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Leading Change

Introduction

The phrase leading change may generate a variety of emotions and reactions among individuals in an organization. Hope, optimism, excitement, relief, anxiety, and dismay are just a few of the thoughts and feelings that might be expressed by faculty, staff members, students, alumni, and others in a campus community. As a higher education professional, you should be prepared to lead others through change in a positive, collaborative manner and to encounter emotional and political resistance to change efforts.

This week, you will share experiences in which the political environment of your institution has impacted your efforts at collaborative change.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

Propose ways to mitigate the negative influences of the political environment when leading change
Review the literature on organizational and program models

· Discussion - Week 4

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· In the Middle

In this week’s video, Dr. Adrianna Kezar, professor at the University of Southern California, discusses ways in which middle-level leaders can lead and support change at their institutions. In Chapter 22 of the course text (McClellan & Stringer, 2009), Stringer discusses the influences of the political environment in which higher education professionals work. In what ways might political issues work against or undermine collaborative leadership strategies such as those Kezar recommends?

By Wednesday:

Post an example of an experience in which you were required to navigate a complex political environment at your institution. Explain how the politics of your institution may have worked against the collaborative leadership practices you were trying to achieve.

·Bottom of Form

This is the Media video in Close Caption

ABOUT CAMPUS / MAY

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JUNE 2001

in higher education work to reform undergraduate education, particularly in order to provide new opportunities for student learning, we inevitably encounter roadblocks. My purpose here is to focus on the dynamics of organizational change inhigher education and to suggest ways to overcome these roadblocks. The assumption that drives this article is that those of us who work in postsecondary institutions need to rethink the structures that frame our work and reconsider the organizational cultures that define our lives. We cannot meet the increased demands of the twenty-first century without these efforts. James Duderstadt summarized the situation nicely in A University for the 21st Century:“ We face a future in which permanence and stability become less important than

flexibility and creativity, in which one of the few certainties will be the presence of continual change” (p. 35).

In research I have conducted on the campuses of fifteen four-year institutions over the last three years, I have interviewed over two hundred faculty members, deans, and senior administrators about the problems they feel they are confronting in their reform efforts. I have discovered that the problems

Why do so many reform efforts fail to deliver on their promise?

The problem, says the author, is not so much what we do, but how

. Here he outlines how to create and maintain an organizational culture that embraces changes and clears the way for reform.

TO REFORM AS WE OBSTACLES BYWILLIAMG. TIERNEY OVERCOMING 21

ABOUT CAMPUS / MAY–JUNE 2001 are often not so much about what to do as how to do it. Unfortunately, I have seen more failures of reform efforts than successes. To be sure, some ideas should fail; not every innovation is an improvement. And yet we bemoan the time and energy we put into the effort if nothing ever changes. Frequently, the failure to reform leads to a sense of stasis and cynicism precisely at a time when we should be thinking about ways to enact

improvements and innovations. ROADBLOCKS TOREFORM IN WHAT FOLLOWS I raise five issues that are obstacles to innovation and reform. I observed these

problems in one way or another on virtually every campus I visited.

Lack of agreement. There are three primary reasons why lack of agreement stalls innovation. The first is that individuals often do not agree on the problem

that is to be solved. The assumption that those involved in reform will all agree about the nature of a problem without full discussion leads to a decision-making

process with skewed perspectives. The second point of disagreement is based on the first: when we begin problem solving by operating from different premises,

we naturally will have different assumptions about the kind of information needed to reach a decision. The third area of disagreement is often the most crucial: Who makes the decision about a particular issue? Any one group on campus may assume that when they make a decision about how a problem should be solved, their decision will be honored. For example, members of a dean’s advisory council may understand that their role is advisory but presume that the dean will defer to their recommendations. However, a dean may

have a completely different idea and assume that the group’s role is entirely advisory. Or faculty members in an academic senate may think of themselves as a legislative body, but the provost may see the senate as a group that merely conveys information to the rest of the faculty. One faculty member may consult with numerous others about a particular innovation that he wants to implement but may ultimately face a roadblock when another group raises objections because it has not been consulted. Each problem, in the abstract, does not necessarily doom an innovation. Ultimately, one perception about an issue may be more successful than another. Some pieces of information that are gathered will be less compelling than others. The actors who make a decision may evoke controversy, but a decision may still be reached. However, lack of agreement about the nature of a problem, about the information that needs to be collected, and about who makes decisions is only the initial dilemma that innovators face, and this initial stumbling block makes implementation harder, not easier. Unclear time frames and structures. Individuals often act within very different time frames. Frequently, reformers assume they have time to work on a problem

without regard to a specific schedule.The problem isparticularly vexing if decision making extends beyond an academic year. Typically, very little faculty administrative work is done in the summer, and when a new academic year begins, new committee members are invariably unaware of the kind of discussions that took place the year before. Consequently, the

first issue begins again: new members have new assumptions about the

problem and what kind of information ought to be collected. The result is that new committee members feel hurried and long-term committee members and administrators perceive unnecessary delays in the implementation of an idea they may have already worked on for over a year. Further, the stages in the decision-making process where decisions are made are often unclear. However

slow and cumbersome decision making may be in the One faculty member may consult with numerousothers about a particular innovation that he wants to

implement but may ultimately face a roadblock when another group raises objections because it has not been consulted. William G.Tierney is the Wilbur Kieffer Professor of HigherEducation and director of the Center for the Study of HigherEducation at the University of Southern California. He can

be reached at [email protected].

