participant handout packet · doesn’t mind rocking the boat (at the beginning of the change...
TRANSCRIPT
ESD Regional
Workshop
Year 2
Workshop 4
Participant
Handout
Packet
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Agenda 8:30 – 3:30
8:30 Enjoy a Continental Breakfast and Conversation with Colleagues
Sign-in and Name Tags 9:00 Salutations
Norms and Learning Intentions: Leading for Sustainability
9:15 Recalling and Connecting Today’s Work with Prior Learnings – Change Leadership: Efficacy & Accountability Transformational, Instructional and Learning Leadership Hattie’s “10 Mindframes” Applying and Reflecting on Leadership 9:40 Sustaining Change and Your Leadership
Reflection Activity – “The Fun Theory” 10:30 – 10:45 Break 10:45 Leaders’ Change Competencies and Sustainability 11:45 – 12:15 Lunch 12:15 “Peeling the Onion”: Change Sustainability Impediments to Sustainability
“Leadership and Sustainability" – Fullan
1:30 WSLA Summer Statewide Workshop: Introduction 1:45 – 2:00 Break 2:00 WSLA Summer Statewide Workshop: Details & Planning 3:00 Success Criteria, Next Steps and Evaluation of the Day
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Understanding the Change Competencies, Fullan, 2014
“Change Agent”: One who moves people and organizations forward
under difficult circumstances.
“Principal/Leader as Change Agent”: The leader’s role is to work through and help others
work through these ambiguities-sometimes by overcoming
resistance, but mostly by reassuring the potential losers that
there is something to gain; other times by helping the willing
gain the grounded confidence that is essential to success.
Protocol: READ, RETELL, RELATE, REFLECT
1. Form groups of 4
2. All 4 read “Introduction”
3. Decide who will review each change competency
4. Record the points on the advance organizer
5. Teach back the summary points
As a group, discuss:
✓ How does each competency relate to your experience as a
leader?
✓ How does each competency relate to your WSLA team?
✓ How might the change competencies factor in to your
leadership moves and with your team?
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Advance Organizer
Read, Retell, Relate, Reflect
Read and record ideas Relate to your
experiences
Reflect on how to
deepen your skills
Challenge
the Status
Quo
Build Trust
Create a
Commonly
Owned Plan
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Focus on
Team and
Self
Have a Sense
of Urgency
Commit to
Continuous
Improvement
Build
External
Networks
and
Partnerships
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Kirtman, L., & Fullan, M. (2015). Leadership: Key Competencies for Whole System Change.
Solution Tree.
Introduction
Before looking at some of the elements within each of the seven, we can immediately
observe two fundamental issues in regard to the set. First, it is unlikely that a leader is
going to master these competencies by confining his or her leadership by trying to directly
improve teachers’ classroom instruction. Rather, an effective leader spends time on—gets
better at—all seven domains and their interconnections in order that the whole
organization generates measurable instructional improvement.
Second, there are orientations and skills in the set that will take a very long while to
master. If you are a young leader, get going on this personal learning agenda: develop
your career capital. If you are a more seasoned leader, examine which competencies
you are good at and which ones might represent weaknesses, and learn accordingly. In
either case, you will want to complete the leadership assessment inventory that Kirtman
uses in his work with schools. The inventory contains thirty-five sub-items across the
seven competencies (Kirtman, 2013, pp. 193–208). When you get inside the seven
competencies, you find items familiar to what we have covered so far in this book.
The point about all these competencies is that you need to assess your own profile,
appreciate and reinforce your strengths, and address those areas that are less well
developed. Kirtman’s book is one place to go, but so are professional development
courses that feature closely similar components. Perhaps the best way is to learn from
leaders who model these competencies and to practice them yourself with feedback
from others. When you develop new skills in a given area, you also become clearer about
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it because skills reveal how a given phenomenon works. In short, skill development
creates clarity and fans passion. Here are the seven competencies.
1. Challenge the Status Quo
Challenging the status quo includes the willingness and ability to question common
practices, take risks, explore innovations, and not let rules slow down action. These
leaders have an eye on the end game, which in our case is improving the learning of all
students. They tend to challenge current practices that are not likely to increase student
achievement. They are willing to take risks to achieve results and are more interested in
motivating people than in following narrow rules. As they develop the skill set—the seven
competencies—they are in a better position to challenge the status quo effectively
because they create the conditions for overall success. You might say that such a leader
doesn’t mind rocking the boat (at the beginning of the change process) because he or she
has the other six competencies to rely on.
