2: Down to the human dimensions of change
This well-organized book gets more to the heart of the matter than most books on organizational change. The heart of the matter is looking at change from the intimate perspective of the human being, not from the esoteric constructs of a change theory. Too often we have ignored the human dimensions of change-- the need for meaning and the inevitable (normal) resistance associated with change. While its context stays within the school system throughout, I can't imagine why those in business would not benefit from reading The Human Side...
Evans encourages hope over experience when considering organizational change. Almost all of us know why. We have underestimated the amount of training required for a leader to craft a process that creates meaning and commitment among participants in a manner remote from exhortation and pressure. We have underestimated how "extensive and complex" reforms are. We have often sought first order change, improvement of the status quo, when second order change is needed-- changes in "assumptions, goals, structures, roles and norms." Change must reach deep inside to the place where fundamental practices and beliefs reside. Change will take place to the extent that practices and beliefs change. Evans points out that the "fierce paradox" involved requires the target of change (teachers) to be the change agents.
The first third of the book asks us to understand the immensity of the task before us. This is an important step. Having fully grasped that reality, we are much more likely to summon the attitudes, training, commitment and resources needed.
There are other paradoxes that Evans identifies. Thinking about meaning should lead us to consider culture, but it is culture that supports continuity, that which is to be disturbed. A change initiative has top-down beginnings, but it must also be bottom up.
Two of my favorite subjects appear in the book-- authenticity and followership. Authenticity is hard to come by because of the coercive nature of school leadership. It is hard to be your honest self when there are pressures for you to be someone else. And followership? How many books have been written on followership compared to leadership?
Chapter Six is titled "Staff: Understanding Reluctant Faculty." I would like to have seen another paradox appear in the book, an added chapter titled "Leaders: Understanding the Reluctant Leader." If faculty are to experience loss, uncertainty, confusion and conflict, so too will leaders. It has been my experience that, as gatekeepers and humans that will be subjected to the above experiences, leaders have been more reluctant to change than a subset of the faculty. While I think this book works hard at being practical, it would have been helpful to be given more tools with which to work.
I consider this a significant book. It is approachable, practical and addresses what change practitioners have often ignored. Highly recommended.
--Jack Bender, author of Disregarded: Transforming the School and Workplace through Deep Respect and Courage
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5: The Real Side of School Change
According to Evans, the goal of this immensely readable and practical book is to help school leaders "implement change in ways that truly `take'." He has divided this project into three parts. In the first, he describes the nature of change; in the second, the dimensions of change; and in the third, the dynamics of leading innovation. Evans' book is perhaps different from others in that he looks at change from where most schools are, not from where he believes they should be. In so doing, he describes what it means for schools to grow and improve given the very human constraints that define an educators' world.In describing the nature of change, Evans sees a need to move away from common organizational assumptions rooted in Taylor's scientific management practices to assumptions that are more aligned with the nature of today's organizational reality. Given that the environments in which organizations operate today are no longer stable, but turbulent, change strategists must alter the way they seek to improve their organizations. Taylor's legacy assumes efficient organizations are stable, rational, hierarchical, and product-oriented. Evans argues that this "rational-structural" paradigm is less useful than the "strategic-systemic" paradigm, which assumes that efficient organizations are fluid, adaptable, open, and process-oriented. Given that cultures (school cultures as well) are fundamentally conservative, changing schools means changing school cultures. The problem is change challenges peoples' competence, creates confusion and causes conflict. Effective change strategies must harness people's competencies, seek coherence, and work productively with conflict. In describing the dimensions of change, Evans argues that change must be desirable and feasible. He includes a useful table of tasks of change (p. 56), which describes "unfreezing" the school's culture by increasing the fear of not trying, making change meaningful to the change agents, developing new behaviors and ways of thinking, revising existing structures and norms, and generating support for change. In one of his key chapters, Evans addresses the issue of the "reluctant faculty" and offers an analysis of the faculty member in midcareer (the average age of teachers in the US is forty-five). In part, midcareer educators are where they should be: their personal roles (partner, parent, community member) in life have become important, and the material rewards of work have become necessary expectations. Yet for many, educating young people has become less challenging and the rewards and recognition for what they do have become less frequent. These faculty are isolated and unfreezing them is a significant challenge. Schools must offer more new opportunities for leadership, appropriately recognize and reward teachers at all stages of their careers, and seek new ways for teachers to develop professionally and personally. Additionally, to undertake effective change, schools must assess their organizational capacity by examining six school specific contexts, which Evans describes in some depth: (1) Occupational framework (2) Politics (3) History (4) Stress (5) Finances, and (6) Culture (pp. 119-143). In the last section of the book, Evans focuses on leadership as a key dimension of innovation. Given that effective reform in today's schools requires trust and consensus, authenticity is the key quality for school leaders - be they teachers, administrators, or parents. Major change, he argues, almost never arises from the bottom up, it comes from purposeful leadership. Purposeful leadership means generating consensus around a school's core purposes and demonstrating tireless commitment to them. Purposeful leadership builds followership and with followership comes change. (Evans offers an exploration of six ways to build optimal participation on pages 246-252.) Leaders should emphasize the positive, keep the path clear (when you add, take something away), and be flexible with timelines. The leader can't ask others to change unless s/he changes first. And, leaders must challenge "unprincipled resistance" from staff who violate group values. Schools, like America's top corporations, must reward people for trying innovations, and avoid punishing failure. This book, more than most I've ever read, is true to its title. Evans is humane, intelligent, insightful, and realistic. This book continues to enrich me each time I re-read it.
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