Embracing  adap-ve  leadership  to  create  ripples  and  make  waves  in  

complex  -me  

Dr  Cheryl  Doig  

Emerging  Leaders’  Summit  April  12012  

•  Leadership  Development  •  Talent  Management    •  Management  Innova>on  h?p://www.ddiworld.com/glf2011  

DDI  

Social  Capital:  Building  collabora>ve    cultures  within  and  across  schools  -­‐Michael  Fullan  h?p://www.cse.edu.au/Publica>ons1.aspx    

Boundary  Spanning  Leadership  

•  “Capability  to  establish  direc>on,  alignment  and  commitment  across  boundaries  in  service  of  a  higher  vision  or  goal.”  

•  (2008-­‐9  study)  128  senior  execu>ves  •  86%  said  it  was  extremely  important  to  work  effec>vely  across  boundaries  -­‐  only  7%  felt  they  were  very  effec>ve  in  doing  so…  

•  h?p://www.ccl.org/leadership/pdf/research/BoundarySpanningLeadership.pdf  

Future  Leadership  Capabili>es  Marshall  Goldsmith  

§  Thinking  globally  §  Cross  cultural  diversity  §  Technological  savvy  §  Building  alliances  and  partnerships  

§  Sharing  leadership  §  Learning  agility  

h?p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0ARtWgAEvs&feature=related    

Conversa>on  

• Reach  a  conclusion  • Kill  choice  • Debate  • Logically  explore  

• Exploratory  • Suspend  assump>ons  • Mutual  ques>oning  • Growing  of  insights  and  new  ideas  

Dialogue  Discussion  

Decision   Understanding  

An  exchange  of  ideas  between  two  or  more  people  

Social  

Unpredictable  

Advoca>ng   Inquiring  Listening  

Consensus  

Conscious  use  of  language  and  clarity  of  purpose  through…  

Task  AND  rela>onship  

www.thinkbeyond.co.nz  ©  2011  

               

LOGICAL

ANALYTICAL

QUANTITATIVE

FACT BASED

A

EMOTIONAL

INTERPERSONAL

FEELING BASED

KINESTHETIC

C

PLANNED

ORGANIZED

DETAILED

SEQUENTIAL

B

HOLISTIC

INTUITIVE

SYNTHESIZING

INTEGRATING

D

Herrmann’s  Whole  Brain  Processing  Model…  

Where does this idea come from?

How will I organise resources & planning?

What is the big picture of this change?

How will my team feel about all this?

Achieving the Tipping Point  

Rogers,  E.M.  (1983).  Diffusion  of  innova3ons.  NY:  The  Free  Press.  p262  

 “most  individuals  evaluate  an  innova-on,  not  on  the  basis  of  scien-fic  research  by  experts,  but  through  the  subjec-ve  evalua-ons  of  near-­‐peers  

who  have  adopted  the  innova-on”  

STATUS  QUO  Group  think  We’re  doing  well  Nothing  needs  to  change  Opera>onalised  processes  Technical/ra>onal  

Socially  Complicated  Certainty  on  how  to  achieve  the  outcomes  No  shared  vision  on  what  outcomes  are  important-­‐  Persuade/influence/nego>ate/coali>ons  

Technically  Complicated  Shared  vision  Moving  towards  a  future  state  but  no  pre-­‐determined  plan  to  get  there  

THE  EDGE  OF  CHAOS  Avoidance  Disintegra>on  

Dialogue  and  discussion  

CERTAINTY UNCERTAINTY

AG

RE

EM

EN

T

DIS

AG

RE

EM

EN

T

Liu  Bolin-­‐  The  Invisible  Man  

 THE  CHALLENGE  ZONE  

Challenge  

Adap>ve  leadership  

Co-­‐crea>on  of  the  future  

Self-­‐organising  systems  

Breaking  with  the  past  

Complexity  and  diversity  

CHAOS  Death  of  the  organisa>on  

Wicked  problems  

Frames  of  Change    

•  Which  of  these  connects  most  with  the  work  you  do  as  a  leader?  

