Conference Session 5: Adaptive Leadership

Clergy Conference 2012Presentation by Archbishop Colin Johnson

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YES! IT’S CALLED

“ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP”

Can leaders still lead when they don’t know what to do?

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This information is taken from the following material from The Rev’d Dr. Margaret Ann (Sam) Faeth, Dr.

Mary Uhl-Bien, and Dr. Ronald Heifitz. I’d strongly recommend that you buy and read

Heitfitz’ book:

The Practice of Adaptive leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World.

Ronald Heifitz, Marty Linsky, Alexander Grashow, 2009, Harvard Business Review Press.

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Adaptive Leadership

• Moses and the Hebrew slaves– Journeying to the Promised Land and becoming the

People of God

• The Acts of the Apostles– Leadership, membership, service:

• Who does what? Who belongs? Who decides and how are decisions made? What’s important? What are the priorities?

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Can leaders still lead when they don’t know what to do?

The obsession for the quick fix:• People feel pressure to solve problems quickly– Move to action – NOW! We’re going to die here!

• Analyzing problems by personalizing them– If only “N.N.” were a leader (follower/

believer/scriptural/charismatic/younger/nicer/stronger)…

• Attributing situations to interpersonal conflict– If we could just get rid of the rector (organist/ secretary/

treasurer/ parishioner) who is opposing/causing/doing…

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Practice of Leadership

Two core processes

• DIAGNOSIS– What is happening?• In the church• In society• In yourself

• ACTION– Take necessary action

to address the issues in the organisation

– Take action toward self in the context of the challenge

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The process of Diagnosis and Action

1. What? OBSERVEData collection and problem identification

2. Why? INTERPRETexplore multiple Interpretations of the data

3. What next? INTERVENEdevelop a number of potential approaches to a series of actions/ interventions

Re-iterate: move back and forth between data collection, interpretation, and action

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Adaptive leadership process

observe

interpret

intervene

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Adaptive vs Technical

• Technical problems: known solutions, resolvable through current structures, procedures, practised ways of doing things

• Adaptive challenges: new situations without known precedent – only addressed through changes in people’s priorities, beliefs, habits, and loyalties – Doing old job better, longer, with more help will not

address an adaptive challenge

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Type of Challenge Problem definition Solution Locus of work

Technical Clear Clear; tried and tested precedents

Authority (expert) will implement existing structures and roles

Technical and adaptive

Less Clear: some learning needed to diagnose

Requires some learning

Authority will have to consult stakeholders

Adaptive Requires learning Requires systemic adaptive learning; involving beliefs, norms, values

Stakeholders (shared leadership)

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examples

• Sunday liturgies and funerals are a mixture of technical and adaptive: implementing the set liturgy and figuring out how to communicate the lectionary-selected gospel in a particular situation, adapting the music, intercessions, etc to accommodate the setting, pastoral context, resources present.

• Adaptive challenge: how do we to implement the mission of the Anglican Church in a multi-faith, multi-cultural community with a strong anti-institutional predisposition and lack of common narrative?

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Adaptive challenge

• Adaptive leadership is the practice of mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and thrive

• Successful adaptation from nature:– Preserves DNA essential for survival– Discards (rearranges) DNA no longer meeting current

needs– Creates DNA arrangements to give ability to flourish in

new ways and in new challenging environments

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The obstacles to LEADERSHIP:• Pressure to solve problem quickly• The Quick Fix as a sign of LEADERSHIP• Deflect the hard work• Push to minimize diagnostic process– Data collection– Multiple possible interpretations– Alternative interventions

“The single most important skill and most undervalued capacity for exercising adaptive leadership is diagnosis.” Heifetz, Grashow, Linsky, p. 7HE

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Adaptive Leadership requires WORKTIME

EXPERIMENTANALYSIS

PERSEVERENCE

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Heifetz’ List of Work Avoidance Behaviours

• Applying a technical fix to an adaptive problem• Define the problem to fit the current expertise• Inappropriate humour• Denying the problem exists• Create a proxy fight• Shoot the messenger• Identify a scapegoat• Externalise the enemy• Attack authority• Delegate outside the system (outside consultants to propose a

fix – which can then be ignored)

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Warning!

• Technical solutions WILL NOT solve adaptive challenges

• they will:– Lower anxiety temporarily– Create the illusion of progress– Cast the leader in the role of hero– Reduce the motivation for systemic learning– Stifle the capacity for creativity and growth

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Balcony and Dance Floor

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Balcony and Dance Floor

Metaphor for diagnosing a system and your place in it• Diagnosing the whole system in the midst of action requires the

ability of achieve some distance from the on-the-ground events – moving to the balcony – gain perspective

• From balcony can see patterns not evident when you are on the floor, caught up in the dance.

