Abstract
The notion of localism and decentralization in national policy has come increasingly to the fore in recent years. The national succession planning strategy for headteachers in England introduced by the National College for School Leadership promoted ‘local solutions for a national challenge’. This article deals with some aspects of the tensions inherent in seeking to achieve large-scale policy goals by taking a localizing approach. The concepts of complex adaptive systems are used as a framework within which to analyse and interpret the design and impact of the strategy. An insight offered is that responses to any strategy or initiative are always local. Some propositions are made about the circumstances in which desired results might be expected to emerge, the distinctive behaviours that may be required of leaders and some reflections on the nature of the succession planning challenge.
Introduction
Localism and de-centralization have become topics of considerable intense interest and discussion since the formation of the coalition government in the UK in May 2010. In December 2010, the new government introduced a Localism Bill with the stated intention of ‘shift(ing) power from central government back into the hands of individuals, communities and councils’ (DCLG, 2010). The previous Labour administration published an empowerment white paper in July 2008 using almost identical language to that of the coalition: ‘Communities in control: real people, real power aims to pass power into the hands of local communities’ (DCLG, 2008). Placing the idea of ‘local’ at the centre of policy debate and implementation crosses the political divide. This localizing agenda also includes the assertion that there will more discretion for local officials and professionals as well as for the local communities they serve (DCLG, 2010). Decentralization accompanies localism in this analysis, thinking that was reflected in the schools white paper of 2010 that emphasized autonomy for schools and creating a school system that ‘is more effectively self improving’ (DfE, 2010: 73).
This article deals with some aspects of the tensions inherent in seeking to achieve large-scale policy goals and change by taking a localizing approach. The succession planning strategy adopted by the National College for School Leadership (National College) to address a looming shortage of headteachers in England (Earley et al., 2002; National College, 2006), sought explicitly to promote ‘local solutions for a national challenge’ (National College, 2006: 1). As such, it provides a practical example of an attempt to reconcile that tension between large-scale goals and local action in the context of the English education system.
The details of the strategy and early evidence of the results are presented and the concepts of complex adaptive systems are used as a framework within which to analyse and interpret the design and impact of the strategy. While complexity theory is now widely discussed, its application in the context of leadership and education is less developed (Morrison, 2010) and there has been relatively little application in relation to large-scale initiatives directed at the whole system in England.
The particular focus of this article is on how a national organization sought to engender local solutions, how effective this was and what insights this might offer into both the nature of the succession planning challenge and to approaches to achieving policy goals and change through local solutions in the English education system. Using ideas about complexity leads to the suggestion that responses to any strategy or initiative are always local. Some propositions are made about the circumstances in which desired results might be expected to emerge and distinctive behaviours that may be required of leaders.
Background and Context
The National College, funded by the UK government Department for Education, was established in 1999 as an organization, separate to government but with a remit to raise the quality and ensure the provision of headteachers to schools in England.
In 2006 it was asked to provide advice to the Secretary of State for Education on how to meet the challenge of succession planning for headteachers in the light of the anticipated wave of retirements. At the time, it was predicted that there would be a peak in 2009 (National College, 2006) part of a perceived international trend as baby boomers began to retire (Hargreaves and Fink, 2005:173).
The nature of the school system in England was clearly an important consideration when formulating a response. The English system is distinctive internationally in that it is highly devolved. Individual schools have more autonomy than in almost any other country in the world in terms of the decisions they make over almost every aspect of the organization (Pont et al., 2008). Crucially, there is no central control over the deployment of teachers or school leaders in contrast to some other education systems internationally including many in Europe (Bush, 2011a, 2011b). The authority to make decisions about individual schools in England rests in the hands of very local players (for example, headteachers and governors). There are also a very diverse range of actors, at different administrative levels, who may influence decisions through a variety of formal and informal governance mechanisms (central government, local authorities, local communities, parents, dioceses, trusts). This situation could fairly be characterized as consisting of ‘multiple actors, multiple perspectives, incommensurable and/ or conflicting interests, important intangibles and key uncertainties’ (Mingers and Rosenhead, 2004: 531), a succinct definition of complexity in the context of a social system.
