Sublime

“a key question in the practice of leadership becomes: How can one counteract the expected work avoidances and help people learn despite resistance?” He observes that although adaptive work is typically avoided, it is usually not avoided deliberately. It is often unconscious. So, again, adaptive leadership requires learning to look beneath the surf

1. Figure out the group’s default interpretations. If it is not obvious, get on the balcony and track the group’s responses to several different problems, looking for patterns.

Archetype 1: “Fixes That Backfire”

making progress on critical adaptive challenges becomes the basic measure of effective leadership in this approach.

First, in most organizations, people feel pressure to solve problems quickly, to move to action. So they minimize the time spent in diagnosis, collecting data, exploring multiple possible interpretations of the situation and alternative potential interventions. To counteract this drive toward a quick-fix response based on a too swift assessment of

amended. In an organization where people are valued for their judgment, the question asked is not “What would the people above me in the hierarchy do?” but “What do I think is the best thing to do here in the service of the mission of the organization?”

Once you have made an interpretation of the problem-solving dynamics you have observed, what are you going to do about it?

Double-loop learning involves reflecting on your actions and learning from them.