Leading in the connections
Complexity, Theory U and Collective Impact.
A focused around four hours on leading where nobody is in charge: complex adaptive systems, adaptive work, Theory U, collaborative advantage and Collective Impact.
- Level
- Focus
- Learning time
- 4 hours
- Where
- Systems Leadership
- Price
- £69
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Leaders in partnerships and place-based work across organisational boundaries
Overview
If nobody is in charge of the whole, what does leadership look like? This programme explores leading across boundaries where no one holds command. It treats organisations as complex adaptive systems, using simple rules, enabling constraints and Buurtzorg's self-managing teams, then sets out what systems leaders do, from Senge, Hamilton and Kania to the move from hero to host. It explores Heifetz's adaptive work, Scharmer's Theory U and presencing, and Huxham and Vangen's research on collaborative advantage and trust, and ends with Collective Impact and its critics, asking whose agenda the common agenda really is.
Aims
This programme aims to develop leaders who can shape conditions rather than control outcomes, working through relationships, trust and shared purpose across organisational boundaries. It is for those in partnerships and place-based work who want to hold adaptive work, listen more deeply and build collaboration that does not stall.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Explain how complex adaptive systems behave and use simple rules and enabling constraints to shape the conditions from which outcomes emerge.
- Distinguish technical problems from adaptive challenges and apply practices such as the balcony, deep listening and prototyping in cross-organisational work.
- Lead partnerships that build trust and handle power well, assessing Collective Impact and its critiques by asking whose agenda the shared agenda serves.
What you'll develop
Through this Focus course, you will build the ability to:
- Explain the properties of an organisation as a complex adaptive system and compare the machine and weather models of leadership.
- Describe the core capabilities, dimensions and disciplines of systems leadership set out by Senge, Hamilton and Kania, Ghate, Lewis and Welbourn, and Senge.
- Distinguish technical problems from adaptive challenges and explain why applying technical authority to adaptive work fails.
- Describe the five movements of the U and Scharmer's four levels of listening, from downloading to generative.
- Explain collaborative advantage and collaborative inertia and identify the four themes of aims, power, trust and membership that make collaboration hard.
- Describe the five conditions of Collective Impact and explain what a credible backbone function does.
Built from 3 parts.
4 hours of learning.
- 01Leading what no one controlsComplex adaptive systems and systems leadersBitesize2 modules
- 02Sensing what wants to emergeAdaptive leadership and Theory UBitesize2 modules
- 03Trust as the real currencyRelational leadership and Collective ImpactBitesize2 modules
Keep going.
Part of the Systems Leadership topic, also sold whole as Leading the whole system.
Go deeper, and pay only the difference
- You are hereFocus, 4 hours, £69
- The whole topicImmerse, Leading the whole system, 11 hours, £249. Already own the Focus? You pay £180.
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Prices per person. Read the full terms
Also part of: Beyond our own walls