Change Management II - The Scaries
Even good change is scary but it’s even scarier not to admit reality and pretend it's the Best Year Ever.
Some notes on individual change
It’s a Talking Out of School Friday, one week later than the actually scheduled Talking Out of School Friday! I was on the road last week and I assumed from my schedule that I would have some large chunks of time to write and think so I could finish a draft I started. What actually happened was lots of quality thinking time but not so much quality writing time.
So here we are, one week late and you know what - I am OK with that. I know you’re all busy and getting off schedule by a week is not the end of the world - but the real surprise is that I am truly, deeply OK with it.
On the road, and being somewhere I had never been before even though it wasn’t that far away, all these things that had been whirling around in my brain for the past year about work and schools and leadership and relationships and aging and mortality had some space to sort themselves out. When I arrived back home, everything had shifted a little.
Coming to a new place in the change cycle where your thoughts and feelings integrate and harmonize sometimes sneaks up on you. Sometimes getting to a new place in your head entails literally going to a new place, seeing new faces, making new relationships, experiencing first hand a bit of widening of the possibilities on the horizon and the potential the world holds for you. It’s a very good feeling.
When I arrived home, I didn’t feel generally overwhelmed and slightly paralyzed by all the unfinished projects in my still-not-quite-moved-into house or the assorted tasks that still needed to be wrapped up regarding my dad’s estate. I knew I’d get to them and it would all get done.
I didn’t feel a sense of guilt that I had emails I needed to return and, in fact, someone had given me a nudge on one and I didn’t feel any sense of failure or defeat - I felt a little shruggie and I knew I’d get to them.
I didn’t feel an underlying sense of anxiety (or it is excitement? Can be hard to tell...) when I thought about the future and the evolving, flexible nature of a new work life that is coming together, so different from the structure, parameters and reward systems of my first act in 25-plus years in independent schools.
This shift has felt disorienting because usually I am fueled by the lure of the to-do-list accomplishment and the adrenaline of Wile E Coyote pumping his knees in thin air. There are even brief moments where I wondered if I had just fallen into a deep well of depression and was so far down I was mistaking resignation for peace? I decided instead, because as the cliche goes “change is the only constant,” to enjoy this feeling and perspective while it lasts.
Context changes and shifts. Even when you don’t want it to, it does anyway. And this has been compounded by both the pandemic and the ever more rapid progress of technology.
You are you and you also can change - what you want changes, how you want to spend your time, who you want to spend your time with, how (or even if) you care about how you’re seen in the world. Some values can shift, or change priority.
It all feels pretty strange. Who is this alien?
You can choose to resist instead and I think many people do - the energy from this resistance is animating and can be quite helpful as life throws challenge after challenge at you, even when you are lucky enough to have resources, personal and material, as a safety net. Accepting profound change rather than resisting it is a very scary proposition.
But sometimes it becomes clear it is safe to accept that what you want is different and it doesn’t threaten your identity. It is a gift that there is the potential for change - the “acts” of your life don’t have to make narrative sense. It’s not a Netflix limited series. It doesn’t mean act one was a failure if it didn’t quite work out the way you envisioned. Or maybe act one has a very different resonance or meaning to you with some space and distance.
It also means accepting responsibility for the direction you travel in, rather than relying on the structures, parameters and reward systems of your previous act to either provide sweet, reassuring acceptance or something to rail against. But maybe you don’t need to be the gold star student or rebel smoking in the bathroom - you can just be you.
Or maybe you get some distance and you realize that those structures, parameters and reward systems are your natural habitat. And I am not being cynical when I use the term “reward system” - I am not so much referring to status, although that is a potential reward for leaders, as the hard-to-replace reward of working in an environment with kids. Because kids are just great, full stop. They can be complicated and frustrating, sure - but they’re kids. The adults don’t have that excuse.
And how does this change process manifest institutionally?
Institutionally, for so many reasons I have previously discussed, change is even harder to lean into. The scary identity crisis that comes with possibly accepting change at the institutional level is related to rampant “Best Year Ever-itis” at our schools. It is continually surprising to me that there are school people who are determined to stick to that narrative even when you are walking the campus with them and seeing the evidence that this school is not immune to the difficulties all schools are facing. Just because a school is dealing with some intractable problems and contextual shifts doesn’t mean it’s a bad place now or ever was or that it is doomed. Programs or strategies or attitudes that were wildly successful just a few years ago may have all of a sudden emerged looking shopworn, impotent to meet new challenges.
The only way this will spell doom for your school is if leadership clings to the Best Year Ever narrative - and I’m looking at all the leadership, from the board chair and head to the department chairs.
Many people are commenting on the recent New Yorker piece about the death of the humanities in colleges and how students are seeking out more “practical” majors related to STEM. The End of the English Major | The New Yorker
(As a sidebar, there is also a very intriguing but not very in depth description of how ASU has become a financially thriving university, funded in large part by online degree programs.)
