LEAD THROUGHADAPTIVE CHANGE (AS ORIGINALLY PRESENTED TO CPA FIRM LEADERS)

Russell Bedford InternationalMexico City, Mexico

Deb Nystrom, October 21, 2016 Ideas for Action, LLC

Principalesa través deCambio adaptativo para líderes de CPA firms

VUCAVolatileUncertainComplexAmbiguous

VolátilInciertoComplejoAmbigua

Explore how to be a business leader in a VUCA world

VUCA => AWARENESS& SKILLS

1. Willing to Open the Space

2. Sense the Changing World

3. Stay Results Oriented

4. Create => Co-Create

5. Increase Self-Awareness => Development

What needs to be inside your Survival Bag? What will help you manage & even enjoy the thrill of the journey?

1. Ser listos a abrir el espacio2. Percibir al mundo cambiante3. Quedar orientados a resultados4. Crear => co-crear5. Aumentar la conciencia de sí

mismo => desarrollo

1. WILLING TO OPEN THE SPACE

2. Sense the Changing World

3. Stay Results Oriented

4.Create => Co-Create

5. Increase Self-Awareness => Development

Time, Tools, Training Variable Speed

THE MAKER INSTINCT

• Try new things• The most

basic inner urge that we all have to build, create or grow things

• Futurist Bob Johansen

Be clear where you are going, be flexible how you get there, be prepared to adapt

Learn by failing forward 1,000 to 10,000 mistakes

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. ~ Thomas A. Edison

Edison, at the time he invented the phonograph, record playerKeep trying! Failure is essential to success.What has been your most valuable failure?

LIBERATING STRUCTURES1. Include and Unleash Everyone2. Practice Deep Respect for People

and Local Solutions3. Always Start with a Clear Purpose4. Build Trust As You Go5. Learn by Failing Forward6. Emphasize Possibilities: Believe

Before You See7. Practice Self-Discovery Within a

Group8. Amplify Freedom AND

Responsibility9. Invite Creative Destruction To

Enable Innovation10. Engage In Seriously Playful

CuriositySo much experience / lessons learned deep within. “Microstructures” interfere.

Organization owners and partners responded to the follow question:

• What do I need to do, and/or stop doing, to encourage innovation & adaptive change in CPA firm Leadership?

Multiple answers were encouraged

Discussion encouraged

Notes were used for later part of the presentation

• Can you be Seriously Playful & Curious?

EXPLORE HOW TO BE A BUSINESS LEADER IN A VUCA WORLD

Let’s start with some of what you already know.

VIDEO: OPEN SPACE TECHNOLOGY

Online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnumrXvkpU4

Open Space in 30 seconds, with professional coaches

OPEN SPACE WITH CPA FIRM OWNERS, PARTNERS

Video of enthusiasm of the end Open Space session: https://flic.kr/p/Nx6aDr

More photos are available: https://flic.kr/s/aHskMBtzCM

2. SENSE THE CHANGING WORLD

1. Willing to Open the Space2. -----3. Stay Results Oriented4. Create => Co-Create5. Increase Self-Awareness

=> Development

21ST CENTURY LEADERS

20th century hierarchy no longer serves as the primary mode of leading

Post-heroic, knows how to oversee co-creative

and bottom-up, transformative change.

Niels PflaegingLeading with flexible Targets. Beyond Budgeting in Practice

Complexity

• Top teams engage change and complexity as normal & expected

• Complicated = Financial systems, aFerrari

• Complexity = Rain forest, ant colonies, organizations, teams, humans

• “Unknown unknowns”

• Where business today IS shifting

• Complex has taken over the complicated

Top teams engage in change & complexity as normal & expected

Every team is a complex system

21ST CENTURY LEADERSHIP TRENDS

• Leadership is more fluid, distributed, action-oriented, shared

• Leadership exists within relationship and within community.

• Senior leaders judged on their ability to develop their top leaders, beginning to coach senior leader teams

• Shared power and community building leads to transformation, rather than “installing” change

MORE LEADERSHIP TRENDS

• Hands on, brings communities together in conversations ~ Listens

• Does NOT delegate communication, diversity or innovation to a function

• Focus is on Community ~ Avoids language like inside / outside “audience” or “stakeholder”

• Open, two-way conversations

• Engages people in conversation and listens

• Knows that trust and relationships are the new as well as old currency in business today.

~ Futurist Ayelet Baron

“If about everything top-down

fragilizes and blocks antifragility and growth,

everything bottom-up thrives under

the right amount of stress and disorder.”

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Antifragile

BEYOND RESILIENCE

ADAPTABILITY

ANTIFRAGILE

Photo: Sponge, by rob.knight Flickr cc

TECHNICAL VS. ADAPTIVE CHANGE• Involves installing

solutions to problems for which you know the answers.