• Going to the balcony requires that you observe the system you are part of – simultaneously detached and connected – self-differentiation

• Moving back and forth – oscillation• Moving outside in on the system; moving inside out on

analysing yourself

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Getting to the Balcony When to go?

At planned intervals In the moment of

Change, conflict, crisisTransitionsWhen situation is puzzlingWhen things are going particularly well –

or very badly

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• Who to go with?– Alone (but ALWAYS with the Holy Spirit)– With a “No BS Group”– With someone whose perspective, opinion,

experience differs from yours• What to look for?– The FOUR ARCHETYPES of ADAPTIVE CHALLENGE:• Gap between espoused values and behaviours• Competing commitments• Speaking the unspeakable• Work avoidance behaviours

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The view from the Balcony

Who’s at the dance? What music is playing?What kind of dance is it?Who is dancing? Who is waiting to be asked?How much energy is there? Who is just arriving?Who is sneaking out?Where are you on the dance floor? Who is on your dance card?Who is stepping on toes? Who is graceful? Are you in time with the beat? Who is tired? Who has energy to spare?Does the band keep playing the same tune? Or dancers doing the same dance?

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Balcony diagnostic strategy

Look for:STRUCTURE – how are things organised?CULTURE – norms, values, storyDEFAULTS – the way things are done here

Then seek with others:– Multiple possible interpretations– Alternative interventions

Rarely is there a single interpretation of the data or a single possible intervention

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LEADERSHIP TASK

Technical Adaptive

Direction Provide problem definition & solution

Identify adaptive challenge; frame key questions & issues

Protection Protect from external threats

Disclose external threats

Order• Orientation

• Conflict

•Norms

Orient people to current roles

Restore order

Maintain norms

Disorient current roles; resist orienting people to new roles too quickly

Expose conflict or let it emerge

Challenge norms or let them be challenged

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Pay attention to:• Patterns – who/what connected? Isolated?– what repeats? Changes?

• Defaults– what are the preferred modes of learning?– How do the system respond to conflict?– Where is advice sought?– How are decisions made?– Does the system respond predictably in conflict, challenge or

change?• Energy– Resilience– Creativity– Commitment

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• Threats– What challenges the status quo?– What resources are stretched?– What norms, values, behaviours protect the status

quo?– What is identified as a threat?– Are there unnoticed threats (situational,

organisational, environmental)?

• Opportunities– What might we learn? How might we serve?– How can we welcome new people?ideas?ministry?

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• Yourself:– How do you function in the system?– How big is the circle around you?– Are you accessible or isolated?– Does the system protect or challenge you?– Who has access to you? Who wants access? Who is the

gatekeeper?– Can you hear the voices of dissent? How do you respond?– What are your defaults in conflict? stress? change? fatigue?

uncertainty?– What enhances or impairs your learning?– What must be preserved and protected?– What losses might you have to suffer?– What’s in it for you?– How do you take care of yourself?

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Adaptive Leadership

• Specifically about change that enables the capacity to thrive– Wrestle with normative questions of value, purpose and

process– Multiple stakeholders priorities, defining “thriving”, then

moving to realise it

• Builds on the past rather than jettisons it– Both conservative and progressive

• Occurs through experimentation– Improvisation; rapidly produced variations; high failure-rates;

iterative

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• Relies on diversity– Each variant produces capacities different from

the rest of the population; not cloning• New adaptations generate losses– Displace, reconfigure, rearrange– Creates predictable defensive responses

• Takes time– Persistence and perseverence– Consolidation of new norms and practices

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Complexity Adaptive Theory

enabling leadership

3 entangled leadership roles

(Mary Uhl-Bien)

adaptive leadership

administrative leadership

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Living into Adaptive Leadership• Learning mode• Self reflection and analysis of context• Living with ambiguity and disequilibrium• Resistance to seduction• Discernment – what’s essential, what’s less so• Pastoral care and compassion• Resistance – deflection of work, defaults, • Patience and perseverance• Building community• Dealing with values, purpose, hope• Don’t do it alone; practise in life; resist leap to action; make

hard choices

• The Holy Spirit leading us into God’s mission

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PrayerO God, you have called your servants to

ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.

Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.Evangelical Lutheran Worship. Evening Prayer, p. 317