Adaptive Leadership

Reference guide
Additional resources

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The Adaptive Leadership iterative framework (1 of 2)

AWARENESS

DISCOVERY

TAKING ACTION

LEARNING

TRANSFORMING

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The Adaptive Leadership iterative framework (2 of 2)
 Awareness—Perspective Agility: Deepening awareness and perspective. Understand how
we think and how our teams, customers and key stakeholders think. Develop a growth
mindset and create a space for innovation, adapting and continuously learning and
building our confidence as we lead ourselves and our organisation into the unknown
future.
 Discovery—Strategic and Creative Agility: Focusing on the near horizon, defining the
desired future state, aligning on a clear vision and destination; developing a strategy on
how best to get there, and what we need to quickly get on our way.
 Taking Action—Execution Agility; complex problem-solving, rapid decision-making;
experimenting; building high performance teams and communities; fearless follow-
through and closure; driving for rapid results; optimising end-to-end capabilities to create
and deliver differentiating value.
 Learning Continuously—Learning Agility: through feedback and metrics that matter;
systems, analytical and critical thinking agility; visual tools and information radiators;
adapting and responding; knowledge creation through reflection and retrospectives.
 Transforming—Deepening capabilities: for adaptation, innovation and knowledge
creation; curation; building environments to accelerate organisational capability and
continuously developing talent through learning.
 Evolving—Repeat the cycle of learning: rapidly and continuously as we adapt and evolve
as leaders, teams and organisation to thrive in an uncertain future as it emerges.

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Adaptive leaders…

 Enhance their adaptability by focusing on creative thinking and design

thinking to create new solutions when facing problems that require new
solutions. Creative thinking generates new insights, novel approaches,
fresh perspectives, and new ways of understanding and conceiving things.
 Look at new options to solve problems using adaptive approaches (drawn
from previous similar circumstances) or innovative approaches (completely
new ideas) and leverage design thinking to model problem framing and
generate ideal interventions.
 Know that adaptation occurs through experimentation.
 Understand that change enables their capacity to thrive.
 Embrace and make sense of the whole complexity of their systems.

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Adaptive leaders

 Practice systems thinking to expose the dynamic relationships between

elements and see how patterns form and look beyond symptoms to
discover root causes.
 Discover emergent outcomes of the dynamic interactions between the
systems elements in any system.
 Develop the ability to uncover and check assumptions, values, and belief
systems.
 Recognise that the most effective leverage point in a system is our
mindsets or paradigms, out of which the structures of our systems are
designed.
 Use a process of simultaneous inquiry and deep listening and regulating
tension to challenge each other’s assumptions and mental models, until
the blinders have been removed and people are able to see a situation
with “new” eyes.
 Mobilise teams to lead transformative change.
 Enable everyone to reach their full potential.

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Welcome... Invitation

 Exploration
 Discovery
 Innovative Ideas
 Personal field guide

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Our future journey begins…

 Listening
 Questioning
 Sensemaking
 Paradigm breaking
 Learning
 Focusing
 Charting your course

What are you doing in the future?

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Pivotal conversations

1. Ask permission/context
2. Think about thinking
3. Listen for potential
4. Balance power style
5. Create new thinking

Source: “Quiet Leadership” by David Rock

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Adaptive Leadership iteration

Prioritise Hypotheses Learn Continuously

4 8

Design 3 awareness action 7 Create an

Thought Observe events & Mobilise, Support & Adaptive
Experiments patterns 1 5 Serve Culture

2 6

Orchestrate the
Diagnosis Discovery Experiment Conflict/Intervention

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 What is
Adaptive Leadership?

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Invitation… we’re heading into uncharted territories

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Journey to the future business landscape

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward…

You can only connect them looking backward.”
Steve Jobs

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 Activity

 Journey mapping—
your turn.

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Classic Strategy Adaptive Strategy

predictions To experiments

data collection To pattern recognition

execution from Execution by the

To
the top down whole

© 2012 Monitor Institute, all rights reserved

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Facilitating change: a reflective assessment
Feedback:
Feedback:
_______________ 1. Current audiences
_______________ _______________ & change issues I facilitate
4. What gives
____________ _______________ ________________ _______________ me energy &
____________ keeps me
________________ _______________ going?

5. ________________ _______________ ________________

Supporters &
________________ _______________ ________________
“coaches” ________________
________________
2. Three beliefs
I have about
successful
change
3. Pest or obstacles? 7. My immediate next steps
____________________________________ ____________________________ _________________________
____________________________________ ________________________________________________________

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 Adaptive Leadership Journey

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Paths and curves

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Reality check

Consumer Value
Interactions, Goals, Emotions

Desirable Experience Design

Solution Value Feasible Viable Business Value

People, Process, & Differentiation, Acquisition,
Technology Retention & Efficiency
Solution Design Business Design

What: consider if the innovations meet the “desirable, feasible, viable”

test.
Why: filter out innovations with no customer experience value or viability.

