IN THIS PLACE

I want to continue with my efforts in reviewing what is involved with implementing change in an organization.  To date, I have offered some factors that affect decision-making by individuals in the midst of a political situation.  That is, what is it that moves a person to behave as he or she does when confronted with the challenge of either being asked or commanded to change behavioral patterns – protocols – in an organizational setting?  I described this decision-making as a “rumble in the mind” of various images and sensations that originate in a person’s culture, sense of morality, knowledge, beliefs, emotions, and physiological makeup.  I suggested a process but emphasized while one can impose a logical progression to the process, the actual thought patterns can be highly unordered – a rumble.  The suggested process was as follows:  a contextual inheritance (genetic inheritance and sociocultural inheritance) sets the stage within the person’s purview.  That purview is basically composed of three domains, the ideal – the real – the physiological domains.  Each of these domains adds to the total perception a person formulates and that engages that person’s emotions.  Emotions can vary greatly and need not be logically related to the question or demand under consideration.  This inspires which mode of behavior the person adopts which are one of only two possibilities – demand or support – but is expressed as one of four options – individual action seeking immediate self-interest, individual action seeking long term interests, collective action seeking immediate self-interest, or collective action seeking long term interests.  Last, the person selects the tenor by which to communicate – parent tenor, adult tenor, or child tenor.  You are invited to review the last four postings where each of these factors is described and explained.  What one needs to consider next is the immediate environment in which a specific episode of change transpires.

When those appropriately responsible for deciding that a change of any importance needs to be implemented, that person or group must begin a process that is time consuming and occurs over a number of episodes or events.  To be clear, I am not referring to a simple deviation of some process, but a change that calls for a different protocol and/or perception of how things are done in the organization.  For example, and the reason this blog has moved in this direction is a call for the adoption of a new curricular approach – from a civics curriculum guided by a natural rights construct to one guided by federation theory construct – demands that a school staff redefine to some meaningful degree what the members of that staff teach and even how the school is administered.  This is a tall order and one that cannot be done successfully in the short term.  Such a change is more than likely to meet with resistance.

This resistance takes place in a variety of ways and in a variety of places.  It can take place during planning events or in implementing events.  I have experienced efforts at change in which all involved voiced unquestioned support for the change effort, but when it came time to implement, individuals simply reverted to previous behavior patterns.  My focus is not so much the point of implementation, but events in which change strategy is developed.  A few postings ago, I expressed a preference for normative-re-educative strategies.  My following comments are in line with this preference.

I am not a change expert, so what follows is based on my readings concerning change theory and my own experiences; a word on the latter.  I was assigned to a school that instituted a school-based management effort that was imposed by the school district.  That took place during the 1990s.  Yours truly got seriously involved.  What was missing was any training or an implementation period of time.  We had time to develop a “model.” Then we implemented the model.  Needless to say, the effort, while it lasted a few years and was not a total waste of time, was not successful.  I learned one thing for sure:  organizational change and its challenges should not be underestimated.

What I want to share is a listing of concerns that a change agent should consider when working with a call for change.  By a change agent, I am not referring to a professional change agent, but an in-house staff member who is designated as a team leader or some sort of an assistant to ease the process.  I visualize this person holding a graduate degree.[1]  What follows is an array of specific areas of concerns such an agent should be consciously looking at and asking what the status of the change process is and how the participating staff members are expressing their perceived needs and wants.

I will organize these concerns as either associating with one of two general environments that can characterize a political situation.  But before identifying these two, let me share a quote by the sociologist, Philip Selznick, that I believe is very relevant to these concerns.

At times, repressive authority is in truth the only means of establishing order or accomplishing a morally worthy task; in the circumstances the alternative may well be utopian and self-defeating.  But it is more often tempting to claim there is no other way and to rely on repression as a first rather than as a last resort.  For its part, participatory authority requires very congenial conditions and may readily degenerate into weakness, negligence, and undue permissiveness.  Yet it holds the greater promise, not only for moral development but for high levels of personal achievement.[2]

What Selznick highlights is that politics is not always nice and congenial, but it can be, it can be legitimately, coercive.  If a change is calling, for example, a change that relates to safety, then there is little room to be collaborative or compromising.  But more likely, what would be considered is less demanding and time sensitive.  And if the change is quality sensitive – the change is dependent on staff being committed toward achieving success – then what will probably be essential is genuine changes in attitudes, beliefs, and dispositions.

These concerns I am about to list are presented as either/or options.  They, in reality, are not either/or conditions.  There are degrees between them and what a more talented change agent can do is determine not only the presence of a condition, but also determine to what degree that condition exists.  This takes sophisticated training that is bolstered by the appropriate experiences.  With those qualifiers in mind, let me begin.

The first and most overarching condition, and therefore concern, is whether the situation exemplifies an arena or a square.  An arena is a place where some form of competition or combat takes place.  An environment more resembling an arena is a place in which those participating in the change are in some form of expressing competing interests.  I should add that those are interests that are self-defined and subject to being misinformed or misdirected.  On the other hand, they can be well-informed and legitimate.  As opposed to an arena, a square is a place in which the participants congregate to share and coordinate efforts toward some object or aim.  Here, the participants mostly see their individual interests being advanced by belonging and taking part in a united effort for which the collective was formed.  In our case, instituting curricular change, they generally see the effort toward change as a good thing.  The stronger such a sentiment prevails, the more of a square quality the environment enjoys.  The rest of the concerns are listed as either supporting an arena environment or supporting a square environment.  Again, I am not a priori judging those concerns associated with an arena environment as negative and those associated with a square as positive.  It depends, but as Selznick points, the general direction of a change effort is to encourage and work toward establishing a square.