2. Build Trust Through Clear Communications and
Expectations
I like to adapt one of Stephen Covey’s insights, “You can’t talk your way out of what
you’ve behaved yourself into” (2004), by saying that you can’t talk your way into trust. I
mean that you can only “behave” your way into it by naming, modeling, and monitoring
your trustworthiness. You name trust as a value and norm that you will embrace and
develop in the organization; you model it in your day-to-day actions; and you monitor it
in your own and others’ behavior.
Note that trustworthiness goes beyond integrity to include real competence as well. You
have to be true to your word, but also very good at what you do. According to Kirtman,
spreading trust also entails mastering directness and honesty about performance
expectations; following through with actions on commitments made; ensuring clear
understanding of key communications; and being comfortable in dealing with conflict.
3. Create a Commonly Owned Plan for Success
In this third skill set, Kirtman confirms what many of us have found about implementation
plans: far too many of them remain only on paper. Time and again, we have seen
implementation plans that look great
visually but are too complex or general to give any guidance in action. As I advised in
Motion Leadership, “beware of fat plans.” When plans are elaborate, they rarely are
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clear enough to be understood and actionable. When plans focus on a few clear goals
and corresponding actions, they are much more likely to stimulate action.
Kirtman highlights working on buy-in or ownership of the plan; monitoring how well it
works, making corresponding adjustments and engaging in regular two-way
communication; and having clear measurement for each key goal in the plan. Plans on
paper might look great, but they mean nothing unless they come alive through practice.
It’s important to remember that implementation plans are not for the planners; they are
for the implementers. Thus, as I concluded in Motion Leadership and as Kirtman implies,
plans have to be “sticky”—concise, actionable, memorable, tied closely to action—
thereby becoming internalized by all.
At the beginning, it is less important that the plan meet everyone’s approval than that
the plan starts a process of buy-in. The starting aim of the plan should be to focus a
leadership team on the task of building capacity for success. The development of
professional capital as described in Chapter Three is essentially a process for creating
skilled, shared ownership. Furthermore, because engagement of all organization
members is required for success, the plan should be systemic in the sense that it affects
everyone. Monitoring should concentrate on keeping track of whether actions yield
engagement and results. Every plan should be alterable, as ongoing needs require.
Although approval doesn’t need to be universal at the start, if the plan is really working,
it should steadily become internalized among those who take part in its implementation.
4. Focus on Team over Self
Change-agent principals who focus on team over self hire the best people for the team
(invest in human capital), build a team environment (social capital), support the learning
of all staff, and seek critical feedback. They hire people who don’t simply take orders (or
worse, passively ignore directives). They foster group norms such that people feel free to
raise concerns and offer alternative ideas. As the principal focuses the talk on solving a
problem instead of on complaints and scapegoating, the school builds trust among its
working members. They come to trust the process because it proves itself more times
than not. As Kirtman says, “These leaders hire the best and never settle for less” (p. 7).
The quality of the team uplifts everyone.
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5. Have a Sense of Urgency for Sustainable Results
In Chapter Two, I said that although not all urgency is productive, a high sense of urgency
does matter and needs to be targeted in a manner that mobilizes people to tackle core
issues. As we saw earlier, Cal Newport observed that passion itself does not necessarily
lead to results and becomes a problem in the absence of skill. Passion without skill, he
said, is useless if not dangerous. The message for leaders is to build professional capital as
part and parcel of passion and urgency.
In the context of his seven domains of competence, it makes sense to me that Kirtman
placed urgency as number 5, because the preceding four domains make organizations and
their leaders more skillful, enabling them to push effectively for greater urgency. As those
skills become stronger, Kirtman’s leaders have no compunction against demanding action
and results. By building their own skills and those of others, they earn enough leadership
capital (which in effect is decisional capital for leaders) to “get away with” decisive action.
