Ohme's Law of Institutional Change

Herman Ohme

November 1977 Kappan

Not long ago I was asked to speak on the subject of change strategies at a conference devoted to changes needed in conventional grading practices. My audience was composed of teachers, parents, administrators, and school board members. In order to explain why certain change strategies work while others are all but guaranteed to fail, I made the following statement: for emphasis, I brazenly labeled it Ohme's Law of Institutional Change:

The success of a plan does not necessarily depend upon its merit, but rather upon the right combination of leadership, plus client and practitioner involvement.

I then elaborated with examples of what I meant by merit, leadership, client, and practitioner involvement, and I provided some clues for determining the right combination.

As an illustration of "guaranteed failure," I quoted from a recent newspaper account of a superintendent-initiated and school board approved plan for an operational change within the system. The change itself is not the important issue.

A near-unanimous protest was registered Wednesday night by an audience of about 150 at a trustee meeting.... The objection, by staff members and a few parents, was that Superintendent _____, with informal board approval, announced the sweeping change without consulting anyone.... Several speakers asked the board to set aside the superintendents's plan until parents, staff, and students have their say.

I pointed out to my audience that the "sweeping change without consulting anyone" was not initiated by an amateur but by an experienced educator in a high position of leadership. His action raised some very critical questions:

Was his strategy unusual? By no means. It happens all the time. It comes under the heading of expediency, which will be discussed later in this article.

Did the plan have any real merit? Probably. At least the following account several days later in the same newspaper claimed that it did: "While there was some criticism of the [superintendent's] plan itself, most of the critical comments pertained to procedure and timing — or the lack thereof. Some speakers voiced conceptual support for the reorganization plan, but most of them questioned the timing and procedures involved."

Is the problem a lack of literature on the subject? Certainly not. The number of reports on successful and unsuccessful change strategies is practically unlimited. The problem (and the irony) is that the practitioner does not have the time, the access, or the inclination to wade through the journals and monographs that might prove helpful.

I concluded by stressing that Ohme's Law is essentially a capsulated statement of what nearly every piece of literature on the subject of change recommends in some manner or other, after all the excess verbiage is strpped away. I argued that Ohme's Law should be used as a control device, a yardstick, or a guide to screen out the faulty approaches, the "sweeping changes without consulting anyone."

At the wrap-up session on the final day of the conference I was gratified to hear some of the conferees from my groups refer to Ohme's Law when the discussion centered on various strategies for the development of new grading methods. Statements were made such as "That plan won't work because it violates Ohme's Law," as if there were or should be such a law. It prompted the conference chairman to request that I comment on Ohme's Law. I was pleased to do so, and I hope that the following essay, which is an expansion of my remarks that day, will prove useful to Kappan readers.

Analyzing Strategies for Change

As noted, Ohme's Law is not new, startling, or even unusual, but it can be a convenient analytical tool for identifying the soft spots in institutional change strategies wherein one or more of the leadership, client or practitioner components is either omitted entirely or is improperly used.

The following three cases illustrate the types of omission associated with the most common unsuccessful change strategies.

Case No. 1: The Principal's Dilemma

A group of angry parents urges an elementary principal to change what they consider to be an ineffective and outdated reading program. After complaining to the superintendent and his fellow principals, he decides to attend a conference, in the hope that his critics will begin to believe that he is finally doing something.

At the conference he learns about some "very exciting" methods and materials being used elsewhere with great success. He returns home full of enthusiasm. He is convinced that he has the solution to his problem.

He displays the sample materials to his staff and describes the glowing reports of success in other schools where the materials and methods are being used. He is surprised at the lack of response. He offers what he considers strong incentives, but he can't generate any enthusiasm or desire to change what is being done in most of his classrooms.

Critique. The attention he gave to his clients (parents in this case) was simply a response to pressure, and his staff clearly interpreted it as such. His own conviction and commitment came too late. But more important, he completely ignored the consequences of denying the practitioners - those he would have to rely on to do the job - any real ownership or investment in the plan.

