1.2 Change and the knowledge base of educational administration  (Page 2/16)

Related Research

A number of researchers have indicated that implementing change is a more complicated process than is realizedby many practitioners in education. In his 1990 book, The Predictable Failure of Education Reform: Can We Change CourseBefore It’s Too Late? Sarason stated that significant educational change is almost impossible to accomplish because schools areintractable. He claims that deep levels of change will not occur until educators change the power relationships in schools and delveinto the tacit assumptions, attitudes and beliefs that shape the thinking and practices of schooling. In other words, tangiblechanges may occur on the surface level, but if the deeper paradigm of values, beliefs, and actions of a school’s culture are ignored, the school may look outwardly different, but remains virtually thesame.

Levy (1986) defined surface level changes as first order change. These changes are characterized by minoradjustments that do not change the core of a system and, therefore, leave its fundamental ways of working untouched. Examples offirst-order change in schools include revisions in scheduling, adjustments in communication patterns, routine curriculum up-dates,emphasis in assessment results, and revisions in policies and procedures. First-order changes are visible and, althoughfrustrating at times, these reform efforts usually do not threaten educators, either personally or collectively.

On the other hand, when organizations alter their fundamental ways of working, the result is known as secondorder change (Hillary, 1990; Levy, 1986; Walzawick, Weakland,&Fisch, 1974). Second order change transforms an organization’s culture by redesigning the established structures, roles, basicbeliefs, values, vision, and ways of doing things. These changes are more tacit than tangible. When second order change occurswithin organizations, it“penetrates [so] deeply into the geneticcode…that nothing special needs to be done to keep the change changed”(Levy, p.7).

Second order change is risky because its failure to penetrate an organization’s genetic code may serve to further strengthen the existing organizational design (Cuban,1988). Heifetz and Linsky (2002) state that substantive change is a complex and challenging task for leaders because strong resistanceis usually present. They state:

To lead is to live dangerously because when…you lead people through difficult change, you challenge what people hold dear—their daily habits, tools, loyalties, and ways of thinking…People push back when you disturb the personal and institutional equilibrium they know. And, people resist in allkinds of creative and unexpected ways that can get you taken out of the game: pushed aside, undermined, or eliminated (p.2).

During change efforts a number of problems arise and need to be solved. Heifetz and Linsky (2002) instructleaders of the distinction between two types of solutions: technical and adaptive. Technical solutions are those that can beunderstood and addressed with current, available knowledge. Adaptive solutions are more challenging because the solutions lieoutside the current way of operating. Therefore, when addressing issues of first order change, leaders will use a more technicalthan an adaptive approach to solving problems. Solutions to problems that occur in second order change are adaptive challengesbecause they“require difficult conversations and demand experimentation and learning”(p.75).