The Challenges of

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The Challenges of L E A D E R S H I P Ronald A.
Heifetz
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THE CLASSIC ERROR Treating Adaptive Challenges
as if they were Technical Problems
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Technical Adaptive Work
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• Nine Properties of an
• Adaptive Challenge
• The Challenge consists of a gap between
• aspirations and reality demanding responses
• outside the repertoire
• Adaptive Work to narrow that gap requires
• difficult learning
• The Learning involves distinguishing whats
• precious and essential from whats expendable,
  
• which involves loss

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• Nine Properties of an
• Adaptive Challenge
• The Losses often involve learning to re-fashion
• loyalties and develop new competencies
• Adaptive Work is value-laden conservative as
• well as progressive
• The People with the problem are the problem,
• and they are the solution
• Problem-Solving Responsibility shifts to the
  stakeholders

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• Nine Properties of an
• Adaptive Challenge
• Adaptive Work requires a longer time frame
• than technical work
• Adaptive Work is experimental
• Adaptive Challenges generate disequilibrium
• and avoidance

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Adaptive or Technical?

• Identify 1-3 challenges faced by your
  organization
• Determine whether these are technical, adaptive
  or both
• Discuss the relative degree of difficulty
  associated with managing each

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• Work Avoidance Mechanisms
• Organizations tend to avoid adaptive work
• Common Pathway
• Diversion of responsibility or attention
• Common Function
• Restore equilibrium and hold onto the past

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• Work Avoidance Mechanisms
• Displace Responsibility
• Externalize the enemy
• Attack authority
• Kill the messenger
• Scapegoat

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• Work Avoidance Mechanisms
• Distract Attention
• Fake Remedies
• Define the problem to fit your competence
• Misuse of structural adjustments
• Misuse of consultants, committees and task
  forces
• Denial
• Sterile conflict Proxy fights
• No curiosity or creative engagement

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Examples of Work Avoidance
Please give and discuss examples of work
avoidance patterns that operate in your
organization.
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Technical Problem or Adaptive Challenge?
PRODUCTIVE RANGE OF DISTRESS
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• Authority
• Resource and constraint on leadership
• A contract for services
• Formal or informal
• Power entrusted for service
• Power
• Trust
• Service

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• Trust
• Predictability
• Values
• Competence

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• The Services of Authority
• Direction
• Protection
• Order
• Orientation to roles
• Control of conflict
• Norm Maintenance

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Leadership with Authority
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• The Paradox of Trust
• People will often trust you when you fulfill
  their
• expectations for service
• So what happens when you
• Raise questions or deliver information that
• conflicts with those expectations?
• When you tell them what they may need to hear,
• but not what they want to hear?

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Risking Trust

• Please give an example of a time when you should
  have told people what they needed to hear rather
  than what they wanted to hear.
• Please give an example of a time when you
  generated distrust by telling people what they
  needed to hear.

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• L E A D E R S H I P
• Mobilizing adaptive work
• Leadership is an activity
• With or without authority
• Not defined by personality traits, power,
  
• influence or position

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• 4 Confusions of Leadership
• Leadership authority
• Leadership personality
• Leadership knowledge
• Leadership value-free

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• Leadership Tasks
• Assess the Adaptive Challenges
• Think Politically
• Orchestrate the Conflict
• Discipline Attention
• Develop Responsibility
• Regulate Disequilibrium
• Infuse the Work with Meaning

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The Politics of Leadership
ADAPTIVE CHALLENGE
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Activity Leadership Tasks
Instructions At your table, respond to the
assigned question. Please select a person to
summarize your insights. (20 minutes)

• Assess the Adaptive Challenges
• Proposition People often confuse technical
  problems with adaptive challenges.
• Identify 3 or more diagnostic indicators to
  identify an adaptive challenge.

