1. Creative Competence for Navigating Complex Challenges Center Connection Washington DC August 2004 David Magellan Horth

2. Underlying Research CCL ® research commissioned to discover next generation of leadership development by working directly with practicing leaders (co-inquiry). Eight years with more than 600 managers, leaders, executives: –What are the new leadership challenges? –How are they being creatively solved? –What new leadership competencies are required?

3. Defining Complex Challenges Complex challenges are situations or contexts that do not have prescribed approaches or solutions. They are central in importance and demand quick and decisive action. Yet because the organization, team, or individual does not know how to act, there is also a need to slow down and reflect. Typically Complex Challenges: a) Sprawl across boundaries — function, expertise, geography, groups, and role b) Critical to long-term success and evolution across those boundaries c) Shared frameworks have not yet emerged for sufficient understanding

4. What Complex Challenge are you Wrestling with that: Defies existing solutions, resources, and approaches? Challenges individual/organizational assumptions and mental models? Demands individual and organizational creativity and learning? Requires a reframing of the leadership perspective?

5. GREEN RED BLUE BLUE YELLOW RED BLACK BLUE GREEN RED BLUE ORANGE GREEN BLACK YELLOW BLUE RED GREEN ORANGE BLUE GREEN YELLOW

6. The Star Model Dialogue by Putting Something in the Middle 3. Each group member describes what they see. Then they explore connections from the picture to the challenge: “I chose this picture because…” or “If that were my picture, here’s how I might connect it to the challenge … ” Don’t problem-solve, judge or give advice. Use first person I, me, my NOT YOU Each point on the star represents a group member. This process respects the SAFETY, PRIVACY, and AUTHORITY of each participating member. Adapted from Montague Ullman (1996). 1. One person at a time presents their picture: First describe it. Then make connections between the picture and the challenge. 2. Picture offered to group. “Owner” remains silent. Picture and challenge are temporarily “owned” by the group. 4. Picture is given back to the originator. Originator is not obliged to “own” interpretations offered by the group. Originator has the last word — minimum of “THANK YOU” 5. Repeat for other group members.

7. Reframing Leadership From Control Meaning Making Involves a Dance Between: IndividualConnected WithinBetween Creating Perceiving L-modeR-mode ConsciousPre-conscious Tools Competencies Extrinsic Intrinsic Motivation

8. Creative Competencies for Navigating Complex Challenges From: Complexity and Chaos To: Shared Understanding and Committed Action

9. Creative Competencies for Navigating Complex Challenges From: Complexity and Chaos To: Shared Understanding and Committed Action

10. Creative Competencies for Navigating Complex Challenges From: Complexity and Chaos To: Shared Understanding and Committed Action

11. Creative Competencies for Navigating Complex Challenges From: Complexity and Chaos Paying Attention

12. “The real voyage of discovery consists not of seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust “Every way of seeing is a way of not seeing.” Gareth Morgan

13. “The tragedy of responding to complexity only with velocity is that after a while you can’t see anybody or anything that is moving slower than you.” Conversation with poet David Whyte, October 2001 “The tragedy of responding to complexity only with velocity is that after a while you can’t see anybody or anything that is moving slower than you.” Conversation with poet David Whyte, October 2001

14. Paying Attention We now live in an age of what a Microsoft researcher, Linda Stone, called continuous partial attention. I love that phrase. It means that while you are answering your e-mail and talking to your kid, your cell phone rings and you have a conversation. You are now involved in a continuous flow of interactions in which you can only partially concentrate on each. “If being fulfilled is about committing yourself to someone else, or some experience, that requires a level of sustained attention,” said Ms. Stone. “And that is what we are losing the skills for, because we are constantly scanning the world for opportunities and we are constantly in fear of missing something better. That has become incredibly spiritually depleting.” New York Times, January 30, 2001, Thomas L. Friedman

15. Creative Competencies for Navigating Complex Challenges From: Complexity and Chaos To: Shared Understanding and Committed Action Paying Attention Personalizing Imaging Serious Play Co-inquiry Crafting

16. “... business leaders have much more in common with artists... and other creative thinkers...” Zaleznik 1992

18. Exploration for Development Supporting Shared Sensemaking Practicing Connected Leadership Navigating Complex Challenges E4D Action Learning Experiential Learning Creative Problem-Solving Methods Measurement and Assessment Engaging Sensemaking Competencies Visual Sensemaking Methods Collaborative Technologies Engaging Artistry Dialogue & Shared Meaning Making Networking Community Building Bridging across Communities

19. Teaching Philosophy No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and lovingness. If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind. The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding. The musician may sing to you the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice which echoes it. And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither. For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man … — Kahil Gibran

20. “In order to arrive there, To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy. In order to arrive at what you do not know You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance. In order to possess what you do not possess You must go by the way of dispossession. In order to arrive at what you are not You must go through the way in which you are not. And what you do not know is the only thing you know And what you own is what you do not own And where you are is where you are not.” T.S. Eliot: Four Quartets