Why Your Biggest Problem Isn't What You Think | Change Series 1.2

Think you found the new perfect solution for your school? Not so fast. Today, we're going to look at the pitfalls that can derail even the most promising changes even before they begin. Hey, everyone. I'm Shane Leaning.

Welcome to Global Ed Leaders, the chat-topping podcast for international school leaders just like you. I'm an organizational coach, and in this show, I get to know the teachers, leaders, and innovators making a difference in education across the world. And every other week, I share bite-sized strategies to supercharge your leadership. And that's what today's episode is.

Before we jump into the conversation, I'm delighted that today's episode is supported by the International Curriculum Association. Stay tuned to learn more. So this episode is part of a little series I've put together all about organizational change and specifically following the organizational change model developed by Work Collaborative. That's an organization I co-founded.

So if you haven't listened already, there is an episode that is all about the process of change. And I go through the whole process of change in that episode. It's a short one, and I don't go into too much detail. So if you haven't looked at that and want an overview of the process, go back and start there.

I'll pop a link in the show notes. But today, I'm going to actually focus on the very beginning of any change. And that is the sponsor's perceived challenge. So right at the start of any change, you're always going to have this, a sponsor's perceived challenge.

So let's look at some definitions first. What do I mean by a sponsor? Well, a sponsor is the person who initiates the change, is wanting the change to happen. Usually, traditionally, we might think of a sponsor like a senior leader in a school who has asked for a change to go through.

But there could be many different types of sponsors. It might not just be a leader. It might be a parent who has suggested a change to happen at school. It might be a teacher who wants to implement a new approach.

It could even be students from your student council who are initiating a change in your school. So that's what a sponsor is. And then we're talking about the sponsor's perceived challenge. So what do I mean by perceived?

Well, it's not just a challenge. It is perceived. And this is really important. At the beginning of any change, we shouldn't jump into going, this is the challenge we face.

We should be going, this is the challenge we're perceiving right now. Because often, with many changes, you'll find that the perceived challenge isn't necessarily the actual challenge. And we need to probe into that. That's why at the very start of our change model with Work Collaborative, we start with the perceived challenge.

So the first thing you want to really be thinking about is, as a sponsor, why did you feel the need to change? What was your motivation? And going into that change, can you challenge yourself to ask yourself, is there any risk in pushing for this change? What led you to reach out and act on this challenge that came up?

These questions might unlock some of the ideas behind why you're pushing for this change in the first place. It's also really good to explore expectations and awareness. So what are you, as a sponsor, hoping to achieve? When you're thinking about what you want to achieve and thinking about a challenge, a really useful framing I like to look at with my coaching clients is to go, what is the best case scenario you're hoping to achieve?

What's the worst case scenario here? This might really help to address some of the potential outcomes of addressing this challenge very early. One of the biggest reasons we might want to just label it as a sponsor's perceived challenge and not just go straight to the goal is because there is a bit of a risk of diluting organizational identity in the rush to adapt. Maybe you've had this in your school, right, where someone has just wanted to go through with something and it's clashed somewhat with the organizational identity.

It really brought to mind for Ephraim and I, the work of John Cotter and Holger Ratgeber, who wrote a brilliant book, Our Iceberg is Melting. In this book, it was like a little fable about penguins that show the kind of principles of organizational change. Now, what's interesting is when they explore through this book, they really emphasize that while change is always necessary, we've got to be really careful not to lose sight of what makes our actual organization unique and what makes our organization valuable. That can sometimes mean that one sponsor perceiving a challenge does not mean that that challenge exists or does not mean that they're thinking about it with their organizational hat on.

This is why it's a good idea to bring in the entire organization in change efforts and not just lead from one person. There's also work that me and Ephraim talked about in our book, which is the idea of unfreezing. It's an old concept from 1947, Kurt Lewin, who was a psychologist who developed one of the earliest models of organizational change. He talked about organizational change being in three stages.