ABOUT CAMPUS / MAY

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JUNE 2001

U.S. Congress, for example, one has a sense of how the process works and when issues will be debated and decisions made. Colleges and universities often work with very different decision-making processes from those of formalized decision-making bodies. Indeed, as organizational theorist Karl Weick explained in

Administrative Science Quarterly,it is the nature of academic organizations to be

“loosely coupled,”meaning there is no clearor systematic decision-making process. Instead, they operate on the basis of shared governance, assuming that

faculty, staff, and administrators participate in structures that lead to jointly agreed-on decisions. Unfortunately, without a systematic way to make decisions, the possibility of misunderstanding is great. The best example of decision making in a tightly coupled organization is a military unit in which a strict chain of command makes clear the question of who is to follow which orders. Academic organizations are the opposite. No one is ever quite sure which constituencies

need to be involved in decision-making processes or how decisions are

finally made. Given the abstruse context for decision making, individuals frequently remove themselves from the process, because they feel that dis-

cussion about a particular topic is a waste of time.The implementation of the innovation grinds to a halt. Lack of evaluative criteria.

When educators form committees to consider educational change, they rarely

discuss how to evaluate a proposed innovation. Indeed, the processes of decision making and implementation are so burdensome that trying to get the innovation in place overtakes any sense of whether it solved the initial problem or provided the best possible solution.The danger of unclear evaluative measures is twofold. First,the proposed innovation may actually be detrimental or mediocre, so that the problem is not solved and must be reconsidered at some point in the future. Second, as participants realize that the change did not help anyone, they become cynical about participating in subsequent reform efforts.The result is that the question that was to be answered remains an unsolved riddle, and enthusiasm for solving other conundrums is dampened.

Failure to articulate changes to the rest of the campus. Often when an innovation is proposed, the rest of the campus is unaware either that a particular problem

exists or that any significant changes are being considered.The norm is that a committee becomes enmeshed in the issues under review and the rest of the academic community has no knowledge of either the problems

or the proposed solutions. In large part because of the delicate nature of shared governance in a loosely coupled system, this lack of awareness in the rest of the

organization will probably doom the proposed innovation.

Cultural exhaustion and system freeze.

My research indicates that the kinds of failures I have outlined continually repeat themselves so that those who have worked at reform are less willing to put in time when another effort is suggested.“Why bother?”

becomes the refrain.The result is that the system freezes. Although

everyone may be unhappy with the status quo, they realize that their work toward change will only result infrustration. Collaborative work is eschewed because of a history of previous failures.This static culture is particularly worrisome at a time when external forces are demanding change.

A CULTURAL FRAMEWORK FOR REFORM

MERELY UNDERSTANDING what causes cultural stasis does little to resolve problems. Instead, educators on campus need a sense of how to overcome

barriers to reform. I offer five strategies for effecting change that are drawn from those I observed only on campuses that were successful in their reform efforts, not on those that failed at reform. Create an atmosphere of agreement.

One should not attempt a discussion about a particular topic if it is

merely an academic exercise. As we have seen, problems result when a committee embarks on a project without clearly defined goals. The charge to a committee ought to be specific enough for each member to clearly

understand the committee’s purpose. I found that committees that began with broadly defined issues ended up Given the abstruse context for decision making,

individuals frequently remove themselves from the process, because they feel that discussion about a particular topic is a waste of time.

Reference: Video: Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive producer). (2011). Leading change in student support programs: Change leadership. Baltimore, MD: Author.

This page contains the Learning Resources for this week. Be sure to scroll down the page to see all of the assigned resources for this week. To view this week's media resources, please use the streaming media player below.

Focus On

As you explore this week's Learning Resources, focus on the complex organizational and political challenges that leaders face in managing and leading change, and ways of overcoming these challenges through enhanced partnerships, communication, and inclusion. Consider the potential sources of conflict within an organization faced with opportunities (or requirements) for change and methods that leaders can use to turn conflict into collaboration.

Required Readings

Course Text: The Handbook of Student Affairs Administration
- Chapter 22, "The Political Environment of the Student Affairs Administrator"
- Chapter 24, "Understanding and Managing Conflict"

Article: Kezar, A. (2000). Pluralistic leadership: Bringing diverse voices to the table. About Campus, 5(3), 6–11.
Retrieved from the Walden Library using the Academic Search Complete database.
Pluralistic leadership. About Campus, 5(3) by Kezar, A. Copyright 2000 by JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC. - JOURNALS Reprinted by permission of JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC. - JOURNALS via the Copyright Clearance Center.
Article: Tierney, W. G. (2001). Overcoming obstacles to reform. About Campus, 6(2), 20–24.
Overcoming obstacles to reform. About Campus, 6(2) by Tierney, W. G. Copyright 2001 by JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC. - JOURNALS Reprinted by permission of JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC. - JOURNALS via the Copyright Clearance Center.