Cormier’s 2017 post, our schools aren’t broken, they’re hard he explores how changes to grade school learning experiences in PEI are adopting to the technology age and brings awareness to the thread of one-size-fixes-everything solutions. Instead, he exemplifies activities change leaders can implement to build momentum, tackle a project with adequate resources, and achieve continued success during transition.
Although the post didn’t explicitly articulate the change plan, it started by acknowledging recent infrastructure and capital expenditures created environment where he could support and implement change. It also appears he is receiving adequate time to engage in this process and create long-lasting improvements. This would indicate that in this scenario, change is already in process and continuous to enjoy support from decision-makers. Reaching this point may have occurred due to social cognitive theory, whereby organizational readiness to change allowed encouraged stakeholders to initiate change at opportune moments (Weiner, 2009), or the perhaps that chosen change type matched the method and outcomes desired (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015).
The post did however illustrate the important to short term wins. By creating an information and connection space online, Cormier created opportunities in the short run that reduces teacher admin time. Short term wins are important, especially when working with organizations who want to see results on the balance sheet. Beer & Nohria’s (2000) Theory E, a change management method that illustrates changes in shareholder value, helps us understand the importance of cost-savings measures.
Most interesting, creating communal online spaces fostered innovation, and in term created opportunities to build further inertia for change. Wiener (2009) explains that Momentum Theory indicates when stakeholders are more social, they may go beyond the minimum expectations, and in a work setting, may even exceed job requirements. This shift from “need to” to “want to” parallels Cormier’s reflection that parents are now engaging with the online space and going above and beyond to help their children learn.
So it would appear at the time of Cormier’s post in 2017, the organization in change is aligned with the needs of the stakeholders and “doing the right thing, the right way with the right people at the right time” (Kotnour et al.,1998, p. 19).
References
Al-Haddad, S., & Kotnour, T. (2015). Integrating the organizational change literature: a model for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), 234-262.
Beer, M., & Nohria, N. (2000). Breaking the Code of Change. Harvard Business School Press.
Weiner, B. J. (2009). A theory of organizational readiness for change. Implementation Science, 4(67).