A friend pulls out a 64-square game board and asks, “Want to play?”
You see two games: chess or checkers. So, you ask, “Which one?”
Today’s organizations – for profit, NGO, and government – confront challenges that, like the board, invite two different games: traditional management and adaptive practice.
To know which, you must ask: Is this a “we know how to do this” challenge? Or, a “we don’t know how to do this” one?
Say, you work at a commercial real estate firm. The city wants to develop a vacant lot. You got this. It’s a “we know how” challenge.
Except, what if it’s a coastal city battered by hurricanes and flooding; and, seeks proposals for climate-resilient development? If you’re honest, you don’t know how to do that.
Or, you’re a manufacturer needing a new piece of equipment. Sounds like a “we know how” challenge. Maybe. But what if the machine requires operators to use (and trust!) AI-generated data instead of feel (“it’s running hot”)? Truth is, no one – not the CEO, not the head of manufacturing, not the operators, not their supervisors – know how to do that.
The Fundamentals of Adaptive Practice draw on the authors’ decades of experience across more than 70 industries and fields to describe how to address “we don’t know how” challenges.
In particular, the book lays out how to:
Use questions instead of assertions (“We just need to work harder!”) to know when traditional management will work versus when to switch to adaptive practice.
Switch to the team discipline (instead of boss as decider); embrace appreciative collaboration (tapping into everyone’s strengths and experiences); and, focus on performance results instead of change to learn what works, what doesn’t and why.
Navigate readiness, reluctance and resistance – what the authors call the constructive politics of change —to grow the “we” using design/do experimentation instead of decide-and-delegate to figure out the how
Convert assumptions (this might work, but we’re not sure) into knowledge (this does work) until success and new capabilities have emerged – at which point, making the switch back to traditional management.
Both/and. Not either/or. Without traditional management, the world would literally fall apart. And.
And, our world is chaotic and filled with an ever-increasing number of “we don’t know how to do this” challenges ranging across AI, climate, supply chain fragility, health care, education, the consequences of forever wars, wealth and income inequality, mass migrations and more.
You cannot manage “we don’t’ know how” challenges. But you can adapt.
It’s your choice. What’s your challenge? Which game must you play?
