Reflective Principal Retreat with Wellington primary principals: Leadership, self organisation and change

1. chris.jansen@canterbury.ac.nz
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Leadership, self organisation and change
Reflective Principal Retreat
13-16 May 2014 – Upper Hutt

3. 3
Chris Jansen

4. 4

5. 5

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www.ideacreation.org

7. Overview
• a road map for leading change
• exploring complexity thinking and
self-organisation
• creating an organisational hybrid
• polarity mapping
• culture and engagement
• system thinking to determine
education levers
7www.ideacreation.org

8. 8
BAU New BAU
Context Shifting
Context
Shifting
Context
A history of 70-80% failure
Positive and
sustainable
change?Why? Threat?
Opportunity?
Where?
…are we heading
to?
Who?...do
we collaborate
with?
How?…do we
design our
journey?
What?…steps
do we take?
www.ideacreation.org
A road map for leading change

9. change is changing…
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10. “The greatest challenge for future leaders is the pace of
change and the complexity of the challenges faced….”
….”perpetual white-water”…
10www.ideacreation.org
“Our organisations are not equipped to cope with this
complexity…” (IBM study – 1500 CEO’s)

11. Technical challenges
“can be solved with knowledge and procedures
already at hand”
Adaptive challenges
“embedded in social complexity, require behaviour change
and are rife with unintended consequences‟
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Requires leader to identify priorities, project manage and
ensure stakeholder engagement
Requires leader to do all of the above and generate
and trial multiple solutions
www.ideacreation.org

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13. Complexity / Change / Uncertainty / Ambiguity
Paradox / Lack of Control / Unintended consequences
Adaptive
challenges
Leadership capacity
Organisational capacity
Self organising, adaptive,
innovative, flexible, nimble,
responsive, creative and
resilient
13www.ideacreation.org

14. 14www.ideacreation.org

15. “There is no them and us… …there’s only us”
Press letter to the Editor 2012

17. …a dynamic of experimentation and innovation…

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31. 31www.ideacreation.org

39. CHCH101: Rebuilding Christchurch: An Introduction
to Community Engagement in Tertiary Studies

40. Is leadership changing?
40

41. …self organising…
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Self organisation…
a collective of independent agents that self-organise in a dynamic
manner in order to create emergence—a patterned higher-order
response to a threat or opportunity…

42. 42www.ideacreation.org

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How does self organisation work?
• independent agents
• interactions with neighbours
• decentralised control
• an attractor - motivated by threat or opportunity
Self organisation leading to emergence
Complexity thinking, complex adaptive systems, adaptive leadership
www.ideacreation.org

45. Machine Living organism
Hybrid?
+Efficient, reliable, strong +innovative, responsive, nimble
-Inflexible, slow to respond -messy and spontaneous
45www.ideacreation.org

46. .
.
.
Leaders vs leadership?
Position of a leader vs action of leadership
Hierarchies and Networks
www.ideacreation.org 46

47. The Starfish and the Spider…
The unstoppable power of leaderless organisations
Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom
47www.ideacreation.org

48. “It is no longer sufficient to have one person
learning for the organisation... Its just not
possible any longer to figure it out from the
top, and have everyone else following the
order of the ‘grand strategist’. (Senge , 2002)
48www.ideacreation.org

49. 49www.ideacreation.org
Can leaders foster self organisation?

50. Adaptive leadership: fostering self organisation
Conditions for self organisation Leadership role
1. independent agents 1. Proactive mentoring of individuals
2. interactions with neighbours 2. Foster interaction and shared learning
3. decentralised control 3. Distribute power + decentralise control
4. an attractor - motivated by 4. Explore and articulate shared vision
threat or opportunity and values
50www.ideacreation.org

51. ……..get your goo glasses on – when you walk into a room put
aside the programme, cut out the strategy – see the history,
interactions, how wired they are, the group dynamics - look
for the living breathing thing and then that’s the stuff that
grows….” Duane Major
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“A key concept is Goo – like primordial soup, you can see it
moving and growing – it involves people, relationships, you
can’t control it but you can notice it and foster it…it changes
and evolves – its living and breathing….

52. Culture eats strategy
for lunch…
…and structure creates culture

53. Complexity / Change / Uncertainty / Ambiguity
Paradox / Lack of Control / Unintended consequences
Adaptive
challenges
Leadership capacity
Organisational capacity
Self organising, adaptive,
innovative, flexible, nimble,
responsive, creative and
resilient
Distribute power
and decentralise
control
Explore and articulate shared values and vision
Foster interaction
and shared learning
Proactive
mentoring
of individuals
53www.ideacreation.org

54. Machine Living organism
Hybrid?
+Efficient, reliable, strong +innovative, responsive, nimble
-Inflexible, slow to respond -messy and spontaneous
54www.ideacreation.org

