When Do You Know Enough? | Change Series 1.8

Knowing when you've learned enough to move forward with change can be tricky. Too little learning and you risk failure. Too much and you get stuck in analysis paralysis. Today we're going to explore how to find that sweet learning spot.

Hey everyone, I'm Shane Leaning. Welcome to Education Leaders, the chat-topping leadership podcast for 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 around the world. Before we jump in today, I'm excited that this episode is supported by the University of Warwick and the International Curriculum Association.

Stay tuned to learn more. Okay, so this episode is part of the change series that I've been doing over the last few months. So if you go back through the archive of the podcast, you'll see some of the episodes labeled change series. And in this series, I've been going through the model for organizational change developed by work collaborative, which is an organization I co-founded with a wonderful FM learner.

We've gotten quite a way through the model now. We're in that second diamond phase, if you've seen it on the double diamond. And we're now at a stage where we need to identify what we need to learn. Now, you can listen to this podcast isolated if you like.

It will be useful for you either way. If you're at a process where you're thinking there's learning I need to do around the change, but you may also find it useful to go back to the start of the change series and listen in order. So where are we at? We've developed our options.

We've gone through the discovery and define phases so we know our goal clear. And we've just explored what we could do to solve this challenge. Now it's time to figure out what we need to do to turn that vision into a reality. Here, we're thinking about identifying gaps in our knowledge, gaps in our understanding.

And here's the thing. No matter how well we plan, there will always be things we don't know. And that's okay. In fact, it's more than okay.

It's an opportunity. We're all educators after all learning. It's in our blood. Last year I was working with a school who had identified that they needed to change their assessment practices.

And the leadership team, a brilliant, young, vibrant leadership team, were really eager to implement this new system. But instead of rushing in, they paused and they asked, what do we need to learn first? You know, this simple question saved them from making a lot of costly mistakes down the line. Because learning is not just about acquiring a new skill for this change that's coming ahead.

It's also about questioning what we think we already know. Because often some of the biggest breakthroughs when we're making change in our schools come from when we challenge our assumption. So here's a few ways in this episode that you might think, as you're going through this learning process, as you're thinking, what do we need to know? Here's a few prompts for you.

The first thing I think is really a question you can always ask when you start a change process. And that's how much do we know about this challenge in front of us? How much do we know about this new thing we want to implement? Honest assessment here.

How much do we know? It sounds like an obvious question to us, but sometimes we can charge really fast into change without asking. And you know why? It's because as leaders we feel the pressure.

Gosh, I've certainly felt it. That we have to know the answers. That everyone's looking to us as a leader to be the one who knows. So when we're leading, we have to lead with knowledge.

And if we feel that we don't have the knowledge, we'll just try to go ahead anyway. That's not realistic. We need to be able to clearly identify what we don't know so we can do something about it. And that might not just mean that you just go, okay, I don't know very much.

Maybe you say, actually, I know a lot. Maybe I'm feeling, if I was to put it on a scale, I'm an 8 out of 10. I'm feeling pretty good. And in which case, what would make it a 9?

What specific areas do I need to learn to make that incremental progress? And when we're using this strategy of just going like, what's one little thing I can change? We're making learning a bit more manageable. We don't need to become an expert overnight.

We just need to know a little bit more than we did yesterday. Secondly, I think we need to look a little bit beyond our usual circle. And we need to be asking who knows more than us or who knows more than me. We need to be pushed to look beyond our immediate environment.

So let me give you an example from my background. So I know many of you know that my original time in teaching, I was EAL teacher, English as an additional language. So supporting students for whom English wasn't their first language in international schools. And there were a lot of things I needed to learn.

There were a lot of questions that were unanswered when I were implementing new changes, whether that was new policies I was implementing, whether that was curriculum changes, PD changes. There was a lot to learn. And during that process, I think one of my biggest strengths, if I was to reflect on my strength, was that I was able to identify what I didn't know, and I had some good people around me who did. These good people around me really helped shape my department, what we were up to.

And they were accessible to me. I remember a few like, for example, the special educational needs team and the speech and language therapist in the school provided a lot of guidance and support to me that helped me to differentiate between language needs and SCN needs. This was huge learning for me. But also I always had and still have friends in local language schools who used to really help me with some of that nitty gritty of the grammar and some of those challenges of language teaching that I struggled with.

But I also had like wider networks in the UK. I had some good friends in immigration support services who helped contextualize needs for me from a migrant background. Really, really useful. And I also remember when thinking about implementing a new welcome policy for new students joining the school, I approached someone who worked in the intercultural field actually from a university and about cultural integration.

And they helped me a lot with my thinking in terms of what it might be like for a new student joining a school with very little language and very little knowledge of the culture. All of these areas are things that were outside of what I knew, but there were people around me that could help me know. But that couldn't have happened unless you prompt yourself. You have to prompt yourself and go, who knows more than me on this?

And then you have to actively seek out. So ask that question when you come to your next change. Who knows more than me? It could actually unlock something for you.

