10: adaptive leadership: tackling your city’s toughest ... leadership.pdf · ©1999 cfar...

10: Adaptive Leadership: Tackling your City’s Toughest Challenges

Trainer(s):

Angela Hendrix Terry NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service www.wagner.nyu.edu

Adaptive Leadership for Results Based on the work of Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky

From the book Leadership on the Line © Raj Chawla and Jolie Bain Pillsbury

Leadership is about achieving results. Leaders seek to create alignment around a common result and then work with others to make aligned contributions to achieve the result. In this process both technical and adaptive challenges will emerge. To achieve results a leader must know the difference between technical and adaptive challenges and be able to implement strategies addressing both.

Contents 1. Telling the Difference 2. The Focus of Adaptive Leadership 3. Strategies

Technical challenges can be solved with existing knowledge, skills, and/or technologies. Adaptive challenges are those where there is no readily available technical solution, and the exact nature of the challenge may be unknown. Adaptive challenges are always present when striving for high alignment and high action because facing them involves challenging existing modes of operating, examining deeply held, often unconscious, values and beliefs, and exploring new ways of thinking or acting.

1. Telling the Difference Between Technical and Adaptive Challenges1

Does making progress on this problem require changes in people’s values, beliefs, attitudes and behavior?

• Whose values, beliefs, attitudes or behaviors must change in order to move forward? • What shifts in priorities, resources and power are necessary? • What sacrifices would have to be made and by whom?

2. The Focus of Adaptive Leadership

Changing values, habit’s and beliefs is difficult and often creates feelings of vulnerability and loss. Adaptive leadership focuses on modeling and practicing a willingness to the face discomfort and: • Ask questions to illuminate the

adaptive challenge;

• Acknowledge reality and expose

threats and conflicts

• Let go of or change current roles and

resist defining new roles too quickly

• Challenge norms or let them be

challenged

1 The Art and Practice of Leadership Development, Harvard Kennedy School, Executive Program

GO TO THE BALCONY

ID THE ADAPTIVE

CHALLENGE

SURFACE THE

CONFLICT

REGULATE DISTRESS

ADAPT VALUES AND

BEHAVIORS TO TAKE

ALIGNED ACTION

GIVE THE WORK BACK

TO THE GROUP

Adaptive Leadership for Results www.rbl-apps.com

3. Strategies (Principles) for Adaptive Leadership for Results2

a) Get on the balcony and identify the adaptive challenge

The dance floor is where the action occurs, where the leader is part of the dance and can only see their immediate surroundings. A leader goes to the balcony – above the dance floor - to see patterns, identify, and generate hypotheses about: • What is the technical work and what is the adaptive work • What role they hold for the group and what others are holding • What is being said and what is not being said • How authority is used and to what purpose

b) 2. Name conflict and regulate distress

Holding hypotheses allows a leader to name conflicts and surface dysfunctional norms. Naming and surfacing conflicts generates tension and distress by turning up the heat on what is hard to face. Making progress requires turning of the heat and addressing conflict. When the heat is too high, it is helpful to regulate the distress by pausing to do technical work or stabilize roles is needed to sustain progress.

c) Give the work back to the people

The people with the adaptive challenge are the only ones who can identify a solution. Giving the work back means not providing answers from a position of formal authority but placing the work where it belongs and being willing to be part the challenge rather than directing it’s solution.

d) Maintain disciplined action – battle work avoidance

Remind people of the adaptive work at hand and why it is important in the face of the following forms of avoidance: • Displaced Responsibility as evidenced by attacks on authority or blaming others • Distracted Attention as evidenced by no focus or focus on tangential issues • Fake Remedies as evidenced by defining the problem to fit your competence and misusing

consultants, committees and task forces • Denial as evidenced by ignoring underlying conflict and creating false harmony

e) Holding steady

Holding steady is one the most important attributes a leader can have. As hidden conflicts emerge and dysfunctional norms are addressed leaders can feel a lot of pressure to “fix” things. To be able to “take the heat” means knowing: • That what is happening is not about you, it is about what you represent and projections made by

others. • Building a support system to give you perspective and resilience to take the heat. • Keeping focus on the result and your passion for achieving it.