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25 Copyright © iHoriz SoftEd, 2015
 We believe

{Description of the new experience }

Will solve

{Customer needs & organisation’s issue/opportunity }

Enabled by

{ Full solution: people + processes + technology }

Resulting in

{New attitude/behaviour / result }

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Select hypothesis to test with an intervention

INSTANT
bonuses to
recognise
exceptional
performance

What: select one idea (or several related ideas) to prototype and test.
Why: to build a hypothesis to test for more insight.

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Strategy design approach

Impact Issues/opportunities
Strategic
Customer needs
business objectives
Emotional
Acquisition
Journey
Retention
Moment
Efficiency
Innovation Insights

Tools and accelerators

technology, behavioural, business trends

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29 Copyright © iHoriz SoftEd, 2015
Transformation map

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35 Copyright © iHoriz SoftEd, 2015
Broaden our perspective

 What haven’t I noticed lately?

 Take new perspectives, notice in new or unfamiliar ways, expand your
field of vision.
 Look in the “dead zones”–places you habitually don’t look.
 Expand sources of information, include unfamiliar and non-routine.
 Learn about, and look for, patterns you want to see.
 Reduce your area of disturbance, increase area of awareness, so you’ll
notice beyond your own impact.
 Pay attention and track how you spend your time and energy.
 Recognising blind spots and traps:
 Magical thinking.
 Illusion of control.
 Debilitating impacts of blame (single throat to choke).

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37
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Iceberg model

[Link]
Double loop learning: Argyris & Schön

Why? Single loop learning

Underlying Goals, values,

Results
assumptions techniques
(consequence)
(variable) (action strategy)

Double loop learning

Defensive
reasoning

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Managing complex change

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Kotter’s 8 step change model

Build a
Create
guiding
urgency
team

Make Create a
change vision for
stick change

Don’t let Remove obstacles /

up communicate

Create short- Empower

term wins action

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 Continuously
adapting and tuning
Cynefin, Polarity Management and OODA loops.

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Cynefin framework

 Helps us understand context

so we can make better
choices
 Each of the domains—simple,
complicated, complex,
chaotic and disorder, requires
different actions

[Link] Graphic: David J. Snowden and Mary E. Boone

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Simple and complicated contexts

 The ability to assess, categorise, respond (in the pursuit of best

practice) or assess, analyse, respond (in the pursuit of good
practice) becomes a strategic differentiator.
 Lean thinking, principles and practices apply in such contexts,
contributing a wealth of experience to enhance business
performance.
Assess

Categorise

Respond

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The Cynefin model—assessing the situation

Cynefin framework: Dave Snowden

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 The context’s characteristics The leader’s job Danger signals Response to danger signals
Repeating patterns and consistent events Sense, categorise, respond Complacency and comfort Create communication channels to
Clear cause-and-effect relationships Ensure that proper processes are in place Desire to make complex problems simple challenge orthodoxy
evident to everyone; right answer exists Delegate Entrained thinking Stay connected without micromanaging
Known unknowns Use best practices No challenge of received wisdom Don’t assume things are simple
Simple

Fact-based management Communicate in clear, direct ways Overreliance on best practice if context Recognise both the value and limitations
Understand that extensive interactive shifts of best practice
communication may not be necessary

Expert diagnosis required Sense, analyse, respond Experts overconfident in their own Encourage external and internal
Cause-and-effect relationships Create panels of experts solutions or in the efficacy of past solutions stakeholders to challenge expert opinions
Complicated

discoverable but not immediately Listen to conflicting advice Analysis paralysis to combat entrained thinking
apparent to everyone; more than one right Expert panels Use experiments and games to force
answer possible Viewpoints of non-experts excluded people to think outside the familiar
Known unknowns
Fact-based management

Flux and unpredictability Probe, sense, respond Temptation to fall back into habitual Be patient and allow time for reflection
No right answers; emergent instructive Create environments and experiments that command-and-control mode Use approaches that encourage
patterns allow patterns to emerge Temptation to look for facts rather than interaction so patterns can emerge
Unknown unknowns Increase levels of interaction and allowing patterns to emerge
Many competing ideas communication Desire for accelerated resolution of
Complex

A need for creative and innovative Use methods that can help generate ideas; problems or exploitation of opportunities
approaches open up discussion (as through large
Pattern-based leadership group methods); set barriers; stimulate
attractors; encourage dissent and
diversity; and manage starting conditions
and monitor for emergence

High turbulence Act, sense, respond Applying a command-and-control Set up mechanisms (such as parallel
No clear cause-and-effect relationships, Look for what works instead of seeking approach longer than needed teams) to take advantage of opportunities
so no point in looking for right answers right answers “Cult of the leader” afforded by a chaotic environment
Chaotic

Unknowables Take immediate action to re-establish Missed opportunity for innovation Encourage advisers to challenge your
Many decisions to make and no time to order (command and control) Chaos unabated point of view once the crisis has abated
think Provide clear, direct communication Work to shift the context from chaotic to
High tension complex
Pattern based leadership

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 If you can dream it… you can do it.
Walt Disney

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 Polarity Map
Action Steps Greater Purpose Statement - why Leverage this dynamic tension?
Action Steps
5. Why pursue upsides?
How will we gain or maintain the positive results from How will we gain or maintain the positive results from
focusing on this left pole? What? Who? By When? Measures? Values = positive results of focus on the left pole Values = positive results of focus on the right pole focusing on this right pole? What? Who? By When?
Measures?

