1.6 Step-up-to-excellence:a change navigation protocol for transforming  (Page 9/20)

• Hard Factor #4: Effort. When planning the transformation of a school district change leaders sometimes do not realize or do notknow how to deal with the fact that faculty and staff are already busy with their day-to-day responsibilities (see objection #3 atthe end of this article). If in addition to these existing responsibilities faculty and staff are asked to join the changeleadership teams that are required to transform their district their level of resistance toward the transformation journey willincrease.

Sirkin, Keenan and Jackson (2005, p. 6) suggested that ideally the workload of key employees (i.e., thosewho have direct change leadership responsibilities) should not increase more than 10% during a transformation effort. Beyond the10% limit resources for change will be overstretched, employee morale will plummet, and interpersonal and inter-group conflictwill increase. Therefore, decisions must be made about how to manage the workload of the people who are invited to join thechange leadership teams that are formed for the SUTE journey.

Making a launch/do not launch decision. At some point the pre-launch team will decide if their school systemis ready or not ready to launch a full-scale transformation journey; that is, they will make a“launch/don’t launch”decision. If a launch decision is made, then a new leadership team ischartered and trained to provide strategic leadership for the duration of the transformation journey. This team, because of itspurpose, is called a Strategic Leadership Team and it is staffed bythe superintendent and several others, including teachers and building administrators appointed to the team by their peers (notby the superintendent). This team also appoints and trains a Change Navigation Coordinator who provides daily, tactical leadership forthe SUTE journey.

Near the end of the Pre-Launch Preparation phase, the Strategic Leadership Team and Change NavigationCoordinator organize and conduct a 3-day Community Engagement Conference that can bring into a single room hundreds of peoplefrom the community who then self-organize into smaller discussion groups around topics related to the district’s transformation effort. This conference is designed using Harrison Owen’s (1991, 1993) Open Space Technology design principles. The results of thisconference are used as front-end data for another large-group event for the district’s faculty and staff. This event is called a District Engagement Conference.

The 3-day District Engagement Conference is a strategic planning conference that brings the whole district intoone room. This conference uses the design principles of Weisbord and Janoff’s Future Search (in Schweitz&Martens with Aronson, 2005) or Emery’s (2006) Search Conference (either set of principles will work for this conference). Bringing the whole district intothe room, however, does not mean that every single person who works in the district participates in the conference. Instead, theStrategic Leadership Team and Change Navigation Coordinator ask each department, team, and unit within the district to send atleast one person to participate in the conference. In this way, the whole system is represented in the conference room. The outcome ofthis conference is a new strategic framework for the district that includes a new mission, vision, and strategic plan; as well asparameters for guiding the transformation journey.