An arena is supported by:                  

·        Ego challenging interactions

·        Coveting attitudes and behaviors

·        Competitive approach

·        Vertical power relations

·        Formal roles

·        Structured processes

·        Strange physical and social surroundings

·        Definite expectations 

A square is supported by:

·        Ego accommodating interactions

·        Soliciting attitudes and behaviors

·        Collaborative approach

·        Horizontal power relations

·        Informal roles

·        Spontaneous processes

·        Familiar physical and social surroundings

·        “See what happens” expectations

I will address in upcoming postings several of these dichotomous pairings.  To repeat, what I am asking is that those who are sensitive to the challenges of change hold these concerns as important and ask the logical and appropriate questions of the environments in which change episodes take place.  Such sensitivity will enable a normative-re-educative strategy to be utilized.

In addition to addressing some of the above pairings, my next posting will look at a generic process in which an overall change strategy can take place.  This will not be a definitive process, but one that will highlight some of the major issues a change process need to overcome.

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[1] A person can either get his/her teaching credentials through completing a course of study at the undergraduate or graduate level.  I argue that those who choose the graduate level should receive education in change and curricular theory.  In any given urban faculty, a sizable portion of those faculty members have received their teacher training through a graduate program.  Therefore, most staffs can have a number of teachers who can function as these in-house change agents.

[2] Selznick, P.  (1992).  The moral commonwealth:  Social theory and the promise of community.  Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press.  Quotation on p. 268.

"A RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE" OF THE MIND

How does the individual make decisions when confronted with a political challenge?  By political challenge, I am specifically writing about situations in which the individual is either being “asked” to behave in ways he/she would not act otherwise or is “asking” someone else or some other group to act in ways he/she/they would not behave otherwise.  In other words, the individual is being exposed to an exercise in power or attempted power.  Asking can take several forms but in all cases when the change alters how someone does something, power is being exerted. 

The exertion of power, by definition, entails change.  Change always causes an excitement that can be positive (“boy, I’m glad/relieved/looking forward to doing it that way”) or negative (“no way,” “even if you pay me,” “you got the wrong guy”).  Since change is more often than not resisted, looking at this process benefits from assuming the negative reaction.  Change agents, people who are trained to enforce or entice compliance with change policies in an organization, are hired because it is assumed there will be a certain level of resistance to a planned change.  Sometimes those plans are well defined; other times they are only outlines or vague desires for change.  Whatever strategy is chosen to perhaps develop and/or implement change, it is enhanced by having a good understanding of what the subject (the planned-for) thinks and feels during the process of change.  In modern times, it has become more and more unacceptable and unanticipated that any strategy employed will depend solely on coercion; that is, on securing compliance based on an anticipated punishment, at least within legitimate organizational settings.  This further complicates the process, but it promises compliance which will be of higher quality and longer lasting.  It also promises to reduce policing costs; people who act more from internal motivations need less supervision.  But, again, such eventualities demand planners be knowledgeable of what the planned-for is going through, both cognitively and emotionally.

In my efforts to portray what happens mentally to a person confronted with a change challenge, I designed a “process.”  The last four postings have been about this process.  In my presentation, I have tried to follow a logical progression in describing that process.  The problem is, though, that what happens in the mind does not follow a logical progression.  Instead, the process is more like a rumble or tumble, a fight between images and emotions.  What comes out of the process is more like a quantum reaction; yes, there are rules governing the process, but there is a chance – an unpredictable – quality to it.  How we respond as the events of a political confrontation unfold is hard to predict even by the very person being analyzed.  Some individuals are more disciplined, less emotional, and more cerebral than others.  But even for them, if the events lean toward the more extreme in terms of perceived danger or other threats, reactions can be of a more spontaneous variety.  We all can recall times when we allowed our emotions to “take over.”  We probably regret them.  Sometimes we might boastfully claim that we would act that way again.  I believe such claims are often attempts to put the best face forward or what we perceive to be the best.  But whatever is going on, the tenor of our responses toward a particular stimulus in the change process reveals what forces won the rumble.

Here, I want to borrow the ideas of Thomas A. Harris.  He published a book[1] in the late 1960s that became somewhat of an occult bible.  I’m OK, You’re OK is a book that presents a simplified version of psychiatric forces that come into play as a person matures and interacts with others.  I use it here not as a source of powerful psychiatric theory or protocol, but more as a source of language.  Harris’s “parent”-“adult”-“child” terms fit nicely with the last phase of decision-making; that is, when the person actually determines what behavior he/she will execute in the moment of interaction with others.  The important element I am concerned with is whether the interaction – the communication – will continue or be cut off; will an interaction be productive toward desired change or be counterproductive or neutral?  In this, the tenor one adopts at this moment will have a determining effect on which of these possibilities will occur.  In my next posting, I will look at the environment in which interactions take place, but for now, let us just say that our individual under analysis is interacting with others.  Others, be it one person or a group, have their own processes going on, their own rumbles.  The tenor our individual chooses, be it a parent tenor, an adult tenor, or a child tenor, will confront the tenor of others.  In this dynamic, Harris points out what will happen, generically, if any one of the different possibilities takes place; that is, for example, if a person who chooses a parent tenor confronts another person with a parent tenor.  But before going through these possibilities, let us look at what each of them means.