•  How  could  you  use  it  to  reflect  on  your  own  leadership?  

•  In  what  ways  could  it  be  used  to  as  part  of  your  design  process  for  change?  

Think  -­‐  pair  

 Adap>ve  leadership  is  the  prac>ce  of  mobilising  people  to  tackle  tough  challenges  and  thrive.  

Heifetz,  Grashow  &  Linsky,  2009  

www.thinkbeyond.co.nz  

Adap-ve  Environments  

•  They  contain  a  large  number  of  interac>ng  elements.  •  Informa>on  in  the  system  is  highly  ambiguous,  incomplete,  or  indecipherable.    

•  Interac>ons  among  system  elements  are  non-­‐linear  and  >ghtly-­‐coupled  such  that  small  changes  can  produce  dispropor>onately  large  effects.  

•  Solu>ons  emerge  from  the  dynamics  within  the  system  and  cannot  be  imposed  from  outside  with  predictable  results.  

•  Hindsight  does  not  lead  to  foresight  since  the  elements  and  condi>ons  of  the  system  can  be  in  con>nual  flux.  

Perrow,  1986;  Snowden  &  Boone,  2007  

No  easy  answers…  

Technical problem Adaptive challenge

Clear problem definition and solutions that can be resolved through current know-how

Complex and requires learning - can only be addressed through changes in people’s priorities, beliefs, habits & loyalties

Heifetz,  Grashow  &  Linsky,  2009  

and both

Quali-es  of  an  Adap-ve  Organisa-on  

• Name  the  Elephant  in  the  room  • Share  responsibility  for  the  for  the  organisa>on’s  future  • Value  Independent  Judgment  • Build  leadership  capacity  • Ins>tu>onalise  reflec>on  and  con>nuous  learning  

In  what  ways  is  your  organisa>on  adap>ve?  What  is  one  small  change  that  would  make  it  more  so?  How  

could  you  influence  this?    

How  will  you  influence  this?  

 Leadership  is  an  influencing  rela>onship  

Two  recommended  books….  

Posi>onal  power  to  Influence  Away  From      •  Telling  •  One  off    •  One  way  •  Discussion    •  Advocacy  •  Making  assump>ons  •  Judgment    

Towards  •  Learning  Talk  •  365  days  of  the  year  •  Mul>ple  ways  •  Dialogue  &  Discussion  •  Inquiry  and  Advocacy  •  Checking  for  understanding  •  Evidence  

Posi>ve  Deviance  

Somewhere  in  your  organisa>on,  groups  of  people  are  already  doing  things  differently  and  be?er.  To  create  las>ng  change,  find  areas  of  posi>ve  deviance  and  fan  their  flames.    h?p://www.posi>vedeviance.org/   Pascale  &  Sternin  (Harvard  Business  Review)  

 

•  Minimally  Invasive  Educa>on  (MIE).  

•  A  pedagogic  method  that  uses  the  learning  environment  to  generate  an  adequate  level  of  mo>va>on  to  induce  learning  in  groups  of  children,  with  minimal,  or  no,  interven>on  by  a  teacher.  

h?p://www.hole-­‐in-­‐the-­‐wall.com/MIE.html  

h?p://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_educa>on.html  

Compare  and  contrast…  

www.  h?p://thinkglobalschool.org/  h?p://thinkglobalschool.org/hansrosling/    

The  flipped  classroom:    reversed  instruc-on  

 If  kids  can  get  the  lectures,  can  get  the  content  delivery  and  skill  modeling  as  well  (or  oren  be?er)  by  computer  lecture  than  in  person,  why  do  we  have  use  precious  class-­‐>me  for  this  purpose?    Why  do  we,  in  the  status  quo,    replicate  in  person  in  our  classrooms  what  is  easily  available  elsewhere,  the  content  delivery/skill  modeling,  and  then  have  kids  apply  their  learning  to  difficult  problems  at  home,  without  us  there  to  help?  

•  What  do  these  four  examples  have  in  common?  

•  How  are  they  different?  

