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Case 11 : Going Beyond the Virus: Understanding the Drivers of the Ebola Virus Outbreak
Get PDFThe protagonist, Jason Fitzgerald, faces challenges performing contact tracing during an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This represents a small fraction of the many difficulties in responding to the 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak. Despite the best efforts of national and international organizations, the outbreak isn’t close to being contained. In fact, the virus threatens to spread to neighbouring countries, triggering the World Health Organization to declare the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on July 17, 2019. The Ebola outbreak is a dangerous, complex, and ongoing public health concern with serious national and international implications. The case illustrates important factors involved in outbreak response. As such, this case discusses the stakeholders involved in international health governance and the role of global health security in the political and international discourse on infectious disease control. The case illustrates the challenges of outbreak responses and sheds light on the role of regional sociocultural factors in fuelling the ongoing Ebola outbreak
Case 16 : When the Midnight Train is the first of many: Dealing with Irregular and Unsafe Railway Crossings in the City of London
Get PDFWhile visiting a local school, the mayor of London was asked a simple question by a grade three student: “why aren’t there flashing light barriers at all railway crossings that are close to the places where children play?” The mayor did not have an answer to this question or the many other questions that went along with it, but he knew something needed to be done. But what? And by whom? Rail crossings in London are typically prone to risk. In Canada, only 17% of all 17,000 railway crossings have gates, and the primary purpose of these gates is to control motor vehicles. London residents remain frustrated by the delays caused at rail crossings on busy commuter roads. Residents are also concerned about the lack of safety mechanisms at smaller, low-traffic streets. Trains fall into a jurisdictional triangle. Many organizations, local municipalities, and provincial and federal ministries are involved in building and overseeing railways. All parties must work collaboratively to improve safety on the more than 17,000 rail crossings across the country. Decisions about how to move forward with this issue are complex and require mass consultation from government agencies such as Transport Canada and from railroad companies such as Canadian National Railway, Canadian Pacific Railway, and VIA Rail Canada. Pedestrians need to be educated about the dangers of crossing railway tracks. Railway police often give presentations to children and educate them about the risks associated with public rail crossings and trespassing on railway property. In recent years, the number of railway police officers has declined. Cities such as London are no longer able to have police at rail sites. Something needs to change in the City of London and the surrounding area to improve rail safety and prevent further tragedies. Operation Lifesaver believes more education and awareness will help. Community members are pushing for the installation of more active systems but spending more money on rail safety is not always politically favourable. What needs to be done, and by whom, remains uncertain. With so many organizations and groups involved, it is difficult to determine who should ultimately be responsible for this dilemma. Because the reality of train safety in London is not changing, the need to address the concerns about this issue is essential. Unfortunately, London has several dangerous rail crossings that lack gates or other physical barriers to block the crossing. The main concern is the safety of pedestrians at these sites
EVIDENCE INFORMED STRATEGY TO IMPROVE ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING ENGAGEMENT
Get PDFThe ability of an organization to effectively learn and apply knowledge not only equates with highly agile performance, it is increasingly important to surviving in a knowledge based economy. Organizational learning has been widely popularized in recent decades, however defining, coordinating, and maximizing this collective learning capability within organizations remains challenging. In part this difficulty may lie in conflicted views about the purposes of learning and who it benefits, varied ways in which learning or leading it can happen, and most importantly in employee’s different motivations to engage in learning at all. This plan examines organizational learning engagement and targets changes and a solution to necessarily improve this active, immersive participation in learning. Changes required within the organization being examined include a need to balance a performance goal and managerial control emphasis over OL with a more explorative, employee centric, collaborative, learning growth strategy. Using team and authentic leadership in concert with Kotter’s model and emergent change principles, this improvement plan forwards a community of practice engagement solution and means to implement, monitor and evaluate it. Informally led communities of practice embody engaged organizational learning, accomplished through socialized relational exchange, knowledge sharing, and the disseminated production-use of knowledge artifacts. This proposed solution aims to integrate into existing bureaucratic structure of the organization and provide synergistic benefit to managerial practices already supporting organizational learning. The community of practice solution is presented as a small increment change helping lay foundations for more ambitious visions of a strongly supported learning culture emphasizing high engagement at the organization
Closing the Culture Gap: Student Language Competencies for the Assessment of Patients in a Bilingual Health Care Setting
Get PDFIn a bilingual health care institution, how can specialized practitioners improve students’ administration of standardized assessments in neuropsychology to French-speaking patients in the absence of language competencies, in alignment with the cultures of both patient-centered care and efficiency? This OIP was developed for a Canadian bilingual health care institution, operating in alignment with political and legal language service and patient care obligations. However, increasing demand for services and professional language competency coupled with reduced funding has led to efficiency-focused departmental practices. Challenges in balancing a culture of efficacy and efficiency with the culture of patient-centered care and bilingualism have led to a culture gap. In this organization, specialized practitioners train students in a non-standardized manner to assess French-speaking patients, and graduate students without language competency tools or support must use clinical judgment to navigate the assessment process. This culture gap impacts the patient’s experience and overall assessment results, as well as the student and specialized practitioners value congruence with the organization.