A parent tenor is one in which the person comes across as communicating an unquestionable bit of information or ideal.  A common example would be:  “always look both ways before crossing a street.”  Most often, the communication is in the form of a command or of some law, factoid, or postulate.  It is said with a tone of authority.  The desired effect of such a tenor is that the receiver of the communication should accept it as truth or prudence without questioning its validity or veracity.

An adult tenor is one in which the person comes across as communicating a reasoned, reflected, perhaps calculating bit of information, suggestion, question, or some other considered message the sender sees as relevant to the topic under discussion.  Often the message contains a qualifier as “in my opinion…,” “studies show…,” “perhaps, the best thing to do is …”  It is assumed, when using this tenor, that while the communicator might enjoy some authority in the exchange, he/she is open to discussion, questioning, negotiating, or some other further conversation.

A child tenor is one in which the communicator expresses mostly impulsive reactions.  Here, the message has a spontaneous quality and tends to be more extreme in its emotional content.  Positive messages are more positive (“I just love that”; “this is the greatest time I’ve ever had”, etc.).  On the other hand, negative messages are more negative (“I just hate you”, “this is the worst time I’ve ever had”, etc.).  While the communication might sound rebellious against authority, the implied relation is that the communicator is taking on a supplicant role – it assumes another has authority in the interaction.

Now let’s look at the different combinations:

If a person in a confrontation uses a parent tenor with someone also taking a parent tenor, this is what Harris indicates is a parallel interaction and parallel interactions tend to continue – they feed on themselves.  Unless both agree, the authoritative pronouncements from both are at odds and no solution can be derived from the interaction.  This is counterproductive.

If a person in a confrontation uses an adult tenor with someone who also takes an adult tenor, this is considered a parallel interaction and will continue.  This takes place until both come to an agreement and a solution to the confrontation is achieved.  This is productive.

If a person in a confrontation uses a child tenor with someone who also takes a child tenor, this is considered a parallel interaction and will continue.  Well, it continues until exhaustion or boredom or utter disgust convinces one or both parties to call it quits.  Here we have an “oh, yeah…” reaction in which what follows is one-upmanship.  If the initial communication is positive, expect an even more effusive compliment in return; however, if the initial communication is negative, expect a higher level of antagonism in return.  This is counterproductive.

There is one more parallel possibility:  parent-child interaction in which one person takes on an authoritative posture and the other a child demeanor.  “Do so and so” says the parent; “make me” says the child.  Again, as a parallel interaction, it continues unproductively unless the “parent” can administer a punishment or threat of punishment severe enough to induce reluctant compliance on the part of the “child.”  Again, this will most likely prove to be inefficient and possibly unsuccessful, especially as the authoritative posture wears off.

Those interactions that are non-continuing are those involving an adult tenor with either a parent or child tenor.  Here, hopefully, the adult can reason with the parent or child and get that other tenor to change to an adult tenor also.  If so, the interaction becomes productive, leading to a solution that might be the product of being convinced or both parties hitting upon a negotiated solution.

Harris illustrates the language of an interaction being parallel or not by his lining up the three tenors vertically and mirroring that arrangement by another set of the three.  Using the initials of the three, P-A-C, if you have a parent interacting with another parent, two arrows of communication result which are parallel.  This works out for each combination unless an adult interacts with a parent or child, in which case the arrows intersect and are not parallel.

This is not meant as a highly sophisticated model, but as representation anyone can apply in analyzing what is happening when two or more parties interact in a political confrontation.  For a teacher who is part of an internal change team within a school, it is a simple enough model to use when actively trying to collaborate with colleagues to develop or implement a change.

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[1] Harris, T. A.  (1969).  I’m OK, You’re OK.  New York, NY:  Harper and Row.

DEMANDS AND/OR SUPPORTS IN DIFFERENT FORMATS

I am in the midst of describing a “simple” model of political decision-making on the part of individuals.  I write political because I am trying to address what happens when a change effort is being conducted in an organization of some type, but more specifically a school.  In those situations, what usually happens is that someone comes up with an idea and, in order to implement it, other people need to either be convinced or coerced into performing some changed protocol or process other than what they had been doing.  Generally, people do not like change.  Change can represent different sorts of threats.  It might mean having to display different skills a person might or might not have or to perform a skill to a higher degree of difficulty.  This might expose people to deficiencies that to date were inconsequential or that could be hidden.  Or a new challenge might arise if the change calls for new working arrangements with others, perhaps with people a person hardly knows or worse, might dislike.  Of course, change might entail a demotion or having to do things the person just doesn’t like to do.  All of these and other things can be the source of a negative reaction to change and when these kinds of changes occur at the workplace, the looming importance of a paycheck is never far from a person’s consciousness.  Fear can be a motivator, but it is much more often a negative force which at the least disrupts a person’s quality of life and at the most can be the motivator to engage in very destructive behavior.  Given the potential stakes, I would comfortably regard such events or confrontations as political.  These are power exerting or power receiving episodes and as such are political.

