This post was co-authored by Dr. Vanessa LoVerme Akhtar and Dr. John P. Kotter. Regarded by many as the authority on leadership and change, Dr. Kotter is a best-selling author, award winning business and management thought leader, business entrepreneur and Harvard Professor. His ideas, books, and company, Kotter International, help mobilize people around the world to better lead organizations in an era of increasingly rapid change. He continues to work tirelessly to achieve his vision of “millions leading, billions benefiting.”
Based on decades of empirical research at Harvard University, Kotter International was founded to help clients – across sectors – overcome the barriers to complex change. In recent years, we’ve seen a significant increase in inquiries from those in K-12 and higher ed. Yet, we still regularly hear questions and comments like, “Does this really work in education?” and “We’re nothing like the private sector.” Every organization has its unique challenges. While the tactical aspects of applying our methodology vary by context, the core elements seem to apply everywhere.
Leading Complex Change
Our research shows that organizations that successfully navigate complex change first create a sense of urgency around a “Big Opportunity.” The Big Opportunity is a bold statement that casts a vision, galvanizing others around the need to transform – why change, why now, and what is possible if we do. These organizations then leverage four change leadership principles that unlock success for any change effort.
- Think about both Management and Leadership. Management and Leadership are both critical to change, but require very different behaviors. Management focuses on maintenance and consistency – processes like planning and budgeting. Leadership focuses on moving toward the future – establishing a direction, aligning people around it, and inspiring them to act.
- Take care of both Head and Heart. To motivate people to change, frame the opportunity from both a rational and emotional perspective. The “heart” of change is often overlooked. When challenges arise, it’s easy to come up with logical reasons not to change. It’s much harder to give into barriers when people are emotionally invested.
- Move beyond “Have To” and create “Want To.” People more readily buy into the need for change and persist through challenges when they want to be a part of achieving the opportunity. While there will always be elements of “have to” in any change process, top-down, mandated change is rarely sustainable.
- Expand from the Select Few to the Diverse Many. Diverse perspectives yield more creative solutions to problems and more easily reveal potential barriers. Creating a large network of people working on a solution increases buy-in across stakeholders (inside and outside the organization), helps move people to “want to,” and generates more capacity to get things done.
Transformation in Education
Education has used much the same approach, to a large degree, for over a century. When many other industries have evolved so dramatically, why has education been relatively stuck? A few common responses we hear when we ask this question of clients in the field are:
“People aren’t bought into the vision.”
We often hear the “problem” is that people aren’t on board with the leadership’s direction. People in positions of authority often feel constant resistance from naysayers. In reality, few people resist change just for the sake of being difficult. Most people in charge (whether a CEO, a Superintendent, a Principal, etc.) create their vision in a vacuum, and then communicate the need for change from a “burning platform” (i.e. a crisis that needs to be resolved immediately).
Successful change flips this problem-focused approach. Teacher shortages and budget cuts are very real and serious challenges, but they rarely energize large groups of people to act and sustain change. Craft a path forward based on an opportunity that people want to move towards, and communicate it differently than ever before. Transformational change requires that many people alter how they work. It’s not easy getting all stakeholders involved early to generate sufficient buy-in. Yet, you must. Get creative. Provide opportunities for many voices to innovate together in totally different ways than you’ve tried before or that they’ve experienced before.
“We can’t risk experimenting with kids.”
We hear the same fear in healthcare and other highly regulated industries. A certain amount of risk aversion is appropriate, but when taken too far it becomes an excuse not to act. The power of a compelling opportunity statement that engages both the head and heart is that it helps people understand that there is actually more risk to children’s futures by doing nothing.
Think about how we tend to communicate the need for change. Presentations. Statistics. Email. Now, consider student outcomes for those underserved by our current system – high dropout rates and unemployment, low financial literacy and student engagement. Would the case for change be more powerfully made in a data-filled spreadsheet or a video compilation of students telling their stories? Messages that visibly bring the student back, front and center, are more likely to engage stakeholders.
“It’s too hard to scale.”
While there are examples of schools that push the limits on innovation, we have yet to find a district or state that has taken on a major transformation journey across all of their schools. Yet, we’ve seen large, complex businesses successfully transform across continents, cultures, and very different business units by breaking down barriers to action.
In any change effort, there will be early adopters who are ready to dive in to achieve the Big Opportunity. Empower these people to act as leaders, regardless of their role. Their efforts show proof of progress – early wins to help skeptics see that change is possible. Build new networks to share lessons learned. What ideas could scale if administrators from the lowest and highest performing schools in the district got in a room together? What about having a kindergarten teacher and high school teacher collaborate? Can you get parents and students involved in crafting novel solutions? There is immense power in creating these types of experiences.
Getting Started
For organizations to successfully transform (and sustain that transformation), you must create a compelling opportunity that serves as a North Star around which you can mobilize large groups of people. This step is often missed or hurried. Done right it will build urgency, unlocking the potential of those across the school (or district) to take action and innovate. There is amazing power within any institution. It’s a matter of figuring out how to align and channel it in an inspiring direction. That’s what leaders do.