Cross Sector Leadership Exchange Leading into the Future ~ Collaborating through Complexity

1. Cross Sector Leadership Exchange Leading into the Future ~ Collaborating through Complexity Tackling complex and wicked issues

2. Wicked Problems and Leadership Solutions Professor Keith Grint Wicked Problems and Leadership Solutions Professor Keith Grint Do different kinds of problems require different kinds of change? 1. Critical Problems: Commander 2. Tame Problems: Management 3. Wicked Problems: Leadership

3. Problems, Problems, Problems Critical Problems: Commander Portrayed as self-evident crisis; often at tactical level General uncertainty – though not ostensibly by commander who provides ‘answer’ No time for discussion or dissent Legitimizes coercion as necessary in the circumstances for public good Associated with Command Encouraged through reward Commander’s Role is to take the required decisive action – that is to provide the answer to the problem

4. Problems, Problems, Problems • Tame Problems: Management – Tame and Wicked Problems (Rittell and Webber, 1973). • Problems as PUZZLES – there is a solution • Can be complicated but there is a linear solution to them • These are problems that management can (& has previously) solved: • The problem of heart surgery is a Tame problem. It’s complicated but there is a process for solving it & therefore it has a Managerial Solution/Answer • Launching a(nother) new product is a tame problem • Management’s role is to engage the appropriate process to solve the TAME problem • Heifetz: Technical leadership

5. Management as a Science F W Taylor’s engineering: the application of science to achieve the one best solution Problem Solution

6. Wicked Problems have no simple solution because: • Either novel or recalcitrant • Complex rather than complicated (cannot be solved in isolation) • Sit outside single hierarchy and across systems – ‘solution’ creates another problem • They often have no stopping rule – thus no definition of success • Sometimes the solution precedes the problem analysis • May be intransigent problems that we have to learn to live with • Symptoms of deep divisions – contradictory certitudes

7. Have no right or wrong solutions but better or worse developments • Uncertainty & Ambiguity inevitable – cannot be deleted through correct analysis – Keat’s “Negative Capability” • Heifetz: Adaptive Leadership • Problems for leadership not management; require political collaboration not scientific processes - role is to ask the appropriate question & to engage collaboration

8. ‘Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.’ Walter Benjamin’s (1892-1940) Angel of History: Faces the past but is ‘blown backwards into the future’. Hegel’s (1770-1831) Owl of Minerva – only spreads its wings at dusk ‘If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind us’ 18/12/1831 Specimens of the Table Talk of by Coleridge

9. 2003: FBU fire strike: reduced fires

10. Differentiating Management, Leadership & Command crisis Command: just do it (it doesn’t matter what you think) Management: déjà vu (I’ve seen this problem before; I know what process will solve it) Leadership: vu jàdé (I’ve never seen this problem before; I need to get a collective view on what to do about this) tame wicked

11. Increasing uncertainty about solution to problem Leadership: ask questions Wicked Management: organise process Tame Command: provide answer Critical Increasing requirement for collaborative/ compliance resolution Coercian/ physical: Hard power Calculative/rational Normative/ emotional: soft power

12. The 10 Properties of Wicked Issues Ritter, HWJ & Webber, MM, 1973

13. There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem Wicked problems have no stopping rules Solutions to wicked problems are not true or false, but good or bad There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem Every solution to a wicked problem is a ‘one shot’ operation; because there is no opportunity to learn by trial and error, every attempt counts significantly

14. Wicked problems do not have an exhaustively describable set of potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the plan  • Every wicked problem is essentially unique • Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem • The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways • The planner has no right to be wrong

15. How to work with wicked problems

16. Wicked issue: ‘ How do cross sector leaders currently respond to the challenges experienced by vulnerable people?’

17. Success- leads to quick wins (reacting urgently to change at an organisation or sector level) Success – whole system transformation (cross sector/multi agency, long term cultural change) Success – increasing demand (incremental changes, silo working at organisational or sector level that impacts on wider system) Success - demands change (internal system change, adapting processes, continual improvement, functional change)

18. ‘What cross sector services do NOW in relation to the wicked issue?’ When the bell sounds… It’s time to move on…

19. ‘What cross sector services SHOULD be doing in relation to the wicked issue?’ When the bell sounds… It’s time to move on…

20. Success- leads to quick wins (reacting urgently to change at an organisation or sector level) Success – whole system transformation (cross sector/multi agency, long term cultural change) success – increasing demand (incremental changes, silo working at organisational or sector level that impacts on wider system) Success - demands change (internal system change, adapting processes, continual improvement, functional change) Long term Culture Short term Weak Strong Opportunity

21. Personal Reflection: • What insights has this activity brought – for you • personally and for your organisation? • Where would you place yourself and your • organisation on the four quadrants (flipcharts) • Where would you like to be and what are you • going to do to get yourself there? • How could you work within your organisation to • move it closer to whole system transformation? Followed by Syndicate Groups