Adaptive Leadership and Cultures

A great overview of the Subject/Object Interview process. If you want to read further, I suggest purchasing Jennifer's fantastic book, 'Changing on the Job' or if you want to develop your leadership/coaching practice, consider joining the Growth Edge Coaching program.

This draft chapter explores the intricacies of the Subject-Object Interview, the measure of Robert Kegan’s theory of adult development and thus one of the primary means of assessing self-authorship. The author focuses on using the interview as an intervention to assist adults in moving toward self-authorship and the dilemmas involved in doing so.

What are you trying to achieve when you listen? Take a moment to think about recent interactions. Where do you see yourself spending most of your time:
1. Listening to WIN (ARGUE, DEFEAT, SHUT DOWN)
2. Listening to FIX (SOLVE)
3. Listening to LEARN (UNDERSTAND)?

What do you notice from people you engage with? How do they listen and what is the impact? You can use this video or open up a discussion about the three types of listening and challenge people to be more open to listening to learn.

How might you develop your listening skills, so you can better diagnose systems/issues, understand other people's perspectives and open up possibilities...

Over the last couple of years I've noticed a shift. In the past, most of my listening was to FIX, helping people (as an expert) to respond/solve their problems. More and more I now find myself helping people 'make sense' of their situation/environment, most often in areas where I have no specific expertise. I'm getting better at listening to understand and using curiosity to help people make make sense and identify possibilities or the next step.

The biggest challenge I've faced (and still face) is accepting that this type of support is valuable. I know it is valuable to the people I'm supporting/coaching, but I struggle to recognise and value it myself. I've traditionally measured myself against delivery of tangible outcomes, so the shift to 'intangible' value is one I'm still making. A work in progress...

Jennifer Garvey Berger describes stages of adult development. I've been exploring this as part of building my own capacity for growth and to support my role as a practitioner. My head explodes when I think about helping build organisational capacity (i.e. evolving from compliant dependence to an achievement culture), but then recognising that 60% of the people I'm working with are socialised....

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 - 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cal-capacity-2-courage-take-sensible-risks-lead-do-so-garvey-berger/

How leaders can communicate when the future is uncertain:

1. Communicate direction and welcome people on the journey

2. Make it emotionally resonant - admit vulnerabilities and invite others to do the same, be excited about the possibilities

3. Use strong metaphors - bring ideas together

4. Make your audience the hero - call them to action, to adventure so they can collectively create 

Adult development as a form of anti-fragility and potential risks for organisations that focus on providing, stability, 'comfort' and certainty.

Leadership development often focuses on technical (knowledge, skills, tools) rather than adaptive (mindsets, fears, assumptions, stages of adult development) needs. Vertical development focuses on unlocking the potential for adaptive leaders.

Jennifer's book is easy to read and a valuable resource. 

Across these three articles, Jennifer Garvey-Berger shares her explorations of Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging. JGB is open about the reality of the challenges of confronting bias, limiting beliefs and assumptions - the inner work required for inclusive leaders to create the conditions for people to fiercely care for one another.

'Pat Wadors, the CHRO of ServiceNow, is credited with adding “belonging” to the Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) space. As she says, “D&I may capture your head, but belonging captures your heart'.

'Diversity is about having a wide mix of people in the room. Inclusion is about being sure that everyone there gets treated in ways that are helpful for them, no matter what their particular sets of needs might be. Belonging is the feeling that arises if a place actually has a culture that creates genuine space and care for differences'.

Second and third articles in the series.

An interview with Jennifer Garvey Berger exploring the imperative for adaptive leaders and opportunities for personal growth. 

“Who am I being right now and is that the person I want to be?” 

"Our lives are living out answers to questions we don’t notice that we’re asking. Asking different questions helps us lead different lives".

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. 

Creating the immunity map is a powerful and enlightening process, but it is only the start. The real work comes in testing your big assumptions - creating experiments that allow you to test whether your assumptions are valid and your immune system is right in protecting you from realising your fears, OR more than likely, your assumptions are not valid and your immune system is limiting and preventing you from realising/unlocking your potential.

I'm working on this now and it is tough. I've spent decades embedding these behaviours, so unpacking them and then testing them is not easy. I'm naturally drawn to maintaining the status quo, so I have to actively challenge myself to test, to observe, to reflect, to understand and most difficult for me, accept the evidence. 

Would I stop. No bloody way. This is the discomfort required for real growth. 

The opportunities for 'slowing down to speed up', with recognition of the practical barriers that prevent us from doing so.