An Effective Change in Educational Institutions - Essay Example

Top- down change INTODUCTION: Change that is transformational in its nature is a phenomenon that needs to be studied in some detail if there has to be effective implementation of change strategies in a given organization (Leonard A, 2005). Defining change that is transformational in its nature is of prime importance in an analysis that seeks to study effectiveness of a certain approach of affecting the change that is being desired. This would in turn require a comparison of the key concepts within the realm of change and its management and consideration of the multi dimensional facets of the phenomena. The three key concepts that underlie this are change, transition and transformation. Defining Change: Change has been defined as situational phenomena that may sometimes by temporary, it refers to the newness elements, and can be inclusive of a number of variables from an office move to the appointment of a new CEO (Puth, 2002). Change is necessarily external and is the result of an event of intervention. Interim measures pertaining to any organizational aspect could thus be classified as change. Chang is rarely easy for an organization and is often met with a big amount of resistance and apprehension. Summary: There are a number of approaches ad theories that need to be considered while understanding the phenomena of change in an organization and the management of its execution. The following analysis seeks to understand the multi dimensional nature of change inclusive of concepts of Incremental and Transformative change, Simple and Complex change, change that is permanent and temporary, among others. Having done this the analysis will seek to identify the nuances of a top-down approach to change and the effectiveness or the effectiveness of this particular approach in a real life setting which is of a high school for boys. Approaches: The phenomenon of change first and foremost needs to be understood in the context of the cause effect manner including the variables as the individual and the organization. The individual change management process can be studies and understood in the light of models which suggest change is a three stage process (Lewin, 1943), involving a process overcoming inertia and dismantling the existing "mindset. Later changes have included the development of the Formula for change, (Beckhard, 1969) and people centered Implementation of change developed and improved in the decade of the 1990s. As opposed to this, theories of change through an organizational overhaul include those of dynamic conservatism that explore the needs within an organization to be flexible to exploring change and keeping up with pace of business evolution (Schön, 1974). The second set of approaches that define and identify the process of change and its management are to do with the scale of change, whether this is Incremental or transformatory. Incrementalism argues that the effective manager moves the organization forward in small, development steps, thereby helping the organization pace its development thereby ensuring that the relevant environmental information is gathered, shared assimilated and internalized by employees (Dunphy and Stace, 1990). Transformative change on the other hand is focused on an extensive and radical overhaul of the structure, management, processes and corporate cultures. The idea in this new literature is that the time for evolutionary transitions had run out in case of many organizations and the time for transformative and revolutionary change had arrived (Golembiewski, 2000). When organizational environments become turbulent and unpredictable, managers may not be able to make organizational change incrementally, however much they wish to do so. Major economic fluctuations continue and in such a scenario the choice is between organizational extinction and immediate radical transformation. Transformation then becomes the norm and not the exception. The third major aspect in defining change is that of discrete (or episodic) and continuous change. Episodic change occurs during periods of divergence in which organizations move away from their equilibrium conditions (Weick and Quinn, 2004) and is caused by prolonged periods of inertia or competency traps (i.e., the preference of an inferior procedure over a superior procedure because the latter one has not been rewarded in its use lead to a lag in continuous adaptations. Continuous change on the other hand is ongoing, evolving and cumulative (Weick and Quinn, 2004). According to this viewpoint, change lies in practice rather than being initiated by management and results in an ongoing update of routines and work processes. Change can be triggered off with internal and external work related factors. The relative importance of these triggers however remains open to debate from a number of quarters (Dawson, 2003). The main external factors are: government laws and regulations; globalization of markets; major political and social events; advances in technology; organizational growth and expansion and fluctuations in the business cycle. The internal triggers to change can in turn be identified as technology; primary tasks; people and administrative structures. Beside this there are a number of other variables that govern change in an organization and are related to whether the change is simple or complex in its nature, the kind of reaction that it provokes- positive or negative, and whether or not the change is permanent. “Top down change can only have limited success in an educational institution.” The top down approach to functional and operational management of an organization is a hierarchical style of decision making that has been considered by some as being autocratic and high handed. It is applicable a model of decision making, organizational change and leadership whereby strategies and plans are devised and initiated at the top higher rungs of the management hierarchy (Mora G R, 2006). These are then disseminated by way of a cascading effect to the lower ranks of the management chain. The lower ranks of the organizations are, mostly duty bound to accept the decisions that are made by the top levels and which they had no hand in formulating. The basic advantage of this model of decision making is that it is a simple process of deciding on a choice, there are no hassles of building a consensus. This therefore ensures a speedy delivery of decisions and makes the model ideal while dealing with some kind of a crisis situation. The basic disadvantage on the other hand is that low levels of employee participation in the process of policy formulation could lead to inefficient implementation of the decisions; further the approach shows remarkable disregard and disdain for the knowledge that is possessed at the lower rungs of the organizational hierarchy which might be of a specialized nature. With respect to how effective the approach is when applied to the education sector, there are several studies that have come to the conclusion over time that the top-down management approach by virtue of its implementation of straight and undeviating power structures is a preferable means which can affect the reduction of chaos and confusion that is caused as a result of a process whereby teachers get caught up in de-stabilizing and confusing the change processes (Yau and Sue, 2007). In all fairness in fact teachers do not have hands on experience about how to deal with management issues at the functional levels. There are those on the other hand that state in no uncertain terms that the approach has its real and tangible limitations while being applied to the educational sector, especially in this case an all boys High School. At the theoretical level there are in essence three categories of change actors that exist in the schooling level: change initiator/implementer, change supporters and change targets (Cheng, 1996). The principal and the administration are the initiators; the teachers are the supporters as it is they that are responsible for taking the change to the level of the students while the students are the targets of the change that is to be implemented. This is in fact the tradition form in which change is usually affected in most educational systems around and was the case in the above mentioned school in the case study. This does not however mean that this is the only way of affecting change or even that the method is desirable and highly effective. The key to understanding this argument would lie in an understanding of the levels at which change actually takes place. Change in educational institutions can take [place at three basic levels in order to be effective: Individual, group and community. What this would naturally translate to is that change in order to be effective needs to be comprehensive. There are scholars that believe that efficient school leaders are the key to large-scale, sustainable education reform. It has been accepted in fact that principals must be instructional leaders. Because complex societies inherently generate overload and fragmentation, effective leaders must be coherence-makers (Fullan, 1999, 2001). Coherence is an essential component of complexity and yet can never be completely achieved in a scenario that relies wholly on the top down approach. This is true by virtue of the fact that the approach more often than not belies the complexity of situations. . In the case above the leaders at the top of the hierarchical rung were not attuned to leading in a culture of complexities neither were they equipped to understand at the psychological or professional levels the problems that plague the adolescent and teenage boys-the target of change. There was in evidence the mistake of seeking external innovations and taking on too may projects. Change in order to be effective needs to be sustainable and strong. The basic idea of reform needs to be an overall regeneration of the system geared towards improvement. Most of these targets cannot really be achieved by the concentration of the decision making process within the offices of one or a small body. Moreover, the inclusion of the ones that deal with the problems on an everyday personal basis would be imperative if an effective understanding of change requirements and the processes that need to be affected. Conclusion: in order to bring about an effective change in educational institutions an strand that is an absolutely essential requisite would be the reduction of teacher workload, fostering of increased levels of teacher ownership, and the creation of capacity to manage change in a sustainable way by a pool of talent that goes deep within the organizational hierarchy of the institution. The top down model of change management is ill equipped to deal with these demands of change requirements. It might have its merits but the limitations are far too many and much too obvious to be ignored. Never has the time been riper for change leaders than right now. 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