Getting Unstuck on the Path of Organizational Change

Zachary Herrmann is executive director of the Center for Professional Learning and a member of the professional faculty at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education in Philadelphia. PHOTO COURTESY OF RYAN COLLERD.

Change is hard. It is complex, messy and contextual. With no one right way to proceed, it is very easy to get stuck.

Eric Witherspoon, who spent 16 years in the superintendency of the Evanston Township High School District in Evanston, Ill., is unequivocal when looking back over his career in leadership roles. He worked for more than 30 years in multiple districts on a journey leading change focused on equity in the schools.

“It is easy to get lost and feel defeated as a leader if one just focuses on the incredible magnitude of the work,” he says. “Equity work touches and transforms all parts of the system. It weighs heavy on the leader and requires more and different work from everyone.”

The candid reflections of this veteran superintendent, who retired over the summer, represent similar sentiments from other school district leaders across the country. While contexts and change efforts differ, the leaders report remarkably similar challenges to those of Witherspoon.

Inherent Contradictions

Bringing about positive change can be messy, taxing and full of contradictions. We want our leaders to boldly face complex challenges but also communicate in clear and direct ways. We expect our leaders to take on complicated problems, but we don’t tolerate mistakes. We expect quick fixes and rapid results without changing too much too quickly. We want direction and clarity, even though change requires us to embark into the unknown.

Unfortunately, the leadership stories we typically hear in K-12 education fail to capture these contradictions and the tremendous challenges inherent in leading change. Even those invested in the work prefer to hear succinct recommendations or conclusions rather than the painful realities, missteps and failures so many of us face. But we believe that being aware and prepared to face the messiness of our change efforts is essential to leadership success.

To help better understand the challenges leaders face, we have identified four main areas within which organizational change efforts can get stuck. These ideas come from our interactions and conversations with leaders as we attempt to support and learn alongside those who are working through change.

The four areas are (1) making sense of the problem or opportunity, (2) generating potential change strategies, (3) prioritizing and implementing strategies, and (4) learning and adapting. While these challenges may be frustrating, school system leaders can learn about their system and the nature of the challenge by leaning into them rather than backing away.

Making sense of the problem

Put simply, change is all about navigating from a current state to a future desired state. A school district may face a particular problem it wants to address or may have identified an opportunity it wants to pursue. When all stakeholders within a system have a clear and com-mon understanding of the problem or the opportunity, the change process may be much easier. In reality, this is rarely the case.

»Challenge 1: Problem disagreement. Where some stakeholders see a problem, others see value in the status quo. Systems are designed and maintained to achieve certain goals. Without understanding the goals and needs being met in the current state, leaders are likely to miss potentially powerful forces that will work hard against change efforts.

Consider, for instance, the school district that is attempting to alter school start times in response to research that suggests a later start time might be beneficial to students. Quickly, leaders hear from parents concerned with how this change will impact their morning routines. Addressing the perceived problem of an early start could lead to new problems for families. When leaders go about the important process of defining and understanding a problem or opportunity, it’s likely they also discover reasons that help explain why things are the way they are.

»Challenge 2: Analysis divergence. Even when we collectively acknowledge a problem, we may have very different understandings of why the problem exists. Consider a leader who was attempting to address what they perceived to be a severe mental health crisis within the district. Administrators believed the increase in staff absences was leading to teachers being stretched too thin, teachers believed disruptions in schooling were leading to student behavior challenges, and students shared a sense they were losing autonomy and reported that classroom environments felt sterile and impersonal. 

It’s essential to note that each one of these problem framings would imply a very different set of strategies. In reality, each stakeholder sees a part of the problem, and no one sees all of it. Leaders, therefore, must intentionally draw insights from individuals who are able to share diverse perspectives, especially from those who are most directly impacted by the problem and those who will be instrumental in helping usher the change.(See “Defining and Analyzing a Problem or Opportunity.") 

Eric Witherspoon (left) and Marcus Campbell, the outgoing and incoming superintendents, respectively, greet students in the Evanston, Ill., Township High School District. PHOTO COURTESY OF EVANSTON, ILL., TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL

Generating potential change strategies

Just as different stakeholders will have unique perspectives on how they understand the problem or opportunity, they also will have widely varying theories about what will work to address it. Leaders thus must consider which pathways represent the most promise within their districts.

»Challenge 3: Strategy dispute. Based on their own experiences and beliefs, individuals develop different hypotheses about what efforts will lead to various changes. Consider the current challenge of teacher shortages. There are very different ideas about how to effectively address the problem, ranging from increasing salaries to decreasing teaching loads to offering more autonomy and flexibility to providing more support and resources.