I often find these articles tedious as probably the first death of civilization article was published ten minutes after the birth of civilization. But we are in a certain phase now and I continually remind myself - it’s not as if educating large numbers of young people on bucolic college campuses is a rite of adulthood that goes back a thousand years. In the fifties, my parents were first gen college students who lived at home. My mom, who wanted to work at the FBI (a factoid I find adorable) was one of the first students to major in business at her college and my dad majored in psychology, which led to the work he did in the Army processing recruits in New Orleans, which led to the rest of his career in HR. And these were people whose lives were filled with the humanities - books and music and theater and they were generally thoughtful citizens.
If it’s the Best Year Ever at your institution, you can’t meaningfully tackle any of the issues the article raises. There is the symptom: humanities enrollment decline. There are conversations and debates to be had about what the symptom means. There is the structure - do such siloed majors even make sense any more and how to we provide a valuable humanities experience for all students if we believe in the power of the humanities? Then there are the bigger systemic questions - what are high schools doing that is not inspiring kids to want to further explore the humanities when they get to college?
If you’re approaching it from a Best Year Ever standpoint, you probably end up agreeing it’s a likely blip and the problem is kids these days, or the pandemic, or smart phones, etc.
Best Year Ever-itis makes for flabby strategy and weak conflict management. It makes for turbulent head of school transitions. It creates burnout for all the people at every level of the organization trying to hold back the tide during “the blip.”
From my last post on the irrationality that makes change difficult, it is easy to see why it’s easier to go along with the crowd when everyone believes your patch of grass is the center of the universe. But, to be a bit cheeky, the path of least resistance dead-ends at the sentimental cul de sac.
But Julie, you say to me - our constituents need to feel as if it is always the Best Year Ever at their school! If I don’t repeat this line, everyone will come down on me, from the board on down.
My response? Treat people as resilient beings. They can actually handle the truth. The school can be - and likely is! - a very wonderful place in many respects. It is clear to anyone who has been conscious that the world is going through a very difficult transition as it grapples with an onslaught of new technology, with the limits of growth as an economic strategy, with outworn paradigms that just don’t rise to the occasion anymore, let alone the deeply confusing existential residue of the pandemic. If your board, or your parents or your alumnae can’t tolerate the complexity of a message that says “this magical place can indeed step up to the many challenges presented by this new world but we are going to need everyone to come together to be creative, innovative and flexible for the well being of the kids and the long term health of the institution” - well, then I would do some serious reflection on whether the school is, in fact, in for a very rocky ride and maybe there’s not much you can do about that.
I happen to believe most school and org cultures are more resilient than we give them credit for and that people can handle more complexity if you give it to them straight with a side of confident, realistic hope. And of course, heads need their boards to back them up 100% in this message and senior admins need their heads to back them up as well.
But Julie, you say, How about this? I can give the real deal in private with my board chair and some senior admins I trust. Can’t I be straight with them and then let everyone else know it’s the Best Year Ever so they know I love the school as much as they do?
My response: Give it a try. Maybe it’s the only real choice you have.
But I am skeptical. I don’t think you can send an authentic message in both directions. Of course, are you more unvarnished in your opinion with some leaders close to you? Likely, yes. In fact, let’s hope you have people you can be unvarnished with as you work out your approach and your messaging. But if you try to have it both ways, people smell a rat. Either the message about change gets dulled and undercut or the Best Year Ever message feels like a Potemkin village where in reality the ground is shaky under everyone’s feet, just no one admits the truth.
You are putting yourself in the unsustainable, burnout position of holding back the tide. Give it a try. But that’s a cold and lonely place to be.
Survey Says!
Thank you, Schoolies - or TOOSies - or Dear Readers for your very robust participation in the survey. It was very helpful and there were multiple areas that had lots of responses. The tip-top number one was “women and leadership.” I wish I had a magic wand to solve all these complicated challenges listed below but what I can offer is some validation, some insight, some camaraderie and hopefully some hope.
Here are the topics that had the most responses - in no particular order
Women and Leadership (almost all respondents checked this off!)
Managing sensitive/HR type issues
Delivering bad news/managing conflict
Running more effective meetings
Reimagining the HOS role and the senior team structure
Senior team management
Alternative approaches to strategic planning
Who are you?
It’s about 40% heads of school or EDs - 40% senior administrators - 20% middle managers/teachers/other
90% school employees
And here are excellent write-in suggestions:
Managing parents (JF: How did I forget that one?)
The difficulties and isolation of being a head of school
Managing multiple life demands in and out of school
Assessing/rebuilding/rebranding boarding school
Team building and culture building
Building morale in a burnout culture
I am excited to let these topics marinate as to future TOOS posts and also as I continue to tinker with inaugural offerings for Stony Creek Strategy. After a meeting next week, I should have a better sense of when the website will launch and I am in conversation with several strategic partners about program collaboration. I am looking at pilot programs for both aspiring leaders and heads of school, including a virtual workshop on writing statements of ed philosophy/leadership philosophy as well as enhanced coaching specifically for new heads of school, and innovative strategic planning programs.
And remember - always feel free to contact me at jfaulstich@stonycreekstrategy.com if you want to just have a conversation about any of these topics above, or if you want to explore the possibility of executive coaching. I have enjoyed and learned so much from my clients thus far and I look forward to supporting more leaders at every level.
Today is April, tomorrow is snow - welcome to March in New England!
Enjoy the weekend -
Julie
Social media post photo by Daniele Colucci on Unsplash