Leading the Adaptive Challenge - Transition

There are times when some of the values and mindsets of people are no longer useful in addressing the challenges that beset the group or organization. This could be due to a shift in the dynamics of the larger environment or the emergence of a new threat or opportunity. To ensure the group is able to adapt and thrive in a changed environment, deal with the threat, or take advantage of the opportunity, the leadership work is to transition the group to a new state of operating and refashion the values, loyalties, and mind-sets of the people.

Transition, according to the dictionary, means the passage from one form, state, style, or place to another. In the context of real leadership, it is the process of shifting the people to a new set of norms, mindsets, and attitudes that are more appropriate for succeeding in a changed context. It is not a process of completely replacing values but of refashioning values.

Generally, transition challenges emerge when those in authority have a good sense of the direction the group should take, but members of the group have various reasons for dragging their feet.

The condition of the people facing a transition challenge: People in a transition challenge might see a need to transition themselves from one system of value to another, but they are anxious and afraid, as the process of transitioning can be overwhelming and disorienting.

The barrier that impedes progress includes the people’s understandable reluctance to give up their routine habits, practices, and priorities and replace them with another set. This process of change can be threatening to their identity, loyalties, and sense of competence.

The promise or aspiration (vision) on the other side of the barrier: The promise of a transition challenge is that if the group can renegotiate their loyalties and can sift through their prevailing values and practices to determine what they can carry forward and what must be left behind, then their lives (or the organization’s overall condition) might get better.

Leading the Adaptive Challenge - Maintenance

Not all leadership work is about change. Sometimes the challenge is to hold things together -to protect essential resources, maintain core values, and keep the enterprise from falling apart.

Maintenance leadership is needed to hold a group, community, organization, or country together when it is under threat.

The work for people in such a predicament is to face the reality that their survival is at stake and do what is required to reserve resources and maintain a level of energy that can allow the system to survive until the threat passes.

The condition of the people facing a Maintenance challenge: People in a maintenance challenge are generally in a state of trepidation and anxiety.

The barrier that impedes progress consists of the attitudes and practices of the people that lead them to further jeopardize the value and resources they have amassed.

The promise or aspiration (vision) on the other side of the barrier: The promise in a maintenance challenge is that the remaining value and resources of the people can be protected. The people will eventually weather the storm and survive if wise and prudent leadership can be provided.

 

Leading the Adaptive Challenge - Development

There are times when the people’s advancement is dependent on their capacity to develop their latent capabilities take advantage of opportunities. The development of those capabilities will allow the people, or their organization, to prosper at a higher-level than they would be able to otherwise.

The leadership task faced with the development challenge is to orchestrate a learning process design that cultivates the group’s latent capabilities.

The development challenge is the core challenge of all human endeavors. Without the appropriate development that allows people to take advantage of the amazing array of opportunities that are available today, groups and organizations will stagnate. Stagnation inevitably leads to decay, and decay leads to death. Leaders therefore must be vigilant in diagnosing the shifting terrain to discover emerging threats and opportunities.

A development challenge is when the group or organization must build new capabilities –competencies, practices, and processes –to ensure the survival and progress of the group or organization.

A development challenge requires complete dedication from the leadership team to support and steer the process.

It is a volatile activity as it involves willingness to experiment and considerable conflict and anxiety as people struggle to build new capacities, deal with threats, accommodate new realities, and take advantage of emerging opportunities. 

The condition of the people is that they are incompetent in regard to the requirements of responding to a changing context. The people must face their incompetence and develop what latent capabilities they have and grow new competencies to respond to the new context and deliver on the promise. The raw material is available in the people but needs to be developed.

The barrier that impedes progress is the lack of confidence of the people, their attachment to values and practices that have worked for them in the past, their unwillingness to take risks, and their reluctance to embrace new practices and priorities. The reality that people are avoiding is that the world around them is changing and adherence to old skills, habits, and practices will render them mediocre performers at best and obsolete at worse.

The promise or aspiration (vision) on the other side of the barrier:

If latent capabilities and new competencies can be developed, the group or organization will enjoy a more prosperous, satisfying, or rewarding future.

Leadership for development challenge is about orchestrating processes to enhance the capacity of the entire system in order to make it more resilient, responsive, and relevant. The process is much like evolution in the development consists of formulating new capacities through a lot of trial and error. These new capacities allow for a higher level of functioning in changing contexts such as dealing with the new predator competitors were taking advantage of a new terrain markets.