7. ACTION STEPS: How to 4. BENEFITS: The reasons 2. SOLUTION: 8. ACTION STEPS: How to
retain the current benefits the dominant value is so The corrections that the get the “Solution’s”
favoured frustrated people want benefits

Dominant Value and Subordinated Value

Early Warnings Early Warnings
Measurable indicators (things you can count) that will let you Measurable indicators (things you can count) that will let you
know that you are getting into the downside of this left pole. know that you are getting into the downside of this right pole.

9. WARNING SIGNS: How to 1. PROBLEM: 3. RISK: What we could 10. WARNING SIGNS: How
be warned about getting Theme of current get if we overcorrect to be warned about getting
these downsides frustrations these downsides

Fears = negative results of over-focus on the left pole to the Fears = negative results of over-focus on the right pole to the
neglect of the right pole neglect of the left pole

6. Why avoid downsides?

Deeper Fear from not seeing and optimising the tension

The Polarity Map is based on the work of Dr Barry Johnson of Polarity Partnerships, LLC

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 Reduce the risk and
uncertainty of idea for
new and improved value
propositions
By identifying hypotheses to test, testing and experimenting.

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 Strategic change canvas
Accelerate learning to understand value and viability.

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50 Copyright © iHoriz SoftEd, 2015
Metrics that matter

 Lead time: How long work takes to travel across the board (and
get from start to finish). The clock starts when a card is pulled
onto the board and stops when an offer is accepted or hire is
complete (done).
 Total WIP: Measure (count) anything that’s been started by
anyone on the team (but not completed within the week).
 Blockers: Signals an unfinished dependence. Track how often
items are blocked. How long do they stay blocked? Where in
the process do blockers happen? In each daily stand-up add “1”
to the blocked days and note where the block started.

Continued over…
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Metrics that matter (cont’d)

 Throughput: Count number of items completed per week. Track

this number from week to week to see how changes you make
in your Kanban system affect how much total work actually gets
done by the team.
 Customer satisfaction: Explore variations of net promoter score.
 Team morale and engagement: Explore ways to measure and
track over time.

As you master these measures, you can start to track cost of

value, time to value and productivity.

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Use, monitor, adapt and improve by measuring and
managing flow
At each weekly retrospective, measure:

1. Value throughput: the 6. A list of places where cards

amount of value delivered were blocked.
this week (cards). 7. Customer delight.
2. Lead time for each card 8. Team engagement and
(start date and completed morale.
date).
9. Improved capacity and
3. Average lead time for this learning.
week (across all cards).
10. Quality.
4. Cards completed with > 0
blocked days. 11. Cost.
5. Total blocked days.
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 Practice.
Practice.
Practice.

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 Creating
a learning organisation

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Note to Self:

Everyday reflect on how I’m

better today than I was
yesterday.

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A learning organisation

 Creates its own future.

 Assumes learning is an ongoing and creative process for its
members.
 Develops, adapts and transforms itself in response to the needs
and aspirations of people, both inside and outside itself.
 Allows people at all levels, individually and collectively, to
continually increasing their capacity to produce results they
really care about.

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Creating a learning organisation

 Personal mastery: States Senge, “Personal mastery is the

discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal
vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of
seeing reality objectively.” (p. 7) He offers that an organisation’s
learning can only be as great as that of each of its individual
members. Consequently, personal mastery and the desire for
continuous learning integrated deeply in the belief system of
each person is critical for competitive advantage in the future.
 Mental models: These are the deeply held pictures each of us
holds in our mind about how the world, work, our families, and
so on work. Mental models influence our vision of how things
happen at work, why things happen at work, and what we are
able to do about them.

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Creating a learning organisation

 Building shared vision: By shared vision, Senge is referring to a

process in which the original vision for an organisation, probably
determined by the leader, is translated into shared pictures
around which the rest of the organisation finds meaning,
direction, and reasons for existing.
 Team learning: Senge finds that “teams, not individuals, are the
fundamental learning unit in modern organisations.” (p. 10) It is
the dialogue among the members of the team which results in
stretching the ability of the organisation to grow and develop.

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Five leadership skills that foster learning

 Developing intellectual curiosity—What do you find intriguing?

What can you learn from others’ views?
 Asking open questions. Can you ask others truly open (not leading)
questions, without trying to make a point?
 Maintaining non-defensive reactions. When someone disagrees or
criticises, do you seek more data and reflect on it, rather than
defend your position or yourself, or attack?
 Examining assumptions. Do you make your assumptions explicit,
examine them to see if they’re valid, and invite others to do the
same?
 “Slow down the game.” High performing athletes do this. It helps
them see the ball, the playing field, the competition. When you’re
feeling pressed with too many demands, do you know how to focus
on the “vital few” that really matter? Can you slow down your
game? Simplify?

