Policy and Practice February 2019

NATALIE: Why did APHSA embark on this adaptive journey to create the OE practice? PHIL: First and foremost, we believe that our member organiza- tions and the workforce within them are the driving force behind achieving desired outcomes, so it’s important to help them reach their potential to best help the people and communi- ties they serve. When OE was created, we already had respected leader- ship training in place, but we knew the transfer from training to actual practice was low. We also knew that traditional classroom training, outside of more routine skill-building efforts, is not very effective in building up orga- nizational capacity and performance. In addition, this shift represents a parallel process for the way we aspire to engage the families and communi- ties we serve. Instead of delivering fixed benefits and supports, we work with families and communities to discover the root causes between them and what they see as the desired state, and customize from there. NATALIE: What would you say are the primary leadership qualities that have moved OE from an idea to a practice that has been used for more than 120 projects in more than 30 states? PHIL: Four qualities come to mind… and these are the adaptive leadership qualities we seek to embed within agencies. The first is humility. Leaders tend to be conditioned that to be a good leader you have to know the answers. But opening up to people and saying “I don’t know the answers” is actually more important when searching for solutions that aren’t known. The second is the capacity for critical thinking—even if I don’t know the answers, I know how to think and work my way to them systematically. OE helps people do this. The third quality is an “empowerment mind- sight.” I don’t know the answers, but I know how to mobilize people who will help me discover those answers. The fourth is a drive for continuous quality improvement. This mindset says, “we’re never done with growing, learning, and improving what we do, and we’ll always look back on how

NATALIE: If adaptive leadership is an approach to change where the solutions are not known, how does this relate to APHSA’s OE practice? PHIL: In 2004, when the OE practice was created, we didn’t know what adaptive leadership was. It turns out that the essence of what we do is adaptive system change. The OE practice does not come in with solutions to the problems agencies are facing. Rather, it helps leaders find those solutions through what we have termed the DAPIM process. The DAPIM™ (Define, Assess, Plan, Implement, and Monitor) model is a process of discovery that facilitates groups to d efine their desired state, a ssess related strengths and gaps, identify the root causes that suggest solutions deep beneath any symptom fixes, and then establishes p lanning, i mplementation, and m onitoring methods to help these groups learn and adjust their thinking and solu- tions. Through DAPIM and other tools we employ, the OE practice helps to establish the makings of a learning organization that generates evidence, versus looking for solutions in evidence and just plugging them into their systems, which we find results in lower adaptability, sustainability, and buy-in.

we did things in the past, and how imperfect and flawed we were.” This mentality has driven the evolution of OE practice over the years. We used to joke among ourselves that our practice was bad, and that’s what kept us going, using each practice innovation as the baseline to make OE even better. NATALIE: So how has OE itself adapted throughout its existence? PHIL: From 2004–2006, our practice was literally a pile of papers consisting of tools and templates we were developing for actual clients to meet their needs. While drawing deeply from existing research on organizational development, we were strengthening what worked and changing what didn’t work in a “learning by doing” mode. Then in late 2006, a state’s local direc- tors’ association asked us to create a virtual consulting tool that would be accessible without our literal involve- ment. That effort didn’t succeed, but it yielded the DAPIMmodel and method. In 2007, a state’s SNAP program asked us to teach OE to 20 or so internal managers to be ongoing facilitators, and that’s when we created our first OE Handbook. From 2007–2012 we “re-versioned” that handbook four more times, developing new tools and strengthening the practice through each iteration. Along the way and since then, we’ve linked OE to broadly adopted efforts for logic modeling, practice models, and more recently, Value Curve progression. NATALIE: Phil you mentioned the Value Curve (VC). How do adaptive leadership principles and Value Curve progression link together, or do they? PHIL: We find, when working with agencies on VC progression, that it's easier for them to improve themselves through stages 1 and 2 because the means for doing so are more technical in nature. Stages 3 and 4 require adaptive leadership and system change because at these stages, agencies are working with families to solve problems at the root-cause level, and with partners at the community level to solve problems that are bigger than the family. These efforts are more adaptive in nature.

NatalieWilliams is an OE Consultant at APHSA.

Phil Basso is the Director of Organizational Effectiveness at APHSA.

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