Martha A. Gephart

Strategic Leverage Through Learning

We describe our model, Strategic Leverage Through Learning

Leveling Up: How South Side High School Learned to Transform Itself

This chapter tells the story of how leadership at South Side High School transformed the school using a strategy of “leveling up”. Tracking of students by performance was eliminated. Instead, detracked students were taught using a rigorous, honors curriculum. The school reached their strategic goals of numbers of Regents Diplomas and followed that by implementing the International Baccalaureate program. Leaders drove change through data based decision making. Principal Burris worked with teachers and teacher leaders to develop differentiated instruction to meet the needs of all students. This increased levels of collaboration among leaders, teachers, guidance counselors and other professionals that broadened conversations throughout the school. Burris changed management practices as well as recognition and rewards—all of which led to changing the culture to support success for all students, regardless of socio-economic status, race or ethnicity. Detracking precipitated change, but organizational learning drove and sustained innovation aimed at success for all students.

Linking Leadership Development to Strategy at Ericsson

This chapter tells the story of how Ericsson—a high-technology, global telecommunications company—used executive education to support implementation of a new strategy. The chapter focuses on how a common model, language, and set of tools for strategy development—embedded in Ericsson and introduced by a new executive education program developed by the Columbia University Business School, Executive Education—drove organizational learning and developed leaders and networks that could better implement the company’s new strategy. Executive education was leveraged to build internal alignment among leaders, engage their commitment to the new strategy, and put structures, processes, and mechanisms in place to drive the new strategy throughout the company.

Using Strategic Leverage Through Learning © to Address Organizational Challenges

This chapter describes how organizations that have used our model have improved organizational learning and performance in ways that led to substantial gains in achieving their strategic goals. Our model illustrates the value of diagnosis and intervention using a learning approach to change. We describe the different ways that the model and instruments can be used: to guide new interventions, to assess and improve existing interventions, to explore new opportunities, or to extract lessons learned by deepening insights into system dynamics. We discuss ways that organizations can use our model and diagnostic survey tools to assess their system learning and performance, and underlying system dynamics.

CASAWORKS for Families

This chapter describes how inter-agency collaboratives designed and delivered comprehensive, integrated services for substance-abusing welfare mothers as part of a national welfare-to-work demonstration project (CASAWORKS for Families). A new approach to combining treatment and training and delivering such services in community-based settings required organizational learning and capacity building. Implementing the CASAWORKS model successfully was expected to require significant capacity-building and learning for sites in the project. As part of the project we undertook an evaluation of organizational capacity and learning that assessed the extent to which, and the processes through which, sites developed the capacities to design and deliver integrated services for clients. This chapter describes the capacities that sites needed to develop and profiled sites that were successful and unsuccessful in developing the organizational capacity to implement the CASAWORKS model effectively. We report results of research indicating that our measures of organizational capacity and learning predicted client outcomes at successful sites, and we discuss how the sites achieved these outcomes. The fact that differences across sites are often greater than differences due to components of an intervention suggests that organizational capacity and learning may be much more important in all kinds of national demonstration projects than has been recognized.

How Schools Learn to Collaborate and Change Their Cultures by Implementing an Autism Model Program in Inclusive Classrooms

This chapter describes how four schools—that participated in an Autism Model Program—learned to implement an innovative research-based educational model for children who have Autism Spectrum Disorders, a growing challenge for schools. Coordinated action was needed within and across classrooms and grade levels to reach school level visions and goals. The chapter sheds light on the critical role of leadership and collaboration in these programs. Participating schools developed the capacity to learn and share knowledge as systems—within schools, across schools involved in the program, and between the schools and a support network. Participation moved the culture of the schools away from isolation and towards collaboration.

Happy Land Amusement Park

The story of Happy Land Amusement Park in this chapter revolves around the organization’s learning and the changes put in place after each of two fatalities, which made it clear that the Park was not “safe,” as presumed. Safety had been managed by a set of rules that guests and employees were expected to follow, norms that worked as long as everyone followed the rules. When the rules were broken, so was the illusion of safety. Leaders put systems and practices in place during several phases after these fatalities that were based on learning they gained through new talent, outside networks, industry best practices, and experience in other organizations. Each phase built on gains from prior changes. The outcome was a changed climate, increased commitment, and an aligned organization with a strong pervasive safety culture.

Leveraging System Dynamics for Strategic Learning

In this chapter we first summarize the system dynamics for each case, and then use flow diagrams to contrast different patterns of interaction among transformational and transactional dynamics. We then highlight cross-case system dynamics and conclude with a discussion of insights from research and practice. System dynamics in these cases varied, depending on levels of organizational complexity; differences in organizational learning depended in part on what was meant by “organization.” We conclude by highlighting the competitive advantage of our model, namely that effective organizational change requires both productive organizational learning and leveraging system dynamics.

Teams, Communities of Practice, and Knowledge Networks as Locations for Learning Professional Practice

In this chapter, we review research to better understand how teams, communities of practice, and knowledge networks serve as locations for learning professional practice. We focus on the ties and relationships that connect the people who are actually doing the learning. The lines have blurred between individual learning, and the groups and communities people join to collaborate to reach goals and solve problems. Individual motivation, learning, and performance are the starting point; but such learning is often intrinsically connected to social learning, informal, and embedded in unique work contexts. A key question is how do different kinds of work arrangements and relationships lead to not only an overall enhancement of worker competencies and stocks of knowledge but organizational capabilities to produce integrated solutions responsive to evolving problem situations. Our review suggests a focus today on process rather than structure, which implies an inherently dynamic process of forming, renewing, and reshaping collective and reciprocal relationships in ways that respond to shifting needs and problems.