Change - addressing the problem of sustainability

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 Why “change for improvement”? 

 Technical versus Adaptive Change 

Technical change involves people putting in place solutions to problems for which they know the answers. While this can be difficult, it is not as difficult as adaptive change, which involves addressing problems for which they don’t yet know the solutions.

Adaptive change involves changing more than routine behaviours or preferences; it involves changes in people’s hearts and minds

 According to Fullan (2005), “Addressing the problem of sustainability is the ultimate adaptive challenge” (page 14). Because it conflicts with their deepest beliefs, adaptive change is a deeply unsettling process that can threaten people’s sense of identity and lead to resistance. Adaptive change stimulates resistance because it challenges people’s habits, beliefs, and values.

 “Espoused theories” and “theories-in-use”

“Espoused theories” represent what someone says they would do in a certain situation.

“Theories-in-use” represent what they actually do.

 If educators are to increase their knowledge of teaching and of themselves as learners, they first need to make explicit their espoused theories and theories-in-use and discover any inconsistencies between the two. In other words, professional learning must include opportunities for people to surface what they “say they do and their explanations for their actions” and “what they actually do and the real reasons for their actions” (Robinson and Lai, 2006, page 99).

Leadership often involves challenging people to live up to their words, to close the gap between their espoused values and their actual behavior. It may mean pointing out the elephant sitting on the table at a meeting — the unspoken issue that everyone sees but no one wants to mention. Heifetz and Linsky, 2004, page 33