Leading the Change You Want to See...An EdPro Book Tour Featuring: THE PRACTICE OF ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP, by Heifetz, Grashow & Linsky (Harvard Business Press, 2009, 325 pp.)
"There is no such thing as a dysfunctional organization, because every organization is perfectly aligned to achieve the results it currently gets." (Adaptive Leadership, p. 17)
Whether it's changing the world, dealing with an abusive or counterproductive office culture where you work, or committing to fix your local PTA chapter...The Practice of Adaptive Leadership is an insightful and practical how-to manual for aspiring "purpose-driven" leaders.
Taking on noble but treacherous leadership interventions (such as reforming staff culture, calling out entrenched self-interests, or scrutinizing outdated practices or policies...) does not require immense expertise, but does require more than mere top-down "authoritative" leadership...Indeed, these kinds of against-the-grain initiatives are not for the faint of heart, are often urgent, and almost always fraught with peril.
Those seeking both a wise theory of action and a practical road map to help them succeed in these turbulent waters should find The Practice of Adaptive Leadership very useful. Thorough, realistic, nuanced and immensely insightful, this work on leadership, published in 2009, remains highly useful and relevant today.
If you are already a leader but need insights into reforming your organization's "culture"--addressing stale norms, abusive power dynamics, unconscious bias, or entrenched special interests--or if you are lower in the ranks but see a need to lead because no one else will...The Practice of Adaptive Leadership will help you gauge when and how far to stick your neck out and increase the odds that you become a company hero rather than an idealistic, maybe jobless, martyr!
The authors offer nuanced insights into the hard work and affective backlash adaptive change entails and provide leaders wise counsel for how to maintain their equilibrium and stay the course. In addition, there are practical prescriptions for each area of action, so you can act with more confidence and less guess work.
Aspiring leaders learn how to successfully diagnose and treat organizational ills, moving into, through, and beyond internal special interests and conflicts to help organizations recommit to their underlying values and goals and build an adaptive, resilient, and rewarding work environment by fostering
Open inquiry
Respect for the contributions of all team members
A shared sense of values, goals and accountability
Leadership capacity across all levels of the organization
If you are not a leader, but work alongside organizations as a consultant, nonprofit advocate, or B2B provider...this book may interest you too...
Have you worked with a client only to watch the initiative you collaborated on fail because the larger organization couldn't adapt to the resulting change and disruption?
Did you see your services or products deliver as promised, while the client saw little improvement in outcomes because of their own organization's inability to absorb and manage the adaptive challenges resulting from the new technology, new best practices, or new business or operational models and practices?
Whether you seek to lead, to lead better, or to work more effectively alongside organizations in an advocate, consultant, analyst, or client role...The Practice of Adaptive Leadership provides critical insights into the dynamics of organizational change and transformation. Learn what active leadership approaches allow one organization to thrive while another implodes when confronted with adaptive challenges in a time of accelerating innovation and globalization.
(NOTE: at the end of this post, you'll find a suggestion for taking your own first step to becoming an adaptive leader...it may not be as hard as you think!...)
"For some people, the hardest part...might be finding the courage to identify and claim what is most important to you, those goals and challenges for which it is worth taking on the pains and risks of leadership." (Adaptive Leadership, p. 3)
"By practicing adaptive leadership beyond authoritative management, you risk telling people what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear, but you can also help your organization, community, or society make progress on its most difficult challenges." (Adaptive Leadership, p. 27)
The authors of The Practice of Adaptive Leadership have taught leadership and business classes at Harvard and are leaders in their own right of Cambridge Leadership Associates. Their global clients include not only major corporations, but also nonprofit and public sector enterprises.
SYNOPSIS
In The Practice of Adaptive Leadership the authors draw on both leadership theory and years of business consulting experiences. The book's premise is that today's leaders need to look beyond those leadership competencies that rely on technical expertise, top down directives, or merely working harder and faster...In a time of accelerating change and disruption, authoritative models of management cannot respond adequately to today's nebulous and complex leadership challenges and the adaptive solutions they demand--adaptations to accelerating technology innovations, to global scaling, and to swiftly evolving competitive models and landscapes.
