Design the Conditions- How Great Leaders Make Improvement Easier
- Chad Ransom
- Jul 12
- 4 min read
Sustainable improvement happens when leaders design systems that make the right work easier to do.
When school leaders think about improvement, they often focus on helping people implement new initiatives.
They work to build buy-in. They provide training. They establish accountability. They monitor progress.
Those things matter.
But they often overlook a more fundamental question.
Have we designed a system that actually makes success possible?
Good leaders work hard to support implementation. Great leaders recognize that implementation is rarely just a people problem, more often, it is a systems problem. One of the secrets of a change agent is understanding that lasting improvement doesn't happen by simply managing implementation. It happens by intentionally designing the conditions that allow implementation to succeed.
Design Is the Final Leadership Work
Throughout this series, we've been preparing for this point.
Now comes the final step:
Redesign the organization.
Because even the strongest leaders eventually discover the same reality.
People can only succeed consistently inside systems that support success.
Systems Either Accelerate Improvement—or Quietly Fight It
This is one of the biggest lessons I learned both as a principal and through my dissertation research.
Leaders often spend enormous energy encouraging people to do something their systems quietly make difficult.
Consider examples like these:
We want collaborative PLCs, but teachers have no common planning time.
We want instructional coaching, but coaches spend most of their time covering classes.
We want stronger Tier I instruction, but intervention schedules constantly interrupt core instruction.
We want principals in classrooms, but meeting schedules keep them behind a desk.
None of these are motivation problems. They are design problems. People are often working hard. The system is simply working against them.
Remove Friction Before Adding More
The first job of redesign is not adding something new. It is removing barriers. This is where the work from the beginning of this series becomes invaluable. The problems staff surfaced before summer become important clues about where the system is creating unnecessary friction.
Questions worth asking include:
What structures consistently frustrate implementation?
Where do our schedules conflict with our priorities?
Which meetings create little value?
Where are people working harder because the system is poorly designed?
What barriers do teachers repeatedly identify?
Sometimes improvement doesn't require another initiative. Sometimes it requires removing the obstacles preventing current initiatives from succeeding.
Great leaders continually ask one simple question:
What is making good work unnecessarily difficult?
Build the Conditions for Success
Removing barriers creates alignment, but alignment alone is not enough. Great leaders also build the conditions that allow improvement to flourish. This is proactive systems thinking.
Instead of asking, "What do I want teachers to do?" they ask, "What conditions would make that easier?"
That may include creating structures like:
Time
Common planning periods
Protected intervention blocks
Dedicated coaching time
Learning Structures
Coaching cycles
PLC protocols
Classroom walkthrough routines
Collaborative planning
Communication Systems
Regular feedback loops
Staff celebrations
Clear implementation expectations
Storytelling routines
Leadership Structures
Teacher leadership teams
Data review cycles
Decision-making protocols
Cross-building collaboration
These structures do not guarantee success.
But they dramatically increase the likelihood of it.
The Research Behind Systems Thinking
One of the strongest findings from my dissertation was that highly effective principals were constantly engaged in proactive problem-solving. They weren't simply reacting to issues as they appeared. They were thinking ahead: anticipating barriers, prioritizing actions, and considering how different parts of the organization influenced one another.
That is systems thinking.
It is also one of the Personal Leadership Resources identified by Kenneth Leithwood as foundational to principal effectiveness.
Perhaps the clearest expression of systems thinking is intentionally designing the conditions that influence everyone else's work.
The question is no longer simply, "What should people do?"
It becomes, "What about our system makes that easier—or harder—to do?"
Summer Is the Design Season
This is why summer matters so much. During the school year, leaders spend most of their time managing the system they inherited. Summer creates one of the few opportunities to intentionally redesign it.
Not all at once.
Not perfectly.
But purposefully.
That redesign begins by removing friction. It continues by building structures that support the work leaders want to see every day.
Why This Matters
Throughout this series, we've explored the leadership work that happens before a new school year begins.
We surfaced problems.
We captured success.
We shared the story.
We reflected.
We recovered.
We redesigned ourselves.
Now we redesign the organization.
Because sustainable improvement is rarely created by asking people to work harder. It is created by designing systems that make great work easier to do. When leaders intentionally design the right conditions, people spend less energy overcoming obstacles and more energy serving students. That is where meaningful, lasting improvement begins.
Reflection Question
What is one barrier in your school that consistently makes good work harder—and what is one condition you could intentionally redesign this summer to better support success?
Comments