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5aa5c142 b2e0 47cf bf72 7eef5206f5f9 1781458 28029 gfqg3jym3k79Over the past two weeks, we have started conversation into four major postures involved in leading organizational change. Last week, we talked about identifying the different types of change involved in an organization: technical and adaptive. This week, we're looking at  how to build capacity to handle change your organization.

As we discussed in the introductory article to this series,

"Building change capacity means that the organization's ability to manage and integrate changes increases and improves over time. Instead of just having the capacity to manage this current change, the organization is empowered to manage the change after that, and the one after that, and so on. Given the complexity facing most organizations, change capacity is essential to both long-term stability and overall return on investment."

There are six general aspects to building change capacity. Each interacts with the others to help an organization grow as it experiences change. 

  • Process Capacity
  • People Capacity
  • Leadership Capacity
  • Clear Measurement
  • Feedback Loops
  • Productive Disequilibrium

Let's unpack each one of these and see how it impacts change capacity. In each, we will highlight the impact on change capacity in bold italic.

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5aa5c142 b2e0 47cf bf72 7eef5206f5f9 1781458 28029 gfqg3jym3k79Last week, I wrote about four leadership postures for organizational change. These postures shape our leadership stance, increasing the likelihood that our change process will achieve healthy results.

The first posture of those four was change identification - knowing what type of change we were dealing with: adaptive or technical. To recap the difference between the two:

"Adaptive changes deal with habits, mindsets, and behaviors, and require organizations and their leaders to learn something new to resolve the challenges at hand. Adaptive changes often have open-ended problem definitions and solutions. Technical changes, by contrast, require application of specific skills to bring a closed-ended issue to resolution."

Putting this posture first hints at its importance. So why is identifying adaptive change important for organizational leaders?

To understand its importance, we have to look at our usual starting point. For a summary of the reasons why, skip to the end - otherwise, read on!

Where we (tend to) start

As leaders, we are trained to attack most problems as technical issues, which our expertise or an outside product will be able to resolve. Perhaps our challenge fits squarely in the middle of our deep, core expertise, something we trained for, we have degrees and certifications in, and have practiced over time. Alternatively, we may perceive the current challenge to be adjacent to our core expertise, and so we tend to apply our expertise there as well - to the degree we can.

This is how most of us were taught to solve problems: see problem, find solution. This works very well when we are working our way up through our core expertise - whether deepening it, broadening it, or both. This works particularly well in fields where the same problems come up over and over again, and the application of technique, product, or knowledge is tried and proven suitable.

The problem comes when we find ourselves in our first leadership position where our core expertise is only a part of what we do. All of a sudden, the "Hello, Problem; meet Solution" approach doesn't work in all those other areas.

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5aa5c142 b2e0 47cf bf72 7eef5206f5f9 1781458 28029 gfqg3jym3k79I work with a lot of leaders in the midst of significant changes to their organizations. They tell me stories about the change processes that lead to positive transformations, and they tell me stories about changes that caused harm and distress. What I have discovered is that the success or failure of a change process is more about a leader's stance as they approach organizational change than it is about their particular skill set.

This stance is made up of four postures that, taken together, increase the likelihood that change will go well. There are, of course, no guarantees in situations that are inherently complex. But as many leaders have learned, more often than not, we have to work with improved probabilities, not certainties. Let's look at these four postures that position us best for organizational transformation.

The first posture in leading organizational change is change identification. Change identification makes sure we have the mental and organizational perspective to identify the type of change that is going on or needing to take place: is it primarily adaptive, or primarily technical? Adaptive changes deal with habits, mindsets, and behaviors, and require organizations and their leaders to learn something new to resolve the challenges at hand. Adaptive changes often have open-ended problem definitions and solutions. Technical changes, by contrast, require application of specific skills to bring a closed-ended issue to resolution. They often involve a mechanical repair, a software upgrade, or a program or event. These two different types of changes, and the mixture of the two, require strikingly different approaches in leadership and process.

The second posture in leading organizational change is change capacity. As successful leaders, we position ourselves to build change capacity into the organization. Building change capacity means that the organization's ability to manage and integrate changes increases and improves over time. Instead of just having the capacity to manage this current change, the organization is empowered to manage the change after that, and the one after that, and so on.

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