A New Approach

So, what's the solution?

In my experience, school administrators are invariably correct in many aspects of their visions for educational reform. They have a good sense of the directions in which their school districts need to move. But they are overly constrained by their commitment to formal, "rational" modes of getting there.

Formal planning theory, which worked well in times of relative stability and resource abundance, runs into enormous difficulties in times of scarcity and turbulence: the current economic situation. That's why many organizations in the private sector have jettisoned many aspects of their formal planning PROCESSES. They recognize that the strength of most planning rests in its capacity to help people get a grasp on the future and to articulate a shared vision of what they would like to see unfold. But they also recognize that when it comes to implementation, the attempts to realize a plan can tie you in knots, as illustrated in the above example. They recognize that while the philosophy of planning and creating a shared vision is sound, you cannot rely on the planning PROCESS to deliver results. As an alternative they focus on finding breakthrough actions and modes of practice that can begin to shift their organizations into new modes of operation in very short time periods. This is what is what I call the art of finding "high leverage" 15% initiatives that can make a major difference to the projects and activities with which one is involved.

The 15% principle builds on the work of Edwards Deming and other researchers that show how most people have about 15% control over their work situations. The other 85% rests in the broader context, such as the structure, systems and culture in which they work, and is beyond direct influence. This has enormous implications, because it suggests that if we are really interested in creating change we must learn to lever the "15% influence" through which we can make a real difference.

Formal planning processes fail because they ignore this. They direct energy to finding ways of acting on the 100% to produce the quantum change that they are looking for in an integrated, rational way. In doing so they actually mobilize opposition from the context in which the plan is introduced - the 85% that's beyond control. Notice who's interested in the plan - the people who feel they are going to lose out. Hence the opposition - the 85% in a highly visible form!

The "15% principle" applies at all levels and in all contexts. As individuals, teams, schools or organizational units seeking to achieve some vision or goal it is vitally important to find and act on the 15% in a way that can really make a difference. It's important to find ways of creating highly leveraged change that can overcome inertia. It's important to find practical ways of implementing shared vision in a way that builds energy and momentum rather than consuming it.

To illustrate, consider the school that injected the "15% principle" into the action stage of its School Based Management process. After the visioning stage it was faced with dozens of action alternatives that threatened to push the situation into a stalemate. Rather than get bogged down, a decision was made to "fast forward" progress in a particularly contentious, yet crucially important area of the school based plan - the development of a system for measuring learning outcomes.

The school in question had a very involved parent community where standards, outcomes, performance and accountability were hot issues. On the face of it, the idea of creating a rigorous set of standards and benchmarks across all grades was a daunting task. It was one that ranked well down the list on a scale of "doability." It was, however, a high leverage issue where real progress could send a powerful message to the school community about the seriousness of the school's plans for progress and change.

At the point the 15% principle was introduced, parents and teachers had become overwhelmed by the scale of the job. Six months hard work had produced a set of guidelines for producing learning outcomes, along with a few specimens for selected grades. But there was a long way to go in making the scheme a practical reality. In addition, the Ministry of Education had just published reports and documents outlining new information and guidelines on producing learning outcomes which seemed to push the project back to its starting point. Energy was low, and with new parent members on the action committee, with absolutely no background on the issues or understanding of the complexity of the task, prospects were grim.

The first "15% initiative" was designed to break the stalemate. A decision was made to restructure the process of parent-teacher collaboration away from the idea that parents and teachers should be involved in everything, to the idea that since parents and teachers have different skills and perspectives, perhaps they should make their main contributions at different stages of the process, and in different ways.

This small shift in the meaning of collaboration, created a major breakthrough because it broke the prospect of a seemingly endless cycle of weekly meetings in favor of an approach where teachers could meet on their own to produce a set of learning outcomes, with parents then commenting on their appropriateness within the context of parental expectations and on their clarity and intelligibility from a parental point of view.

But, as with all problem solutions, new problems then began to emerge. Teachers and parents had got rid of the problem of the weekly meeting, but teachers felt burdened by the enormity of the task that had now fallen squarely on their shoulders.

So the 15% principle was applied again (See above diagram). To break the stalemate attention was devoted to the two key problems that seemed to be in the way:

• the fact that teachers didn't have the time to do the work required, and
• the fact that most felt out of their depth from a competence point of view. They felt that they had no real knowledge of processes for developing learning outcomes, especially in view of the avalanche of new literature and guidelines.

The competence problem was then resolved by redefining the task of developing an appropriate set of learning outcomes so that the process built on the knowledge that teachers already possessed about what could be expected of their students. The knowledge was then fitted into a formal "learning outcomes model." This simple redefinition of the task empowered the teachers involved because the process built on existing knowledge, rather than on an abstract model that had to be learned from scratch.

When combined, these two initiatives created a completely new context for approaching the task. The result: within a period of four weeks, involving a relatively small amount of work by the teachers involved, a set of draft learning outcomes for mathematics for all but two grade levels in the school was presented back to parents for comment and refinement.

The parents were delighted with the work that had been performed. They then met and formulated their questions and suggestions for refinement, especially around issues of clarity and communication, back to the teachers. Two weeks later, learning outcomes for all grade levels had been designed and approved, ready for implementation in the following school year. The teachers, in particular, were proud and invigorated by the progress they had made in taking the most difficult of all the projects facing the school, and shifting it to a successful outcome. The overall mood was captured by the school principal's comment that "the work overload had been put in a new framework where we were able to manage the issues instead of being gobbled up by the planning process. By taking control of the situation and getting right to the issues we were empowered by the time spent."

This success in cutting through the stalemate created a context in which further gains could be made - by focussing on high leverage issues in implementing all aspects of the school plan.

This was adchieved by bringing the five action team leaders together for a short meeting to endorse the principle of finding the high leverage initiatives. As it turned out, much of the implementation work was already underway. But there was no clear view of what had been achieved and what remained to be done. Significant accomplishments had "got lost" in the complexity of the planning process and in the paperwork and all the meetings it generated.

The task of finding a way forward was thus delegated to two members of the group, working with a facilitator. After just two hours it became clear that the real high-leverage initiative didn't rest in doing more work or launching new projects, but in recovering the work that had already been done. Many useful ideas and initiatives had fallen through "the cracks" of the planning process, because different elements of the same task has been allocated to different action teams. By integrating what was important it was found that further planning meetings were completely unnecessary. The real need was to document success to date, identify what still needed to be done, and communicate the results to school staff, parents and the community.

As a result of a further four hours work the "Action Plan Binder," comprising dozens of tasks that would have taken months to discuss, was reduced to a short four page statement focussing on aims, accomplishments and work yet to be done. This statement, which was also used as a basis for communicating the results of the planning process to the community at large, then became the core document on which future action was to be based.

This transformation of the planning process from a 210 page binder to a four page statement highlighting just a few key tasks symbolizes the scale of the breakthrough. Within a period of just three weeks, the initiative eliminated months of redundant work.

The current situation is that the school is about two years ahead of where it expected to be in terms of the formal plan, and has succeeded in prototyping a very effective way of integrating the contributions of parents, community and teaching staff in an action - orientated form of School-Based Management.

Back to The 15% Concept