Time of Change? Reaching Buy-In by Communicating Proactively

Proactive communication answers questions before parents (and other stakeholders) must ask them. It addresses concerns so that they won’t build up into issues.

Proactive communication admits shortcomings rather than hides and denies parent and student perspectives. The Cambridge Dictionary defines “proactive communication” as “taking action by causing change and not only reacting to change when it happens.”

Let’s dive deep into how schools can better embrace change by first understanding how the community may react to a change. Then, with these tools in place, let’s see how a school can be a proactive communicator when navigating the community through change.

Proactive Communication Helps the School Community Navigate and Accept Change

Common Reasons for Changes

Schools go through changes. Many things may change throughout a child’s learning path, and typically, the school makes these changes to improve school culture, everyday school life, and learning outcomes. Some common types of changes could be:

A new principal comes in with new ideas and implementations for the curriculum.
A teacher adds more experimental learning to teaching methods.
School administrators adjust the school’s drop-off or pickup policy.
New teachers start the school year.
Families are met with new requirements to fill out forms.
The school has a new check-in policy.
The school has a new uniform policy.

Gleicher’s Formula for Change

Resistance to change is a natural occurrence of human nature, and scientists have attempted to describe it at least since the 1960s when David Gleicher developed a famous Formula for Change. This formula, and some updated versions after him, describes the factors needed to overcome resistance when a change occurs.

Dissatisfaction with the current state, Vision for change, and First steps towards change must collectively be more potent than the met resistance. The formula bluntly states that if any factors (Dissatisfaction, Vision, or First steps) are missing or insufficient, resistance will likely prevent the change (- or in the context of school, the change occurs without the community’s support.)

Practical Application of the Model

In light of the Gleicher’s Formula, a school communicator’s job is to get the buy-in so that the change can occur positively. For example, let’s talk about a change to the school pickup policy that will add a new time for middle school parents and consequently extend the school day for their children by ten additional minutes.

First, the school communicator must state the current Dissatisfaction and why the current policy is not working.

For instance,
The current pickup policy has resulted in parents needing to wait, on average, 20 minutes in the pickup line. The lines have been too long because we’ve been dismissing elementary and middle school students at the same time.

Next, the school communicator must state the Vision for the change.

For instance,
With the schedule change, middle school students don’t need to wait in line and can continue engaging in school activities.

Finally, the school communicator must give the First steps to parents on how to follow the scheduled change.

For instance,
Parents, we will remind you about this change every day during the first week of September.

With proactive communication, these small and useful changes may be met with little resistance and pass through scientific formulas. By increasing the information flow and proactively communicating the details and reasons behind the change, the communicators get buy-in by answering “why.”

Additionally, communication experts advise reminding the community that despite the change, many things say the same – this can be comforting.

For instance, a communicator may add:

The pickup policy remains otherwise the same. We have the same volunteers standing by to help!

Explaining Adapting to Unplanned or Surprising Changes: The Kübler Ross Change Curve

Not all changes are planned or wanted, but we must adapt nevertheless! The most significant example of an unwanted change was the recent global COVID pandemic, which gave schools little time to prepare for the recalibration of education and school days. (On the positive side, this preparedness to communicate and adapt to alternative ways of learning has improved since the COVID-19 pandemic.)

In the face of a significant change, such as a pandemic, major shift in a local school policy, natural disaster, or another change that disrupts everyday life, The Kübler Ross Change Curve may help to explain and understand what parents and the entire school community may go through.

The Kübler Ross Change Curve was initially modeled to explain grief stages. Most of us have heard about this model and likely applied it to explain personal challenges such as job loss, family member, illness, or another life-transforming or unexpected event. Today, the model is also used in organization studies to train stakeholders to support employees during more significant organizational changes.

The model names four stages a person goes through when dealing with a challenge:

Shock and Denial,
Anger and Resistance,
Exploration and Experimentation, and
Acceptance and Commitment.

I am not suggesting that proactive school communication removes these stages when faced with a challenging situation. But, the school communications team can be mindful and aware of these natural changes in human reactions and processing, proactively showing more outreach when the community is in turmoil.

The Change Curve reminds us that things will settle and that the presently expressed opinion, for instance, an instantaneous reactionary resistance to remote learning or a school’s mask policy, is not always the final opinion.

A school communicator may explain these phases to the community and ensure that the community is supported during hard times. The community can remain cohesive and feel heard when provided with ample opportunities to give feedback. School communication apps can be the workhorses for ongoing communication and feedback loops.

Support and Trust Among School Staff Are the Building Blocks for Proactive School Communication

Timothy J. Rafferty has examined the interactions between principals and teachers and points out that these interactions, whether generally supportive and trusting or adversarial and suspicious, are reflected in most other relationships in the school.

The school’s best intentions toward proactive communication may fall short if the underlying school climate is critical, finger-pointing, guarded, and suspicious.

Rafferty states that a good, positive school climate is the foundation for everyone to feel comfortable communicating openly and honestly, internally and externally – especially when times get tough.

The Takeaway

Examining the change models on how change is dealt with, accepted, and committed to provides possibilities for a school communication team to create proactive school communication plans.

The changes that need to be communicated may be expected or unexpected – in both cases the team must be ready.

One way to measure the success of the school communication is to check in to the school’s climate and culture. A positive and inclusive school culture is an indicator that the school is doing well with its communication style too!