TRANSFORMATIONAL
CHANGE
Path 1: Assessing the External Environment
Three Paths to the Future
■ Path 1: Transform environmental relationships
■ Path 2: Transform core and support work
■ Path 3: Transform internal social infrastructure
Path1: Transform Environmental
Relationships
■ All systems exist inside broader environment
■ Environment has two parts: task environment and general
environment
General Environment
Existing
Competitors
Suppliers
Customers
New
Competitors
Local
community
Task Environment
Federal
Legislation
Assessing the External Environment
■ Tools
– Stakeholder Analysis
– SWOT Analysis
– Force Field Analysis
– Political Assessment
Stakeholder Analysis
■ Identify your system’s key external stakeholders—individuals
and groups
■ Identify their main issues or concerns? Estimate how
important these issues or concerns are for your system?
■ Estimate how much power they have. Power is the ability to
influence your system’s behavior.
SWOT Analysis
■ First, identify opportunities and threats
– Data-based, not opinion-based
– Real, not hypothetical
■ Second, given the opportunities and threats identify your
system’s strengths and weaknesses
– Honest, not self-deceptive
– Real, not imagined
– Data-based, not opinion-based
SWOT Analysis Matrix
Opportunities
Strengths
Weaknesses
Threats
What strengths does
What strengths do we
our system have that
have that can help us
can help us seize these
minimize or avoid
opportunities?
these threats?
What weaknesses doer What weaknesses do
our system have that we have that make us
might prevent or hinder
more vulnerable to
us from seizing these
these threats?
opportunities?
Force Field Analysis (use your stakeholder and SWOT analysis
data to identify external forces for and against change)
Forces Supporting
Transformation
Forces Opposing
Transformation
Stakeholder pressure to
transform—strong
Changing demographics of
student population—
moderate
Local business community—
weak
Lack of financial
resources—
very strong
Transformation
Goals
Dominant paradigm
controlling Deaf education—
strong
Teacher education
programs not adequately
preparing future teachers—
moderate
Political Assessment (use the results of your stakeholder
analysis to make these assessments)
■ Transformational change generates political behavior
– Political support—internal and external
– Political opposition—internal and external
■ Assess external political support and opposition by
identifying
– Allies
– Bedfellows
– Opponents
– Adversaries
– Fence-sitters
Political Groups Within the External Environment
High
Agreement
Bedfellows
Allies
Fence-Sitters
Low
Agreement
Adversaries
Opponents
Low Trust
High Trust
Adapted from Block, P. (1991). The empowered manager: Positive political skills at work. San Francisco: BerrettKoehler Publishers.
Political Analysis of Key Stakeholders
Level of influence =
amount of power
Level of importance =
how important their
concerns are
High influence,
High Importance
High influence,
Low Importance
Low influence,
Low Importance
Fence-Sitters
Adversaries
Opponents
Bedfellows
Allies
Low influence,
High Importance
SWOT + Force Field Analysis + Political
Assessment—Now What?
■ OT + SW + FFA+ PA
tactics
plans
■ The plans for change must be aligned with the grand vision
and strategic direction of your system
■ The tactics and plans should be developed through broad
participation—people tend to support what they help create
Anticipating Objections to Change
■ Political opposition (adversaries and opponents) will raise
objections to proposed changes.
■ The objections often are expressed as “nice idea, but….”
6 Common Objections
• Nice idea, but…
who else is doing this?
• Nice idea, but…
how do we pay for this?
6 Common Objections
• Nice idea, but…
we can’t stop doing what we’re doing to participate in
this kind of change process.
• Nice idea, but…
there is nothing new about what you are proposing—
we tried all this before.
6 Common Objections
• Nice idea, but…
we don’t need to do this because we are already a
good school system.
• Nice idea, but…
we don’t have the right people working in the system.
The Strongest Objections—Paradigms,
Mental Models, and Mind-Sets
■ Paradigm—a set of theories, philosophy, values, principles,
and so on that control a profession.
■ Mental Models—preferred ways of working, thinking,
behaving
■ Mind-Sets—attitudes toward the paradigm and mental
models
Deaf Education Example
Dominant Deaf Education Paradigm
Mental Models in Deaf Education
ASL-Only
Signed English
Language Planning
Oral
Mind-Sets About the Paradigm and Mental Models
Positive
Neutral
Negative
Behavioral Strategies to Support the
Preferred Paradigm and Mental Models
Observable Behavior that Reinforces the Paradigm, Mental
Model, and Mind-Sets
Cued Speech
Group Activities
■ Working in small groups…
1. Identify your system’s key stakeholders
a) Who are they?
b) What are their key concerns or issues?
c) How much power do they have to influence your system’s
behavior?
2. Assess your system’s opportunities and threats, then its
strengths and weaknesses.
a) What data do you have or need to back up your
assessment?
b) How will you get those data?
Group Activities (continued)
3. Review your list of key stakeholders to identify who
among them are:
a) Allies
b) Bedfellows
c) Adversaries
d) Opponents
e) Fence-Sitters
4. Identify some possible objections to change that your
adversaries, adversaries, opponents, and fence-sitters
might raise.
Group Activities (continued)
5. Construct a force field analysis matrix using the results
of the first four activities.
a) Identify some strategies for minimizing or removing the
forces opposing your ideas for change.
6. Given the paradigm controlling Deaf education and its
supporting mental models and mind-sets, discuss
whether or not those phenomena need to change.
You have 60 minutes to work through as many of the
activities as possible. When we reconvene as a large
group I will ask randomly selected groups to report
their results.
If you have questions about assessing the external
environment please present them when we reconvene.
“Poll Everywhere”questions
■
Do you believe that assessing the external environment is a critical step in your system’s
transformation journey?
1. Yes
2. No
3. Maybe
■
How would you rate your system’s level of readiness to engage in transformational change?
1. Not ready
2. Ready
3. Mastery
■
How would you estimate the probability of your system’s chances of succeeding with its
transformation?
1. Very low probability
2. Low probability
3. Moderately good probability
4. High probability
5. Very high probability