CHANGE IS DIFFICULT NOT CHANGING IS FATAL

Transition to Transformation

In my previous blog the role of the school head was the major topic in the case study, especially for a new school head. The case was a good opportunity to discuss and understand the culture of a school and how, if necessary, it might be changed and to what degree should changes be made and how important is discipline in the school?

My current blog and the next two would be an extension of the previous one in the sense that they will focus on following

1. Entering a new school, what steps should a school leader take initially? How soon should a school leader contemplate change?
2. Should a new school leader directly confront those who challenge him/her? How?
3. What should a new principal do to address prior tensions among staff? Ignore them; engage staff individually, or collectively?

My Colleague Leonard Murphy, an Educator and senior leader from South Africa says, “Transitions are a critical time for leaders”. During one of our leadership meetings every Tuesday, I remember, he had said, “Aishah, moving into a new role is the biggest challenge a school leader will face. While transitions offer you a chance to start fresh and make needed changes in an organization, they also place leaders in a position of acute vulnerability. Missteps made during the crucial first three months in a new role can jeopardize or even derail ones success.”

What I learnt during my tenure at Al Ain Juniors, whether one is taking over an existing team or starting a new one, it’s critical to devote time and effort to establishing how one wants his/her team to work, not just what one wants them to achieve. The first few weeks are critical.  Personnel at workplace form opinions real quick, and these opinions tend to stay on. It is vital that one invests first few weeks taking time upfront to figure out how to get the team working well, challenges are always going to come up.

So what would be one’s focus areas to address the first question above? Well, I have listed out the following but am not limited to.

1. Know them and let them know you When we move to a work place that is new or take up a new role at a new organisation, we spend time learning ways to communicate and connect with the people there. It is helpful to spend time up front connecting and creating a common language with one’s team. When the team knows how you like to work and how you plan to manage them, they’d be able to produce results faster. When one knows how each of one’s direct reports work and communicate, one would be able to save time when setting direction and following up. Hence, one of the first priorities of a leader should be to get to know the team members and to encourage them to get to better know one another. However, make conscious effort to resist the temptation to start talking about tasks, work objectives, expectations and the outcomes; the focus should be on building camaraderie. Realistically, one would have to utilise various strategies like holding a retreat, beginning meeting with team building session or make them do a work style table (https://hbr.org/2017/05/do-you-know-how-each-person-on-your-team-likes-to-work)

It might also be a good idea to start making calls by getting updates on how each person is doing or hosting happy hours or coffee breaks. One very useful exercise to do with the teams is to have people share their best and worst experiences. Discussing transparently those good and bad dynamics will help everyone get on the same page about what behaviour they want to encourage — and avoid — going forward.

2. Communicate what you stand for
Use your initial interactions with team members as an opportunity to communicate your values. Explain your priorities, and how you will evaluate team’s performance, individually and collectively. Walk them through what KPIs (Key performance indicators) or metrics you might use to gauge progress, so that they understand how they’ll be evaluated and what’s expected of them. By communicating your vision and values, you will show your team that you’re committed to a healthy degree of transparency, and create positive momentum around yourself in the new role. Your Team members will want to know how you define success, therefore, following three measures would provide them with the much needed clarity

• Make sure your vision is more than a framed document hanging on the wall: Colleagues will be more willing to act off what they see happening in reality versus what they read on the wall. It’s not good enough for senior leaders just to develop a powerful vision. You need to make sure that the vision is clearly communicated to every member of the team, along with the goals that will help bring the vision to life. When colleagues are clear on their destination, and are given a road map to get to the destination, as well as a tour guide communicating along the way, they will not only support the expedition, but usually will really enjoy the journey.
• Place a high value on two-way communication: Make it habit and priority to actively seek colleagues’ thoughts and opinions, especially prior to making decisions that impact their work. You’ll experience fewer surprises along with greater employee engagement and productivity if you consistently encourage your employees to think and provide their input to help you and your team make the best decisions possible.
• Over-communicate during periods of rapid change: Often, we communicate the vision and goals, then shortly after, change goals. Keeping pace in this interconnected, global scenario requires constant change after change (innovation & enterprise). Most colleagues fail to understand that to be successful; plans need to change, often frequently. Over and above that, what they don’t like is being blindsided because they did not know that the plan had changed. Make it a top priority to provide timely updates when plans change. This is one thing that leaders at new work place need to remember, that over-communicating in the early days is preferable to the alternative. It is always better to start with more structure, more touch points, more check-ins at the outset. How you do that would vary from team to team and leader to leader — via big meetings, one-on-ones, email, or shared progress reports — whatever the communication method, do as much as you can.

3.  Explain how Together Everyone Achieves More:
You will have to explain in detail how you want the team to work so that Together Everyone Achieves More. I have learnt this from experience that as you have newer team members coming on board, don’t expect or even assume that the veteran team members will explain to the new recruits anything related to policies, procedures, work culture, aspirations, expectations, how meetings are supposed to be run/attended or the best ways to ask for help; it’s your job as a leader to set expectations and explain processes. If you don’t make those norms clear for everyone, you risk creating an environment where colleagues feel excluded, uncertain, or unwilling to contribute. It is vital that in your initial interactions with your team you focus on how you want the team to work.

4. Set clear goals and success criteria
One of your most important tasks as a senior leader is to set ambitious but SMART goals with your team’s input. Make clear what the team is working toward and how you expect them to get there. By setting goals early on, the group’s decision making will be clearer and more efficient, and you’ll lay the framework of holding team members accountable. However, a vast majority of senior leaders inherit their team, which also means they aren’t creating new goals, but expend time and effort clarifying existing ones. It’s actually rare that someone comes in and redefines the goals for the group in a profound way. In those instances, then the challenge as a leader is to reorganize roles or rethink strategies to best achieve the goals at hand.

5. Maintain an open door system to score an “early win”
Identifying and solving instructional or behaviour problems that has a quick and effective impact early on in the way students’ progress positively shows that you can listen, understand  and address issues inside or outside the classroom, . Perhaps there is a longstanding employee frustration or an out dated work process. Maybe there is a project that you can easily budget or prioritize. Taking swift action demonstrates that “you are connecting and learning.” But most importantly, maintaining an open door system and achieving an early win builds tea momentum. It motivates people, and can win you goodwill you might need later if the going gets tough.

What I have learnt in my journey as a leader so long is:

Do:

• Be clear about what goes into your decision making and how you’ll evaluate the team’s progress
• Encourage team members to connect — better communication early on will help avoid misunderstandings and poor results later
• Look for roadblocks or grievances you can fix — it will earn you confidence and inspire the team

Don’t:

• Jump into trying to accomplish the work without building relationships with the team
• Assume that new team members understand how you or others work ­— take the time to explain processes and expectations.
• Be afraid to communicate often early on — you can always pull back when the team is working well

Will be back soon with my next in the series on Transition to Transformation.

Signing off for now!