As a leader, how do you support, encourage, enable learning for your staff?
Michael Fullan tells us that "Learning is the work". If this is the case, it has great significance for leaders. It means that we must be aware of what learning needs to take place and then to determine the best ways to support, encourage, and enable it if we wish to create authentic learning communities. We may even need to help our staff members understand just what this means in terms of their professional practice. Indeed, it may also mean that we need to understand and come to terms with this in terms of our own leadership practice.
According to Fullan (2008), "The secret behind 'learning is the work' lies in our integration of the precision needed for consistent performance (using what we already know) with the new learning required for continuous improvement."
It's a simple statement but it requires thought about what this means and how it translates into practice in a school or organization. It assumes that we are focused on continuous improvement in both practice and results. It also assumes that everyone is 'on board' with this type of thinking. As a leader, this may involve new thinking and reculturing around professional practice - for your staff and possibly even for you.
I look forward to your comments about Fullan's statement.
From: The Six Secrets of Change by Michael Fullan (2008)
Showing posts with label The Six Secrets of Change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Six Secrets of Change. Show all posts
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
The Six Secrets of Change
As a leader, do you know the six secrets of change and do you know how to use them?
The Six Secrets of Change
1. Love your employees - The key is in enabling employees to learn continuously and to find meaning in their work and in their relationship to coworkers and to the company as a whole.
2. Connect peers with purpose - ...foster continuous and purposeful peer interaction. ... The job of leaders is to provide good direction while pursuing its implementation through purposeful peer interaction and learning in relation to results.
3. Capacity building prevails - Capacity building entails leaders investing in the development of individual and collaborative efficacy...
4. Learning is the work - ...there is far too much going to workshops, taking short courses, and the like, and far too little learning while doing the work. Learning external to the job can represent a useful input, but if it is not in balance and in concert with learning in the setting in which you work, the learning will end up being superficial.
5. Transparency rules - By transparency I mean clear and continuous displays of results, and clear and continuous access to practice (what is being done to get the results).
6. Systems learn - Systems learn on a continuous basis. The synergistic result of the previous five secrets is tantamount to a system that learns from itself.
From: The Six Secrets of Change by Michael Fullan
Published by: Jossey-Bass
The Six Secrets of Change
1. Love your employees - The key is in enabling employees to learn continuously and to find meaning in their work and in their relationship to coworkers and to the company as a whole.
2. Connect peers with purpose - ...foster continuous and purposeful peer interaction. ... The job of leaders is to provide good direction while pursuing its implementation through purposeful peer interaction and learning in relation to results.
3. Capacity building prevails - Capacity building entails leaders investing in the development of individual and collaborative efficacy...
4. Learning is the work - ...there is far too much going to workshops, taking short courses, and the like, and far too little learning while doing the work. Learning external to the job can represent a useful input, but if it is not in balance and in concert with learning in the setting in which you work, the learning will end up being superficial.
5. Transparency rules - By transparency I mean clear and continuous displays of results, and clear and continuous access to practice (what is being done to get the results).
6. Systems learn - Systems learn on a continuous basis. The synergistic result of the previous five secrets is tantamount to a system that learns from itself.
From: The Six Secrets of Change by Michael Fullan
Published by: Jossey-Bass
Thursday, 5 May 2011
Capacity Building
As a leader, how do you build the necessary capacity in your staff to meet the demands of the work that needs to be done?
Two key principles should permeate your capacity-building work:
1. Minimize blame and focus on improvement. If people fear blame, there will be less transparency and less insight into the root causes of problems, which will inhibit capacity-building. Instead, build a culture in which struggles or challenges are viewed as opportunities to learn and further improve delivery. It is important to communicate that people are being judged in order to strengthen performance and not for the sake of laying blame. In practice, a culture of no blame needs to exist alongside a culture of taking responsibility, so plain speaking and honesty will be crucial. As Michael Fullan (2008) explains in his book The Six Secrets of Change, "This doesn't mean that you avoid identifying things as effective or ineffective. Rather it means that you do not do so pejoratively."
2. Create a culture of continuous learning. To truly sustain the capacity to implement change, all system actors responsible for delivery must be constantly going through the cycle of acting, reflecting, making adjustments, and trying again, each time refocusing their efforts on the actions that are found to be most effective. In this culture, all contributors to delivery are constantly increasing their effectiveness. As Michael Fullan (2008) put it, "Learning on the job, day after day, is the work".
From: Deliverology 101 by Michael Barber
Published by: Corwin Press, EDI - U.S. Education Delivery Institute, OPC - Ontario Principals' Council
Two key principles should permeate your capacity-building work:
1. Minimize blame and focus on improvement. If people fear blame, there will be less transparency and less insight into the root causes of problems, which will inhibit capacity-building. Instead, build a culture in which struggles or challenges are viewed as opportunities to learn and further improve delivery. It is important to communicate that people are being judged in order to strengthen performance and not for the sake of laying blame. In practice, a culture of no blame needs to exist alongside a culture of taking responsibility, so plain speaking and honesty will be crucial. As Michael Fullan (2008) explains in his book The Six Secrets of Change, "This doesn't mean that you avoid identifying things as effective or ineffective. Rather it means that you do not do so pejoratively."
2. Create a culture of continuous learning. To truly sustain the capacity to implement change, all system actors responsible for delivery must be constantly going through the cycle of acting, reflecting, making adjustments, and trying again, each time refocusing their efforts on the actions that are found to be most effective. In this culture, all contributors to delivery are constantly increasing their effectiveness. As Michael Fullan (2008) put it, "Learning on the job, day after day, is the work".
From: Deliverology 101 by Michael Barber
Published by: Corwin Press, EDI - U.S. Education Delivery Institute, OPC - Ontario Principals' Council
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