Leading Change for Improvement

Today I attended the NPQH module, 'Leading Change For Improvement'

We talked about stages of grief that staff members may go through whenever changes are put in place. This Simpsons video sums them up in a funny way:



Tuckman's model of change was used as a model for how to work through change in schools.



When I am a headteacher I hope that this process may look like this:

Forming
The main thing about this stage of the process is to work together to agree common goals. I hope to pull people in the same direction by involving them in the goal setting process and giving them ownership.

Storming
Like in the video, I want to avoid 'arguing' and have the 'right sort of arguing'. This means that the storming session will set roles and responsibilities that will help us to achieve the goals. Our common goals will be our guiding principle to help us to achieve what we want, without straying off at a tangent.

Norming
This is when we'll try things out. We might make changes and we might rethink some of our strategies. But we will continually refer to the goals that we want to achieve, and the roles and responsibilities of everyone in the team.

Performing
Sometimes changes take days. Sometimes they take years. But an important change must perform well and if we can get the three earlier stages right, the school will perform.

I loved this quote from the day: "Relationships are the key to change." This is completely right. There has to be happy, healthy, productive relationships within the stakeholders for the change to work.

I'm not too sure about the message in Resistance to Change. But I imagine that I will bear this in mind when I am first appointed in a school. Maybe some members of the team of staff that I take on will be resistant to change. Maybe over time I will be able to bring in new members of the team that will work with us on our goals.