Leading for the Future

1. Leading for the Future Module 1 March - April 2013

2. Module 1: What we will cover and discover Day 1 In the morning: • Welcome & aims • Expectations & personal development goals • Introducing the programme • Making sense of our context: introducing the “Bakens Model” • Skills for adaptive change In the afternoon: • Getting into Action Learning • Using the “U” in Action Learning • Review Day 2 In the morning: • Welcome back & check in • Introducing adaptive leadership • Practicing being “suspendful” • Return to Action Learning In the afternoon: • Action Learning • Review & check out • Previewing module 2

3. Participants: Line managers: Facilitators: Lead contact in your Board: Programme manager: Commitment to programme – through personal / organisational goals Participation in modules – bringing live issues to action learning Putting theory into practice Support / challenge Organisational sponsorship Facilitation of modules and action learning, support & challenge Providing access to 360º feedback On-going support Access to coaching (optional) Master classes / development events On-line resources Evaluation Roles and responsibilities

4. What is the leadership context? Who is this for? How might it help? Change agenda “Complex adaptive system” Increasing complexity Leaders on the cusp between operational & strategic? Using conceptual frameworks to understand / make sense of our context Space for reflection Learning from and with peers What is the narrative?

5. Projected Scottish Government spending

6. Relate the wider context to my own experiences Make sense of my leadership role and challenges through conceptual frameworks Do something with this understanding Feel better able to fulfil my leadership role Develop an action plan and see it through Reflect and think differently Re-frame my own experiences and dilemmas Work with peers, hear and share different perspectives Learn something new Build my resilience as a leader What is the opportunity for you?

7. Aims of the programme • Come up with breakthrough ideas in dealing with intractable problems within complex systems • Learn more about the theory in addressing wicked and adaptive challenges in the workplace • Be challenged and supported in working on a real issue • Practice with models and skills that will add value back in the workplace 7

8. Philosophical roots The leadership challenge in: • Complex settings • Emergence • Systems thinking • Working with competing values • Discovering future possibilities • Leading and learning • Creating the environment • Traditional versus modern thinking about organisations 8

9. Introducing theory and conceptual frameworks Providing the opportunity for personal skills practice Making the link between theory and practice Change, complexity & emergence Adaptive leadership Systems thinking Cognitive and emotional bias Learning Public value & return on investment Listening, questioning Suspending and re-framing Reflecting Co-coaching Bringing live ‘case work’ Action learning Peer support & challenge Trying new things in practice and sharing the learning Introducing the programme

10. How do the modules build? Module 2: Using Drumcree case study: theory- into-practice (Irwin Turbitt) Reflecting on the “U process” Understanding more about ‘defensive routines’ Building on the action learning Module 1: Preparing the ground “Slowing down… to go faster” Re-framing my leadership challenges (“Bakens”) How do I help and hinder myself? Start action learning Module 3: Understanding problems (Grint) Peer support & challenge through action learning Understanding culture Learning (Argyris) Sustaining & spreading our practice “Consolidation Event” (February 2014) Irwin Turbitt & Keith Grint Master Classes Personal skills development workshops 1:1 coaching (optional) 360º feedback

11. Complexity • In health & social care we work in entangled organisations with inherent contradictions and tensions • We constantly strive to find innovative ideas for doing the work differently • With increased scarcity, new thinking will be even more important • This emergence of new thinking is a function of leadership, i.e., leaders are people who bring forward and embed new thinking 11

12. Types of response to complexity High 2. Intra-preneurship Strategic Intent Turbulence 1. Emergent Strategy 3. Strategic Planning Low Low High Understanding 12 Adapted by Malcolm Young from Max Bosoit (1995)

13. Range and diversity of stakeholders Complex ‘ownership’ & resourcing arrangements Professional autonomy of many of its staff Different socialisation processes across the professions Different needs and expectations of different client groups The different histories of different institutions Local priorities, resource allocation and performance management Cultural challenges in the NHS With many different cultures and norms arising from a number of factors: NHS is characterised by three defining features: 13 Ref: Isles and Sutherland (2001)