Unfreeze, change, refreeze, and that unfreeze stage being really crucial, right? It involves creating the recognition that change is necessary and you have to kind of unfreeze what you do to go into it. This is something that you'll be doing when you've got a perceived challenge. It's that moment of unfreezing without that foundation that change is going to struggle to get traction.

I want to take a moment to tell you about the International Curriculum Conference that is coming up from the International Curriculum Association. This will be held from the 11th to the 13th of November in 2024 in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. It is so exciting. The theme of this is global perspectives, local impact, and I was at their conference last year.

I can't recommend it highly enough. This is a focal point for the global community of schools, part of the International Curriculum Association. There is going to be amazing keynote speakers and a wide range of school-led workshops delivered by classroom teachers sharing their practice and experience. Seriously, with the incredible insights and showcasing of learning, I really do recommend the International Curriculum Conference because it offers a unique level of enrichment connection and learning for all.

If you're interested, check out the link in the show notes to register. Please go there. It's going to be great. This all kind of circles around the importance of community involvement in change.

The sponsors perceived challenge needs to transition into a community goal, a community-owned goal. This is what our model through the Double Diamond, as explained in that last episode, takes us towards. Top-down implementation for change rarely works. You need to get a bit vulnerable in this moment.

The person who's coming with a perceived challenge, really ask yourself, how comfortable are you with that perceived challenge evolving into a community goal and taking on that community input? If you're not willing for it to evolve, maybe this kind of model is not for you, but be warned, your change is much less likely to be sustainable. The sponsor has to be open to change, and the one way to do that is to really think about the impact on long-term success. Rarely does a change work long-term if just living in the head of one person.

You need a whole community to go through. And I guess the final thing about a perceived challenge that I have reflected on was actually inspired back in episode 74, where I spoke to the brilliant Sharath Jeevan, and he talked about inflection moments. His book, Inflection, deals with this really well. That inflection moment is where a significant change is about to occur.

This is your sponsor's perceived challenge moment, right? This is the inflection. There are important decisions you make right at that point that are going to influence your trajectory. It's a critical juncture.

And you specifically have a choice whether you are going to engage your community or not at that point. It is going to be that inflection moment that shapes the journey of the change ahead. I and we at Work Collaborative would always suggest that a change is going to be much more sustainable with the community. So make sure you're on a journey from the sponsor's perceived challenge into your community-led goal.

Now, after the sponsor's perceived challenge, you're going to lead into a stage of connection. So after you've gone, okay, this is the challenge, this is just a perceived challenge, and I'm okay with that, and I'm comfortable with letting go a little bit and leading into my community, then you're ready for the next stage of this process. And that's what the next episode of this series is going to be about. So stay tuned for that.

But before I leave you today, I just want to leave you with a few questions. If you've got a perceived challenge that you're grappling with at the minute, have a little think about these questions, and you may want to pause the recording to reflect. Firstly, what is your current challenge? What is the current perceived challenge in your school?

And why do you feel this challenge needs to be addressed? What's your best case scenario? What's your worst case scenario? How open are you to the perceived challenge evolving through community input?

And to help you with that, maybe you can reflect on a time where your perception of a challenge changed after involving others. And remember, how are you going to balance the need for change while maintaining your school's core identity and values? And how can you prepare yourself for the unfreezing process? I've popped these questions in the show notes that hopefully will help guide your journey through interrogating your sponsors perceived challenge, and I would love to hear how you get on.

So reach out to me, reach out to me on X, reach out to me on LinkedIn, or ping me an email, shane, at shaneleaning.com. I would love to hear your journey. Global Aid Leaders is hosted by me, Shane Leaning.

Thanks to the show editor, Pete McGill, and for original music by Guillerme Silva. And, of course, thank you to my co-founder of Work Collaborative, Ephraim Lerner, for the content referenced in this episode. Thanks so much for tuning in today, and as ever, if we don't speak before, I'll see you here next week. Remember to find out more about the International Quikulum Association and that fantastic International Quikulum Conference in November, check out the links in the show notes.