1.6 Step-up-to-excellence:a change navigation protocol for transforming  (Page 11/20)

The Site Design Teams are formed early in Step 1 and they receive training on principles of whole-systemchange. This training is provided by the Change Navigation Coordinator and the Cluster Design Teams in collaboration with anexternal consultant. At the completion of the training on whole-system change, each of the academic Cluster Design Teamsorganizes a Cluster Engagement Conference. These conferences are designed in the same way as the earlier District EngagementConference by using Weisbord and Janoff’s (in Schweitz&Martens with Aronson, 2005) Future Search principles or Emery’s (2006) Search Conference principles. The central office andsupporting work unit clusters will have a similar conference later in the transformation journey.

The Cluster Engagement Conferences are 3-day events. Each Cluster Design Team invites all of the Site DesignTeams within its cluster to participate in the conference. The purpose of the conference is to create a“fuzzy”idealized design (Ackoff, 2001; Lee&Woll, 1996; Reigeluth, 1995) for each cluster. The idealized design must be aligned with the district’s new strategic framework (mission, vision, and strategic goals) thatwas created earlier during the District Engagement Conference. The idealized design must also frame in broad terms how each clusterwill make simultaneous improvements along three change-paths: Path 1—relationships with external stakeholders; Path 2—its work processes; and Path 3—its internal social infrastructure.

The Cluster Design Conferences are quickly followed by a Redesign Workshop for each cluster. The ClusterDesign Team organizes this three-day event for all of the Site Design Teams within its cluster. All members of the Site DesignTeams participate in these workshops. The Redesign Workshops are organized using Emery’s (2006) principles for designing Participative Design Workshops. The outcome of these three-dayevents is a proposal for transforming each cluster and every school within each cluster. These proposals contain specific, actionableideas for making simultaneous improvements along the threechange-paths identified earlier (i.e., each cluster’s environmental relationships, work processes, and internal socialinfrastructure).

The number of change proposals will vary depending on the number of academic clusters within a district. Itis appropriate and acceptable for each cluster to have different ideas for making improvements within their clusters as along as theideas are clearly aligned with the district’s grand vision and strategic framework. Allowing faculty and staff within each clusterto create innovative, but different, ideas for making improvements within their cluster is an example of applying the principle ofequifinality (Cummings&Worley, 2001) to empower and enable the people who actually do the work of the district to make changesthat make sense to them.

Although each cluster is encouraged to create innovative ideas for making simultaneous improvements along thethree change-paths for their cluster, all of these improvements must be unequivocally aligned with the district’s grand vision and strategic framework. To assure this strategic alignment, theStrategic Leadership Team reviews and approves all of the redesign proposals. Items marked for rejection or put on hold for a laterimplementation date must be negotiated with the Cluster Design Teams that proposed them before those decisions are finalized.Items accepted for implementation become the final redesign proposal for each academic cluster.