Hey. It’s Gary Cornn here. I’m going to talk a little bit about Michael
Fullan’s (2008, as cited in Scheinger, 2014) Six Secrets of Change.
I’m not going to talk about all six and just go through them, but I want to
talk about a few that struck me. The first
two are “Love your employees” and “Connect people with a purpose.” (Fullen, 2008,
as cited in Scheinger, 2014, p. 54-55).
So let’s camp on those two for a second.
The first one that caught me was Love
your employees, which means to “find meaning, increased skill development,
and personal satisfaction” (Fullen,
2008, as cited in Scheinger, 2014, p. 54).
When Employees fulfill their personal goals at the same time they
fulfill organizational goals, they are successful (Scheinger, 2014).
That reminded me of a book that I
went through in a different class, which was Fundamental Concepts of
Educational Leadership and Management, by Razik and Swansen (2010). They talk
about resistance to change. Resistance
is related to a couple of factors: Interference with “self-esteem needs, social
status, and relationship fulfilment” (p. 349).
So it just kind of reminded me of the other side of that coin. If we love our employees, we are meeting
those needs and therefore we are heading off the resistance to change.
On Connect peers with a purpose, one of the things Fullan talks about
is the why and the how of the change. People need to understand the why and the how. They need to be able to
connect with their peers and really share that.
After all, it is about making them active participants in the change
process.
Another book I went through
recently is this Charlie Feld (2009) book called Blind Spot. It is about the
power of IT in change, and that kind of thing.
This is an IT-focused book, but it’s some of the similar ideas of this
course. One of the planks it talks about is the why
of change and the how of change. So it is a common theme that we see that Fullan
has used.
So the last of the six secrets I
want to talk about tonight is Transparency. Transparency is extremely important to
change. We see this is universal. It is not just unique to education. I’ve seen this in my own job in the Air
Force, as well as any other place that I have worked. People that are going to
go through the change need to see the same data that those who are analyzing the
change and making the change see. They need to see that the data that is causing
the change, and they also need to see, as they work through the change, the new
data--the change that is showing progress.
When you have access to the data and you can see the data and share the
data it also increases that engagement and acceptance of the change process and
that’s a point that Fullan makes in his six secrets.
Of course there are three more
secrets to Fullan, but we are going to need more than a three to four minute
video, in my opinion, for us to talk about all of them with any kind of detail.
So I’ve left you with the three that I talked about. I think they struck me. I think they are universal, and I think they
are important. Thanks.
References
Feld, C. (2009). Blind
spot: A leader's guide to IT-enabled business transformation. United States:Olive
Press.
Razik, T. & Swanson, A. (2010). Fundamental concepts of educational leadership and development. Boston,
MA: Pearson.
Sheninger, E. (2014). Digital leadership: Changing
paradigms for changing times. Thousand Oaks: Corwin.
Thank you for your post this week, Gary. It seems that transparency has the potential to excite a degree of belief. If people are convinced by the data and justification for change then they are more inclined to fully adopt the change. Perhaps allowing them to include input into the change will improve results as well. It seems when people are given the opportunity to own the change; they are vested and interested in it being successful.
ReplyDeleteGary: I appreciated your point about loving your employees and their willingness to embrace change. I recently had a principal that was trying to change a whole bunch of things, but didn't work to love his employees first. This caused a whole lot of strife on the campus.
ReplyDeleteYou are going for an administrator position sometime in the future? I think if you have embraced these three ideas you will make a wonderful Principal.
Hello Gary,
ReplyDeleteThe six secrets to change was a very beneficial topic of discussion. According to Sheninger (2014), “the six secrets identified was love your employees, connect peers with purpose, capacity building prevails, learning is the work, transparency rules and systems learns” (p. 54). Just as you I found love your employees to be the best and most effective of the six secrets. Loving your employees is a very important aspect of being a successful boss and or leader. I believe in this rule who heartedly. The Bible speaks in great details about love. For example, Matthews 25:23, “His master said to him, “well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (English Standard Version). This verse speaks to the value God has placed on the Employer/ Employee relationship. Additionally, loving your employees will always yield the best results and effort from them.
Furthermore, connect peers with purpose was also one that caught my attention. Sheninger argues that, “purposeful peer interaction within and beyond the school is crucial” (p. 55). The ability to effectively articulate the how and why is essential and ultimately aids in increasing the overall effectiveness. For example, when students understand what is expected and or required they tend to work much better together. Also peers that connect together often find it much easier work with their instructors as well. Good Post!