A key feature of these adaptive challenges is that no single leader, expert, consultant, or new technology platform is likely to provide an effective solution to an adaptive problem. In fact, adaptation requires building internal capacity by addressing unquestioned internal norms, values, structures, and power dynamics that drive present results (or failures) but keep enterprises stuck in outdated work habits, structures, and policies.
Critical steps in building capacity include coming to terms with the need for shared leadership, negotiating uncomfortable clashes with established beliefs and practices, having the courage to call out outdated assumptions or work habits that stymie needed adaptations, and finding constructive strategies for taking on entrenched structures of power, incentive, and reward...challenges that require the purpose-driven leader to look both inward and outward and apply patience, tact, and judicious alliance building.
A tall order?...Well, yes, it is...
But...this book is a veritable desk manual for adaptive leadership--with detailed analysis, pointed advice, and practical templates for real-life action--all in one place and designed to cultivate leadership practices that answer to the highest values and ideals.
Is this the right book for a leader or aspiring leader like YOU...?
Sometimes holding a leadership position means simply being in charge, or boasting that the buck stops here. In one leadership archetype the leader is the person who is supposed to have a handle on every moving part of his or her operation, who pulls all the strings based on the highest levels of information, who can apply wise judgment to the most pivotal decisions bearing on each key aspect of the enterprise...(If you believe such a leadership model is still attainable!)
Another archetype, the hamster on the wheel, commonly expresses the reality of the public or nonprofit leader who sees their role as filling every unfunded mandate through his or her own sweat equity, including fixing the copy machine or mopping the floor of the staff lounge before rushing off to report out at the next board meeting.
Or...maybe you're the leader who doesn't believe in breaking a sweat. You've got subordinates at your beck and call...Unseemly to call it the dictator archetype, but that's kind of what it is. If something isn't working right, you issue your directives and your subordinates get in line quickly or they get to look for a new job! On reality TV, it was called The Apprentice!If any of these models are presently working for you, then you may want to stop reading here and take a pass on The Practice of Adaptive Leadership...Afterall, as the authors remind us:
"There is no such thing as a dysfunctional organization, because every organization is perfectly aligned to achieve the results it currently gets." (Adaptive Leadership, p. 17)
However, if you find that leadership or being at the office presently feels more like...
Issuing directives based on the best expert guidance but without getting wide or sustained adoption through the ranks...
Identifying and adopting the best technology platforms and solutions, but still getting the same unsatisfactory outcomes...
Knowing there is something wrong with your company "culture" but you're the CEO--not a psychologist!--and don't know where to start...
Having fond memories from decades of PAST success, but now seeing things changing so fast you hardly still recognize the sector you work in (as your competitors start to pass you by)...
Complaining day after day that you could do a better job than your boss or that those leading behind the scenes don't get the accolades, promotions, and recognition they deserve...but wondering how do you say THAT out loud at the next staff meeting?...
If any of these sound familiar...then The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, might be the leadership book you've been looking for...
UNLESS you're too busy to read it!...
“People who look to you for solutions have a stake in keeping you focused on what is right in front of your eyes: the phone calls and e-mails to be answered, the deadlines to be met, the tasks to be completed.” (p. 7)
Before going further, I know readers might be asking why I am dedicating an extended post to a book published some eight years ago...Truth be told, the book sat on the shelf in my office for years when I worked as a frenzied school administrator. But when I finally had time to read the book, I was impressed how much it insight it offered into the organizational tensions and job stresses that buffeted me and other school administrators day in, day out. I was also impressed because the authors highlight the same organizational traits that, with hard work and trial and error, bore the most fruit at our school as it moved through demanding but rewarding adaptive changes...changes that created new opportunities...
opportunities to build internal synergies for adaptation, innovation, and resilience across the organization...
opportunities for distributing leadership, exploiting talent, and boosting morale, satisfaction, and productivity...
opportunities that served as catalysts for more effective problem solving, more responsive norms, more deliberation but less conflict, more risk taking with more success...
So while this book isn't new, I would argue that picking it up several years after its publication helped me see that it has what it takes to stand the test of time!
The remainder of this post will provide readers a more detailed tour of The Practice of Adaptive Leadership and answer questions such as...
What distinguishes ADAPTIVE challenges/solutions from TECHNICAL ones?