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Activity Leadership Tasks
Instructions At your table, respond to the
assigned question. Please select a person to
summarize your insights. (20 minutes)

• 2. The Politics of Change
• Proposition Adaptive learning is inherently
  political.
• Identify the relevant parties to a recent
  strategic initiative. How are you asking each of
  them to experience a measure of loss, disloyalty,
  or incompetence?

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Activity Leadership Tasks
Instructions At your table, respond to the
assigned question. Please select a person to
summarize your insights. (20 minutes)

• 3. Using Conflict
• Proposition Competing perspectives can become a
  source of creativity rather than a source of
  destructive conflict.
• What structures, processes, and norms can enable
  competing perspectives to become a source of
  creativity?

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Activity Leadership Tasks
Instructions At your table, respond to the
assigned question. Please select a person to
summarize your insights. (20 minutes)

• 4. Maintain Disciplined Attention
• Proposition People often avoid adaptive work by
  diverting attention away from the issues that
  generate frustration and conflict.
• Identify 3 or more actions you can take to
  maintain disciplined attention.

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Activity Leadership Tasks
Instructions At your table, respond to the
assigned question. Please select a person to
summarize your insights. (20 minutes)

• 5. Develop Responsibility
• Proposition People often avoid adaptive work by
  displacing responsibility for tough issues away
  from themselves.
• Identify 3 or more actions you can take to give
  the work back to relevant stakeholders.

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Activity Leadership Tasks
Instructions At your table, respond to the
assigned question. Please select a person to
summarize your insights. (20 minutes)

• 6. Regulate Disequilibrium
• Proposition Too much disequilibrium overwhelms
  people, not enough stagnates.
• Identify 3 or more actions you can take to raise
  and to lower the amount of disequilibrium to keep
  it within a productive range.

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Activity Leadership Tasks
Instructions At your table, respond to the
assigned question. Please select a person to
summarize your insights. (20 minutes)

• 7. Infuse the Work with Meaning
• Proposition People need to feel committed to
  the work theyre doing, in spite of the
  sacrifices.
• Identify 3 or more actions you can take to infuse
  work with meaning.

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• Get on the Balcony
• Distinguish Technical from Adaptive Work
• Find Out Where People Are At
• Listen to the Song Beneath the Words
• Read the Authority Figure for Clues

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• Think Politically
• Find Partners
• Keep the Opposition Close
• Accept Responsibility for
• Your Piece of the Mess
• Acknowledge their Loss
• Model the Behavior
• Accept Casualties

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• Orchestrate the Conflict
• Create a Holding Environment
• Control the Temperature
• Pace the Work
• Show Them the Future

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• Give the Work Back
• Take the Work Off Ones Shoulders
• Place the Work Where it Belongs
• Create Structures Processes to Distribute
  Responsibility
• Make Interventions Short Simple

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• Hold Steady
• Take the Heat
• Let the Issues Ripen
• Focus Attention on the Issues

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• L E A D E R S H I P
• generates
• L E A D E R S H I P

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• Leadership is Dangerous
• At the Heart of Danger is Loss
• Going Beyond Ones Authority

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• The Faces of Danger
• Marginalization
• Diversion
• Attack
• Seduction

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The Personal Challenge Staying Alive

1. Get on the balcony
2. Use partners
3. Distinguish role from self
4. Listen
5. Manage ones hungers
6. Anchor oneself
7. Preserve ones sense of purpose

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• Manage Ones Hungers
• Power and Control
• Affirmation and Importance
• Intimacy and Delight

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• Anchor Yourself
• Distinguish Role From Self
• Dont Confuse Allies With Confidantes
• Keep a Sanctuary

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Losing Heart
QUALITY OF HEART INNOCENCE IMAGINATION CURIOSI
TY DOUBT COMPASSION
BECOMES CYNICISM ARROGANT CERTAINTY CALLOUSNE
SS
DRESSED UP AS REALISM AUTHORITATIVE
KNOWLEDGE THICK-SKIN OF EXPERIENCE
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• Why Lead?
• Service
• The Form Doesnt Matter
• The Myth of Measurement