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Adaptive leadership is a practice that involves bringing people with you to better diagnose leadership challenges and to find solutions that require us all to learn new knowledge, think differently, and act differently.

Solving complex adaptive problems requires learning and environments where it is safe for the people with whom you are going to solve these problems to be in honest conversation. More than ever, our world demands a holding environment in which difficult conversations can be held, unique and different perspectives can be held simultaneously, and discomfort can be experienced.

Ron Heifetz teaches that a “holding environment consists of any relationship in which one party has the power to hold the attention of another party and facilitate adaptive work.” This one-day workshop will explore the necessary elements of a “holding environment” or, in Heifetz’s words, the “pot to cook in.”

In this intensive experience, we will explore important aspects of the voice of those exercising leadership. We will learn how one holds others in the process of change as they experience resistance, discomfort, loss, and the dangers of experimenting with new perspectives when the stakes are high. In case-in-point exercises, we will reflect on techniques for raising the heat, lowering the heat, and recognizing the importance of staying in the zone of productive disequilibrium as we move towards the right diagnosis and therapy in the work of leadership in front of us.

Learning Objectives
By attending this activity, participants will be able to:

• Describe the difference between technical and adaptive work.
• Describe the difference between leadership and authority.
• Participate in creating elements of a holding environment, allowing productive discourse when facing adaptive challenges.
• Recognize the role of those practicing leadership in holding those experiencing the change and loss in learning new perspectives in adaptive challenges.
• Describe techniques for increasing and decreasing the tension, allowing the most productive discussions to be held as we face challenges in our day-to-day work.