Promoting Change with Buy-In
Promoting Change with Buy-In
Aug 15
Written By Nagham Alsamari
“You’re like a president of a small country.” That’s what my family doctor told me years ago when I told her I worked as a principal. It was a new way to look at it, and it is definitely resembling that of a president’s job.
Principals wear multiple hats and their daily involves dealing with budgeting, scheduling, staffing, conflict-resolution, family engagement, staying abreast of current research and legislation, curriculum development, enrollment, training, mentoring & coaching, to name a few. With the day already crammed, not including unpredictable situations that just happen to walk in uninvited, principals have a stressful job as it is. No matter the number of years a principal has been practicing, they’re bound to feel overwhelmed when they’re tasked to introduce a change within their school.
How do you plan on getting people on board with a change?
Research found multiple reasons people may not be open to change including, change is altering the familiar, absence of know-how, does not agree with their own principles, and/or change is altering the norm everyone is used to (Hubble & Goodwin, 2019).
No doubt as a principal, you’ve been in situations where you were charged with making curriculum decisions, making changes to an existing process, or even as simple as changing an event within your school, where you found yourself perplexed due to the amount of criticism or lack of support from your staff. School leaders find themselves in situation such as the above most frequently then they would like due to the nature of their position. Naturally, people like to provide their opinion regardless of how relative their experience or background is to the situation at hand. People also, like to feel that their voices are heard in a decision, especially one impacting where they work. While, I may have sounded sarcastic, the reality is I’m people, and you’re people and yes, the above applies to everyone. And yes, people should have their voices heard especially in their place of work. I’m sure you would feel the same if your superintendent made an impactful decision for your school without involving you. Think about it for a second!
Now, back to you making decisions within your school bounds. How do you plan on getting people on board with a change? Is there a process to follow to involve your team in the decision-making process?
If you’re a principal about to introduce a new program or curriculum to your team and have doubts about how your team will perceive the change, consider the following:
In my years as a principal, I was faced with the same dilemma from staff in trying to introduce a reading intervention program years ago. Here is how I tackled it:
#1 Start with the promoters
When you have a person or a group of people who you know will start implementing a program because they want to see positive change, why not start with them? Most often than not, principals introduce a new program to everyone, and those superstar teachers will take it upon themselves to put the program to use right away. They may not stop there, as they will probably seek support and ask questions continuously to reap the results within their classroom. While many others will use it just because they must, which most of the time results in the program not being used accurately. Of course, you’ll have those that will put it aside and not use it at all.
Your promoters are those teachers that are eager to implement a research-based tool in their classroom to make it work for them and their students (Whitaker, 2007/2013). These teachers will not waste any time getting started and may even likely be talking about the program with colleagues during their lunch breaks and prep times.
It was a no brainer for me when I decided to introduce the reading intervention program. I started with one of the teachers who was eager to change her students’ reading behavior and their results in turn. We will call our superstar teacher ‘Teacher A.’ Now it is important to mention that in this instance, the reading intervention program was already being practiced by one teacher in the school, (Teacher B) who had already used in her former school and brought her license with her to our school because she saw how successful it was with her former students. I did have a bit of advantage, as I already have one promoter in the school. However, as predicted, Teacher A’s eyes started sparkling with the mention of the program and wanted to learn all about it. I call that step one to success!
#2 Observations and demonstrations
For many people, interacting with something through hands-on, produces far better outcomes than if they just heard or read about it. To get different staff on the team enticed, I set up an observation in Teacher B’s classroom with her permission to demonstrate how the intervention program works in a classroom setting. At first the attendees were, myself, the school’s curriculum coordinator, and Teacher A. We observed, took notes, and eagerly asked questions. When we left the classroom, Teacher A asked, “when are we getting the program?”
While, I have a winner in this situation, I wanted just a few more fans to get going. I coordinated a meeting with the entire grade level team and asked both Teacher A and Teacher B to present to their grade level team the following week. Before the meeting even started that Friday, the entire grade level had already been talking about the program and wanted to learn more about how it will make a difference in their students’ reading capabilities and they had questions about how to fit it in their schedule and other similar questions. The meeting couldn’t have come at a better time as we openly discussed possibilities, including purchase, training, schedule and sharing with parents. We needed one more step before we made a final decision, however. We had to look at the data to be sure that it was tried and it worked for the grade level we’re intending on purchasing for.
#3 Share the data
In an effort to make sound decisions, and not only based on personal opinion, the curriculum coordinator and I set forth to find data from schools that use the program to see how effective it was. In addition, we looked at our own student data within that entire grade level which was comprised of 5 classrooms equaling to around 150 students. Luckily we had one classroom using the program already, so we compared this classroom’s reading assessment data to the rest of the grade level’s reading data using Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) reading assessment. We shared all of our findings with the grade level team, so they are fully informed. The data we found from other school users and our own school, shows a positive correlation when using the intervention program in case you were curious.
#4 Transparency
As a school leader you have to make decisions daily and most of these decisions will have a large-scale impact on your school and everyone in it. No matter what decision you need to execute, you must make transparency your go to.
What is transparency?
Simply put, explain the process of what you must decide on, all variables that may factor in the decision, reason(s) as to why this decision must be made, how it will impact everyone, gather stakeholder feedback and use it, and brainstorm together (France, 2022). Isn’t it really helpful when you have others to bounce ideas off of and get input that may help in the decision-making? This process expands your abilities as a leaders, helps make your job a bit easier, and gains your popularity among colleagues. Yes, I’m making it sound much simpler than it really is, however if this is your standard practice, then it will be as easy as described. Keep in mind that if you’re just going through the act to make it look like you’re involving your team in the decision-making, that is as far as you can get from being transparent as a leader.
Back to the reading intervention program
We ended up purchasing licenses and training for all five teachers because after the process described above, they all were begging to buy it and couldn’t wait to start implementing. The following year, I asked the team to present the reading intervention program to another grade level, the kindergarten team. Then the curriculum coordinator and I reserved time for each of the kindergarten team to observe the reading intervention program at work in the classroom. Do you see where this is going? Yep, it was slow, however I got buy-in and the program was implemented with full force because the teachers felt the need for it and wanted to help their students’ reading skills grow.
References
France, P. E. (2022). If we want sustainable schools, we’ve got to build teacher agency. ASCD, 80(2).
Hubbell, E. R. & Goodwin, B. (2019). Instructional models: Doing the right things right. McREL International.
Whitaker, T. (2007). What great teachers do differently: 17 things that matter most. Taylor & Francis. (Original work published 2007).