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 Continuous learning
Creating knowledge through the transformation of
experience.

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At the heart of a learning
organisation lies the belief that
enormous human potential lies
locked and undeveloped in our
organisations.

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 In the long run, the only sustainable source of
competitive advantage is your organisation’s
ability to learn faster than your competition.

Peter Senge

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Real learning

 Is not limited to understanding what is necessary to survive

(“adaptive learning”), but includes “generative learning” or
learning that expands an individual’s capacity to create the
results they truly desire.
 Is complex.
 Involves four different activities:
1. Thinking.
2. Communicating.
3. Cooperating.
4. Reflecting.
 Generates knowledge.
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Business agility skills that foster learning

 Developing intellectual curiosity—What do you find intriguing?

What can you learn from others’ views?
 Asking open questions. Can you ask others truly open (not
leading) questions, without trying to make a point?
 Maintaining non-defensive reactions. When someone disagrees
or criticises, do you seek more data and reflect on it, rather than
defend your position or yourself, or attack?
 Examining assumptions. Do you make your assumptions explicit,
examine them to see if they’re valid, and invite others to do the
same?
 “Slow down the game.” When you’re feeling pressed with too
many demands, do you know how to focus on the “vital few”
that really matter? Can you slow down your game?
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Learning tool: Retrospective

1. Set the stage: create a good

environment for the work.
2. Gather data: collect/present
data to be examined.
3. Generate insights: mine the
data for learning.
4. Decide what to do: prioritise
possibilities, identify actions.
5. Close the retrospective:
document experience; plan
for follow-up.

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 Regardless of what we discover, we must understand and
truly believe that everyone did the best job he or she could,
given what was known at the time, his or her skills and
abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.

Project Retrospectives : A Handbook for Team Reviews by Norm Kerth

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 Transforming:
Creating a learning
organisation
Creating knowledge through the transformation of
experience.

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A learning enterprise…

 Catalyst style of leadership.

 Continuous learning, improvement and innovation from
experiments.
 Fosters trust, safety, transparency and open communication.
 Governance and rewards based on measureable value and
adaptation.
 Aligned, empowered employees seek and develop mastery in
new skills, competencies, experiences and driven to making a
difference everyday to delight customers… to our organisation’s
competitive advantage.

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 Emotions are a
Our IQ impacts our
problem and block
ability to learn.
our ability to learn.

When we’re really

Sleep, play and
learning we feel
meditation are
confident,
important learning
successful and
tools.
clear.

We all learn the

Learning changes
same: learning is
our brain.
learning.

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 New knowledge
drives continuous Ability to anticipate
process & and adapt in real-
performance time
change

Delight the Accelerate product

Customer & process
innovation

Increase
commitment, Do Less
engagement, And Use Time
potential & Differently
creativity

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 Why is building a learning
organisation so difficult?
#1 Reason: Safety.

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 FEAR No time

Distrust Responsibility

Blocks and
inability to Energy
unlearn

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Learning amplifiers

 Opportunities to practice new

Panic Zone
learnings
 Immersion experiences
Learning Zone
 Experimentation
 Time for reflection
 Energy Comfort
Zone
 Time for cultivating imagination
 Opportunities for exploration
 Challenges
 Safety to fail

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Management vs. signatures
 Over-informing.  Authority ambiguity: not sure who has ultimate
accountability so no one does.
 My way (not invented here, too cool for school).
 All things to all people: our energy is distracted by any
 Criticise everything and everyone else.
new idea that comes up and not anchored on priorities
 False positive (nice speak). or strategy.
 False consensus.  Flavour of the month.
 Caste systems (labelling).  Sheep dipping change resulting in change fatigue and
overload.
 Moving forward into our past.
 Disjointed action: can’t see the big picture and how our
 Turf wars and territoriality.
work fits with the vision and strategy.
 Command and control.
 Obedience: Do what we’re told—even when we know
 Activity mania: badge of honour is being too busy to it’s wrong or going to cause problems downstream.
think.
 Process mania: so constrained by process, nothing can
 Hero worship. change and decisions and learning are blocked.
 Silver bullets.  What over why: no double loop learning.
 Narcissistic competitiveness: we’re so fond of winning  Kill the messenger.
we sabotage and take credit for others work.
 Glacial response: Decisions are so slow why bother?
 Adrenaline addiction: create crisis.
 No good deed goes unpunished.
 Engineering to a fault: we prefer reacting to symptoms
 Brutal pessimism and conditioned helplessness.
than fixing the root cause.

