The change Process: Leading in a Culture of Change

Leading in a Culture of Change is a conceptual plan for the change process, as developed by Michael Fullan.

 Summary

Michael Fullan is an international authority on educational reform.  His research on change is widely read and employed in school systems across the country.  This book, “Leading In A Culture Of Change,” is, on many levels, the conceptual counterpart to Kotter’s book, “Leading Change.”  An overview of Fullan’s five competencies for change will be presented here.

The basic assumption is that, with environments experiencing radical change in an increasingly diverse world, and with quality decisions needing to be made “under conditions of mind-racing mania,” (p. v) leaders are caught between a rock and a hard place.  How do we arrive at well thought-out decisions with the train to extinction racing towards us?  To respond to such an environment, Fullan presents a change model that focuses on five competencies: moral purpose, understanding change, developing relationships, knowledge building, and coherence making.  Fullan believes that following these five competencies will allow “learning organizations ….  To cultivate and sustain learning under conditions of complex , rapid change.” (p. vii)

A brief delineation of these five competencies will be shared here: 

1. Moral Purpose

Moral purpose reminds us the why we do something is as important as what we do.  “Organizations need to have a soul, a state of mind which represents a social conscience. “ (p. 28)  Authentic leadership is more about character than expertise.  Moral purpose can align a group with direction, and  “awaken people’s intrinsic commitment.” (p. 20)  It can coalesce divergent forces, and remind us that we, first and foremost, “a community of humans.” (p. 26)

2. Understanding change

Mindful of the creative tension that extends from rapid and nonlinear change, and responding to the effects of the proverbial “burning platform” that can encourage change, Fullan lists six ideas that the leader must understand before initiating change:

a.     The goal is not to innovate the most; just superficial adornments?

b.      It is not enough to have the best ideas; how to get buy-in?

c.      Appreciate the implementation dip; flexible leadership for diverse needs

d.      Redefine resistance; what are the positives and negatives – conflict is not all bad?

e.      Reculturing is the name of the game; a paradigm shift for permanence

f.       Never a checklist, always complexity; understanding and insight over action

The change process is more about wisdom than action.

3. Relationships, Relationships, Relationships

“ In a nonlinear, dynamic world, everything exists only in relationship to everything else, and the interactions among agents in the system lead to complex, unpredictable outcomes.” (52)  Developing meaningful and genuine relationships is about engineering the soul of the organization.  Covey says,” You can buy a man’s hands, but you can’t buy his heart.” (Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, 1989)  Relationship building is an attempt to buy the heart of the organization.  It will increase the effectiveness of the organization, as leadership breaks down the silos that engender autonomy that means, “isolation and reinforces the norms of individualism and conservatism.” (Fullan, p. 66)

4. Knowledge building

“Information is machines. Knowledge is people.  Information becomes knowledge only when it takes on a ‘social life.’ “ (p. 78) The challenge is how to create explicit knowledge (words and numbers) and tacit knowledge (beliefs and understanding that might be below the surface of awareness).  We might be able to secure access to explicit knowledge with machines, but we get to tacit knowledge only with relationships.   These relationships must be built on a strong culture of trust that will engender the ease of open dialogue.

5. Coherence Making

Change in a culture of diversity and rapidity will be messy and disorderly.  If we don’t make coherence out of the mess, change dies on the flatbed to nowhere, a path of too many change initiatives.  Using Kotter’s stages of guiding coalitions, empowerment, and visioning, one can see that so much of change is about people, and their ability to know what we all want and to see where we are going.   As so many change initiatives break up existing silos, and traditional roles, people need the leader to make sense of it all. Rapid change and slow learning produce a, “paradox that brings us to the hare and the tortoise.”  (119) 

Overview

That proverbial race embodies the challenge facing leaders today: how to move the organization forward slowly enough so that we are all on the same page, but quickly enough so that the competitive world around us does not pass us by.   Fullan frames this challenge with much of the same general concepts, but in a more theoretical way.  Kotter’s steps/stages are presented in correlative conceptual format.  Where Kotter speaks of developing a vision, Fullan talks of knowledge creation.  Where Kotter discussed guiding coalitions and empowering team members, Fullan posited the power of relationship building.  While Kotter gave us the nuts and bolts for change, I believe that Fullan gives us the rationale of why we need the bolts.