Leadership and Organization Development at RCDP

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Table of Contents

Change-driving forces
Change-restraining forces
References

One of the most notable aspects of a contemporary living in Saudi Arabia is the fact that, as time goes on; people are being exposed to the exponentially increased amounts of information about what appears to be the discursive essence of the surrounding natural, social and cultural reality.

This situation has been predetermined by the recent breakthroughs in the field of IT – particularly, by the rise of Interment, which is the main driving force behind the process of this planet becoming increasingly ‘flat’, in the allegorical sense of this word (Globalisation).

In its turn, this has a strong effect of the qualitative dynamics within Saudi society – something that is being reflected by the fact that more and more citizens come to realise that there is a strong call for the qualitative reformation of the country’s system of education.

The actual objective, in this respect, is to make it more adjusted to the worldwide discourse of post-modernity, which presupposes that it is essential for people to be able to understand the overall discursive significance of their professional careers.

In plain words, there is the objectively predetermined need for a number of Saudi colleges/universities to be transformed (by the mean of organisational change) from being the places where students acquire knowledge (often socially irrelevant), into the places of helping them to grow wise about the actual ways of the world.

In this paper, I will illustrate how it can be accomplished, in regards to the Riyadh College of Dentistry and Pharmacy (RCDP).

RCDP was founded in 2004. As of today, it offers post-secondary courses (lasting 3 years) in the pharmacy/dentistry-related disciplines, such as dental surgery, dental hygiene, pharmaceutical science, nursing, etc. The number of this College’s students is estimated to account for about a thousand, with the annual number of graduates ranging from 100 to 150 (Rahman, 2011).

Even though RCDP is being commonly referred to as such that does provide high-quality education in the affiliated fields of specialisation, many of its graduates have shown the lack of competence in defining the most effective approaches towards disease-prevention.

According to the Rector Abdullah Al Shammery, “Students must be encouraged to become more adept in preventive dental care than treatment” (Jara-Puyod, 2015, para. 4). This, of course, suggests that RCDP is the legitimate subject of organisational change. The sub-sequential phases of this change (expected to be implemented within the matter of twelve months) are as follows:

The expansion of the College’s curriculum to include the so-called ‘liberal sciences’, such as history, art and politics. In its turn, this will result in elevating the overall rate of the graduates’ intellectual refinement – hence, increasing their value as healthcare professionals.

The elimination of the College’s ‘Ethical Review Committee’ (consisted of individuals with the degrees in theology), which currently assess the ethical appropriateness of field-practices, associated with every particular course. This initiative aims to ensure that graduates would be able to adopt a proper professional stance, within the context of addressing real-life situations.

The establishment of ‘College Council’, as the institution’s main governing body, the members of which will be in the position to partake in the making of executive decisions, concerned with the College’s functioning.

The members of this Council are to be selected (by the College’s owners) out of the most academically successful students and most distinguished educators. The proposed establishment is meant to increase the extent of the RCDP’s functional flexibility, as an educational organisation.

It is understood, of course, that the wished-for organisational change will have a considerable effect on both: professors and students, in the sense of requiring them to adjust to the College’s newly adopted operational philosophy.

Consequently, the likelihood for this change to be successfully implemented, will positively relate to the ability of the change-agents to benefit from understanding what account for the affiliated change-driving and change-restraining forces, which can be outlined as follows:

Change-driving forces

The stakeholders’ (students and professors) understanding of the fact that there are indeed a number of fully objective reasons for RCDP to undergo a qualitative transformation.
The rational realisation of the would-be affected parties that, in the aftermath of having proven themselves capable of coping with the proposed change, the measure of their professional adequacy will reach a new height.
The fact that RCDP enjoys the reputation of having its teachers and students endowed with the sense of corporate loyalty, which in turn presupposes that they would be willing to adapt to the organisational change in question.

Change-restraining forces

The stakeholders’ awareness that, as the integral part of their adjustment to change, they will be required to apply an additional effort into ensuring that they do qualify for being associated with RCDP. This perspective, however, can hardly be considered utterly encouraging – at least, as seen by most students and teachers.

The fact that the proposed change does not quite correlate with the main principle of educational philosophy in Saudi Arabia – the requirement for the deployment of just about any educational strategy in colleges and universities to be assessed from the theological perspective. This, of course, will cause some of the would-be affected professors and students to resist the proposed organisational restructuring.

