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."