'If we began to see ourselves as highly adaptive, and looked at the number of ways we have successfully adapted to change in our personal and professional lives, we might start seeing our ability to adapt in a new light. We might realize that we do this all the time. And it might help us ask better questions when we resist. Like:
Why am I resisting this challenge when I easily adapt to others?
What is interfering with our organization’s ability to adapt?
What if we celebrated how well we adapt instead of focusing on what we are struggling with?'
This simple approach—with these powerful questions—can literally transform the way your team thinks and learns together. It also opens up great ne
Andrew Gerkens's insight:
A complexity check in is a great way to help teams develop their ability to see the system(s) and each other in new and helpful ways.
1. Start the meeting by asking a question (i.e. What surprised you this week? Where are we failing that we didn't expect to?)
2. Give everyone time to consider their response (think/write/post-it)
3. Allow everyone to share their answer
4. Ask the group what they noticed in the responses. What patterns did they see? What things were common?
5. Determine the outlier (perspectives/responses).
6. Ask the group to identify what we're not seeing or what we're not talking about.
Questions 5 and 6 are harder, but as the group gets used to exploring these questions, they will get better at seeing patterns and understanding human systems.
We’ve been talking a lot lately about what key capacities leaders might need to lead well during these VUCA times. We don’t want to create a whole lot of new competency tables, but we are wondering about the particular moves Complex Adaptive Leaders (call them CAL) need to be able to make if they are to lead themselves and others into the unknown.
Andrew Gerkens's insight:
Some practical examples and guidance for learning from the balcony and the dance floor. This skillset is part of helping build capacity (i.e. vertical development) and offers me a new term - Complex Adaptive Leaders (CAL).
CAL capacity 2 - Courage to take sensible risks and to lead others to do so is available here -
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'If we began to see ourselves as highly adaptive, and looked at the number of ways we have successfully adapted to change in our personal and professional lives, we might start seeing our ability to adapt in a new light. We might realize that we do this all the time. And it might help us ask better questions when we resist. Like: