Patrick F. Bassett, NAIS President bassett@nais

Change Agency Leadership for a Strategic Future Patrick F. Bassett, NAIS Presidentbassett@nais.org

For “Teaching in 21st C. Schools (The Right-Brained Future)”: See The Right-Brained Future PPT • For “Change Agency Leadership (How To Change When Change Is Hard)”: See Change Agency PPT • For “Schools of the Future (Creating 21st C. Schools)”: See Schools of the Future PPT) Patrick F. Bassett, President www.nais.org

PatBassett Wisdom from a five year old: "My first day in kindergarten was great, but it's a long time to keep your shoes on." ~Avery Maher. (NB: The To-Do/Not To Do List.) less than 10 seconds ago from web Up to your Elbows in Routine Crises? See PFB on Twitter: Tweeters & Followers PatBassett We know it’s impossible to make everyone happy. It may be impossible to make anyone happy. Key to successful leadership: Hire happy people. .5:09 PM Jul 6th from web PatBassett Made a terrible blunder you need time to fix? Buy time by proposing a change in the dress code: everyone will be distracted for months. less than 5 seconds ago from web PatBassett Casey Stengel Leadership Lesson: “The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.” 8:36 PM Jun 22nd from web

PFB on Twitter PatBassett "The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet." --William Gibson. 2:43 PM Oct 13th from web PatBassett Schools: On a train to the future? At the station waiting for the train to stop? Or saddling a horse & looking to the past with optimism? 9:23 AM May 26th from web PatBassett A condition of 21st C. schools: teachers as professionals who do action research, lesson study, and rounds. 11:57 AM Jun 9th from web

Strategic Issue: Professionalizing the ProfessionSource: Katherine Boles, HGSE/NAIS Seminar, Nov. 2006

Strategic Issue: Change Agency • Schools Impervious to Change: “It’s easier to change the course of history than it is to change a history course in schools.” Lou Salza, Independent School Head. • Inertia:Teachers see meaning in continuity and timelessness of values. (But: “Even a stopped clock is right twice every day. After some years it can boast of a long series of successes.” Ebner-Eschenbach). See Robert Kegan’sImmunity to Change: Col 1 = Well-intentioned goals. Col 2 = Behaviors I do/fail to do that prevent goals from being achieved. Col 3 = Invisible competing commitments. Foot on gas and brake. • Crises Discounted: Public domain: failing schools subjected to kaleidoscope of imposed “reforms”: none work. Private domain: failing schools close; for the rest, “good is the enemy of great”: Jim Collins’ Good to Great. Absence of provoking crisis makes avoidance easy.

Main Impediment to Change: Consensus model of decision making. (“My biggest challenge is convincing my faculty members that they ae not self-employed.”) ~Lou Salza. The power of agenda-setting. • Coalition-building Model: Betting on the Fastest Horses: targeted buy-in via modeling. Ride the “tipping point” horses. (Malcolm Gladwell’s mavens, connectors, and salespeople). • Recruiting “the coalition of the willing.” Margaret Mead Dictum: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” • Rethinking Motivation: Dan Pink on the “Science of Motivation.” Dan & Chip Heath on orchestrating change: Switch: “How To Change Things When Change Is Hard” Strategic Issue: Change Agency

Play See 11:00 – 13:07 http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

Switch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard ~Chip and Dan Heath (Sticky Messages) • Direct the Rider • Find the bright spots • Script the critical moves • Postcard of the destination • Motivate the Elephant • Find the feeling • Shrink the change • Shape the Path • Tweak the environment • Build the habits • Rally the herd • Example: Crystal Jones, TFA first-grade teacher in an inner city school in Atlanta where there was no kindergarten. “By the end of this school year, you are going to be third graders.”

Source: Center for Ethical Leadership (Bill Grace, Pat Hughes, & Pat Turner), Kellogg National Leadership Program Seminar, Snoqualine, WA, 7/10/97. Reference: William Bridges, Transitions; Kurt Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science; Virginia Satir, The Satir Model; George David, Compressed Experience Workplace Simulation; Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, On Death & Dying; Tom Peters, In Search of Excellence. • The research on change indicates that there are predictable stages individuals experience whenever a major change event appears. What are they? • Exercise: • Identify 2 major change events in your life • Indicate the stages you went through as the change occurred. • As a small group determine what stages you had in common despite differences in the change events you were thinking of. Seven Stages of the Change Cycle

Source: Center for Ethical Leadership (Bill Grace, Pat Hughes, & Pat Turner), Kellogg National Leadership Program Seminar, Snoqualine, WA, 7/10/97. Reference: William Bridges, Transitions; Kurt Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science; Virginia Satir, The Satir Model; George David, Compressed Experience Workplace Simulation; Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, On Death & Dying; Tom Peters, In Search of Excellence. • Business as Usual: the routine; the frozen state; the status quo • External Threat: potential disaster; propitious change event; an ending; a “death in the family”; an unfreezing via the introduction of a foreign element; disequilibrium; dissatisfaction with the status quo. • Denial: refusal to read the Richter scale; anger and rage; chaos. The Seven Stages of the Change Cycle

The Seven Stages of the Change Cycle • Mourning: confusion; depression. • Acceptance: letting go. • Renewal: creativity; the incubation state of new ideas and epiphanies; new beginnings; movement; vision of what “better” might look like; reintegration; first practical steps; practice of new routines. • New Structure: sustainable change; the new status quo; new “frozen” state of restored equilibrium; spiritual integration; internalization and transformation of self.

Conventional Wisdom: Raise the Volume… • Declare war, demonize the enemy, mobilize the public • Problems with Raising the Volume in School Culture… • Skepticism: Teachers are intellectuals--declarations of imminent collapse are met with suspicion. • Inertia: Teachers see meaning in continuity and timelessness of values. (But: “Even a stopped clock is right twice every day. After some years it can boast of a long series of successes.” Ebner-Eschenbach) • Good is the enemy of great: Jim Collins’ Good to Great. Absence of provoking crisis makes avoidance easy. Overcoming Resistance to Change

Problems with Raising the Volume in School Culture… • Success: Track record of independent schools the greatest impediment to change: We can’t declare war when schools are enjoying decades of peace and prosperity. So why advocate change???? • Increasingly the public identifies high quality schools with innovativeness, and least identifies innovativeness with independent schools. • The independent school model may not be financially sustainable in it current incarnation of skyrocketing tuitions. • What’s best for kids needs to be reasserted as institutions almost always over time gravitate towards doing what’s best for adults. Overcoming Resistance to Change

Effecting Change • Developing Buy-in for Change: • Coercive model works (“We’re about to close unless all faculty including department chairs teach five classes instead of four with 20-25 kids in each class”)… …but it works at a high cost to morale. • Appeal to idealism works (“We have an opportunity to create a new model here and become pioneers”)… …but it works only if you have a highly committed “band of brothers” and strong, visionary, and inspirational leadership.

Effecting Change • Developing Buy-in for Change: • Mutual benefit (“What’s in it for me?”) model works (“Beyond supporting this direction because ‘it’s the right thing to do,’ we are designing a new framework that is mutually beneficial to the school and its staff”)… …but it works only if you build in significant incentives.

Alternative to Conventional Wisdom (Raise the Volume)… • Lower the Noise… • By… • Talking about/Personalizing Change: the Seven Stages • Understanding and Using Power • Betting on the Fastest Horses Overcoming Resistance to Change

Acknowledging Denial & Mourning Stages of Change • All change begins not with a beginning but an ending. • Example: Getting married = end of… • being single • unconditional love • having your own bathroom (and towels) • the sports car

Effecting Change Abstracting and Personalizing Change Faculty exercise: What are your own major change events? A move? Marriage? Admin job? Can we predict & prepare for stages?

Strategic Issue: Outcomes in form of Demonstrations of Learning • Conduct a fluent conversation in a foreign language about of piece of writing in that language. • Write a cogent and persuasive opinion piece on a matter of public importance. • Declaim with passion and from memory a passage that is meaningful, of one’s own or from the culture’s literature or history. • Produce or perform a work of art. • Construct and program a robot capable of performing a difficult physical task.

Strategic Issue: Outcomes in form of Demonstrations of Learning • Exercise leadership. • Using statistics, assess if a statement by a public figure is demonstrably true. • Assess media coverage of a global event from various cultural/national perspectives. • Describe a breakthrough for a team on which you participated in which you contributed to overcoming a human-created obstacle. • Demonstrate a commitment to creating a more sustainable future with means that are scalable.

PFB on Twitter PatBassettGramnesia = grandparents' forgetting how difficult it was to raise their children when critiquing the parenting of their grandchildren. (Modified, from Steve Morris, head, San Francisco Day School).10:10 PM Oct 5th from web

The End!

NAIS Strategic Planning: Breakout Groups (partnerships; school of future; sustainability, etc.) Why doesn’t anyone want to sit at the innovation table?

Robert Kegan’s Immunity to Change

Robert Kegan’s Immunity to Change Foot on gas……………………and on brake

Robert Kegan’s Immunity to Change

Patrick F. Bassett, NAIS President bassett@nais