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Welcome to the New Possibilities Associates monthly newsletter. Each month we will offer articles on sustainable solutions to tough problems in environments of rapid change.
New Possibilities Associates offers planning, training, facilitating, ongoing consulting, and coaching for leaders.
We specialize in sustainable solutions to tough problems in environments of rapid change.
We hope you will find these articles useful, interesting and thought provoking. We also hope you will share this with you friends, or unsubscribe if you prefer.
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We
Live in a New World
These are unprecedented times. It has
simply never been this way before. Our world has never been more
interconnected and interdependent.
Leaders today grapple with
seemingly insoluble problems-wicked problems-problems that, by the
very nature of the world today, don't respond to traditional solutions.
Leaders
need to be able to tap the potential for innovation and action in any
group or team and to shift recurring group patterns that block
productivity and creativity. As executives, managers, consultants and
teachers, we need to facilitate rapid growth in the collaborative
capacity and collective wisdom of our teams.
New Possibilities
Associates knows what it take for people to successfully lead in the face
of complex, diverse and rapidly changing reality.
Our
commitment is to finding new solutions to wicked problems. New
Possibilities Associates is dedicated to advancing the success of teams
that are forming and working together in new ways to make organizations
successful, address the most pressing problems, and create sustainable
communities.
We support the leaders who are engaging fresh
practices and approaches, shifting cultures and bringing new life to
their communities and colleagues.
How New Possibilities
Associates helps: Leaders today grapple with seemingly insoluble
problems - wicked problems - problems that, by the very nature of our
world today, don't respond to traditional solutions.
Leaders
need to be able to tap the potential for innovation and action in any
group or team and to shift recurring group patterns that block
productivity and creativity. As executives, managers, consultants and
teachers, we need to facilitate rapid growth in the collaborative
capacity and collective wisdom of our teams.
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The New
Possibilities Imperative
"For every
complex problem there is always an answer that is clear, simple, and
wrong." - H. L. Mencken
High complexity demands new ways
of solving problems. We live in a new world.
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From My Experience:
Rewards May Not Motivate Creativity
 Over the course of my working with individuals, groups, organizations and communities on transformational change, some things happen often enough that they demand attention. Innovation moves much faster than the ability of most of us to adapt. Instead we hang on to familiar frameworks and assumptions that keep us from meeting the demands of our rapidly changing environments. A great example comes from the Social Change Book Club's June book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink. Pink tells us that their is a huge gap between what science knows about motivation and what organizations do. Our current business operating system-built around external, reward and punishment motivators-does not work and often does harm. In environments where people need to be creative, rewards and punishments can lead to lower levels of motivation. Yet organizations resist learning and trying new approaches. The new science tells us that a 21st century approach to motivation would focus on: - Autonomy-the freedom of individuals to direct their own lives while maintaining high responsibility for results.
- Mastery-the commitment to get better and better at something that matters to the individual and the organization.
- Purpose-the desire to work in service to something larger than ourselves
Here's the elevator message on 21st century motivation: Carrot and stick approaches to motivation are so 20th century. We need to upgrade to organizational cultures that support autonomy, mastery and purpose.
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Tips for Treading Powerfully in Chaos Understanding Complexity
In order to function successfully in environments of rapid change with high levels of uncertainty and disagreement, it is critically important to recognize and understand how complexity is present and being experienced.
Few people are trained
to recognize and work in high levels of complexity. Our mental models
are based on short-term, straight-line ideas of cause and effect.
Before we can recognize high levels of complexity, we have to understand
what it is. We can't see it until we believe in it and understand it.When
the levels of complexity in the issues we are working with are high,
it becomes critical for us to be able to use models that offer new
possibilities to: The high levels of
complexity we are encountering shows themselves in three forms, each
with its own challenges.
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Type Of
Complexity
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Low
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High
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Dynamic Focus on
various parts or the whole system?
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Cause and
effect are close
together in space and time.
Solutions
can be found.
by testing
and fixing one part
at a time.
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Cause and
effect are far apart in space and time.
Solution
can be found only when the situation is understood systemically,
taking account of the interrelationships among the parts and the
functioning of the system as whole.
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Generative
Solutions
are planned or emergent?
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Future is
familiar and predictable.
Solutions
from the past.
or other
places can be repeated or replicated.
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Future is
unfamiliar and unpredictable.
Solutions
cannot be calculated in advance based on what has worked in the
past. Emergent solutions have to worked out as situations unfold.
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Social
Solutions
come from leaders or from participants?
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People
involved have common assumptions, values, rationales and
objectives.
A leader
or expert can propose
a solution with which everyone agrees.
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People
involved look at things very differently.
Solutions
cannot be given by authorities; the people involved must
participate in creating and implementing solutions.
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High
complexity demands new ways of solving problems.When there
are low levels of complexity, simple, straight-line solutions often
will be enough to stay on track. Simple problems can be solved using
processes that are familiar: focus on
the parts of a problem in isolation,
rely
heavily on what has worked in the past or elsewhere ("best
practices"), and
participants
are open to solutions proposed by leaders
or experts.
This is most true when the problems or issues have roots or solutions in technology. But beware the tendency to deny the complexity in even technological problems in the desire to find the clear, simple solution.