What are the key traits of the successful adaptive leader?
What critical steps does adaptive leadership require?
What resources and benefits will leaders (or aspiring leaders) get from the book The Practice of Adaptive Leadership?
Was the gain worth the pain...? What does an adaptive organization look like?
What distinguishes ADAPTIVE challenges/solutions from technical ones?
A good first question might be: How do I know an adaptive challenge when I see one?One simple litmus test is...if you have a challenge or problem for which the solution can't be built, purchased, paid for, or can't be obtained quickly from a consultant, an analyst's report, or an internet search (i.e. the kind of fix the authors call "a technical fix")...then you are likely dealing with an ADAPTIVE CHALLENGE. The authors' do not illustrate adaptive challenges through extensive case studies, but they do provide some vivid examples so readers get the message. The way I understand the book, the two critical features of adaptive challenges are...a) they require investigation and inquiry--the solution to the problem is not readily known or acquired...(what is the root of the problem?...what are likely to be the best solutions?...what obstacles or internal dissension might arise from investigating these challenges and intervening?...) b) their success involves getting genuine engagement and buy-in from internal stakeholders... (the adaptive moves need to GROW the organization, not blow it up!). Here are a couple of examples the authors offer (pp. 21-22, my paraphrase):
A large tech firm is transitioning from being a product-focused vendor to being a solutions provider. The first model required a focus on product sales, margins, pricing...The new model requires an emphasis on building credibility, trust, and mutual understanding. (A new software program won't fix this one!)
In a converse shift, a large law firm is challenged by an evolving commoditization of its culture--which for decades had been a service-based and client-relationship-based business culture:
"We have seen the same commoditization...also affecting segments of the professional services world such as law firms, where relationship building has been an orienting value and core strategy and where competing primarily on price is a gut-wrenching reworking of how they see themselves." (Adaptive Leadership, p. 21)
Turning now to the education world, here's how I recall experiencing this kind of challenge working as a school administrator.Adaptive challenges were accelerating as we struggled to adopt to the impact of game-changing new technologies, evolving social norms, and compelling survey data. Almost everything was impacted...from instruction, to grading, to discipline, to teacher evaluation--all core activities of school administrators. Suddenly change was afoot in ALL of these areas simultaneously--a push for transformation driven by transformative technologies, new career pathways, changing attitudes about how to best meet students' needs, and compelling empirical data in conjunction with new expectations (i.e. No Child Left Behind...) for responding swiftly to what the data was telling us with regard to a broad range of school outcomes (academic outcomes, student welfare outcomes, attendance rates, parent involvement, graduation rates, rates of suspension and expulsion, how we were performing as a school based on indicators such as gender, race, and socio-economic and special education status...). We not only had to up our game in terms of sheer work due to new and demanding accountability measures, we also had to get the whole school structure to pivot on several fronts and negotiate internal conflicts as new policies and practices were implemented, drilling down to, exposing, and resolving conflicting values and attitudes, and questioning established practices and habits, while also needing to contend with the significant logistics of measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of emerging practices and providing for extensive investments in a range of staff development efforts, so as to lead change as opposed to imposing it in a way that sets staff up for failure, punishes failure, and propagates crippling levels of anxiety, fear, and distrust.
"Adaptive challenges are typically grounded in the complexity of values, beliefs, and loyalties, rather than technical complexity, and stir up intense emotions rather than dispassionate analysis. For these reasons, organizations often avoid addressing the value-laden aspects and try to get through the issue with a technical fix...One way you know that there is an adaptive challenge facing your organization or community is that the problem persists even after a series of attempted technical fixes." (Adaptive Leadership, p. 70, emphasis mine)
A key lesson leaders learn from the book: Don't fool yourself!--Don't think you can solve an adaptive challenge by implementing a technical fix.To help make this important premise as clear as possible, here are some examples I made up for this post:
TECHNICAL CHALLENGES vs. ADAPTIVE CHALLENGES...
