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     KEYZINE: An e-zine for LEADERS:
   ABOUT THE PEOPLE PART OF BUSINESS
             Volume 98, May 2009
  Publisher: © Key Associates, 2009
              ISSN # 1545-8873
           http://www.mkkey.com/

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This Issue: On "Adaptive Leadership"

Contents:

"One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears.”
           -- Dean Rusk

"The task of leadership is not to put greatness in people, 
but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.”
           -- John Buchan

"Adapt or die.”
           -- Fast Company

"Best efforts are essential. Unfortunately, best efforts, 
people charging this way and that way without guidance 
of principles, can do a lot of damage. Think of the chaos 
that would come if everyone did his best, not knowing what to do.”
           -- W. Edwards Deming, The New Economics

"It is the paradox of leadership: you have to be completely 
committed to what you are doing in order to step out there 
and take the risks, but at the same time, with equal persistence, 
you have to hang on to self-doubt, always keeping open the 
possibility that there is a better idea out there.  Otherwise, 
how can you ever learn and grow?”
           -- Marty Linksky's Blog, 5/3/09

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WHAT'S HOT IN LEADERSHIP
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UNCOUPLING AUTHORITY FROM LEADERSHIP. 

RECOGNIZING THAT YOUR ORGANIZATION 
IS FILLED WITH LEADERS WHO ARE STYMIED.

LAUNCHING MANY EXPERIMENTS AND 
IDENTIFYING INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS WITH THEM.

ORCHESTRATING CONFLICT RATHER THAN 
RESOLVING IT.

BEING A PARTICIPANT-OBSERVER OF YOUR 
ENDEAVORS.

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MAINTAINING YOURSELF AS A LEADER
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There is nothing more stimulating for me than learning,  
and conferences are an excellent opportunity to 
harvest new ideas.  I have to compliment Vermont 
Oxford Network for inviting Cambridge Leadership 
Associates (Jeffrey Lawrence & Kristin Dunlop) to 
present at their March 19th, 2009 meeting.  

The unique idea I took from this was that Motivation 
has very much to do with overcoming competing 
commitments, interests, and conflicting values. 
Leaders are asking people to make great change 
and often encounter a solid status quo-ism push back.  
The core idea is that people fear not being able to do a 
good job, are satisfying many interests and will make 
very small changes (which looks like resistance) because 
of the conflict.  Leadership's challenge is to help people 
refashion their  beliefs to make adaptive changes.  It is 
a process that focuses on the person and not the technical 
challenges of the job.
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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"What is Adaptive Leadership?"

Ron Heifetz (1998) presented a striking new theory of leadership 
which distinguished between routine technical problems, 
which can be solved through expertise, and adaptive problems, 
such as crime, poverty, and educational reform, which 
require innovative approaches, including consideration of values.

"Adaptive challenges" stretch values and beliefs, ways of 
being, and identity.  These serve as an immune system, neutralizing 
new initiatives and innovations, only to restore the system to status quo.  
You appear threatening as a leader, asking for so much change.  
The way through this logjam is not logic, but an examination 
of what a person/group can give up and what can be preserved.  
By identifying the expendable, you create space for innovative 
approaches.  That which appears to be resistance is actually loss-- 
of the familiar, the comfortable, the known (von Donop, 2009).  

 

"What would be the best set of leadership skills/practices?"

*  Diagnose the situation in light of the values involved 
(and the conflicts among them).
*  Resist authoritative solutions. 
*  Accurately diagnose the challenges you are facing--
adaptive or technical.  
*  Identify the practices that are core to the future and 
the obstacles to them. 
*  Encourage smart experimentation and the testing of 
new practices.
*  Adapt by integrating new practices.

When these practices are shared across a number of 
people, the alignment of execution is greater across the 
organization (von Donop, 2009).

 

"How can I help people get unstuck?"

The Cambridge Leadership Associates use a case consultation 
methodology, which is akin to that used in Key Associates' 
Peer Coaching process:

1.  Build rapport with your consultee.
2.  Inquire about and understand the problem.  
What are its essential features?  Repeat back your understanding.
3.  Together, generate solutions, which can include: brainstorming, 
the conduct of experiments, challenging assumptions, using analogies, 
seeing ways they contribute to their own problem, examining their 
vision of success.  (Do not take over the problem or tell them what to do.)
4.  Collaboratively develop a plan and a mechanism for follow-up.  

