Juggling Multiple Perspectives:
Leading Complex Change
Cheryl Doig and Chris Jansen
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Overview
• connecting our wisdom
• unleashing organisational change
and adaptability
• factors in successful change
• fostering interaction, shared
learning and collective intelligence
• change prototyping
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•cutting edge frameworks that are critiqued in the light of participant inquiry

The connected world
Extending beyond current
knowledge base, industry and
thinking
Structure & support systems
Leadership engagement
Partnering with learners
Ongoing conversation
www.thinkbeyond.co.nz

Herrmann’s Whole Brain Processing
Model…
Purpose logic):
Picture:
Where does this
idea come from?
What is the big
picture of this
change?
Plan:
Part to Play:
How will I organise
resources &
planning?
How will my team
feel about all this?

Collaboration
Confidentiality
Sharing strengths
Openness
No ‘experts’
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Session 1:
Connecting with
the wisdom in
the room

What we
want from
the day
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Your change focus…
Business Process, growth and partnerships
Collaboration
Teacher Practice
Developing PLCs, PLTs, coaching models to examine practice (self
and peer) and teachers as agents of change
Raising teachers' expectations for their students
Curriculum/Pedagogy
Using student work (data) to inform instruction.
curriculum and assessment change/alignment
Concept based learning
Digital classrooms
Students
learners self-assessment and review
Influencing other leaders
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What helps drive change?

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What blocks change?

What we have tried
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Session 2: Unleashing
organisational change and
adaptability
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Moving into new territory
www.thinkbeyond.co.nz
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Can I lead positive and sustainable
change…?
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Context
Shifting
Context
BAU
A history of 70-80% failure
Why? Threat?
Opportunity?
Shifting
Context
New BAU
Positive and
sustainable
change?
Where?
…are we heading
to?
A road map for leading change
How?…do we
design our
journey?
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Who?...do
we collaborate
with?
What?…steps
do we take?
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Technical challenges
“can be solved with knowledge and procedures
already at hand”
Requires leader to identify priorities, project manage and
ensure stakeholder engagement
Adaptive challenges
“embedded in social complexity, require behaviour change
and are rife with unintended consequences‟
Requires leader to do all of the above and generate
and trial multiple solutions
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Technical change (linear)
 Pre-planned
and predictable
steps
 Proven solution
Fine-tune
and embed
Roll out
Scale up
Train
Adopt proven ideas
Need and vision

Adaptive change (cyclic)
Scale up
Assess responses
and fine-tune
Pilot Launch multiple
experiments
Foster collective
intelligence
Need and vision
AI…

Technical challenges
=
Linear change
processes
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Learning Community Clusters

You will collaborate
I don’t trust
the school
down the
road.
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It’s not about luck, it’s
about what you do
with the luck when
you get it.
It IS about different
behaviours not
different
circumstances.
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Collins and Hansen

Session 3: Fostering interaction and
shared learning
www.ideacreation.org
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Your successful change story
How did it come about?
What was the result?
Who else was involved?
What was your role?
What was fulfilling about the project?
Why did you find it so engaging?
What specific leadership actions were the
most effective?
How did team members become engaged in the process?
What were the key factors that led to this initiative being
successful?

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How to
engage?
What
solution?
Foster interaction, shared learning,
and collective intelligence
+ Ownership,
motivation and
commitment
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++ Better solutions
and innovation
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“a healthy organisation is one in which all
participants have a voice” (Peck ,1988).

Who has a voice in our
organisation?
What mechanisms do we
have to foster interaction
and shared voice?
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Strategies for fostering interaction
and shared learning
Possible mechanisms:
- cross functional teams
- focus groups (vertical teams)
- interdisciplinary teams
- collaborative processes ie:
Appreciative Inquiry, world café,
open space…
- think tanks – open invitation, open agenda
- Agile methodologies – scrum etc
- innovation portal (ie you-I portal)
- regular staff and student surveys
- accelerate teams - volunteer army
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Collective Intelligence
Explains a groups performance on a wide variety of
tasks
Collective intelligence
is not strongly
correlated with the
average of maximum
individual intelligence
of group members
Factors that were important:
•
•
average social sensitivity (the ability to read and understand
the emotion of others) of group members,
the quality in distribution of conversational turn-taking.
Ringleb, Rock, Conser - “NeuroLeadership in 2010”

Watercooler Meetings: Rapid Cycles of
Learning Design Accountability
Everyone in the team answers 3 questions
Champion keeps things on track and works to minimise
obstacles. Team members make commitments in front
of peers. Observers can observe!

Reviewing Actions

Agile leadership
trello.com

Review Meetings
• Not a recount
• What worked, what didn’t,
lessons learnt, next steps
• Cross function/team sharing
back
• Whole team, participates
• Team summary: keep – stop
–start

minutes of fame – what are
you doing?
to talk – answer questions
for others to record
ideas/detail to celebrate
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WHAT?
HOW?
WHY?

TRIZ
• Speak the
unspeakable and get
skeletons out of the
closet
• Make space for
innovation
• Lay the ground for
creative destruction
by doing the hard
work in a fun way
• Build trust by acting
to remove barriers

TRIZ
How can we develop a
cluster that wastes time
and doesn’t meet the
future needs of our
students, our schools or
our communities?

TRIZ

Create
How am I, and how
are we, going to stop
doing this in order
for this cluster to
achieve the best
possible outcomes?
Be as concrete as you
can.

Collaboration
for better results

Our drive to action, our will
to act, should be driven by what
we say we value and believe.
If a practice is suggested from
outside, our first question
should be WHY? - How will
doing this, using this practice,
help us achieve what we say
we value?
WHAT?
Pressure from outside should
be worked through the “WHY?
process?”
HOW?
WHY?
As we explore new practices
we should constantly reflect
on how well it enables
us to achieve what we value.
Adapted from Julia Atkin, 1999 used by Cheryl Doig with permission

Deepening Collaboration
Sharing of resources and information
Attending workshops and conferences together – external connections
Common staff development across departments/schools – embedded in organisations
Celebrating focused success – sharing sessions eg Ignite, peer sharing
Inquiry processes such as learning walks, coaching
Strategic
PRINCIPLES – WHAT WILL WE PUT IN PLACE TO SUPPORT COLLABORATION?
Sustained
LEVERAGE
Surface
VISIBLE SIGNS – HOW WILL THIS BE VISIBLE?
Alignment of practices, systems and documentation – review of current alignment
Networking – internally, other schools, businesses and global projects
Focus – on things worth collaborating on
Shared language – dialogue grows understanding
Celebration, sharing and growing of expertise
Planning and co-creating ideas and programs together
VISION – WHY WOULD WE WANT TO COLLABORATE?
Understanding the strengths and tensions of the team
Surfacing the elephants in the room that make collaboration detrimental
Shared goals, values and vision – and professional learning linked to this
Why is it urgent? Why now? Why these partners?

Involved in setting
evaluation criteria
Now what?
Student
Council
Congruence
Knowledge
cafes
Inquiry
groupings
NZC
Why is this
important?
Learner
Voice
School Policy
on Learning
Online
student
forum
Class
wiki
Termly feedback survey
What does not align
with this?
Are you sure it is really
happening?

Session 5: Change Prototyping
www.ideacreation.org
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“How have I moved forward in my thinking?
How have I changed?
What difference will people notice
in my work place?”
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Our contacts
c.doig@thinkbeyond.co.nz
www.thinkbeyond.co.nz
chris.jansen@canterbury.ac.nz
www.ideacreation.org
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