He should first have involved his staff in the assessment of need for change in the reading program. The next steps should have been to arrange for key staff persons to attend workshops and conferences, examine methods and materials, and then allow them to present their findings to the total staff. This would develop a broader base of support and participation.

There are various ways to bring about client acceptance: communication through bulletins, evening meetings, and live demonstrations, with parents invited to observe the performances of staff and students.

Success under such circumstances is much more likely.

Case No. 2: Why Reinvent the Wheel?

A program is developed by the staff of a department in one of the high schools in a unified district. A year later it is evaluated and identified as a "model program" by the state department of education, with periodic demonstrations scheduled for other educators throughout the state.

Attempts to install the same program in the other high schools of the district are rejected by the staffs at those schools, although it is clear that their own programs attract fewer enrollees than the model.

Critique. The democratic processes implied in Ohme's Law are much more painstaking and time consuming than the expedient and efficient processes of simply installing what someone else has already developed. The most common rationale for this approach is summed up in the expression, Why reinvent the wheel?

The "reinventing the wheel" objection, which educators love to use under these circumstances, is a confession of ignorance about the change process - associated with a desire to circumvent whatever it is that causes the frustrating and uncomfortable feeling of being inadequate to the task. Copying and installing wheels is one thing; dealing with the intricacies of human behavioral dynamics is something else entirely. Yet it is precisely what institutional change is all about.

Case No. 3: The Centralized Approach

A school board hires an expert to produce a long-range redesign plan for the school district. The project is organized and operated so that all decisions are made by a centralized management team composed of representatives from the community, the professional staff, and some very bright students. The management team oversees a network of committees, task forces, and other types of groups that focuses on the examination of nearly all the components of the school system.

In spite of repeated urging to the contrary, none of the local schools ever becomes a separate planning and decision-making unit charged with identifiying its own unique needs.

As time goes by, the management team publishes a series of reports based upon analysis of reams of data from an unending sequence of surveys. After four years, without a single program or recommendation ever having been piloted or implemented, the director of the project presents a redesign plan to the school board for approval.

The redesign plan catalogues a series of proposed changes, accompanied by the appropriate rationale. The entire document resembles a compilation of the best educational goals, practices, and procedures that can be found in textbooks and current literature.

No part of the redesign plan, however, is ever implemented in any of the schools of the district.

Critique. This case illustrates a commonplace tragedy in education. It happnes at every level - from the U.S. Office of Education to the local school district. It is the "Grandiose Conception": a thing of beauty on paper that is expected to miraculously transform the system. It feeds upon itself without ever producing significant results. The participants are left with the feeling that they were on the threshold of something great. It is the product of a delusion commonly held by educators: the delusion of merit.

In order to understand Ohme's Law and apply it effectively, it is necessary to examine why we believe so devoutly that the obvious merit of a project or Grandiose Conception transcends the most basic developmental imperatives.

Common sense, as well as the desire to do "what's good for kids," has led us to believe that value or merit is a truly intrinsic and absolute quality that relates to the common good of all and consequently needs no other justification for acceptance.

As to the notion of the highest priority being what's good for kids, it has been reinforced in the minds of educators from the first day in the first course in every school of education in the country. A hard look at our educational institutions and the manner in which they are organized strongly suggests, however, that we only give lip service to the idea. "What's good for kids" becomes what's most politically expedient, self-serving, and least likely to disrupt the operational norms of the system.

In Conclusion

Upon first examination, Ohme's Law appears to be a simple statement of what anyone would consider to be common knowledge about the dynamics of institutional change. It is a simple statement; but it's surprising how often the law is violated. Carefully applied, it can enable educators to avoid the frustrations of untenable and unworkable strategies.

Used as a guide, it should raise certain questions: Have we overlooked the clients? Have the practitionaers, the persons who will have to make the plan work, made an investment in the project? Will the leader help solve the problems?

Isn't that enough for one law?

Copyright 2005-2008: Herman Ohme