1.6 Step-up-to-excellence:a change navigation protocol for transforming  (Page 2/20)

Even though the train has rolled across a lot of ground and although its passengers have done good things alongthe way, there they stand one more time looking out over the abyss wondering how in the world they will get to the other side. Some ofthose standing at the edge say,“Impossible, can’t be done.”Others say,“We’ve been here before and failed then.”Still others stand there and theorize about the complexity of crossing such a canyon.“It’s so hard to define the boundaries of the canyon. Just what is a system, what does it mean, is it this or is it that? We needthis, this, this, and that or we’ll never cross,”they suggest, but then they take no action to do what is needed. Still others,looking backward at the long train say,“What’s behind us is the future. What we have done in the past is what we should continue todo.”

There is a significant and pressing need to cross the“canyon of systemic school improvement”(e.g., see Houlihan&Houlihan, 2005). One way to make the crossing is found in the Step-Up-To-Excellence (SUTE) protocol described below.Before examining the protocol, let us consider the traditional approach to managing change in organizations.

The Traditional Approach to Managing Change

The traditional approach to managing change was developed by Kurt Lewin (1951). It is illustrated in Figure 1.What Lewin said is that to change a system, people first envision a desired future. Then, they assess the current situation and comparethe present to the future looking for gaps between what is and what is desired. Next, they develop a transition plan composed of longrange goals and short term objectives that will move their system straight forward toward its desired future. Along the way therewill be some unanticipated events that emerge, but it is assumed that the“strength”of anticipatory intentions (goals, objectives, strategic plans) will keep those unexpected events under controland thereby keep the system on a relatively straight change-path toward the future. The problem with this approach is that it doesnot work in contemporary organizations.

Instead of the“straightforward-to-the-future”assumption represented in Figure 1, the complexities of contemporary society and the pressures for rapid change, combinedwith an increasing number of unanticipated events and unintended consequences during change, have created three windingchange-paths: Path 1—improve an organization’s relationships with its environment; Path 2—improve its core and supporting work processes; and Path 3—improve its internal social infrastructure. These winding change-paths are illustrated in Figure 2.

If change leaders assume that there is a single strategic path from the present to the future that isrelatively straight forward when there are actually three winding paths, then as change leaders try to transform their system theywill soon be off the true paths and lost. To see how they would be off the true paths (the three winding paths) trace your fingeralong the assumed straight path in Figure 3. Wherever the straight path leaves the winding paths, you will be off course and lost.When off course and lost, people will revert back to their old ways, thereby enacting Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr’s (n. d.) often quoted French folk wisdom,“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”