LEAD 0510 Leadership Development Thinking Strategically in Complex Times.
-
Upload
aldous-nigel-jacobs -
Category
Documents
-
view
215 -
download
1
Transcript of LEAD 0510 Leadership Development Thinking Strategically in Complex Times.
LEAD 0510LEAD 0510Leadership DevelopmentLeadership Development
Thinking Strategically in Thinking Strategically in Complex Times Complex Times
Reflections on “Moon shots”Reflections on “Moon shots”
• Which ideas appealed to you?
• Which can you integrate into your strategic thinking?
• Which challenged you to reframe?
Levels of UncertaintyLevels of Uncertainty
1. Relatively clear view of the future• One or two obvious options
2. Alternate futures• Mutually exclusive and collectively
exhaustive
3. Range of futures• Not mutually exclusive or exhaustive
4. Truly ambiguous• Uncertainty is unknown and unknowable
Hugh Courtney. 20/20 Foresite
Leadership and Change StrategiesLeadership and Change Strategies
1. Traditional• SWOT• Benchmarking• Competency-based
2. Qualitative decision analysis3. Decision tree/cost benefit
analysis4. Work backwards
Hugh Courtney. 20/20 Foresite
Flaws in Traditional Strategic ThinkingFlaws in Traditional Strategic Thinking
• Overconfidence – going for the narrow answer
• Status quo bias – entropic effect of doing nothing
• Anchoring on recent events• False consensus – Abilene Paradox• Desire to conform• Entrapment in sunk costs
What is Level 3 and 4 Strategy?What is Level 3 and 4 Strategy?
• Strategy doesn’t try to explain the predictable (levels 1 and 2)
• Ambiguity and uncertainty are the flip side of opportunity
• Strategy is a decision on where you will place your bets
Business Strategy: Example Business Strategy: Example
We believe it will
We don’t believe it will
Reality is, coaching goes
mainstream
Reality is, coaching
doesn’t go mainstream
Revenue Stream
Long hard struggle
Lost Opportunity
No loss
Working Backwards?Working Backwards?
• Start with a strategy
• What do I have to believe about the future to support a defined strategy?
• Do I believe that is likely?
• Am I willing to bet on it?
Organizational Climate
Very Low Uncertainty Little Concern for Whole
Risk Aversive Boredom/depression
Suppression of Disagreement
Disrespectful of Academic
traditions
Sense of fiscal distress leading to layoffs
Command and Control style of
Leadership
Low estimation of quality
Centripetal Forces too Strong: Overcontrol
Inadequate fiscal
resources
Internal Conflict:
adm/faculty; faculty/facult
y
Unpredictable Markets
Faculty Autonomy
Lack of Trust
Weak Leadership
Unclear System
s
Tarnished Institutional
Symbols
Unpredictable actions by
Board
CENTRIFUGAL FORCES TOO STRONG: Chaos, High Crisis
Organizational Climate High Uncertainty
High Tension/Pain Risk Aversive Low Morale
Creativity
Faculty Autonomy
Unpredictable Markets
Internal Conflict
Inadequate Fiscal
Resources
Effective administrative
and fiscal systems
Clarity of Purpose; strategic
directions
Hope for a better Future Focus on
Institutional Values/Symbols
Governance Systems based on
Core Principles and Norms
Organizational ClimateClear Strategic DirectionsIdentification with WholeRisk Taking Encouraged
High Morale
Balance Between Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces: Creative Tension
ReflectionsReflections
• How do we sustain creative tension?
• How does the concept of creative tension play out in your ministry setting?
• How do we need to reframe our thinking?
What Is ‘System Thinking’?What Is ‘System Thinking’?• Seeing individuals and organizations as
participants in a larger system rather than as individual entities
• A change in one variable affects other variables over time, which in turn affects the original variable
• The Butterfly Effect: Small changes can lead to significant outcomes
• The system is complex and constantly adapting
Developing a Systems LensDeveloping a Systems Lens
• The whole is greater than the sum of the parts
• The whole determines the nature of the parts• The parts are dynamically interrelated• The parts cannot be understood in isolation
Systems thinking asks us to hold the whole in mind and to investigate the interaction of the component elements of the whole – all the component elements, not just the two or three most obvious and easy to examine and to investigate the relation of the whole to its larger environment.