The key to success is letting go of judgment, control and certainty; 
and allowing neutrality, empathy, and equality to exist in the relationship.

 

"Can I help myself, as a leader, with these same kinds of challenges?"

Heifetz & Linsky (2002) coin the phrase "Get on the Balcony, " the 
title of their Chapter 3.  A most difficult challenge is to gain perspective, 
while you're in the midst of action.  They suggest thinking of yourself 
as dancing in a big ballroom, with the band playing and people swirling 
around you.  But above is a balcony, from which you can observe a 
different picture.  

Take yourself out of the dance, if only for a moment.  But to affect 
what is happening to you, you have to return to the dance floor to 
test your observations.  Move back and forth.  This is the role of 
the participant-observer.

 

EXERCISES AND ACTION ITEMS:

*  Practice the process of coaching your employees, without 
an authoritative, telling approach. 

*  Be curious about what makes others tick: what loyalties, 
interests, other communities they serve.  Find out what they 
care about and ignite that.

*  Create a vision of greatness, but respond to what is 
happening in the moment.
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EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
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Key points in a Harvard Business Review article by 
Heifetz & Linsky about "Leadership on the Line"
http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbo/articles/article.jsp?articleID=R0206C&ml_action=get-article&print=true 

Four principles for being an adaptive leader
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5427/is_200201/ai_n21322404/

Key Associates offers a courses and modules 
in leadership development, several addressing 
human motivation and peer coaching.
1-888-655-3901 or keyassocs@mindspring.com. 

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OTHER USEFUL WEBSITES 
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 Send in your leadership dilemmas to leadership@washingtonpost.com 
and hear a commentary on them by Cambridge Leadership Associates 
once a week on The Washington Post's website.  "Leadership House Call."

Check out Marty Linsky's blog
http://cambridgeleadership.blogspot.com/

Former Keyzines on related topics:
Volume 3, June 2001- Coaching
Volume 15, June 2002 - Motivation
Volume 16, July 2002 - Dealing with Difficult People
Volume 22, January 2003 - Personal Change
Volume 28, July 2003 - Pride in Work
 Volume 37, April 2004 - Dialogue: Thinking Together
Volume 38, May 2004 - Cynicism
Volume 45, December 2004 - Driving Out Fear
Volume 46, January 2005 - Having Difficult Conversations
Volume 79, October 2007 - Employee Engagement
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ARTICLES/PUBLICATIONS                              
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Block, Peter. Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self Interest. 
Berrett-Koehler, 1993.

Deming, W. Edwards.  The New Economics for Industry, 
Government, Education.  The MIT Press, 2000.

Depree, Max. Leadership Jazz- Revised Edition: 
The Essential Elements of a Great Leader. 
Broadway Business, 2008.

Heifetz, Ronald A.  Leadership Without Easy Answers.  
Harvard University Press, 1998.

Heifetz, Ronald A. & Marty Linsky.  Leadership 
on the Line: Staying on the Line through the 
Dangers of Leading.  Harvard Business School 
Press, 2002.

Heifetz, Ronald A., Marty Linsky & Alexander Grashow.  
The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics 
for Changing Your Organization and the World.  Harvard 
Business Press, 2009.

Kouzes, James M. & Posner, Barry Z. The Leadership 
Challenge, 4th Edition. Jossey-Bass, 2008.

Lawrence, Jeffrey & Kristin Dunlop.  Leading for Improvement.  
Workshop at Vermont Oxford Network, March 19, 2009, 
Orlando FLA.

Oakley, Ed. & Krug, Doug. Enlightened Leadership: 
Getting to the Heart of Change. Fireside, 1994.

von Donop, Kristin.  Overcoming Competing Commitments: 
Adaptive Leadership for Healthcare.  Cambridge Leadership Associates.  
Attachment to e-mail from Deb Miller to VON Leadership Track, 
May 10, 2009.