They get away with it because they have proven themselves to be trustworthy and
competent. As Kirtman found, they are anxious to move initiatives ahead and can be very
decisive, use data to support their actions, and reinforce a clear systemic direction for the
organization. They want results, but results that are authentic. The previous four
competencies help develop the skills and motivation required for the group to be effective
at getting results that can be sustained. Within this group action, members appreciate it
when leaders “take charge” expressing and acting on a sense of urgency.
6. Commit to Continuous Improvement for Self
Effective change agents have steadfast purpose, but they are alert to evidence. When
the Economist recently reported on personality tests for managers, they highlighted one
aspect of a Korn/Ferry test: that what good leaders have in common is “a willingness to
let new evidence change their views” (“Emotional Breakdown,” 2013). I suspect that
leaders with deep passion are sometimes blinded by their fervor and thus do not remain
alert to evidence that could cause them to rethink how they might approach a given
situation more effectively.
Think of “continuous improvement for self” as your ever-present backup plan. If you are
going to be decisive, you had better be always learning. Kirtman notes that in being
committed to continuous improvement for self, outstanding leaders wonder how to get
better results, seek innovative ideas from all team members, take responsibility for their
mistakes, and are in general preoccupied with learning to become better and helping
team members do so as well.
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7. Build External Networks and Partnerships
In Chapter Four, I discussed this seventh competency, building external networks and
partnerships. Keeping the individual school focused, changing, yet still in running order is
one priority; but change-agent principals know several reasons for also staying
dynamically plugged in to the external world: they get new ideas; doing so keeps the
pressure on; and along the way, they often need outside partners for political and
technical reasons. When you have partners, such as districts that are different, you are
more likely to encounter new ideas—what Steven Johnson (2010) called getting ideas
from “the adjacent possible,” a term he borrowed from chaos theory.
Moreover, it is not a bad idea to contribute to the betterment of the bigger picture. To
make a contribution beyond your own bailiwick is a basic human virtue. Selfishly speaking,
if you don’t help improve the system, your neglect will come back to haunt you, or your
grandchildren.
References
Bryk, A. (2014). Improving: Joining improvement science to networked communities. Paper
presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association,
Philadelphia, PA.
Bryk, A., Bender-Sebring, P., Allensworth, E., Lupescu, S. & Easton, J. (2010). Organizing schools
for improvement: Lessons from Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Cole, P. (2013). Aligning professional learning, performance management and effective
teaching. Seminar Series 217. Melbourne: Centre for Strategic Education.
Dufour, R. & Fullan, M. (2013). Built to last: Systemic PLCs at work. Bloomington, IN: Solution
Tree.
Fullan, M. (2013). Stratosphere: Integrating technology, pedagogy and change knowledge.
Toronto: Pearson.
Fullan. M. (2013). The new pedagogy: Students and teachers as learning partners. LEARNing
Landscapes, 6(2), 23-28.
Fullan, M. (2013). Great to excellent: Launching the next stage of Ontario’s education reform.
www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/reports/FullanReport_EN_07.pdf
Fullan, M. (2014). The principal: Maximizing impact. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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Fullan, M. (2015). Freedom to change: Putting your inner drive into overdrive. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Fullan, M. & Boyle, A. (2014). Big-city school reforms: Lessons from New York, Toronto and
London. New York: Teachers College Press; Toronto: Ontario Principals’ Council.
Fullan, M., & Donnelly, K. (2013). Alive in the swamp: Assessing digital innovations in education.
London: NESTA; New York: New Schools Venture Fund.
Fullan, M. & Langworthy, M. (2014). A rich seam: How new pedagogies find deep learning.
London: Pearson.
Fullan, M. & Quinn, J. (2015). Coherence: The right drivers in action. San Francisco, CA: Corwin
Press.
Hargreaves, A. & Fullan, M. (2012). Professional capital: Transforming teaching in every school.
New York: Teachers College Press.
Kirtman, L. (2013). Leadership and teams: The missing piece of the education reform puzzle.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Kirtman, L., & Fullan, M. (2015). Leadership: Key competencies for whole system change.
Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.
Leana, C. (2011). The missing link in school reform. Stanford School Innovation Review. 9(4), 30-
35.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (2013). Teachers for the 21st Century:
Using evaluation to improve teaching. Paris: OECD.
Robinson, V. (2011). Student-centered leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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Michael Fullan: Leadership and Sustainability
• Any solution to sustainability must be efficient, sophisticated, powerful, and amenable to action.