14. Making sense of our leadership context : “Bakens” * WHY Priorities (vision, purpose, strategic intent) Concepts “What is conceived” Principles for working with others (values, beliefs, assumptions HOW WHAT Outcomes (targets) Allies and supporters Carriers / Experts / Formal Creative & differing views Roles, accountabilities & organisation Actions “What is done” Arrangements for communications, information exchange, decision making Resource allocation and alignment 14 * Adapted by Malcolm Young from: the Bakens model developed by the Netherlands Pedagogical Instituut voor Oragnisatie-Ontwikkeling (NPI)

15. Module 1 – “slowing down to go faster”… • What is the Health & Social Care challenge? • What are my leadership challenges? – using “Bakens” as a conceptual framework • What are my current practices? – using “Bakens” to analyse implementation • So, what leadership challenge am I going to bring to action learning (the “How can I…?” questions)

16. Four types of work? Problem Solving/ Adding Value: The area of continuous improvement Maintenance: Business as usual is delivering required outcomes Adaptive change: Where new thinking is required Emergence… Link to “3rd horizon”? 16

17. What is adaptive leadership? • Technical Problems versus Adaptive Challenges • Leadership from those in authority is too often technical and this enhances the need for adaptive leadership from those without authority • They go beyond their job descriptions and formal authorisation • Does your organisation recognise them or undermine them because they are a challenge to the formal leadership? • Can you foster the leadership needed by the situation? 17

18. What is adaptive leadership? (2) According to Heifetz: • Leadership is an activity • Leadership is what individuals do in mobilising other people, in organisations or communities, to do “adaptive work” • When you have a problem or challenge for which there is no technical remedy, a problem for which it won’t help to look to an authority for answers – the answers aren’t there – that problem is an adaptive challenge. References: Ronald A Heifetz & D L Laurie, The Work of Leadership, Harvard Business Review (Jan-Feb 1997), pp124-134 and Ronald Heifetz, Martin Linskey & Alexander Grashow, Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organisation and the World (2009) 18

19. Three things are required for adaptive change • A felt imperative to change - our source of motivation to try new behaviour • Insight into how our own thoughts and feelings are part of the problem • Taking action – trying new behaviour in order to learn

20. The skills challenge • Guarding against assuming causality, halo effects, stereotyping …. (our “defensive routines”) • Striving to understand our self-limiting thoughts and feelings • Being aware of our own feelings, attitudes and beliefs • Being open minded

21. Core casework skills • Observing reality (facts and feelings) with an open mind • Interacting – questioning, listening • NOT discussing • Suspension - avoiding imposing pre-established frameworks or mental models 21

22. Skills practice: Questioning • Open minded • Striving to see the other’s seeing • Building a picture from facts about: • where, what, who, • what was said, • their feelings • Not interpreting • Avoiding assumptions • Suspending beliefs 22

23. Suspension…. …the ability to take everything we know, everything we’ve experienced, everything we would normally be pre-disposed to use to interpret and control a situation ….set it aside, and try to look and act freshly. ….allows us to be more aware of what our habitual thoughts are, as we simply step back and notice them. 23

24. The “U Process” * as a microscope How can I .........? Vision – examples of the preferred situation Examples of the current situation Maintenance How would you like it to be ? What is the current situation ? Characteristics of the current situation Characteristics of the preferred situation Problem Solving How would you describe...? What would it look like? What would we see you doing ? How much of a concern is it for you? What would it feel like ? What does it feel like for you? Adaptive Mental models which would help create the preferred situation Mental models which underpin the current situation Choice Point What assumptions have you been making ? What will you bring over ? What options and actions? What will you change ? 24 What beliefs and values ..? What might happen if you retain those mental models ? *Adapted by Malcolm Young (from work by Scharmer, Senge & others)

25. Action Learning - what is it? • Tool for personal and professional development • Powerful way for leaders to learn from other leaders • Structured & facilitated: • questions / answers / support / challenge • Work on real problems and implement solutions 25

26. Action Learning -why do it ? • Understanding problems • Chance for support, feedback and positive challenge • Safe environment • Antidote to isolation • Opportunity to express feelings as well as facts • Hear and be heard • Learning by doing and developing how to learn skills • Training to learning 26

27. Leadership is an activity (not a role or position). The activity is about influencing other people to engage in change Leadership / Management Management is a role The role is about taking responsibility for communication, co-ordination, resource allocation and problem solving to ensure effective ways of working 27

