3 DYNAMICS FOR HIGH AMPERAGE LEADERSHIP
/Adaptive management paradigms (AMPs!) helped me think about the different toolkits needed for local and global management practice. The two contexts seem to be different, requiring different emphases. This became challenging when designing two MBA programs in the Caribbean. One aimed at international healthcare practitioners with significant prior experience working online from essentially anywhere in the world. The second focused on international business in the context of the Eastern Caribbean for private-sector people with more limited prior experience, but also able to work online from anywhere in the world.
Both “local” and "global" meant different things. Both were MBAs, requiring experience – but the texture and outcomes seemed very different. So AMPs seemed like a good idea.
AMPs recognize that every target is moving, yet we use “snapshots” of information to manage situations. More than ever, organizations are in constant movement – for every decision, the organization may be in a new place. (See missional GPS) This is a bridging strategy – both across time, but also between the local and the global.
At least three dimensions of AMPs need explanation. AMPs are:
Contextually dynamic: both local and global arenas outside the organization affect activities. For a business, the industry and the market loom large.
Transactionally dynamic: each managing/leading transaction has its own set of complexities. A management transaction is the lowest common denominator in functional management. It is simply any action between two individuals which contributes to a result aimed at a common objective in an organizational environment of some kind. As these add up an organization should demonstrate performance, adherence to mission/business and responsiveness to its meaningful Outside [external results]. Management transactions generally occur within the organization, but should be aimed outside.
Situationally dynamic: each set of transactions carried out in local/global contexts change with the situation. The contextual dynamic forms the backdrop, each action is transactionally dynamic, but the situation dynamics shape the outcomes irrevocably.
Essentially this is change management. We hear often that a group “is resistant to change” or that an organization, waking from sleepy complacency, now needs “change management”. The simple truth for nearly any organization, at nearly any point in time, is that we as leaders are always exercising change management. Organizations either handle change or stagnate and become irrelevant. All management, and certainly all leadership, is about change, movement and dynamism.
It helps to use our concept of AMPs to sort through change. Try categorizing these three dynamic areas in considering a familiar case. It helps when deciding what you can change, as well as what you cannot. More to the point, use this to remember you are aiming at a moving target while you yourself are moving.
Where will this set of transactions, situation and context move dynamically by next week?
What shape should my AMP take to provide authentic leadership for these followers?
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In Leadership, Management, MBAs & Higher Ed Tags amperage, change agent,change management, functional management, leadership, MBAs & Higher Ed