I want to take a moment to tell you about this event from the ICA. It's called The Learning Effect. Play Paradox Passion. And I would encourage you to join the International Curriculum Association for its two-day event, which is going to bring school leaders and educators together for engaging keynote presentation and a diverse range of teacher-led workshops.

In this day, you'll get to explore and examine how thoughtful integration of play, paradox and passion can create transformative learning experiences, all under the guidance of International Curriculum Association professionals. This is taking place in Amsterdam in the Netherlands on the 20th and 21st of March 2025. And you can find the tickets and more information using the link in the show notes. You know, recruiting and developing great teachers is one of the biggest challenges we face in international schools.

That's why I'm excited about the University of Warwick Centre for Teacher Education. Their QTS and PGCEI with QTS programs are specifically designed for international schools, combining online learning with hands-on classroom experience. Check out the link in the show notes to learn more how they can develop teachers in your school. It's not just about looking outside.

Sometimes it's about looking within our building. We might have the expertise around us. We just might not have asked the right questions. For example, if you're looking at a change, what about teaching assistants who absolutely see different aspects of student learning?

Could they provide an insight? What about support staff who maybe have an understanding of family dynamics that may be useful to your change? Students, it sounds deaf to even think that we wouldn't think of students as one of our best assets for getting information and for learning from. They can often articulate their needs better than anyone.

Or what about parents? That massive body, that broad body of expertise. Think of all those skills and jobs and experiences that those parents do. Could any of them bring in some expertise?

And that brings to the last question that I want to leave you with today, which is to ask yourself, how confident am I to deliver this change? Or how confident are we to deliver this change? Think about that. And what would make me or us a little bit more confident?

You know, low confidence in a change is common, but confidence is often just a signal for something else that needs attention. Often low confidence might actually be signaling that you need greater clarity in what you're trying to achieve. And you're just not clear. Maybe low confidence might also signal something like we haven't got enough resources.

So I'm feeling not confident because the resources are insufficient. I don't think it's going to work. So your attention needs to go there. Maybe you're not confident because you feel your team are not going to align around this, in which case you need some alignment strengthening.

Or maybe you're not confident because there are some key questions that are just not answered. And that's just hanging this kind of vague mist around you, which you're feeling uncomfortable with. Asking yourself how confident am I, how confident are we, can really help you unlock some of these challenges. So one big challenge as we wrap this part up is to go, when have we learned enough?

So there's a learning process in every change. The big challenge is to go, when have we learned enough that we can start to take action? This is super important because we can get paralyzed in the learned stage going, there's still things to learn. Because in reality, there is always going to be stuff to learn.

And in reality, when you go ahead in a change, you're going to be learning on the way as well. Learning can't just be something that's front loaded. So here's a few ideas or questions that you might ask yourself to know, have I learned enough to move forward? Firstly, can you really clearly articulate the challenge and can you clearly articulate the solution?

Can you explain that to others? This is really important. If you can't, maybe there's still more to go. Have you tested your assumptions?

Do you understand the risks that are involved? Do you feel you've got diverse perspectives on this change? If you can answer yes to some of these questions, then maybe you're ready to change. If the answer is no or not yet, then maybe there's a bit more work to do.

But remember, the goal isn't here to learn everything, it's to learn enough to take meaningful action. Imagine you're setting out on a car journey, and I realize this analogy is going to be a bit tricky because sat-navs exist, right? But let's say sat-navs didn't exist, or even with a sat-nav. When you're planning out a long journey, and me and my family, we used to go on holiday down to Cornwall in the south of England.

It used to be a seven hour journey from where we lived. We had to plan that journey out. Now, when my dad was driving down, he didn't plan every single turn, every single place along the way. He didn't know everything before the start.

You don't need to know that. But he did need to know a few things. He needed to know that destination. He didn't know where we were going.

He needed to know some of those major waypoints. What were those major motorways along the way? What were those major points that we were going to touch along the way? Where might we stop along the way?

Where might we take breaks? He kind of had a good general idea there. Also, what are the potential obstacles? He would check the weather, take roadworks.

Are there anything that we might need to take a diversion? Are there any obstacles that are going to get in our way? And also, you would be checking available resources. In the case of a journey, he'd be checking a petrol.

Have I got enough petrol? When would I need to stop? We're probably going to have to fill up again at some point. Have we got my mum's classic chicken and stuff and sandwiches for the journey ahead because we're all going to get hungry and service station prices are extortionate?

Have we got the available resources? These are the key things. He needed to know the destination, the waypoints, the obstacles, and the resources needed. Don't need to know every turn.

In the same way, use that same checklist for going on your change journey. Do you know your destination? Do you know the clear waypoints along the way? Do you know those obstacles well?

And do you know the resources you need to get you there? If the answer's yes to those, you're ready to take the next step. Education Leaders is hosted by me, Shane Leaning. Thanks to the show editor, Pete McGill.

And for Original Music by Guillermo Silva, thank you so much for tuning in today. And as ever, if we don't speak before, I'll see you here next week. If you're interested in the work of my show's partners, the University of Warwick, and the International Curriculum Association, head to the show notes to get links to learn more.