Question

What is an adaptive challenge and why does it require leadership in order to work on it?

What do Heifets and Laurie mean by “Balcony Perspective? Additionally, what do authors say about the dance floor?

Answer 1

An adaptive challenge refers to the cultural, racial, economical and societal issues that are very sensitive, especially in a metropolitan make-up where people from different backgrounds live together. Adaptive problems are unpredictable, fluid, complex and ambiguous. So, finding a solution needs attitude change, change in belief system, change in the mind-set etc. The leader needs huge amount of people skill in order to negotiate with all the different parties concerned and persuade them for a solution.

Balcony perspective suggests that leaders should distance themselves from the action to see the patterns of the actions and identify problems and solution. This requires someone to become a third person thus not connecting directly to the problem, instead moving back and forth in order to connect things better to identify viable solutions.

Dance room perspective suggests that the leader participates in the dance or action directly thus missing out on the dancing experience because their focus would be on their partner’s move and other dancers in the room thus focusing on not colliding with other dancers. One will be inside the problem thus will find it difficult to find solutions. This is where the authors suggested one to move to the balcony to have a clear picture of everyone’s action