1. Seeding educational innovation:
emergence through adaptive leadership
Chris Jansen – University of Canterbury, Idea Creation

3. 3
Chris Jansen

5. Communities
Schools
Classrooms
Departments
Growing leadership influence
Individuals

7. Change
7

8. 8
Speed Complexity
Uncertainty Ambiguity
Opportunities
Paradox
Unintended consequences
Lack of Control
change is changing…..
Information overload
Interconnectedness of systems
Dissolving of traditional organisational boundaries
Disruptive technologies
Generational values and expectations
Increased globalization

9. 9

10. Apps
MOOCs
3d printing
Haptics
Nanotechnology
Arab spring
BYOD
Neuroleadership
Virtual pop stars
Crowdsourcing
Hacking your education
Flipped classrooms
Online worlds
Augmented reality www.thinkbeyond.co.nz

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‟
11

12. ―The greatest challenge for future
leaders is the pace of change and
the complexity of the challenges
faced….‖
12
―Our organisations are not equipped to cope with this
complexity…‖ (IBM study – 1500 CEO‘s)
….‖perpetual white-water‖…

13. Change Processes
Change manager
Driving change
Alignment
Change proposals ‗Consultation‘
Cynicism
Social engineering
Assumptions that get in the way…
• ―People don‘t want to change….so it needs to be
driven….‖
• ―If you allow people freedom to innovate – discipline
will disappear!?‖
• ―The management don‘t trust us…..‖ 13

14. ―Are we in a catch-22: stuck
between failing to change and
changes that fail?‖
14

16. Can I lead positive and sustainable
change…?
16

17. 17www.ideacreation.org

18. 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
18www.ideacreation.org

19. 19www.ideacreation.org

34. 34www.ideacreation.org

35. 35www.ideacreation.org

36. …a dynamic of experimentation and innovation…

37. …self organising…
37
Self organisation…
…emergence
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…

38. 38www.ideacreation.org

39. 39www.ideacreation.org

40. …self organising…
40www.ideacreation.org

41. 41
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

42. 42www.ideacreation.org

43. 43www.ideacreation.org

44. The Starfish and the Spider…
The unstoppable power of leaderless organisations
Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom
44www.ideacreation.org

45. .
.
.
Leaders vs leadership?
Position of a leader vs action of leadership
Hierarchies and Networks

46. The Innovation Stack
Management innovation
Strategic innovation
Product/service innovation
Operational innovation
Gary Hamel – The Future of Management
46
organisational processes/leadership roles
communication and decision making
initiatives, programmes etc
pedagogy, technology etc
timetable, processes etc
www.ideacreation.org

47. Machine Living organism
Hybrid?
+Efficient, reliable, +innovative, responsive, nimble
-Inflexible, slow to respond -messy and spontaneous
47www.ideacreation.org

48. Can leaders foster self organisation?
48www.ideacreation.org

49. ……..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
49
―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….

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 values
threat or opportunity
50www.ideacreation.org

51. 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 Foster interaction and shared learning
Proactive
mentoring
of individuals
51www.ideacreation.org

52. Layer 1: Proactive mentoring
develop independent agents
Recognise and value people
•Strong belief in people
•Prioritize them and take the time
•Creating space to empower people
•Notice, listen, appreciate
•Enlarge their self belief
•Recognise their strengths and passions
Develop people
•They leave in better shape than when
they arrived
•Create support structures to meet needs
•Make opportunities available
•Support initiative and boundary pushing
•Note achievements
“employee first – customer second”
Anand Pillai
52www.ideacreation.org

53. 53www.ideacreation.org

54. Who are you actively
developing and looking
out for? Who is looking
out for you?
How could we increase
this informal
mentoring?
54www.ideacreation.org

55. The Roles of a Manager
Leadership
(Vision & people driven)
Management
(Office bound/paper driven)
Professional
(Teaching role)
Plan
Organise
Control
Administer systems
Critique
Create Order
Vision
Meaningful Contribution
Values
Engage and develop
people
Create context
Commitment,
Change & Hi-
Performance
Cammock (2001) The
Dance of Leadership
Compliance
& Status-Quo
Efficiency
55www.ideacreation.org

