Effective School Management

particularly rational minds have major problems in encompassing the
complexities of implementing change; the more obvious the need for it, in
their view, the more exasperatingly obtuse are those responsible for failing to
carry it out. However, to grasp the nature of change one has to understand
the more subtle ingredients in human and organizational behaviour. Beckhard
and Harris (1987, p. 116), from their wealth of experience of consulting with
managers on their change efforts, conclude:

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One of the biggest traps … is the failure of organizational leaders to resist the
temptation to rush through the planning process to get to the ‘action stage’ … it
has been our experience that a great portion of large-system change efforts
failed because of lack of understanding on the part of the organizational
leadership of what the process of intervention and change involves. When the
manager lacks an appreciation for and understanding of the complexity of the
intervention process, it is predictable that the emphasis will be on ‘action’ or
results.
Although this book aims to be practical and skills oriented, we cannot escape
having a section on problems and concepts of the change process, before
coming down to practical guidance. The nature of change is not well explained
in many management books, nor in many management courses. Perhaps this
is caused by failure to distinguish among theories of education (what we ought
to be doing in schools), theories of organization (how we should be set up to
do it), theories of change (what causes progress towards where we want to
be) and theories of changing (what has to be done to influence those causes).
Let us therefore try to unpick the problem.
The call for change may spring from outside the school or educational
system, or from within. The growth of ethnic minorities in the UK’s
population, the alleged failure of education to prepare young people for
working life and the erosion of the country’s capacity to afford escalating
public expenditure have all been cited as reasons for making changes in
schools. But within schools themselves situations arise that cry out for
change: a failure of discipline, dissatisfaction with exam results or a member
of staff (including the head) wanting something done differently. In the
discussion that follows we shall have in mind mainly change stemming from
outside the school, but regardless of the source there are some fairly common
factors:
(1) The individuals involved will start with different feelings about the
desirability of the change, some seeing it as a threat or a source of
insecurity and of concern about personal exposure and possible
weakness. The change may involve having to learn new skills and
attitudes and unlearning old ones and the ‘not invented here’ syndrome
may apply. The co-operation of all cannot be assumed, yet it may be
essential if the change is to be successful.
(2) It will not be clear at the beginning how things will look when the change
has been implemented: there will be many unknowns and fear of the
unknown. Even the few people around with a clear vision may find
themselves confronted by a number of different visions and fantasies
among their colleagues.
(3) Institutional politics will become important: individuals will align
around common interest groups, both informal (e.g. a staff-room
coalition) and formal (e.g. a union).
(4) There will be a number of internal consequences of the change: it will

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impinge on various systems and interests inside the school (e.g. the exam
system and pupils’ interests).
(5) The school in which the change occurs is not isolated: the change itself
may stem from, and the results impinge on, a part of the environment,
such as the local education authority.
(6) The change is complex, or at least by no means straightforward, in that
the correct action may be counterintuitive: it involves many people’s
behaviour over a period of time.
(7) There are a number of obstacles to the change: some are obvious, others
latent. Examples are organizational impedimenta like status, demar-
cation, authority; lack of support and commitment, or of resources; the
psychological or legal contract between the teacher and the school; all
kinds of personal motives. In any organization there are always people
who can be relied on to think of 101 reasons why something can’t be done
(see Figure 18.2, p. 281)!
(8) Several ways of implementing the change can be envisaged: there are, for
example, degrees of freedom in the order in which necessary tasks are
tackled, who does them, who is consulted and who is told – all of which
may generate conflict.
(9) Those in managerial positions will sense that the change will involve
them in a lot of conflict, bother and hard work. This they may dread,
especially if they feel hard pressed already.
In other words, change of the kind we are describing engages both our intellect
and our emotions; it may impinge on people’s value systems; it affects not
only  individuals but also the organization, its structures, its norms and its
environment. Consequently, it will not happen successfully unless it is
promoted, steered or facilitated with all these crucial factors being taken into
account.
PERSONAL APPLICATION
Think of some example of actual or needed change in your school. Do they match
this general description? How would you like to amplify it? Do you recognize all the
factors listed above? How far are they taken into account in managing the change?
APPRECIATING THE COMPLEXITY OF CHANGE
Dynamic conservatism is a social phenomenon. It stems more from the
propensity of social systems to protect their integrity and thus to continue to
provide a familiar framework within which individuals can order and make
sense of their lives, than from the apparent stupidity of individuals who can’t
see what is good for them.
Few individuals in organizations appreciate how multidimensional
change really is; we tend to espouse a comfortably simplistic notion of it.
Sometimes this helps; we might not so readily accept some changes if we