Education Setting Examples
Technical Challenge
Adaptive Challenge
Reduce time teachers spend reporting grades and time schools spend compiling and distributing report cards
Respond to community complaints that grading policies are too subjective, inconsistent, and idiosyncratic across individual teachers--need grading to align reliably with state grade level content standards and be more useful and transparent for parents and students
Provide more flexibility for self-paced learning in academic subjects through adoption of new digital instructional tools
Within framework of common core curriculum standards, provide instruction in digital literacy, computer applications, and other 21st-century skills
Track school-wide discipline data (number of office referrals, suspensions, etc) by grade level, gender, and ethnicity
Empirical data on outcomes no longer supports widespread use of exclusionary discipline practices--identify, implement, and evaluate alternative discipline procedures and school climate policies
Corporate Setting Examples
Technical Challenge
Adaptive Challenge
Transition accounting department to paperless record keeping to save time and money
After years of unheeded warnings about ballooning personnel costs they are now becoming an urgent threat to enterprise stability going forward and interventions can't be deferred any longer
Implement efficient and uniform digital meeting technologies at all company offices
Respond to evidence that client relations are suffering due to lack of effective communication norms and channels between the sales team and engineering team
In contrast to technical fixes then...an obvious feature of dealing with adaptive challenges is that THEY ARE NOT LINEAR...The leader doesn't really know how to proceed, what "directive" to give, what equipment to purchase or...
When and where to start the process...
Who to involve (and when)...
What process to use to identify possible solutions and to select the most promising ones for trial
How to sustain an essentially iterative change process and keep people appropriately challenged, supported, and engaged through that process, until positive results are verified and sustained...
How to anticipate and manage internal stress and disruption, threats to the status quo...
What are key traits of the successful adaptive leader?
Since adaptive challenges require challenging the status quo and moving into uncharted territory, adaptive leaders need courage to take risks and to keep leading when there is no reliable road map.The road to an adaptive solution is fraught with disequilibrium--stirring up anxiety, fears, and factional maneuvering. It entails questioning accepted workplace norms and power dynamics. Individual interests will have to be subordinated to newly defined and still evolving organizational goals, stirring up fear about who will lose power and inflating new self interests for those who suddenly see an opportunity to gain power.Furthermore, scrutinizing and tampering with established structures of rank, competency, authority, reward, and incentive will certainly exacerbate tensions between competing self-interests within the organization...so that it feels more like taking two steps backward, when there's an urgent need to move forward...stirring up internal problems right when everyone is wondering how to come together to confront new external challenges!
"[Adaptive] Leadership is necessary when logic is not the answer. Leading adaptive change is not about making a better argument or about loading people up with more facts. ...Suppose you have a friend...who smokes...More white papers on the dangers of tobacco...are not going to change his behavior...The same is true for exercising leadership...You are trying to move people who...prefer the status quo to the risks of doing things differently." (Adaptive Leadership, p. 38)
The adaptive leader also needs to look inward for at least two reasons...First, it will be necessary to inventory one's own capacity (and areas for growth) when it comes to persevering through the disequilibrium and uncertainty of adaptive problem solving, through the periods of demanding work and focus it entails...to overcome the impulse to short-circuit the process out of sheer fright...given the uncomfortable conversations, humbling uncertainties, and strained political eruptions that loom on the horizon.
"Adaptive challenges can only be addressed through changes in people's priorities, beliefs, habits, and loyalties." (Adaptive Leadership, p. 19)
Second, the adaptive leader needs to look inward to get in touch with his or her own work-related anxieties, fears, and insecurities. This introspection is needed not only for girding oneself for difficult conversations, but also in order to exercise the empathy needed to adequately gauge co-workers' distress...in order to judge the level of support and patience that the mere mortals around you will realistically need in order to get through the changes and come out stronger on the far side...in order to estimate just how far and how fast the organization can change. After all, the goal is not to inflict pain on or debilitate the organization, not to instill so much fear and angst that subordinates retreat under their desks...but to help the organization re-connect to its core values and purpose and achieve higher outcomes through collective efforts that draw on the stores of knowledge and expertise across various levels of the organization.
