Change is something we cannot run from.  It is happening daily, and we have to be equipped to deal with it, and some of the ugly that comes along with the change.  I have been in education for ten years, and I have seen the pendulum swing many times during the ten years.  I have also seen how teachers react when the pendulum swings.  Sometimes it is not pretty.  In my most recent course in the Digital Learning and Leading program, I learned to ask myself what is my why, how to be an influencer, how to set goals, and how to have crucial conversations. Yes, it was a busy five weeks.  During all of the reading and discussions, I could see how all of these ideas would help me move my innovation plan.

I learned it’s important to start with your why.  People don’t buy what you are selling they buy why you are selling it.  For this innovation to be successful people need to know why this is important.  As Dr. Harapnuik says often, “Your head won’t go where your heart hasn’t been.”  My why is my passion and the heart of my innovation plan.  You can see my why here.

After establishing the why in my organization I needed to establish what vital behaviors would make teachers implement this daily.  This was known as the Influencer’s model.  If you have never read the Influencer’s Model, I highly suggest it.  It was fascinating to see how changing three to four behaviors could eradicate the guinea worm or reduce the spread of HIV.  You can see my vital behaviors listed here.

After establishing the vital behaviors I established my wildly important goal and how to track it.  This directly related to my influencers model with my vital behaviors.  A wildly important goal gives all of your team a mission and focus.  For a wildly important goal to become truly changing and not just another thing, it needs to be tracked.  To do this I established a lead measure which is what vital behavior will truly help us reach this goal.  Then we track how well we are completing the lead measure.  When tracking our lead measure, we should see growth towards reaching our goal. You can see the wildly important goal here.

The last thing that really tied all of this up was reading the book Crucial Conversations.  During any new implementation, we will need to have crucial conversations with many employees.  This book gave me examples and guided me through how to have a conversation with others even when emotions are running high.  Please see how I plan to use crucial conversations with my implementation plan here.

References:

Grenny, J. (2015). Influencer: The new science of leading change. McGraw-Hill.

McChesney, Chris., Covey, Sean.Huling, Jim. (2012) The 4 disciplines of execution :achieving your wildly important goals New York : Free Press.

Patterson, Kerry. (Eds.) (2012) Crucial conversations :tools for talking when stakes are high New York : McGraw-Hill.