The practice of collaborative leadership to continue innovating

“The leadership of the future requires humility, transparency, and an experimental attitude. In the Age of Collaboration, we face challenges that we have not seen before and for which we do not yet have the right answers. We must overcome the farce that our leaders have the answers and know where they are going. Their plan today is simply the best estimate they have been able to make of a complex and uncertain future.

In this new scenario, the response must necessarily be collective. The solutions will not be the result of a plan foreseen by a few, but will emerge from the courageous action of many people at all levels of the organization, who have been able to adapt and change their mental models to face the new reality.”

Every historical moment is associated with a certain form of leadership, and the fact is that we continue to apply the typical leadership schemes of the Industrial Age to address challenges that lie beyond our purview. We are trying to solve today’s problems – which are extraordinarily complex and nothing like what we have seen before – with the same logic with which we have created them, as if we already know the most appropriate solution and only have to apply it.

But the truth is that we do not know the solution. No one knows it. The new Era of Collaboration has generated substantial changes in the very nature of society; changes that have had a profound impact on our institutions and models of government, and that translate into new challenges never seen before. This is precisely the fundamental premise of each and every one of our conversations: these Changes have created a new and unprecedented scenario for organizations, for their culture and their leadership.

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, by Ronald Heifetz

We need, therefore, new models that allow us to create value through people; a new paradigm that helps us to take advantage of the knowledge and experiences of the past and, at the same time, allows us to introduce the innovations we need to change and find the answer to new challenges. For all these reasons, I find the proposal that
Ronald Heifetz
makes us in “The Practice of Adaptive Leadership“, his most recent book, co-authored with Marty Linsky and Alexander Grashow. In this work, Heifetz suggests that we approach our adaptive challenges just as other living things do.

Biology as a starting point

The challenge with adaptation work, in biology and in organizational life, is figuring out how to profit from history without being enslaved by it. Ronald Heifetz

Nature teaches us that small changes in DNA can have a radical impact on the ability of species to adapt to the new environment and thrive. The evidence is there: sequencing of the chimpanzee’s genome revealed that its genetic material is about 98% identical to that of humans. However, the result has been entirely different. A change in DNA of just 2% has given humans a superior brain, allowing them to develop such significant advances as the ability to walk upright and to craft complex languages.

As in the field of biology, Adaptive Leadership is a selection process. An organization’s DNA is its culture, and we must be able to decide which DNA we should keep, which we should discard, and what innovations we should introduce into the DNA to adapt to the new environment. It is a conservative and progressive process at the same time: we have to conserve what works, and we must be able to change to find what will allow us to survive in the future.

It is not, therefore, a matter of changing everything at once – that would mean throwing away all the experience and knowledge of the organisation – but of evolving, of changing with agility, of going out of the plan when necessary to adapt to new challenges. It is an experimental process in which, quite possibly, most of the changes will not bear the fruit we expect, but in which some of the innovations introduced will allow us to change in order to adapt and grow in the right direction.

One thing must be very clear: Adaptive Leadership is not only about change. In fact, if we go to the field of biology we can see that nature retains most of the previous DNA. The same applies to our organizations and our professional lives, in which we must be able to identify what we want to keep, usually the best of our previous experience. Unfortunately, many leaders ignore this premise and focus exclusively on change. They thus forget a fundamental part of their work: reminding people that a process of change also involves a great constructive reflection on what must be preserved.

This is why I prefer to talk about Adaptive Leadership as mobilizing adaptation efforts, rather than as transformational change. Our experience in sectors where the legacy accumulated over the years is particularly powerful (e.g. finance) shows us that the word “transformation” has acquired a certain negative connotation capable of blocking the desired changes. The explanation for this rejection is very simple: the concept of transformation is associated with a totally new creation, and the organization interprets this commitment as a total denial of previous history and culture.

Adaptive challenges: the need to learn

Every problem is a gap that separates our aspirations from reality. In our daily work, we are used to dealing with purely technical problems, for which we know the answers. That means we can close the gap by applying previous knowledge and experience. However, when we are faced with an adaptation challenge, the gap cannot be closed by using existing technical knowledge, as these are challenges that we have not faced before. In other words, we do not know for sure the right solution, and the gap cannot be closed with standard operating procedures, or with the traditional “command and command” that has worked for us on other occasions. To close the gap, it is essential to make changes in people, create new habits and ways of doing things. That is why we say that adaptive challenges require us to develop new knowledge and skills.

As Heifetz explains, in a technical challenge we know both the problem and the solution. In other words, we are faced with a challenge for which we already have a solution, so our job as leaders is to coordinate and mobilize people to do what they already know how to do, and do it well. That doesn’t mean that technical problems are easy to solve, or that they are unimportant. It simply means that they can be solved within the framework of our previous experience, using knowledge, methodologies and tools that already exist.