2 Adapted from Heiftez and Linsky, Leadership on the Line,

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Briefing Notes: Campaign Approach to Strategic Change The scarcest resources in today’s overloaded organizations are time and attention. For change to happen, leaders need to get people’s attention and active help. In these briefing notes we explore a “campaign” approach to organizational change. Such an approach cuts through the clutter and mobilizes people around a strategic theme that has resonance and staying power. When would you want to organize a campaign? Some leaders are looking for a functional alternative to strategic planning. Others have a specific problem or an idea—sometimes just an inkling—of a direction they want to take the institution. Campaigns work particularly well in universities, health systems, professional service organizations and other “loosely-coupled” systems where authority is diffuse and windows for change are limited. The action and momentum of campaigns are appealing to many corporations. Root Metaphors The approach draws on campaign metaphors from several walks of life: Political—Stay on message. Build coalitions. Capture events and venues.

Roster a war room to set strategy and direct volunteers. Define the opponent.

Advertising—Dramatize the benefit. Hook the target emotionally. Simplify and focus.

Military—Seek advantageous terrain. Pick beachheads carefully. Tend supply lines. Consolidate gains.

Public Health—Target those around the real target. Leverage early adopters.

Fundraising—Build a campaign chest before you go public. Develop a case for support. Manage momentum.

Each metaphor admittedly has a dark side and some will resonate more than others for particular projects or particular people. As with any metaphor, the value lies in using it as a window on fresh thinking.

Planning vs. The Campaign

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A campaign is more flexible and open-ended than traditional planning. A campaign is opportunistic in its details, but strategic in its force. Campaigns require substantial and sustained planning; what they avoid is a focus on the plan as document. While traditional planning may be right for many efforts, it is particularly susceptible to stalemate. The campaign approach, in contrast, can move forward without the agreement of all. The Planning Process—Qualities and Traps

The Campaign

Define goals Develop a strategic theme that mobilizes people

Goals are definite and explicit—often before people can know enough to know what they want

Theme invites interpretation and discovery

Energy tends to go into the document Energy goes into actions—pilots, probes, projects, events

Often hard to implement Implementing is the only way to embody the strategy

Formal task forces Coalitions, grassroots, new blood

Inclusion based on representation Inclusion based on passion and interest

Reports, memos Press releases

Easy to block; debate it to death Can move forward without agreement of all

“Think your way into new acting” “Act your way into new thinking” How to Tell if a Campaign is Successful A campaign is successful only if practices begin to change. An organization changes when people do things differently on the front line. All other changes—to systems, to incentives, to stated mission—are simply means to an end. Without changes in practice, these other initiatives lack substance. Successful campaigns are also characterized by the amplifier effect: You find you are not doing everything yourself; others are pouring energy into the system. The “law of networks” kicks in: A practice becomes more advantageous as more people begin to do it.

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Four Elements of a Campaign An effective campaign has four overlapping elements: 1. “Listen In” to the Institution—To discover the emergent future.

2. Develop a Strategic Theme—To give direction to the campaign.

3. Sweep People In—To mobilize energies.

4. Build the Infrastructure—To make change possible. These briefing notes take up, in turn, each of the four elements of a successful campaign. “Listen In” to the Institution We call the first element of a campaign “listening in” to the institution because we believe that leaders need to step back at this point and actively open themselves to the future. A campaign is organized around a strategic theme—one that is as much discovered as invented. One theory of change says that the future is already here in bits and pieces—at the fringe, in the cracks, parasitic on old practices. You can shape the future by picking up on certain elements, channeling, directing—but the raw material has to be there for you to shape. The leadership skill is seeing the emergent in the present. The first element of a campaign is the search for those pieces of the future that are already here. Your aim is to look for vivid, specific ways that external forces and trends are finding purchase in your own institution. Three ways to listen to your institution, outlined below, are particularly revealing, especially when triangulated as a check on each other. Found Pilots—Search out “found pilots,” projects and practices where the future is

showing up, perhaps among just a few leaders or even marginal people. (For example, DARPA, the cumbersome early network that connected a few of the nation’s research scientists, was a “found pilot” for the Internet.) Look for pockets of innovation. Ask yourself what are the three or four most interesting things that have happened in the last year. Your initial ideas about what you want to accomplish will help you know where to look—but make a determined effort to widen your search and build in some randomness.

