So far, the series has walked through four steps.
Urgency, which is about telling the truth that the current way of working is stretching staff too far and underserving students in places.
The guiding coalition, which is about gathering a cross-role group of people who are trusted and positioned to lead real decisions.
A clear vision and a focused set of initiatives, which answer the question, what exactly are we trying to build and what big moves will take us there.
And a volunteer army, the wider circle of staff who choose to lean into the work because they see its value and see a role for themselves.
By this point in the sequence, something hopeful is happening.
More people understand why the work matters.
A core group is ready to lead.
The destination is clearer.
Staff in schools and departments are starting to try new routines, pilots, and practices.
And then something else happens.
The system quietly pushes back.
Not always through resistance in the usual sense.
Often through schedules, rules, routines, and habits.
A teacher signs up to test a new MTSS process and then gets pulled into last-minute coverage, extra duties, and a full slate of mandatory meetings.
A counselor agrees to pilot a new Tier 2 support routine and discovers there is no space in the day to see students predictably.
A principal tries to align a building meeting with the new support flow but is required to spend most of that time on a different district priority.
A central office leader wants to simplify a process, but an older approval chain or a legacy rule keeps the process cumbersome.
People are willing.
The path is not.
That is the focus of this episode.
Kotter’s fifth step is enable action by removing obstacles. He describes this step as removing obstacles that slow progress down or create roadblocks, so people can work more nimbly, innovate, and generate impact more quickly.
In school reality, that means clearing the road enough that willing people can act.
It is not mainly about persuading people to care more.
It is about changing time, tools, rules, and routines so the new way of working can actually fit inside the day.
In this moment in public education, that work matters as much as setting the vision.
Because in many districts, staff are not short on commitment.
They are short on workable conditions.
So what does removing obstacles actually mean?
It helps to move away from abstract language and into concrete details because obstacles tend to show up in a few predictable forms.
There are time and schedule challenges.
People are asked to engage in new processes without any protected time. MTSS meetings get squeezed into the last few minutes of another agenda or pushed to after school, when many staff are already drained or have other obligations.
There are process challenges.
Forms are long. Steps are unclear. Multiple people ask for the same information in different formats. Staff are not sure who reads what or what happens next.
There are role challenges.
No one is quite sure who owns which part of the new system. A concern is raised, but it is not clear whether a teacher, counselor, dean, psychologist, or central office staff member is supposed to take the next step.
There are policy and practice challenges.
Codes of conduct, referral rules, and inherited expectations may pull in a different direction than the new vision. Staff believe they are required to respond in one way, even when leaders intend something else.
There are data and technology challenges.
Information that would help guide support is buried in platforms that are hard to navigate, scattered across tools, delayed, or entered in inconsistent ways. Sometimes a small change in a report, a dashboard view, or a shared protocol would remove real friction, but no one has taken it on.
And there are cultural challenges.
People worry they will be blamed if they try something new and it does not go smoothly. They have seen others criticized in the past, so they play it safe.
When these challenges stay in place, even the most compelling urgency and vision cannot move very far.
The good news is that many of these obstacles can be changed.
But the first step is to see them clearly.
In episode 4, the focus was on inviting people into the work.
In episode 5, the focus is on listening closely to those people about what is getting in their way.
At the district level, one of the most powerful moves a guiding coalition can make is to create simple routines for hearing where friction shows up.
That can be as straightforward as asking early adopters a few questions.
When you tried the new MTSS process, where did it feel harder than it needed to be?
What got in your way when you tried to use the new support pathway?
What did you have to work around?
The answers to those questions often surface patterns that leaders cannot see from a distance.
For example, in one district, the coalition asked those questions of a small group of teachers, counselors, school psychologists, and paraprofessionals who had been piloting a new Tier 2 process.
The group met on a video call and shared stories.
One teacher said, I actually like the new team structure, but the meeting happens during a time when I am supposed to be in another committee. I have to choose each week which meeting to attend, and I am not sure which one my principal expects me to prioritize.