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Ideas to embed AL development in your job
1. Create time and space to learn and create new knowledge.
2. Build new relationships.
3. Create COP’s and meetups with colleagues who share a common interest.
4. Take time to plan and review your day with clear intentions and honest assessment of
outcomes.
5. Create a personal learning journal.
6. Find a mentor.
7. Create a coaching circle.
8. Create new feedback mechanisms for yourself.
9. Restructure your job.
10. Co-create new job opportunities.
11. Network.
12. Practice 70/20/10.
13. Create a learning lab.
14. Invite guest speakers.
15. Develop a talent exchange program.

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To effect change, change experience first

Results Drives

Actions
Drives

Beliefs
Drives

Experiences

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Thoughts to step into your leadership courage

 I create an environment for myself that encourages invention

and taking a chance.
 I make rapid decisions for myself, and I stand behind my
decisions and the decisions of my team.
 I demonstrate the continuous ability to step out of my comfort
zone and test new skills and behaviours.
 I realistically appraise my mental models, strengths and
weaknesses without my ego getting in the way.

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Adaptive Leadership starts at the edge of your comfort
zone
 Be smart and challenge yourself.
 Be fearless and challenge the vision.
 Be daring and challenge the organisation.
 Be heroic and challenge the stakeholders.
 Be innovative and challenge best practices.
 Be strong and challenge the culture.
 Be bold and challenge the talent.
 Every improvement comes with stepping out of your comfort zone.
 Lead from within: Leaders who lead beyond their comfort zone
take stands. They take responsibility. They seize opportunities to
make things better. They challenge things to make improvements.
They take risks to regulate tension and create change.

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Adaptive Leadership activities

 Identify the adaptive challenge

 Think politically
 Orchestrate the conflict
 Discipline attention
 Develop responsibility
 Regulate disequilibrium
 Infuse the work with meaning

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Principles for navigating the future

1. Resilience over Strength

2. Pull over Push
3. Risk over Safety
4. System over Objects
5. Compass over Map
6. Practice over Theory
7. Emergence over Authority
8. Disobedience over Compliance
9. Learning over Education
Appreciations to Joi Ito (MIT Media Lab) & Bruce Sterling

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Keep learning to keep winning

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 You have set sail on another ocean without
star or compass going where the argument
leads shattering the certainties of centuries.
Janet Kalven, “Respectable Outlaw”

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Adaptive Leadership iteration

Prioritise Hypotheses Learn Continuously

4 8

Design 3 awareness action 7 Create an

Thought Observe events & Mobilise, Support & Adaptive
Experiments patterns 1 5 Serve Culture

2 6

Orchestrate the
Diagnosis Discovery Experiment Conflict/Intervention

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 It turns out that stories are the leadership
answer of our time.
Tom Peters

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 Why?

 How do you feel when

you hear the word
“story”?

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 Everything that exists right now

The adjacent possible

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Stories and story work

 Creating your leadership story. One of the most powerful ways for
leaders to see how you lead, understand the reasons you lead as
you do, and make significant improvements in your leadership
effectiveness, is through understanding and learning to work with
your story and describe the working hypotheses that can help
guide you on your journey.
 Premises underlying story work:
1. We each have a few core, systemic stories.
2. We formed the basic structure of our stories—plot lines,
character structure, and roles we tend to play—since our the first
system.
3. Our systemic as a system and being aware of how it influences
your leadership behaviour, and learning to work with it, is vital for
you as an adaptive leader.

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 A leader is most effective when people barely know
he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, his
troops will feel they did it themselves.

Lao Tzu

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Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Emotional
Needs Transcendence
Self-Actualisation
Aesthetic
Cognitive
Esteem

Functional / Social
Moment Safety
Needs Physiological

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 Writing or reviewing your mission statement
changes you because it forces you to think
through your priorities deeply, carefully, and
to align your behaviour with your beliefs.
Stephen Covey
7 Habits of Highly Effective People

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Building a personal brand

 What would I do if I knew I could not fail?

 Set realistic goals and work toward them with an authentic and
consistent approach that leverages your unique strengths and
abilities.
 Be clear about the unique value you bring (your brand
statement).
 Develop your elevator pitch—and execute on it every day (being
adaptive).

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What I care about? I’m good at…

1 1

2 2

3 3

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Adaptive Leadership OODA loop

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40 Best practices for an empowered enterprise
1. Leaders are open to “bad news”. leaders.
2. Asking questions in encouraged (high 13. Employees are engaged and committed to the
performance). organisation’s goals.
3. Decision-making processes are clearly defined 14. Stories about org history are frequently shared at
throughout the company. company events/materials.
4. Employees are frequently given tasks or projects 15. Individuals who initiate projects or solutions by
beyond their current knowledge and skills set to themselves are rewarded.
stretch them developmentally.
16. New company innovations and solutions are
5. Employees have influence over which job tasks widely shared and promoted.
are assigned to them.
17. Employees consider it part of their jobs to help
6. Org values and rewards employees who learn new each other learn.
knowledge and skills.
18. Collaboration is common and regarded as an
7. Org values mistakes and failures as learning important method for learning.
opportunities—and provides structured
opportunities for reflecting and retrospecting. 19. Organizational core values and beliefs that truly
govern actions.
8. Org believes that learning new knowledge and
skills is valuable. 20. Most employees can explain core values and
beliefs.
9. Employees perceive that learning and dev
opportunities are of high value.
10. Employees tack active responsibility for their own
personal development.
11. Customers are regularly interviewed and surveyed.
(Bersin & Associates)
12. Risk taking is rewarded among managers and

