CEdO565 Week 5 - Completing the Change

This week we finished our change simutlation.  We also received several more handouts in the class work that helped us plan for better activities.  As a result our team made much better progress on the change board this week.  We were able to get everyone through the awareness phase, and several people made it all the way to the end of the board.  This game was a good simulation of some of the problems that we will run into when we try and implement changes in real life.  Among them:

• Involve the administration early and often.  Several times we tried to do an activity but were unable to because the administrator did not have enough knowledge of the situation.  When trying to change you can not over-communicate, especially to the people at the top of the ladder. 
• Don't waste too much time on the resistors.  We know early on who our resistors were, and we tried several activities to bring them along.  They would not move, and only changed once we had a cinved most of the others to move.  Then they had no choice, because the organization was changing without them.
• Know your social network.  Identify early who in the organization has the most contacts, and use them as early adopters.  Get them invovled and have them start talking about the change.  Then others will naturally follow.
• Plan your activities in a logical order.  You can not make a vision fo rthe future until you have looked at what is working now, what isn't, and compare it to best practices.  Then you can make an action plan based on your vision.

These are all lessons that I can apply to my job as I try and get changes enacted where I work.

CEdO565 Week 4 - The Change Games We Play

This week we tried a new activity in class.  It is a change simulation game where we try and influence the administration, principles, parents, and teachers of a school district to adopt new learning techniques.  I actually find the game very enjoyable, as it does demonstrate many of the experiences that you will have as you try to make change happen in your own environment.  First of all you need to be aware of the phases that people will go through on the way to a change.  These phases make up our game board, and as we do certain activities, people will advance through the stages:  Awareness, Preparation, Practice, Mastery, and Renewal.  Just like in real life, certain people will move through these changes faster than others, and some will resist you every step of the way.  We encountered this in our group when we tried to talk to some of the resistors directly, and made no progress on moving them at all.  You also need to plan for the communication paths that your audience uses.  Find the people who are the social hubs, and get them involved early.  They can influence others to come a long way.

Just like in real life, it is important to think about all of these things in advance, and to prepare a strategy for your change.  If there was one thing I would have liked to do differently, it would be to get the materials a few days before the game, instead of the day before.  Also it would have been nice to have a pre-meeting with our team, so we could plan our activities.  Trying to figure out how to work as a new group, while reading and absorbing all of the materials for the game, made it difficult to focus on the change strategy and identify the order that we wanted to do them, and the people we should involve.  One idea for next time is to have the cohort divided into their teams at the start of the class.  This would get the groups used to working with each other early.  Then they could also start reviewing the game materials a week or so in advance.

Overall I think the game is a great exercise, and it certainly will help drive home the strategies that need to be employed to get a change adopted in our jobs.