A counselor added, the new referral form asks for detailed information, which is fine, but then I still get emails and hallway conversations asking for the same details. It feels like I am sharing information three times.
A psychologist said, we have clarified decision rules for intensive support, but I still have to fill out three separate forms to move a case forward because of an old approval requirement. That adds days, sometimes weeks, to the timeline.
And a para described how a support routine that looked neat on paper became hard to use because no one had adjusted transition coverage or explained who was supposed to communicate changes to the rest of the team.
None of these stories was really about attitude.
They were about design.
The coalition listened and then did something important.
They mapped the actual work.
They drew the current MTSS flow on a whiteboard.
They wrote down each step a teacher took when they had a concern, from first noticing a pattern to having a plan in place.
They wrote down each step a counselor took to respond.
They wrote down each step a psychologist took to initiate a more intensive assessment.
They even mapped how information moved through front office staff and student support staff at one school.
When they looked at the map, they could see the friction.
They saw duplicate steps, unclear hand-offs, technology bottlenecks, and points where the process depended on guesswork.
That led to the next question: what can be changed at the district level, and what can be adjusted at the building level?
One of the most significant challenges was time.
MTSS meetings were being held after school, on an informal schedule, and often canceled when other demands arose. Teachers and support staff wanted to attend but could not do so consistently.
In response, district leadership and the coalition took on the master meeting calendar.
This was not glamorous work. It required tradeoffs.
They looked at the collection of meetings across the year: committees, task forces, department meetings, and mandated presentations.
They asked a simple but difficult question: which of these are most important to our vision, and which can be combined, shortened, moved, or retired?
The answer was not painless.
Some long-standing meetings were shifted.
Others were eliminated.
A few were folded into new structures.
But the outcome was tangible.
Each school received a protected, monthly block during the contract day.
This block was not an add-on.
It replaced something else.
Principals were told clearly: this time is for school-based problem-solving around student support. Use it to run the new process. Other topics can move to different formats.
That one district-level decision removed a major challenge.
Staff no longer had to choose between honoring the MTSS work and honoring everything else.
The system had made space.
At the same time, the coalition looked at process obstacles.
They sat down with the Tier 2 referral form that staff had been using and asked, what does this form absolutely need to collect, and what has been added over time that we can now remove?
With input from teachers, counselors, and one office staff member who handled the intake side, they cut the form to the essentials.
They removed redundant fields that were already captured elsewhere.
They clarified which sections were required and which were optional.
They also clarified the roles.
The form now stated clearly who received it, who was responsible for scheduling a follow-up meeting, who would close the loop with the referring staff member, and where the information would live.
This clarity did not require a new platform or a large contract.
It required attention and a willingness to cut.
On the policy side, the district discovered that an older internal guideline was contributing to delays.
A legacy approval requirement meant that certain support plans had to pass through multiple offices before moving forward. Years earlier, that may have made sense for a different purpose. Now it was slowing access to help.
The coalition brought this issue to central leadership, who reviewed the rule.
After discussion, they revised it.
In some cases, they removed the extra approval entirely.
In others, they replaced it with a lighter internal check that could happen within the school.
The message was simple: we trust people closer to the work to make many of these decisions.
That policy shift signaled that the system was willing to change its own habits, not just ask staff to change theirs.
Cultural obstacles require a different kind of leadership.
In several buildings, staff were hesitant to try alternatives to removal-based responses, even though the district had made it clear that reducing those responses was a priority.
In private conversations, staff explained why.
They worried that if a student’s behavior escalated after trying a different approach, they would be blamed for not using the stronger response earlier.
They remembered times when colleagues had been criticized for decisions made under pressure.
Addressing this obstacle required more than an email.
District and building leaders began to speak more plainly about the range of acceptable responses.
They clarified, in writing and in meetings, where staff had discretion to choose among options and where certain steps were required.