Comings and Goings and Comings—Ask yourself who has recently joined the institution, how they are different from people who are already there, and what attracted them to come. Think also about people who have left or been marginalized: What seems incompatible with the institution? Think about new leaders: What is the message of their selection, what new ideas are they trying out?

Institutional Tensions—Often a context for innovation is established because an institution needs an answer to a tension or conflict that is blocking its development. Look for those tensions. Seek out newer, more dynamic tensions, not the institutionalized ones (such as “research vs. teaching” in universities) that have already developed routines, rituals and

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decision making processes. Look particularly for those tensions that seem to cut across customary fault lines, creating strange bedfellows and unlikely alliances.

Develop a Strategic Theme Framing a strategic theme—based on what you have learned and where you want to go—is the second element of a successful campaign. The theme focuses the campaign and gives it direction. A good theme energizes and mobilizes people. Developing the theme involves careful listening to what is already in play. Listening helps you develop a theme that has resonance, one in which people see themselves. The listening element of a campaign and the theme-building element are iterative, in fact, something like a Baptist preacher giving a sermon and being particularly alive to what the congregation reflects back. The initial framing of the campaign theme is likely to change after working with it for a while. In one university campaign, for example, the president started with the label “Student Retention.” As he began to think from the point of view of the students, he came up with the theme “The Serious Student.” Eventually he honed the theme to the more active and inclusive “Taking Learning Seriously.” In advertising terms, the campaign theme is a dramatization of the benefit to the customer. It is the emotional hook that connects people to the benefit. Ads have perfected the art of the single, simple message. Simple is good because it is hard to miss. It is bigger, more powerful. It is easier to remember. Simplicity and focus require sacrifice—the sacrifice of all the other things you could be saying. The sacrifice is worth it, however, if you get your point across. In political terms, the campaign theme is simple but big: it generates all kinds of actions. “It’s the economy, stupid” was the unofficial version of the theme of Clinton’s first Presidential campaign. People who were interested in children’s welfare, for example, could find a place for themselves in such a campaign. So could people who were interested in tax incentives for small businesses. A good theme, then, makes action apparent. That is the difference between a theme and a “slogan.” A theme, moreover, is not a “vision,” since you are still discovering, still exploring. A good theme is open ended and inviting; it does not try to specify the end state. Some of the best themes explode assumptions and resolve contradictions. You might think of them as “productive oxymorons.” Examples are Rene Dubos’ “Think globally, act locally,” Marshall McLuhan’s “global village,” or a public TV station’s goal to produce shows for the “highest common denominator.” These themes derive their power from a promised breakthrough—from opening avenues you thought were blocked or suggesting resources you did not realize you had. They do this by exploding assumptions.

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Sweep People In With a strategic theme as guiding framework, you are ready to begin sweeping people into your campaign. In this third element of a successful campaign, your goal is to capture and amplify energy: Discover the natural leaders and give them venues. Build coalitions. Create an environment of inclusion. When people step forward to take up roles in the campaign, find places for them. A campaign can capture the passion and energy of people who would never be involved in more formal planning processes—people on the frontline who are already beginning to change practices. Keep in mind that the scarcest resources in today’s organizations are time and attention. For your campaign to succeed you will need to reorient people’s attention rather than always asking for more. To that end, two strategies are especially effective: Piggyback on Existing Venues—Like the advance person in a political campaign, you can be

on the lookout for existing events that can be turned to your purposes. Are there ways to borrow parts of meetings, conferences, training workshops, alumni events, and so on, to make progress on your initiative?

