Leading Organizational Change

Starting in the ADL program, I selected this program to have a more significant impact on my students and the education community as a whole. Therefore, it was essential to understand my "Why" as I developed my innovation proposal. One of the things I discovered in the process was how to articulate better my goal for education and what I hope to achieve as an educator today.

My why, how, and what

Why: We believe in giving every child the tools and skills to achieve their wildest dreams and find their voice.

How: To do this, we will help all students unlock their potential by teaching them the growth mindset while giving them continuous feed forward feedback.

What: Helping all children find their voice and achieve their dreams.

"The difference between what we are doing and what we are capable of doing would solve most of the world's problems," Mahatma Gandhi.

One thing that brings me great joy is watching someone working in a space that many would perceive as their divine purpose. Often you know that a person is in this space by the pleasure you see from them as they do what they were supposed to do on earth. Sometimes the feeling is contagious for me. I often get this feeling when listening to an artist effortlessly sing notes, watching a person work with an evident passion for their craft, or when a student catches a glimmer of their potential. As an educator, I strive to educate my students on content, citizenship, and grit, but one of the greatest lessons we can pass on to them is the lesson and practice of finding their voice and purpose. This idea is at the core of my goal in education and my innovation plan.

I read an article in the New York Times that explained how nine-year-olds had lost ground in math, and their scores in reading have fallen by the most significant margin in more than 30 years. One of the article's concerns that jumped out at me was the loss of engagement for students who have fallen behind. When I see articles like this, it is easy to add this to the pile of discouraging information that sometimes tells us that despite our best effort, we have failed. I'll admit it. This can be intimidating. However, I go to my "why" statement in that exact moment. I'm reminded of my greater sense of purpose and mission that encourages me not to "quietly quiet" in my role as an educator but to fully engage in the work and my students. When I'm committed to my purpose, I can help students get closer to their purpose creating ownership of their dream and a passion for learning. I can make sense of urgency in the impact on students who have experienced learning losses and the risk of delaying action that would help to improve the learning loss.

"I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be," Martin Luther King.

To create organizational change, you must influence the people in the organization that you want to change. The Influencer recommended finding the vital behaviors, which in my innovation proposal would be the weekly activity of students and teachers in the e-portfolio. For this to be successful, I will have to use all six influencer strategies to ensure that my innovation proposal is successful.

Influence Strategy

For many educators, our time is precious. Therefore, when I think of new initiatives, my focus centers on the educators' time. My innovation proposal aims to integrate e-portfolios in all grade levels on my campus by 2024. However, it may be challenging for some on campus due to time constraints. Therefore, I decided to focus on three key areas to create early acceptance and usage of e-portfolios on campus. These include approval by influencers, incentivizing the behavior, and creating a culture of positive celebrations. In creating my plan, I used all positive reinforcements because I believed this could benefit teachers and students throughout life. Using negative reinforces would only support the idea of this being another top-down incentive with little user input. In early adoption, connecting with e-portfolios and our broader campus goal was also essential in answering the "why" question for our campus. Our campus goal is creating academic excellence and student success while preparing students to be lifelong learners is essential. E-portfolios easily align with our mission statement.

But first, I have to have adoption of my idea by the early adopters and influencers on our campus. So, for my project, I have decided to focus not only on the department and grade level chairs but also on the "goto" people on campus to create buy-in and comfort with e-portfolios.

In the Influencer, it was recommended that the goals be focused, measured, precise, and measurable (Maxfield et al., 2014, 114) Therefore, the second phase of the implementation would be driving focused and calculated purposes directly connected to the use of e-portfolio by posting and sharing weekly progress of the usage of e-portfolios on campus. With these key ideas in mind and the proposals in the influencer strategy, we can achieve our goal.

In 4DX the focus is on the execution of goals and not allowing the whirlwind to distract you. 4DX also focused on the leading indicators versus concentrating on the lagging indicator to drive decision-making. But most important was the accountability that came with effective execution by holding yourself and your team accountable for your commitments to the team.

4DX

Having a well-planned goal is the key to the effective execution of any plan or objective. After setting a clear purpose, it's essential to focus on indicators that predict the desired result and not on indicators that confirm suspected outcomes.

In The 4 Disciplines of Execution, the authors lay out a clear roadmap for creating a precise goal while walking you through the process of becoming more effective in the execution of your plan. Furthermore, the 4DX and the Influencer Model complement each other in how the influencer shares strategies for changing the behavior of others. In contrast, the 4DX model gives you a tool for creating organizational change and actionable steps to make changes.

Huling, J., Covey, S., McChesney, C., & Walker, B. (2021). The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Revised and Updated: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals. Simon & Schuster Audio.

Self-differentiated Leadership

I will need to focus on differentiated leadership and crucial conversations to bring about change and implement my innovation plan. Being a genuinely differentiated leader means not allowing yourself not to become a part emotional triangles of others, meaning that it would be important not to become a part of negativity but continue to be a calming influence in the culture. But for the innovation plan to be successfully implemented, it would also be essential to have a crucial conversation with critical influencers on campus ahead of time. So often, I have witnessed great ideas die on campus simply because leadership refused to address apparent concerns. We must view follow-up questions as something other than a nuisance or a lack of willingness to try new things but as an opportunity to convince those who may typically be late adopters of new ideas.

Having meaningful discussions would require me to face concerns and hesitations head-on versus letting problems continue unchecked. Having critical conversations will also require me to speak to the heart and align my innovation proposal with our greater mission of preparing students for college and being lifelong learners. With these two things in place, implementing my innovation plan has a greater chance for success.