56. How‘s the balance of
leadership vs
management in your
role?
Satisfied?........
56www.ideacreation.org

57. Layer 2: Foster interaction and shared learning
interactions with neighbours
―a healthy organisation is one in
which all participants have a voice‖
(Peck ,1988).
Develop culture
•Creating environments
•Fostering high trust
•Build positive relationships
•Restorative environment
•Compliment each other‘s strengths
Foster learning
•Role model a learning attitude
•Opportunities to dialogue and build networks
•Listening to leverage collective intelligence
•Redesign social architecture
•Take time to consult, get buy in and find the best solution
•Generate feedback
―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)
57www.ideacreation.org

58. 58www.ideacreation.org

59. When I first came into this leadership role – I got together a
team of senior staff and re-wrote all the staff procedure
manuals. I started with an idea that we‘d perhaps do it in
a month. Then I tried to take this to the meeting and
present it to (the staff) and it just ended up in this
shitfight basically . . . What about this?, You‘ve forgotten
about that?, blah, blah, blah. It was a total disaster, and
one of the absolute low points of my time here. But it
made me realise that unless I got these people to come
with me I was wasting my bloody time.
59

60. We ended up having to go back to the drawing board and
eventually we figured out this process which is still here
this year, well it‘s completely fundamental now. It‘s called
OPG (Operational Policy Groups) where you take a subset
of people to work on developing a process and then
anyone who‘s not present, you give them the right to
submit.
60

61. Even though it took 12 months longer than I thought, we
got a result that actually stuck. We didn‘t come up with a
nice new book that no one used, which is very very
common. We got two things out of it, we got the best
answers, these great rules that were user friendly,
generally easy to follow, concise, nothing that wasn‘t a
rule, didn‘t make it in here. So we got a great answer, a
great result, and we got really good buy-in too.
61

62. Yeah, that was really an epiphany around the issue for me,
and I guess it‘s characterised my leadership style ever
since. I learnt that if things are really important,
especially in an organisation like this, where we have
staff who actually have knowledge, skill, experience and
passion – we have to include them in the process (L 21).
62

63. Who has a voice in our
organisation?
What mechanisms can we
create to foster interaction
and shared learning?
63www.ideacreation.org

64. ―Traditional organisations require management systems that control peoples
behaviour, learning organisations invest in improving the quality of thinking,
the capacity for reflection and team learning, and the ability to develop shared
visions and shared understandings of complex issues‖ (Senge, 2002)
Layer 3: Distribute power and decentralise control
decentralised control
Share journey – share leadership
•We are all leaders
•Break down hierarchy
•Share responsibility and accountability –
bit by bit …
•Create ownership and empowerment
•Delegate and let go
•Foster interdependance
•Master the process – not the content
64www.ideacreation.org

65. A framework for empowerment
Extrinsic motivation intrinsic motivation
external locus of control internal locus of control
control empowerment
Strict and complete external control no external control
Responsibility on leader
responsibility shared
responsibility on participant
I decide we decide you decide
less choice more choice
Dependence interdependence independence
Jansen 2005

66. High Supportive &
Low Directive
Behaviour
High Supportive
&
High Directive
Behaviour
(High)
(Low)
(Low)
(High)DIRECTIVE BEHAVIOUR
SUPPORTIVEBEHAVIOUR
High Supportive &
High Directive
Behaviour
Low Supportive &
High Directive
Behaviour
Low Supportive
& Low
Directive
Behaviour
Situational Leadership
66

67. 67

68. Go to the people,
Live with them,
Learn from them,
Love them,
Start with what they know,
Build with what they have,
But with the best leaders,
When the work is done,
The task accomplished,
The people will say,
―We have done it ourselves‖
Chinese Philosopher Lao Tsu
68www.ideacreation.org

