LDXXXIX Labs Team Tool Kit

Revisiting Adaptive Leadership “Big Ideas” February Lab Work Revisiting Adaptive Leadership “Big Ideas” Knowing your passion is critical when leading Requires leaders to “get on the balcony” and to know your own biases Emphasis on adaptive challenges vs. solving technical problems Leadership happens at all levels, regardless of position Requires learning from stakeholders not authority Work that engages the “gut” and addition to the “head” Leaders understand and embrace the resistance that comes with LOSS

Design Thinking Stay Here Today!

Framing February’s Lab Discussion 1. Reflect to practice “getting on the balcony”: Reflect on your site visit(s): What did you observe? Share other stakeholder perspectives gathered so far.. Reflect on what might be emerging as Adaptive challenges and how they distinguish themselves Technical challenges.

Framing February’s Lab Discussion 2. Go Deep to practice “empathizing” within the context of adaptive leadership “big ideas”: Who are stakeholders who are not in positions of authority to seek out? Who are the uncharacteristic leaders you can seek out? What logistical planning do you need to do today to practice even more empathy by the March session?

Where is this all leading? April Presentation Guidelines Provide specific examples of how the Team was able to “Get on the Balcony” with the information brought forth through site visits and other outreach methods practicing the “empathize” step of design thinking. Provide specific examples of Adaptive challenges the Team discovered and explain how they differed from the Technical challenges found along the way. Adaptive challenges can materialize at the individual, organizational, and/or ecosystem levels.

Where is this all leading? April Presentation Guidelines - Continued Develop an action plan to tackle one or more of the Adaptive challenges. The plan should include a strategy(s) to deal “head on” with the resistance that will come with loss. Identify all who stand to loose in the change process. As leader, talk about how you will confront, navigate or mitigate loss that any stakeholders may face. Since Adaptive challenges are difficult because they require people to change their ways, consider what might be: conserved, discarded, or reinvented. Bonus: Identify any leverage points: Pent-up energy for change, Bright spots, and Ripple effects. Bonus, Bonus: Have conversations with those who stand to lose in the change process.

Adaptive Leadership – How Success Looks

What Adaptive Leadership is good for Adaptive leadership involves the paradoxical embrace of relentless optimism about the prospect for changing the world and brutal realism about the obstacles to doing so. The biggest mistake that people make in trying to lead change is that they treat adaptive challenges as if they were technical problems.

Adaptive vs. technical challenges “A technical challenge is a problem that we readily recognize how to solve—the work is ensuring effective execution. We know what questions to ask, and we have tools and solutions to address the issue.” “The adaptive challenge “is the problem we do not recognize or fully understand, for which there are no easy, ready solutions. The adaptive challenge requires us to ask new questions and reframe problems; it requires learning, creativity and flexible thinking in order to be addressed successfully.” Source: From Greenwich Leadership Partners’ whitepaper “From Financial Sustainability to ‘Thriveability’: Why We Need to Change the Conversation, referencing Rob Heifetz in The Practice of Adaptive Leadership. Greenwich Leadership Partners: Old Greenwich, June 28, 2017.

Why adaptive challenges are difficult Adaptive challenges are difficult because their solutions require people to change their ways. Unlike known or routine problem solving for which past thinking, relating, and operating are sufficient for achieving good outcomes, adaptive leadership demands three very tough, human tasks: figuring out what to conserve from past practices, figuring out what to discard from past practices, and inventing new ways that build from the best of the past Source: Heifetz, Ronald, Alexander Grashow, Marty Linsky. The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, p. 69

LD Labs: Team Presentation “Bonus”

Adaptive Organizations 5 Characteristics Elephants in the room are named. Responsibility for the organization’s future is shared. Independent judgment is expected. Leadership capacity is developed. Reflection and continuous learning are institutionalized.

The Zone of Productive Disequilibrium

Adaptive Leadership