Valuing and responding to resistance to change - The Learner's Way - 0 views
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For education at present we face a deluge of reports that the pace of change shall only accelerate and its scale become more absolute.
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The resistor is that person or even group of people who are seen by advocates of change to be habitually irrational and averse to change.
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Input to the change and the agency that comes with having input may allow the change to be embraced more readily.
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For teachers who are strongly committed to providing quality pedagogy poorly articulated change agendas can fail to meet their criteria for a change that would deliver enhanced learning for their students.
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Resistance to change is more likely to be the norm where the change is mandated externally or from management without consultation with those who must implement the change.
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'When we start with “why,” we enter the realm of purpose. While everyone resents new requirements imposed on their day-to-day practices — which is the realm of “what” — people welcome conversations of purpose.’
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When the situation is reversed and input is sought, understanding grows from the purpose of the change towards the co-construction of a solution.
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With no clarity on the ‘why’ and without motivation resistance to change is almost inevitable even in situations where the change could otherwise be seen as positive.
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Too many organisations are clear on what they do but miss the important first step of clarifying why they do what they do.
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It is perceived as an aspect of their personality, a response to their fear of change, an irrational reaction rather than a considered response to the change or its representation. Rather than trying to understand the rationality of the decision to resist attributions are made that this is typical behaviour from that individual and that in time they will get on board with the change. This reference from Ford et al (p366) touches on the effect of this response ‘By dismissing this scrutiny as resistance, change agents not only miss the opportunity to provide compelling justifications that help recipients make the cognitive reassessments required to support change but also increase the risk of inoculating recipients against future change’.
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The forces for motivation are described as purpose, autonomy and mastery. Purpose comes from being a part of something that matters,
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Autonomy requires that individuals have opportunities to determine how they will engage with the work that they do
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Mastery is the sense that the individual can achieve high levels of competence in doing what they do and again this is not possible without individual input to the process.
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When an organisation is clear on its why change can be driven from within the organisation as all team members are able to envision pathways that are in keeping with the ‘why'. Understanding of the organisation’s ‘why’ allows for diffuse decision making without loss of direction.
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"An alternative to relying on hierarchy for change is to identify and make allies of local influencers, the people who, regardless of position or functional role, have a disproportionate amount of local influence."
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Rather than mandating change and hoping it will stick identifying the right people in an organisation to play a part in developing and then implementing a change initiative is crucial.
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Somewhere in the middle are those who have a reputation for adopting change based on considered evaluations of the affordance it brings and these are the ones with the most significant influence on a change’s longer term survival.
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The voice of the resistor may not be what change agents wish to hear but it is a voice they should heed if the very best outcome is to be achieved.