69. Who makes the
decisions?
How could power
be shared more
effectively?
69www.ideacreation.org

70. 4) Explore and Articulate Shared Values
70
We need to be culturally tight and managerially
loose. Order and design are not externally
imposed but emerge as a result of the
combination of individual freedom and shared
core values
Getting on the same page
•Explore individual values and negotiate organisational values to fit
•Role model values in leadership behaviour
•Reconnect all staff with personal moral purpose
•Establish benchmark of needs
•Create clarity around shared vision
•Leave space for emergent outcomes

71. 71

73. In what way does our
organisation live out shared
core values and vision?
73www.ideacreation.org

74. Shifting ‗toxic‘ culture to
‗ownership‘ culture
Chris Jansen – University of Canterbury, New Zealand

75. 75

76. 76

77. 77

78. Engagement leads to peak performance
Sample culture survey:
Rate each question from 1 (low) to 5 (high)
Add up total out of 25
1) I really care about the future of my organisation
2) I am proud to tell others that I work for this organisation
3) My organisation inspires me to do my best
4) I would recommend my organisation to a friend as a good place to work
5) I am willing to put in a great deal of effort and time beyond what is
normally expected
78www.ideacreation.org
Adapted from Gallop

79. Culture eats strategy
for lunch…

80. 80

81. “employee first – customer
second”
Anand Pillai
―a healthy organisation is one in which all
participants have a voice‖ (Peck ,1988).

82. .
.
.
Leaders vs leadership?
Position of a leader vs action of leadership
Hierarchies and Networks

83. 83
Mechanisms to assist with this,
• cross functional groups
• focus groups
• vertical teams
• multi disciplinary teams / interdisciplinary teams
• design charrette - architecture
• Google days, IBM open chat,
• Agile development methodologies, scrum
• Operational process groups - OB
• You and I portal - talk to the CEO line and CEO to put question
online
• Open office sessions
• Empowering team: co-constructed department meeting
• Think tanks
• Innovation page
• online surveys
• ???
Leveraging collective intelligence

84. 84

85. Rogers - Diffusion of innovation
85

86. www.ideacreation.org 86

87. Commitment Charting
A (Induction)
Team Leaders
Technology
Board
B (the D)
Adapted from the ESD Toolkit v2.0 87www.thinkbeyond.co.nz

88. 88
Planning change processes
Need and
Vision
Fine-tune
and
embed
Roll out
Scale up
TrainingAdopt
proven
idea
Pilot
Team
•Steps are
emergent
•Inquiry
focussed on
new
solutions
•Cyclic
process
Clarify
need
and
vision
Assess
responses
and fine
tune
Scale upLaunch
multiple
experiments
Foster
collective
intelligence
Pilot
www.ideacreation.org

89. Organisational change processes
1. establish urgency based on provable need/gap
2. form a powerful coalition or core team
3. develop a vision and operation plan
4. launch numerous small ‘safe to fail‘ pilots
5. communicate the vision and develop whole organisation approach
6. consolidate improvements by building capacity
7. widen awareness and support
8. celebrate and embed
Based on Kotter
89www.ideacreation.org

90. Cunning ‗inside out‘ change strategies
for middle leaders
Start with small team of enthusiastic people
•Aligned purpose
•Genuine respect for each other and friendship
•Permission giving and support from senior leader
•Trial without organisational constraints and politics
•Document evidence
Open to wider group of staff
•Keep gate keepers in the loop
•Voluntary involvement is key – intrinsic motivation
•Connect with each staff members purpose
•Seek out and share success stories
•Show them colleagues implementing achievable initiatives
•Stick doggedly to values
•Garner publicity and profile for the success not the people
Widen scope – increase number of staff opting in
Critical mass – explore full cross programme implementation
Build in sustainability

91. 91
Professional Inquiry Pilot – Linwood College

92. 92
Co-constructed classroom observation template

93. 93

94. What is success?
To laugh often and much
To win the respect of intelligent people
And the affection of children
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
And endue the betrayal of false friends
To appreciate beauty
To find the best in others
To leave the world a bit better
Whether by a healthy child, a garden patch
Or a redeemed social condition
To know even one life has breathed easier
Because you have lived
This is to have succeeded
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
94