Rhee Management Paper

Insights from the Switch chapter would have helped Rhee change teacher behavior because Rhee would have understood teachers positions and situations better. Understanding teachers behavior would have lead to more desirable solutions when taken their behavior in consideration. Rhee needed to experiment with the school district to see how she could implement a positive strategy. This would not have been ideal with an anticipated short turn within the length of the Mayors term. However, assuming stakeholders were convinced that school reform was not going to happen overnight. Rhee could have been experimental with her tactics in order to develop a successful long term strategy. For example, she could have ran pilots with different class sizes or incorporated student aids' in classrooms. Perhaps trying experiments on teaching certain subjects at certain times of the day and observe how students progress. Performing these types of experiments may help develop strategies that had not been considered in the past. It may show that certain behavior is subject to different student personalities, therefore, allows for adaptability within the change process.

Motivation

Another consideration is monitoring self-control of teachers. There is a point when the pressure of change will become too physically and mentally exhausting for teachers. As the article states, "what looks like laziness if often exhaustion." Rhee should not resort to immediate termination when teachers performance has dropped or is inadequate. She needs to identify the reasons in drop in performance and understand teachers limitations. Understanding teachers emotional-side allows for better motivational tactics.

Direction

Teachers were resistant to Rhee's tactics. If she had spent more time with teachers providing more clarity and direction in achieving performance improvement, she may have been able to