28. Complex environments need leaders who will tackle wicked problems… • Getting beyond our assumptions in: • What we pay attention to • What insight we have into ourselves • How we interpret events • How we relate to others • What we do to build shared purpose • How we take initiatives 28

29. As leaders we influence change by… Putting our values into action Striving to achieve our vision and by Exploring / experimenting Tackling intractable problems Regulating distress Striving to find new thinking in ourselves and others 29

30. Defines both problem and solution Protects from external threat Orients Restores order Maintains the norms Identifies adaptive challenge & provides a diagnosis of condition. Then produces questions about the problem definition & solutions Discloses external threat Dis-orients current roles, or resists orientating people to new ones quickly Exposes conflict or lets it emerge Challenges norms, or allows them to be challenged Leading with authority in adaptive change In adaptive situations, authority: In technical situations, authority: 30

31. Leading without authority in adaptive change • Spark debate but can’t control the holding environment • Orchestrating the debate among competing factions • Focus on the audience for action 31

32. 1. Get on the balcony • A place from which to observe the patterns in the wider environment as well as what is over the horizon (prerequisite for the following six principles). 2. Identify the Adaptive Challenge • A challenge for which there is no ready made technical answer. • A challenge which requires the gap between values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours to be addressed. 3. Create the Holding Environment • May be a physical space in which adaptive work can be done. • The relationship or wider social space in which adaptive work can be accomplished. 5. Maintain Disciplined Attention 6. Give back the work 4. Cook the Conflict • Work avoidance • Use conflict positively • Keep people focussed • Resume responsibility • Use their knowledge • Support their efforts • Create the heat • Sequence & pace the work • Regulate the distress 7. Protect the voices of Leadership from below • Ensuring everyone’s voice is heard is essential for willingness to experiment and learn. • Leaders have to provide cover to staff who point to the internal contradictions of the organisation. 7 Principles for Leading Adaptive Change Adapted by Irwin Turbitt from Ron Heifetz (1997; 2009)

33. Being adaptive in action • Capitalising on history without being enslaved by it • Connotations of “Transformation” • Revolution inevitably fails, evolution succeeds • Experimental versus “I’ve got the answers” mindset • Appreciation of context • Leadership as an activity not a role / personality 33

34. A Hierarchy of Inference I take actions based on my beliefs I adopt beliefs about the world I make assumptions based on the meanings I added I add meanings (cultural and personal) I select data from what I observe Observable data and experiences • We live in a world of self-generating beliefs which remain largely untested. • We adopt beliefs - based on conclusions, inferred from what we observe, plus past experience. • Our ability to achieve the results we truly desire is eroded by our feelings that: • Our beliefs are the truth. • The truth is obvious. • Our beliefs are based on real data. • The data we select is the real data. The ladder of inference 34

35. A Hierarchy of Inference I take actions based on my beliefs I adopt beliefs about the world I make assumptions based on the meanings I added I add meanings (cultural and personal) I select data from what I observe Observable data and experiences I’m now plotting against him ....... In fact, now I believe Bill and everyone else is opposed to me I made assumption ...he was bored & concluded ...he thinks I’m incompetent I added meaning based on culture … Bill wanted me to finish up I selected the glance and yawn ....& ignored his intent listening earlier… It started with Bill’s comment: “Let’s move on....” 35

36. Examples…

39. U Process He takes actions based on his beliefs He adopts beliefs about the world He makes assumptions based on the meanings he added He adds meanings (cultural and personal) He selects data from what he observes • Using the Ladder of Inference • We all add meaning or draw conclusions as a result of interactions • You can improve your communications by: • Becoming more aware of your own thinking and reasoning • Making your thinking and reasoning more visible to others • Inquiring into others' thinking and reasoning I take actions based on my beliefs The U process depends on new understanding based on observable data I adopt beliefs about the world I make assumptions based on the meanings I added I add meanings (cultural and personal) I select data from what I observe Observable data and experiences 39

40. He takes actions based on his beliefs He adopts beliefs about the world He makes assumptions based on the meanings he added He adds meanings (cultural and personal) He selects data from what he observes U Process I take actions based on my beliefs The U process depends on new understanding based on observable data I adopt beliefs about the world I make assumptions based on the meanings I added I add meanings (cultural and personal) I select data from what I observe Observable data and experiences 40