When you read anything about organizational leadership and culture, the phrase “that’s how we have always done it” typically refers to resistance you face when trying to promote change and improvement. It’s usually framed as a negative energy that keeps the organization from embracing much needed shifts in processes and practices. We’re all experiencing the exact opposite of that organizational reality right now during COVID-19, which is that virtually none of “the way we have always done it” is going to work. For a transformative leader, this is an extraordinarily exciting moment, when entire systems and workforces are primed for significant disruption.
There is certainly excitement to have a team primed to embrace change. However, that same leader now faces two significant challenges. First, you have to lead a design process for a context that is constantly shifting – literally the details change on a daily basis. Second, you have to address the anxiety of constituents, clients, and stakeholders who have more questions than you possibly have answers. The dream scenario of redesigning the work is also the nightmare scenario of redesigning the work. While there are no definitive answers in such a scenario, there are a few important considerations to keep in mind.
Design for multiple scenarios
Most organizations already know this, since those who rolled out definitive plans too quickly or too self-assuredly have had to go back to the drawing board when conditions changed. Will we come back to campus? What will it look like when we do? What if we have to continue with distance learning for the foreseeable future? Your plan needs to address each of these scenarios, and needs to entertain the possibility that things will continue to shift as time goes by.
Your plan needs to be broad enough to outline what full distance-learning looks like, what a partial return would look like with social distancing measures in full force, and how you will transition between the two. That’s actually 3 different scenarios. In Santa Ana, for example, the #SAUSDForward team has been aligning their scenarios to the different status levels outlined by the state of California. While the debate rages about what school return should look like, if at all, the team has a plan that speaks to multiple possible scenarios.
There is no single plan, only a process
Your plan cannot hope to address the infinite sets of contextual characteristics that you will encounter a week or a month from now. Even if you could predict the nature of the pandemic and infection rates, you would be even more hard-pressed to predict peoples’ reaction and the political pressures that you will face. There are too many variables to predict it exactly right. Yet, many schools have put their faith in a “plan” that outlines what it will look like to return. In some cases, schools put forward a plan too quickly, and have had to walk back from commitments and promises that were made previously. On the other hand, some systems have failed to provide any written direction at all, and are losing faith with their communities.
Instead of putting hopes in a plan, school leaders would do well to commit their communities to a process for navigating our current reality. Yes, you do actually need written plans, and those plans should be as inclusive as possible, addressing multiple possible scenarios. But even more important than the plan should be the development of an ongoing process that has the ability to continually gather stakeholder input, consider expert recommendations and best practices, communicate decision points, and acknowledge gaps and areas for further research and communication.
Lots of honest communication
Even with an incredible plan that addresses multiple scenarios, and an inclusive, ongoing process to navigate the situation as it continues to unfold and develop, your leadership will be at stake if you don’t have a strong strategy for information management and communication – both internally with your team and more globally with all stakeholders. It is very difficult to over-communicate in this type of environment, and it is critical for organizational leaders to remain visible and keep communicating. That ongoing communication must include acknowledgments that there are and will be gaps as the situation unfolds. You must embrace what Jim Collins referred to as the Stockdale Paradox (named after former VP candidate and Vietnam POW James Stockdale), that you must never confuse the need for faith that you will prevail in the end with the need to confront the brutal facts of your current reality.
If you hadn’t already, now is definitely the time to embrace multiple modes of communication. E-mail campaigns, phone blasts, social media posts, video feeds, formal letters and planning documents all play a role. The communication campaign provides an excellent venue for leaders to engage and stay close to those they have the responsibility to serve.
Use visuals
You have too much information to communicate. Your comprehensive plan is too dense and your planning process too rigorous to easily communicate in narrative format. You need some good visuals. A good graphic designer has the ability to take complicated ideas and transform them into intuitive visuals that are easy to understand and digest. In addition to communicating complex ideas, quality visuals have the added bonus of suggesting that there are competent people guiding the ship. It reinforces the idea that you team is not being overly reactive but is able to be pro-active and deliberate, even in the midst of a crisis. In education, graphic design is unfortunately often seen as a luxury. Yet education is perhaps one of the industries where clarity of thought and communication are of most importance. In other words, don’t cut the graphic design budget.