Why a Change in the Education Plan Failed

Question #3 Why has the plan failed?

·The plan failed because many of the teachers had learned behaviours and did not have the desire or motivation to change. Strong existing culture that made them resistant to change.

·The plan was introduced too soon with not enough consensus among the teachers, if any and the teachers did not buy into the plan

·Many of the teacher's had been at the school for a long time and did not have a real incentive or motivation to change because of attempted failures in the past.

·Students came from homes with larger and deeper problems and issues than could not be solved in a few months with a limited plan.

·Teachers had not been to a professional development program in a long time and were not up-to-date on educational techniques and successful programs. This almost certainly hindered their ability to properly implement Sandra Lee's new ideas.

·Teachers were not satisfied with their jobs and had a poor working environment and were generally discouraged.

·Teachers did not have a strong support network amongst themselves within the school and many lacked trust and respect for Sandra Lee, their school and the educational system.

·Teachers did not actively participate in decision-making and did not contribute any of their own ideas.

·Sandra Lee tried to introduce change too quickly in the school.

·Sandra Lee did not have a comprehensive, coherent step-by-step plan or strategy. Instead the plan was implemented on an ad hoc basis.

·Sandra Lee did not respect the teachers' perspective or point of view to learn what had been tried before and why previous plans had failed--inadequate historical research.

·Parents were not involved and were not made aware of the plan and asked to participate to achieve parental buy-in.

·Sandra Lee didn't have experience as a principle or working in this type of environment and did not seek the experience or expertise of those that did.

·The plan did not include documented goals, performance indicators/measures, time-frame or when and how it would later be re-evaluated.

·The plan did not include short and long-term goals.

·The plan did not contain an effective communication plan to include teachers, students, parents and school board to keep them updated.

Question #4 What theories and concepts help to explain the events in this case?

·There were no rewards, performance evaluations or goals tied to the plan Sandra Lee had set out so there was little incentive for teachers or students to follow it.

·There was no behavior modification through punishment when the plan was not followed, for example, nothing happened to the teachers who habitually arrived late.

·There was no positive reinforcement to assist in modifying the teachers' behaviors

·Organizational culture and values, and the difficulties that can exist when trying to merge two different "corporate cultures" or alter enacted values

·There were visible artifacts of the organizational culture that existed in the school, such as the way people in the school acted and the poorly maintained school.

·Breach of the psychological contract, and in particular the relational contract

·Breach of trust, which is essential to the psychological contract.

·Motivational theory and techniques were not used in order to get buy-in by the teachers and improve the individual performance of the teachers.

·The role perceptions of the teachers are inconsistent with the role perceptions of Sandra

·The situational factors that exist at the school hinder the changes in individual performance that Sandra Lee wishes.

·There was poor job satisfaction among the teachers.

·The teachers did not receive feedback on their performance from Sandra Lee.

·Socialization theory - Sandra Lee was not properly socialized into the organization and she experienced "reality shock" when she first arrived at the school since she was not told and prepared for the state of the school and the faculty dynamics.

·Because of the reality shock that Sandra Lee experienced, she spent her time trying to manage her own stress rather than focusing on the task at hand.

·Sandra did not receive a realistic job preview (RJP). This contributed to the inaccurate pre-employment expectations that Sandra had and the reality shock that she experienced upon arrival at the school.

·Theories of participatory decision-making were not properly implemented.

·Organizational learning and career development were absent from the lives of the teachers at the school

·The teachers were not empowered by Sandra Lee to make the changes that she wanted.

·None of the methods for dealing with resistance to change were fully implemented in Sandra Lee's plan; communication, training, employee involvement, stress management, negotiation or coercion

·The decision making model was not effectively used by Sandra Lee and the teacher's when they were developing their plan. They did not follow the "decision-making model" steps; 1. identify the problem or opportunity, 2. choose the best decision style, 3. develop alternative solutions, 4. choose the best solution, 5. implement the selected alternative, 6. evaluate decision outcomes

·Sandra should have followed a change management strategy by working through the following steps: 1. Change to the desired future state 2. Refreeze desired behaviour so people do not slip back into their old work practices. Rewards are a kind of powerful system. 3. change agents can help organization to communicate and build commitment towards the desired future states.