When one acts politically, there are just two modes of behavior, but with variations in how the modes are exercised.  The two modes are derived from David Easton’s political systems model.[1] They are demands and supports.  At a school or any organization, a person can react politically by either demanding something; for example, let’s not do this, or supporting someone or something; for example, I’m behind you one hundred percent.  Of course, to varying degrees, a person can choose both modes:  I like it but, in regard to that aspect, can we do this instead?  Why a person chooses to demand and/or support a change proposal or some aspect of a change proposal can be found in either the contextual inheritance, mental domains, and/or emotional state a person is in.  How these factors influence a decision were the topics of my last two postings.  While this seems easy enough – either/or he or she demands or supports a proposal – that choice becomes apparent in a combination of the following options:  behave individually to advance immediate self-interest, behave collectively to advance immediate self-interest, behave individually to advance long term self-interest, and/or behave collectively to advance long term self-interest.  Usually, a person will choose one of these options and stick with it.  Sometimes not.  He or she might try one option, see how it works, and decide to try another one.  Of course, changing course can continue, but as changes of this type happen, the situation for the person will become more and more complicated.  The tendency is to stick to one option.  Here, the importance of the real domain and emotional disposition is very important.  When confronted with real world dilemmas or exertions of power, especially when a coercive element is added, the ideals one brings to the episode can be sorely tested and sacrificed.  Of course, this leads to rationalizations and other coping mechanisms by which an individual deals with resulting, internal inconsistencies.[2]

As can be detected, my view accepts the behavioral notion that one always acts out of a concern for self-interest.  The question is whether one can see beyond the immediate anticipated rewards or punishments and see how one will be affected by a decision over the long haul.  This distinction was put into sharp focus by Alexi de Tocqueville’s famous phrase:  “self-interest rightly understood.”  I have written about this notion often in this blog, but let me add:  in terms of organizational change and the politics involved, the person needs to analyze situations carefully to try to determine, one, what self-interests are affected by a proposed change, and two, which of those interests reflects short term effects and which ones are long lasting.  I say “needs” in the sense that a person wants to derive the most benefits in terms of quantity and quality.  These can be difficult to ascertain because change often entails unknowable consequences in terms of the change itself and the social and physical factors the change can effect.  But one can ask oneself:  am I acting or going to act in a certain way because of how I feel right now or because, in the long run, how I will feel overall?  Ultimately, it will be sentiments that determine how prudent a course of action is or will be.  That is, given the situation, will one’s actions lead to the highest level of happiness possible?

With a course of action decided, what remains that can still be influential in how that action is received by others – and, therefore, determining what levels of success affected parties achieve – is the tenor in which the chosen action is communicated.  That will be what the next posting addresses.

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[1] Two sources for this model are:  Easton, D.  (1953).  The political system.  New York, NY:  Alfred A. Knopf and Easton, D.  (1965).  A system analysis of political life.  New York, NY:  John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

[2] I will treat this eventuality more extensively in a future posting.  This whole problem relates to a condition referred to as internal inconsistency when there is an inconsistent gap between a person’s espoused theory and theory-in-use.  See Argyris, C. and Schon, D. A. (1985). Evaluating theories in action. In W. G. Bennis, K. D. Benne, and R. Chin (Eds.), The planning of change, Fourth edition, (pp. 108-117). New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

DOMAINS AND DISPOSITIONS

This posting is a continuation of a theme I began two postings ago.  What I am explaining are the factors that affect decision-making by an individual when that individual is confronted with a political challenge; more specifically, when he/she is expected to do something that is different from what he/she would have done otherwise.  This is political in the sense that power is being or is attempted to be exerted on that person.  More generally, my concern is over organizational change when change is dependent on such changes in behavior. 

To date, I have described and explained an initial factor, a person’s mental context, which is made up of two concerns:  the socio-cultural inheritance and the genetic inheritance.  I invite you to check out my last posting for my take on these concerns.  I will remind you here that these concerns are those elements that the individual brings to the confrontation.  They are part of the context – hence the title mental context.  With this posting, I want to begin looking at the elements that “pop up” when the confrontation is being processed from the moment of awareness to a point that some resolution is achieved and the parties to the confrontation are ready to “move on.”

The next specific factor is the domains of decision-making.  I have written about the domains before and I draw your attention to the postings in which I review the three domains I identified:  the domain of the real, of the ideal, and of the physiological.[1]  Without rehashing what I reviewed in those postings, let me summarily describe each:

·        The domain of the real is what the individual, mostly through his/her senses, sees as the physical and emotional aspects of a given situation – the current state-of-affairs.  This includes any relevant recollections the individual has.  What the person senses is real will vary from what is actually real since the human capacity of recording reality accurately is far from perfect. 

·        The domain of the ideal is what the individual holds should be real.  That is, the person is apt to project onto any situation a sense of what the situation ought to have been, what it ought to be, and/or what it ought to become.  Such evaluations are based on the attitudes, norms, and values the person has either inherited from his/her culture or the influences of other current associates such as family members, friends, workmates, etc.  At times, the individual has developed his/her own set of preferences by reflecting on life in general or on relevant situations from the person’s past.  In any event, the individual who is affected – emotionally snared by a situation – will respond with a notion or two about what should have been, should be, and/or should become that is relevant to the situation. 