The above-mentioned implies that the most appropriate approach towards ensuring that RCDP does succeed in adopting the suggested principle of functioning would be concerned with increasing the discursive relevance of change-driving forces, on the one hand, and reducing the acuteness of the change-restraining ones, on the other. The main methodological guidelines, as to how this can be accomplished, are as follows:

Holding informal conversations with professors and students about the sheer importance of the intended change, which in turn should help them to grow emotionally comfortable with the change-imposed requirements.
Encouraging students to reflect (in either written or verbal form) on what they believe should be the change’s career-boosting implications.
Educating participants that it is in their best interest to adapt to the proposed change, as the main precondition for them to be able to remain on the path of attaining a social prominence.

Thus, it will be fully appropriate to define the suggested strategy for implementing change, as such that is being concerned with facilitation/support, on the one hand, and negotiation/agreement, on the other.

The conceptual essence of this strategy is predetermined by the actual premise behind the functioning of the places of post-secondary learning – while in the process of designing educational strategies (teachers) and coping with their academic assignments (students), the College’s affiliates proceed with doing it in the largely autonomous manner.

What it means is that it would be utterly inappropriate to apply any coercive action, as the mean of inducing change.

My change-related proposal draws heavily from Lewin’s theory of what accounts for a proper strategy to induce the organisation’s functional restructuring.

The theory’s central provision is concerned with the assumption that the functioning of just about any organisation is highly systemic, which in turn implies that it would be wrong to think that this organisation’s overall quality is summative of the qualities of its integral elements (Rosch, 2002).

The reason for this is that the factor of the mentioned change-facilitating and change-restraining forces never ceases to affect the structural integrity of such an organisation – hence, justifying the soundness of the ‘dynamic’ outlook on change.

What it means is that it is specifically the change-agents’ aptness in convincing the would-be affected individuals to be willing to adapt to change, which should be deemed the main prerequisite for the planned action to prove effective.

According to Kritsonis (2004), the key to success, in this respect, is, “Persuading (change-participants)… to agree that the status quo is not beneficial to them and encouraging them to view the problem from a fresh perspective” (p. 2).

The adoption of Lewin’s theory of change, as such that provides us with the circumstantially adequate methodological framework for tackling the subject matter in question, correlates perfectly well with the post-modern outlook on quality in education.

As Alnaweigah (2013) noted, “The education quality is a series of communications with customers (students), with a view to providing them with knowledge, skills and attitudes that enable them to meet organizations’ expectations” (p. 56).

Because the proposed change-approach emphasises the importance of providing teachers and students with both: the emotionally-charged and rationale-based incentives to adapt to change, it can also be discussed within the discursive framework of the ‘symbolic-interpretative’ conceptualisation of organisational change, as the instrument of bringing the would-be affected organisation to a new operational level.

According to Hatch (2013), “Symbolic theorists see (organisational) structures as human creations, they are dynamic works-in-progress that emerge from social interaction and collective meaning-making” (p. 113).

This, of course, presupposes that instead of being defined in terms of a rigidly defined structure, just about any modern organisation should be perceived as a continually evolving ‘organism’ – especially if it is concerned with the matters of education. The reason for this is that such an organisation is especially sensitive towards the philosophical implications of the currently prevalent socio-cultural discourse.

The proposed organisational change also implies that, in order to be successful, it must be sustainable, in the sense of never ceasing to appeal to the potentially affected stakeholders. Consequently, this presupposes that, in order to implement it, its agents will be required to convince the former that the intended restructuring is indeed objectively predetermined.

In its turn, this can only be achieved if the change-agents choose in favour of the circumstantially sound leadership-model. In light of what has been said earlier, it is specifically the Transformational model of leadership, which appears to be most consistent with the proposed change’s actual goal.

This model is based upon the assumption that the main precondition for a particular organisation to remain functionally effective is the sense of a corporate solidarity, experienced by this organization’s affiliates, regardless of what happened to be their hierarchical status within it (Weiss, 2011).

The model’s another essential provision is that, in order for the agent of change to be able to ensure the stakeholders’ compliance, he or she would have to convince them that their change-related cooperation will help them to achieve the state of self-actualisation (Pedler, Burgoyne & Boydell, 2010).

This once again confirms the legitimacy of the suggested change-plan, as such that depends on the change-agents’ ability to win conscious support of students and teachers at RCDP.

The appropriateness of the proposed plan for reforming RCDP can also be illustrated, in regards other theoretical considerations, which clearly apply in our case. One of them has to do with the fact that the realities of post-modern (Globalised) living presuppose that, while in the process of designing its educational policies, a particular college or university must remain one step ahead of the currently predominant social discourse.

This idea correlates with Leithwood’s (2008) suggestion that, within the realm of education, the ‘next’ (consistent with the ways of the future) practices represent a higher value, as compared to the ‘best’ (as seen by their contemporaries) ones.

