A "perfect storm" is an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of challenges come together to create something simply extra-ordinary...

You could argue that this is what happened nine years ago to create Education Leeds and today's challenges threaten to overwhelm what we have achieved together over the last nine years with huge budget cuts looming, capital funding disappearing and an increasing difficulty attracting and retaining talented colleagues. However if you look at it more creatively these challenges are really opportunities for talented colleagues with the future of public services hingeing on brilliant leadership, social enterprise, powerful communities, responsibilities alongside rights and civic companies enabling local authorities to champion and commission rather than provide services.
Chris

I have been managing change for the last twenty five years and over those years these are the biggest mistakes I've made in managing change -- and the lessons I've learned on the way...

Mistake Number 1 : I didn't understand the critical importance of people.

Lesson learnt: Organizations don't change. People do -- or they don't.

Mistake Number 2: I didn't appreciate that people throughout any organisation have different reactions to change

Lesson learnt: Some people are more "ready for change" We need encourage the early adaptors and champions.

Mistake Number 3: I treated transformational change as an event, rather than a mental, physical and emotional process.

Lesson learnt: Large-scale organizational change usually triggers emotional reactions -- denial, negativity, choice, tentative acceptance, commitment.

Mistake Number 4: I wasn't totally honest with colleagues.

Lesson learnt: Communicate openly and honestly.

Mistake Number 5: I didn't carefully "set the context" for change.

Lesson learnt: Colleagues need to know the vision, goals, and strategy for any new arrangements.

Mistake Number 6: I tried to manage transformational change with the same strategies used for incremental change.

Lesson learnt: Continuous improvement is linear, predictable, logical, and based on a progressive acceleration of past performance. Transformational change is none of these things.

Mistake Number 7: I forget to negotiate the new "agreement" between the boss and his colleagues.

Lesson learnt: A new relationship needs to develop, based on mutual trust and respect.

Mistake Number 8: I used to believe that simple communication engages colleagues.

Lesson learnt: We must learn the importance of behaviour-based communication as a requirement for leading change.

Mistake Number 9: I underestimated the potential of my colleagues.

Lesson learnt: Trust in the innate intelligence, capability, and creativity of your colleagues and people will simply amaze you.

These lessons have helped me build something extra-ordinary at Education Leeds; a unique, award winning company that has transformed education and learning.

Chris

We are entering another difficult period in the story of Education Leeds, where we need to carefully manage another complex and difficult change...

I have been talking to my colleague Dirk Gilleard about how we do it and we agreed that these are the approaches we should use:

1. We need to educate and work with all the colleagues involved.
2. We need to use a "systems" approach to ensure that all aspects are considered when planning and implementing the necessary changes.
3. We need to use a team approach that involves as many stakeholders and partners as possible in the change process.
4. We need to share power to encourage the implementation of the change.
5. We need to make plans, but "hold our plans loosely." Develop plans, but know that they will have to be adapted to change as opportunities arise and needs change.
6. We need to realize that there is a tension between establishing readiness for change and the need to get people implementing new approaches quickly.
7. We need to provide considerable amounts of training and staff development for everyone involved.
8. We need to choose innovative practices that are research-based and "organisation friendly."
9. We need to recognize that change happens through people; understanding colleagues resistance to change and working with it to build consensus and engagement.
10. We need to be prepared for "implementation dip"; things often get worse temporarily before improvement begins to appear.
11. We need to help colleagues develop an "intellectual understanding" of the change process we are engaged in.
12. We need to seek out "enablers" and "champions" who are interested in and supportive of the substantial changes we are making.
13. We need to take the long view; realizing that change takes time and should not be forced to occur too quickly.

I hope this helps.

Chris

“And the pleasure of discovery differs from
other pleasures in this [...] Other desires perish
in their gratification, but the desire of knowledge
never: the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor
the ear filled with hearing. Other desires
become the occasion of pain through dearth of
the material to gratify them, but not the desire
of knowledge: the sum of things to be known is
inexhaustible, and however long we read we
shall never come to the end of our story-book.”

A.E. Housman, 1892

A "perfect storm" is an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of challenges come together to create something simply extra-ordinary...

You could argue that this is what happened nine years ago to create Education Leeds and today we are facing a combination of challenges that threaten to overwhelm what we have achieved together over the last nine years with huge budget cuts looming, capital funding disappearing and an increasing difficulty attracting and retaining talented colleagues. However if you look at it more creatively these challenges are really opportunities for talented colleagues with the future of public services hingeing on brilliant leadership, social enterprise, powerful communities, responsibilities alongside rights and civic companies enabling local authorities to champion and commission rather than provide services.

It is important that we rise to these challenges and continue to focus on the things that really matter... whatever it takes!
Chris

I saw 'Invictus' last night which is based on the book "Playing the Enemy"...

It's a great film starring Morgan Freeman as South African President Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as Rugby Captain Francois Pienaar. It is the story of Nelson Mandela's first years as President of the culturally separated country in the run up to the Rugby World Cup in South Africa in 1995. The poem 'Invictus' is a great reminder to us all about what really matters in life.

"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul."

William Ernest Henley

A friend sent me this brilliant quote to help steady the nerves...

"A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities
and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties."
Harry Truman

"Ability is what you're capable of doing.

Motivation determines what you do.

Attitude determines how well you do it."

Lou Holtz

My colleague Geoff Roberts sent me this after reading my Interesting Times blog...

"Hi again Chris, One of your posts from The Guardian Public Services Summit 2010 got my mind working – which for a Friday pm is pretty impressive. It led me to think about the difference between change management (which is what tends to get discussed) and change leadership. I don’t doubt that change management is important and that there is a place for standard methodologies such as PRINCE2 – although I suggest that such methodologies are more appropriate for building roads or writing software than the sort of ‘human change’ that we tend to get involved in and which lies at the heart of the challenge. We also know that the difficulty of implementing change varies with each different change. Why might that be – it’s not about the plans or the technologies it’s about the people and people do not respond in programmatic ways that can be ‘managed’, they respond in individual ways depending on their individual Values, drivers, motivations, circumstances, etc. Where change efforts so often fail is in not answering each individual ‘Why?’ and ‘What is in it for me?’ – if there is nothing in it for me then the best anyone can expect is compliance, whereas good answers to Why? And Wiifm? can generate the sort of commitment that makes change much easier.

If I have learned one thing in my many years as a change agent it is Communicate, Communicate, Communicate – and to do most of that by listening, not preaching. We (and to be very frank, "we" includes quite a few Education Leeds people that I come across) need to understand the difference between consultation and involvement as well as appreciating where and when to do each. My typification of the difference is:
Consultation – "We plan to do this, have you any thoughts on the proposal before I make my decision?"
Involvement – "We share a problem, let’s sit down and figure out how to solve it"
The latter takes time and means early stakeholder identification and persistent involvement to craft a mutually satisfactory solution, the former lets the experts sit in their current paradigm and each side blame the other when things go wrong. The former requires rudimentary skills, the latter much more sophisticated interpersonal and group dynamic capabilities. We know that change is more effective and sustained when it is done by the participants rather than being done to them. Don’t know if this is just me ‘soapboxing’ or whether it makes a useful thinkpiece – you judge. Be well, thanks and have fun, Geoff."

"All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost.

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost."

J.R.R. Tolkien