When Non-Action and Slow Action are Courageous Acts

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. - Winston Churchill.

We don’t often talk about the hidden curriculum of running a school or a district, yet leading either one of these institutions requires far more than knowledge and expertise. It calls for a clarity of purpose, foresight and vision, and a commitment to collegiality, reflection, intellectual perseverance and deep understanding. It also demands an ability to de-personalize, an understanding of the downsides of multi-tasking, a great deal of political acumen, a decent dose of humility, and a phenomenal dose of courage.

Merriam-Webster defines courage as the mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. Practicing courage is an ongoing endeavor that draws on our inner dispositions and values as well as our understanding of the system in which we operate.

The latter is the focus of this article.

Systems thinking is a way of understanding reality that emphasizes the relationships among a system’s parts, rather than the parts themselves.

It includes a conceptual framework as well as variety of tools, and was brought to the fore in the organizational literature by Peter Senge (1994, 1998, 1999, 2000). In this article I will draw on several systems thinking constructs and principles, and discuss the ways in which they can support school leaders and the courage they need by proposing questions and tools that can strengthen the activation of such courage.

1. In systems thinking there are no single right answers. There are several potential high and low-leverage actions.

There are two parts to this principle, one that requires having the courage to abandon the illusion of panaceas, and the other that demands the courage to engage in a deep enough understanding of our school system to identify relevant, strategic and deliberate cost-effective actions.

Anyone that has worked in schools for over ten years has experienced the illusion of the next best thing, method, resource, and program. The pressure to adopt innovations, coupled by the growing forces of external accountability which impose a constant sense of urgency in schools, cannot be underestimated. Yet, and drawing on another principle that states that in systems thinking there is no blame since we are all part of the problem and the solution, leaders need to combat the illusion of panaceas. They can do this by surfacing and uncovering assumptions about proposed actions/innovations, considering how mental models affect people’s perceptions of the school’s current reality and future, and asking questions that can reveal complex cause and effect relationships between what is proposed and its intended effects.

While there are a variety of tools and processes for identifying potential high and low leverage actions, they all require that leaders have the courage to devote needed time to look for interdependencies, consider the short and long term consequences of actions, and identify potential unintended consequences of proposed actions.

Some of the questions that can assist leaders in this process include:

• What parts of our school system are interconnected? How do they relate to each other?
• Which parts are most affected by the problems we want to examine?
• What are the events, patterns of behavior, structures, and mental models of our school’s system’s current reality?
• What are the events, patterns of behavior, structures, and mental models of the desired reality for our school system?
• Based on the desired results, what elements in the school system do we want to see increase or decrease relative to the current reality?

Consider using these questions in relation to new mandates related to the Common Core Standards. How might they help you understand the kinds of moves or questions needed to engage in the kinds of deliberate and thoughtful behaviors that support a readiness to incorporate these standards into the fabric of teaching and learning?

2. Small, well focused actions can produce significant and enduring improvements, if they are in the right place.

It takes dedicated effort and time to understand the system in which we operate and the forces that impinge on it. School leaders need to activate the courage to exercise patience, commit to discourse with people who have a different roles and understandings of the school system, and pursue the kinds of questions that can help them distinguish symptoms from problems and uncover appropriate decisions and actions.

The process of identifying most appropriate actions/moves demands that leaders unearth the assumptions and concerns behind problems and proposed solutions and help people in their schools recognize the inherent limitations of matching them to each other before further analysis. One of the best tools to unpack assumptions is the Ladder of Inference. The Ladder of Inference was originally articulated by Chris Argyris and popularized in Peter Senge’s book – The Fifth Discipline. It can help leaders grapple with a core set of beliefs and assumptions which guide their behavior. These include:

• Our beliefs are the truth
• The truth is obvious
• Our beliefs are based on true data
• The data we select are the real data

Using the Ladder of Inference leaders can examine their beliefs and assumptions before they take action. Here’s how the Ladder of Inference works:

