2. AGENDA
• Define courage and risk-taking
• Self assessment – risk taking strengths and
opportunities
• Identify cost of not taking action – individuals and
organizations
• Learn/review skills for effectively taking risks
• Courageous conversations
• Assess your organization’s adaptability
• Action steps
2
3. OUTCOMES
• Apply adaptive leadership techniques
• Able to assess obstacles in your team and organization
that prevent risk taking
• Methods to support team in taking more risks and
adaptive behavior
• Create action plan for unresolved conflict
• Use team and organization learning practices
3
5. RISK?
Propensity to evade
any loss contingency,
even a very small one
Risk Aversion: "Risk
aversion becomes
apparent when an
individual is faced with
even the slightest of
dangers."
5
6. WHAT DO RISK AVERSE
BEHAVIORS LOOK LIKE?
What are the costs to organizations?
6
7. THE COST OF NOT TAKING RISKS:
INDIVIDUALS
[T]he damage
comes when people
are marinating in
anticipation … which
can last for months or
years. It’s the anxiety
over the future that
has the worst effect.
~ Dr. Robert Sapolsky
“
“
7
8. THE COST OF NOT TAKING RISKS:
INDIVIDUALS
… the building blocks
of psychological stress -
a feeling as if you have
no control over the
adversities in your life…
no predictive information.
Create outlets for the
frustrations caused by
the stressors, if you have
no social support.
~ Dr. Robert Sapolsky
“
“
8
10. COURAGE
There's something
which impels us to
show our inner souls.
The more courageous
we are, the more we
succeed in explaining
what we know.
~ Maya Angelou
“
“
10
13. PRACTICE COURAGE: LEADERS
,.
BRAINSTORM:
What different activities,
relationships or processes
help you support your
team in gaining the
courage to act?
Every time you make the
hard, correct decision you
become a bit more
courageous and every time
you make the easy, wrong
decision you become a bit
more cowardly. If you are
CEO, these choices will
lead to a courageous or
cowardly company.
~Ben Horwitz
“
“
13
14. LEADERSHIP AND DANGER
To act outside the
narrow confines of your
job description, when
progress requires it, lies
close to the heart of
leadership, and to its
danger.
“
“
~Marty Linsky,
Leadership on the Line
14
15. THE NEW NORMAL: ORGANIZATIONS
• Uncertain future
• Inadequate information
• Change as a constant
• Adaptive challenges
• no easy answers
• difficult learning
• new stakeholders
The people involved must
solve, not authority.
15
16. DISTINGUISHING LEADERSHIP
AND AUTHORITY
Source: Cambridge Leadership Associates-Marty Linsky
Beyond this line –
Begin to disappoint
expectations and
take risks
Dancing on the edge of
authority-into-
leadership territory
16
17. THINK OF A COURAGEOUS ACT
• What made it courageous?
• What prompted you to act?
• How fearful was the situation (low, medium, high)?
• What did you do?
• How did others react?
• How did you feel?
• What surprised you?
• What did you learn?
Page 1
in your
workbook
17
18. MISSED LEADERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
• What opportunities have you forgone?
• What prevented you from taking action?
• What scripts were playing in your mind?
• Where, when and from whom did these occur?
• What might help you find your voice?
Page 3
in your
workbook
18
19. REQUIRES NEW LEADERSHIP PRACTICES
Focus more on
adaptation, less
on execution
Run experiments,
don’t just solve
problems (failure
as a learning
opportunity)
Practice internal and
external
interdependence, not
just autonomy (unusual
collaborations
Don’t avoid
conflict, surface
issues–don’t just
resolve it
Invent new
practices, don’t
just adopt best
practices
Take care of
yourself, don’t
just sacrifice self
for the cause
19
Source: Cambridge Leadership
Associates-Marty Linsky
20. HOW WE TAKE ACTION
• Consequences of NOT taking action
• Identify fears
• Worst that can happen
• Aligned with values
• Calculated risk or reckless action
• Inform your boss
• Present your view - open not
frowning
20
21. METHODS TO REDUCE RISK :
INDIVIDUALS
• Understand the risk
• Analyze the consequences
• Frame the risk - pilot project,
experiment
• Monitor/report out
• Share the risk - allies
• Identify and manage worst
case scenario
21
22. COURAGEOUS CONVERSATIONS
CAMBRIDGE LEADERSHIP ASSOCIATES-MARTY LINSKY
Adaptive Ask
Might lose and challenge other,
but potential to move forward
Confronting Conflict-Debate
How are you seen? What do they think you want?