·Sandra Lee did not demonstrate all seven competencies of effective leaders 1. drive, 2.

Question #6 If she chooses to stay and attempt to transform South Heights, what should she do? What are the reasonable alternatives? What course of action should she pursue? How should she implement these actions?

·Sandra Lee needs to transform the organizational culture and the values at the school and this could be done through transformational leadership, which involves the leader communicating and enacting the vision of the future, introducing culturally consistent awards, and selecting and socializing employees.

·She needs to improve the individual performance of teachers through motivating them, providing education to increase their abilities, clarifying their roles, and improving job satisfaction.

·She needs to engage in participatory decision-making to empower employees. She could set up a brainstorming day where the teachers could all get together and truly come up with a consensus of what they want to improve in the school

·They could take an informal vote to establish a plan and determine the priorities.

·Sandra should implement the established plan very slowly so that the teachers can see the small benefits of their ideas.

·She should research the school board standards and implement them immediately

·She should ensure that she fully understands the teacher's union and its impact of her ability to reward and punish the teachers.

·She could come up with a way to encourage teachers and modify their behaviours through positive reinforcement

·She should implement an employee feedback mechanism, such as 360 degree feedback, that is specific, frequent, timely, credible, and relevant.

·She could establish a "teacher of the month" or gift certificates for Tim Horton's as a reward for teachers who demonstrate the new school values.

·Do some research to find out what the teachers would want as far as rewards, recognition, and incentives go

·Sandra could also offer to take the "teacher of the month's" class for an hour a week for a month to give the teacher prep time or it could be a new computer program for their class or a new set of books.

·Performance indicators that can be measured should be put into place in order to evaluate the progress of the plan. The short-term goals that could be measured for example are cleaning up the school and having all the teachers report to school on time. Long-term goals that could be measured include, students academic success and job satisfaction of the staff by conducting an employee survey.

·She needs to provide education and support to teachers to help them in implementing the plan.

·Teachers could be mandated to go to a professional development workshop

·Speakers or professional workshops could be done at lunch time in the staff room so that the teachers would have more incentive to attend.

·Sandra could get a copy of the standards and educate the teachers on them, or bring someone from the school board in to go over the regulations and the disciplinary measures for non-compliant teachers.

·Bring in counselors to offer the teachers different techniques of dealing with difficult children

·Counselors could also be brought into the Parent Rap sessions and advertised to encourage other parents into attending. The sessions could be devoted to providing various parenting techniques to deal with their children in different situations.

·Could implement a breakfast program at the school so that the students are receiving adequate nutrition to start the day off right.

·The Parent Rap sessions could deal with other aspects of their life such as providing them with information and techniques on how they can help their kids be successful at school, stress coping mechanisms, financial planning, or managing household responsibilities.

·The Parent Rap sessions could also include socializing events so that the parents could meet one another and interact with the teachers in an informal and fun environment.

·Sandra and the teachers could start up more extra-curricular activities to get the kids playing sports and learning teamwork skills and keeping them out of trouble.

·Bring in local expertise such as the community police to talk to kids about drugs and violence

·Contact local public health authorities to come in and give different sessions to parents and students regarding proper nutrition and safety.

·Newsletters could be distributed on a bi-weekly or monthly basis that could provide information on what is going on in the school with pictures of different kids and classrooms that are making a difference in the school or community.

·The newsletters could also include a "parents" section that would provide helpful hints and tips for parents regarding parenting, financial planning, helping their kids excel at school etc.

·The newsletters could also feature a student or student(s) artwork and writing assignments or stories.

·A promotional campaign could be started to keep the school clean. Each class could be given an area of the school to clean up in order to get the teachers and students involved. This could be done on a monthly or bi-weekly basis and the areas could rotate.

·A job rotation or teacher exchange program could be implemented to have the teachers in the school experience other schools and teaching environments.