1. Market Advantage - As a public school division, MCPS is in a unique position regarding competition. The division is well known for having a quality school system and there is not much competition with the private schools in the area. Goold and Campbell say “it’s also important to determine whether the design supports your key sources of advantage” (Goold & Campbell, 2002, pg. 6). Our key source of advantage is our reputation and I do not believe the design is accommodating to keeping the reputation solid. Information is too silo-ed and it takes too long for the information to be communicated across the different facets of the organization.
2. Parenting Advantage - I believe the MCPS parenting proposition would be to support the educators in the school. I think the dogmatic hierarchy in the functional structure may hinder the support because of the same issues with communication mentioned above. There is no efficient means to gather information from employees about what they need to efficiently complete their daily tasks.
3. People - I have heard frustration from employees within the division about the stagnant pace of change. I think this is due, in part, to a structure that is not conducive to speedy process changes. Combined with a quick turnover in leadership over the past 3-4 years, no one has been around long enough to enact and follow through with long term change, and it is easy to see why employees would become frustrated. Would a change in organizational design improve this? Quite possible - as long as it’s a change that starts at the core.
4. Feasibility - “Government regulations are rarely a dominant influence on organizational structure” (Goold & Campbell, 2002, pg. 8). I wrote “Ha!” beside this while reading. Many pieces of our organizational structure are dictated by our state department of education. That does not mean that the structure can not be changed. I believe the culture of the organization will be the biggest limiting factor to change. The area of southwest Virginia is unique in that change is not viewed as a good thing. This is in direct contrast to the coastal area where I am from - where change is a regular part of life. Most people who work for the division also went to school here, and probably so did their parents. Change is hard and incremental and is viewed negatively. That would be the largest obstacle to a change in the organizational design.
5. Specialist Cultures - Yes, there needs to be distinct cultures. Every school is unique - from the geographic area to the students to the teachers and staff - each school has it’s own personality. It is important to recognize and encourage those personalities while still fitting within the framework of the overall division.
6. Difficult Links - I would say the ability for units to self-manage conflict depends on the issue. I have seen cases where conflict is handled well from unit to unit and others where it quickly escalates up the hierarchy for no real reason. I believe the organization could benefit from “a clearly defined arbitration process for resolving disputes” that does not involve the central administration (Goold & Campbell, 2002, p 8).
7. Redundant Hierarchy - In this area, I believe the organization could expand. There are clear and distinct parents propositions, but often not enough people to perform the tasks effectively. The multiple hats worn by every worker makes it easy to lose track of the number of tasks being juggled.
8. Accountability - Public education is moving towards better accountability with federally mandated pay for performance systems. The current system of tenure/continuing contracts is one that does not encourage improvement. Once the new evaluations are in place, it will be easier to evaluate the effectiveness of everyone in the organization.
9. Flexibility - Based on previous comments, it is obvious that the organization is not flexible. That is one of the major flaws of functional design.
I believe that a well-designed matrix structure may be better for the organization. The increased communication throughout the division would bring greater collaboration towards the division’s goal - quality education of its students.
Reference
Goold,M. & Campbell, A. (2002) "Do You Have a Well Designed Organization?" HarvardBusiness Review.
Interesting analysis, Brenda. I agree that it would be very hard to change the structure of this type of institution. In terms of the 'people' test, do you think this public school system has outstanding people to staff its jobs? Are there career paths which will retain this talent? You mention that moving away from tenure will increase accountability, but will it also cause you to lose some employees? Are there drawbacks to this new evaluation system?
ReplyDeleteMy belief is that a majority of our positions have outstanding people to staff positions. However, there is a minority group that continues in their positions because they are on a continuing contract. There are very few career paths to retain this talent. As a matter of fact, one of my co-workers just received his Ph.D. This is exciting and such an accomplishment for him, but the attitude around the office is melancholy because there is a school of thought that people who pursue additional training and knowledge must want to leave the organization. That type of thinking amazes me!
DeleteThere are drawbacks to the new evaluation system, definitely. One of the biggest is that teacher evaluations will be directly tied to student test scores. Relying on students alone is just too big of a variable on its own. However, supervisor evaluations and other components will help to balance the system. I believe that student performance should have a piece, albeit a small one, in the system. If the same teacher has students who do not perform year after year, then that teacher needs help to expand their teaching toolbox to better assist their students.
Will we lose employees? We may lose employees who do not perform well on the evaluations. Because the new evaluations are a state-wide mandate, we do not risk losing many to surrounding school divisions.
Hi Brenda,
ReplyDeleteThanks for this thoughtful post. I am also a champion for better systems that allow our educators to meet the needs of students. It seems like school districts across the nation are still struggling with the some of the issues highlighted in your post. I think some charters, such as KIP, are successful because they are able to institute designs that allow for more of the horizontal collaboration noted by Daft(2007). I also believe that charters have been allowed to maintain their own "culture" and this is what allows them to thrive (Goold,M. & Campbell, A. (2002).
Reading this post is sobering. Given how much work we need to do to improve equity, access and performance (especially in diverse school districts such a MCPS), a better design that could address some of the issues you noted needs to be implemented right away. The future of our country really depends on a working public school system.
Thanks again for sharing.
Adriana
Adriana,
ReplyDeleteYou're right that a better design would help. I am not sure charter schools are the answer though. You see, they don't have to meet the same stringent state and federal requirements as a public school system. Additionally, they have the benefit of starting from the ground up. It's easier to adopt new ways of thinking when you aren't battling the old school of thought.
Thanks for your insight!
Brenda
You are totally right, Brenda...so the battle continues. Thanks again for tying this week's readings to such an important topic.
ReplyDeleteAdriana