The Adaptive Challenge

1. The Adaptive Challenge Understanding the Role of Leadership in Times of Change and Transformation

2. What are you trying to accomplishWhat is challenging you? Revisit the “change” issue which you are in the midst of addressing; a change which may be easier to tackle with improved leadership skills. The change can be with an individual, a team, your organization or cross agency.

4. Early Childhood Mental Health • The Social, emotional and behavioral well-being of young children and their families • The developing capacity to: • Experience, regulate, and express emotion • Form close, secure relationships • Explore the environment and learn Adapted from ZERO TO THREE

5. Protective Factors • Positive self-esteem • Active style of responding to stress • Ability to elicit positive attention form adults

6. Values and Principles • INFUSE Mental Health in early childhood natural settings – “where kids are” Supports for care givers, parents, services for children and families • USE PUBLIC HEALTH MODEL (intervention is not enough) • Promotion - for healthy social emotional development of all kids and families • Prevention - focus supports for at risk children and families • Intervention - services to kids with diagnosis • ACCEPT THAT THIS IS A CULTURAL EXCHANGE PROCESS Engaging and involving families, caregivers, early childhood providers, mental health providers, and community at large.

7. Problems and Challenges • Simple • Complicated • Complex S. Glouberman and B. Zimmerman, “Complicated and Complex Systems: What Would Successful Reform of Medicine Look Like,” in P.G. Forest, T. Mackintosh and G. Marchilden (eds), Health Care Services and the Process of Change (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004): 5

8. Why Leadership? Why Now? • Time of unprecedented challenges and turbulence • Engaged in an increasingly diverse and complex community • Challenges do not have simple solutions and require creative, inclusive and strategic responses • Each of you is in a role where you can have significant impact on the future

9. System Resistance to Change

11. We know more now about the importance of early life experience than we ever have. We know more now about what works than we ever have. We know more about strengths of families than we ever have. We know more about the power of community than we ever have. The time to invest in the future is now.

13. Organizational Change Theories Resistance is a characteristic of any major organizational change effort and a major reason why organizational change efforts fail. (Prochaska, Prochaska and Levesque, 2001). Resistance should be expected in different stages of multicultural organizational change because the topics of prejudice, discrimination , oppression, and power are controversial and emotionally charged. (Brantley, Frost and Razak, 1996). The Transtheoretical Model of Change suggests that it is counterproductive to forge ahead with action without addressing issues such as resistance, that stand in the way of individual and organizational readiness for change. Data Source: Mayeno, L. Multicultural Organizational Development: A Resource for Health Equity, in Cultural Competence in Health Care Series, The California Endowment and Compasspoint Nonprofit Services, April 2007. Slide Source: National Center for Cultural Competence, 2010

14. Stages of Change Precontemplation Contemplation Contemplation Preparation Action Maintenance Data Source: Prochaska, J.O., Redding, C.A. & Evers, K.E. (1997). A Transtheoretical Model and Stages of Change. In K. Glanz, F.M. Lewis, B.K. Rimer (Eds.) Health Behavior and Health Education: Theory Research and Practice a(2nd edition) (pp. 60-84). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Slide Source: National Center for Cultural Competence, 2010

15. Personal Resistance to Change

16. Leadership and Change “The changes required will be not only in our organizations but in ourselves as well. …Only by changing how we think can we change deeply embedded policies and practices. Only by changing how we interact can shared vision, shared understandings, and new capacities for coordinated action be established.” Senge, P. M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline, p. xiv

17. Leadership Today Deeply held beliefs about leadership are challenged Values that made us successful become less relevant Skills that made us successful become less relevant or must be re-framed or re-tooled Adapted from Heifetz, Ron, Leadership without Easy Answers, 1996

18. Technical Work Perspectives are aligned Definition of the problem is clear Solution and implementation of the problem is clear Primary locus of responsibility for organizing the work is the formal leader Adapted from Heifetz, Ron, Leadership without Easy Answers, 1996

19. Adaptive Work Legitimate, yet competing, perspectives emerge Definition of the problem is unclear Solution and implementation is unclear and requires learning Primary locus of responsibility is not the formal leader Adapted from Heifetz, Ron, Leadership without Easy Answers, 1996

20. The Collective Intelligence It is in the collective intelligence of people at all levels, who need to use one and other as resources, often across boundaries and learn their way to new solutions. Adapted from: R. Heifetz and D. Laurie: The Work of Leadership. Harvard Business Review, 1998.

21. Agency of Human Services Central Office • Head Start – State Collaboration • Success By Six Regional Planning • Parent-Child Centers • Domestic Violence Network • Child Welfare Department • Protective Services & Family • Support Child Care • Child Care Subsides • & Fee Scales • Private • Child Care Centers • Day Care Homes • Education Department • Early Education Initiative • Early Essential Education • Health Department • Healthy Babies • Women, Infants, Children (WIC) • Family, Infant, Toddler (FIT) (Part C) • Alcohol & Drug Abuse Programs Vermont Early Childhood System Children & Families

22. Who participated? • Family members • Early Childhood System of Care (including health, early care and education and all other early childhood providers ) • Leaders from Systems of Care for Children with Emotional and Behavioral Challenges • Other community agencies and leaders

23. Identified Top 3 Community Survey and Forum Priorities • Parenting and child care training opportunities. • Behavioral consultation in child care settings and school settings. • In-home direct therapeutic and consultation services.

