Inside JLC: Adaptive Leadership Part 2: Identify the Challenge

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Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us here at JLC Media. Appreciate you being here with me today is Vince Starks and Colleen Sullivan. And this is a continuation of further conversation about the webinar we just did on adaptive leadership, kind of coined by Linsky and Ron Heifetz. Wonderful work. And we promised to take that webinar a little bit apart piece by piece. So the first thing that we worked on was get in the balcony, get on the balcony, look down at what's unfolding in front of you in order that you can identify the adaptive challenge. And today we're going to talk about how to practice getting up in that balcony, looking downward at the dance floor and figure out what are the adaptive challenges, not just the technical problems. And technical challenges. What are the adaptive problems? Ones that are harder to see and sometimes without other people's support, impossible to resolve. So that's going to be our piece today as we shift from first on the balcony today, identifying the adaptive challenge. Vince, what are you hearing me say? What are you thinking?

Yeah, so Ray, what I'm hearing you say is that we're going to have a follow on discussion from our initial webinar and we're going to break this down into chunks. And so certainly last week we discussed what does it look like as a leader to be able to stand and look on the balcony so you can see the horizon, to see what's going on. And today we're going to actually take that a little bit further and look at how do we identify those things that are adaptive challenges, vice technical, single loop solutions that you can find. So we're going to talk more deeply about that today and I'm excited.

I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Colleen. Something more or different?

Yeah, no, I heard very similar to my colleague Vince and I think it got me just made me think of how quick many times we're under pressure to solve, to fix, to come up with a course of action. And I think what resonated with me is reflecting back in my leadership roles this tendency to jump in and to solve a problem. And I think to your point, until you really pause and identify the problem accurately, sometimes you might be running down a road and you're going in the wrong direction or you don't have enough information to your point to accurately understand the problem. And I think many times as leaders, I know a lot of the people that we work with, they want to just jump in because they're doers, they're fixers. That's good. And I Just say to everyone who's listening, please think about, as we're going through some of these scenarios and talking about this, where do you fit in? How do you approach your problem solving? And are you pausing enough to really identify the challenge appropriately?

Very nice. Notice Vince gave us that idea. It's more than just a single loop swing at this. It might be a double, even triple loop swing to find out what's going on. And as I thought about this, and I really have done my best to think about examples, etcetera, I'd like to tell you a story and then have the two of you talk to me about. Get on the balcony, look down with me, and identify what are the technical challenges and what are the adaptive challenges, because there's both. Okay, in this little story. And then I'll ask you guys to add a little story of your own. Going forward, those of you that are listening to us, that are leaders, and if you are parents, this work is probably more applicable to the parenting environment than anything I've ever seen. Of course, when we say about adaptive and maladaptive behaviors, many parents start thinking about special education classifications. I don't want to talk about that today. That's a whole different thing. And there are people far better than I to chat about that with you. As parents, however, the ability to adapt is critical, and we learned about that from Charles Darwin. It wasn't the strongest that survived. It was the one that could adapt the best over time. So adaptive leadership really does matter. So here's my story. Colleen, you are the county commissioner that's looking over half of the districts in your community that you serve. Vince, you got the other half. Okay? You each got 25 districts, and your job is to come together and collaborate on a challenge. At the last council meeting, one of the consultants that you hired to look out. Let's see what's going on. Right. Came forward with some information, some data that they interpreted, which is now information. And they said, all right, in the district that Colleen takes care of, you have a very small number of fires from month to month. But in Vince's area, in two of his districts especially, they have 10 times more fires than all the other districts in the entire city. So we need to do something about this. And it's really important because the people that are having all these fires, they are. They're upset. They've talked to me in focus groups. They want this fixed. So they're coming to you to say, fix this problem. So, Colleen, what did you hear? The problem as stated, what did you Hear the problem is as stated, and I'm going to pivot to Vince after we kind of talk about your perspective.

