Working in EdTech, change has always been a central part of what I do.   Whether this is the technical side of things when introducing new technologies or building a new school, or the human behaviours side of things in relation to identifying the need for change or supporting staff through change.

Both personally and professionally the last 6 months have presented me with lots to think of in relation to change, both personally and professionally, and it has struck me how difficult change is.

I started this new academic year with “Entropy” as one of the key words for my department.  This felt right given the unanticipated changes that Covid19 has brought about which have impacted on EdTech use within schools in particular.   Put in simple terms Entropy is the concept that all systems tend towards disorder, and therefore we need to constantly exert effort to maintain order.  (Note: I am no physicist so the above may not be 100% technically correct however I think it fits with the overall concept).   As we are constantly exerting effort to maintain the current level of order, to maintain the processes, systems, etc, we have in place, the whole thought of introducing our own change with its inevitable disorder is one I believe we naturally withdraw from at an instinctual level.

Taken on a more cognitive level and looking at things more rationally, when faced with change we often seek to look at the pros and cons, creating two lists to see which is longer.    The issue here is we can say with reasonable certainty how things are now.   We are experiencing the now, can touch, taste and feel it.   When reviewing the potential changed state however we are predicting how things might be after change and therefore our views are all probabilities rather than certainties.   A rational evaluation would then lead to a comparison of known values versus the probability of some lesser know values.    From a rational viewpoint the status quo will largely win out.

 Also, when reviewing the now, and where presented with significant change, we may over value the positives of our current situation due to our instinctual reaction to change.   This leads to negatives within our current situation being disregarded or overlooked, painting a rosier view of how things are now.   In turn, this makes it more likely for us to again adopt the status quo.

We also believe in the certainty associated with our current situation, that this situation will continue as is.    We see safety in this.  This fails to address Entropy and the fact we live in an uncertain world.   Who would have predicted Covid19 and all its many impacts a year ago?    We believe in the certainty of how things are now and often do not give sufficient consideration to how this could easily change over time, with a number of small changes adding up to a cumulatively large change, or in one sudden upheaval such as that brought about by Covid19.  Our current situation is by no-means guaranteed to continue.

The above all seems to point to a definite reluctance to change and in my experience the more people involved the more this reluctance will manifest itself.   In a meeting of 3 or 4 people it might be possible to see the benefits of change, of a new system or new process, but as soon as this change impacts of a wider number of people it becomes significantly more difficult.   We need something additional to make or even push change to happen.

We need a catalyst for change.   In our organisations this might be an external pressure or event, such as Covid19 which has certainly been a catalyst for lots of change this year.    It could be a senior staff member or group of senior staff members pushing change from the top of an organisation.  It could equally be a ground swell or grass roots movement of staff pushing for and wishing to see change.   In our personal situations it could equally be an external event, or it could be from within us as individuals.   We often need to be our own catalyst.

Thinking about change I have came to a couple of conclusions;

1. Change is inevitable; Entropy suggests change is constant so even when we think things are remaining constant, either we are working very hard to keep them this way, or we are simply unaware of the changes which are occurring.   We shouldn’t be overly worried of change.
2. Individually and collectively we will either tend towards or away from risk and inversely towards or away from the status quo.   This is a tendency, and some have stronger tendencies than others; my tendency towards enjoying new challenges is the same tendency as someone who likes to skydive or swim with sharks however, I would suggest the magnitude is different.  We all however need to be concious of this tendency and its impact in biasing our decision making and actions.
3. Change is always a struggle; Change always introduces unknown factors and therefore no matter how well we plan there will always be a sense of anxiety or insecurity associated with it.   As such change elicits an emotional response in all those involved, and we need to be concious of this response and seek to manage it accordingly.
4. But without change we don’t improve; This always makes me think of the “doing the same things but expecting different outcomes”; Unless we change the inputs or the process, the outputs won’t change.   We therefore need to be more embracing of change.

