Complexity Leadership in Healthcare Organizations, Part II Dr. Mary Uhl-Bien

Complexity Leadership
in Healthcare Organizations, Part II
Dr. Mary Uhl-Bien
Howard Hawks Chair in Business Ethics & Leadership
University of Nebraska
Presented to Plexus
© 2013 Mary Uhl-Bien
Conclusions
 Healthcare needs to respond to complexity
with complexity:
 Loosen the administrative system
 Fuel the entrepreneurial system (and
entrepreneurial leadership)
 Develop the adaptive system (adaptive
leadership and adaptive dynamics) for
emergence
Conclusions: Not “Feel-Good”
• This can feel very disruptive to organizational members.
• Complexity leadership is not a “feel-good” model of
leadership typically seen in leadership theorizing and
practitioner-oriented books.
• Because it goes against traditional understanding of what
leaders do, many will not recognize it as effective
leadership.
Adaptive leaders often feel they are going against
the tide, and it takes great tenacity to withstand the
the tremendous pressures to pull back to equilibrium.
THE COMPLEXITY LEADERSHIP
MODEL
In Organizations, Two Kinds of Systems:
Administrative and Entrepreneurial
 An “administrative” (bureaucratic) system focused on
coordination, efficiency, and rules of order.
 An “entrepreneurial” (emergent) system focused on
generating innovation, novelty and emergence for the
organization.
Administrative System
Entrepreneurial System
Administrative Leadership
and Entrepreneurial Leadership
 Administrative Leadership (top-down) occurs in the administrative
systems and focuses on coordination, efficiency, and rules of
order.
 Entrepreneurial Leadership occurs in the entrepreneurial systems
and focuses on generating new ideas and innovations that can
lead to novel outcomes (new products, services, processes) for
the firm.
Administrative Leadership in
Administrative System
Entrepreneurial Leadership in
Entrepreneurial System
The Key Challenge: Adaptability
 The key challenge is getting these two systems to
work effectively together to produce
sustainability for the firm.
 This can be seen as a problem of adaptability.
 It can also be seen as a problem of “requisite
complexity.”
Requisite Complexity
• “It takes complexity
to beat complexity.”
• Despite this, many
organizations
respond to
complexity with
order.
High
45°
The Chaotic Regime
Variety
of
Stimuli
The Complex Regime
The Ordered Regime
Low
Low
Variety of Responses
High
Suppressing
 When they respond with
order, informal leadership (and
CAS dynamics) needed to
make organizations adaptive
are suppressed.
 This is the response that
predominant leadership
approaches are most often
creating.
Executive Level
Agent
Agent
Agent
CAS
Middle Level
Agent
Agent
Agent
Agent
Agent
CAS
Agent
CAS
Front-Line
Adaptive System
 The adaptive system operates in the productive tension
between administrative and entrepreneurial systems to
foster emergence and adaptability for the firm.
Administrative System
Entrepreneurial System
Adaptive
System
Adaptive Leadership
• Adaptive leadership fosters conditions for emergence
and institutionalizes emergent outcomes into the
organization:
Institutionalization
Emergence
Administrative System
Entrepreneurial System
Productive
Tension
Adaptive Leadership
 Loosening behaviors (i.e., “exploration”)
involve enabling conditions for interaction,
search, experimentation and information
flows.
 Tightening behaviors (i.e., “exploitation”)
involve reducing variance through choice,
execution, standardization, and restricting
information flows.
Complexity Leadership Framework:
Complex Adaptive System
Administrative (top-down)
leadership has loosened up the
administrative system
Adaptive leadership is
enabling emergence for
the organization
Adaptive Leadership
Administrative System
Entrepreneurial System
Emergence
dynamics
are enabled
Informal (bottom-up) leadership is
fueling the entrepreneurial system
Complexity Leadership Framework:
Complex Adaptive System
Administrative (top-down)
leadership has loosened up the
administrative system
Adaptive leadership is
enabling emergence for
the organization
Adaptive Leadership
Administrative System
Entrepreneurial System
Emergence is
institutionalized
into new order
Informal (bottom-up) generative
leadership is fueling the
entrepreneurial system
Adaptive Dynamics
 Adaptive dynamics are often present or trying to be
present in organizations.
 They look like new ideas, innovations, workarounds,
pushback, prosocial rule-breaking, voice.
 They are enabled by entrepreneurial leadership.
 Entrepreneurial leadership helps generate new
ideas and champion them into the system.
 Entrepreneurial leadership contributes to
“bottom-up” emergence in organizations
Emergence (and Suppression)
 When engaged appropriately (e.g., “simple rules”),
administrative constraints channel entrepreneurial
leadership to perform in productive ways.
 Administrators get pressured to change from adaptors
and innovators.
 If administrators regularly turn down these adaptive
requests, the organization “learns” to be not adaptive
(entrepreneurial and adaptive leadership is suppressed
or stifled).