• I observe objectively (bottom of the ladder) - Observation by itself is not a biased activity. When I observe I see what happens, hear what was said, or experience a situation.
• I select data from what I observe - I create assumptions about which parts of the event I have observed are important. This assumption about importance is based on how the things that have been observed affect me, or fit into my background and cultural experience. This is where filtering begins.
• I add meaning to what I have selected - I derive meaning using the norms of my culture or experience.
• I make assumptions based on the meaning I have added - This process begins to fill in gaps in knowledge. Where I don’t know something about the event, I naturally assume that the motivations, behaviors, wants, desires, likes and dislikes should match my own. These assumptions take the guesswork out of understanding the situation.
• I draw conclusions and experience associated feelings - I draw conclusions about why one or more individuals or groups are behaving that way and begin to have feelings about these conclusions.
• I adopt beliefs about the world - Based on my conclusions, I either see things as out of alignment (in the case of a negative conclusion), or in alignment, and have either negative or positive feelings about the situation. At this point I believe some form of action, whether it is a physical act, spoken words, or other behavior on my part, is necessary.
• I take action based on my beliefs and feelings (top of the ladder) - I now fully understand the entire situation and take the necessary action: This is often an emotional, rather than a rational response.

It takes courage for leaders to postpone or slow down the decision and action-taking process by using the Ladder of Inference to analyze their reasoning working back down the ladder and tracing the facts and reality that they are actually working with. The payoffs lie in the increased likelihood that the decisions and actions that will be taken will be more thoughtful and better positioned.

Some of the questions that can assists leaders in using the Ladder of Inference include:

• Why have I chosen this course of action? Are there other actions I should have considered?
• What beliefs lead to that action? Was it well-founded?
• Why did I draw that conclusion? Is the conclusion sound?
• What am I assuming, and why? Are my assumptions valid?
• What data have I chosen to use and why? Have I selected data rigorously?
• What are the real facts that I should be using? Are there other facts I should consider?

While it is true that school leaders are constantly engaged in decision making activities related to specific problems, it is also important that these decisions be informed by the larger purpose of improving schools. Making appropriate and significant changes requires very specific organizational moves that engender a shared vision and a collective commitment to the actions that need to be deployed. These moves are beautifully depicted by John Kotter in his book “Our Iceberg is Melting” where he uses a fable to characterize the process of organizational change (Kotter, 2005).

Among others, these moves include creating a sense of urgency; pulling together a guiding team, developing a change vision and strategy, empowering others to act and not letting up. The latter is particularly related to courage because it acknowledges the inevitability of time delays and compensatory feedback as we move organizations from where they have been to a new territory that feels most uncertain.

Some questions that can assist leaders in identifying the kinds of actions that can improve their schools include:

• What are the true problems behind the symptoms that our school experiences?
• What actions can move us from our current reality to our desired results?
• Who will be affected by any of the proposed actions, processes and programs?
• In what ways are they or should they be included in deciding what action(s) to take?
• How are the current structures in our schools and/or mental models hindering our efforts to take the necessary actions?
• Are we keeping our focus on our areas of influence, rather than areas of concern which we cannot influence?
• How will areas of concern that we cannot change affect the desired results for our school system?

3. The system is more than the sum of its parts

It is both easy and natural for us to believe that we can address individual problems and issues in isolation. However, in most cases, the implementation of an apparent solution in one part of the school does not mean that we have actually addressed what lies beneath the problem.

Some of this can be best understood when we consider that school systems and other organizations are not often driven by rational decision-making. James March and his colleagues have articulated the ways in which most leaders make decisions in time of uncertainty in what they have coined as the “garbage can model of organizational choice”. According to this model, organizational leaders deal with four streams.

1. Problems that require attention and are the result of performance gaps or the inability to predict the future. Organizations tend to go to the “garbage” and look for a suitable fix or solution.
2. Solutions that have a life of their own and are, in fact, answers looking for a question. Leaders and others have ideas for solutions which they advance or advocate.
3. Choice opportunities or occasions when organizations are expected to produce decisions.
4. Participants who come and go and vary between problems and solutions and may have favorite problems or solutions which they carry with them.

In the garbage can model, organizations tend to produce many “solutions” which are discarded due to a lack of appropriate problems, while problems may eventually arise for which a search of the garbage might yield fitting solutions. For example, in the quest to meet accountability requirements related to external tests, schools scramble through previously tried solutions including more attention to tested subjects, more test preparation time, and more test practice tests.

At the same time, individuals are exposed to a variety of “solutions” in search of problems stemming from their participation in professional development experiences, access to the literature and offers by publishers and other resource providers. Choice opportunities operate as garbage cans into which various kinds of problems and solutions are dumped. The mix or garbage depends on the mix of labeled garbage cans, on the garbage that has been produced and on the speed with which the garbage cans are removed.

