Building Distributed Leadership in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia

1. Building Distributed Leadership in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia Module: Developing Evidence-Based and Shared Decision Making

2. Building Distributed Leadership in the Philadelphia School District • Module: Developing Evidence-Based and Shared Decision Making

3. Module: Developing Evidence-Based and Shared Decision Making Jonathan Supovitz John DeFlaminis • The ideas, graphics and material presented have been prepared with the guidance of Jonathan Supovitz, Associate Professor, Penn GSE and John DeFlaminis, Executive Director, Penn Center for Educational Leadership, University of Pennsylvania. Duplication and distribution of this presentation is prohibited without express consent.

4. Objectives • We will work together as a team to: • Explore the skills necessary to understand and influence the mental models that impact our thinking about decisions. • Determine what contributes to decisions and the role of data in that process. • Use data to improve the quality and acceptance of your teams decisions. • Understand the dimensions of effective decisions and the key elements of quality and acceptance. • Explore models that can help the distributed leadership team to understand when and how to involve others in shared decision making. • Practice application of objectives 1 to 5 with successful and unsuccessful decisions made by the distributed leadership teams themselves.

5. Agenda • Lesson 1: Assumptions Underlying Decisions • Understanding how people make sense of the world • Understanding and influencing mental models • Application to real decision issues • Lesson 2: The Dimensions of Shared and Effective Decisions • Shared and effective decision making • The context of effective decisions • Application to real decision issues -Break-

6. Agenda (Continued) • Lesson 3: When and How to Involve Others in Decisions • Key factors in making effective decisions • Effective decisions and decision styles • Models of decision making and participation • Decision attributes and degrees of participation • The decision time line • Application to real decision issues • Lesson 4: Evidence-based Decision Making • The rational model of decision making and why the world doesn’t work that way • The appropriate role of evidence in decision making • Application to real decision issues

7. Session Protocol • In order to make today’s session beneficial to all participants, please: • Respect your colleagues and your team. • Shut down your laptop computers. • Turn off your cell phones, pagers, Blackberries, and any other means of external communication. • Contribute to your team and the class as a whole. • Ask questions when you need to.

8. Lesson 1: Assumptions Underlying Decisions

9. Sense Making and Mental Models:How People Understand Problems

10. Sense Making • Sense making is: • A theory of how people understand the world around them. • Grounded in identity construction. • Retrospective. • A social process. • Ongoing. • Pragmatic.

11. What are Mental Models? • Mental Models: • Are deeply held internal images of how the world works that limit us to familiar ways of thinking and acting. • Shape what we see and how we act. • Two people with different mental models can observe the same event and describe it differently because they’ve noticed different details. ~ Senge, 1992

12. What are Mental Models? (Continued) • People are generally unaware of their mental models. • Individual mental models are different than group mental models. • The discipline of managing mental models – surfacing, testing, improving our internal pictures – promises to be a major breakthrough for building learning organizations. ~ Senge, 1992

13. Skills to Understand and Influence Mental Models • Skills of reflection • Slowing down our thinking processes so that we can become more aware of how we form our mental models and the ways that they influence our actions. • Skills of inquiry • How we operate in face-to-face interactions with others, especially in dealing with complex issues that could lead to conflict. • Recognizing leaps of generalization without testing them. • Balancing inquiry and advocacy—changes goal from winning to finding the best argument. • Recognizing the gaps between espoused theories and theories in use.

14. Application

15. Lesson 2: The Dimensions of Shared and Effective Decisions

16. What is Shared Decision Making? • Shared Decision Making is a process in which a variety of members of the school community collaborate, where appropriate, in identifying problems, defining goals, formulating policy, shaping direction, and ensuring implementation of decisions. People who are responsible for in the implementation of a decision at the building or unit level are actively and legitimately involved in making the decision. • Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

17. The Essential Characteristics of Shared Decision Making • Shared Decision Making, adapted from ASCD

18. Why Shared Decision-Making • Utilize expertise of those included in the process • Increases input into decisions • Improve morale of those involved • Focuses accountability for decisions • Develops new leaders • Increase quality and quantity of comments • Changes roles and responsibilities • Builds trust • Others?