Look for Found Pilots—Look for projects, programs, events or other activities (including embryonic ones) that are already heading in the direction you want to go and figure out how to sweep them into the campaign. The reciprocity principle kicks in: You capture energy and momentum; the leader of the found pilot gains like-minded colleagues and a supporting infrastructure.

Your job, throughout, is to mobilize allies, champions, stakeholders and “skeptical friends.” As public health campaigns have learned, these people should not be forced to make an all-or-nothing commitment (of time, energy, money, political capital). By accommodating a range of possible commitments, you can sweep far more people into the campaign. Once they get a taste, they are likely to want more. Build the Infrastructure For all its grassroots energy, a campaign does not just happen. It takes a lot of planning and a substantial infrastructure to make a campaign work. As with any major initiative, you will need support systems, incentives and an architecture of participation. You will need a communication plan, a life-cycle strategy, and sometimes new revenue models. You will need a skilled and experienced project manager to look ahead and keep things moving and connected. Political, advertising and other types of campaigns suggest models and strategies for this infrastructure. From political campaigns, for example, come ideas for building an infrastructure of participation. You might, for example: Roster a War Room—Political campaigns set up a war room, an organized and “on duty”

inner circle, to drive strategy and orchestrate volunteers.

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Gear up for Rapid Response—Many political campaigns build the capacity to stay on top of breaking events and respond quickly to them. Some subset of the war room core group might usefully be deployed in reconnaissance and rapid response.

“Vote”—Votes are marker events in political campaigns. In addition to formal votes, many kinds of shadow votes such as opinion polls, straw votes and petitions are used. While votes may polarize opinion, they can also mark a moment of significant progress or create a deadline for accomplishing goals. Are there ways to use shadow votes or actual votes to advance your initiative?

A campaign requires an explicit, yet opportunistic, communication strategy. You will need to capture people’s attention; weave together the pilots, probes and events of the campaign; and communicate their force and intent. With thoughtful and insistent framing, a collection of activities can become an initiative. Advertising and public health campaigns suggest ideas for an infrastructure of communication: Issue Press Releases—Instead of memos and reports, consider a strategy of quick and

continuous “press releases,” with emphasis on news and stories from the field.

Segment the Market—Define the target audiences and design messages that make sense to each.

Make the Personal More Obvious—In public health campaigns, individual benefit and “society’s” benefit sometimes clash. (Family planning campaigns falter in Bangladesh, for example, because parents see children as their support in old age.) In word and deed, therefore, find ways to demonstrate the value to the individual.

Create Incentives—Incentives, because they redirect people’s attention, are one of the most powerful communication strategies at your disposal. Financial incentives might include seed money and matching funds. Think like a venture capitalist to put your money on events and pilots that will give a good return on investment.

Finally, but also from the very beginning, you will need to think about consolidating gains and moving from campaign to mainstream: How can you help pilots and probes think beyond proof of concept to steady state? What is the handoff strategy for moving various parts of the campaign into the authority structure? What new revenue models, staffing, or information sources will be needed? All Four Elements As the diagram suggests, each of the four elements of a campaign is necessary—“Listening in” to the institution, developing a strategic theme, sweeping people in and building the infrastructure. When all four are present, a campaign—at its best—is an “offer you can’t refuse.”

©1999 CFAR CAMP7B:991014

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It Takes All Four Elements ...

Listening StrategicTheme

SweepingPeople In Infrastructure

= Social engineering

Opportunism,diffusion of effort

=

Political resistance

Loss of momentum,encapsulatedinnovation

If Missing

If Missing

If Missing

=

=

FailureModes

If Missing

… to Make an Effective Campaign

Listening StrategicTheme

SweepingPeople In Infrastructure

“An offer you can’t refuse”

=

Success

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Related Sources Brown, Shona and Kathleen Eisenhardt. Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos.