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40 Best practices for an empowered enterprise cont.
21. Org demonstrates that knowledge can be shared openings.
without political risk.
33. The organisation recognises the difference between
22. Employees generally feel safe in the work environment. best efforts which yield poor results and poor efforts
which yield poor results.
23. Leaders frequently participate in training programs re:
their development. 34. Employee actions and behaviours result in appropriate
positive or negative consequences.
24. Most employees have career development plans.
35. The organisation regularly surveys employee opinions;
25. Employee innovation programs encourage new ideas at feedback is freely communicated and quickly acted
all levels. upon.
26. Employees frequently identify new ways to carry out 36. Customer ideas and solutions are communicated within
business tasks based on current circumstances vs. the company regularly.
following established precedents.
37. Executives take a personal interest in the capabilities of
27. Authority is loosely controlled; few decisions have to be teams and individuals.
signed-off.
38. The organisation discusses the company’s culture and
28. Organization processes are designed to be as open as potential fit as part of the hiring process.
possible; employees can easily see how processes
work and which employees are involved. 39. Employees willingly give and receive feedback to each
other.
29. The organisation encourages taking time to analyse and
reflect. 40. Learning and development executives and
professionals are rotated in and out of the training-
30. Employees know what learning and or developmental specific jobs.
opportunities are available to them and where to find
them.
31. The learning and development department regularly …others that you would recommend?
re-evaluates its learning offerings and spending
decisions and reallocates resources accordingly.
32. The organisation prefers hiring from within to fill job (Bersin & Associates)

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 • How will we measure our success?
Awareness ________________________________________________See • What steps might we take ?

• Why is this important? • What challenges might come our way and how might we meet them

• What information do you need to be fully engaged and energized to contribute to

improving? Discovery Questions
Awareness Questions • What conversation can we start today, might ripple out in a way that
1. What would it take to create energy for change around this issue? creates new possibilities for the future?
2. What question, if answered, could make the most difference to the • How can we support each other in taking the next step? (Create
future of this situation? KANBAN backlog)
3. What’s important here? What’s possible? Who is impacted? • What unique contributions can we each make?
4. What needs our immediate attention? • What commitments can we make? By who, how much and when?

Current Condition _________________________________________See Contributing Factors __________________________________ Explore

1. How do things work today? What do we know so far? • What’s been our major learning, insight, and discovery so far
2. What do we still need to learn? What assumptions do we need to challenge? • What is contributing to the current conditions?
3. What are the possibilities now? • What’s the next level of thinking we need to do?
4. Baseline Metrics? • What can we do to make the biggest difference/impact?

Assessment Questions Assessment Questions

5. Is the current condition clear and accurately visible? 1. Is our understanding comprehensive at a broad level?
6. How could the most relevant condition be even clearer? 2. Do we have sufficient detail and probe deeply enough on the right
7. What’s taking shape? What new connections are you making? issues?
3. Have we heard from everyone? Levereaged five-whys thinking?
8. What’s missing? What is it we’re not seeing? What do we need
4. What might we be missing? (human, machine, material, method,
more clarity about?
environment, measurement, and so on?
9. What’s the next level of thinking we need to do? 5. Are we aligned in implementing countermeasures and current level
10. Are the facts of the situation clear, or are these just observations of reasoning?
and opinions?
11. Have we sufficiently quantified customer and business value?
Review Political Landscape Questions on the next page
12. If there is one thing you need to know to reach a deeper level of
understanding/clarity, what would that be?

Goal/ Future State ____________________________________ Explore

• If our success was guaranteed, what bold outcomes would we achieve?

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 6. Loyalties and obligations
Benefits Realization _____________________________________ Learn
7. Losses at risk (fear of losing if things change)
• Review of results of each experiment (planned vs. actual outcomes).
• Understand how the system now behaves with the planned countermeasures in 8. Hidden alliances
place?
• What additional information is necessary to implement? Pivot?

Questions
1. How will we measure the effectiveness of the countermeasures?
2. Does the result align with the previous goal and planned outcomes?
3. Has system performance aligned with the goal?

Learning (Actions) ______________________________________ Learn

• What have we learned? How will share these learnings?
• In the light of the learning, what should be done?
• How might we amplify these learnings to the way we work?
• What do we need to learn next?

Questions
1. What is necessary to sustain the benefits?
2. What else might be accomplished?
3. Who else in the organization might benefit from this knowlege?
4. How will this knowledge be shared and amplified?
5. What has most contributed to our learning and new understanding?
6. What difference were you able to make? Most valued?
7. What might be the next breakthrough achievement?