• The solution will require us to use complexity and systems theory, and every
abstract concept must be accompanied by a practical strategy that illustrates the
concept in action.
• Solutions, in other words, must be theoretical and practical.
Eight Elements of Sustainability
1. Public service has a moral purpose / imperative a. There is improvement in the level/quality of service.
b. The quality of service is increased.
c. Service is delivered with equity and fairness.
d. There is a level of trust between government and citizens.
e. The service takes into account the needs of future generations while
responding to the needs and aspirations of citizens.
f. The provision of the service is consistent with the expectations of a diverse
society.
2. Commitment to changing the structures and cultures (context) exists at all levels
3. Lateral capacity is built through networks a. Principals and teacher leaders collaborate with other schools to learn from
and contribute to school improvements, not only in individual schools, but
also in the district as a whole.
b. Collaboration rather than competition is the motivation.
c. There are a number of obvious benefits:
• People learn best from peers if there is sufficient opportunity
for ongoing, purposeful exchange.
• The system is designed to foster, develop, and disseminate
innovative practices that work.
• Leadership is developed and mobilized in many quarters.
• Motivation and ownership at the local level are deepened.
• Complexity theory tells us that if you increase the amount of
purposeful interaction and infuse it with the checks and
balances of quality knowledge, self-organizing patterns
(desirable outcomes) will accrue.
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4. Intelligent accountability and vertical relationships encompass both capacity building and accountability
a. Sustainable societies must solve (hold in dynamic tension) the perennial
change problem of how to get both local ownership (including capacity)
and external accountability throughout the entire system.
b. It will be difficult to get the balance of accountability right in terms of
vertical authority: too much intrusion demotivates people; too little
permits drift, or worse.
• Schools must evaluate themselves honestly.
• The information provided by a school’s self-evaluation and
development plan, along with outside inspection, should inform
outcomes about targeting support and challenges.
• It will be very difficult to combine self-evaluation and outside
evaluation, but this is the sophistication of sustainability – for the
latter to have a chance, the whole system must be involved in a
codependent partnership, being open to addressing problems as
they arise.
• Vertical integration is not the only coherence maker, but it is a key
one.
• Coherence-making makes complexity simpler. Gathering and
paying attention to quality data is learning toward coherence.
5. Deep learning is a part of the (new) culture a. Sustainability by definition requires continuous improvement,
adaptation, and collective problem-solving in the face of complex
challenges that keep arising.
b. There are three big requirements for the data-driven society:
• Drive out fear.
• Set up a system of transparent data-gathering coupled with mechanisms
for acting on the data.
• Make sure ALL levels of the system are expected to learn from their
experiences.
6. Dual commitment to short-term and long-term results exists Dual commitment to short-term and long-term results will create the virtuous
circle where public education delivers results, the public gains confidence and is
therefore willing to invest through taxation and, as a consequence, the system is
able to improve further. It is for this reason that long- term strategies require
short-term wins.
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7. Cyclical energizing is prevalent a. Sustainability is not linear. It is cyclical – periods of energy and periodic
plateaus.
b. If we want sustainability, we need to keep an eye on energy levels (overuse
and underuse).
c. Positive collaborative cultures will help because (a) they push for greater
accomplishments, and (b) they avoid the debilitating effects of negative
cultures. It is not hard work that tires us out as much as it is negative work.
d. Collaborative cultures can become too intense and burn us out. What we
need are combinations of full engagement with colleagues, along with less
intensive activities that are associated with replenishment. If a system is to
be mobilized in the direction of sustainability, leadership at all levels must
be the primary engine.
e. The main work of leaders is to help put in place the eight elements of
sustainability: all eight simultaneously feeding on each other.
8. The long lever of leadership is evident • Foster and grow leadership capabilities to create a critical mass of leaders
• Put the “8 Elements” into practice.
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ALIGNING OUR WORK WITH FULLAN’S
EIGHT ELEMENTS OF ACCOUNTABILITY
As you reflect on your district’s current work on the Problem of Practice and your efforts to
put in place system-wide change focused on improved student learning, what evidence can
you sight that supports the SUSTAINABILITY of your work?
