Transcript The seven principles for leading adaptive work

More powerpoint slides than you could
shake a stick at: a short history of leadership
thinking at the VSC…..
Leaders for London: 20th March 2014
In the beginning was….
Adaptive Leadership
Get on the balcony
• A place from which to observe the patterns in the wider environment as well as what is over the horizon
(prerequisite for the following six principles)
Identify the adaptive challenge
• A challenge for which there is no ready made technical answer
• A challenge which requires the gap between values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours to be addressed
Create the holding environment
• May be a physical space in which adaptive work can be done
• The relationship or wider social space in which adaptive work can be accomplished
Cook
Maintain
Give back
the conflict
disciplined attention
the work
• Create the heat
• Sequence & pace the work
• Regulate the distress
• Work avoidance
• Use conflict positively
• Keep people focussed
• Resume responsibility
• Use their knowledge
• Support their efforts
Protect the voices of leadership from below
• Ensuring everyone's voice is heard is essential for willingness to experiment and learn
• Leaders have to provide cover to staff who point to the internal contradictions of the organisation
Which was joined by ….
The strategic triangle: Mark Moore
Sources of Support
& legitimacy
Ability to say YES or NO
or to influence those that
can say YES or NO
Legitimate &
Politically
sustainable
Mission purpose
Question Zero i.e. what is it
that we are trying to
accomplish exactly
Authorising
Environment
Operationally &
Administratively
feasible
Operating
Capacity
Organised & operated
The manner in which we
organise our resources
and use them to produce
desired outputs/outcomes
In partnership with:
• Three questions:
• is it administratively and
operationally possible?
• is it politically and legally possible?
• is the purpose publicly valuable?
Public
Value
Proposition
Substantively
valuable
Supported by:
7
Three activities:
• managing downward towards improving the operating capacity for achieving the desired
purpose
• managing upward, towards politics, to get or maintain legitimacy and support for that purpose
• judging the value of your imagined purpose
Moore M H (1995) Creating Public Value, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Which begat….
The Resourceful Leader
“The most highly effective leaders of children’s services consistently display a common set of eight
behaviours in their leadership practice, which collectively is best described as resourceful.”
Openness to possibilities
OPENNESS
TO
LEARNING
Willingness and ability to
learn continuously
Displaying a focus on
outcomes and results
THE
BOTTOM
LINE
Personal resilience and
tenacity
The ability to simplify
The ability to collaborate
COMMITMENT
Demonstrating a belief in
their team and people
WORKING
TOGETHER
The ability to create and
sustain commitment
Which begat….
Leading for
Learning
We need a system which values and
develops professional expertise more,
and takes greater account of the
experience of children and young
people themselves. We need to move
from a culture preoccupied with
compliance to one focused on
learning, where professionals have the
freedom to use their expertise to
assess and provide the help each
individual child needs. That is not an
easy journey to make. This research
makes a significant contribution to the
debate about how that might be
achieved.
Foreword by Eileen Munro
Leading for Learning
‘When you arrive at Barcelona, the
first thing they teach is: think, think,
think. Lift your head, move, see, think.
Pum. First time. I look for spaces. All
day. I’m always looking. All day, all day.
Here? No. There? No. Space, space,
space. I see the space and pass.
That’s what I do. Some teams don’t or
can’t pass the ball – what are you
playing for? What’s the point?’
(Xavi – Midfield player for Barcelona)
Leading for Learning
‘A
candle loses nothing by lighting
another candle’
Leading for Learning
What does leading learning look like?
Sometimes I go back to my default
model (of finding the solution) and I
wonder whether they will come up
with a solution. Then I ask myself
who owns this? And the answer is
‘you guys’
My natural inclination is to think the problem through
and know the answer. But I fight it and go out to
people who might help with solving it…I help them get
the tools and offer to help myself.
Leading for Learning
What does leading learning look like?
You need to tell a grand vision story and enable people to
see their pathways. It is not as linear as you would like.
You need to find
out what is the
grit in their shoes.
Understanding
that means you
can get to
aligning motives.
You can talk in a
way they will
understand.
You can’t achieve outcomes on your
own. Look at the local conditions. What
are the conditions for success? Children
live in complex arrangements.
Outcomes enable me to think about
what it is I want to contribute to at
times and at times lead.
Leading for
Learning
Individual learning
Behaviours
for leading
learning
Facilitating
Coaching
Enabling
Collaborating
Cultural learning
Taking the standpoint of
others
Translating
Processes
for leading
learning
Recognition
Questioning practice
Examining practice
System learning
Directing
Questioning
Pulling together
Learning
Challenges
Response
Formulating & modelling solutions
Implementing solutions
Designing learning
systems
Reflection
Reflection and realigning purposes
Building capacity
And ‘Leading for Learning’ begat…..
Leadership in a changing world
Leadership in a changing world
Leadership in a changing world
Leadership in a changing world
In these troubled, uncertain times, we don't need
more command and control; we need better means
to engage everyone's intelligence in solving
challenges and crises as they arise.
Margaret J. Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science. (1992)
Leadership in a changing world
Never apologise,
never explain...
Leadership in a changing world
Most modern systems are both hideously
complicated and bewilderingly complex. Such
systems, complicated and complex, are a hallmark
of our age as the factory was in previous decades.
Charles Leadbeater. (2013)
Leadership in a changing world
‘In 2012 we know that leadership, even in the most centralised
societies is too dispersed, information flows too global, the
speed from thought to action too fast for the massive
problems of the 21st century to be resolved behind closed
doors, however, beautiful the location. Instead leaders need to
focus on creating the conditions in which the necessary
innovations can take place and in which countless individuals
with leadership responsibilities are well-educated enough to
make good decisions’
‘Oceans of innovation’, Michael Barber et al.
Leadership in a changing world
Ubuntu
A term from the Bantu languages of southern
Africa that's hard to translate into English but
boils down to a simple but rich idea:
‘I am because of you’
Leadership in a changing world
Desmond Tutu
A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others,
affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others
are able and good, for he or she has a proper selfassurance that comes from knowing that he or she
belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when
others are humiliated or diminished...
Systems leadership
The practice of systems leadership: 6 dimensions
1. Ways of feeling (personal core
values)
- values and commitment
2. Ways of perceiving (observations,
and hearing)
- observing ‘from the balcony’ as
well as ‘from the dance floor’
- allowing for the unseen and
unpredicted
- seeking and hearing diverse
views
- sensitivity to other narratives
3. Ways of thinking (intellectual and
cognitive abilities)
- curiosity
- synthesising complexity
- sense-making
4. Ways of doing (enabling and
empowering)
- narrative and communication
- enabling and supporting others
- repurposing & reframing existing
structures and resources
5. Ways of relating (relationships and
participation)
- mutuality and empathy
- honesty and authenticity
- reflection, self-awareness and
empathy
6. Ways of being (personal qualities)
- bravery and courage to take risks
- resilience and patience
- drive, energy and optimism
- humility and magnanimity
Systems leadership flourishes when…
•
•
•
•
the authorising environment, whether organisational or systemic, tolerates
risk and accepts multiple pathways to outcomes
there is willingness to cede organisational goals for collective ambition
positional authority is not the only source of legitimacy
it builds on local and place-based initiatives and networks
Summary
•
•
•
Qualities, motivations and personal style are more important than specific
competencies and skills
Relationships are central to leading through influence and allowing
challenge and difficult conversations
Challenge, conflict and ‘disturbing the system’ are integral
Ghate, Lewis and Welbourn. (2013)
And now it’s in the DNA….