Reflecting on the implications of this complexity the National College’s advice to the Secretary of State observed, ‘neither central government, nor individual schools could address the challenge satisfactorily ‘(National College, 2006: 1). placing it firmly within the realm of a whole systems problem. The insight that central government was not in a position to resolve this issue alone led to the proposal to develop ‘local solutions to a national challenge’ (National College, 2006: 1, 6).
The National College’s proposed strategy thus suggests a response but also crystallizes the central challenge and apparent paradox that this article seeks to address: How can a national body implement a strategy that asserts local proactive actions and solutions are required, while expecting that national bodies, in this case government departments and the National College, will in some way lead the strategy? The steps the National College took will be set out further, but first we will consider what theoretical concepts may underpin a view of the system that will assist in making sense of the proposal for local solutions.
The discussion in the next section sets out key concepts, briefly reviews some attempts to apply them in other contexts and draws out some principles to apply to an analysis of the succession planning strategy.
Complex Adaptive Systems: a Framework for Understanding the Schools System
In this section, the case will be outlined that the systems we are considering can be thought of as complex adaptive systems. Consequences of this include that direct control is not possible; responses to any initiative will inevitably be local; predicting long-term patterns is inherently unreliable; a key role for those developing policy and seeking to bring about change is to engage with and influence mechanisms, processes and relationships at a very local level. This perspective will offer a way of approaching the critical analysis of the ‘local solutions’ approach adopted by the National College.
The term complex adaptive system has a specific meaning in the physical sciences and the analysis is used to understand and model mathematically everything from weather systems to colonies of ants and bees (Bonabeau, 2002). A significant field has grown up applying the principles to model mathematically social situations in which humans are agents (Epstein et al., 1996; Berry et al., 2002; Epstein, 2006). Transferring such concepts to social situations needs some care and clarity as to how they are being used for instance being applied literally, as analogy or metaphor (Stacey, 2007: 251; Morrison, 2010), a point to which we will return. This discussion will set out some of the key principles of complex adaptive systems, but will use them to focus on the implications for leaders both in national organizations and localities, offering the concepts as a framework within which to interpret and analyse a strategy of ‘local solutions for a national challenge’.
A complex adaptive system is one in which a large population of independent ‘entities’ or agents interact, each following a few simple rules governing their interactions with other entities: none has a ‘global view’ and only reacts to what is happening around them, in other words to local conditions. Regular patterns may appear across the whole population. They emerge but are the result only of the multiple local interactions and not some overarching blueprint. Some of the emergent patterns may impact on the responses of the individual entities as local conditions change. Reynolds (1987) illustrated such a system when he modelled mathematically a population of objects he called boids (a jokey reference to their bird like characteristics). Each individual boid follows a simple set of rules quite independently. In this case, the boids clump or flock together as they follow rules to match speeds, but to maintain a distance apart and move towards where there is most mass. The pattern (flocking) appears, without there being an overall blueprint or plan. The goal of the individual boids is not to flock as a group, merely to obey their own simple rules.
This illustrates some key concepts: first, each independent unit ‘self-organizes’. It follows just three simple rules that involve responding to other units. Second, the pattern emerges in the whole population, but cannot be seen by looking at the individual boids. The pattern emerges without there being an overall blueprint. If the boids were themselves more complex, independent systems that learned and hence changed as they interacted, then there would be scope for different patterns to emerge and for the patterns to change spontaneously (Stacey, 2007: 201). Regular patterns or structures that emerge as the independent systems interact can often become dominant for while, becoming self-reinforcing (Mason, 2008), such stable patterns are referred to as ‘attractors’ – again a concept with a very precise definition when deployed in the physical sciences.
Applying all these ideas to human social systems appears to work well; that independent systems (be they individuals or groups) self-organize and learn (leading to change) as they interact with other systems. This provides a framework within which to understand how large-scale effects can emerge, even though individual elements will be acting autonomously. Thinking in terms of the school system, the actors or agents are leaders and managers in schools and all the other organizations, layers of government and networks around schools. The education system as whole is to be thought of as a complex adaptive system consisting of a tangled web of organizations and relationships. This will include both quite small units (such as an individual school), groups where there are strong direct relationships (such as a local authority), administrative tiers of government and a plethora of looser networks. Individuals, groups and organizations will act separately and autonomously, but in response both to local circumstances and to how they perceive population wide trends and initiatives. Using these concepts as an analytical tool requires there to be identifiable boundaries between organizations that allow for interactions across them. The nature of these interactions, the relationships between organizations, the role of individuals and the factors affecting their actions become central in determining what sort of patterns emerge. Seeing a national body as one of the actors within this adaptive system will, as we will see, allow us to reconcile that apparent paradox between national and local.
