A guide for ib the game11/13/2022 Treating adaptive challenges as technical ones permits executives to do what they have excelled at throughout their careers: solve other people’s problems. Not only does this avoid the need to make tough choices about which areas should be trimmed, it also masks the fact that the company’s real challenge lies in redesigning its strategy. For example, executives attempt to improve the bottom line by cutting costs across the board. Indeed, it’s the classic error: Companies treat adaptive challenges as if they were technical problems. Such resistance to adaptive change certainly happens in business. That’s because even those not directly affected by an adaptive change typically experience discomfort when someone upsets a group’s or an organization’s equilibrium. People will resist the moves, even denying that such problems exist. Instead, changes in the family need to occur, and that won’t be easy. Whatever the underlying problems, the mechanic can’t solve them. Maybe you need to get your mother to stop drinking and driving, get your grandfather to give up his driver’s license, or get your teenager to be more cautious. Treating the problems as purely technical ones-taking the car to the mechanic time and again to get it back on the road-masks the real issues. But if your car troubles stem from the way a family member drives, the problems are likely to recur. Most of the time, the mechanic can fix the car. When your car has problems, you go to a mechanic. The importance-and difficulty-of distinguishing between adaptive and technical change can be illustrated with an analogy. Adaptive Versus Technical Change: Whose Problem Is It? But to make real progress, sooner or later those who lead must ask themselves and the people in the organization to face a set of deeper issues-and to accept a solution that may require turning part or all of the organization upside down. (See the sidebar “Adaptive Versus Technical Change: Whose Problem Is It?”) Responding to an adaptive challenge with a technical fix may have some short-term appeal. Adaptive problems resist these kinds of solutions because they require individuals throughout the organization to alter their ways as the people themselves are the problem, the solution lies with them. Technical problems, while often challenging, can be solved applying existing know-how and the organization’s current problem-solving processes. We refer to this kind of wrenching organizational transformation as “adaptive change,” something very different from the “technical change” that occupies people in positions of authority on a regular basis. In return for these sacrifices, they may be offered nothing more than the possibility of a better future. The risks during such times are especially high because change that truly transforms an organization, be it a multibillion-dollar company or a ten-person sales team, demands that people give up things they hold dear: daily habits, loyalties, ways of thinking. We’re not talking here about conventional office politics we’re talking about the high-stake risks you face whenever you try to lead an organization through difficult but necessary change. But frequently, something more is at work. #A guide for ib the game series#People in top positions must often pay the price for a flawed strategy or a series of bad decisions. While leadership is often depicted as an exciting and glamorous endeavor, one in which you inspire others to follow you through good times and bad, such a portrayal ignores leadership’s dark side: the inevitable attempts to take you out of the game. Let’s face it, to lead is to live dangerously. Think about yourself: In exercising leadership, have you ever been removed or pushed aside? Or think of individuals you have known in less prominent positions, perhaps people spearheading significant change initiatives in their organizations, who have suddenly found themselves out of a job. Think of the many top executives in recent years who, sometimes after long periods of considerable success, have crashed and burned.
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