·        And the last domain, the physiological, relates directly to the contextual concern I described in my last posting as the genetic inheritance the person carries along with him/her.  A perhaps silly example would be if the person is confronted with a change expectation by an attractive, sexually desirable other person.  He/she might be disposed to at least listen to the proposal if for no other reason than to extend contact with such a messenger.  In this type of situation, what is popularly referred to as “hormonal” influences, kick in and affect subsequent behavior.  Of course, this type of influence takes on many different guises and often the subject might not be conscious of the physiological influences being engaged. 

But engaged they are and these influences, the domain of the real, the domain of the ideal, and domain of the physiological, can make decisive differences on whether the desired changes in a person’s behavior take place or not.

These domains “click-on” automatically, assuming the confrontation engenders enough emotional response on the part of the subject (the planned-for).  Whatever the substance of the reaction might be, what is important in terms of achieving change is the disposition that reaction leads the person to adopt.  Here, emotions are prominent.  As I indicated in a previous posting, the list of relevant emotions can be long.  But more important is what disposition the engaged emotions encourage.  Let me repeat what I initially wrote:

In a political situation, it is not necessary to identify the exact emotions that are triggered in a given confrontation, but what is important is that whatever emotions are brought to the fore will lead to one of several dispositions.  These include a solo disposition, an allying disposition, and/or an antagonistic disposition.  So, for example, if the emotion felt is anger over some political confrontation, this emotion might lead to an antagonistic disposition.  The overall disposition a person feels in reacting to a confrontation, itself, can be based on one, two, or all three of these more specific dispositional reactions. 

The decision about whether a person is disposed to act by himself/herself or not or whether the person is disposed to be antagonistic toward a proposed change or not, is on what the change agent or planner should focus.  The planner would do well to make an inventory, to the degree possible, of whatever emotions are being or potentially being triggered.  The more the planner knows along these lines, the more he/she is assisted in trying to get the planned-for to be interested and willing to participate in the development and implementation of change.

Before leaving these two factors, domains and emotional disposition, I want to add a word or two about the domain of the real.  Most of this has been addressed in this blog, but I feel that it is worth repeating in the context of change.  First, along the idea of whether we know something or not, I find Plato’s distinction helpful.  He provides us with three degrees of certainty about whether we know something or not.  That is, if we don’t know something and hold no opinion about whether the something exists or not, we can term that ignorance.  If we are totally sure that something exists or does not exist, then we can call that knowledge.  If we hold something to be true or not true, but we are not totally sure, then we can call that level of acceptance of a factual claim as belief – we believe so and so to be true or not true.  In terms of what I am concerned with in this posting, there are times when a person, I include myself, feels confidently about some claim of fact, but finds out later that the claim is false.  It happens, I believe, to all of us.  The importance of this occurs when it comes to change in that antagonism or even support can be based on such a false grounding in the facts of the matter.  And when it does happen, it can be instrumental in developing certain inconsistencies and incongruities.  All of this can be detrimental to the efforts of change, complicating the work of both the planner and the planned-for.

As I continue, over the next several postings, and comment on more specific choices on the part of the individual, I want to point out that while I am not ascribing a particular order to how mental processes occur, I do need to say that the process generally advances from more nebulous notions of all of these elements to more concrete notions and feelings.  As the person thinks about what is being asked, he or she has the time and information to consider what his or her interests are and will evaluate and reevaluate what he or she should do and will do.  In other words, what I am considering is a very dynamic and very, as one can already ascertain, complicated series of mental operations.  I, for one, find it all fascinating.

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[1] I have deleted the postings to which I am referring.  They were posted on March 5, 2012, “Introducing the Domains Involved in Decision-Making,” March 9, 2012, “The Domain of the Real,” March 12, 2012, “The Domain of the Ideal,” and March 16, 2012, The Domain of the Physiological.”  These postings can be requested via email (using the blog’s email address – see above, one requested posting at a time).

ONE’S INHERITANCE

In my last posting, I played political psychologist and proposed a modest model of how people think about acting politically.  I am not a political psychologist, but I need to assume certain mental processes in order to make my points concerning organizational change.  The proposed mental model is based on what I have understood from the change literature I have read.  I believe that what I outlined in my posting is not very controversial.  I don’t think there is any portion of the model that would offend more sophisticated models or theories.  For example, the model does not contradict what Robert Chin and Kenneth D. Benne[1] write about the change strategies known as the normative-re-educative strategies.  So, let me summarize the overall process by reviewing, in logical order and over several upcoming postings, the factors which go into determining what action an individual takes when confronted with a political challenge.  I want to begin adding more substance to what is being proposed.