To implement change in this organization as an informal leader and teacher, I use both linear and cyclical change models that align with Symbolic Interactionism. To lead change, I use adaptive and distributed leadership styles, within an ethics of care framework. Both the implementation and leadership approaches focus on double-loop organizational learning, and participatory, stakeholder-driven change. The chosen solution targets the modification of three current organizational practices: student placement, student on-boarding, and patient assessment.
The solution is incremental and iterative, promoting stakeholder empowerment and sustainable change, towards an organizational culture that is congruent with organizational and stakeholder values. All elements of the implementation plan, including ethical considerations, are subject to periodic study and revision. The communication strategy is tailored to each stakeholder group, and includes a questioning and appreciative approach, supporting informal leadership and development of a shared vision
Through the Eyes of a Consultant: Leadership Succession Planning in an International School Setting
Get PDFResearch has shown that school leadership significantly influences institutional success and student achievement. Yet, studies indicate that in many school systems around the world, there is an absence of thoughtful and methodical leadership succession planning. The problem of practice addressed in this Organizational Improvement Plan is the lack of an equitable, systematic, and transparent approach to leadership succession planning in an international school in Country A. Using this school as the basis for this study, systems theory (Senge, Hamilton & Kania, 2015) guides a “whole-system” discussion for developing and implementing an equitable, systematic, and transparent succession planning framework. Through the lens of systems theory (Senge et al., 2015) attention has been given to how teachers within the organization can be afforded the opportunities and structures needed to build their leadership capacities to fulfill a “grow your own” (Rothwell, 2002) philosophy, as well as the institutional standards and practices of the school, which would then transform the organization as a whole. Two change theories, the Change Path Model (Cawsey, Deszca, & Ingols, 2016) and Kotter’s Eight-Stage Process (Kotter, 1996), have been utilized in considering how to propel the school forward from its current position, which is lacking a coherent leadership succession planning framework, to an ideal future state, where through the employment of research, available data, and theory the implementation and application of a comprehensive leadership succession planning framework is institutionalized. The transformational and transformative leadership approaches have been adopted to help in understanding leadership’s role in creating the systems and structures necessary for teachers to develop their leadership capacities, as well as instituting an equitable and transparent appointment structure within the school. This study offers a unique perspective, as it is researched and written by an external change agent, to be offered to the current school administration for enactment. The information presented in this Organizational Improvement Plan, although focusing on a single international school located in Country A, can have implications for all international schools, as it provides a tangible, research-informed, and thorough process by which an international school can develop a leadership succession framework and build a talent pool from within the staff to draw from when required
Indigenous Cultural Influenced Change Management
Get PDFOrganization X is one of nine Indigenous post-secondary institutions in Ontario. For over 25 years the organization has been operating on funding from partnership and grant proposals that is renewed on a yearly basis. In 2017, Ontario recognized Indigenous Institutes as the “third pillar” of Ontario’s post-secondary landscape which is to be implemented through the Indigenous Advanced Education and Skills Council (IAESC) who provides the quality assurance framework for Indigenous institutions. This Organization Improvement Plan (OIP) explores the problem of linking Indigenous and western ideologies and epistemologies within a change management plan to successfully implement this change. The plan considers two different leadership approaches, adaptive and transformational, that can be used by change leaders to identify and support Indigenous people and stakeholders through this time of transition. Further, this OIP will provide recommendations for a change management plan that recognizes the diversity of the organization but also the uniqueness of being an Indigenous post-secondary institution. The overall goal is to discover how Indigenous culture, traditions and knowledge can support western theories of change management to achieve the desired future end state for the organization. If implemented, this solution would provide Organization X with a solid structure and organizational culture that supports their mission of becoming a world leader in Indigenous education
Managing the tension: Balancing district requirements and local school context in school improvement planning
Get PDFThis Organization Improvement Plan (OIP) examines how a principal can implement school improvement planning processes that address both the requirements of a district and the needs of the individual school. The problem of practice identified that principals struggle with motivating teachers to engage in meaningful professional learning when implementing school improvement planning processes required by the district.