Borrowing concepts from a theory with well defined, quantifiable phenomena and seeking to apply them in a new context requires, as we noted previously, some care. It raises questions about how they are being used and to what extent they constitute a theory (Stacey, 2007; Morrison, 2010). A detailed consideration of this philosophical point is beyond the scope of this article. Here we consider briefly two contrasting approaches that arrive at the same essential key practical implications, that no-one can exercise control over the system, reliable long-term predictions are not possible and all initiatives directed at the whole system will evoke local responses.
Stacey (2007), as noted before draws a distinction between applying the principles of complex adaptive systems literally, as an analogy or as a metaphor. He seeks to apply the ideas as a direct analogy (Stacey, 2007: 258) meaning the same relationships as in physical theory hold between agents or elements even though the ‘agents’ are not literally the same. This is quite a restrictive condition, requiring all the ‘rules’ that the entities apply to themselves and the ways in which they might change to be well defined. He suggests there can be no overall designer, that there is no whole system because human activity can only be understood in terms of interactions (we cannot step outside the ‘system’ and apply controls, as we are constantly interacting with others) and proposes a theory as to what might govern those interactions, drawing strongly on psychological theories that take account of the behaviour of groups and unconscious processes. This leads him to a view that strategy is always wholly emergent and can only be fully understood when looking back at patterns that have emerged. He also makes the case for individual organizations themselves being complex adaptive systems to be understood in terms of human interactions (Stacey, 1996).
Using the concepts as metaphor offers, Stacey suggests, poetic insights or a provocative metaphor although less predictive power. Chapman (2004) applies the ideas of complex adaptive systems to the public sector in this sense suggesting they ‘provide a rich source of metaphor in discussing human-activity systems’ (Chapman, 2004: 51), and goes on to use ideas of self-organizing systems (organizations and networks) while thinking in terms of the population and organizations over which policymakers have influence as a whole system whose properties emerge. His argument is that by failing to recognize this, policymakers adopt strategies almost certain to fail because they do not allow for or work with this autonomous self-organizing behaviour.
However different the analysis, when their ideas are worked through and we consider what it might mean for leaders and managers, Chapman and Stacey say remarkably similar things. First, they both point out that whether described as systems or populations, simple control from a higher administrative level (e.g. local authority or central government) is not possible, and long-term patterns cannot be predicted with any certainty. The interactions within and between the myriad of self-organizing systems responding to an intervention may lead to the desired effects but there may also be unanticipated sometimes disproportionately large-scale results (the phrase non-linear is often used).
Taking this view therefore means, first, recognizing that simple control is not possible. Everyone is part of the system and no-one is separate from it able to stand apart, see everything and apply interventions without themselves being affected. Second, the complexity and dynamic nature of the system means that any long-term prediction of emergent patterns are inherently unreliable. Finally, any intervention by a national organization, arguably even when they take the form of statutory duties and regulation, will evoke locally specific responses from the multiplicity of autonomous and self-organizing elements.
Viewing a school system as a complex adaptive system in a district or state has been used to analyse the development of initiatives and projects in Australia (Goldspink, 2010), the USA (Lemke and Sabelli, 2008; Daly et al., 2010), Singapore (Toh and So, 2011) and New Zealand (Eppell et al., 2011). In some, more attention has been paid to the interactions between individuals and organizations (Goldspink 2010, Daly et al. 2010)
All use a key insight that ‘behaviours emerge not only from the elements that constitute a system, but from the myriad connections among them’ (Mason, 2008: 45). In each case, the fact that leaders and staff in individual schools and groups of schools act autonomously is a key element in understanding why whole systems appear resistant to change implemented through strict hierarchical structures or unexpected responses occur and become established.
