The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said that “change is the only constant in life." Most of us associated with education may not have experienced the truth of this statement in our profession. Over the last several decades education did not change much. And, then the Covid-19 pandemic changed everything about education. The National Education Policy 2020 proposes to change everything else.
As we move forward, each one of us will witness astronomical changes at the individual level as well as organizational level. The profession of teaching as well as the process of schooling is about to change. What are the skills required to manage this change and how can we develop these skills?
The 62nd episode of Friday@5 will answer these questions for you during an energizing and empowering conversation with:
Dr. Irfan A. Rizvi, Professor of Leadership & Change Management at International Management Institute (IMI), New Delhi
Ms. Maneesha Kapur, Lead, Change Management & Culture Transformation Practice at International Finance Corporation Advisory
Ms. Meenakshi Sahni, Principal, Modern School, Vasant Vihar, Delhi
To register for this and future episodes of Friday@5, click here.
The ultimate aim of the change is to move from the current state to a more desirable future state.
Within a school context, this ultimately relates to improving student learning, either through direct changes to teaching and learning or through improving the effectiveness of school structures and systems to support learning. The change could be proactive (a deliberate, self-initiated action) or reactive (responding to a stimulus). Most of the changes witnessed over the last 18 months were reactive. However, it is time for us to bring about proactive changes.
There are three theories of change that are relevant to the work of school leaders. These theories are not recipes for change, but provide a way of thinking about change.
THEORY 1: CHANGE AS A SERIES OF STEPS
Knoster et al. (2000) saw five dimensions of change and showed that if any one of these
dimensions was missing, the change was likely to be unsuccessful. These dimensions are:
Vision
Resources (human and material)
Skills
Incentives
Action Planning
THEORY 2: CHANGE FORMULA
Gleicher’s change formula (quoted in Beckhard, 1975) is another theory that can be helpful
when embarking on the change process. The formula is:
D x V x F > R
where,
‘D’ is the need for change already being registered by people’s dissatisfaction with the reality today.
‘V’ is the vision for change being sufficiently compelling that most people are able to visualise what is possible.
‘F’ represents the first steps towards implementing the change being valued by the whole community.
If the previous three are in place, then it is likely that together their impact will be greater than the inevitable and understandable resistance (‘R’) that there will be to the change.
THEORY 3: FORCE FIELD ANALYSIS
This approach to change encourages you to focus on the conditions that are already in place that will firstly support the change and secondly identify the likely sources of resistance. Rate each driver of change on a scale of +1 to +5 and rate each resistance to change on a scale of -1 to -5. Create a bar graph with each bar denoting a driver or the resisting factor. The width of each bar must represent the relative importance of the force (driving or resisting).
You can now prioritize your efforts to tackle the restraining forces and make the most of the driving forces.
We will discuss more of this on Friday with our amazing guest panelists. So, let's get ready for change.