Own point of view Little progress
Diagnostic Inquiry
22
23. COURAGEOUS CONVERSATION
Think of a conflict that you have been avoiding
and would like to address:
• What values in conflict?
• What might other person be afraid of losing?
• What might you lose?
• What have you done?
• What do you really want?
• What relationship do I want?
• Listen! Empathy! Respect!
Role play how you will
begin your dialogue and
work through obstacles to
understanding their
viewpoint:
• Are you willing to modify your
request or viewpoint-Why or
why not?
• What resolution is possible?
23
24. HOW RISK AVERSE IS YOUR
ORGANIZATION?
Threat
of the
un-
discussed
What
mental
model
keeps this
alive?
What kept
issue from
being
discussed?
Unintended
consequences
currently
and in
future?
How does
it block
team or
organization
learning?
What do
we want
to do?
24
25. Reflection/continuous
learning in DNA
Leadership capacity
developed
Independent judgement
Shared responsibility for
future
Elephants named
FIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF
ADAPTIVE ORGANIZATIONS
Source: CLA -Marty Linsky25
26. ORGANIZATIONAL COURAGE
1) How do you bring
courage and
demonstrate it for
others?
2) How does your
organization support
courage – examples?
3) What can be done to
teach how your
organization
demonstrates courage?
26
27. CREATE COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
• Bring together people who
want to create change and
learn from each other
• Provide support for
taking risks,
courageous conversations
• Celebrate risk taking,
courage, “lessons learned”
in visible manner
27
28. OD
CONVERSATIONS
Open conversation
Learn from each other
Common interests
Knowledge/
practice
PROJECT TEAM
AND STAFF/OPS
MEETINGS
Specific goals
Milestones
Schedules
Formal/
hierarchy
30. …[the] challenge of leadership,
when trying to generate adaptive
change is to work with differences,
passions and conflicts [and] harness
their energy.
~ Marty Linsky
“
“
30
31. MY LEADERSHIP ACTION PLAN
Integrate what you have learned!
Page 11
in your
workbook
31
Notas do Editor
What can I do to make my setting/team/organization the best and most fertile ground possible for the growth of leaders?
The study of more < 600 people found that a shocking 8 percent of employees estimate their avoidance costs their organization more than $10,000.
ORGANIZATIONS
The "Customer Experience" is Compromised: Team dysfunction is felt by the customer --poor quality and reduced service delivery.
The "Best and Brightest" Leave: continuous conflict avoidance is the departure of your best people.
Brand Value Weakens: Over time, a firm's brand value weakens, too.
http://www.inc.com/james-kerr/6-bad-things-that-happen-when-leaders-avoid-conflict.html
Dr. Sapolsky-leading neuroscientist:
Esp. bad for brain:
Stress releases hormones : catecholamines and glucocorticoids response to short term danger/stress
BUT hormones stay and affect cognitive function-harm prefrontal cortex:
decline ins lang and math ability and weakens working memory and attention regulation and change from thoughtful smart people to prefrontal cortex directing you and easily distracted
Dr. Sapolsky-leading neuroscientist:
Esp bad for brain:
Stress releases hormones : catecholamines and glucocorticoids response to short term danger/stress
BUT hormones stay ---- affect cognitive function-harm prefrontal cortex:
decline in lang and math ability and weakens working memory and attention regulation
2 and change from thoughtful smart people to prefrontal cortex directing you and easily distracted
INDIVIDUALS:
One in 20 estimates that over the course of a drawn-out silent conflict, they waste time ruminating about the problem for more than 6 months.
Communications Become Strained: A conflict that goes unresolved
Teamwork Diminishes: As communications become strained within a team, cooperation and teamwork will lessen and animosity will build.
Productivity Suffers
Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Leahey have written in Immunity to Change:
3 plateaus in adult mental development:
Socialized Mind: Shaped by our loyalties-59%
Team player
Faithful Follower
Aligning
Seeks Direction
Reliant
Self-Authoring Mind-can step back-34%
Agenda-driving
Leader learns to lead
Own compass. Own frame
Problem solving
Independent
Self-Transforming Mind-can step back and see own limits of thinking 7%
Meta-Leader
Leader learns to lead Multiframe-holds contradictions
Problem finding
Interdependent
Courageous derived from corage, meaning "heart, innermost feelings, or temper."
