How to master the art of creating the ‘Adaptive Spaces’ that enable innovations to spread – with Prof Mary Uhl-Bien

Deepen your skills for enabling change and innovation to flourish in your organization.

Q (https://q.health.org.uk/) is delighted to welcome back Prof Mary Uhl-Bien, a leading pioneer internationally in complexity thinking and practice. One regional healthcare leader who participated in the last Q Community Zoom with Mary said it was “incredible to participate in!” (and it’s the most popular video on the Q Community’s YouTube channel).

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Mary’s decade-long research program focused on uncovering the key sources and mechanisms that enable innovation, transformation and change – including in hospitals and across health systems. A framework was developed from these lessons for how best to support new forms of leadership for adaptability and organisational agility.

This research found that successful innovations emerge from informal/entrepreneurial networks but must be supported and developed in (temporary) ‘Adaptive spaces’ if they are to fulfil their potential for transforming formal bureaucratic organisations (like the NHS, as well as other public and private sector organisations).

Tools including Labs, Liberating Structures, Design Thinking, Adaptive Salons and Summits and Positive Deviance can help us create these vital ‘Adaptive spaces’.

In this Zoom Mary will focus on the practical steps we need to take to effectively initiate and support these ‘Adaptive Spaces’ – as well as the new ‘Enabling Leadership’ needed to help them function effectively, complementing the current leadership approaches.

Important preparation for this Zoom…
This will not be an introductory overview of Mary’s framework: please familiarise yourself with the basic framework before this Zoom session (eg watch Mary’s 2018 Q community Zoom video: ‘How ‘Adaptive Spaces’ enable innovation in healthcare and beyond‘).

Reading matter includes:

Great short (5 pg.) article: ‘Complexity Leadership Theory: Shifting from Human Capital to Social Capital‘ (People + Strategy, 2016) – open access.

If you have more time: ‘How to Catalyse Innovation in Your Organisation’ (Sloan Management Review, 2017 – open), co-authored with organisational network analysis pioneer Prof Rob Cross and others, highlights the three network roles that are key to catalysing emergent innovation.

Also recommended: ‘Complexity leadership: Enabling people and organizations for adaptability‘ appears in Organizational Dynamics (2017) – closed access.

Bio
Mary Uhl-Bien is the BNSF Railway Endowed Professor of Leadership at the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University. She is an expert on complexity leadership, relational leadership, and followership. She is active in executive education nationally and internationally and has taught for the Brookings Institute and the Gallup Organization.