24. State Outreach Team • Family members and • Representatives from: • Agency of Human Services • Department of Developmental and Mental Health Services • Department of Health • Department of Social Welfare, Social and Rehabilitation Services (child welfare) • Department of Education

25. Key Question To differentiate between Adaptive and Technical Work ask... Does making progress on this problem require changes in people’s values, attitudes and/or habits of behavior?

29. Examples The Work of the Leader RESET • 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? Adaptive Computers in the workplace Strength based care Family involvement Interagency collaboration Cultural competence Building relationships with families and child care providers Technical Computer training Assessment form A Parent on a Council Memorandum of interagency agreement Translation services Parent and child care training

30. TABLE DISCUSSION Now that you understand the difference between adaptive and technical work, please take some time to discuss when you have either experienced when technical solutions have been used to solve adaptive challenges or when you have put a technical solution to an adaptive challenge.

31. Relationship between Technical and Adaptive Work • Process flow between technical and adaptive work • Using technical work strategically to gain short term wins and move a change process forward • How does this framework impact the way you think about the implementation of your strategic plans? • Do not put a technical solution to an adaptive challenge!

33. BIG QUESTIONS How to leverage Federal dollars for these services that don’t identify a specific client? • Promoting public health model. • Consulting and providing Technical Assistance to early childhood providers. • Screening all children for social and emotional issues.

34. TRAINING & TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE • Would expert advice and technical adjustments within basic routines suffice, or would people throughout the system have to learn new ways of doing business, develop new competencies and begin to work collectively? • How might T/TA be useful in order to help define the adaptive or technical challenge and facilitate adaptive and technical work? The Work of the Leader Adaptive Facilitation Shared Vision Collaborative Decision Making Technical Coordination Expert Advice Procedures STRESS

35. New Role and Skills for Leadership in Adaptive Work

36. Leadership as a Function in Adaptive Work • Leadership can be seen as the process of envisioning and initiating change by mobilizing others to alter the status quo, in response to an urgent challenge or a compelling opportunity. How do you understand this definition now?

37. Role of Leadership in Adaptive Work Create a context for learning and support so that the innovation or change or new effort can be generated, understood, absorbed and ultimately acted upon by all. Source: Ellen B. Kagen, Georgetown University, 2010

38. DIFFERENT SERVICES • Consultation without identified client • Cross training of early childhood caregivers DIFFERENT PLACES TO SERVE • Childcare • Parent Child Centers • Pediatric practices

39. Achieving System Reform Goals • Work together • Emphasize shared values • Learn from differences • Engage key stakeholders • Focus on the philosophy and values

40. Role of Leadership in Adaptive Work Create a context for learning and support so that “the change” or new effort can be generated, understood, absorbed and ultimately acted upon by all. Source: Ellen B. Kagen, Georgetown University, 2010

41. Addressing the Adaptive Challenge New Skills for Leaders in Adaptive Work

42. RESET “Reset requires figuring out what, of all that you say you value, is really important and must be preserved…… and what, of all that you value, you must leave behind in order to adapt to a fundamental new reality.” Heifetz, R., Grashow, A., Linsky, M., Leadership in a (Permanent) Crisis, Harvard Business Review (2009)

43. Stages of Change: Where are you? Precontemplation Contemplation Contemplation Preparation Action Maintenance Data Source: Prochaska, J.O., Redding, C.A. & Evers, K.E. (1997). A Transtheoretical Model and Stages of Change. In K. Glanz, F.M. Lewis, B.K. Rimer (Eds.) Health Behavior and Health Education: Theory Research and Practice a(2nd edition) (pp. 60-84). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Slide Source: National Center for Cultural Competence, 2010

44. The Work of Leadership: Key Skills • Get on the Balcony • Identify the Adaptive Challenge • Regulate Distress • Maintain Disciplined Attention • Give the Work Back to the People • Protect All Voices Heifetz, Ron, Leadership without Easy Answers, 1996

45. Key Skill: Get on the Balcony Leaders need to see a context for change • Identify lack of alignment between values and behavior • Identify struggles over values and power • Recognize patterns of work avoidance and potential for conflict • Watch for unproductive reactions to change

46. Key Skill: Identify the Adaptive Challenge • Putting the unspoken on the table • Recognize changes in values, practices, and relationships. • Recognize the need to call for a collective sense of responsibility utilizing our diversity. • Recognize the requirements for: • Learning new ways and competencies • Working collectively to connect ideas • Identify where our diversity intersects

47. Application of the Adaptive Framework to the Work of Leading Transformation Reset: What needs to shift in order for elements of the your change initiative/the new innovation to become a reality?

48. Regulate Distress • Create a “Holding Environment”…a place where: • Difficult adaptive challenges can be discussed • Diversity of opinion is welcome • Experiences, values, and assumptions are challenged (Challenge conventional wisdom) • Stress is expected and tolerated • The leader must use presence and composure to defer personal emotional response in order to regulate distress, tolerate uncertainty and frustration, and facilitate the learning process

49. How to Regulate Distress in a Holding Environment Raise the Temperature • Draw attention to the tough issues • Give people more responsibility than they are comfortable with • Bring conflicts to the surface • Don’t let people explain away the problem

50. How to Regulate Distress in a Holding Environment Lower the Temperature • Address technical aspects of the problem • Establish a structure for the problem solving process by breaking the problem into parts and creating time frames, decision making rules and clear role assignments • Temporarily reclaim responsibility for the tough issues