Peter Vaill, Learning as a Way of Being
Linear Thinking• Cause and effect
occur together• Logical and rational• Detail complexity• Type I/II problems
and solutions
Heifetz’ Leadership as Adaptive WorkHeifetz’ Leadership as Adaptive WorkClarity of the Problem
UnclearClear
Clarity of the
Solution
Unclear and Unavailable
Clear and Available
Type I
Technical Work
Type II
Technical/ Adaptive
Work
Type III
Adaptive Work
Type IV
Wishful Thinking Wooden
Headedness
Linear Thinking• Cause and effect
occur together• Logical and rational• Detail complexity• Type I/II problems
and solutions
Systems Thinking• Cause and effect
are unpredictable• Relational and
dynamic• Dynamic complexity• Type III problems
and solutions
Key Principles of Systems ThinkingKey Principles of Systems Thinking
• System structure causes its behavior• Interrelationships cause their own crises: There are no
villains• The ability to influence change comes from
understanding the structures and relationships causing events and behaviors
• Changing system output requires changing system structures and processes
• Changing the output of human systems requires changing beliefs
• Learning is the process of changing beliefs• Changing system structures requires leverage –
creating change through highly focused action
LeverageLeverage
• Comes from new ways of thinking– Seeing structures instead of events– Processes of change rather than
snapshots– Changing the way people see things
rather than how they do things– When we see things differently, we do
things differently
Organization or Ecosystem?Organization or Ecosystem?
• Organization:– The “well-oiled machine”
• Ecosystem:– A natural community, including all the
‘members’ or participants in that community, interacting with each other and the environment around them.
““Organizational” ModelOrganizational” Model
A SystemA System
A system now appears to be a set of coherent, evolving processes which temporarily manifest in globally stable structures. (Jantsch 1980)
Lunch!!!!Lunch!!!!
• Enjoy lunch as a team
• Bring your project into focus
• Prep your ideas for an informal dialogue with the group
Order and ChaosOrder and Chaos
• All natural systems seek order
• Systems can very easily been thrown into chaos
• Thriving systems are neither ordered nor chaotic
Chaotic SystemsChaotic Systems
• Inherently action-oriented
• A sense of motion
• Impossible to predict
Chaotic SystemsChaotic Systems• Driving Need:
Survival• Crisis culture• Structural
fluidity• Focus on the
present• Accountability
avoidance• Kinetic energy• Highly
explorative learning
• What do you need to embrace in times of chaos?
• What do you need to let go of?• What sort of leader do you
need to be?
Leadership ReflectionLeadership Reflection
Ordered SystemsOrdered Systems
• Whole equal to the sum of the parts
• No incentive to change
• Members reach and maintain equilibrium
Ordered SystemsOrdered Systems• Driving Need:
Status quo• Process
culture• Protective
hierarchy• Focus on the
past• Accountability
to activity• Energy
brownout• Limited
learning
Leadership ReflectionLeadership Reflection
• How do you respond to rigidity and “order”?
• What do you need to embrace when things are orderly?
• What do you need to let go of?
• What sort of leader do you need to be?
Order and Chaos:Order and Chaos:What’s the Relationship?What’s the Relationship?
Chaos
Order
Complex Adaptive Systems
Simple Following a Recipe
• Recipe is essential
• Recipes are tested to assure replicability
• No particular expertise: knowing how to cook increases success
• Recipes produce standard results
• Certainty of same results every time
Complicated A Moon Rocket
• Formulae are critical and necessary
• Sending one rocket increases assurance that next will be okay
• High level of expertise in many specialized fields and coordination
• High degree of certainty of outcome
Complex Raising a Child
• Formulae have only a limited application
• Raising one child gives no assurance of success with the next
• Expertise can help but it is not sufficient
• Every child is unique
• Uncertainty of outcome remains
Source: Brenda Zimmerman PhD
Complex Adaptive SystemsComplex Adaptive Systems
• Driving Need: Survival
• Crisis culture• Structural
fluidity• Focus on the
present• Accountability
avoidance• Kinetic energy• Highly
explorative learning
• Driving Need: Status quo
• Process culture• Protective
hierarchy• Focus on the
past• Accountability
to activity• Energy
brownout• Limited
learning
• Driving Need: Opportunity
• Service culture
• Self-organizing structure
Self-Organizing SystemsSelf-Organizing Systems
Members of the system share an unerring recognition of the intent of the system, a deep relationship between individual activity and the whole.
