The Adaptive Organization (5/4/2009 by TQM Doctor)
From a Piagetian perspective, adaptive leadership theory is composed of the two major concepts of the taking-in of information: (assimilation) and internal change (accommodation) influenced by the new information (Hogan, 2008). With assimilation, the learner makes sense of the new information within an existing framework of knowledge. Conversely, when a learner accommodates new information, ideas, beliefs, and attitudes change to make sense of the information. Hogan describes leadership as the ability to assimilate and accommodate adaptive leadership.
Beer (1987) describes the model and outline of an adaptive organization as shaped by the environment to be flexible, rather than stable. Leadership and the corresponding culture of an adaptive organization positively correlate to the ability of the organization to learn (Chang & Lee, 2007). The adaptive organization usually has fewer people where the employees act with greater empowerment. The processes, framework, and management modes of the adaptive organization encourage greater participation and flexibility. Information that management usually does not share in other types of companies, flows to the lowest levels of the adaptive organization where employees at all levels make business decisions relevant to their own responsibilities and specialties.
Weick and Sutcliffe (2001) use the high reliability organization (HRO) as an example for highly adaptive organizations. With examples like nuclear aircraft carriers, nuclear power plants, and airlines, the authors reason that modeling the practices of HROs will help other companies learn how to become flexible enough to respond to unplanned situations. In researching HROs, Weick and Sutcliffe defined the five distinct attributes of an HRO as: (a) focusing on failure, (b) the use of rich interpretations when attempting to understand failure situations, (c) frontline focus, (d) resilience dedication, and (e) the ability to rely on specialized talent rather than management roles to solve problems.
Focus on failure. Companies that focus on failures learn from failures (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001). In a general sense, any organization with a philosophy of continuous improvement is a learning organization (Ryan & Moss, 2005). Therefore, learning organizations focusing on failure continually consider what may occur, is occurring, and has occurred in an attempt to formulate contingencies to increase the adaptability of the organization. The focus on failures is also a focus on the small and almost failures (Weick & Sutcliffe). Adaptive organizations take advantage of the all failures in an attempt to learn where they can improve their contingency systems to prevent any size of future failure.
Use of rich interpretations. Adaptive organizations should also be reluctant to use less than complete interpretations of failures (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001). One of the tendencies of management is to simplify interpretations of events to a level making the event easy to understand. The HRO and adaptive organization recognize that understanding a situation completely— even the subtleties—is important in formulating the most effective contingency. Therefore, these organizations use the most complete picture of a situation when planning future contingencies and remaining adaptive.
Frontline focus. One of the areas adaptive organizations spend most time is on understanding and improving is the operation processes, or the frontline of the organization (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001). The frontline processes, like sales, manufacturing, and returns of failed product, provide valuable information on the overall health of an organization in addition to clues leading to improvement opportunities. Flaws in the processes relating to defect reporting, supervision, training, safety procedures, certification, and the identification of hazards provide clues to possible future failures that adaptive organizations can prevent. Focusing on the frontline operations is an important method of finding future failures and implementing strategies that prevent the failures before they occur.
Using a manufacturing perspective, organizations can achieve flexibility in volume, product, and delivery by implementing lean manufacturing principles (Vokurka, Lummus, & Krumwiede, 2007). Even though the overriding theme of lean is the reduction of waste (Lee, 2008), organizations evaluate and implement process improvements with a focus of creating value for the customer (Widner, & Gallant, 2008). Assuming adaptability to customer demand is valuable, lean manufacturing principles provide guidance for the adaptive organization.
Resilience dedication. Adaptive organizations understand their efforts to prevent failures will never be perfect and that failures will occur (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001). Therefore, they must ensure they have resilience to failures. Resilience is a combination of quick responses focused on minimizing the size of errors and establishing workarounds, allowing the organization to continue functioning in the midst of a failure. Therefore, adaptive organizations focus on enhancing their ability to solve problems quickly.
Role vs. experience. An important element in solving problems quickly is getting the right person to make the decisions during a crisis (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001). Adaptive organizations involve the correct people by ignoring the management hierarchy and finding the individual with the right experience, no matter his or her rank within the organization. The role of management in crises is to be available for the expert and to provide whatever organizational support the expert requires to address the problem.
References
Beer, M. (1987). Revitalizing organizations: Change process and emergent model. Academy of Management Executive, 1 (1), 51-55.
Chang, S.-C., & Lee, M.-S. (2007). A study on relationship among leadership, organizational culture, the operation of learning organization and employees' job satisfaction. The Learning Organization, 14 (2), 155.
Hogan, T. J. (2008). The adaptive leadership maturity model. Organization Development Journal, 26 (1), 55-61.
Lee, Q. (2008). Lean manufacturing essentials. Management Services, 52 (2), 46-47.
Ryan, C., & Moss, S., E. (2005). Total quality management implementation: The "core" strategy. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 4, 61.