• Addressing problems for which you don’t yet know the solutions,

• Often requires changes in behaviors or preferences AND hearts and minds,

• Results in the transformation of the system

Source: Fullan (2003, 2005) cites Heifetz and Linsky (2002)

Take medication to lower blood pressure

Implement electronic ordering and dispensing of medications in hospitals to reduce errors and drug interactions

Increase penalty for drunk driving

TECHNICAL VS. ADAPTIVE CHANGEEXAMPLES

Source: Fullan (2003, 2005) cites Heifetz and Linsky (2002)

Change lifestyle to eat healthy, get more exercise and lower stress

Encourage nurses and pharmacists to question and even challenge illegible or dangerous prescriptions by physicians

Raise public awareness of the dangers and effects of drunk driving, targeting teenagers in particular

3. STAY RESULTS ORIENTED

1. Willing to Open the Space

2. Sense the Changing World

3. ---4. Create => Co-Create

5. Increase Self-Awareness => Development

RESULTS100 YEARS

COMPANIES

1. Strong corporate mission, culture

2. Strengths, change [leading]3. Deep relationships with

partners4. Employees feel like family5. Active members of community

• 100 Years of Adaptive Change

Vicki TenHaken, Lessons From Century Club Companies: Managing for Long-Term Success

RESULTS100 YEARS

COMPANIES

1. Strong corporate mission, culture

2. Strengths, change [leading]

3. Deep relationships with partners

4. Employees feel like family

5. Active members of community

Vicki TenHaken, Lessons From Century Club Companies: Managing for Long-Term Success

"I'm inspired by the complexity inherent in human behavior, and in cities as the physical expression of that complexity.”

Mary Jukuri, Master Planner, Member, Board of Directors

DEEP RELATIONSHIPS WITH PARTNERS

LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR = RESULTS

1. Solving problems effectively

2. Operating with a strong results orientation

3. Seeking different perspectives

4. Supporting others

Decoding leadership: What really mattersBy Claudio Feser, Fernanda Mayol, and Ramesh SrinivasanMcKinsey Quarterly. January 2015

Photo: Sponge, by rob.knight Flickr cc

• “It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new.But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful….

SEGURIDAD?SECURITY?FORTITUDE

There is more security in the

adventurous and exciting,

for in movement there is life,

and in change there is power.”

~ Alan cohen

TRYING IT OUT

“Commitment, ownership and follow-through will not come from listening to hours of PowerPoint presentations.”

Firm owners and partners responded to the following question:

• What do we need to do, and/or stop doing, to advance the transformation of CPA Firm Leadership?

EXPLORE HOW TO BE A BUSINESS LEADER IN A VUCA WORLD

CPA FIRM OWNERS USING LIBERATING STRUCTURES TOOLS

More photos are available: https://flic.kr/s/aHskMBtzCM

1. Willing to Open the Space

2. Sense the Changing World

3. Stay Results Oriented4. ------5. Increase Self-

Awareness => Development

4. CREATE => CO-CREATE

4. CREATE => CO-CREATE

To co-create, ask a question for which you don’t have an answer

MIND SET OUTER REALITY

RESISTOR Not feeling in alignment–creates resistance

Perceived to have strong beliefs and opinions – “I”

not open to influence

SKEPTIC Out of alignment–raises doubt

Appears to be doubtful and judgmental

WAIT & SEE Waits for others before committing

Seems always tentative about what or whom to trust

EXPERIMENTOR Desires to experiment Seen as someone with

the courage to take risks, and trust

CO-CREATOR Builds new meaning Willingness to transform reality with others in a WE-centric way

5. INCREASE SELF-AWARENESS =>DEVELOPMENT

1. Willing to Open the Space

2. Sense the Changing World

3. Stay Results Oriented4. Create => Co-Create5. ---

PRESENCING

WHICH ECONOMIES?Courage, Creation

WHICH ECONOMIES?Fear, Destruction

VUCA: TO SURVIVE & THRIVE

1. Willing to Open the Space• Try New Things, Smart Risks• Maker Instinct• Liberating Structures

2. Sense the Changing World• 21st Century Leaders• “AntiFragile”• Adaptive vs. Technical Change

3. Stay Results Oriented• 100 year companies• Leader behaviors

4. Create => Co-Create• Conversational Intelligence

5. Increase Self-Awareness => Development• Theory U

Freedom is actually a bigger game

than power.

Power is about what you

can control.

Freedom is about

what you can unleash.

~ Harriet Rubin

EMAIL: DebNystrom@REVELN.comOR: Give your business card to Deb

Ideas for Action, LLC & REVELN.com

• Subject line: MEXICO CITY1. 21st century Leadership Handout with link

to slides2. Bibliography

What’s Next? Come find out in the Open Space workshop that follows.

VUCAPairing

EMAIL: DebNystrom@REVELN.com

WHAT IS OPEN SPACE TECHNOLOGY?

• The best way to get something done is to give it to those who have a passion for it.

OPEN SPACE TECHNOLOGY

Principles:1.Whoever comes are the

right people.

2.Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.

3.Whenever it starts is the right time.

4.When it’s over, it’s over.The Law of Two Feet

SO What?

Now What?

What?

REFLECTION