Baked into each one of these strategies is a hypothesis that connects actions with outcomes. It’s helpful for leaders to work with others to articulate clear and compelling “theories of change” that hold the greatest potential for success.

»Challenge 4: Vision confusion. Many leaders assume that good ideas will sell themselves. Yet, this is rarely the case. Change can feel scary and uncertain for many, and if we are expecting others to go along on that journey, we need to help them see why. In building strong coalitions for change, leaders should engage others throughout the entire process and clearly and continuously communicate values, commitments, and a coherent vision behind the change.

Prioritizing and implementing strategies

Good ideas alone are never enough. Effective implementation of good ideas is what leads to progress. As Witherspoon, the veteran superintendent, states, “Getting the proposal passed is only the tip of the iceberg. Making it happen is the really hard work.” There are many areas where leaders can get stuck when implementing change, including overestimating their system’s capacity and degree of community support.

»Challenge 5: Limited capacity. Capacity frequently becomes the limiting factor for many change efforts. Capacity can take the form of tangible resources, such as money, space and technology, or of intangible resources, such as knowledge, attention and energy. It’s common to underestimate the level of resources needed to implement a change, such as the staffing required or the cost of materials. However, it may be even more difficult to anticipate capacity issues related to emotional energy and attention. Several leaders shared that they had to put major change efforts on hold because their teachers were simply stretched too thin and weren’t able or ready to focus their attention or energy on anything new.

»Challenge 6: Misjudged resistance. Leaders frequently underestimate resistance to change. A first-year superintendent indicated when it came time to implement a new school-day schedule, even though the recommendations were grounded in community input and extensive analysis by teachers over multiple years, the teachers’ union resisted, arguing that the contract needed to be re-negotiated before the schedule could be changed. Another leader reported the need to take a pause after years of extensive research and preparation toward implementing a standards-based grading policy. The political climate in the community had shifted and no longer was there support for moving forward.

Leaders must acknowledge the true demands a change effort will place on their community and how those demands stack up to their organization’s capacity. This requires leaders be cognizant of what a given change initiative is asking people to unlearn and learn. 

For many, change is an emotional experience, where people may be asked to give up familiar practices in exchange for uncertainty and ambiguity. As such, leaders ought to be thoughtful and disciplined with prioritizing a given effort over another. As Stacey Childress, author of Note on Strategy in Public Education, writes, “Strategy is about choosing — choosing what to do, and just as importantly, choosing what not to do.”

Mary Herrmann (right), teaching associate professor of education policy, organization and leadership at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, works with superintendents at the university’s Siebel Center for Design in Champaign, Ill. PHOTO COURTESY OF MARY HERRMANN

Learning and adapting

Leading change is an iterative process, where problems are identified, strategies are developed and deployed, and things happen. Successful implementation requires leaders to be in tune with the outcomes of their leadership actions. Sometimes, however, leaders don’t know if their strategies are working and may find waning interest and support for the change efforts.

»Challenge 7: Success uncertainty. It is not surprising that educators within a given district may offer mixed reviews regarding whether a particular change effort is successful. Unlike a sports competition with a clear purpose and a quantifiable score, many change efforts in education center around broader purposes with multiple measures of success, many of which are left implicit or unstated.

Several leaders lamented that after multiple-year efforts to improve equity within their schools, teachers and community members were mixed on whether their efforts were successful. In fact, it’s not uncommon for half of the community to be inspired by progress and the other half to feel like they’ve moved backward.

At the onset of a change effort, leaders can facilitate discussions with stakeholders on what success would look like, pushing individuals to get as clear and specific as possible on what would be true if their efforts were to succeed.

»Challenge 8: Waning commitment. Significant change generally requires concerted and prolonged effort. Change can make people feel forced into a state of ambiguity and uncertainty, and many are not willing to tolerate that discomfort for too long. In such a context, it can be difficult for people to stay committed and engaged. Some discomfort is a given, but leaders who act strategically can help by acknowledging it, keeping the community’s focus on the goals, celebrating the progress, and empowering those most impacted by the change to learn new ways of working. (See “Learning and Adapting.")

Broader Visions

Throughout his extensive tenure as a superintendent, Witherspoon worked enthusiastically and strategically to shape a culture of acceptance, belonging, equity and constant learning. When navigating the challenges of organizational change, perhaps this is the most significant contribution a leader can make: to ground change efforts in a broader inspiring vision and to develop and nurture a culture that allows an organization to reflect, learn and remake itself.

MARY HERRMANN, a former superintendent, is a teaching associate professor of education policy, organization and leadership at University of Illinois in Champaign, Ill. Twitter: @marybherrmann. ZACHARY HERRMANN is executive director of the Center for Professional Learning and a member of the professional faculty at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education in Philadelphia.