"To practice adaptive leadership, you have to help people navigate through a period of disturbance...This disequilibrium can catalyze everything from conflict, frustration, and panic, to confusion, disorientation, and fear...Distress may come with the territory of change, but from a strategic perspective, disturbing people is not the point or the purpose, but a consequence. The purpose is to make progress on a tough collective challenge...Your goal should be to keep the temperature within what we call the productive zone of disequilibrium (PZD): enough heat generated by your intervention to gain attention, engagement, and forward motion, but not so much that the organization (or your part of it) explodes." (Adaptive Leadership, pp. 28-29)
Adaptive leadership is often "fuzzy" leadership, so humility, objectivity, and patience are key traits that leaders also need to activate. Those leaders who are used to valuing decisive action, the authors argue, need to look within to cultivate humility--enough humility to be an answer seeker rather than an answer provider. They need objectivity to get as honest and accurate a read as possible on the visible and invisible cultural norms at work within the enterprise. Finally, adaptive leaders need to practice patience. They must be patient enough to deliberate broadly about next steps, to engage in giving and receiving feedback, and in acting on and then evaluating hypothetical solutions, rather than rushing to implement a quick fix in order to move on to the next "thing."
What critical steps does adaptive leadership require?
If you are inspired to take on the mantel of adaptive leadership, you will find this book provides you a detailed game plan and skills manual. And, it's not just a well-articulated theory of leadership and organizational culture you'll find here, but practical advice (even step-by-step advice) grounded in the years of experience the authors have doing both academic work and on-the-job business consulting. What follows is just a sketch of the key action steps the authors assert are necessary to build adaptive capacity in an organization:Step 1: Diagnosis & Analysis of the System (of the status quo): Getting the big picture...I remember one day as a high school teacher walking into my colleague's Language Arts classroom and seeing an entire wall covered with butcher paper. The paper was filled with circles, lines, and text boxes. I scratched my head for a minute or so, and then realized what I was looking at (it was definitely NOT a plot diagram of The Odyssey)...It was an amazingly elaborate and realistic analysis of power relations and structures at the high school presented as a mural-sized flow chart of sorts.The teacher referred to it as a "sociogram."Its function was to provide a bird's-eye view of the underlying network of soft relationships that underlay the concrete operations and formal relationships of rank, role, and job title at this particular large, urban high school. If one were going to attempt to "steer" or "move" the organization through some adaptive change, one had an immediate snapshot of the nebulous networks, power channels, and often overlooked alliances that comprised the current "status quo."The authors assert that getting the objective distance needed to capture this kind of big picture diagnosis--a "view from the balcony" as they like to call it--is the first task of the adaptive leader.
"Every organization is not only one overall system but also a set of subsystems...The components are structures (for example incentive programs), culture (including norms and meeting protocols), and defaults (routine processes of problem solving and ways of thinking and acting). These subsystems powerfully shape how people respond to and try to deal with adaptive pressures." (Adaptive Leadership, p. 54)
Step 2: Diagnosis The Adaptive ProblemTaking time to observe the patterns, unspoken norms, and power and exchange relationships that make up the status quo is essential to the next step, which is trying to identify accurately wherein lies the actual adaptive challenge, and teasing out the technical challenges from the adaptive challenges.Well worn and familiar organizational systems are a double-edged sword: they provide predictability and certain kinds of efficiency, but they may also suppress talent and innovation and hinder organizational agility and resilience in the face of new challenges, new competitors, new economic pressures...Adaptive Leadership begins with seeing both the tangible gains and rewards that the status quo delivers while also discerning what's NOT delivered in terms of both tangible losses and/or lost opportunities, unrealized potential...Seeing the big picture, helps the adaptive leader be smart and realistic about:
What organizational systems, processes, and norms need to be acted on...
What stakeholders need to be involved when...
What pressures and loyalties will shape how stakeholders react to change initiatives...
Step 3: Design & Vet Possible Interventions--Proceed TacticallyUnlike solutions to technical problems, interventions that tackle adaptive challenges are likely to rock the boat so to speak. Here the dangers are at least twofold, the authors point out:
Adaptive Leadership means interpreting what the challenge or problem is within the system and then hypothesizing what the effective intervention will be
Addressing adaptive challenges upsets the status quo, so just as the act of leadership is acting with a high level of uncertainty (educated guesswork) rather than clear authority, it is also fomenting predictable and/or unpredictable shock waves of dissension, fear, doubt, and factionalism
An excellent example of realism in the author's perspective is their assertion that the process of adaptive change ALWAYS results in new winners and new losers.Since the prospect of losing something generates resistance, not to mention resentment and dissent, mapping out how change will move through an organization's existing structures, alliances, and relationships (of loyalty, power, reward, and incentive) is a critical and shifting dynamic that adaptive leaders must both anticipate, negotiate, AND deftly moderate!