An adaptive challenge, on the other hand, requires people to develop a new way of doing things. And that means discarding some of the customs, practices, and assumptions of the past. It is clear, therefore, that adaptive challenges are not comfortable or easy to solve. People expect the leader to be able to come up with the right answer. But that is impossible. The leader can ask the right questions, but he cannot find the solution, because the solution lies in the people themselves, who must be able to change and adapt to the new demands of the environment.

In other words, the leader cannot exempt people from their responsibility. The key is to assume that the people in the organization are, at the same time, part of the problem and part of the solution. And to understand that there are no longer magic answers, but questions capable of moving us in the right direction.

Adaptive Leadership in Practice

We usually assume that leadership is oligarchic, that is, that it is exercised by a few in a position of authority over the rest of the organization. After 150 years of “orthodox management”—based on hierarchy and the practices and techniques of the Industrial Age—we find it difficult to conceive of other Alternative forms of leadership. But if there is one thing that is clear at this point in the crisis, it is that the answers can no longer come from the top of the organizational pyramids. The problems are too complex for the answers to be in the hands of a few. The starting point must necessarily be an exercise in humility. We must accept that, as individual leaders, we do not have the capacity to find the answers we need. To face the complex challenges we now face, the response must be collective.

Adaptive Leadership it consists precisely of mobilizing others – outside and within our area of responsibility – to achieve understanding and agreement on what must be done and how it must be done, facilitating individual and collective efforts to adapt and developing the new skills and habits necessary to adapt to new circumstances. Unlike formal leadership, in which authority derives from our position, Adaptive Leadership is exercised from our personal power and our credibility. It does not originate, therefore, in the position we occupy, but in our proactive action as leaders, based on our passion and perseverance, our self-confidence and our ability to decide.

Organizational Change Management

The work of Adaptive Leadership is, therefore, everyone’s responsibility. Anyone in the organization, with or without formal authority, must be able to face the new reality, to identify those key questions that will allow us to anticipate the impact of changes in our organization, and to mobilize other people to assume the collective responsibility that will allow us to reduce the gap between the current situation of things and the desired scenario (a better future for the organization). Therefore, this new vision of leadership requires a organizational change management, that is, learning how to manage leadership within companies and their organizations.

Here are the steps to follow to implement adaptive leadership in practice:

• Mobilize people outside and within our area of responsibility, so that we can meet adaptive challenges and are able to create the conditions necessary to thrive in the new environment.
• Selecting what we want to maintain and preserve, what is expendable and we must discard, and the new capacities we must create to face the future successfully.
• Keeping the organization in a productive zone of imbalance by asking the uncomfortable questions and making the tough decisions.
• Manage the inevitable conflicts, losses, and confusion associated with change, so that disruptions are productive rather than destructive to people and the organization.

Five keys to action

Adaptive Leadership requires a good dose of self-confidence, passion and perseverance, and requires a certain credibility, understanding others and being able to connect emotionally with them, develop win/win relationships, persuade, argue and convince. Of course, Adaptive Leadership has nothing to do with position, imposition and power exercised arbitrarily.

Here are five keys to action:

1. We need to distinguish what is valuable and essential from what is expendable. Then we must mobilize people to leave their “Comfort Zone” and tackle new innovative experiences. The goal of these experiments is to inject the best of DNA into the organizational culture so that the organization can thrive in the future.
2. In every adaptive process there are tensions between paradoxical values. For example, between trust and control, hierarchy and realignment, focus on people and focus on tasks, standardization and diversity, direction and co-creation, etc. We need to learn to manage paradoxes and find a balance between different points of view, rather than trying to solve them as technical problems. Tension and imbalance are inherent in managing paradoxes. Avoid giving a “yes” or “no” for an answer; often, the most appropriate answer to a paradox is: “both.”
3. Losses often involve a reconfiguration of loyalties, and the development of new skills. Every change is associated with a certain loss. That is why change and learning are complicated for most people, and can become a painful process. You must be able to anticipate and counteract behaviors that are reluctant to change. Bring your emotional self to work more often. Empathy and the appropriate manifestation of emotions are necessary in managing the losses that all change entails
4. People are part of the problem and part of the solution. “Stakeholders” have responsibility for solving problems. You can’t take the problem off their shoulders. Adaptive challenges require people themselves to face new realities and change some of their priorities, attitudes, and behaviors in order to thrive in a changing world.
5. Adaptation challenges require experimentation and longer time frames than technical work. Solving this situation is more complex than it seems. Experimentation requires accepting failure and it takes time, which often goes against organizational demands, which are very oriented towards “short” results. You have to be persistent and you must be willing to withstand the pressure that the organization exerts to make you take “shortcuts”.

Why are adaptive challenges so difficult to solve?