The reason for this is that, as it was implied earlier, in the near future the actual worth of a highly trained professional will not only be assessed, in regards to the extent of his or her de facto professionalism, but also in regards to the measure of the concerned individual’s ‘quick-mindedness’.

What it means is that, along with studying the dentistry-related and pharmacology-related disciplines, students must also learn how to relate their would-be acquired technical knowledge to the humanity’s overall historical legacy – hence, making them emotionally comfortable with the idea that in the field of their specialisation, ‘prevention’ is just as important as ‘treatment’.

What also justifies the proposed organisational change is that its format is consistent with the idea that the key to ensuring the successfulness of such a change, is making it thoroughly participative. This, however, can only be achieved if throughout the process’s entirety, the affected stakeholders are being kept fully informed, as to the actual reason why the organisation’s restructuring needed to be undertaken, in the first place.

As Self and Schraeder (2009) pointed out, “Management must provide evidence that the current ways are no longer acceptable or appropriate if the organization is to remain successful or regain success” (p. 171).

What makes the adoption of my change-plan especially appropriate, in this respect, is that the sub-sequential phases of its practical implementation are highly interactive, which in turn will ensure the integrity of the informational transactions between the agents of change, on the one hand, and the potentially affected second and third parties, on the other (Syed, Azhar & Shahid, 2013).

Essentially the same line of argumentation can be applied, when it comes to justifying the establishment of ‘College Council’, as the crucially important phase of the proposed organisational change. After all, one of its primary functions will be concerned with providing teachers and students with the opportunity to socialise informally, which in turn will allow it to act as the mediating body between the former and the latter.

Given the fact that, as it was implied earlier, communication is the actual ‘force’ that binds the organisation’s structural elements together, there can be only a few doubts that RCDP will indeed benefit from the institutionalisation of ‘College Council’.

One of the reasons for this is quite apparent – the adoption of the mentioned initiative should result in inducing the state of mutual understanding between teachers and students, which will have a positive effect on the measure of the College’s systemic resilience.

This simply could not be otherwise, because as Branson (2007) noted, “The currently acknowledged widespread resistance to organisational change is caused by a failure of current organisational change strategies to attend to a values alignment process for all those people affected by the desired change” (p. 376).

There is, however, even more to it – the uninterrupted functioning of this semi-legislative body within the College, will create the objective preconditions for RCDP to become ever more competitive, as an educational organisation. There are two objective reasons for this to be the case.

First – the initiative’s implementation will pave the way for teachers to be prompted to act as ‘participative’/Transformational leaders (who are willing to take into consideration the feedback from their followers), within the context of how they would go about designing a particular educational policy.

This, in turn, will necessarily result in making RCDP a ‘change-friendly’ organisation – something that may only have a strong beneficial effect on the College’s ability to be perceived as a thoroughly legitimate academic establishment in the future.

Second – the founding of ‘College Council’ will set RCDP on the path of becoming a ‘proactive’ (rather than merely ‘reactive’) educational organisation, which should come in particularly handy through the times of economic instability.

I believe that the provided line of argumentation, as to what are the main indications that the proposed plan for organisational change at RCDP is indeed discursively appropriate, correlates well with the initially outlined rationale for this change to take place.

References

Alnaweigah, A. (2013). Total quality management role in organizational change and development – case study: Taif University. International Journal of Business Administration, 4 (4), 55-67.

Branson, C. M. (2008). Achieving organisational change through values alignment. Journal of Educational Administration, 46 (3), 376-395.

Jara-Puyod, M. (2015). Curriculum in Arab dental colleges needs overhaul, says specialist. Retrieved from https://www.gulftoday.ae/

Kritsonis, A. (2004). Comparison of change theories. International Journal of Scholarly Academic Diversity, 8 (1), 1-7.

Leithwood, K. (2008). Should educational leadership focus on best practices or next practices? Journal of Educational Change, 9 (1), 71-75.

Rahman, G. (2011). Use of computers among students of dental college in Saudi Arabia. Journal of Education & Ethics In Dentistry, 1 (1), 12-17.

Rosch, E. (2002). Lewin’s field theory as situated action in organizational change. Organization Development Journal, 20 (2), 8-14.

Self, D. & Schraeder, M. (2009). Enhancing the success of organizational change. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 30 (2), 167-182.

Syed, S., Azhar, S. & Shahid, M. (2013). Strategic orientations and organisational types: A theoretical link. Journal of Organisation and Human Behaviour, 2 (3), 17-31.

Weiss, J. (2011). An introduction to leadership. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

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Leadership and Organization Development at RCDP

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