Facing Adaptive Challenges (Part 1)

One of my favorite learning engagement tactic is a simple 'pass-the-ball' activity.

In the six years of my doing this activity with various age groups, I have never had an experience like I had two days ago. History was made when 14 'freshers' decided to finish a seemingly difficult challenge in an out-of-the-world time frame of 1 second.

The activity requires 3 simple conditions:
a. Pass the ball from person to person in a sequence
b. Do not drop the ball
c. Commit time & Keep time!

I said 'Simple' right??

When we did this as an energizer post lunch I told them they could commit time. They agreed to finish the challenge in a minute. Best part - they did it in 20 seconds!

As I set a new time frame of 10 seconds, they initially felt it would be impossible but later found that they could successfully do it in 9 seconds.

While, I was closing the day I asked them if they could do it in 5 seconds or lesser. They said NO and we stopped right there.

The next morning they came with a plan to execute and during one of my breaks they finished the activity in 4 seconds! While we broke for lunch, I told them, if they could beat their time and finish the activity in under 2 seconds, they would be the only team in the country/ies (Muscat included) to have done this feat.

What happened next was unexpected. When I got back, they told me they could do it. I said 'Alright, letz wait for the next break.' Right before my coffee break @ 3:15pm I let them have a try at the activity.

And...

Yes! they did it in 1 second! Unbelievable time frame!!

In retrospection I realise that the skills and behaviors displayed by the team was an excellent demo on how we should face 'adaptive challenges'.

An adaptive challenge is where the focus is on making adaptations to thrive in a new environment. Here, giving up or trying the rote method (like we deal with our technical problems) is not an option. This kind of work needs us to learn new ways of dealing with problems. It requires us to learn new behavior, attitudes and skills to solve them.

We also begin to ask 'What else could work??'

“The single most common source of leadership failure we’ve been able to identify—in politics, community life, business, or the nonprofit sector—is that people, especially those in positions of authority, treat adaptive challenges like technical problems.”

– Heifetz & Linsky, Leadership on the Line

                                                                       (to be continued.... )

                       In my next post, the team shares why they were successful. Stay tuned...