19. Shared Decision Making • Shared leadership and decision making that involves the active support of formal and informal school leaders is known to be a key facilitating factor in school improvement initiatives.~ Bryk, Canburn & Louis, 1999; Lambert, 1998; Marks & Louis, 1999

20. Shared Decision Making (Continued) • Assuming that increased involvement from teachers improves schools (Murphy, 1991), “practices such as collaboration, distributed leadership, and participatory decision making can dramatically alter the way educators view leadership.” ~ Doyle, 2004

21. Shared Decision Making (Continued) • Robertson, Wohlstetter, and Mohrman (1995) found that shared decision making with broad teacher buy-in, a crucial ingredient for reform, occurs more readily in schools with strong relational trust. The more administrators share decision making, the more instructional innovation increases. • ~ Bryk & Schneider, 2003

22. From Principal Control Role Centered More authoritative Centered Responsibility Control centered To Team Control Relationship Centered More Collaborative School Responsibility Teamwork Shared Decision-Making Requires Some Shifts

23. Making Effective Decisions • To make effective decisions, you must: • Understand the context of the decision • Determine who should be involved • Decide how to decide ~ Scholtes, Joiner & Streibel, 2003

24. What’s the Context? • Clarify the decision: Does everyone have the same understanding of what’s being decided? • Understand deadlines • Learn how the decision affects the path for the team’s work • Gather relevant information about other decisions related to this one ~ Scholtes, Joiner & Streibel, 2003

25. Sense Making • Organizational psychologist Karl Weick coined the term to mean “making sense of the world around us”. That is an act of analysis and creativity made more meaningful by involving others and their different perspectives. It also functions to build teams and relationships. • (Ancone, Malone, Orlikowski and Senge, 2007)

26. Don’t confuse involvement with responsibility for making the decision! Who should be involved? • Who has the authority to make the decision? • Who is ultimately responsible for the results? • Who is critically affected—now and in the future? • Who has vital information?

27. How should we decide? • Consider: • Time: Is there a time crunch? • Trust: Do the people affected by the decision trust one another? • Teamwork: Do you want to develop a higher level of teamwork with this decision? • Importance: Is the decision critical to the team and/or organization? • Acceptance: Is it important to generate high acceptance of the decision? ~ Jones & Bearley

28. Effective Decisions Application • Think about some successful and unsuccessful decisions that you sent us from your school. • Can you talk about some of the considerations that you gave when you were making the decisions?

29. Lesson 3: When and How to Involve Others in Decisions

30. Key Factors in Making Effective Decisions • The two most important factors in building trust and determining the decision style that produce the most effective decisions are: • Quality • Acceptance • Vroom and Yetton’s model (Handout p. 10) adds the additional dimensions of: • Shared goals • Conflict possibility ~ Maier, 1962; Bridges, 1967; Vroom & Yetton, 1973

31. Norman R.F. Maier High Concern Appropriate for group decisions Require a skilled discussion leader Acceptance dimension Solved by flipping a coin or by laissez faire methods Decided by experts or leaders Low Concern High Concern Quality dimension

32. Key Factors in Making Effective Decisions (consistent with definitions of Maier; Vroom and Yetton)

33. Effective Decisions and Decision Styles Q/A Quality of the decision is more important than its acceptance. Command The decision is made by the superior, utilizing available information, independently of others. A/Q Acceptance of the decision is more important than its quality. Consensus The decision is a group decision evolving from shared information and ideas.

34. Effective Decisions and Decision Styles QA The quality and acceptance of the decision are equally important. Group Consultation /Decision The decision is made by the superior, utilizing subordinate opinion, either in a group context or individually. QA The quality and acceptance of the decision are both unimportant. Convenience The decision results from the easiest method at hand.

35. It is vital to make the rules clear. They give information, not advice, and you make the decision. Styles of Managing Participation in Decision Making • Group Consultation/Decision with Leader: Talking with individuals and/or the entire work group and then making the decision yourself. • Benefits: • The ability to gather information to make a high-quality decision • Maintaining efficiency in the decision making process • Only people with relevant information participate • They give information, not advice • You make the decision yourself

36. It often generates respect for you as a leader. Styles of Managing Participation in Decision Making • Command: Making the decision yourself without prior discussions with subordinates. • Benefits: • Is quick • Capitalizes on the manager’s being informed • The responsibility for the decision is clear • Often generates respect for you as leader

37. Styles of Managing Participation in Decision Making • Consensus/Group Alone: Getting the group together and working toward substantial agreement. • Benefits: • Generates high acceptance of the decision • Can produce synergistic problem solutions and plans • Has the effect of increasing teamwork Unanimity often is not achieved, so the rule is to reach a level of agreement without serious disagreement.