Political Landscape: Identify web of Stakeholders. For each, discover:

1. What is their stake in the adaptive challenge

2. Their desired outcomes
3. Level of engagement
4. Degree of power and influence
5. Values: commitments and beliefs guiding decision making

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 Robust dialogue
and fierce conversations
Confrontation model to avoid waste—continuously.

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The importance of robust dialogue

 You can’t have a learning culture without robust dialogue:

 Open minds (vs. preconceptions or private agendas).
 Being open to new (and possibly conflicting) information.
 Actively listening to all sides of a debate.
 Expressing honest and real opinions.
 Being open to choosing the best alternatives.
 Fearlessness re: upset the power players or disrupt harmony.
 Open, invites questions, encourages spontaneity and critical
thinking.
 Gets the truth out.
 Ends with closure. Everyone commits in an open forum; and holds
themselves accountable for the outcomes.

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Grounding

The first conversation to have is with yourself:

 What is the issue?
 Why is it bothering you? What gets you “hooked”?
 What are your assumptions?
 What emotions are attached to the situation?
 What is your purpose in having the conversation? How will you
start it?
 What will happen if have this conversation? What will happen if
you don’t?

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Fierce conversation practice activity

 Step 1: Identify your most pressing issue.

 Step 2: Clarify—what is going on? How long has this been going
on? How bad are things?
 Step 3: Determine the current impact. How is this issue currently
impacting me? What results are currently being produced for me
by this situation? How is this issue currently impacting others? What
results are currently being produced for them by this situation?
When I consider the impact on myself and others, what are my
emotions.
 Step 4: Determine future implications. If nothing changes, what’s
likely to happen? What’s at stake for me relative to this issue?
What’s at stake for others? When I consider these possible
outcomes, what are my emotions?
Continued over…

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Practice activity (cont’d)

 Step 5: Examine your personal contribution to this issue. What is

my contribution to this issue? How have I contributed to the
problem
 Step 6: Describe the ideal outcome. When this issue is resolved,
what difference will that make? What results will I enjoy? When
this issue is resolved, what results will others enjoy? When I
imagine this resolution, what are my emotions?
 Step 7: Commit to action. What is the most potent step I could
take to move this issue toward resolution?
 What’s going to attempt to get in my way, and how will I get
past it?
 When will I take this step?
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Tools

Create a safe space:

 Listen. Seek first to understand.
 State your point of view and be open to other POV’s (Yes/And).
 Recognise your story.

Something Our
Story
Happens Behaviours

Events, people Our thoughts about Our response is

and situations the event or person influenced by our
based on our filters story

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Fierce accountability

A desire to take responsibility for results; a bias toward solution,

action. An attitude; a personal, private non-negotiable choice
about how to live one’s life.

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Do it—mineral rights conversation

 Identify the issue.

 Clarify the issue.
 Determine current impact.
 Determine future implication.
 Examine personal contributions.
 Describe the ideal outcome.
 Commit to action.

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Personal action plan

1. Have fierce conversation with yourself.

2. Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth.
3. Find someone to support you in modelling accountability.
4. Get specific about your career aspirations.
5. Have your boss advocate for you.
6. Add names and topics to your “Conversations I need to have”
list and then have them.

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Contract with myself

 During this fierce conversation with myself, I’ve identified an

important step to take to begin to resolve this issue. I have
chosen the date by which I will take this step.
 There will be other steps, perhaps many of them. This is the first.
I commit to starting it:

Action: Today’s date:

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 Personal agility canvas

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Personal agility canvas

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Learning outcomes

 How can we understand and expand your Adaptive Leadership behaviours.

 How will we find time to practice new tools to lead and mobilise change to
create a sustainable future.
 Techniques to develop a deeper understanding of how to make progress on
your most vexing challenges.
 Awareness of key adaptations and capabilities needed to create future
competitive advantage.
 Develop an action plan to tackle your most pressing challenges and develop
your Adaptive Leadership capabilities.
 Backlog of ideas on how to maintain commitment and energy in the face of
resistance.
 Recognise frameworks that set you up to fail and how to reframe them to:
 Make rapid clear decisions.
 Adapt with confidence when unexpected problems arise.
 Recognise when problems are adaptive vs technical and how to solve each.
 Steps to create an environment where everyone can achieve their full potential.

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Adaptive Leadership tools
 Complexity: Cynefin.
 Perspective: High performance questions to zoom in and zoom out.
 Appreciative inquiry to frame and reframe perspective.
 High performance questions, creating space and timeboxing.
 Presencing to suspend disbelief and voice of judgment.
 Balcony, GEMBA walks, assess reality from multiple angles and perspectives.
 Reframing: NLP, OODA loops and ladders of inference to expand mental models .
 Expand field of vision and avoid blind spots.
 Expand awareness of patterns and polarity management.
 SenseMaking: Apply my whole self, all senses.
 Collaboration, Storytelling, candour and transparency - help each other (diversity of
perspectives; wisdom of the crowd).
 Practice: “What haven’t I noticed lately?”; 5 minutes 50 questions; timebox; iterate.
 Journaling, reflecting, mindfulness, fierce conversations, pull vs. push, start with “why?”.
 Polarity management and making the invisible visible (fear, value, change, future ).
 Neuroscience and quantum thinking, vulnerability, SCARF.
 Leadership agility and leading change.