What is a Complex Adaptive System?What is a Complex Adaptive System?
Self-organization is a fundamental principle of the universe… Open, self-organizing systems use energy, material and feedback (information) from their internal and external environment to organize themselves.
Kelly and Allison (1999)
Understanding ‘Boids’Understanding ‘Boids’
• Maintain minimum distance
• Match velocities
• Move to the perceived centre of mass
Complex Adaptive SystemsComplex Adaptive Systems• Driving Need:
Survival• Crisis culture• Structural
fluidity• Focus on the
present• Accountability
avoidance• Kinetic energy• Highly
explorative learning
• Driving Need: Status quo
• Process culture
• Protective hierarchy
• Focus on the past
• Accountability to activity
• Energy brownout
• Limited learning
• Driving Need: Opportunity
• Service culture
• Self-organizing structure
• Focus on the future
Accountability Accountability to to relationshipsrelationships
Focused Focused energyenergy
Highly Highly adaptive adaptive learninglearning
Fractals as MetaphorFractals as Metaphor
• Many natural structures (leaves, chemical crystals, river beds and spider plants) also exhibit fractal patterns
• Dress, norms, habits, or traditions all emerge as self-similar characteristics of organizations
• “Fractalization” can be intentional in human systems
Wheatley on Fractals….Wheatley on Fractals….
When an organization is willing to give public voice to information – to listen to different interpretations and to process them together – the information becomes amplified. In this process of shared reflection, a small finding can grow as it feeds back on itself, building significance with each new perception or interpretation. As with fractals, the simple process of iteration eventually reveals the complexity hidden within an issue.
FractalsFractals
• Mathematical metaphor
• Self-similarity
• Focus on qualitative
• Lessons of wholeness
The Fractals of the Human BodyThe Fractals of the Human Body
• Why does the heart beat produce musically pleasing note sequences?
• Heart beat variability is controlled by the nervous system
• Mathematical structure of a fractal
Personal implicationsPersonal implications
• It begins to shift the way we see:
– Ourselves– Relationships– Leadership
How do we keep together?How do we keep together?
What are What are the the Attractors?Attractors?
• Mission– The fundamental reason for being
• Values– Non-negotiable behavioral boundaries
• Vision– The preferred future when values are fully
evident and all are on purpose
Strange AttractorsStrange Attractors
We need to be able to trust that something as simple as a clear core of values and vision, kept in motion through continuing dialogue, can lead to order.
Meg Wheatley
Complex, Adaptive SystemsComplex, Adaptive Systems
• Agents interacting with each other according to specific rules of behavior
• Agents inspect each other’s behavior and then adjust their own
• System learns and evolves • Interacts with other complex adaptive
systems• Survives because it adapts• A “delicate” state of bounded instability
• Stacey (1996)
Bounded InstabilityBounded Instability
• A self-organizing system creates its own boundaries and preserves and renews itself over time (autopoesis)
• Punctuated equilibrium occurs
• Boundaries open to interaction with the meta-system
Systems DynamicsSystems Dynamics• Boundaries
– Defining parameters of a system– Bounded systems
• Clarity of boundary• Open system• Contained energy
– Unbounded systems• No boundaries• Non-systemic• Rapidly dissipating energy
Systems DynamicsSystems Dynamics• System condition
– Defining status of a system– Stable systems
• Equilibrium• Little or no energy• Risk of entropy
– Unstable systems• Flux and transformation• High levels of energy• Edge of chaos
(Un)bounded (In)stability(Un)bounded (In)stabilityBoundedUnbounded
Sta
bil
ity
Inst
abil
ityC.A.S.
• Highly adaptive
• Clarity of intent
• Energy creation
Chaotic System
• Mutation
• No specific intent
• Dissipating energy
Colonial System
• Rigid protocols
• Universality
• Controlled energy
Ordered System
• Non-adaptive
• At risk
• Limited energy
Implications for OrganizationsImplications for Organizations• Self-bounded
– Clarity of mission and core competencies
• Self-regenerating– Can replace people as they leave– Can replenish resources– Can add aligned people and functions
• Self-perpetuating– Strong culture maintains essence as people change– Organization supports people; people support the
organization