As we focus
on lasting change in groups, organizations and the community, we are
dealing with increasingly high levels of the three types of
complexity where success only comes through using processes that: focus on
working with all the parts as a single system,
accept
that solutions emerge as situations unfold, and
involve
the people concerned in developing the
solutions.
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How New Possibilities Can Help
New Possibilities Associates offers
planning, training, facilitating, ongoing consulting, and coaching for
leaders.
We specialize in
sustainable solutions to tough problems in environments of rapid
change.
We help you learn:
- To go from fragmentation to connection.
- To ground actions in what is meaningful.
- To allow all voices to be heard so the collective intelligence can surface.
- To lead in environments of high complexity, uncertainty and disagreement.
What you will be able to do:Frame powerful questions that open the possibility for wiser action and new results. Create settings where the new order can emerge for chaos and disagreement. Mobilize commitment, energy and intelligence of everyone involved in a problem.  Adapt more quickly and effectively to new conditions in a rapidly changing environment. Work in high levels of uncertainty and disagreement to achieve real results. Achieve new solutions that are sustainable and minimize unanticipated consequences. Ready work groups and resources for developing future conditions.
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Clockware and Swarmware
and the Gulf Oil Spill
Continuing disaster calls for clockware
and swarmware in tandem.
The tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico offers a vivid illustration
of how we must be the master of both clockware and swarmware.
"Clockware" is a term that describes working in ways that are rational,
planned, standardized, repeatable, controlled and measured. These are the conditions that characterize low complexity environments-often where issues have roots or solutions in technology.
In
contrast, "swarmware" refers to working in ways that explore new
possibilities through experimentation, trials, autonomy, freedom,
intuition and working at the edge of knowledge and experience. The idea
is to say just enough to paint a picture or describe the absolute
boundaries, and then get the people in situations with high levels of
complexity active in trying whatever they think might work. This is one way to work in high complexity environments.
When drilling and operating a well with over a mile of water between the
platform on the surface and the well head at the bottom, things need to be thoroughly
thought out, precisely planned, installed within extremely tight
tolerances, and operated with the highest levels of vigilance.
Apparently that did not happened. A cascading series of lapses-each by itself perhaps not so bad-led to a catastrophic failure.
And the failure occurred in ways for which there were no quick
solutions.
Now we are facing a gusher of oil and gas that can't be stanched and is
threatening the ecosystem and livelihoods along vast areas in the Gulf and
along the coast.
The effort to stop the flow of oil appears to be a technology problem and a low complexity issue, needing a clockware only approach. Yet there are elements of all three types of complexity:
- Dynamic-What are the implications of this event for the safety of the world-wide deep water drilling industry? Some reports have said that 45 percent of blowout prevention systems would fail in similar circumstances.
- Generative-Why has nothing worked so far to shut off the leak? If we are beyond the the limits of existing knowledge and solutions, emergent solutions are what is needed. Reports suggest that emergent solutions are being suggested from all over the world.
- Social-Other than relief wells, there have been no solutions that have generated high levels of consensus and trust. What are the missed opportunities in bringing more people into the discussion?
In addressing the ongoing crisis from the continuing flow of oil, swarmware approaches are what is needed. All three types of complexity are present in dealing with the spilled oil: the interconnectedness of the the environment and economy, the need for emergent solutions to meet the evolving needs of local conditions, and the pleas by the people most directly affected to be at the table designing the solutions.
As we saw after hurricane Katrina, when there is widespread disaster
encompassing a complex array of problems, clockware approaches lead to
dismal failure.
The top down, command-and-control approaches move too
slowly and are not effective in mobilizing the needed scope of the
response. They also do not promote the innovation and application of
creative and novel responses necessary in the huge number of unique
situations.
What is called for is a swarmware approach. Everybody needs to be trying
everything that could possibly work. On-the-ground experimentation will
demonstrate what is effective in various situations.
The people closest to the situations need to be empowered, mobilized and
given the resources and support they need to find and execute what
works in their locations.
The command and control folks will have to fight the urge to find all kinds of reasons to not do
it that way.
But when the problems are as messy as the ones in the Gulf, it takes
messy strategies and messy solutions to mount an effective response. |
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Social Change Book Club 4.0
An independent gathering furthering learning on social change.
We meet the third Monday of each month at
6:00 p.m.
Our home is Heine Bros. Coffee, 119 Chenoweth Lane, St Matthews. We are grateful for the invitation and hospitality.
For August, Ron Heifetz, Marty Linsky with Alexander Grashow in The
Practice
of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization
and the World offer a handbook for individuals, organizations,
communities and countries who must continuously adapt to new realities
to
simply survive.
The Social Change Book Club is open to everyone who is interested in understanding, participating, leading, or supporting social change. Each month we select a book and get together to discuss. Selections rotate among three themes: social changes, how we work with others to make change happen, and the inner qualities needed to bring change into the world.
People just show up if they are interested--no RSVP, commitment, etc. It is great when people have read the book, but that is not a requirement to come and discuss.
We got this going because there is a lot to learn about how to make social change happen and people who are interested in changing the world need opportunities to share stories and experience community with others who care. |
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