The process begins with the mental context the individual brings to the challenge.  There is no decision-making, at least not at the time of the challenge, in regard to this factor.  There is variance between “degrees” within the two specific concerns this factor contains.  There is the socio-cultural concern – what are the relevant values, norms, attitudes, beliefs that the individual has acquired from the social environment in which he/she emerges.  This is the nurture factor and there is evidence that those collective experiences have a strong influence on how a person views the world and, consequently, behaves in that world.  A popular book that speaks to this effect is Outliers written by Malcolm Gladwell.[2]  Not only does this concern affect decisions, but the lasting effect can be prominent, especially if the individual continues to live in the “bubble” of a cultural environment in which a particular set of relevant ideas is virulent and often cited.  For example, we currently hear about how our political society has become divisive and that each major division of political advocacy has ceased to listen or even hear what other positions are.  More and more people just turn on media, for example, where they hear their biases promulgated and justified – often with questionable information that is used to support whatever position is being promoted.  At best, this source of information is the product of “cherry-picking” the facts that are convenient to the partisan positions being espoused.  There is less straight-forward news and more biased sources of news accounts.  As such, a certain form of arrogance is at play:  “after all, I know the truth.”

The other concern of this factor is genetic inheritance.  I described this concern as being referred to as “how a person is wired.”  Popularly, this concern is the nature part of the nature vs. nurture question.  How much is our genetic makeup responsible for how we behave – as opposed to the environmental forces around us we term as nurturing?  This question has received extensive research and a lot of money to conduct that research.  We don’t know much as a result.  What we do know, from twin studies, is that genes do affect personality and, consequently, behavior.  It is estimated that genes account for 40% of identical twins’ personalities.  What researchers have not been able to determine is the genetic chemical compounds that contribute to which personality traits a subject exhibits.[3]  For my purposes, this is not so important – at least, I don’t appreciate the importance.  What is important is to be able to identify behavioral patterns that can be attributed to genetic inheritance.  Why?  This is important because if one can identify the patterns, one knows that the individual has little control over the presence of such forces and planning can then plan accordingly.  While genetic factors are influential, they do not necessarily dictate behavior.  Genetic factors are influences, not determinants, assuming the person is not suffering from such strong influences that what is being dealt with is a mental disorder needing professional therapy.  Short of that, genetically induced biases can be discussed, analyzed, and negotiated so that the subject can perform the necessary actions in order to implement agreed upon change. 

A change agent need not be a therapist, but he/she does need to be sensitive to what is.  As much as that agent can learn about not only the genetic concerns affecting behavior, but also the cultural and social backgrounds of those involved, the more prepared that agent can be.  This knowledge includes these personal traits as well as the technical aspects of what the change necessitates.  In the next posting, I will begin looking at the factors affecting the actual instances when change processes are taking place and individuals are deciding how they will act.

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[1] Chin, R. and Benne, K. D.  (1985).  General strategies for effecting changes in human systems.  In W. G. Bennis, K. D. Benne, and R. Chin (Eds.), The Planning of Change (pp. 22-45).  New York, NY:  Holt, Rinehart, Winston.

[2] Gladwell, M.  (2008).  Outliers.  New York, NY:  Little, Brown and Company.

[3] Kraus, M. W.  (2013).  Do genes influence personality?  A summary of recent advances in the nature vs. nurture debate.  Psychology today, see https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/under-the-influence/201307/do-genes-influence-personality .

FACTORS AFFECTING A PERSON’S LIKELIHOOD TO CHANGE

The last few postings have been about change, as in the case of organizational change.  The aim is to share some ideas associated with making profound change in a school’s curricular efforts.  Specifically, the aim is to have schools abandon, as a guiding construct, the natural rights perspective and adopt federation theory.  The last set of postings looked at types of change strategies:  rational-empirical, power-coercive, and normative-re-educative strategies.  Let me share with you how Robert Chin and Kenneth D. Benne summarize the difference between empirical-rational strategies, the most commonly used type, and the normative-re-educative type that is most closely conducive to federation theory:

[W]hat we have called rational-empirical approaches depend on knowledge as a major ingredient of power.  In this view, men [and women] of knowledge are legitimate sources of power and the desirable flow of influence or power is from men [and women] who know to men [or women] who don’t know through processes of education and dissemination of valid information.

Normative-re-educative strategies of changing do not deny the importance of knowledge as a source of power, especially in the form of knowledge-based technology.  … In addition, exponents of normative-re-educative approaches recognize the importance of noncognitive determinants of behavior as resistances or supports to changing – values, attitudes, and feelings at the personal level and norms and relationships at the social level.  Influence must extend to these noncognitive determinants of behavior if voluntary commitments and reliance upon social intelligence are to be maintained and extended in our changing society.  Influence of noncognitive determinants of behavior must be exercised in mutual processes of persuasion within collaborative relationships.  These strategies are oriented against coercive and nonreciprocal influence, both on moral and on pragmatic grounds.[1]

Excuse the length of this citation, but I feel the authors capture quite well what the differences of the two approaches are and I find this distinction revealing in that I associate rational-empirical strategies as being in congruence with natural rights thinking and normative-re-educative strategies in congruence with federalist theory thinking.  And with these three approaches – also including power-coercive – described and somewhat explained above and in the preceding postings, I want to next shift our attention to the individual being called upon to change.  What are the challenges from the perspective of that person (the planned-for); what are the dynamics occurring within that individual as he/she is asked or expected to change?

