In the rapidly evolving landscape of education in today's world, the ability to navigate complex change is crucial for leaders and organizations. Leading such change requires building the buy-in of stakeholders, address roadblocks hindering progress, and fostering a culture of experimentation that embraces calculated risks and encourages learning from failures. This workshop introduces the concept of transformative leadership, introducing a comprehensive framework specifically designed to guide leaders and organizations as they tackle complex challenges where no obvious solution exists. These slides are from a workshop run at the Aurora Institute Symposium in Palm Springs, October 2023

1. SYMPOSIUM WORKSHOP
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2023 | 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM
Leading Change in Times of Change
PRESENTER:
Derek Wenmoth, FutureMakers
@dwenmoth

2. Workshop Overview
• Open-ness to change
• Why is change so difficult?
• Our critical challenges
• Upside down thinking
• Building buy-in
• Removing Roadblocks
• Embrace Experimentation
• Friction Free advantage

3. Who we are....
Harry Mills
Harry is an international authority on
the art of persuasion, negotiation and
behaviour change. He is the subject
matter expert on persuasion for the
Harvard Manage/Mentor programme,
and author of 18 books on influencing,
negotiation, persuasive
communications and behaviour change.
Derek Wenmoth
Regarded as one of New Zealand’s
foremost future focused thinkers in
education, Derek has worked with
schools, tertiary organisations and
ministries of education in New Zealand
and internationally to design and
implement innovative approaches in
education.

4. Activity: Openness to change

5. Scene
Setting –
Question 1
When you think about the next ten
years, do you think things will stay the
same and go on as normal, or do you
expect that most of us will dramatially
rethink and reinvent how we do things.
Rate your outlook on a scale of 1-10,
where 1 is almost everything stays the
same, and 10 is almost everything will
be dramatically different.

6. Scene
Setting –
Question 2
When you think about how the
world and your life will change
over the next ten years, are you
mostly worried or mostly
optimistic?
Rate your outlook on a scale of 1-
10, where 1 is extremely worried
and 10 is extremely optimistic.

7. Scene
Setting –
Question 3
How much control or influence do
you feel you personally have in
determining how the world and
your life will change over the next
ten years?
Rate your outlook on a scale of 1
– 10, where 1 is almost no control
or influence, and 10 is almost
complete control or influence.

8. Activity: Our Critical Challenges

9. Reflect on a change you’ve been part of...
• Think of a change challenge you’ve faced in
your school or district.
• How did you go about solving it?
• Who was involved?
• How long did it take?
• What resources did you use?
• Were you successful?
• Why/why not?

10. Let’s unpack it further...
• What did you do to bring people with you?
• What did you do when you encountered
resistance?
• How did you enable the change, and make it
sustainable?

11. The success rate
for large,
bureacratic
change efforts is
alarmingly low
“The measure of
intelligence is the
ability to change.”
Albert Einstein.

12. Why we need to change the way we change
From:
Bureacratic change programme
q Centralised - Initiatives and
priorities set at the top.
q Chain of command – Most leaders
delegate the functions of project
rollout.
q Direct persuasion – Convincing
people why they need to change is
the default method of influence.
q Task-driven innovation – Innovation
is project-driven. Projects stall, then
die.
q Localised – Purpose and priorities are the
outcome of an organisation-wide
conversation
q Chain of trust – Successful leaders are
humble and curious. They promote
experimentation.
q Self-persuasion – helping people convince
themselves is the default form of influence.
Resistance is minimal.
q Experiment-driven innovation – The
orgnaisation becomes a learning laboratory.
To:
Distributed, community-driven change platform

13. We Need Change Literacy
• Openness to change
• Inclusivity
• Problem solving
• Vision and purpose
• Leadership
• Risk management
• Effective communication
• Empathy
• Resilience
• Adaptability
• Etc.

14. Activity: Why is change so difficult?

15. Why is change difficult?
DRIVERS
1. Politics/policy (mandated
change)
2. Addressing existing issues
3. Future focus/building agility
4. Responsive practice
5. Individual qualities and
attitudes
6. Collaboration.
ROADBLOCKS
1. Fear/uncertainty
2. Inertia
3. Resourcing
4. Overwhelm
5. Disconnect
6. Inconsistency
7. External influences
8. Leadership
9. Teachers
https://futuremakers.nz/roadblocks-and-drivers/

21. https://www.fsg.org/resource/water_of_systems_change/#resource-downloads

22. Activity: Building Buy-in

23. Building buy-in
• Mapping the landscape
• Deciding who’s in the team
• It’s all about negotiation

24. What would you do?
• Two girls fighting over a single orange
• How would you resolve this?
It’s mine!
But I want it!

25. Here’s how it went down...
• Halving the orange was fair, but
not optimal
• Leading change always involves
negotiation

26. FRICTION FREE TRANSFORMATION
Stage 1: Build buy-in
Engage Others
Determine who you need to
collaborate with
Eliminate Resistance
Help people convince themselves
Map Landscape
Pinpoint the problems and
bright spots
Identify the key players
and stakeholders
Eliminate push-back by
helping people discover
their own reasons for
supporting the project

27. Build buy in
Stop selling your ideas. Help people convince themselves
Trust
Choice
Motivation
vs
Friction-free Change
Self-persuasion: help people
convince themselves
Conventional Change
Direct persuasion: convince people
to change
“I trust my own reasons”
“I’m free to choose”
I’m motivated to say yes quicker
and commit for longer
“I’m septical; about other
people’s motives.”
”You’re telling me what to
do!”
”I actively resist or defer
actions.”