55. “Either or”…..”both and”
• competition & collaboration
• cost & quality
• flexibility & structure
• action & reflection
• stability & change
• individual & team
• planning & action
• idealistic & pragmatic
• centralised & decentralised
• internal & external focus
• top down & bottom up
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• task & relationship
• freedom & accountability
• short term & long term
• work & home
• controlling & participative
• individual & collective
• effective & efficient
• activity & rest
• mission & margin
• rational & intuitive
• customise & standardise

56. Mapping a polarity - impacts
• Define the challenge
• Name the poles (the two extremes)
• Brainstorm the upsides & downsides of each pole
• Upsides – benefits of focusing on this value
• Downsides – harmful effects of focusing on this value to
the neglect of its pair
• Suggested order l-, r+, r-,l+
56www.thinkbeyond.co.nz

57. Healthy, Thriving Organisation
Failing Organisation
Short-term Long-term
• Continuity
• Grounded
• Consistency
• Clear core ideology
• New directions
• Expanding
possibilities
• Freedom
• Lack of freedom
• Stagnation
• No new ideas being
generated
• No continuity
• Chaotic confusion over
what is happening
andStability Change

58. Mapping a polarity - actions
• Identify early warning signs and list these in measurable
terms
• Brainstorm all the actions you could take to stay above
the line. Identify the ones that will add most leverage
and record these as action steps
• Discuss how you will use this to manage the polarity
58www.thinkbeyond.co.nz

59. Healthy, Thriving Organisation
Failing Organisation
Short-term Long-term
• Focus on what you
do well & amplify it
• Articulate what we
stand for
• Monitor key result
areas (dashboard)
• Clear targets, plans &
accountabilities
• Complaints of “being
stifled”
• No new ideas being
researched/developed
• Try lots of stuff and
keep what works
(bullets before
cannonballs)
• Celebrate
successes
• Fail safely
• Complaints of
“mixed messages”
• Complaints of things
“falling through the
cracks”
• Projects late or not
completed at all
• Ideas created but no
targeted actions
• Continuity
• Grounded
• Consistency
• Clear core ideology
• New directions
• Expanding possibilities
• Freedom
• Lack of freedom
• Stagnation
• No new ideas being
generated
• No continuity
• Chaotic confusion over
what is happening
Action Steps Action Steps
Early WarningsEarly Warnings
andStability Change

60. Advantages of managing polarities
• less caught up in power struggles
• more able to lower resistance to change
• greater ability to productively engage with allies and
opponents in co-creating robust decisions
• once a polarity has been mapped insights and
epiphanies rise to the surface
• Appreciate each others’ perspectives.
The leaders role
• validate both options
• to hold the tension rather than try to resolve it,
• avoid representing one end of the tension
• foster dialogue to create new thinking and actions
• create a hybrid which is the ‘best of both worlds’

61. 61
BAU New BAU
Context Shifting
Context
Shifting
Context
A history of 70-80% failure
Positive and
sustainable
change?Why? Threat?
Opportunity?
Where?
…are we heading
to?
Who?...do
we collaborate
with?
How?…do we
design our
journey?
What?…steps
do we take?
www.ideacreation.org
A road map for leading change

62. Systems Thinking…
….is a way of making
sense of a complex (complicated?) system
…is the ability to see the world as relationships
and connections
...allows us to influence a complex system
62www.ideacreation.org

63. “Where the world is dynamic, evolving and interconnected, we
tend to make decisions using mental models that are
static, narrow, and siloed.”
63www.ideacreation.org

64. Seeing connections instead of parts…
“You can never understand anything
by analysing it.”
“We have to understand the whole before
we can understand the parts - what
matters is their interaction.”
Russell Ackoff
64www.ideacreation.org

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66. Student behaviour
issues
Quality of alternative
programmes
S
O
Programme appealto
other students
S
B
R
“Causal loop diagrams provide a framework for seeing
interrelationships rather than events, for seeing
patterns of change rather than snapshots”
Senge
66www.ideacreation.org

67. The Iceberg Model
Four levels of thinking
Events
Patterns
Systemic structure
Mental models
Maani 2010
67www.ideacreation.org

68. System thinking tools – affinity process
1) Clarify the question
2) Determine influence factors
3) Map connections
4) Identify leverage
5) Act with clarity
68www.ideacreation.org

69. What are the indicators of a successful
school?
What are the factors that contribute to this?
• What influences that?
• What influences that?
• What influences that?
69www.ideacreation.org
Cognitive
Social and
emotional
Spiritual/values
Resilience and
wellbeing

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73. Annual Goals 2012
1. Advancing student achievement
through effective use of data
2. Continue implementation of school
curriculum document
3. Consolidating a positive school wide
culture for learning
4. Enhance presence in and engagement
with community
5. Sustained improvement in school wide
leadership, systems and processes
73www.ideacreation.org

74. What factors
promote positive
student
behaviour?
Questions focussed on parts of
organisations…
What factors effect
powerful professional
learning in schools?
What processes build
effective
collaborations with
communities?
How could embracing
technology impact
achievement?

75. “How have I moved forward in my thinking?
What difference will people notice
in my work place?”
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