“The practice of leadership, like the practice of medicine, involves two core processes: diagnosis first and then action. And those two processes unfold in two dimensions: toward the organizational or social system you are operating in and toward yourself. That is, you diagnose what is happening in your organization or community and take action to address the problems you have identified. But to lead effectively, you also have to examine and take action toward yourself in the context of the challenge.”

“In the midst of action, you have to be able to reflect on your own attitudes and behavior to better calibrate your interventions into the complex dynamics of organizations and communities. You need perspective on yourself as well as on the systemic context in which you operate.”

“The single most important skill and most undervalued capacity for exercising adaptive leadership is diagnosis.”

“To diagnose a system or yourself while in the midst of action requires the ability to achieve some distance from those on-the-ground events. We use the metaphor of “getting on the balcony” above the “dance floor” to depict what it means to gain the distanced perspective you need to see what is really happening.”

“When you move back and forth between balcony and dance floor, you can continually assess what is happening in your organization and take corrective midcourse action. If you perfect this skill, you might even be able to do both simultaneously: keeping one eye on the events happening immediately around you and the other eye on the larger patterns and dynamics.”

“To counteract the personalization of problems (assuming it’s always an individual’s fault), start with diagnosing and acting on the system (“moving outside in”) and then do the same for the self (“moving inside out”).

“Shared language is important in leading adaptive change. When people begin to use the same words with the same meaning, they communicate most effectively, minimize misunderstandings, and gain the sense of being on the same page, even while grappling with significant differences on the issues.”"

“Adaptive leadership is the practice of mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and thrive.”

“Adaptive leadership is specifically about change that enables the capacity to thrive.”

“Successful adaptive changes build on the past rather than jettison it.”

“Organizational adaptation occurs through experimentation.”

“Adaptation relies on diversity. For an organization, adaptive leadership would build a culture that values diverse views and relies less on central planning and the genius of the few at the top, where the odds of adaptive success go down.”

“There is no such thing as a dysfunctional organization, because every organization is perfectly aligned to achieve the results it currently gets. The importance of this idea lies in the impact it has on the techniques for trying to address the problem. Embarrassing or not, the organization prefers the current situation to trying something new where the consequences are unpredictable and likely to involve losses for key parties. Taking that into account will lead to different strategic options for closing the gap. When you realize that what you see as dysfunctional works for others in the system, you begin focusing on how to mobilize and sustain people through the period of risk that often comes with adaptive change, rather than trying to convince them of the rightness of your cause.”

“The most common cause of failure in leadership is produced by treating adaptive challenges as if they were technical problems. While technical problems may be very complex and critically important, they have known solutions that can be implemented by current know-how. Adaptive challenges can only be addressed through changes in people’s priorities, beliefs, habits, and loyalties.”

“People have long confused the notion of leadership with authority, power, and influence. We find it extremely useful to see leadership as a practice, an activity that some people do some of the time.”

“If leadership involves will and skill, then leadership requires the engagement of what goes on above and below the neck. Courage requires all of you: heart, mind, spirit, and guts.”

“It makes little sense to practice leadership and put your own professional success and material gain at risk unless it is on behalf of some larger purpose that you find compelling.”

“Seven Steps to Orchestrating Conflict:
Prepare
Establish Ground Rules
Get Each View On The Table
Orchestrate The Conflict
Encourage Accepting And Managing Losses
Generate And Commit To Experiments
Institute Peer Leadership Consulting”