Elements Evidence in Our Work
Public Service with a
Moral Purpose
Commitment to
Changing Context at
all Levels
Lateral Capacity
Building through
Networks
Intelligent
Accountability and
Vertical Relationships
Deep Learning
Dual Commitment to
Both Short- Term and
Long-Term Results
Cyclical Energizing
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The Long Lever of
Leadership
WSLA Summer Statewide Workshop
SYSTEM CHANGE
Team Sharing Protocol
Overview and Success Criteria
• Presenting teams will share the trajectory of their work during participation in WSLA,
focusing on SYSTEM CHANGE and their process and progress in solving their Problem
of Practice.
• Listening teams will pose questions to the presenting team to elicit more understanding
of:
Data Use
Research
Collective Efficacy/Collaboration
Measurable Goals
Evidence of Progress
Impact on Student Learning
Culture Change
Accountability & Communication
Sustainability
• Teams and individuals will strengthen their leadership by asking effective, timely
questions “to create the compelling disturbances that generate new ideas and questions.” – Fullan
• Teams and individuals will depart with reinforced and/or new strategies, insights, skills
and ideas for continuing to lead and sustain system change in the future.
Facilitator Role: Start and end on time, facilitate the distribution of any handouts, facilitate the
protocol, appoint time-keeper.
Note – Round One - YEAR 2 TEAMS WILL PRESENT FIRST Round Two – YEAR 1 TEAMS WILL PRESENT
Round 3 – TEAR 2 TEAMS WILL PRESENT
You will have 10 minutes of flextime in the event you need more time in the 3 steps.
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STEP 1
5 minutes
Introduction of the Protocol:
• Facilitator briefly reviews the protocol
• Teams will present in alphabetical order. Adjust the
rotation of team presentation, adhering to the 3 rounds,
if possible.
1. Round 1; Year 2 presents
2. Round 2; Year 1 presents
3. Round 3; Year 2 presents
STEP 2:
Team presents its
CHANGE work
20 minutes
Presentation:
Presenting team shares its work with the other teams.
Listening teams will take notes on the Protocol Sheet.
The presenting team covers the following information:
• What DATA and processes were used to uncover the
PoP.
• What RESEARCH was used to influence the ToA?
• Relative to COLABORATIVE TEAMING, how has your
WSLA team evolved?
• What are your MEASURABLE GOALS?
• What EVIDENCE is used (Yr. 1 - will be used) to
MEASURE PROGRESS?
• What IMPACT is/will your work have on higher levels
of learning for all?
• What CULTURE CHANGES are observable?
• Who is AWARE of the WSLA team’s work? (Staff,
students, board, parents, community, etc.)
• How will you SUSTAIN the CHANGE for the future?
• What are your plans to REPLICATE the CoI on
additional PoPs?
• What is one piece of ADVICE you have, which may
ensure other teams meet/exceed their goals?
STEP 2
Listening Teams
Write Questions and
Conference
Presenting Team
In Individual Teams:
Using the Coaching Notes Handout, listening teams review the
presentation and notate the questions to probe future action,
including but not limited to:
• Data
• Research
• Collective Efficacy/Collaboration
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Listens
5 minutes
• Measurable Goals
• Evidence of Progress
• Impact on Student Learning
• Culture Change
• Accountability and Communication
• Sustainability
Listening team members will discuss their questions and choose
the top 5-7 questions to spur continued action.
Presenting team will listen to discussion, making notes of
points to cover during the Step 3.
STEP 3
Q & A
25 minutes
Facilitated Open Discussion: One large group or two smaller
groups
For the facilitator: If your 3 teams are large enough, divide the large group into two smaller groups. The purpose is to invite more voices into the conversation. Both groups then participate in their own open discussion, with the facilitator working with one group and one of the coaches with the other group.
• Begin the discussion with listening teams sharing their
5-7 questions.
• Presenting team listens to questions, considering
answers.
• Listening team asks questions a second time, eliciting
answers
• Coach notates for their team.
• Questions are given to the presenting team for future
consideration.
STEP 4
Closure
5 minutes
Closure: Large Group
The facilitator poses these questions for group reflection:
• What did you hear that was motivational?
• What are you curious about?
• How has this session assist with advancing your
leadership and your team’s work in the future?
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Here’s What! So What? Now What?
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