38. Typically good for relatively unimportant decisions, such as where to place the water cooler Styles of Managing Participation in Decision Making • Convenience: Making the decision in whatever manner seems to be the easiest. That may be through delegation, asking for volunteers, or appointing someone to make the decision. You ensure that no one makes a “federal case” over how the decision is made. • Benefits: • Avoids time-consuming participation • Can often be seen as a reward by persons selected to make decisions

39. Overview of Decision Attributes • Common decision attributes: • Quality • Acceptance (Maier and Vroom and Yetton). • Vroom and Yetton’s model includes additional attributes: • Shared goals • Conflict possibility • These emerged from the literature as relevant and decision-impacting factors. See page 35 of Participant Guide for Overview of Decision Attributes.

40. Degree of Participation Offered by Two Approaches • Maier, and Vroom and Yetton offer two approaches with different degrees of participation (see Participant Guide). • Maier offers leader alone and group decisions while Vroom and Yetton also include consulting options. • Why do you believe that there are differences?

41. Normative Leadership Model • Different Degrees of Participation Possible Alone • (AI)Manager makes the decision alone. Low • (AII) Manager asks for information from subordinates but makes the decision alone. Subordinates may or may not be informed about what the problem is. Consulting • (CI) Manager shares the problem with subordinates and asks for information and evaluations from them. Meetings take place as dyads, not as a group, and the manager then goes off and makes the decision. Group • (GI) Manager and subordinates meet as a group to discuss the problem, but the manager makes the decision. High • (GII)Manager and subordinates meet as a group to discuss the problem, and the group as a whole makes the decision. ~ Vroom and Yetton

42. Participative Management Model • Time—Is there a time crunch—that is, must a decision be made right away? • Trust—Do the people affected by the decision trust each other, in general? • Teamwork—Do you want to develop your work group toward a higher level of teamwork with this decision? • Importance—Is the decision critical to the organization—that is, one that may result in clear benefits or harm? • Acceptance—Is it important to generate high acceptance of the decision—that is, are your people likely to have strong feelings about it and/or how it is made? ~ Jones and Bearley

43. Participative Management Model 2. Trust Do the people affected by the decision trust each other? 3. Teamwork Do you want to develop a higher level of teamwork? 4. Importance Is the decision critical to the organization? 5. Acceptance Is it important to generate high acceptance of the decision? 1. TimeMust a decision be made right away? ~ Jones and Bearley

44. The Decision Time Line Making the decisionDeveloping commitment to the decisionImplementing the decision Leader-directed Group withleadership Group without leadership Time ~ Sashkin and Morris

45. Successful and Unsuccessful Decisions from DL Schools

46. Lesson 4: Evidence-based Decision Making

47. The Rational Decision-making Model • Define the problem • Gather data • Generate possible solutions • Generate objective assessment criteria • Choose the best solution • Implement • Evaluate • Modify Robbins, Stephen P., and Timothy A. Judge. Organization Behavior. 12th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. 156-158

48. Problems with the Rational Model • Requires time • Assumes perfect information about alternatives • Assumes agreed upon preferences, goals, consequences • Assumes measurable criteria are available and agreed upon • Assumes a rational, non-political world Robbins, Stephen P., and Timothy A. Judge. Organization Behavior. 12th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. 156-158

49. What contributes to decisions? Prior knowledge/beliefs Decisions about what data to consider Political considerations DECISION Information/data considered ProblemDefinition AnalysisAbility Players chosen to be at the table Group Dynamics

50. The Role of Data in the Decision-making Process • Kennedy (1984) discusses two models of data use: • Instrumental Model—Evidence are considered the key component of the decision; once the data are available, the decision is relatively straightforward. • The Conceptual Model—Evidence is not specifically instructive, but is relevant.