I’ve suggested on countless occasions in multiple venues that we live in a liminal time, a transition time, a time when major paradigms are shifting and change is the only constant. Which means that business as usual just won’t cut it. In particular, during times such as these, a different kind of leadership is needed. Whereas technical competence and excellent managerial skills are highly valued traits of leaders during the long stretches of stability in between more tumultuous times of paradigm change, those very traits can greatly limit an organization’s ability to adapt to new circumstances. Why? Simply because you...

After a few emails and comments, I realized that I could have been much clearer on the difference between transformation and tweaking things. One question in particular was most helpful and ran, in several forms, something like this: Isn’t there a time for tweaking? Or, can tweaking things prepare for transformation. In short, the reply to the former is “absolutely,” while the reply to the latter is “rarely.” Both answers hinge completely on the nature of your context. When the context is relatively stable, even though there may be significant changes and challenges at hand, the task is to figure out what has not been working in an...

2. Challenging Cherished Practices Harvard Leadership Guru Ron Heifetz makes a critical distinction between technical and adaptive problems. In the former, we need to revise our way of doing something in a particular context; in the latter, we need to revise (or reinvent) our whole way of thinking about the context in which we are doing things. Again, Moneyball provides an excellent example. (If you haven’t seen the film or read the book, it may be helpful to refer to my earlier post to recap the story.) If the problem is that the A’s don’t have enough money to buy the best players they really only have one option if they want to win:...