In keeping with the general tenor of this blog, I will address this other perspective as a case of a political change, one in which the person is being subjected to a political confrontation; that is, a situation in which the person is either asked or expected to make certain changes within his/her organizational role(s).  In essence, what is generally being asked when one is considering organizational change – in our case, change within a school – is aiming a chosen strategy that will have individuals change their course of action from what it is now to a different course of action in the future.  At times, these can and are likely to be changing an established course of action – the way things have been done in a particular school over a significant amount of time.  One wants to implement a change with the least amount of cost and, if done under the auspices of a federalist mode, one in which the planned-for will submit to the change out of his or her own accord; then what is sought is not only a change of mind, but also a change of heart.  Let me add, the particulars of what is changed is not a priori determined, but is developed in collaboration between the planned-for and the change agent.  That is, the approach, under such a goal, will be of the normative-re-educative category.  In short, in order to accomplish this, the process used will have to “get into his/her/their head(s)” and that includes not only what a person believes to be true, but also what a person believes should be true.  Whatever is chosen as the specific strategy, therefore, will have to account for an array of factors.  In this posting, I want to give a broad overview of what these factors are.  This will be limited to a run-down of the list of factors I believe are influential in such a change.

I will present these factors in a logical order.  One should not read into this order any claim that the decisions people make in adopting any change of mind and heart follows this order.  It is merely presented this way to assist in your understanding of what I am trying to communicate and, more important, in my attempt to get a handle on what goes on with a person who is so subjected.

The first set of factors is what I call contextual inheritance.  This is made up of two elements:  social-cultural inheritance and genetic inheritance.  Simply, social-cultural inheritance has to do with the cultural tradition in which the individual has been socialized with its array of norms, customs, cultural narratives (including ethnic, racial, religious, and national traditions), values, and other cultural legacies that relate to the challenges of change the individual is confronting.  On the other hand, genetic inheritance includes all those biologically determined forces impinging or otherwise influencing the individual’s decision-making processes.  For example and very important, genetically determined level of energy a person brings to life and its challenges will animate or depress the entire motivational outlook a person brings to a particular demand for change.  We vary, among ourselves, in how energetic we are about work, relationships, likes and dislikes.  This whole genetic inheritance is popularly referred to as how a person is “wired.”  Both the social-cultural and the genetic elements set parameters on how one is disposed to act.

The second set of factors is something I have already described and explained in this blog: the mental domains that influence the individual in his/her decision-making.  The domains are the ideal (how reality should be), the real (how reality is), and physiological (drives and other bodily influences – which are obviously, highly dependent on how we are “wired”).  Of course, what is actually real will deviate from how the mind “knows” the real, even in cases when the perception is stronger than a belief and is held as knowledge.  Our ability to “know” the truth is less than perfect; that means, we, ultimately, construct what we consider to be true.  The other condition affecting our mental images of the ideal, real, and physiological is that many, if not most, of these images are either subconscious or non-conscious.

The third set of factors is the emotional dispositional filter.  This mental orientation is not a product of reality, but of feelings.  Such emotions as anger, love, loyalty, trust, humor, comradery, and the like will be significantly influential in the decisions we make, including those that are political in nature.  In a political situation, it is not necessary to identify the exact emotions that are triggered in a given confrontation, but what is important is that whatever emotions are brought to the fore will lead to one of several dispositions.  These include a solo disposition, an allying disposition, and/or an antagonistic disposition.  So, for example, if the emotion felt is anger over some political confrontation, this emotion might lead to an antagonistic disposition.  The overall disposition a person feels in reacting to a confrontation, itself, can be based on one, two, or all three of these more specific dispositional reactions.  So, one might be disposed toward antagonism, but to be expressed by the individual without any assistance from others; i.e., a solo disposition.  In another situation, it can be antagonism in coordination with others.  In a third situation, it can be just plain antagonism without any thought or motivation to seek being alone or being in alliance with others.  Under such a situation, if an opportunity arises to act antagonistically, the person might take it, whether it is done with others or not or whether it is acted upon openly or not.  In general, therefore, the particular disposition for a particular situation can be one, two, or all three of these more specific disposition types.

The fourth set of factors is the intended mode of action chosen by the individual.  This is the simplest of the factors; there are only two possibilities.  A person, when confronted with a situation, can either demand something politically or support someone or something politically.  Those are the only two modes of political behavior.  But whether the mode is demand or support, each has four optional types:  individual acts in pursuing immediate self-interest, individual acts in pursuing long term self-interest, collective acts pursuing immediate self-interest, or collective acts pursuing long term self-interest.  While there are shades among these options – an option can be intermediate self-interest – the general thinking, planning, and intent is to either be immediate – what is good for me now – or have long term self-interest – what is good for me, let’s say, a year from now.

And the fifth and last set of factors affecting the decision of an individual – which will affect the consequences of whatever action is taken – is the interactive tenor one adopts.  Here, the choices come directly from transactional analysis and they are a “parent” interactive tenor, an “adult” interactive tenor, or a “child” interactive tenor.[2]  The “parent” tenor is demanding and authoritative.  The “adult” is reasonable and calculating.  The “child” is feel-good seeking and immediate.  Each of these is more complex, but these short descriptions, I believe, give you a good sense of what each tenor generates in the form of behavior.

I will stop here for now.  I still want to describe further, in upcoming postings, what this model indicates: the attributes of the dynamics when these factors are in “action” as in when an actual decision-making process is transpiring.  Also, one would benefit from understanding the anticipating consequences of each of these factors “doing their thing” in actual confrontations.  When all that is reviewed, I will then revisit a topic I have written about before:  the distinction between theory-in-use and espoused theory and how levels of “internal consistency” and congruence affect how likely the individual (the planned-for) will productively engage in change.