"One person's innovation can cause another person to feel incompetent, betrayed, or irrelevant. Not many people like to be "rearranged." Leadership therefore requires the diagnostic ability to recognize those losses and the predictable defensive patterns of response that operate at the individual and system level." (Adaptive Leadership, p. 16)"Adaptive leadership almost always puts you in the business of assessing, managing, distributing, and providing contexts for losses that move people through those losses to a new place." (Adaptive Leadership, p. 23)
Designing and managing interventions is likely to be more successful if...
Leadership uses absolute objectivity in assessing and describing the adaptive challenge (so that it doesn't look like a "political" move, or one designed to make the leader himself or a particular interest group favored over others)
Leadership anchors deliberations and critiques in objective and collective reference points, such as explicit and fundamental organizational values and goals
Leadership proposes neutrally multiple possible interventions at the outset (inferring that the "right" intervention will be the one that makes the most sense at the end of deliberation, not the one that is simply "most popular" nor the one perceived to be preordained by the most powerful person or faction in the organization)
Leadership "auditions" possible interventions...Just like politicians sometimes leak an impending proposal to the press to get a foretaste of how the move will play out (with constituents, factions, the press...), adaptive leaders need to share publicly "possible" solutions
The endgame in these moves is twofold:First it provides a read on the kinds of resistance, fear, or critical reactions that various interventions are likely to provoke, so you can anticipate political and tactical moves as soon as one intervention becomes most probable.Second, it is critical to get the organization itself to move through the initial doubts and fears that come with news of impending change, and also come to realize and TRUST that this is a an empirical (not political) and collective (not top-down) intervention process.
"Sure, bringing in a diverse range of interpretations can be a nuisance. Creativity is less efficient than alignment, producing more friction and taking up time, but it is only less efficient when you are dealing with a technical problem...But when you are dealing with an adaptive challenge that requires creativity, you have to tolerate the pains of the processes that increase the odds that new ideas will lead to new adaptive capacity....You will know you have gotten it right when people start considering and understanding each other's viewpoints and start discussing potential solutions that make sense across the table." (Adaptive Leadership, p. 123)
If this all sounds complex...it is I suppose, but take heart...though not reflected in a summary outline like this one, the book provides lots of practical advice and many concrete processes and formats leaders can implement for each of these key steps and for the protracted job of managing the ongoing intervention process...which brings us to our next section:
What resources and practical tools will (aspiring) leaders get from The Practice of Adaptive Leadership?
The authors of The Practice of Adaptive Leadership give readers extensive practical guidance when it comes to HOW to engage in successful adaptive leadership. The useful features include:
Clear theoretical definitions of adaptive leadership that teach readers to quickly distinguish adaptive challenges from technical challenges or other kinds of organizational problems
Comprehensive insights into change theory and into the risks, challenges, and rewards of engaging in adaptive leadership, including descriptions of the predictable destabilizing effects unleashed by the process of adaptive change
Sequential outlines of all key phases and action steps for initiating, moving into, and sustaining the adaptive change process--each step accompanied by concrete suggestions, interventions, surveys, check lists, etc...