Harvard Business School Press, 1998. Center for Applied Research. Briefing Notes: Quick-Hits Projects—Linking Performance

Improvement to Organizational Learning, 1997. Cialdini, Robert B. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. New York: Quill, 1993. Lester, Richard K., Michael J. Piore, and Kamal M. Malek. “Interpretive Management: What

General Managers Can Learn from Design.” Harvard Business Review, March – April 1998. Mintzberg, Henry and Bruce Ahlstrand. “The Learning School: Strategy Formulation as an

Emergent Process.” Strategy Safari, 1998. O’Dell, Carla and C. Jackson Grayson. “If Only We Knew What We Know: Identification

and Transfer of Internal Best Practices.” California Management Review, Spring 1998. For more information on this or related materials, contact CFAR at [email protected] or 215-320-3200, or visit our Website at http://www.cfar.com

Raj Chawla OCL Group Member of the Results Based Leadership Consortium www.tenconversations.com

Worksheet: Strategies for Acting Politically Building on the work of Heifetz/Linksky and Mark Friedman

Population-Level Result: Indicator: Program Result and Performance Measures: Key Strategies to implement to support the result Your role: Your wants: Your reality:


Allies (stakeholders who are most likely to be interested in supporting the work…they gain the most if work is successful) Who might be your allies? Why?

What’s their main “want”? What is their current reality?

How can this ally best help you successfully implement you strategy?


Adversaries (stakeholders most likely to oppose what you are trying to do – they may have different perspectives, and/or stand to risk losing the most if you are successful) Who might be your adversaries? Why?

What do they stand to lose if the strategy succeeds?

What is their current reality?

How might you neutralize them or get them on your side?


Senior Authorities (Stakeholders who hold a broader internal and external view of the work) Who are the senior authorities most important to your strategies success and why are they important?

What is their reality? What messages are they giving about how the system perceives your strategy?

What might you say or do to gain and maintain their support as your strategy is being implemented?


Casualties (stakeholders who stand to lose something they value – i.e., a familiar way of doing things, their status, their jobs, etc.) Who might be the casualties in your strategy?

What will they lose?

What new skill would help them survive the change and thrive in the new organization? How might you help them acquire those skills

How could you help them succeed elsewhere?

Which causalities will need to leave the organization?

What will be the impact of them leaving the organization and how will you address this impact?

Circle of Conflict Adaptation RBL-APPS.COM

The Circle of Conflict Adaptation Based on Christopher W. Moore’s Circle of Conflict

© Jolie Bain Pillsbury

1. What is the Circle of Conflict?1

Developed by Christopher Moore, the circle of conflict identified five sources of conflict: values, relationships, data, interests, and structure. To support moving to action and results, the circle is adapted to include a sixth category – language conflicts, and expands values conflicts to include adaptive challenges2.

Contents

1. What is the Circle

2. How to apply the Circle

3. Conflict Orientation

2. Applying the Circle of Conflict

1. Observe what people are saying and doing

2. Identify and name one or more sources of conflict

3. Take action where you can to address and resolve conflict.

1 Moore, The Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict; 2nd edition, 1996, pp. 60-61. 2 Heifetz, Ronald A. and Marty Linsky. Leadership on the Line, 2002.

Circle of Conflict Adaptation RBL-APPS.COM

If you see or hear…. You might… VALUES CONFLICTS

• People leaving the room (flight)

• Strong disagreements about what is right or

wrong (fight)

• Avoidance of specific topics

• Reacting to specific topics as if discussing the

topic will challenge identity or assumptions

the way the world is

Name the type of values disagreements and choose an appropriate approach.

• Adopt a group norm, such as respectful listening to address habits. • Explore underlying assumptions and experience to develop options

to address differences in principles. • Use appreciative inquiry to explore similarities and differences in

worldviews and belief systems and illuminate the benefits of working together.

RLEATIONSHIP CONFLICTS

• People choosing where to sit to avoid someone

• Awkward silences and meaningful glances in

response to who is speaking

• Tension seemingly unrelated to the substantive

topic.

• Explore relationships barriers by noticing here and how the tension shows up - between which people or groups?

• Find ways for the people holding the tension to experience each other in new ways. As mutual understanding develops begin to the address the history of their relationship though redress, acceptance, or forgiveness.

DATA CONFLICTS

• Differences about data relevance

• Different interpretations of the same data

• Different ways of collecting data.