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could foresee all the implications. But usually it hinders change, because it
diverts us from dealing with reality. Once we apprehend that it is the social
system that withstands change, we begin to realize some of the complexity;
for there exist within such systems innumerable relationships, unwritten
norms, vested interests and other characteristics that will probably be
disturbed by a proposed change.
Heads and senior staff who want to implement change therefore have a
sizeable educational task on their hands: they have to help everyone
concerned to discover and conceptualize the true nature of change and how it
impinges upon us all. (This is separate from the equally important need to
develop the skills for coping with change.) Change will affect beliefs,
assumptions and values, and be affected by them. Change will alter the way
we are expected to do things. And change will alter the things we need to do
them with.
This attempt to help people to conceptualize change is like tilling the
ground before planting the seed; or to use another metaphor, it is like tuning
the receiver to the carrier wave before the message of change is transmitted. It
involves both helping people to understand change – any change – in the
abstract, and helping them to apprehend the nature of the particular change
being introduced. These matters have to be discussed face to face; it is
insufficient to read about them – they must be tossed around and savoured.
There must be a suitable outlet for the fears that the prospect of change
evokes in everybody (however robust) – fears that one will not be able to
cope, that one’s sense of competence will be eroded and one’s occupational
identity will be dented.
It is no use pretending, in stiff upper-lip fashion, that these feelings do not
occur when we confront the need for behavioural or conceptual adjustment:
they do, and we might as well come to terms with it. Change usually leads to
temporary incompetence, and that is uncomfortable. Some changes (TVEI
and ERA, for example) challenged the core values we hold about the purpose
of education, a purpose in which we have invested our careers. They may
also shake vague, unarticulated beliefs which we have never quite
understood, or discussed with professional colleagues. Fear of tampering
with something unknown but still perceived as important can only be
assuaged by trying to clarify what it is we are really worried about. So it helps
to hammer out a set of beliefs that are shared with colleagues and regularly
subjected to review and revision in the light of experience: beliefs about both
education and change.
WHY PLANS FOR IMPLEMENTING CHANGE FAIL
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft a-gley.
The first reason why those who initiate change often fail to secure a successful
conclusion to their dreams is that they tend to be too rational. They develop

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in their minds a clear, coherent vision of where they want to be at, and they
assume that all they have to do is to spell out the logic to the world in words
of one syllable, and then everyone will be immediately motivated to follow
the lead. The more vivid their mental picture of the goal, and the more
conviction they have that it is the right goal, the more likely they are to stir up
opposition, and the less successful they are likely to be in managing a process
of change. As George Bernard Shaw once observed: ‘Reformers have the idea
that change can be achieved by brute sanity.’
Another reason is that reformers are operating at a different level of
thought from that of the people to be affected by the change. Take, for
instance, the implementation of the Education Act 1981, for which there
could be six levels:
(1) Philosophy.  Integration of children with special educational needs in
mainstream schools.
(2) Principle. Education to be in least restrictive environment.
(3) Concept. Locational, social, functional integration.
(4) Strategy. Provide support staff and systems to achieve integration.
(5) Design. Set up multiskilled force of peripatetic professionals.
(6) Action.  Establish new posts according to plan and eliminate some
existing posts.
If the head of a special school, having been exposed by an education officer to
the higher levels of thinking and having agreed to the strategy, were to spring
straight into action with his or her staff, without first engaging at their level of
thinking, they would undoubtedly resist.
Effecting change calls for open-mindedness and a readiness to understand
the feelings and position of others. Truth and reality are multifaceted, and the
reality of other people’s worlds is different from yours. Most people act
rationally and sensibly within the reality of the world as they see it. They make
assumptions about the world, and about the causes of things, which differ
from yours, because their experiences are different, and they even experience
the same event in different ways. Hence innovators have to address
themselves not just to the world they see but also to the world other people
see, however misguided, perverse and distorted they may think the outlook
of others to be.
Therefore, implementing change is not a question of defining an end and
letting others get on with it: it is a process of interaction, dialogue, feedback,
modifying objectives, recycling plans, coping with mixed feelings and
values, pragmatism, micropolitics, frustration, patience and muddle. Yet,
messy though the process is, adopting an objective, rational, systematic,
scientific approach to implementing change is far more likely to be crowned
with success than relying simply on intuition (though that has its part to play
too). The point is that rationality has to be applied not only to defining the end
of change but also the means.

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Another fallacy is that those who have the positional power to inflict
change on an organization will be successful in implementing enduring
change: seldom are their sanctions adequate to do so, especially in the
educational system above the level of pupil. They have to take into account
the feelings, values, ideas and experiences of those affected by the change.
This is not an ideological argument for democratic decision-making so much
as a pragmatic one for managerial effectiveness: successful managers are
observed to do this. The so-called scientific-rational mode of management
has long been discredited and supplanted in successful organizations.
(Failure by academics to appreciate this is usually at the heart of objections to
schools learning anything from industry about management.)
Another trap in implementing change is to ascribe the problems that
necessitate change to the shortcomings of individuals. Not only is
personalization of the problems likely to lead to defensiveness but it is also
often a misdiagnosis of the true cause. Most organizational defects are
attributable to methods and systems.
The next reason why some plans for implementing change fail is that they
are addressed to insoluble problems. However uncomfortable it may be for
legislators and managers to admit to impotence, it has to be acknowledged
that some undesirable conditions of society are so little understood or so
complex to explain causally that in the present state of knowledge and
expertise there is no solution to hand. Even if someone of outstanding
conceptual ability could fully grasp the problem, it would be an impossible
task to transfer that understanding to others who have a significant and
indispensable part to play in solving the problem. Felix qui potuit rerum