Finding Your 15%:

Many aspects of education are being overwhelmed by the demands of large-scale change programs.

School staffs are feeling stressed and disillusioned.

In many situations inertia rules.

It's a paradox, because educational organizations at all levels have never faced greater opportunities. As we move into the new "information economy" knowledge becomes the critical resource, and the educational sector the key to unlocking its full potential. By all accounts a vibrant educational system should prove to be one of the main growth sectors of the future.

To realize this potential we have to remove the stress and stalemate. We have to find ways of approaching the required transformation in a manner that lends energy, builds momentum and invigorates and binds all parties in growth experiences that can provide rewards for all.

The good news is that much of this is already within reach. The problems being experienced within the educational sector are largely self-imposed, albeit unintendedly. They're created by approaches to planning, management and control that have the unfortunate consequence of adding to the pressures and stresses, without producing tangible results that come anywhere close to justifying the resources consumed.

When we recognize this, and look at the problems squarely in the face, numerous new possibilities emerge. To illustrate, this short paper sketches the problems and offers a solution based on what I call the "Finding Your 15%" approach to change. It's an approach that offers a way of unleashing the creative potential of teachers, administrators, elected officials and members of the community in a search for "high leverage" initiatives that can make a genuine difference. The potential results: quantum gains in the quality of education offered through schools and other educational organizations - without any extra commitment of resources.

The Basic Problem

To illustrate, consider the following example:

• A school district decides to implement a policy of School-Based Management. It's envisaged that the process will be implemented over a period of four or five years.

• A number of schools are selected to pilot the process. Each, in partnership with key stakeholders and representatives from the community, is charged with developing a "school vision" and action plan through which the vision can be achieved. The process gets off to a good start. Within a period of three months, each school has developed a shared vision through the work of a task-force representing key stakeholders. Committees are then struck within each school to convert elements of the vision into concrete action plans.

• Over the next few months groups of teachers, school administrators and parent and community representatives meet each week to work on the action steps needed to implement their element of the school vision. Their considerable efforts produce a clear list of things that need to be done. These are then presented back to each school in the form of "action requirements," along with a suggested timeline for implementation.

• Then the problems start. The schools get completely overwhelmed by the agenda for action. Each committee has identified a list of between five and ten essential action requirements. With between five and seven committees reporting in this way, each school faces the challenge of implementing anywhere between thirty and sixty initiatives. The challenge is overwhelming, so each school usually sets up a series of task forces to review the action recommendations, and the process begins all over again.

• New committees are struck. Since the original parent and community members feel that they have made their contributions, they have withdrawn and the membership is mostly new. So in many cases the deliberations go back to square one. Issues are debated and rehashed all over again. Time runs out, and each committee ends up scrambling to make concrete recommendations about the actions they favor. Since the emphasis is now on pragmatism and "doability" the easiest actions are those that are often selected. As a result, each school ends up with a set of actions that are eminently "doable," but unlikely to make a major difference. Enormous energy and effort has been invested in the change process for marginal results. Those involved get increasingly cynical, and unwilling to make future contributions.

This is a depressing scenario, but one that is all too familiar in educational and other organizations that rely on highly formalized approaches to change. Such processes are launched with the best intentions in the world, but usually end up as "make work" activities characterized by numerous meetings, little action and marginal results.

I have illustrated the point through the issue of School Based Management, but could have equally well taken experience in relation to the development of Outcome-Based Education, programs for the development of Common Curriculum, Parental Involvement or other prominent issues that are now the focus of programs for educational change. Such programs are usually fine in theory. But when it comes to implementation they often fail miserably.

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