For a moment or. I heard that he's got half of the. Of the area. I have the other half. And the problem is, is that there's a lot of fires going on out in Vince's direction, and it makes me wonder if he's giving out free matches or what he's doing over there. But it sounds like that the majority of the issues that are surfacing in regards to the fires that are coming up are in his area. And we need to come together to look at this problem and to come up with a solution to ensure that no more fires continue to pop up in our area, at least to the.

Degree that they have popped up. And I love that idea of, what are you doing, Vince? Are you starting these yourself? You know, exactly. By the way, that is a political methodology, which I'm sure you've heard before. Start a fire. Salvitz, you're looking good, but I would prefer not to go down that road today. So, Vince, what did you hear Colleen say? And one other thing. Colleen has already agreed to work with you on this, Right. I have actually seen some commissioners say, good luck, Vince. That's not my problem. So what did you hear her say? And could you add a little more context to that?

Yeah, so thanks. I heard my colleague really clearly defined that we both have different sections of the organization and that she's a, you know, she's a heightened sense of awareness. I have a couple of major fires burning. And jokingly, because she's a good colleague, she's wondering like, hey, man, what's going on over there? And as I look across the horizon, what I also heard was she has a few issues, but not very many. And so what I'm wondering, and I'm thinking is what's the difference in our districts and what's creating those impacts? Having 50, 50, 25, 25 doesn't mean that we have the same composition and challenges. And so I'm equally interested in working with my colleague because I want to better understand kind of what's happening in her space and why does she have so few issues and how does that relate to me? So I'm excited to look, to see how to work together, particularly since I heard somebody who said, I want to work with you.

Yeah, so that's a. That's wonderful. That. Very nice construction of the challenge. So let's stay on the balcony. And I'd like each of you to describe the Challenge in your own words, from your own. In your own perspective, what is the challenge? And I'm going to do this. What is the challenge you are collectively facing? Not just Vince, not just Colleen. What challenge are the two of you facing? Facing. And that way we can begin to kind of just as you started to do, Vince, and that is who you are as a leader, which is magnificent. You start to figure out what the hell's going on, why is this happening, blah, blah, blah. But rather than go to that place yet, because that's really the next podcast, let's make sure that we can clearly articulate the adaptive challenge. So, Vince, you want to start off, and then Colleen will feed into what you say.

Yeah. So I think that at the surface, we both have some challenges in the district. And, you know, numbers. Numbers don't lie. I have seemingly more concentrated issues, and she has more seemingly disparate issues. So I think that's, for me, is the bigger. On the balcony issue. I have seen staff some concentrated pockets of trouble, and she has more disparate issues of trouble. But collectively, we still have some issues that need to be addressed.

So that's excellent. And those of you that are listening, we're actually doing a model that will help you practice identifying adaptive challenges. And what Vince just kind of gave us was the situation. Right. And so now I'm going to ask Colleen to add some of the complexity and complication as best. And again, ladies and gentlemen, we're making this up. Although I was actually a consultant in a city who was asked to help with this exact challenge about 26 years ago. So moving forward from this, Colleen, a little more about, please restate the situation as you understood it from Vince. And then what are some of the complications? And I'm going to pivot to Vince to ask for some more.

Sure.

Well, I think situation being that there are fires and there are issues that are surfacing in one half of the city, and we are being asked to figure this out collectively, together. And so to me, and I like when you talk about what's really going on. Right. What do we need to do? Go hand out some fire extinguishers. There you go. Is that really going to solve it? I don't know. Because we could. Right? We could. That would be the technical problem. There are fires. Right. Technical solution. Hand out some fire extinguishers. However, is that really going to get to the root of cause? And I think when you think about what Vince laid on the table, this complexity piece, why are they actually starting fires? What other kind of things are going on. What other kind of crimes are taking place? What's the socioeconomics of what's going on? Right. We know that we just had a manufacturing plant shut down. Is it unemployment? Is it the fact that they don't have health care? What about other stresses? So I think if there are fires and we hand them the fire extinguisher, is it really produce the desired result?

