Providing Context on New Policy, Procedures

In one of my reflections, I spoke of leaders having to help others (like parents, students and even teachers) see the context regarding new policy or procedures. And in order to do this, the leader will need to have strategies to analyze the context of what is happening and respond appropriately and help others connect and understand the context. I will attempt to elaborate more on this matter in this week's reflection.

Often, teachers feel as though they are sometimes expected to carry out instructions that are developed by others or often find it completely unrelated to one another. I understand how these teachers feel and also believe that it is definitely easier to understand the big picture when we are seeing from higher levels in the organization. Often, teachers go about their day to day duties, having little or no idea why a new procedure was established. I believed that such procedures were created out of good intentions. However, just rolling out these procedure based on good intentions without much explanation will not do justice to it. Below are some steps which I find helpful to help contextualized so that others can see the connection.

The first step towards better communication is by clearly explaining the significance of some goals or projects that is important to you. It is important to articulate as explicitly as possible on the benefits that may result and how those benefits relate to the overall mission of affecting learning in our students. Then be open to questions which others may ask. Often I am glad that others ask questions. This shows that there is actually some real consideration by these teachers on the new procedures which everyone will need to adapt. Also, they may see aspects of the issue that are invisible to me because the nature of my work may be different from theirs. Even if answers to their questions seem overly obvious, do not just dismissed them but we need to take these questions seriously. Often, this project or goal have been in our minds for quite a long time now, while to others it may be a new and unfamiliar idea. What is necessary is for others to see why it is important to accomplish the objective that was outlined or to change their procedures in the manner that was proposed.

Once we helped others to contextualized, even if they do not come away agreeing with the change completely, they are likely to perform the work more effectively since they now have a better understanding of the context in which the new procedure has been adopted.