Unlike evolution, a development challenge is a more active, guided, and intentional process in which leadership tries to identify a new challenge early, and to intervene before the challenge becomes a threat of crisis.

A way to think about the function of leadership for development challenge is to think of it as a perturbing force. Borrowing from the idea of an ecosystem, it is helpful to consider an organization as a species that will generally remain stable until some drastic change in the environment challenges the ability of the species to cope. The drastic change exerts a perturbing force on the species, and unless it involves a successful adaptive response, it will die off. 

When the equilibrium of the system is punctuated by perturbing force, a new adaptive opportunity results. Whether or not the species adapts is dependent on many factors, but the opportunity is there. In response to the economic, social, and cultural pressures the, responsible leaders must themselves act as a perturbing force to energize a developmental process that enhances the health and performance of the people and the enterprise.

The point is that a healthy enterprise must think ahead to stock up on the resources it will need to survive, grow, and take advantage of the special opportunities that might emerge in the desert of hard times ahead.

 

Leading the Adaptive Challenge - Crisis

A crisis challenge is a perilous predicament in which the group is under attack from forces within or without. It is a sudden unpredictable event that jeopardizes the accrued value and resources of the group or enterprise.
 

The condition of the people facing a Crisis challenge: People in a crisis challenge are anxious and afraid. They are under threat, so naturally they worry what will become of themselves, their group, or their enterprise.

The barrier that impedes progress is primarily the “forces” that have generated the crisis condition and the emotional and psychological state of the people.

The promise or aspiration (vision) on the other side of the barrier is that if the group can get beyond the “fog” of the situation, they will discover a deeper underlying issue that must be addressed.

The leadership work in a period of grave danger must be to restore calm; protect the people or the enterprise from further threat or attack, and assist the people channeling their fear, anxiety, and aggression toward creative and workable solutions.
 

This necessitates managing the groups emotions, illusions, fears, and interpretations so that the people face the reality of what lies beneath the crisis and attend to the real issue that must be engaged in order for the situation to be brought to resolution. Therefore, those who seek to exercise real leadership in such circumstances must keep their own heads clear and remain cool under pressure as they work to diagnose the reality of the predicament and figure out where and how they should intervene.

During a crisis challenge, usually two challenges must be addressed concurrently: the volatility of the situation and the unresolved issue below the surface that is actually the reason for the volatility.

Many would-be leaders in a crisis chase false solutions that may make some people feel better but avoid the real problem. Given the pressure on the leader to do something, leaders might feel compelled to come up with a simple but palatable solution that brings temporary relief, such as finding a scapegoat for the crisis are redirecting the people's attention to some other issue and thereby bypassing the real underlying issue altogether. The work of genuine resolution is then, irresponsibly, left to others-even future generations.

 

Leading the Adaptive Challenge - Creative

A creative challenge necessitates doing something that has never been done before. It lies in bringing something into existence that can make a positive contribution to the organization. It is imaginative and inventive work requiring persistence, exploratory thinking, and constant experimentation.

A creative challenge emerges when a group faces a problem or opportunity that no current strategy or practice can successfully address, and an incremental approach based on developing latent values and resources appears to hold little promise.

In essence, the group must invent a solution; they must discover an answer to their predicament, or no progress will be possible. Unlike a development challenge, a creative challenge requires a significant break with the past and an unconstrained leap into the future.

The condition of the people facing a Creative challenge is that the people facing a creating challenge are stuck. They fill like they have hit a wall and are at a loss as to what they must do or how to proceed. The group does not possess in its current repertoire of knowledge a solution to their predicament.
 

The barriers that impede progress are the limitations and boundaries that contain and refrain the people’s thinking- their psychological state, the group culture, and the prevailing paradigm in which the problem occurs. Creative work stirs up an array of emotions in people: some get excited by the process, and some seek to squelch the process because it disrupts the world they know.

The promise or aspiration (vision ) on the other side of the barrier:

The promise available in a creative challenge is that if the people can accomplish something that has never been done before and produce a breakthrough in their thinking and collective efforts. They can function at a higher level of productivity or profitability, or have a better shot at success.

The leadership task is to generate a mood and orchestrate a process to get people to transcend their current thinking and discover a successful response or solution to their constraining predicament.

The essence of exercising leadership to address a creative challenge lies in helping foster the circumstances, attitudes, and processes that make such outcomes possible.