“Executives today face two competing demands,” writes Ron Heifetz, Alexander Glasgow, and Marty Linsky in their article called “Leadership in a (Permanent) Crisis” from the July-August 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review. “They must execute in order to meet today’s challenges. And they must adapt what and how things get done in order to thrive in tomorrow’s world.” This is a tough combination for even the most experienced leaders, because it requires the capacity to hold two opposing ideas in the mind, and be able to execute them at the exact same time.
When it comes to solving a wicked problem where two competing demands are taking place, fostering adaptation is a good choice. As the aforementioned authors explain, “You need to confront loyalty to legacy practices and understand that your desire to change them makes you a target of attack.” Still, not confronting legacy practices may cause a wicked problem to get even more complicated and complex. Therefore, they point out, “As you consider eliminating practices that seem ill suited to a changing environment, you must distinguish the essential from the expendable. What is so precious and central to an organization’s identity and capacity that it must be preserved?” This is a fantastic question and it is worthy of investing significant time and space for an in-depth strategic level dialogue about it. The goal is not to find one answer to the question, but instead to gauge the capacity of the team or teams to foster adaptation in the midst of complexity and incomplete information.
Finally, the above authors note, “Because you don’t know quite where you are headed as you build an organization’s adaptability, it’s prudent to avoid grand and detailed strategic plans. Instead, run numerous experiments.” Jim Collins and Jerry Porras’ in their book, Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (Harper Business, 1994), condense this whole concept down to great phrase, “Try a Lot of Stuff and Keep What Works.” In short, this is the key to fostering adaptation.
Recognizing this element of successful adaptation, General Stanley McChrystal, with Tantum Collins, David Silverman and Chris Fussell in their book, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement For A Complex World (Portfolio/Penguin, 2015), write “Effective adaptation to emerging threats and opportunities requires the disciplined practice of empowered execution. Individuals and teams closest to the problem, armed with unprecedented levels of insights from across the network, offer the best ability to decide and act decisively.” This insight links directly back to my earlier point in this blog about creating empowered teams. The two components, implementing a team development strategy that results in empowered teams and the ability to foster adaptation, are interconnected. Each needs the other in order to be successful. Still, there is another component to fostering adaptation which does not show up in the research, but does reflect hard earned wisdom learned over a long period of time.
Many years ago, I had the opportunity to work with a CEO who was very good at fostering adaptation. She also was an experienced horse trainer in her spare time, and even competed at a regional and national level with the horses she trained. One day, the two of us were sitting in her office discussing the company’s next strategic planning cycle and the need for innovation when she turned to me and said, “It’s pretty simple, Geery. With horses, it all comes down to making the right behaviors easier and the wrong behaviors harder. When you do this with horses, they always perform exceptionally well. Same goes with people and adaptation. Make the right behaviors easier to do than the wrong behaviors. The critical question is the following: What are those 3-4 right behaviors that we have to make easier?” What followed that afternoon was and amazing discussion about what were the 3-4 key behaviors related to adaptation and innovation within their company.
Recognizing that every company is different and that adaptation in one company may not be the right form for another company, the aforementioned question still reminds the right question. If and when we seek to foster adaptation, we must recognize that it is not just a mental construct, but it is the sum of a mental framework in combination with a set of specific behavioral actions. When these two elements are unified and clearly understood, then an individual, a team, or the company as a whole will be empowered “to decide and act decisively,” referencing the earlier General McChrystal quote. With this in mind, our goal as leaders is to identify these positive behaviors, and to support people who display them on a regular basis. We also need to share them as best practice with others. As Ron Heifetz and Donald Laurie noted, “Solutions to adaptive challenges reside not in the executive suite but in the collective intelligence of employees at all levels.”And I also would add in the collective behaviors of employees at all levels.
FYI: To be continued on Wednesday.
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