On Broken Ankles and Leadership Transitions

By: Dave Schrader

In the last 30 years, the business environment hasgrown more complex than ever in our history. The

pace of change (a la Alvin Tofflerʼs “Third Wave”) is oldnews. Now the critical challenge has become

overwhelming complexity.

Overwhelming ComplexityDisruption is the bane of the professional manager’s existence. Thecredo of the professional manager has been order, predictability, andcontrol.With enough planning and forethought, we can make much of ourprocesses into a machine-like consistency. In the old process, disruptionwas a problem to be solved, a problem that should have been avoided.To the person who longs for predictability, this development is notmerely confusing, it’s deeply threatening. It threatens our existingways of making meaning out of what we see in our world, as thepatterns we’ve grown familiar with are up-ended .

We have a Choice. The complexity and unseeninteraction of forces in our business and personal livesare always providing surprising intrusions that donʼt fit

well into our current framework for making sense of theworld. We can ignore them, or we can choose to relax

our grip on our expectations of predictability, and let theinterruptions do their work.

The old ways of solving problems don’twork when confronted with an adaptivechallenge; one must adapt, learn andevolve in order to rise to the occasion.And if the challenge is big enough, it maycall forth a fundamental restructuring ofthe way a leader sees herself, her role,and her world.

We Have a Choice

We Have a ChoiceWe describe this restructuring process asa series of shifts, stepping from “reactive”to “creative” to “integral,” each onebeing a more spacious and openframework for making meaning of theworld and our place in it.Each successive framework is moreexpansive, having the capacity to holdmore variables, more complexity andmore nuance; “either-or” gives way to“both-and.”

Leaders in all sectors need support to shift away froman anxious pursuit of predictability

Predictability, order and control are necessary forthe profitable running of business and society. And

they are becoming a scarce commodity, a rarer andrarer source of comfort.

Only as weʼre “on the way,” can we join our clients intheir journey toward a way of leading that can handlethe complexity, difficulties, and possibilities without

going reactive.

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