Analysis of the psychological dynamics that complicate adaptive change, with practical strategies for successfully managing the turbulent internal "politics" of adaptive change
Suggestions for designing norms, processes, and interventions to structure fruitful inquiry and deliberation within and across organizational teams as a foundation for building organizational capacity, improving morale, and fostering distributive leadership
Abundant insights and advice on crafting targeted interventions and on who to involve when and how to implement interventions in stages and encourage candid input and feedback, foster buy-in, and create a culture where "failure" is a transparent and useful tool on the road to organizational improvement
One final note...Some reading this post might be asking themselves: do I need lots of management or leadership background or expertise to implement these action steps?You probably don't need any special background...You might need help, like the insights offered by this book!Remember, the authors work with high level CEOs and school district superintendents, and heads of nonprofits and NGOs...but they the see the challenge as analogous across the spectrum...all the way from the CEO of the multi-national corporation stuck in a rut down to the parent (or responsible older sibling!) who wants to step up and do something to fix a dysfunctional family dynamic, and everything in between, from the elder on the church committee who feels a need to be more vocal, to the nonprofit director who wants to realize his or her full leadership potential, to the staff attorney at a small partnership firm who will no longer remain silent in the face of an abusive and counterproductive workplace culture...We've all been there at one time or another, right? Which is what gives this book its universal and broad appeal, and its importance.The suggested processes and "activities" are relatively simple conceptually speaking, but here's the rub: their apparent simplicity is inherently deceptive...and not for the faint of heart....At a staff meeting for example, the adaptive leader might simply change things up...instead of having the usual talking heads boast about their success and downplay their missed deadlines, the agenda will call for everyone present to make a brief (uncensored) presentation of a problem or solution as they perceive it, relating to a defined organizational challenge or outcome. Implementing this "simple" action step can uncover a lot of interesting information and hidden "issues" and doesn't require a college education let alone a degree from an Ivy League business school to implement...But it does require...well what?...good judgment? emotional intelligence? an ability to act on your feet when good intentions trigger something very unpleasant?...I guess we're back to another fundamental premise of the book: this stuff can look simple, but there's a million ways for it to flop or blow up in your face (sometimes it's hard to say which is more humiliating!) and make you, the leader/initiator/agitator look, well, foolish. I mean what if someone doesn't follow the norms you set out for this kind of meeting? What if you forgot to set some norms...(oh my...)...The good news is, these authors saw these dynamics play out many times in their roles as business consultants--the dynamics of trying to circumvent the whole adaptive challenge as well as the dynamics of pushing more effectively or less effectively down the difficult road of adaptive change--and they offer up a large volume of strategic, concrete recommendations within the framework of a pretty solid road map...greatly stacking the odds in your favor!
Was the pain worth the gain...? What does an adaptive organization look like?
Well now you know, this book tells readers that adaptive leadership is messy and volatile. It requires intense and sustained interpersonal exchanges, it upsets the status quo, it goes beyond technical expertise and authority to engage processes that require interpretation, deliberation, creativity, and sustained collective inquiry, dialogue, and effort.What do you get in the end? Is the kind of organization you even want (some "leaders" might not be so sure!...)In simple terms the adaptive leader gives up mere and straight forward "authority" but gets in exchange something very powerful: an organization bred to routinely question authority, live up to (be held accountable to) its explicit values, purpose, and goals, and draw on knowledge, initiative, expertise, and creativity at all levels of the organization by fostering objectivity, respect for differing viewpoints and deliberative processes, and not fearing shared power and distributive leadership.According to the authors, here are a few of the crucial features of an adaptive organization (I'm paraphrasing here from Adaptive Leadership, pp. 104-107):
The organization values mistakes and those who make them and who are willing to experiment with new ways of doing things--"mistakes" serve as valuable learning opportunities, and those who make the mistakes may learn the most from them and become a source of wisdom to be shared through the organization
Adaptive organizations value the input of frontline employees and value (and exploit) their input in decision making processes
Deliberation is fostered through regularly scheduled retreats and other gatherings that include people from all levels of the organization
The organization supports coaching for those in top positions and clear on-the-job guidance for all members to maximize their contributions and to build shared leadership capacity across the organization
Communication and networking are fostered across all departments and teams, across all formal and informal boundaries within the organization
People know that the latest new plan or policy proposal is today's best guess rather than a sacred text--understanding it is something to be refined as new information emerges
Sound good to you??
If you're ready to get started, you might want to do what the authors suggest and simply ask yourself: "How does your organization stack up against the...distinguishing characteristics of adaptability?" (Adaptive Leadership, p. 107).
You can do this as a mental exercise, using the list I just provided above...
Or...you can use the survey provided in the book for this purpose (see p. 108). Of course, as your first step as an adaptive leader, don't just take the survey yourself, but find the courage to give it to a larger team in your organization. Maybe you'll discover things that surprise you? If so...don't worry...
Ask questions...
Gather additional input...
Recruit key stakeholders to help you review input...
Draft and audition proposals to make the organization more adaptive...
Surprise! You're on your way!