Leaders need to exercise the courage to recognize and actively respond to the dynamics of the garbage can model. They need to ascertain the assumptions behind what individuals and groups construe as problems and solutions and the logic behind matching the two. They also need the courage to negotiate and manage individual agendas and advocacies for specific innovations and resources without alienating those that propose them. This can be greatly supported by seeking to understand the big picture and changing perspectives to increase understanding, two important habits of systems thinkers articulated by the Waters Foundation (2000).

4. Pushing harder and harder at familiar solutions while fundamental problems persist is a reliable indicator of non-systemic thinking and seldom leads to problem resolution.

One of the ways in which systems thinking theoreticians have helped all us understand systems thinking principles is through the use of archetypes. Systems archetypes are a class of systems thinking tools that capture common challenges that occur in all kinds of organizations.

Fixes that Fail is one of the eleven archetypes. When problem symptoms are assumed to be a unique set of circumstances that are isolated from each other and separate from other problems and parts of the larger whole system, people focus on the problem symptom. In Fixes that Fail, leaders focus their responses on the problem symptom rather than spending time on the more difficult task of identifying the underlying, systemic problem.

In Fixes that Fail, the unintended consequence that emerge from the quick-fix functions as a reinforcing loop exacerbates the initial problem symptom. An example of a Fix that Fails occurs when a principal decides that the only way to increase test scores if to increase the amount of time students spend practicing the specific skills and knowledge they need for the test. Two blocks of time are added to the day, a 120 minute block for English Language Arts and a 90 minute block for Mathematics. The addition of these two blocks results in the loss of arts, music, or physical education periods.

For a couple of months, the students’ scores on practice tests go up. But then, suddenly, they stop improving and even decrease. Behavior becomes a problem, and students develop an “I don’t care” attitude. By the time the real tests are administered, the students don’t even take them seriously. Later on in the year, Social Studies and Science tests are also administered. Without consistent classes in either content area, the students do even more poorly on these tests than they had on the Math and English Language Arts exams the year before.

Enacting short term solutions can be construed as evidence of leadership and decisiveness. However, to address the deleterious effects of Fixes that Fail, leaders need the courage to withhold the need to act and consider actions which will not result in unintended consequences that can actually worsen the problem.

This requires that they hold the tension of paradox and controversy without trying to resolve it quickly and that they engage in what systems thinkers call “Successive Approximation” by making and monitoring the impact of small and deliberate moves instead of taking dramatic system-wide moves.

Another systems thinking principle which requires courageous behaviors states that as a systems effort makes underlying structures clearer, people may become very frustrated and things will look worse before they get better. This is further exacerbated by the fact that in complex systems there is a time delay between an action and how long it takes for the entire school to feel it. It is difficult for us to uncover the complexity and seeming irrationality of the systems in which we work. Time delays and the structure and flow of people’s work compromise access to all stakeholders in the school system, minimize the flow of information, preclude the ongoing use of feedback loops, and limit access to deep collaborative work.

As a result people get frustrated and may complain that things are not working, or that the leadership is indecisive, too scattered or too slow to take action. Leaders need to summon the courage to stay the course, be thoughtful and deepen the work. To assist them in this process, they can engage school stakeholders and themselves in the pursuit of questions such as the following ones:

• What are the inherent tradeoffs in taking a proposed action versus another action?
• What do we think the effects of this proposed action will be short-term and long-term on the various parts of the system? Does the long-term effect justify the short-term effect?
• What can we do to minimize any “less desirable” long-term effects/short-term effects of this proposed action?
• Considering that there will be time delays before experiencing some of the effects, how and when will we look to see what effects (intended and unintended) this action has had on the system and how that will affect our future actions?

Finally, it is critical for leaders to recognize that often, the most effective action is the subtlest. Sometimes it is best to do nothing, letting the system make its own correction. The courage to withhold the need to act, while being open and receptive to information from within the system at large cannot be underestimated in a time when our behavior as leaders is conditioned by the ever-present pressure to take action.

Dr. Giselle Martin-Kniep is the Founder and President of Learner-Centered Initiatives, Ltd. She is an educator and facilitator of adult learning who believes that sustainable improvement is an aspiration worth pursuing. You can learn more about her work at www.lciltd.org.

References

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Kotter, J. and Rathberger, H. (2005) Our iceberg is melting: Changing and succeeding under any conditions. New York, NY: St. Martin’ Press.

Martin-Kniep, G. (2008) Communities that learn, lead and last: Building and sustaining educational expertise. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley and Sons.

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