Reflection on Mobilizing Adaptive Work
I recall an especially difficult time in my career in 1990 when I knew the law firm I directed administratively had to change: the Selectric typewriters needed to go and computers, shared printers and a network needed to replace them. I was alone in coordinating this effort within a 120-member organization, but had been successful in convincing the 27 partners they needed to spend thousands of dollars to increase revenues and accept more cases without increasing personnel or space. Although the project eventually was successful, the process was very painful for me given the need for attitude change and training to happen simultaneously.
While the attorney partners of the firm were expecting me to find instant solutions to the complaints and frustrations being experienced without spending even more money, I was unable to meet those expectations; therefore, as the file server went down several times a day and computer users couldn’t remember how to use the software, I looked and felt like a failure when secretaries were unable to complete their work in a timely manner. Everyone looked to me for solutions, and everything I tried was in vain. The staff whined endlessly, wishing to return to the system they knew best. They needed to, but didn't want to, suffer through the difficulties of learning new software and procedures that vastly changed from their years of “business as usual.” Although I kept trying, I was unable to come up with solutions on my own to every problem associated with the project.
Long story a little shorter, six months later found staff finally feeling comfortable with the software and soon surpassing their previous productivity level. All was good and I received a fantastic bonus that year, but not without plenty of tears and a great bit of emotional beating (I was lucky-- it was an internal issue and not public.).
How do you think I could have handled this problem better?
Ronald Heifetz, cofounder of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and known internationally for his groundbreaking research on the practice and teaching of leadership (http://www.hks.harvard.edu/), and Donald Laurie, a leading consultant to organizations who wish to reinvent their core business focusing on profitable growth and value through strategic leadership strategies (http://oysterinternational.com), contribute their own insights, knowledge and experience with effectively building adaptive capacity in societies, businesses, and nonprofits in their chapter on “Mobilizing Adaptive Work” (in The Leader’s Change Handbook). Together, they suggest in this reading that organizational change cannot succeed without adaptive work in key areas, requiring people to find new ways to achieve organizational goals (56).
Sometimes the solution to removing roadblocks to success is painful and novel ways must be adopted, perhaps requiring additional training or processes that drastically restructure how members of the entity operate. This requires that the people who are the problem shoulder the responsibility of finding solutions rather than the leaders in authority. For this to happen, leaders need to recognize when they may be unable to solve the adaptive challenges encountered and give others the freedom and responsibility to innovate in order to discover successful strategies. When giving this responsibility to the entire affected group, they will instinctively find ways to hold on to what they know well and what has worked well in the past, while changing only that which is required in order to meet the goal, which is the desired outcome.
Heifetz and Laurie alert us to not confuse leadership with authority. They warn organizations to stop looking for leaders who are expected to have all the answers, for they may be setting those leaders up for failure. Many leaders are unable to effectively lead because they treat adaptive challenges as technical problems, when oftentimes the problems lie within the employees who must change and learn new ways. Effective leaders today help people face those problems that require adaptation. (56) "The focus of responsibility for problem solving must shift from those in authority to the people who have to do the changing. (60)"
Heifetz and Laurie contend that informal power (the ability to persuade and inspire a following), and formal power (which expects one to go beyond the limits of the job description to achieve a goal) are "saddled with expectations that constrain the exercise of leadership (57)." While the authors offer their suggestions for a leader to effectively mobilize adaptive work within an organization (identify adaptive challenges, regulate distress, maintain disciplined attention, give the work back to the people, and protect the leadership below), I found some of the concepts to be extremely abstract and, therefore, difficult to believe exactly how to implement successfully.
For example, while Heifetz and Laurie maintain it is essential to allow an organization to feel the pain and expose conflict, it is difficult for people to effectively listen to each other as they process roadblocks to consensus. Isn’t it, therefore, possible for the strongest in the group to emerge as leaders and decision-makers in situations where ineffective listening skills prevent all viewpoints from surfacing, while the rest (who just might have better ideas) to fade away? Could the conflict produce even more unrest resulting in unwanted division? If that should happen, how does a leader stop the slippery slope from escalating further -- and what if it’s too late?
I tend to believe that not many organizations or their leaders are actually able to identify adaptive challenges. Even if a leader understands where the responsibility needs to be placed in resolving change issues, it's very difficult for them to mobilize adaptive work when the organization hierarchy expects them to fix the problems rather than pass them off.
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