28. Find your trusted allies
Neophobic
afraid of the new
Neophilic
attracted to the
new
Supporters of
status-quo
Hostile to
change
Change
advocates
The quickest way to make
fast progress is to identify
trusted allies.
Requires understanding of
roles and resources

29. Activity: Remove Roadblocks

30. Remove roadblocks
Friction Fuelled Change Friction Free Change
Hard
Slow
Exhausting
Easy
Fast
Effortless
Making it easy to say ‘yes’

31. How difficult or easy is it for you?
1. Completing all of the written planning and reporting
requirements in my school.
2. Catering for the diversity of needs and interests of
my students.
3. Addressing behaviour issues in my classroom.
4. Accessing the resources I need to support my
teaching programmes.
5. Finding time for professional reading and
improving my professional knowledge.
6. Having my voice heard when contemplating
any change opportunties.

32. FRICTION FREE TRANSFORMATION
Stage 2: Remove Roadblocks
Overcome Inertia
Frame your novel ideas as familiar and friendly
Generate Confidence
Build self-belief
Remove Sludge
Make it easy to do what matters most
Making it easier for people to
make the changes
Involves:
• Identifying roadblocks
• Identify the drivers of intertia
• Taking action to remove
what is inhibiting change

33. Answer this....
If you were to do everything required of
you by the federal legislation, by the
state requirements and by your district –
attending to every request and every
detail – how much time would you have
left for teaching?

34. Activity: Embrace Experimentation

35. Imagine...
If schools were places where every
learner arrived curious and left
inspired!
If we could turn schools into
laboratories where ordinary kids to
extraordinary things!

36. Embrace Experimentation
• Create a culture of experimentation
where you can ‘test and learn’
• Get rid of the unnecessary stuff
• Share your successes

37. Embrace Experimentation
The pace at which any
organization evolves is
determined in large part
by the number of
experiments it runs.
- Gary Hamel, Michele Zanini Humanocracy 2020

38. FRICTION FREE TRANSFORMATION
Stage 3: Embrace Experimentation
Scale, share and Sustain
Multiply your impact.
Leave a legacy.
Test and Learn
Make experimentation a core capability
Subtract
Remove, reduce, recycle
Experimentation is
the only way to adapt
faster than the rate of
change.
Traditional change
processes become
too slow to fail!

39. Culture of Experimentation...
https://sites.google.com/breambaycollege.school.nz/hybridlearningtaitokerau/home

40. The Experiment Planner
• Serves as a guide to the planning
conversation
• Not to be used for compliance
• Identifies the key decision points in the
experimental process
• Provides a point of reflection at regular
points through the process – for review and
adjustment

41. https://sites.google.com/breambaycollege.school.nz/hybridlearningtaitokerau/projects/trac
ey

42. What did you notice?
Students not attending class
or not engaging online.
Students will become more
engaged if parents are
supporting them at home.
Consider parents as partners in
this process – part of their
learning team in support of their
child.
Build relationships with parents in
order to gain their support of
learners in the home
environment.
Regular one-on-one phone calls to parents
Provision of learning tasks and resources for use at home.
Students still need reminders and
routines – relying on the teacher for
direction.
Parents empowered to support learners
once they understand the purpose.
Making access to online
environment a natural part of every
day experience to empower them to
work independently.
Use multiple ways of connecting
with parents.
Changes not yet embedded
fully – need to continue for
another year.
https://sites.google.com/breambaycollege.school.nz/hybridlearningtaitokerau/projects/trac
ey

43. Activity: Friction Free Advantage

44. Build buy-in Remove roadblocks Embrace Experimentation
Friction-free
transformation
=
Build buy-in Remove roadblocks Embrace Experimentation
Frustration,
lack of traction
=
Build buy-in Remove roadblocks Embrace Experimentation
Alienation, resistance,
sabotage
=
+
Build buy-in Remove roadblocks Embrace Experimentation
Failure to transform
Legacy of failure
=
+
+
+

45. Scale, Share and Sustain
Multiply your impact.
Leave a legacy.
Engage Others
Determine who you need to
collaborate with
Overcome Inertia
Frame your novel ideas as familiar and friendly
Generate Confidence
Build Self-belief.
Eliminate Resistance
Help people convince themselves
Test and Learn
Make experimentation a core capability
Remove Sludge
Make it easy to do what matters most
Map Landscape
Pinpoint the problems and
bright spots
Subtract
Remove, reduce, recycle
FRICTION FREE TRANSFORMATION
Simple, Fast and Frugal: 3 Stages, 9 Modules
https://futuremakers.nz/friction-free-platform-for-change/

46. Feedback sliders
https://tinyurl.com/FFTsliders

47. • Free download from the Aurora
Institute website.
Everything you need to begin
transforming the learning
experience in your class or school.
https://aurora-institute.org/resource/agency-by-design-an-educators-playbook/

48. Thank you for joining us!
Share your thoughts by participating in our one-minute poll:
surveymonkey.com/r/Aurora_10-17_Change