an incentive perspective for the highest quality people

5. Assume that lack of capacity is the initial problem and then work on it continually

• Start of capacity - you can’t change beliefs without new behavioral experiences
• Behavior first & attitude second

6. Stay the course through continuity of good direction by leveraging leadership.

7. Build internal accountability linked to external accountability

• Individual
• Collective
• Focus on Standards

8. Establish conditions for the evolution of positive pressure

9. Use the previous 9 strategies to build public confidence

Fullan's Breakthrough Framework for Change

Resources for Leading in a Culture of Change