Missing Essential Building Blocks

Last week, I referenced using a change chart to help analyze and identify gaps (AKA missing building blocks) in a school or district's planning when it comes to initiating change. As a result of this post, a viewer asked me a thought provoking question: "When you have multiple building blocks missing does that add to the difficulty of moving forward or multiply it exponentially?" I gave it some thought and here is my response.

I think that when many essential building blocks are missing it creates an exponential growth in difficulty.. Usually difficulties build upon each other branching out in several directions to create new micro-problems that if left to fester become larger and create more branches of trouble. And unlike a tree, these branches aren't separate from one another but are linked in complex ways. Eliminating or overcoming one of the hurdles does not always draw you closer to success as you don't always quite know which branch you've managed to overcome. Perhaps you've only squashed a minor problem at the ends of the branch, well that leaves 20 other branches to solve before that. Overcoming something in the middle of the branching doesn't necessarily result in cutting off the rest of that troublesome branch, as it could be linked to another branch somewhere along the line. Also, as you are investing so much time in solving one problem, you might be ignoring or adding to other problems with your current solutions for the previous problem. It's really a balancing act that can only be achieved by first looking at the whole picture at once and seeing the connections between issues.