Possessing or displaying courage; able to face and deal with danger or fear without flinching
What stops people from taking risks?
Dependence on authority
Embarrassment-criticized
Fear
Left out of decision making
Lose job
Make enemies
Stand out
Not likely to be followed
Stuck in dead end job
Not a team player
Andreessen Horowitz backs bold entrepreneurs who move fast, think big, and are committed to building the next major franchises in technology. Founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz,
Leaders use different strategies to overcome fear. Brainstorm different activities, relationships or processes that help you support your team in gaining the courage to follow through
Every time you make the hard, correct decision you become a bit more courageous and every time you make the easy, wrong decision you become a bit more cowardly. If you are CEO, these choices will lead to a courageous or cowardly company.
Ben Horwitz
Industry research, for example, shows that companies spent more than $24 billion on leadership and management training worldwide in 2013, an increase of 15% from 2012.
leadership development begins with a real business challenge that leaders need to solve, instead of with a hypothetical case study or simulation. In order to succeed, they have to act, reach outside of their comfort zone, and adapt their approach.
Cargill, one of the world’s largest global agricultural processing and distribution companies, for high-potential managers called “Leading in a Complex World.”
Participants identified a challenging and complex problem in their business or function (e.g., product pricing, operational efficiency, customer service, etc.).
Then assigned to meet with people on the front lines of the issue both inside and outside the company (innovators, “future‐seers,” provocateurs, and stakeholders whose voices aren’t normally heard) to open up their thinking
Then each manager required to carry out at least one safe-to-fail experiment. The small-scale project would test a possible solution in a low-risk way, in 100 days or less, and without the pressure of having to be right.
Of the 75 participants, 80% completed their projects -produced tangible results . One experiment: 2.6% reduction in work orders, which = $342,000 over 3 months.
Leadership Development Should Focus on Experiments
Ron Ashkenas
Robert Hausmann
APRIL 12, 2016
Changing values or priorities or external changes driving need for change?
Where am I in organization –well positioned in organization? and my perspective?
Relevant parties-their perspective?
Internal contradictions of values and mission with actual operations?
Who loses? Factions?
What strategies do I have?
What strategies am I unwilling to try-why?
HOW TO MOVE FROM UP THE PLATEAUS OF DEVELOPMENT IS THE QUESTION
IMMUNITY TO CHANGE
Competing Values
Not doing what you say
Not aware of scripts
Beyond this line – Begin to disappoint expectations and take risks
Dancing on the edge of authority into leadership territory
Need to help people through disequilibrium as you are driving change
People will experience loss
How much heat can you turn up—allow you to move forward but not have an explosion
Authority forces people but adaptive leadership risk involved-don’t know all the answers up front=people might get upset
JULIE Gilbert Best Buy-Linsky
Research: The Innovator’s DNA, Bezos about the crucial role experimentation plays at Amazon.
“Experiments are key to innovation because they rarely turn out as you expect and you learn so much,” “We’ve tried to reduce the cost of doing experiments so that we can do more of them.
If you can increase the number of experiments you try from a hundred to a thousand, you dramatically increase the number of innovations you produce.”
Innovators like Bezos see the world as a laboratory. They continually seek to answer those “what-if” questions as they search for new solutions. Fortune Insiders /17/2015
Focus more on adaptation, less on execution
Run experiments, (failure as a learning opportunity)
Practice internal and external interdependence, (unusual collaborations, sacrificing credit)
Don’t avoid conflict, surface issues--not just resolve it
Invent new practices, not just adopt best practices
Take care of yourself, not just sacrifice self for the cause
Need to think how
Fear-talk to others and admit fear-and still act
Realize worst probably won’t occur
Did not think through-stubborn
Diagnostic Inquiry: What is most important? What losses?
Adaptive Ask: Risk taking that helps relationship move
Diagnosis is one of most important skills as you gain perspective and look at big picture-not immediately jump to action
Cycle involves observation diagnosis intervention reflection change or adapt?
How do you bring courage to work and demonstrate it for others?
How does your organization support courage—examples?
What can be done to teach how your organization demonstrates courage?