Hard to say. So notice what those of you that are listening, what Colleen and Vince just did, they established the situation. And I said to Colleen, what's the complexity? And she added to the complexity piece by asking questions. So when you're really trying to figure out what's the adaptive challenge, say, here's a situation. Situation. And a technical solution could be we'll send them more, you know, fire extinguishers. In the example I'm telling you, which is a real example that I got to be involved with, it was, the first decision was a technical solution. Colleen has. You have an equally distributed number of fire departments in both of your areas. So because Vince had more fires going on, they sent those resources to Vince's area. That was the first solution. That was a technical solution to a perceived technical problem. He just needs more stuff. He needs more resources to put those fires out. They put them out quicker, but it didn't stop them from continuing to burn. And so as you're asking those questions, that's magnificent. So situation. So you're on the balcony, you're looking down. Here's a situation. Here are questions that I'm thinking about that are adding to my understanding of the complexity. Hey, Vince, how are we doing in the process here? Talk to us about how this feels to you.

Yeah, so I like that. And I do think that the risk in any situation like this is the easy thing to do is to go to that technical solution. Right. That's the low hanging fruit. And so most people immediately gravitate towards that because most leaders want to solve the problem. You know, you want the pain to stop. That resonated with me and it sounded. Yep, that's just what I would expect to kind of happen in that initial situation. But, you know, as also a part of a good leadership, I love the way Colleen laid out some of those questions because those are things that we need to think about more deeply. And then I think that we need to bring that to the surface with others outside of ourselves to really better understand. We need to develop some common understanding of what's really happening. So I really like that component. Felt good.

Oh, my God, Vince, thank you. Thank you, thank you. So the two of you are laying out this. This is a conversational leadership tool that you're laying out that I took from a British woman almost 35 years ago at a conference that I went to. And she laid this on the table, had a different intention. I modified it slightly, and I'm so grateful to have it in our back pockets. Situation complexity. Questions that we are asking ourselves that need some answers, and we may not have them. To Vince's point, we now expand the audience because we're working on adaptive identification and then eventually adaptive solution. We need to expand the audience so that we get wisdom from all those that we work with. So adaptive. We are on the balcony, we're looking down. We're trying to identify the adaptive challenge. They've already played with the idea that more fire extinguishers are sending the resources to the place with the most needs. Not a bad thing to do. It's not going to solve the system issue that we're facing. So believe it or not, this work of adaptive leadership has true connections to Daniel Goleman and Peter Senke. What's the emotional intelligence needed to understand what's happening socially, what's happening emotionally in those areas where the fires are unfolding? From Peter Senge's standpoint, let's look at this so we see the whole. We have that longer picture, that balcony picture, so we can see how things are unfolding. Notice this. This is one of. In my opinion, this is an opportunity for you as a listener to say, okay, what is the situation I'm facing? What's the complexity? Let's ask some questions that may have answers and some that may not, so that we begin to expand our understanding about the complexity. Right. Then bring in more interested, involved people, people that are facing these problems, and let's talk with them so we can learn more about what's happening. Back to Vince's original point. Single loop. We just would have sent more fire trucks out there or sent fire extinguishers. Not the solution. That is a technical solution to a conflated problem. You have the problem of fires and the problem of what's causing them. We conflate technical and adaptive challenges all the time. It's normal. And to Colleen's earlier point, some people are so interested in their leadership. Their leadership is about solving problems. You give me a problem, I'll tell you what to do. Here's the course of action. Forward. So the three of us are actually inviting those of you that are listeners to not jump to a technical solution. Unless there's lives at stake. And of course911 respond. I'm asking you to really think about being on the balcony, going through this simple process that I laid out to identify the adaptive challenges that may be in front of you and conflated with the technical ones. Situation complexity, questions and answers, if you can find them, collective wisdom. And then think about a course of action. Be careful not to jump to that course of action unless you know it's an absolute 911 emergency. We need to take care of people's lives, etc. I'm sure this, this conversation will be interesting to our friends overseas right now thinking about their life and what they're facing. You guys were super. We're about at the end of our times. I'm gonna let each of my incredibly powerful colleagues give you a little bit of their take. What's your greatest learning in this conversation today? What resonated most with you? I'm so grateful to the both of you for the way you played this out. Vince, would you start us off?