Am not sure whether writing this or spending time thinking about change will have helped me with the changes both currently in front of me or those potentially in front of me for which I need to reach a decision.    If not me, maybe it will help others who are equally struggling;  I am not sure.    The one thing I am sure of is that change is not easy, BUT it is an important part of life.

The reality of it is that hindsight prefers a distorted view of events.   During the change itself the path is not so linear, involving various changes in direction as a result of new found information, changing perceptions or other feedback gathered during the process of change

This has recently frustrated me with a project I have been engaged with, which had a clear pathway along which progress was being made with slight deviations and modifications being made along the way, but nothing substantial or at least this is how I envisaged things would progress.   Late in the year however it was decided to back away from the project and deliver a smaller pilot version of the original plan.    My initial reaction to this was to be disappointed and a little bit annoyed if I am being honest.   This move to a smaller pilot project represented a more significant change in direction and pace than anything I had considered.   It presented a significant deviation from the envisaged plan.

Looking back now, having distanced myself from my immediate emotions in relation to the project, I can now see that this big change in direction is just a factor of change and therefore should not be viewed as necessarily negative in context.   The direction of travel is still the same albeit the route is not as straight as I had originally thought it would be.

As such I will continue on with the now smaller project, as part of the project towards an ultimately planned more holistic implementation.   This recent change is not a set back back a small step on the journey towards the eventual goal of the project.

The below post was written around a year and a half ago as I returned to the UK from the UAE to interview for the post I now hold.   I dont know why, however I never got around to posting my thoughts however as we head towards the end of 2016 it may be an appropriate time to share my them:

It was almost 7 years ago that, following accepting an educational consultancy post in the UAE, that I flew from Manchester in the UK to the UAE for the first time.   As an inexperienced flyer I was racked by nerves regarding the flight, regarding my new job, regarding relocating myself and my family from the UK to the UAE, regarding how I would adapt to a foreign culture and regarding a multitude of other things.    It hasn’t been until today some 7 years later that I have came to reflect on how I felt back then.

So why do I find myself reflecting you may be asking.   The answer is that I find myself once again sat on board a longhaul aeroplane this time travelling from the UAE back to the UK, a distance of 5500 Kilometers according to the display screen in front of me. The purpose of the flight is to attend an interview for a school in the UK. Again I find myself wondering about the interview, the school, the task of potentially relocating, the need to adapt back into UK culture and a multiple of other issues.

Now I think if you asked my colleagues 7 years ago as to what they thought regarding me taking up post in the UAE they would have all at least described a sense of surprise and some possibly a sense of shock.    I suspect my current colleagues and friends in the UAE may also express the same should I raise my current thoughts regarding returning to the UK.

So why do it, if I am so nervous and my friends and colleagues so surprised?    I think the answer relates to diversity. I am a creature of habit so in my day to day operations am happy with the status quo, with the same routines, the same people and the same locale. That said, I also believe that a constant reliance on the status quo will result in atrophy. To use a statistical analogy, when looking at performance of a skills based task, over time, performance of an individual or a group will regress to the mean. In other words the result will tend towards the average or each persons average ability over time, with freak lucky or unlucky results smoothed over.   In my life I am happy with the average and over time I appear to get into a pattern, or to “regress to the mean” if you will.   This is where I believe I am now, in that comfortable place settled with “average” or familiar patterns and events.   It is this that leads me to be on the plane on which I now sit for every so often I feel the need to mix things up a little and try and push for an extreme result away from average, to both unsettle and challenge myself and to disrupt the average or status quo.  It would appear the time period for this for me is around the 7 or 8 year mark.

I hope that this current endevour meets with an extreme positive result however only time will tell.   If you yourself have been happy with the average then good for you, however consider this: shaking things up could make you happier as it has done for me over the last 7 years during my adventures living and working in the UAE.   Sat on this plane I believe it may be possible that this chapter is closing.     This is a positive thing, as the closing of the current chapter means the beginning of new chapter, new challenges, risk, change, excitement, frustration and many other emotions and experiences (at least for a while until I regress to the mean once again!!!)

Image by Richard Vandervord licensed under creative commons attribution-share alike license.