When a persistent issue comes up at work, the automatic reaction of most managers is to look for a technical solution. It is easy to latch onto these types of solutions to problems because they are straight-forward and tend to be marketed in ways that speak to specific problems like the one you are facing. So you might try out a new project management system, switch new a new collaboration tool, hire talent with a particular skill, or try get the team training on a skill that you think will help.

But often persistent issues are related to adaptive challenges, that are difficult to identify (much less understand) in part because they are more systemic in nature. These challenges require more of you and your team.

The problem with using technical solutions when you face an adaptive challenge is that you end up:

• Invest in a new system or set of skills that are a waste of time and energy - one you can’t really afford if your team is underperforming.

• If they can’t solve your problem, your product suffers or can’t stay on top of innovation. Customers not happy, sales decline or you aren’t able to make the kind of impact your team is tasked with.

• And if you can’t figure out how to address the challenge, it reflects poorly on you as a leader - limiting the opportunities available to you, and potentially even stalling your career progression.

• Increased stress - increased interpersonal conflict and likely working more or harder → burnout.

This is what well-intentioned but ineffective managers tend to struggle with because they operate from outdated models of leadership.

When an adaptive challenge is involved, a technical solution (better info, more people, new skills) won’t solve your problem - it can’t address the core issues causing your challenge and won’t bring about the impact desired. That’s why we need a different approach.

In fact, Ron Heifetz (who cofounded the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School) shares that

“The most common leadership failure stems from trying to apply technical solutions to adaptive challenges.”

It’s kind of like the difference between how you approach a challenge like getting healthy and overcoming a problem like high blood pressure. We have good solutions for addressing high blood pressure, and we can pretty quickly get the results we are looking for. But a challenge like getting healthy may require change in your lifestyle to eat healthy, get more exercise and lower stress that are related to mindsets, beliefs, or habits - and it doesn’t have such cut-and-dried technical solutions. (Ask anyone who has tried to lose weight if a calorie counting app has been the thing that ensured their success.)

If you are facing a technical challenge, you can see how a top-down or command-and-control style of leadership serves you. If you know that doing A, B, and C will yield the result you want, then your need to get people do do what you want in as efficiently a process as possible. There isn’t a need for curiosity or innovation here. In these cases, standardization and bureaucracy actually makes sense.

Let’s look at how technical problem are different than adaptive challenges:

One of the biggest obstacles we face with adaptive challenges is an aversion to or immunity to change. We know the change we want to make, but still we can’t seem to make it happen. This is how you know that you are trying to apply a technical fix to an adaptive challenge.

Adaptive leaders know how to discern when the challenge they are facing is technical and when it is an adaptive or more systemic challenge.

• They are able to get clear on personality dynamics holding their team back, and build relationships based on deep listening and networks of trust and collaboration.

• They know how to create safe containers for growth, creativity, and risk-taking as a team, in part because they don’t wait for a fully-developed plan, and instead encourage learning-by-doing and ask questions from a deep curiosity and openness. Trusting that this is where a collective wisdom emerges.

• They are learning and growing, and have confidence in their ability to lead the team as you collectively navigate increasingly complex challenges. Over time, their profound commitment to the health of the whole radiates to nurture a similar commitment in others.

And, because they aren’t wasting time and energy anymore trying to find the ‘right’ answers to problems without one, they experience a spaciousness in their life that helps them feel energized and curious about where the day will take them.

If you are interested in learning more about adaptive leadership, I’m offering the opportunity for a handful of leaders to come together soon for 6-week accelerator program to build the muscle of discernment and learn concrete ways to build safe containers for their team to grow.

Contact me and mention the phrase “adaptive leadership” and I’ll send you more details. Enrollment is opening soon and I’d love to have you join us.