Leading Change
Barbara Holland & Judith Ramaley
Why is Change so Hard?
• Focus on solo scholars and disciplines
• Emphasis on theory over other knowledge uses
• Lack of awareness of global change in knowledge
production
• Standard reward and promotion policies focus on
uniformity over innovation
• Some disciplines and people value “detachment”
• Academics tend to teach the way they were taught
and work in the model of their mentors
• Successful traditions reduce motivation to consider
new ideas and methods – focus on grants over
relationships
Assumptions about what change will mean
• All change in academic practice is bad. If it
ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
• Strategies that built the institutions we most
admire are the strategies for us.
• Change will hurt “my work” – individual.
• Traditional research is the only thing that
matters here.
• You will make us all do this and I don’t see
how I could change my approach to teaching
Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.
Tests to apply to a proposed project
(adapted from Rogers 1995)
• Relative advantage: Is this way better?
• Compatibility: Is this consistent with the values,
experiences and needs of people who will use it?
• Complexity: Is this easy to understand?
• Scalability: Can you start small and grow?
• Observability: Are the result visible and
compelling?
• Adaptability: Can this way be adjusted to different
settings, disciplines/perspectives and situations?
Building Your Action Plan:
Steps in the Cycle of Change
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Creating a clear focus for the plan
Setting meaningful, measurable goals
Identifying and using available capacity
Making connections that reinforce and
expand the effort and its impact
• Learning from the experience
• Applying what you have learned as the
next phase begins…
– Select the next target
Selecting the first target and
setting meaningful goals
Think about your action plan: What might be your first
small step to gain early momentum and buy-in?
 Is there already a goal or effort underway (other
conversations, strategies, initiatives) that you can use
as leverage?
 Can you identify and recruit people who already
embrace this agenda (the “committed”)? How would
you involve them as advocates?
 How will you measure your progress?
Promoting Deep Organizational Change
adapted from Rogers 1995
The innovation-diffusion process is the pattern
through which an individual or a group of people
move
– From first knowledge of an innovation or idea
– To forming an attitude about that innovation
– To deciding whether to adopt it or reject it
– To implementing the new idea and perhaps
adapting it to their particular situation or
challenges
– To confirming their decision and building it into
their repertoire of practices and habits.
Getting to Critical Mass
The Power of the Bell-shaped Curve
Resisters
[1]
Skeptics
[2] Cautious [3] Committed
[1] Management of criticism and resistance
[2] Culture of Evidence Barrier
[3] Lowering the Energy Barrier: Need for infrastructure
Recruiting People: Use the Bell Shaped
Curve!
• Move from right to left and do not be drawn into the
depths of the far left.
• You only need to convince about 25% of the people.
• There are strategies available to lower or remove the
barriers between the cautious and the committed.
• Skeptics demand evidence that the new way is valid.
The status quo should also be judged through
evidence. Hold yourself and your detractors to a high
standard of proof. Change is a scholarly act!
Identifying and using available capacity
 Who are the early adopters at your institution and
what sustains their efforts?
 What kinds of evidence or arguments might help you
recruit the “cautious” to your agenda?
 Who should you recruit first from the” cautious”
group?
 In the context of your mission, what activities and
contributions are most valued?
 What do you hope to accomplish using engagement
strategies? Who cares the most about those goals?
Building a collaborative culture and capacity for
engagement
 Are there conversations, strategies, initiatives that
you can use as leverage?
 Are there relationships and projects that illustrate
what cross-sector collaboration means?
 Can you identify and recruit people who already
embrace this agenda? How would you involve them
as advocates? Have they a strong voice on campus?
 How will you measure your progress and expand the
effort and impact?
 How will you tell the story of collaboration and its
impact on the campus community and beyond?
Campus-community interactions
• Routine: clinical placements, internships,
commissioned data reports, student teaching,
law clinics, continuing education
• Strategic: collaborations for property
development, neighborhood restoration
• Transformative: integration of research,
education and practice to lay a foundation to
reinvent organizations and professions in
order to restructure economic, social and
environmental profiles of communities
What Kinds of Partnership Will Work Best?
Answer: It depends.
• Service relationship – fixed time, fixed task
• Exchange relationship – exchange info, get access
for mutual benefit, specific project
• Cooperative relationship – joint planning and
shared responsibilities, long-term, multiple projects
• System and Transformative relationship – shared
decision-making/operations/evaluation intended to
strengthen each organization and promote changes
in a larger multifaceted problem; now called
collective impact
Hugh Sockett, 1998
Managing the responses to your
action plan
• Who may oppose your plans and what can you do to
win them over, or, at least, keep them from derailing
your efforts?
• How do reactions unfold at your institution and what
can you do to help people adapt to the “new reality”
that your plan represents?
• Are there other projects or changes going on that you
can use to clear a path for your engagement agenda?
How can you build support for your plan?
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Who assembled your team or asked you to attend
this Academy? How influential is your sponsor?
What other priorities are competing with yours?
Who do you need to influence? To whom do they
listen?
Who else already buys into this agenda? Who
does not? Why not?
Discussion Q: Who will be important new
advocates for your action plan ideas?
Identify a person (by role) you want to
recruit to this agenda and why.
Things to keep in mind if you are leading
change in challenging times.
 Community Engagement need not always require
new funding, but can be implemented by doing
current activities differently – in an engaged mode!
 Be clear about your strategy and goals and link your
actions to that agenda.
 Take time to learn about the process of change itself.
Hold yourself to high standards of proof and conduct.
 Listen to how people talk about what is happening
and be ready to respond to rumors and confusion. Be
open, be clear, communicate frequently.
Learning from the Experience
What you may encounter along the way
• Identifying the traditions that can be barriers.
• Responding to assumptions about what change will
mean
• Developing a compelling answer to the question:”Why
should I care about this?”
• Addressing misunderstandings about what
engagement is and when using engagement strategies
makes sense.
• Using partnership models that fit the challenge well.
Do’s and Don’ts
• Work with the willing!
• Don’t begin with P&T. The bigger issues are
institutional goals and academic values.
• Do identify good models of engagement –
new strategies will emerge from lived
experience
• Do involve community partners and students
in engagement design, work, and
measurement of engagement
• Don’t get lost in “language wars.”
• Do promote ‘informed’ conversations
• Do aim for quality more than quantity
The Basics!
• Build a wide understanding of the proven principles
of community engagement
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Mutually beneficial
Reciprocal
Exchange of knowledge
Partnership relationships
• Change as a Scholarly Act – all ideas and assumptions
can be tested; use evidence to trump unexamined
opinion
• Strategies to grow/sustain engagement will need to
change as partnerships and internal/external issues
evolve
• Focus on actions and strategies to inform and involve
the cautious
A Parting Thought
Which institutions will
succeed?
The capacity of an academic institution to
change is becoming a strategic value and
organizational asset; this capacity will
confer advantages on those that learn how
to do it, and commensurate disadvantages
on those that persist in operating in 20th
Century modes. (Barbara Holland 2012)