While some caution is required in moving from description to prescription (Morrison, 2010), it is important to reflect on what approach managers should adopt if the system cannot be controlled or predicted when considering ‘local solutions’ as a response to complexity by strategizers. One response might be to suggest that there is ‘no role for leaders or managers’ and that ‘there is no basis for choice’ (Stacey, 1996: 266). Stacey makes the point that while control may not be possible, that does not mean that individuals and organizations operate without regard to anything else. Each individual, what ever their local or national degree of influence, while acting independently will be constrained by ethical considerations, by the extent to which they are able to gain and maintain support and by their idea of the task they are performing (Stacey, 1996: 274).
This idea provides us with a central concept with which both to formulate and analyse strategies. Designers and implementers of a national strategy that takes this view of the system, can see their focus as being how to influence individual and organizational perceptions of the task and the ethics and values to which it appeals (Stacey, 2007; Goldspink, 2010). A key lesson from other reform attempts is that this needs to be done locally (Lemke and Sabelli, 2008). This provides both the link between a national initiative and local action and an indication of how efforts to achieve the desired responses might be directed.
In summary, the education system comprises a large number of individual schools and educational settings as well as the range of other organizations indicated previously. These constitute a complex adaptive system, with each element operating autonomously but constantly interacting. The actions of individuals, wherever they are, are shaped by their work context or the task at hand; by their ethics and values, and for leaders by the support they can sustain and the resources available. Writing, research and theorizing that illuminates the way individuals and organizations work and interact, can be placed within this framework of self-organizing autonomous elements. Such thinking describes, explains and potentially anticipates the actions and interactions taking place that lead to the wider trends that emerge. This can help inform a strategy seeking to influence them. Nevertheless, given the multiplicity of interactions, feedback routes and external influences (not the least economic and political), trends in the whole population such as student outcomes or the supply of headteachers, remain inherently unpredictable.
Finally, if the inevitability of local responses to a national initiative is accepted, then the design of a strategy becomes a question of how to engage with and influence the mechanisms, processes and relationships at that local level. Following Stacey as discussed above, the suggestion is that this involves influencing individual and organizational perceptions of the task at hand and the ethics and values to which it appeals. The choice for a national body is whether or not to recognize and work with local responses.
When considering how to achieve this, Chapman (2004) suggests drawing up policies that identify desired outcomes or directions of change and that allocate resources without prescribing means. The implications for individuals he suggests is that they will need to be able to work with stakeholders, listen and learn with the priority being overall improvement. Stacey, focusing on the interactions between people and within and between organizations stresses the sort of competencies that might be required like being able to facilitate conversations and discussion that illuminate what is happening and to recognize and articulate emerging effects and patterns.
A strategy designed with these perspectives in mind will need to consider how and by whom goals are set and resources allocated and how and by whom interactions are encouraged and facilitated. These considerations point to a focus on the local, precisely the place where intentions become actions whether expected or unanticipated.
We now turn to the specific case of the strategy for Succession Planning for Headteachers by the National College. This will show the place of local solutions in the strategy before considering how the approach can be understood using the concepts outlined above.
The Case: Succession Planning for Headteachers, a National Strategy
Currently in England, two-thirds of headteachers in state maintained schools are aged over 50. Of these, half are over 55. Over the next few years it is anticipated that in up to one-third of all schools, the headteacher will retire (National College, 2006). As noted above in the introduction, analysis of trends in 2006 suggested there would be a sharp peak in retirements around 2009 (see Figure 1), which coupled with a potential shortage of suitable candidates for headship meant there was potential for large numbers of schools being without a substantive headteacher (Earley et al., 2002; National College, 2006).
Age profile of school leaders and predictions of numbers retiring.
This case is a mainly descriptive account of the steps taken by the National College to develop and implement a national succession planning strategy for headteachers whose aims were to ensure a enough headteachers in the right places of excellent quality (Bush, 2011a) for schools in England.
The details, reports of progress and accompanying data are taken from published documents available on the college’s website (advice to the secretary of state, remit letters, annual reports) and key findings from the final programme evaluation (Bush, 2011a) Also presented are some brief unpublished illustrative accounts of local responses written by consultants involved in the strategy, using evidence collected by them through discussions and written feedback from local leaders engaged by the work. Some of the data collected and collated to track trends is then discussed in order to consider to what extent it is possible to make a judgement about the effectiveness of the strategy.