• Bring the data challenges explicitly into the conversation

and focus on the use different data, different definitions, and

different interpretations.

• Encourage the use of the “best available data” and work

together to develop “better data”.

LANGUAGE CONFLICTS

• Same words mean different things.

• People “cross-talking”, e.g., not being in the

same conversation

• People “listening for” different things.

• Identify the language differences and focus on meaning

underlying the words, rather than the words themselves.

• Encourage the use of common language with common

definitions.

• Explore MBTI3 communication preferences.

INTEREST CONFLICTS

• Zero sum mentality

• People holding a position

• People not exploring each other’s interests or

articulating their own.

• Illuminate the competing interests underlying people’s

positions and use Interest Based Negotiation4 to achieve a

‘win-win” solution by separating the “people” from the

“problem”, building relationships, and adopting criteria to

choose options BEFORE making decisions

STRUCTURAL CONFLICTS

• People looking to others for “permission” to

speak

• Fear, anger about the “way things are”

• Use of hierarchical authority in collaborative

settings.

• An “inner circle” with more influence

• Speech and/or behavior inferring that one

gender, race, class or culture is “subordinate” to

another.

• Name the structural factors influencing behavior.

• Find opportunities for people to create conversations about

those factors and how they affect their roles and authority.

• Develop strategies to either:

o Move to action on the structural factors that are within

the individual or collective spheres of influence

o Identify structural elements that others can influence and

enroll them

3. Conflict Orientation

Everyone has an orientation towards conflict. Take time to reflect on yours conflict and that of others. The orientation that supports movement from talk to action has two elements:

1. Conflict is normal and necessary to the work of achieving results

2. It is possible to address and resolve conflicts.

Find opportunities to practice holding this orientation as you apply the Circle of Conflict.

3 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator , Consulting Psychological Press 4 Fisher and Ury, Getting to Yes, 1981

• Meetings of partners begin with results.

• The first meeting results include clarification of the collaborative result, population, and measures of success.

MEETINGS BEGIN WITH A PURPOSEPeople work with partners across disciplines, sectors, or departments in service of a specified population or program-level result.

DECISION TO WORK TOGETHER FOR A

RESULT

• Partners hold themselves and others accountable for keeping commitments

• Partners track progress which is the subject of subsequent meetings

ACCOUNTABILITY: TRACKING COMMITMENTS

AND PROGRESS

• Commitments made in meetings are executed in partner’s home agencies and communities

• Actions need to be at a scope and scale to make a difference

COLLABORATIVE WORK: TAKING

ALIGNED ACTIONS BACK HOMEPartners work to• Make decisions that stick• Develop strategies• Manage conflicts• Plan and align actions• Make commitments to act

MEETINGS END WITH COMMITMENTS

TO ACT

The RBF

Collaborative Work

CycleAccountability in Action Adapted by Victoria Goddard-Truitt

Population/

Program

Result

Contents 1. If only we could “just do it”! 2. What’s in it for you? 3. The Accountability Pathway 4. How to walk & talk the

Pathway 5. Talk that helps you walk

The Accountability Pathway © Jolie Bain Pillsbury

Unaccountable for commitments to action

Accountable for commitments to action

Unaware

Blame others

“I can’t excuses”

Wait & Hope

Acknowledge reality

Own action commitment

Find solutions

Make “it” happen

1. If only we could “just do it”! How many times at work, at home or in your community do you say, “I’ll do it!” and then just not get it done? Getting it done isn’t that easy. We often don’t have the tools and skills or simply don’t follow through. We need to be accountable for our commitments to action and take the time to make them a priority.

2. The Accountability Pathway Accountability is the ability to make commitments to action, then keep those commitments, or acknowledge that you haven’t, and figure out what you need to do to move to action. Many people’s experience with accountability conversations is negative and often associated with punishment or shame rather than learning or celebration. The Accountability Pathway creates conversations about keeping commitments that are interesting, meaningful, engaging and lead to more effective action.

