Leadership is challenging. Not because we do not know what to do, but because we have to convince others that it is the right thing to do. If you have done any work with the Kansas Leadership Center, you have heard about the difference between technical work and adaptive work. This difference is what makes leadership so important and so challenging.
Technical work has a clear problem and solution, is done by experts, uses existing knowledge, and is carried out in the short term. On the other hand, Adaptive Work requires learning in order to understand the problem and the potential solutions, it is done by stakeholders, uses experimentation, and requires long-term work.
All this is true, but there is one thing that changes technical work to adaptive work more than anything else. Resistance.
Resistance is the manifestation of stress in a system. It is often caused by a sense of loss of status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, or fairness (SCARF). This sense of loss and the need to address this is what defines adaptive work.
In my cooperative, I have a couple of structures that I use to address resistance through relationships, connectedness, and shared experiences.
One on Ones
For adaptive changes that affect individuals, such as adding an Extra Duty to an employee, I use One on Ones. I specifically use a model from Manager Tools for my one on ones. I meet one on one weekly or bi-weekly (admittedly not consistent with MT guidance). These meetings are used to ease the communication upstream to the director. The meetings are not mine. They belong to my directs. They get to talk about their agenda items first and can share about anything that they want. This proactively supports the relationship and the trust that develops and allows me the opportunity to push people out of their comfort zones. This also gives me a designated time to provide coaching toward a new skill and feedback toward an existing one.
Department Meetings
For adaptive change that affects small groups, such as changing how we conduct evaluations for learning disabilities. I use department or group meetings. These meetings include meeting norms that set the stage for the kinds of conversations we need to have. Here we all learn together about options. Hearing the same things at the same time is huge in developing consensus toward solutions. These meetings help develop the overall guidance that will define the change. We then implement together, work through scenarios and case studies, and process feedback that we receive to adjust the plan as needed. The regular department meetings support this change in a meaningful way.
Program Reviews
For adaptive change that affects all stakeholders in a particular program, I conduct program reviews. Program reviews are used in situations such as changing how gifted learning is handled across the cooperative. Program reviews include representation across all stakeholder groups and different factions that may exist. The Program Review is held over multiple meetings where we capture what is happening now, research best practices and the experiences of others, and identify a plan for how to move the program to what we want it to look like in the future. In reality, the technical side of the work could be done in a day, but multiple meeting dates allow all questions, concerns, and perceptions of loss to be worked through and shared. In the end, a report with recommendations is developed and agreed to by the consensus of the group. The action plan then serves as the guide for that program going forward.
Those are some of the structures I use to lead adaptive work. Will you use any of these going forward? What are some structures you use to work through resistance?