Two years ago I had an idea. With help from my friend Vijay Govindarajan (VG), I had the opportunity to design and teach an elective MBA class at The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. I sought to integrate insights from the fields of innovation, strategy, systems psychodynamics, adaptive leadership, and behavioral psychology into a toolkit for leaders seeking to navigate disruptive change. I prototyped the class in Spring 2022. I've now run it four more times and refined the material in executive education programs. The first two year were years of MORE … more tools … more practices … more connections. Now it is time for LESS, to simplify, streamline, and get the essence of the material. So, last weekend I tore up the class summary and re-wrote it, grounding it in seven key propositions. Proposition 1: You need to lead through fog. Today's leaders face a fog of never-ending uncertainty. The human tendency is to slow down in the fog. You need to speed up. Proposition 2: You need to understand the particular nature of adaptive challenges. Disruption is an adaptive challenge. There is no single best answer. There is the possibility of loss and the certainty of struggle. Proposition 3: Technical solutions are necessary but insufficient. You need a strategy, supporting structures, enabling systems, classic change management, and communications. But technical tools provide no more than 49% of the final answer. Proposition 4: Solving adaptive challenges require inducing and managing discomfort. Learning comes when we are uncomfortable. Your job as a leader is to manage this discomfort. Think of how athletes train. Push. Rest. Recover. Repeat. Proposition 5: Go deep to find the real problem. Culture is not what you see or what people say, it is what people do and why they do it. The deeper you go, the more you find that every organization has ghosts. Past traumas. Invisible patterns. Fear of identity loss. Spike into your organization’s subconscious to find them. Proposition 6: Both/and it with a paradoxical mindset. Leaders face tensions that turn into dilemmas and feel like paradoxes. A paradox mindset relishes these challenges and seeks to turn either/ors into both/ands (or more/thans). Without that mindset, you will get stuck. Proposition 7: Follow paradoxical practices to navigate disruptive change. Deliberately wander. Act when the data tells you not to. Disagree to agree. Slow down to speed up. Lead by letting go. Destroy to create. Change to remain unchanged. Follow these approaches and you can turn ambiguity into opportunity. I'm excited to further refine these ideas through upcoming executive education, and make Leading Disruptive Change Mark 6 (Winter 2025) the best yet. And also look for ways to share what I've learned more broadly. Teaching has been an amazing learning opportunity. So, thanks again VG, Tuck Dean Matthew J. Slaughter and the rest of the team. Onwards!
Scott these are amazing cutting edge ideas. I hope you put these into a book as well. All the best.
Scott D. Anthony, what a great configuration and sequencing of resources. Very creative. I particularly love paradox and the immunity to change.
I look forward to reading your book!
Thanks Scott for sharing this. Congratulations on developing your thinking on paradox and change further over the last three years. I think the summary is useful guide both boards and management teams. I particularly like proposition 5; often the real problem is not what you see on the surface (it may be a symptom of a bigger issue).
Thank you Scott D. Anthony. While navigating this post, I initially chose 1 of the proposition as best, later changed to the other after reading the next and so on. Finally I am not able to choose 1 in this, as each proposition is unique and become unavoidable to follow based on org, situation, industry, etc.
Scott D. Anthony - these sound like great principles for more than adaptive change. To me, they capture the need to navigate paradoxes on a daily basis. Love the framework!
Loved your 5. Go deep questions and 7. Paradoxical choices options
Exceptionally good.
Innovation Activist + 36K 🏁
6moThanks for sharing. Very integrative framework and inspiring content. When you say “problem” do you mean “customer problem” or “organizational problem”?