This week, my team continued to play the change game thinking that we had to get everyone on board before moving on to the next activity. I learned that sometimes you have to leave people behind to move forward. Those people will have to either get with the program or be left behind. Progress doesn't mean that everyone will agree. Some people are just going to be resistant to change until they accept that there is no way around it. If most people are ready to move forward, it is important to continue.
With the school district I work in struggling to improve it's failing status, coupled with the budget crisis raging forward in Wisconsin's education system, I find myself faced with constant change. Playing the game has helped me to gain a new perspective regarding how I see myself fitting into this change process. I've been able to identify the varying stages that I've gone through, as well as, the stages others in my school and district waiver between. Currently, I am totally in the practice stage. I understand how much change is needed to improve education for the children in my community. Some of this change is has been forced upon us by DPI, and some has been initiated by my school based on our in-house needs assessment. Regardless of how the change has been initiated, I am committed to thinking of ways to shift the paradigm.
From playing the game as part of Team One, I too quickly learned that there is next to now way of gain complete support, especially after spending Bits and gaining nothing. We learned the hard way. I also find the timing of the Change Game amazing in light of what’s going on is education right now. This game has been very beneficial to maintaining a larger perspective on many political and educational issues. I can’t imagine it being more didactic than now. Lenn
ReplyDeleteYou appear to be in a good place with regards to the changes that await us and the field of education. Having a calm acceptance and a willingness to do whatever it takes to make tomorrow better will help keep you sane and serve as a model for others as they take the journey with you.
ReplyDeleteI read your post and I thought about what happens in airports and train stations all the time. Announcements are made, "Final boarding call for United Flight Fourteen", "Amtrak to Chicago leaving now, all aboard!", etc. No matter how much I want everyone to be signed-off and vested in change, there will always be holdouts that seem like they will never budge. In the Change Game simulation we used up a lot of our Activity Credits and time trying to get the same three people to move and they never did. It was only when we worked with the right groups of people and got things moving that, at the last minute, our holdouts came running from their comfort zones and leapt aboard the change train.
ReplyDeleteI think the game taught me a lot about not giving-up on people. I honestly thought our change curmudgeons would always be stuck. Perhaps it takes the overall system wide change to commence to pull these folks in at the 11th hour. I find your approach and attitude to change and adaptation to recent events to be admirable. A lot of people feel down right now and could use an uplifting presence. In Madison, following the passage of the Budget Bill, 100,000 strong showed at the Wisconsin State Capitol. The message was all about looking forward---not back---on what it would take to affect positive and continuous change.