The Main Activities
The National College, was given a remit and funding by the Department for Education to implement a national strategy whose aim was to ensure there were sufficient headteachers (National College, 2007b). A team within the college at national level was established and 23 specialist national succession consultants (NSCs) were recruited to work, covering all areas of the country. The approach taken was to offer to all local authorities (LAs) a grant to find ways of addressing the situation in that locality, a condition of which was to develop a local plan with the support of the NSC employed by the college. An early milestone was to sign a partnership agreement with all LAs in England (National College, 2008). In the early phases of the strategy, local meant working directly with an officer in a local authority, often one who already had a responsibility for professional development and leadership development in schools. A ‘framework for action’ that offered general guidance was written, commissioned by the College’s central team (National College, 2007a). The development of specific initiatives and a local plan was the role of the local officers and depended on local circumstances, what was already happening and the priorities that they identified. The team of NSCs worked by supporting leadership development programmes, being a ‘critical friend’, attending meetings offered advice and supporting strategic development of local plans (Bush, 2011a:189). The plans were reviewed on a regular basis. As the strategy continued, the National College documented plans and practices that emerged and shared them through meetings, conferences and its own website (http://www.nationalcollege.org.uk/successionplanning, accessed 21 June 2011).
Alongside these locally developed responses there have been a number of other projects coordinated nationally to address specific issues (for example, working with leaders qualified for headship who had yet to secure a position, targeted courses aimed at increasing the diversity of applicants for headship, national publicity campaigns). In later years of the strategy, a small fund was established in each region across England. Bids were invited and grants distributed for work that met some identified priorities. A range of groups, not just LAs and diocese, submitted bids.
The College’s central team have also collected and analysed fresh data on rates of retirement, the number of posts advertised, the ease with which schools are recruiting heads and the attitudes and aspirations of others in the workforce who might be expected to progress to headship in the future. Data is used from a mixture of new surveys, for example, the headship index (National College, 2009) as well as existing data collected and held by national bodies like the Department for Education on rates of retirement and the surveys of John Howson (Howson and Sprigade, 2011). These data have provided a means of tracking whether the situation is improving as well as attempting to analyse and interpret patterns emerging in the population of schools leaders. It is this that has determined some of the priorities for the grants distributed through regional funds, as it has become clear that difficulties in recruitment are particularly acute in small rural schools, schools of a religious character (for example, voluntary aided and controlled Roman Catholic and Church of England schools) and in special schools (National College, 2008).
As the focus of the strategy was to engender local solutions, two examples of local work are presented here, not as a rigorous study on the effectiveness of the strategy, but to illustrate the sort of local response there was, the actions of local authority officers, headteachers and interactions with NSCs. The accounts were reported by NSCs drawing on their own involvement, conversations with the LA officers, participants and from written feedback by participants in programmes. The types of activity described here were found to be widespread by the programme evaluation with 9 of 12 local authorities case studied having introduced arrangements for leadership development, often targeted on staff with significant potential and accompanied by mentoring (Bush, 2011a:188). The accounts also illustrate some of the practical ways in which the national organization, the National College, interacted with the local.
In one large county council in the east of England, the team of LA officers took the decision to ask an experienced and respected headteacher to begin to develop some courses that would prepare mid-career managers for more senior leadership roles and ultimately headship, branding the series of related courses their leadership academy. The sort of experiences offered were internships, secondments, mentoring support for the process of applying for more senior roles and sometimes more specific training inputs on aspects of leading schools such as leading teaching and learning or managing finance. It was funded mainly by schools who committed some of their own budget to support the development and delivery of the offer. A significant proportion of those on the courses were rapidly gaining promotion and citing the course as an important factor: ‘Leadership Academy provided a fantastic opportunity to learn from Head teachers who have made significant impacts throughout their careers. It also painted a clear picture of the key challenges that face heads and how they can be tackle … (it) has inspired me to consider applying for headship in the future’ (National College, unpublished case study 1).
