LEAD 0510 Leadership Development Thinking Strategically in Complex

LEAD 0510 Leadership Development Thinking Strategically in Complex Times

Reflections on “Moon shots” • Which ideas appealed to you? • Which can you integrate into your strategic thinking? • Which challenged you to reframe?

Levels 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 Strategies 1. Traditional • • • SWOT Benchmarking Competency-based 2. Qualitative decision analysis 3. Decision tree/cost benefit analysis 4. Work backwards Hugh Courtney. 20/20 Foresite

Flaws 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? • 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 We believe it will Reality is, coaching goes mainstream Revenue Stream Reality is, coaching doesn’t go mainstream Long hard struggle We don’t believe it will Lost Opportunity No loss

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?

Centripetal Forces too Strong: Overcontrol Suppression of Disagreement Command Control style of Leadership Sense of fiscal distress leading to layoffs Disrespectful of Academic traditions Low estimation of quality Organizational Climate Very Low Uncertainty Little Concern for Whole Risk Aversive Boredom/depression

CENTRIFUGAL FORCES TOO STRONG: Chaos, High Crisis Weak Leadership Lack of Trust Inadequate fiscal resources Unclear System s Internal Conflict: adm/faculty; faculty/facult y Tarnished Institutional Symbols Faculty Autonomy Unpredictable Markets Organizational Climate High Uncertainty High Tension/Pain Risk Aversive Low Morale Unpredictabl e actions by Board

Balance Between Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces: Creative Tension Hope for a better Future Clarity of Purpose; strategic directions Focus on Institutional Values/Symbols Creativity Governance Systems based on Core Principles and Norms Inadequate Fiscal Resources Faculty Autonomy Internal Conflict Unpredictable Markets Effective administrative and fiscal systems Organizational Climate Clear Strategic Directions Identification with Whole Risk Taking Encouraged High Morale

Reflections • 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’? • 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 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 Work Clarity of the Problem Clear Clarity of the Solution Clear and Available Unclear and Unavailable Unclear Type IV Technical Work Wishful Thinking Wooden Headedness Type III Technical/ Adaptive Work

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 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

Leverage • 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: – 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” Model

A System A system now appears to be a set of coherent, evolving processes which temporarily manifest in globally stable structures. (Jantsch 1980)

Lunch!!!! • Enjoy lunch as a team • Bring your project into focus • Prep your ideas for an informal dialogue with the group

Order and Chaos • All natural systems seek order • Systems can very easily been thrown into chaos • Thriving systems are neither ordered nor chaotic

Chaotic Systems • Inherently actionoriented • A sense of motion • Impossible to predict

Chaotic Systems • Driving Need: Survival • Crisis culture • Structural fluidity • Focus on the present • Accountability avoidance • Kinetic energy • Highly explorative learning

Leadership Reflection • 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?

Ordered Systems • Whole equal to the sum of the parts • No incentive to change • Members reach and maintain equilibrium

Ordered Systems • Driving Need: Status quo • Process culture • Protective hierarchy • Focus on the past • Accountability to activity • Energy brownout • Limited learning

Leadership 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: What’s the Relationship? Chaos Complex Adaptive Systems Order

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 Complex Raising a Child • Formulae are critical and necessary • Formulae have only a limited application • Sending one rocket increases assurance that next will be okay • Raising one child gives no assurance of success with the next • High level of expertise in many specialized fields and coordination • Expertise can help but it is not sufficient • High degree of certainty of outcome • Every child is unique • Uncertainty of outcome remains Source: Brenda Zimmerman Ph. D

Complex Adaptive Systems • Driving Need: Survival • Crisis culture • Structural fluidity • Focus on the present • Accountability avoidance • Kinetic energy • Highly explorative learning • Driving Need: Opportunity • Service culture • Self-organizing structure • Driving Need: Status quo • Process culture • Protective hierarchy • Focus on the past • Accountability to activity • Energy brownout • Limited learning

Self-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? Self-organization is a fundamental principle of the universe… Open, selforganizing systems use energy, material and feedback (information) from their internal and external environment to organize themselves. Kelly and Allison (1999)

Understanding ‘Boids’ • Maintain minimum distance • Match velocities • Move to the perceived centre of mass

Complex Adaptive Systems • Driving Need: Survival • Crisis culture • Structural fluidity • Focus on the present • Accountability avoidance • Kinetic energy • Highly explorative learning • Driving Need: Opportunity • Service culture • Self-organizing structure • Focus on the future Accountability to relationships n Focused energy n Highly adaptive learning n • Driving Need: Status quo • Process culture • Protective hierarchy • Focus on the past • Accountability to activity • Energy brownout • Limited learning

Fractals 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…. 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.

Fractals • Mathematical metaphor • Self-similarity • Focus on qualitative • Lessons of wholeness

The 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 implications • It begins to shift the way we see: – Ourselves – Relationships – Leadership

How do we keep together?

What are the 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 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 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 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 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 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 Stability Instability Unbounded Bounded Chaotic System C. A. S. • Mutation • Highly adaptive • No specific intent • Clarity of intent • Dissipating energy • Energy creation Colonial System Ordered System • Rigid protocols • Non-adaptive • Universality • At risk • Controlled energy • Limited energy

Implications 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