Organizations tend to avoid or reject adaptive challenges, and try to absolve themselves of any responsibility. This is so, in large part, because solving these challenges involves introducing changes in our mental schemes, and in our way of doing things. These changes in the culture of an organization are really complicated, and they usually attract strong rejection. This rejection materializes in practically the same way in all the organizations we have worked with. Namely: denying the reality of the problem, externalizing the enemy or shifting responsibility to another function, questioning the formal authority and, very often, “killing” or marginalizing the messenger. If all of the above fails, there will always be someone who tries to find a “scapegoat” to make him responsible for all the problems. Doesn’t that sound familiar?

We cannot forget that, in the end, we are all prisoners of our paradigms and our mental schemes, and that we have them so internalized that we are not able to visualize them and reflect on them. It is these paradigms that lead us to interpret reality in a certain way. We are also prisoners of our fear of rejection, failure, loss of power… These fears lead us – as he very well explains
Pilar Jericó
in her book
“No miedo”
– to develop a certain aversion to change, and impel us to reject new ways of doing things and interpreting reality. This resistance does not have its origin in the aversion to change as such, but in the aversion to the losses caused by change. The loss of competence, the loss of relationships, the loss of jobs, the loss of traditions, the loss of loyalty, etc. These are, in any case, real losses, and for this reason resistance is understandable.

It is essential to take this into account to evaluate and defuse anti-innovation stances, which are the ones that ultimately end up putting the organization’s survival in a changing environment at risk.

Where to start

These tips can help you introduce the seed of Adaptive Leadership into your organization:

Get out of your “Comfort Zone”. Spend some of your time exploring the new reality and finding the trends that will affect your life, your markets, and your organization in the near future. Interact with the new reality, the essential thing is to access and actively participate in the new conversations that have emerged on the Web.

Dare to take on adaptive challenges. Identify the gap between the organization’s expectations and reality. Separate adaptive challenges from technical problems. You have already seen that both require totally different solutions. Pose new challenges to the organization and ask the right questions so that you can find a collective answer together.

Preserve the best in you. Adaptive Leadership has an experimental and change part, it is true, but it also has an important part of selection and conservation. As Heifetz reminds us, many leaders forget to remind their people that a process of change involves a large part of selective reflection on what should be conserved. It is about changing a little so that everything changes.

Work through iterations. We live in a scenario of great uncertainty. Solutions no longer appear as a result of a millimetric plan, but emerge as we iterate with reality and adapt to new demands as they arise. So take the pressure off. Consider your decisions temporary. Don’t stop. Decide and move forward. Let the project grow. You must be able to deviate from the plan when you discover realities that you had not been able to foresee.

Innovate in management, drive collaboration. Create smaller, more agile and transparent organizations, open to change and innovation. Create new spaces, processes and tools that allow collaboration within and beyond the organization’s borders. Bet on redarchical structures – as opposed to the traditional hierarchical model – to make the most of collaboration opportunities.

Create a culture of courageous conversations. In a period of sustained uncertainty, the most difficult issues must be discussed and never hidden. “Dissidents” can provide crucial information, really useful for change, so they must be protected from the pressure that the organization tends to exert on them to remain silent. Today more than ever, executives need to listen to positively dissenting voices, always within a framework of corporate loyalty and risk-taking. In an uncertain and ever-changing world, stability is a “burden” rather than an asset.

Launch your “lifeboat”, or in other words, introduce small innovation initiatives that allow you to experiment with emerging trends without negatively affecting the stability of the “aircraft carrier” (the bulk of the organization). In this way, the organization can continue on its path without jeopardizing its operational objectives, while we begin to create the new competencies that will help us achieve our future viability. Thus, both models coexist with different purposes and perhaps different life cycles. This allows us to manage the risks of innovation. What we can under no circumstances do is remain immobile, paralyzed, at a time when the needs of our customers and the value creation models of our markets have changed substantially.

Build the new maps. Find the time you need to explore the future, to discover new challenges and reflect on the impact of changes on your organization. Remember that you are exploring a completely new scenario, and that the approaches and mindsets of the past no longer work. We need to build new maps because, in order to manage the future, “what we don’t know” is more important than “what we know”.

Avoid passion killers. A professional with passion for what they do, with positive energy and a desire to learn is preferable to a pessimistic and discouraged “genius”. The key is to avoid practices and customs that end up undermining the positive energy of the organization.

To summarize. Adaptive Leadership requires mobilizing people to assume the new realities and face the new challenges posed by the Age of Collaboration. It is about learning collectively, changing priorities, attitudes and behaviors in order to thrive in an uncertain, changing and increasingly complex world. In the short term we must mobilize people to overcome immediate challenges, and in the long term we must be able to generate the new genes, the new culture that will allow us to thrive in the future.

In the words of Michael Hammer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:

“The secret to success is not to foresee the future, but to create an organization that will thrive in a future that cannot be foreseen.”

If you want more information on the subject, you can consult the presentation “Adaptive Leadership: the new models of value creation in the Age of Collaboration.” Or you can contact us, via
our contact form
.