A challenge acknowledged by the LA officers for this particular initiative was to continue to find resources to support it and to persuade the individual governing bodies of schools that they should support a provision that was developing leaders for many schools and not just their own institution.
A second example was on a much smaller scale. In one area of a LA a group of schools belonged to an existing partnership that had previously received substantial funding through a central government initiative. This meant there were existing relationships between the schools and a formalized partnership arrangement. In this case, the NSC helped the partnership’s members and the LA identify funds to support a programme of internships between the schools in the partnership with the purpose of preparing and motivating potential applicants for more senior roles. Potential leaders from one school spent time in another with a senior leader from their host school coaching them and discussing their reflections and observations. This was after the local partnership had identified a potential lack of emerging leaders and headship applicants in the near future. Participants said ‘I wanted the opportunity to discover whether I was ready for headship’ and ‘I wanted time to reflect on the work I do in my current school and investigate which skills I have which are transferable’ (National College, unpublished case study 2).
Considering the Data
The college has tracked and published projections of the number of headteachers retiring since the original predictions of school leader retirements from 2006 shown in Figure 1, retirement rates being an important contributor to the need to recruit headteachers. The 2006 figures predicted a sharp peak in retirements in 2009: this is not wholly reflected in the revised predictions shown in Figure 2. The sharp peak is not seen although a steadily rising trend is. Even this revised prediction overestimated significantly the actual number of retirements of 1048 in 2009 (DfE, unpublished data).
Prediction of headteacher retirements.
A number of explanations could be offered for this discrepancy ranging from differences in the assumptions underlying the different quantitative analysis to changes in the expected behaviour of the headteachers themselves.
This reinforces the notion noted earlier in relation to complex systems, that it is not possible to predict with precision over anything but the short term: longer term forecasts may prove to be wildly inaccurate and impacted on by unforeseen events. This is partly because of the imponderables and unknowns within the data itself, but also because the schools system is not isolated from the rest of society. Bigger economic, political and social trends will impact individuals, shape their motivations and influence the way they see their task. Since 2006, for example, the world economy has changed radically and there has been a change of government in England.
Another important trend monitored has been overall number of vacancies for headteachers. John Howson has been monitoring vacancies in the schools workforce for over twenty years and the recent report (Howson and Sprigade, 2011) shows the number of headteacher vacancies have not risen significantly since 2006 despite the increasing numbers of retirements. Figure 3 shows the trend for secondary schools. In primary schools there has been a slight rise.
Numbers of newly advertised headship vacancies: trend over time. Source: Howson and Sprigade (2011).
This trend, together with a rising trend in the stated intention of younger members of the schools work force to seek headship (National College, 2009) has been encouraging news to the National College and interpreted as evidence of the success of the strategy. However, the numbers of vacancies that were advertised more than once (taken as a proxy for how difficult it was to recruit), has risen in 2010 (Howson and Sprigade, 2011) particularly in the primary sector.
These patterns are the consequence of the separate decisions and actions of thousands of individual schools leaders and their schools’ governing bodies: they have emerged. There is no information in the data itself to reveal what has given rise to the patterns, but the myriad of local circumstances is certainly dynamic. For example, the academies programme under the previous Labour government had resulted by May 2010 in the opening of 203 new secondary schools with the corresponding closure of a not necessarily equal number of predecessor schools (Bolton, 2010). At the same time there was a growing trend, though not yet large scale, to federate some schools under a single executive headteacher. These particular examples may not necessarily impact significantly on the type of annual figures quoted, but they illustrate some of the range of circumstances that will lie underneath a single figure. As a consequence, the extent to which these data have been influenced by the succession strategy is very difficult to establish, making the judgment of success or not contestable. Nevertheless, the data is currently following a trend overall that the designers of the strategy would want to see.
These kind of trends taken with evidence from case studies, interviews and surveys led the programme evaluation to conclude that the strategy had achieved a large measure of success (Bush, 2011), remaining challenges and future uncertainty notwithstanding.