They made it clear that using non-separation options aligned with district direction, rather than cutting against it.
They also did something visible.
When staff tried new approaches in line with the vision and hit bumps, leaders backed them publicly.
In one building, a teacher piloted a new support block as an alternative to removal for a small group of students with recurring concerns.
The first few weeks were rough.
There were disruptions and setbacks.
Instead of quietly judging the effort, the principal met with the teacher, the counselor, the para supporting the group, and the coalition representative who had helped design the block.
They discussed what was working and what was not.
They adjusted the schedule and support.
In a staff meeting, the principal spoke about the pilot.
They did not gloss over the difficulty.
They said, we are trying something new here. It is bumpy, and that is normal. I want you to know that when people step into this kind of work in line with our vision, they have my support, even when we need to adjust.
That sentence did more than any slide deck could have done.
It told staff that the system would not punish them for trying.
It removed an obstacle that was as much about fear as it was about policy.
At the district level, enabling action is not a one-time cleanup project.
It is an ongoing leadership discipline.
The coalition and central office can build it into their routines.
Every time they review progress on the initiatives, they can ask two questions.
Where did people run into walls?
And what can we change, at our level or at the building level, to lower those walls?
They can invite building leaders to share one obstacle they removed each quarter, along with one obstacle they still need district help with.
They can signal that noticing and fixing friction is part of the work, not a distraction from it.
There are mistakes to avoid here.
One is focusing on attitude instead of structure.
When staff struggle to engage in the new work, it can be tempting to default to messages about mindset, commitment, or resilience. Those may matter in some situations, but they do not move a meeting on the calendar or shorten a form.
Another mistake is announcing empowerment without changing anything.
Leaders may say, you have permission to innovate, while keeping all the approvals, sign-offs, and routines exactly the same. Staff notice the gap between the words and the conditions.
A third mistake is replacing one complex process with another.
In an effort to improve, some systems design new procedures that are even more elaborate than the old ones. If it takes a long training to explain the process every time, it may still be too complex.
A fourth mistake is ignoring impartiality in obstacle removal.
If changes make the work easier in some schools or roles but leave others with the same obstacles, frustration will grow. A district has to pay attention to where friction is concentrated, not only where it is easiest to solve.
And a final mistake is treating obstacle removal as a summer task rather than an ongoing discipline.
Leaders may do one process review and assume the path is clear. But as the work unfolds, new obstacles appear and old ones resurface. The habit of asking what is getting in the way, and then acting on the answer, has to continue.
That is part of why this step sits where it does in the sequence.
Urgency helped people see why the current pattern could not continue.
The guiding coalition gathered a core group to lead the work.
The vision and initiatives gave direction.
The volunteer army brought more people into the effort.
Now those willing people need real conditions that let them act.
To close this step in the process, consider a few questions.
If someone in your district tried to follow the new MTSS or support process exactly as it is written today, would the current system actually let them?
Where are people bumping into the same wall over and over again?
Is it in trying to schedule problem-solving time?
Is it in getting timely information?
Is it in navigating old rules that no longer match the vision?
And what is one obstacle you could remove in the next month that would send a clear signal that the system is serious about making this work doable?
That might be retiring a meeting.
It might be cutting a form in half.
It might be changing a guideline.
It might be clarifying, out loud, that staff will be supported when they try aligned alternatives.
Kotter’s fifth step is a reminder that leadership is not only about casting a compelling vision and inviting people into it. It is also about doing the quieter work of clearing the road so people can move. In his framework, removing obstacles clears the way for people to innovate, collaborate more effectively, and generate impact quickly.
In public education, that work can be the difference between another year of frustrated pilots and a year where change actually begins to take root.
In the next episode, the focus will turn to generating short-term wins.
Once the road is clearer and more people are acting, the next question becomes: how do we design and recognize early, meaningful signs that this new way of working is worth the effort?
