June/July 2003

Q:  After all our strategic planning meetings; our advisory and governance board meetings; the technical assistance we have brought into our system of care community; and the hours we spend each week away from our families mapping our strengths, challenges, and barriers, why aren't we seeing increased community-based services? I came into this work to help design and access better services for my family. We are in year four of our grant, and we still have to search for the right supports and services in our community. Where are they?

Answer: 

You are leaders seeking to transform multiple collaborative organizations and agencies into a system of care.

There is no model for your task. No one has succeeded in achieving this transformation with a huge group of partners-and without a huge group of partners, we fall into pitfalls not anticipated.

Strategies waver when management teams fail to identify the requirements of adaptive work. You can, as you have described, spend hours, days, weeks-even months-identifying opportunities, mapping existing services and supports, and developing the best strategy possible only to find yourself unable to implement your strategy. Why?

Generally, too many perspectives were missing from the table when the strategy was developed. That means the strategy itself is lacking. This is not a judgment. It is a considered speculation based on knowledge of management teams. They tend to drive-sell-their solution by getting "buy-in" to their solution.

Theirs is a technical approach ("it's quicker") that bypasses the commitment-building process required with multiple partners ("getting that many people at the table will just take forever"). Unfortunately, it is the commitment building process that identifies the extent of the adaptive challenge(s) that the community will face.

No single leader directs. We are each leaders in this work, and as such, we require a "learning strategy." We each have to have the courage to engage each other in confronting our values, learning new habits, and taking responsibility without waiting for someone to ask us to do so.

In short, the prevailing notion that leadership consists of having a vision and aligning people with that vision is bankrupt because it continues to treat adaptive situations as if they were technical: the authority figure is supposed to divine where the company is going, and the people are supposed to follow. (Harvard Business Review on Leadership, page 196).

Adaptive solutions require members of the collaborative to take responsibility for the problem-solving situations that face them. If the desired result is a broader community-based service delivery system, then those many diverse members of the community must join you and your partners at the table. You must ensure that the managers and/or management teams involve all the people who will have to do the changing. If you (as a community) fail to invest your time and soul into this process from the beginning, you probably will not be successful. There are no short-cuts.

 

• You convene a group that reflects your community in number and diversity.

• You make a commitment to your personal change and to the work you develop as a group.

• To put closure to your commitment, you assign tasks and deadlines.

• You celebrate your success, or you redesign and make adaptations so that you might try again to achieve resolution.

• You remember that this is an innovative process and commit to keep working until you succeed as a learning community.

The result? New values. New perspectives. New habits. New community-based services that allow children and youth to stay at home and with their families. What could be better?