national symposium on excellence in training new delhi, april 2015
TRANSCRIPT
1. Strengths of Best Practice Institutions
Strengths in “Institutions of Excellence”
• Leadership• Innovation• Confidence• Emotional intelligence• Adaptive leadership
Confidence: something you can develop
• Self-knowledge• Values, strengths, growth, source of strengths
• Self-esteem• I can cope, I am competent
• Self-efficacy• Work hard, master skills, persistence
• Self-mastery• Personal vision, creative tension, personal power
Emotional Intelligence
• Listening• Seeing through the other’s eyes, finding common
ground
• Observing• Seeing the big picture, the whole system
• Being yourself• Working with conflict to move through it
• Building relationships• Trust, honesty, conflict, repair, collaboration
2. Leading in Challenging Times
• “Knowledge is exploding so fast in all walks of life”
• “We have limited resources and capacity is hard to build”
• “How do we foresee and assess changing circumstances?”
Complex Challenges
• We don’t know the answers
• Need to involve people to solve the problems
• Requires change of values, beliefs, relationships
• Solutions require experiments,pilots, prototypes
See Annex for more complete list
Adaptive Leadership
• With increasing complexity and change, institutions of excellence learn how to constantly adapt• Adaptive Leadership
http://www.cambridge-leadership.com
• Paticipative methodologieshttps://www.presencing.com
http://www.theworldcafe.com
http://www.openspaceworld.org
• Appreciative Inquiryhttps://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu
Institutions of Excellence:Response to Complexity
• Shared visiono Aligned action
• Networkedo Internal and external partnerships
• Participative & Adaptiveo Figure out solutions together
• Learning Organizationo Continuously transform themselves
Best Practice
• MIT + UNICEF, Unilever – India: Engaged stakeholders to transform the health system• Networked, deep engagement with citizens and all stakeholders• MIT’s Presencing Institute has developed a process to engage
stakeholders (including citizens) as a way to develop training and organizational interventions that increase effectiveness and better meet stakeholder needs.
• https://www.presencing.com/ulab/master-practitioner-groups/transforming-indian-health-system
• The example above is a project they did in India with the Ministry of Health. There are other examples on the same website highlighting their work with government and NGOs – as well as their MOOC attended by 25,000 worldwide: https://www.edx.org/course/u-lab-transforming-business-society-self-mitx-15-s23x
Best Practices
• Stanford GSB, USA: Emotional Intelligence• Learning community of facilitators
• Mexico: Values-based leadership• Model values, adapt approach to level in organization
• MIT + India: Transforming Health• Networked, deep engagement with stakeholders
• CapGemini, UK• Behaviour score card, culture change
Best Practices
• UNTN: Leading from the middle• Staff-based initiative, learning projects
• Northwest Executive Education, India• Global expertise through partnerships
• California Department of Education• Broad engagement – staff, experts, innovation pods
• UNDP: Creating learning networks• Innovation, action & learning networks
Best Practices: Learnings
• Model the values, skills, behaviours• Transform along with others
• Shift individuals & organizations• Shift culture
• Change takes time• Patience, 6-9 months for individuals to change (at
least)
• Build healthy partnerships, teams• Find common ground
Technical v. Complex Challenges
TECHNICAL PROBLEMS VS. ADAPTIVE CHALLENGES
The single biggest failure of leadership is to treat adaptive challenges like technical problems.
TECHNICAL PROBLEMS1. Easy to identify 2. Often lend themselves to quick and easy
(cut-and-dried) solutions 3. Often can be solved by an authority or
expert 4. Require change in just one or a few
places; often contained within organizational boundaries
5. People are generally receptive to technical solutions
6. Solutions can often be implemented quickly—even by edict
ADAPTIVE CHALLENGES 7. Difficult to identify (easy to deny)
8. Require changes in values, beliefs, roles, relationships, & approaches to work
9. People with the problem do the work of solving it
10. Require change in numerous places; usually cross organizational boundaries
11. People often resist even acknowledging adaptive challenges.
12. “Solutions” require experiments and new discoveries; they can take a long time to implement and cannot be implemented by edict
Source: Groupsmith, adaptive from the Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Heifitz et. al., 2009