This account of the strategy has highlighted the main elements. There were some actions taken by the college’s team itself; publicity campaigns, targeted programmes for specific groups, collection and analysis of data, commissioning of some materials, maintenance of a website. The centrepiece, the local solutions approach, was encouraging the development of local plans. This was done through the work of the expert consultants (NSCs), supported by the nationally co-ordinated actions. Some of the results were illustrated above by the two brief examples of local work. The incentive of the grants accompanied by a partnership agreement, first, to LAs and also through a bidding process within in each region, was a significant element of the approach. The collection of data, locally and nationally allowed for the possibility of tracking emerging trends.
Discussion
In the second section of this article it was argued that the education system, comprising of a large number of individual schools and educational settings as well as the range of other organizations indicated previously, constitutes a complex adaptive system with each element operating autonomously but constantly interacting. The actions of individuals wherever they are, are shaped by their work context or the task at hand, by their ethics and values and for leaders, by the support they can sustain and the resources available. Designing a strategy becomes a question of articulating goals and finding a means to engage with and influence the mechanisms, processes and relationships at a local level, shaping the way leaders see their task amid this complex and shifting set of relationships and influences.
The case outlined in the previous sections refers to a wide range of organizations and groups: individual schools and headteachers; local partnerships; LAs; diocese; national agencies. These all operate with a high degree of autonomy (Pont et al., 2008). This key feature makes the adaptive system a relevant framework to use.
Rather than a simple hierarchy, the relationships between these organizations and groups and the means of communication and influence, even for formal administrative tiers of government, are more like networks, better characterized as networked governance (Jones et al. 1997, Hayden and Benington, 2000; Stoker, 2006) recognizing the multiple accountabilities and variety of formal and informal processes influencing the actions of professionals. This fits well within the perspective of complex adaptive systems, offering in this context of public services a way of describing the different relationships between some of those autonomous but related elements that increasingly include independent groups of schools and sponsoring organizations (Hill et al., 2012).
The design of the National College’s Succession Planning strategy explicitly recognized the limits of the control and influence a national body can exert. In this complex network of autonomous but interrelated organizations, the strategy sought to influence and deliberately provoke local responses. The decision was to recognize and work with them. Local Solutions for the National College means ‘helping leaders respond to their specific circumstances’ (National College, 2010: 4). The goals were clearly articulated: enough leaders of the right quality in the right places. The sorts of local actions noted earlier were the key elements of the strategy. The external evaluation noted that alongside the incentive of small grants, there was considerable evidence that the NSCs played a vital role in engendering those local responses (Bush, 2011a: 189). The framework of complex adaptive systems gives a very clear theoretical rationale for approaching the design of the strategy in this way. There is a conscious recognition of the nature of an adaptive system. The attempt to influence and shape the local responses is likely to be one of the key factors in determining the emerging trends described in the case study.
This does suggest a question however. What is it that makes these local responses local solutions? The approach outlined in the previous sections has a strong national dimension to this attempt to engender local activity. Local solutions, in the context of this strategy, has been used to refer to the response of an LA or a smaller partnership of schools to the challenge of succession planning for headteachers. Local solutions then is a term used from the perspective of the designers of the strategy to describe the response of leaders in localities. Inviting solutions suggests that the problem is reasonably well defined and understood. For the response to be a ‘local solution’, however, it depends critically on the problem being recognized and understood. If the national challenge is not clearly articulated or widely accepted it seems more likely that local responses will be directed at a multiplicity of locally defined problems. It would be hard to talk about a single national challenge in these circumstances. There would be a ‘local problems’ response. A challenge would be formulated and responded to locally, but not necessarily the one in the minds of the designers of the strategy.
In the case of succession planning, there does seem to be widely recognized characterization of the problem and, in broad terms, some of the ways to address it. As noted earlier, for example, leadership development activities became a common part of local strategies. So a key role at the local level was to engender ‘congruence to the principles and values informing the change’ (Goldspink, 2007: 43). It seems probable that the role of the NSCs was a vital element of this, helping to develop a widespread understanding and agreement of the nature of the problem reinforced by publications and information organized by a central, national team. Over time, local leaders in including headteachers also played this role (Bush, 2011a).
This suggests something about the circumstances in which the idea of local solutions might be effective and also something about the nature of the succession planning challenge.