The complex nature of school environments is examined and the difficulties this poses for principals in leading change within schools is identified. Change is conceptualized as a non-linear, continuous process that is focused on the relationships between the teachers within a school and between teachers and the principal. Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT) (Uhl-Bien, Marion, McKelvey, 2007) is used as a framework to examine how a principal can balance the often-competing needs of the district and teaching staff within their school. The CLT framework is composed of: adaptive, administrative, and enabling leadership components.
The concept of Collaborative Professionalism (Hargreaves & O’Connor, 2018) in which teachers develop a professional accountability regarding student learning is also examined as a framework that complements CLT. The key role that the principal plays in nurturing conditions for ongoing, professional learning among teachers is identified
Interdisciplinary explorations: Setting the stage for change through understanding culture and attending to psychological safety in an Ontario Community College
Get PDFCentral to this Organizational Improvement Plan is the desire to close the gap between a curriculum that is disciplinary-centric to one that is more interdisciplinary. This change will better prepare college graduates for the future skills required in the workplace where increasingly complex problems require interdisciplinary solutions. While this may, at first, appear to be solely about the curriculum, the problem is that moving from a disciplinary to an interdisciplinary mindset involves disturbing deeply rooted disciplinary boundaries and, in turn, challenging faculty identities. In order to influence the culture of College X towards interdisciplinarity, the cultural context of the institution – as well as of the disciplinary subcultures – will need to be considered. Interdisciplinarity aligns with key priorities identified in the current Strategic Plan of College X and is congruent with the mission and values of the institution. Schein’s (2017) cultural theory provides the theoretical framework for this second-order change. Schein’s (2017) work provides a model for change that attends to psychological safety which is critical when perceptions, values and beliefs are challenged. One of the main tools proposed for creating change is the Community of Transformation model, under the auspices of the Teaching and Learning Centre, augmented by reviewing and rebranding the activities in the Innovation Centre and Applied Research to be more explicitly interdisciplinary. Adaptive and distributed leadership approaches respect the organizational context at College X which values collaboration and consultation and, therefore, provide the leadership framework. Finally, this Organizational Improvement Plan draws upon sensemaking activities in order to ensure effective communication to various stakeholders as they navigate the change proposed at College X
Change Management, Quality Assurance and Race: Advancing Race-Based Equity in Canadian Higher Education by Leveraging Established Institutional Mechanisms
Get PDFHigher education in Canada has been well regarded for decades. Academically rigorous programs and institutions graduate strong students while also attracting top local and global talent as employees to their institutional communities. However, the field of Critical Race Theory, among others, explicates that higher education institutions are not equitable for all bodies. Individuals with intersectionalities inclusive of the Black Diaspora continue to be excluded from academic success and success as employee stakeholders in higher education institutions. Critically, Black bodies continue to struggle with entry to higher education and means to economic success post-graduation, as well as lack of inclusivity to the institutional structure as an employee. Thus, the author of this Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) presents a discussion of present-day experiences of Black bodies at Postsecondary MV with the intention of challenging anti-Black racism. Through current research and the author’s lived professional experience, the writer demonstrates that Black bodies are frequently the recipients of physical intimidation on campuses, isolation at work, discriminatory hiring practices that block senior leadership roles, barriers to academic success as a student, and additional exclusionary acts. Further, the author recommends a solution focused on changes to quality assurance and continual improvement policy and procedures to improve equity, diversity and inclusion of stakeholders at an institutional level. This change is led through authentic and adaptive leadership practices, and informed by Lewin’s Theory of Planned Change and Humble Inquiry. The change solution presented offers a pervasive yet manageable method to increased stakeholder accountability, engagement, and action towards the change of an ubiquitous monoculture found in Postsecondary MV. The author acknowledges the highly political and sensitive nature of the topic. Thus, the writer recommends advancing anti-Black racism through established practices across the institution to establish shared ownership for the necessary culture change. With intention, the author of the OIP unveils a pragmatic change solution that is manageable for over-burdened employees in higher education while avoiding tokenistic strategies for equity