This document discusses organizational change and adaptive leadership. It explains that change is difficult for organizations because it disrupts routines and the status quo. Technical problems have clear solutions, while adaptive challenges require new learning and letting go of old ways. Six mindsets of adaptive leadership are outlined, including experimenting, scanning for challenges, and accepting failure. Productive change involves regulating distress and preventing work avoidance. Different frames like structural, human resource, political and symbolic are barriers and strategies for change.

1. Mapping Organizational Change
Kristina Boone, Ph.D.,
Professor and Department Head
Department of Communications and
Agricultural Education
Kansas State University
ACE 2012

2. Change is Difficult
• Organizations thrive on routine and status quo
• Management is about status quo; leadership is
about change
• Organizations, like people, may have hidden
commitments that block change
• Change requires continuous adaptation;
adaptation means loss or letting go
• The life cycle of change will involve a dynamic
shift in knowledge; we don’t know all the
answers initially – THAT’S DISCONCERTING!

3. Adaptive v. Technical Challenges
Example Technical Adaptive
Medical Broken arm High blood
pressure
Printing Poor registration because Missing delivery
of part that needs to be deadlines, workfl
replaced ow issues

4. Six Mindsets of Adaptive
Leadership
• Conserves essential values and capacities
• Experiments pervasively; maintains learning focus
• Scans whole environment for new challenges
• Improvises responsively
• Models consistent orienting values; visibly uses
organization’s rudder
• Takes losses; accepts failure recognizing that we are
asking people to take risks

5. Addressing Adaptive Challenges
• Get on the balcony (participate and observe)
• Identify adaptive elements of challenge and technical
aspects
• Regulate distress (heat up or cool down system)
• Maintain disciplined attention and prevent work
avoidance
• Give the work back
• Do not protect leadership from opinions

6. Productive Zone of Disequilibrium
(Heifetz, Grashow & Linsky, Adaptive Leadership)
Limit of tolerance
Productive zone
Disequilibrium
of disequilibrium
Threshold of Change
Adaptive Challenge
Technical Challenge
Time

7. Work Avoidance
• Hold on to past
• Blame authority
• Scapegoat
• Deny problem
• Draw conclusion too quickly
• Distract attention

8. Staying in the Zone
Regulate Distress and Prevent Work Avoidance
Increase heat in system Decrease heat
Give more responsibility Address technical aspects
Bring conflict to surface Employ structure
Protect dissenting voices Reclaim responsibility,
temporarily
Seek other perspectives Slow down process

9. Frames in an Organization
(Bolman and Deal, Reframing Organizations)
Frames Structural Human Political Symbolic
Resource
Central Rules, roles, Needs, skills, Power, Culture,
Concepts goals, relationships conflict, meaning,
policies, competition, metaphor,
technology, org. politics ritual,
environment ceremony,
stories,
heroes
Complexity
Visibility

10. Reframing Organizational Change
(Bolman & Deal, Reframing Organizations)
Frame Barrier to Change Essential Strategies
Structural Loss of direction, clarity and Communicating, realigning,
stability; confusion, chaos and renegotiating formal
patterns and processes
Human Resource Anxiety, uncertainty; people Training for new skills,
feel incompetent and needy participation and
involvement; psychological
support
Political Disempowerment; conflict Creation of arenas where
between winners and losers issues can be renegotiated
and new coalitions formed
Symbolic Loss of meaning and Creation of transition rituals;
purpose; clinging to the past mourn the past, celebrate
the future

11. References
Bolman, L.G. & Deal, T.E. (2008). Reframing Organizations:
Artistry, Choice, and Leadership (4th ed). San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass.
Heifetz, R., Grashow, A., & Linsky, M. (2009). The Practice of
Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing your
Organization and the World. Boston: Harvard Business Press.
Kegan, R., & Lahey, L. (2009). Immunity to Change: How to
Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your
Organization. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.