First, thinking about local solutions, the essential point is that if the nature of the problem is widely understood, seen as relevant to the key tasks of leaders and their organizations, then it is plausible to talk of local solutions. If this is not the case, then it is more likely that the inevitable local responses to an initiative will generate a variety of local problems. Local solutions then are local responses directed at achieving widely shared common goals. The means of achieving them will be very contextually specific, but there will be alignment of local leaders’ and organizations’ principles and values.
If this congruity between the national initiative and localized action is achieved, it suggests that while direct control and certainty are not possible, actions taken by a national or strategic organization, acting in a co-ordinated way at a number of levels, can influence complex systems and make particular patterns of behaviour more likely; a pattern is established and its stability makes its likely to increase and persist (Mason, 2008). There are clear signs that this has happened even in an environment in which there is rapid organizational change.
The structure of the school system in England has undergone just such a rapid change recently with the emergence of many new and often novel partnerships, federations and strikingly, chains of academies managed by a single central organization or sponsor (Hill et al., 2012). Thinking in terms of complexity and self-organization, there is a potential ‘snowball effect’, this is an attractor. The relevance here is that Hill et al. report a very focused approach to succession planning in these new structures (Hill et al., 2012: 59). The strong alignment of values and principles persists even in these new forms.
Reflecting on succession planning itself, there is striking agreement and similarity in the responses to it in different settings, note again for example the widespread use of leadership development activities in local strategies (Bush, 2011a). The fact that it has been possible for such a general understanding and approach to succession planning to have developed points potentially to the something in the nature of the problem.
The distinction between tame and wicked problems (Rittel and Webber, 1973) is helpful here. Tame problems are those for which there is a clear formulation, well understood and transferable solutions. Wicked problems are complex. The way the problem is described may depend on context and imply different solutions, often there is no clear stopping point at which the problem could be said to be solved. While successfully developing an appropriate climate for succession planning (Bush, 2011a) may have been an adaptive challenge (Heifetz, 2002), the challenge itself may be more tame (if difficult) than wicked given the wide acceptance of the formulation of the problem and the similarity of responses to it.
Returning to local solutions with this insight, not only does the nature of a problem need to be widely shared and understood, this may be more achievable with relatively tame problems.
Finally, a brief reflection on the two examples of local work described in the case study section suggest some of the roles and behaviours that evoked the local responses inn this strategy. In both examples agreements were brokered, arrangements for courses or support of individuals were made, training or coaching was delivered. LA officers and leaders, headteachers and governors received explanations of why the work was important. This is orchestration (Wallace, 2004; Wallace et al., 2007) perhaps across a whole LA or, on occasion across more than one. Activity was co-ordinated, using resources to encourage activity. Patterns and priorities were identified and explained. In both of the examples of practice above, headteachers were increasingly involved (Bush, 2011a), adopting a leadership role beyond their own school; a system leadership role (Fullan, 2005). In one case the LA supported this and in the other, a local partnership of headteachers.
Conclusion
In this article, the particular focus has been on the actions taken to promote local solutions, a consideration of how effective they were and what insights this might offer into both the nature of the succession planning challenge and to approaches to achieving policy goals and change through local solutions in England, using complex adaptive systems as a framework for analysis.
The analysis suggests that for the desired results to emerge, there needs to be a common and widespread understanding of the problem. It requires, it is suggested, a strategy that influences individual and organizational perceptions of the task at hand and the ethics and values that motivate them – congruence to the principles and values informing the change is sought (Goldspink, 2007: 43). The distinctive point is that local responses are inevitable (with or without congruence of values), but that without a common understanding of the problem, local solutions will become a multiplicity of local problems. Local solutions are local responses directed at achieving widely shared common goals
The impossibility of control and accurate prediction notwithstanding, the experience of the succession planning strategy suggests that there are actions a national body can take to engender this common understanding by working with local processes and networks. It seems clear that there is a leadership role being played in negotiating and orchestrating between and within organizations and networks.
Finally, this work of stimulating local solutions rather than a multiplicity of local problems, while uncertain and challenging, is more readily achievable for problems that can be clearly formulated in a way that is widely agreed, for which it is clear when progress has been made and for which reliable approaches have been developed. Succession planning may well be such a problem. This leaves open the question of what it might mean to develop a local solutions strategy for problems where there is not yet a widely shared and understood formulation.