The Accountability Pathway graphically presents the different choices we make after we commit to do something. Keep the following in mind as you think about the Accountability Pathway:

• Accountability is developmental. You can be at different stages along the Pathway at work, with your family, or in your community.

• Discussing accountability feels uncomfortable. However, you can explore the sources of your discomfort and use those insights to become better at making and keeping commitments.

• Using the Accountability Pathway can minimize your and others’ frustration when you struggle to keep commitments, or are un-productively critical of yourself and others, and/or get stuck because no progress is being made but the topic is avoided and not discussed.

• The process can lead to discoveries about how to make and keep commitments that move your from talk to actions that produce the desired results – the results that make things better for you and others.

3. What’s in it for you Get more action and results. The Accountability Pathway helps you be clear in your commitments and able to directly address whether you did or didn’t keep those commitments. Conversations about the choices we make after we make commitments and the consequences of those choices is often avoided or handled ineffectively. Used deftly the Accountability Pathway brings light and lightness to these difficult conversations and helps you walk the talk of more effective commitments to action.

Accountability Pathway www.rbl-apps.com

4. How to walk and talk the Accountability Pathway 1. Display the Pathway – on a piece of paper for yourself, or on the wall for use with a group. 2. Use the Pathway to review progress on commitments to action – did you make it? Where did

you get stuck along the way? What helped you move along? 3. Encourage your own self-awareness and acceptance as you see where you are on the path. 4. Note where you are on your paper. When in a group, walk to that place at the wall poster. 5. Reflect on your own, and/or explore with colleagues what might help you to move along the

Pathway to “make it happen”!

5. The talk that helps you walk The following is an example of what it sounds like when you talk about how to move along the Accountability Pathway.

The conversation below is an example of two people using the Accountability Pathway to learn how to move along from wherever they are to action. The conversation is between a “pathfinder” who is using the Pathway as a tool to guide the conversation and an “action owner” who has just used the Accountability Pathway to review their progress on a commitment they made.

Pathfinder: You reviewed progress on your action commitments. What did you discover?

Action owner: Oh, I completely forgot what I said I would do. (Unaware), I thought I was going to get a reminder in the notes, but I didn’t see the email (blame others). You know, I am so busy, that without someone reminding me, I can’t fit this sort of thing into my schedule (I can’t excuses).

Pathfinder: Is this something you are still interested in doing? (Appreciative Inquiry to see if the commitment still exists)

Action owner: Yes… it is a good idea and if I could do it would make a difference. (Affirming ownership of commitment)

Pathfinder: What might help you? (Appreciative Inquiry to see what stage the person is in after affirming the commitment)

Action owner: Well…maybe this time I’ll remember… (wait and hope)

Pathfinder: Is this coming week going to be as busy as last week? (Effective Question to move the participant from “wait and hope” to “acknowledge reality”)

Action owner: No…it actually will be even busier. (acknowledge reality)

Pathfinder: Is it important to get this done now? (Effective Question to check ownership of commitment again)

Action owner: Yes, I have to do it this week; next week will be too late. (own it)

Pathfinder: Is there something that you might do that could help you get this done even in a busy week? Anything that has helped you under other circumstances? (Effective Question to move to “find solutions”)

Action owner: Hmm…I can write it down on my calendar for tomorrow morning and tell my supervisor that I have to get this done first thing in the morning…before I forget! (finding solutions)

Pathfinder: Anything else you can do now to make it more likely you can do it? (Effective Question to move to “make it happen!”)

Action owner: Yes, I’ll pull out my calendar right now and write it in. Also, during the break I’ll call my supervisor and get their support for me spending some time on this. This will actually help my whole unit and I know my supervisor is interested in this too. (make it happen)


Dissenters (Those who are the naysayers, the skeptics, those who question the work itself) Who are the dissenters in and of of your organization

What ideas are they bringing forth that might be valuable for your strategy?

What’s their main “want”? What is their reality?

How might you support their ideas to have a hearing?

How can you protect them from being marginalized or silenced?

10: adaptive leadership: tackling your city’s toughest ... leadership.pdf · ©1999 cfar...

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