Yeah. So first, I'm grateful that we've been able to have this conversation today. It's always good to be in a space of learning together. As leaders, we don't always have to have all the answ. Sometimes getting the collective wisdom in the room is how we grow and we learn together. So with that said, my greatest takeaway on this particular topic that resonated with me was the power of just slowing down sometimes to understand the complexities, to kind of understand and ask the questions. As a leader, that takes a little bit of time. And allowing yourself that decision space to reflect and to give thought means that you can't solve all the issues immediately. Sometimes things need a little time to percolate. And leaders, we have to understand that that's a part of dealing with adaptive changes. And so that's what resonated with me and my learning today. And with that, I'm out.

So that was magnificent. And I could hear colleagues of ours, people that we support in coaching or in team development, going, I got a lot of shite to do today. I don't have time to slow down. Let's just get a solution. We'll tell the media what we're doing and we're done and gone. That is so normal in our fast paced world, especially as we are dealing with everything that the pandemic gave us. People are worried about time, timeliness, can we get this done? We have lots to do. I just love that response in terms of Some coaching that you just gave to the audience that was beautiful, Colleen. Resonance and coaching.

Sure. I think what resonated with me when you were sharing the situation and complexities and questions asked and answered is, you know, it's almost like I encourage leaders to think about that, especially when somebody comes to them with a suggested course of action. Right. Vince is coming to me and I'm his supervisor, and he's going, colleen, I really think you should do this. And so I'm like, all right, I trust Vince. I like Vince. He's got great work, so I'm going to take his idea, make it so. And my invitation is that is a great example of just. You're making a lot of assumptions there. Right. And you're assuming that that's the best course of action. My invitation is to do that pause and to ask those types of questions to Vince. Vince, what's the situation from your perspective? What are the complexities around this and complications? Vince, who have you talked to and what did they say? Now I'm slowing down, getting more information so I can understand, is he assuming it is a technical. Is a technical problem, Is he applying or is it an adaptive challenge and he has come to a conclusion that a technical solution is best? So I encourage everyone listening just to not only go through this type of a tool when you are making a decision and looking at things, whether it's an adaptive challenge or not, but also, please use them to coach others so you can have a deeper understanding of their thought process in the way forward in solving a problem.

And.

I'm out.

Are you out? She was quite impassioned about those recommendations, and I agree totally with both of my colleagues. So hang on in your next meeting, because I think you can get on the balcony even in a meeting, and you can almost watch the meeting swirling around to a technical solution. And you might be sitting there as either a meeting participant or the meeting leader going, I don't know, you know? So I think Vince's coaching on slowing down. And Colleen, do your best to use the tool when you're on the balcony to say, here is the situation now, you know, if it is a technical problem, get an expert to fix it. Right? That's. I break my arm. I need an expert. I'm not going to ask Colleen to help me. I might ask Vince because he has some capabilities in helping me with my arm, but he has subject matter expertise. The point is, be careful not to conflate technical problems and adaptive challenges so that we're able to pull them apart a little bit. Study them and go through any process that you love. We love the one we're using. We all use it together. Situation complexities and complications. That's the second step, which you learn through asking questions and seeing if we have some answers. Please do that before you jump to a course of action. Unless, like I said, it's a 911 absolute emergency or I need to look good in the paper. Any of those things. I get it. The point is to take your time on that balcony and identify the adaptive challenge. You guys were great today. Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, this is JLC Media. If you want to learn more about us, go to gojlc.com and you can hear more podcasts, see some webinars, and if you'd like to chat with us, send us a note and we'll be there for you. Thank you very much and appropriately today, Happy St. Patrick's Day. Take care, everyone. Sincerest thanks for listening to this episode of the Everyday Leadership Conversations podcast.

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