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[1] Chin, R. and Benne, K. D.  (1985).  General strategies for effecting changes in human systems.  In W. G. Bennis, K. D. Benne, and R. Chin (Eds.), The Planning of Change (pp. 22-45).  New York, NY:  Holt, Rinehart, Winston.  Quotation on p. 39.

[2] Here the classic source is Harris, T. A.  (1973).  I’m ok, you’re ok.  New York, NY:  Avon Books.  In this text I am changing the terminology from that of Dr. Harris.

IN THE PROFOUND, SIMPLE DOES NOT EXIST

To continue my present effort, reviewing three strategy types of social change – mostly organizational change – I want to add to what has been described as normative-re-educative strategies.  To date, I have, in terms of this type, offered some ideas that John Dewey, Kurt Lewin, and Sigmund Freud contributed and that have been incorporated by change theorists.[1]  In this posting, I want to go back to the Deweyean spirit of active learning and further develop the notion of the problem-solving focus option one can operationalize in implementing a normative-re-educative strategy.

When focusing on problem-solving, there are two tracks one can embark upon:  human problem(s) or technical problem(s).  Actually, there is a third track in which both tracks are combined, known as sociotechnical problems.  In modern society, one is hard pressed to encounter a purely human or technical problem – technology has become so ingrained in the course of our daily living.  Overall, after such a problem or set of problems is identified, the general idea is to convert that awareness into a set of questions or processes:  data collection, planning, invention, tryout solutions (testing), evaluation, and feedback.  This is a very general overview of what kinds of activities follow.  As emphasized in previous postings, the aim is to work through these processes armed with institutional support and in a collaborative mode.

Kurt Lewin’s work capitalizes on these foundational elements and, through what the change pioneer calls action-research, provides a bit more meat to this general overview.  One, he recommends data collection concerning organizational functioning and feedback.  This entails processes of interpretation as planned corrections are performed by managers in collaboration with data collectors – usually change agents.  Two, he calls for training of managers and other organizational staff members who are dealing with the identified and researched difficulties.  Three, he advises developing methods by which affected parties accept feedback.  This can prove difficult and time consuming as honest feedback will often challenge internalized norms, values, and beliefs about the organization or, more important, life itself.  Four, Lewin advocates the training of internal change agents for which I can add several reasons.  Internal staff members are known, potentially trusted, and seen as “one of us.”  These qualities can ease collaboration efforts.  They are also knowledgeable about the organization in ways external agents cannot be.  Whoever conducts the necessary research of the organization, their aim is to scan operations to detect problems, diagnosing them to identify changeable factors – not all factors are changeable – and move toward collaborative solutions.

To focus on the human angle a bit more, there is an overall aim to build up the persons involved.  To do so, there is a genuine assumption that people are or potentially are creative and life affirming and that this aspect of them, if not detectable, is being thwarted by existing conditions.  The work of change agents includes eliminating or, at least, ameliorating those conditions.  Here, the work of Abraham Maslow can be useful.[2]  By attempting to encourage the subjects (the planned-for) to seek higher levels of motivations, one can address these thwarting conditions.  This calls on agents to identify where on the hierarchy of needs each of those individuals is and being knowledgeable about how to move them along to higher levels.  The processes involved with such work usually demand some sort of intervention and can take the form of personal counseling, group training, laboratory work, or two-person or small group setups.  Success includes the persons achieving greater self-clarity over task demands and personal challenges which thwart moving toward self-actualization.  If an addressed condition is truly dysfunctional yet established, change will likely combat defenses because the condition is supported by an equilibrium or equilibria among those involved.  By stressing some “moral” set of goals, such as those emanating from federalist values, one can determine the dysfunctional quality of the consequences resulting from continuing those established conditions.

Added features of this type of change approach include a few other aspects.  While focusing on a group’s problem-solving approaches, there is a reliance on creativity – there are no a priori solutions.  The actual process will entail conflict management in which changes in norms, policies, and relationships will be targeted.  This might call for forming informal organizational structures that exist within the formal arrangement.  This is done to satisfy personal and interpersonal needs which are not accepted by the formal structure.  This type of strategic move needs to be done advisedly and sensitively.  Such moves can be easily misinterpreted honestly or mischievously by threatened parties.  The rationale of such a move – and this should be communicated to all involved – is to attempt to be more productive by not wasting energies on accommodating the unattended needs which the informal structure is addressing.

Overall, normative-re-educative strategies can be sold as an attempt to re-new the efforts of the organization.  They are not an easy option, but to meet profound needs, “easy” simply does not exist.

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[1] As reported in Chin, R. and Benne, K. D.  (1985).  General strategies for effecting changes in human systems.  In W. G. Bennis, K. D. Benne, and R. Chin (Eds.), The Planning of Change (pp. 22-45).  New York, NY:  Holt, Rinehart, Winston.

[2] If you happen to be unfamiliar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, he theorized that a person advances through different levels of needs.  Advancement is dependent on satisfying lower levels before advancing to higher levels.  One does not do this consciously; we are “wired” to proceed in this fashion.  The list of needs are, in order of advancement, physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, self-actualization needs.  Most people are seen as being held up at some level before reaching and satisfying the self-actualization need level.