•  What  is  an  implica>on  for  your  organisa>on?  

"An  ecology  is  basically  an  open,  complex  adap3ve  system  comprising  elements  that  are  dynamic  and  interdependent.”            John  Seely  Brown  

Filter  Bubble    We  need  the  internet  to  connect  us  all  together.  We  need  it  to  introduce  us  to  new  ideas  and  new  people  and  different  perspec>ves  and  it  is  not  going  to  do  that  if  it  leaves  us  all  isolated  in  a  web  of  one.  

h?p://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html    

Eli  Parisier  

©Think  Be

yond

 Ltd  2011  

Cartoo

n  by  David  Fletche

r  

h?p://www.newshoestoday.com/site/offerings/nearling  

What if?

www.thinkbeyond.co.nz  Great  by  Choice  -­‐  Collins  and  Hansen  

h?p://online.wsj.com/ar>cle/SB10001424052970204190704577026113782699498.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet    

I  want  the  ability  for  people  to  be  able  to  lie  down  in  economy  class  but  I  can't  afford  for  the  seats  to  have  any  more  space.  When  you  say  it  like  that,  It  sounds  like  an  impossible  task,  because  how  can  you  get  people  to  lie  down  when  they  only  have  that  same  space  to  work  with.  But  the  reality  is,  if  you  lay  down  those  challenges  you  never  know  what  will  come  out  the  other  side.  We  got  a  

solu>on  that  no  one  else  in  the  world  had  ever  thought  of  before.  

   

h?p://www.fastcodesign.com/1669254/what-­‐if-­‐we-­‐put-­‐a-­‐school-­‐atop-­‐every-­‐building-­‐in-­‐manha?an    

Powerful  Ques-ons  

 What  kind  of  school  would  teenagers  fight  to  get  in  to  not  fight  to  stay  out?  

CHALLENGES AHEAD

NO DETOUR

The  Studio  School  

Powerful  Ques-ons  

•    What are the key skills, characteristics and abilities that will make your child an irresistible employee choice?

•  What will be most valued by employers in 2020 – or 2030?

CHALLENGES AHEAD

NO DETOUR

Proserpine  State  High  School  

Powerful  Ques-ons  

What if…schools in our district were responsible for the success of all students, not just their own?

CHALLENGES AHEAD

NO DETOUR

Shaking  Up  ChCh  Educa3on  

Influence  

 h?p://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar>cle-­‐2058319/Did-­‐Harvard-­‐economics-­‐class-­‐cause-­‐financial-­‐crisis-­‐Students-­‐walk-­‐lecture.html#ixzz1df24nW9K  

amplifica-on  

What  went  well?    What  impact  did  it  have?  

How  do  you  think  more  of  that?  

What  went  well?    What  impact  did  it  have?  

How  do  you  think  you  could  do  more  of  that?  

Contribu>ons  charts  •  To  remedy,  fix  or  improve  a  situa>on  •  To  enable  people  to  reach  an  important  goal.  

www.plotpd.com  

www.suce.org.nz    

One  new  idea  is…  This  is  how  I  could  use  it…  

www.thinkbeyond.co.nz    www.alpineleadership.com    c.doig@thinkbeyond.co.nz    

Check  out  these  sites  •  h?p://steve-­‐wheeler.blogspot.com/2011/03/2020-­‐learners.html  •  h?p://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-­‐15391515h?p://

mindshir.kqed.org/2011/03/21-­‐things-­‐that-­‐will-­‐be-­‐obsolete-­‐by-­‐2020/  

•  h?p://learning21c.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/i-­‐need-­‐some-­‐support-­‐mentoring-­‐in-­‐21st-­‐century-­‐schools/  

•  h?p://blog.globalnova>ons.com/index.php/diversity-­‐inclusion/reverse-­‐mentoring/  

•  h?p://www.zdnet.com/blog/igenera>on/defining-­‐the-­‐igenera>on-­‐not-­‐just-­‐a-­‐geeky-­‐bunch-­‐of-­‐kids/5336