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U Journaling practice questions (1 of 5)

1. Challenges: Look at yourself from outside as if you were another person:

What are the 3 or 4 most important challenges or tasks that your life (work
and non-work) currently presents?
2. Self: Write down 3 or 4 important facts about yourself. What are the
important accomplishments you have achieved or competencies you have
developed in your life (examples: raising children; finishing your education;
being a good listener)?
3. Emerging Self: What 3 or 4 important aspirations, areas of interest, or
undeveloped talents would you like to place more focus on in your future
journey (examples: writing a novel or poems; starting a social movement;
taking your current work to a new level)?
4. Frustration: What about your current work and/or personal life frustrates
you the most.
5. Energy: What are your most vital sources of energy? What do you love?

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U Journaling practice questions (2 of 5)

6. Inner resistance: What is holding you back? Describe 2 or 3 recent situations

where you noticed one of the following three voices kicking in, which
prevented you from exploring the situation you were in more deeply:
 Voice of Judgment: shutting down your open mind (downloading instead
of inquiring)
 Voice of Cynicism: shutting down your open heart (disconnecting instead
of relating)
 Voice of Fear: shutting down your open will (holding on to the past or the
present instead of letting go)
7. Over the past couple of days and weeks, what new aspects of yourself have
you noticed? What new questions and themes are occurring to you now

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U Journaling practice questions (3 of 5)

8. Your community: Who makes up your community, and what are their highest
hopes in regard to your future journey? Choose three people with different
perspectives on your life and explore their hopes for your future (examples:
your family; your friends). What might they hope for if they were looking at
your future through their eyes?
9. Helicopter: Watch yourself from above (as if in a helicopter). What are you
doing? What are you trying to do in this stage of your professional and
personal journey?
10. Helicopter II: Watch your community/organisation/collective movement
from above: what are you trying to do collectively in the present stage of
your collective journey?
11. Footprint: Imagine you could fast-forward to the very last moments of your
life, when it is time for you to pass on. Now look back on your life’s journey as
a whole. What would you want to see at that moment? What footprint do you
want to leave behind on the planet? What would you want to be
remembered for by the people who live on after you?

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U Journaling practice questions (4 of 5)

12. Help: From that (future) place, look back at your current situation as if you
were looking at a different person. Now try to empathise with and help that
other person from the viewpoint of your highest future Self. What advice
would you give? Empathise, and sense, what the advice is—and then write it
down.
13. Intention: Now return again to the present and crystallise what it is that you
want to create: your vision and intention for the next 3-5 years. What vision
and intention do you have for yourself and your work? What are some
essential core elements of the future that you want to create in your
personal, professional, and social life? Describe as concretely as possible the
images and elements that occur to you.
14. Letting go: What would you have to let go of in order to bring your vision into
reality? What is the old stuff that must die? What is the old skin (behaviours,
thought processes, etc.) that you need to shed?

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U Journaling practice questions (5 of 5)

15. Seeds: What in your current life or context provides the seeds for the future
that you want to create? Where do you see your future beginning?
16. Prototyping: Over the next three months, if you were to prototype a
microcosm of the future in which you could discover “the new” by doing
something, what would that prototype look like?
17. People: Who can help you make your highest future possibilities a reality?
Who might be your core helpers and partners?
18. Action: If you were to take on the project of bringing your intention into
reality, what practical first steps would you take over the next 3 to 4 days?

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U Journaling practice

Purpose and outcomes.

To connect to a deeper level of self-knowing, and

Purpose
to begin acting from that place.

1. A heightened level of self-knowing.

Outcomes 2. A shift in the state of attention (consciousness)
of the group to a deeper level.
3. A new awareness and new questions about
who I am and what I want do with the rest of
my life.

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Workshop retrospective

I LIKE HOW TO

_______ _______

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References

 Heifetz, RA & Laurie, DL (2001)

‘The Work of Leadership’ in Harvard Business Review December
2001.
 Heifetz, RA, Grashow, A & Linsky, M (2009)
The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Harvard University Press.
 Heifetz, RA (1994)
Leadership Without Easy Answers, Belknap Press, Mass.

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Google case study on innovation

 How Google harnesses the entire company to stay innovative:

[Link]
harnesses-the-entire-company-to-stay-innovative
 Book for outline and activities: The Practice of Adaptive
Leadership, [Link]
Leadership-Organization/dp/1422105768#reader_1422105768
 Leadership 2.0: Are you an adaptive leader? (Forbes)
[Link]
ership-2-0-are-you-an-adaptive-leader/

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Eager to learn more?

Find up-to-date resources and information on our Business Agility Resource Hub.

Visit: [Link]

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