KAI PODCAST SERIES – FOUNDATION FIVE: PART 4
DH: Dave Harries
IJ: Dr Iwan Jenkins
EF: Eric Kaufmann
DH: [0:00:00.0] Welcome to Part 4 of the KAI Foundation Five Podcast Series, our five part introduction to building better teams and great leaders with the Kirton Adaption Innovation Theory and its supporting inventory.
KAI is the world’s foremost measure for problem solving style. It’s used widely to create cohesive and productive teams and effective leaders. It’s been in use for over 40 years and is supported by a large body of academic research from around the world.
In these five podcasts we want to provide you with an understanding of why KAI is so effective, so powerful and indeed life changing for many teams and team leaders. As Kirton himself said, “The better I know myself, the more I can help others.” Today’s fourth part is entitled “Welcome to the Land of Getting Things Done – The Creative Adaptors” and in it we’re going to be looking specifically at the role and effectiveness of the leaders and team members on the more adaptive end of the KAI inventory, and how vital – but often unrecognised – they are in achieving the goals of teams and organisations.
My name is Dave Harries and joining me from across the Atlantic I have two very distinguished guests to help us understand the role of adaptors.
Dr Iwan Jenkins is a Toronto based KAI certified coach and describes himself as a practitioner of the practical. He understands cognitive theory and complex system science, but more importantly he also knows how to make that theory applicable in today’s business world. In his own words, he turns potential into profit.
Dr Eric Kaufmann is a dedicated leadership educator and scholar. The focus of his work is collegiate leadership education and leadership development with adults in community and volunteer settings. He is Professor Leadership Studies at Virginia Tech and a certified practitioner of KAI.
So thank you both very much joining me. I wonder if I could turn to you first, Iwan. In Episode 3, where we were looking at innovators, we talked about the paradox of structure. I wonder if you could refresh our listeners as to what the paradox of structure is and how that applies to people on the more adaptive end of the scale.
IJ: [0:02:21.6] Thank you, Dave. Kirton refers to the paradox of structure as structure is both enabling and limiting at the same time. Those who have a preference for solving problems creatively through adaption, they prefer to use the structure to the greatest benefit, but the downside is they sometimes stay in the structure too long.
Innovators, they tend to want to destroy structure, to break it, think outside out of the box is the colloquial term, but sometimes they abandon the structures too early.
So today we’re going to be focusing on how creative adaptors solve their problems using structures and what to do when they come up against structures that aren’t useful.
DH: [0:03:10.2] Okay. If I could turn to Eric. Eric, perhaps you could tell us what exactly is a creative adaptor?
EK: [0:03:15.5] I think from the standpoint of someone who is more on the adaptive end of the scale, I really appreciate surfacing some of the structure that I think exists, and looking for ways of it through smaller changes in structure, being intentional about what changes we might make, we can really make progress and advance our problem solving process. So their creativity at times looks a little bit differently because it really takes an approach of assessing the current scenario and whether the small changes that are going to have the most benefit as opposed to dismissing what we currently know about it and really looking to jump further away from our existing structure and culture.
DH: [0:04:04.5] Okay. I’m really keen – as you’ve told us you’re on the slightly more adaptive end of the scale – I’d love to hear later on some examples of your own experience of that and obviously your role as a leadership educator you’re obviously going to have some great examples for us, I’m sure.
I wonder if we could just turn to the issue of solving problems and what that means to a creative adaptor as opposed to an innovator.
EK: [0:04:36.5] I think one of the issues is the problem solving process sometimes is devoid of awareness of structure of limitations. So on a more adaptive end of the scale being this creative adaptor, I end up looking for where the structure can be really helpful. Sometimes it’s a matter of communicating and surfacing what that structure looks like, where there are some sort of boundaries, edges, that we need to be paying attention to, and where we need to expand those or where we need to work within that existing structure in order to solve the problem at hand.
DH: [0:05:14.8] And Iwan, from your point of view, this business of how you approach a problem, how you look at a problem, how you consider problems – is that very different when you’re on the innovative end of the scale in terms of what you’re seeing, what you perceive what’s in front of you when you’re faced with a problem?
IJ: [0:05:31.4] Yes, let’s contrast the two then, and let’s see how adaptors look at a problem and then how innovators look at a problem – because you’ll be able to see then how sometimes the different approaches clash, their anthesis to each other.
So, an adaptor would always look to say if they have a problem, what’s been successful in the past, what can we learn and how can we improve based on our past experience? Normally then things work. It’s low risk.
Innovators, their first intuition then, is to dismiss anything that’s been in the past because we’re always seeking novelty or always looking for a more radical approach even if in the short term those approaches aren’t successful. So one prefers success and risk minimisation. The other one is stimulated by risk and is looking for novelty.
DH: [0:06:24.8] Eric, from your point of view as an adaptor, is that a good summary of the different problems?
EK: [0:06:32.3] Yeah, I think on the more adaptive side, I do tend to be a little more risk averse.
The one thing I would be cautious about is framing it solely on looking only at what worked in the past. I think there is a desire to preserve what worked in the past and really to make sure that we’re not throwing the baby with the bath water – that sort of analogy – that we maintain the things that are working well and really take more of an approach where we hone in on the small opportunity for improvement. Sometimes there can be larger opportunities but I really see my role and approach as one that’s much more focused on a continuous improvement process. I’m always looking for ways to make things better, so I am looking towards the future but it’s in a way that preserves a lot of the good things that we’ve already experienced in the past.
IJ: [0:07:24.5] If I could just add to what Eric said about the adaption preference for making things better, that’s distinguished by the innovator’s preference for making things different. So one focuses on being better, the other focuses on being different and obviously we’re looking for a combination of the two to actually make some radical change that actually works.
DH: [0:07:46.2] So Iwan, what would you say are the benefits of this approach by the creative adaptors?
IJ: [0:07:50.5] Well, the primary benefit is in the short term things work, and there are certain types of problems, certain types of roles, which lend themselves to a more adaptive approach.
For example, if you are flying from London to New York, your preference is always to have (for me anyway, if I’m on the plane) a more adaptive pilot. I don’t want the pilot at 36,000ft saying, “I wonder what happens if I pull this lever.”
I can give you a very personal example. I had brain surgery at one time, and I had a choice of two surgeons. I actually used the KAI theory to decide which of the surgeons to go for, everything else being equal, because I don’t mind a surgeon experimenting with somebody else’s brain, but I’d rather have a surgeon who has a low risk approach, a more adaptive approach to solving my particular problem when it’s high risk.
DH: [0:08:51.3] That’s a very good example, Iwan. I must remember that if I ever have to choose a surgeon.
Eric, tell me about your more personal experience of being an adaptive leader and problem solver. Can you give us some examples of how that actually has worked for you in practice?
EK: [0:09:08.1] Yeah, I think on my end, I end up taking an approach that maybe is a little bit slower and maybe not as obvious upfront in the way that I go about creative tasks and problem solving. As a result, sometimes that doesn’t surface me as the leader of the group. I do tend at times to work in the background and consider how we can take other ideas that have surfaced and make them better. In some ways I do think of myself as a perfectionist, always looking to improve upon something, and so in business terms I might connect that with this notion of total quality management, which was popular for a period of time, but I try to do it in a way that brings other people on board. It’s not an independent relying only on my own ideas, but really saying, “How can we take several ideas, bring them together and have the best possible outcome?”
DH: [0:10:04.2] Is it almost like you have the ability to pick and mix? You can look at all the good ideas that have worked for you and for others, people that you know, or people you’ve read about, and then you take those ideas and try to adapt them for your own purposes?
EK: [0:10:19.4] Certainly, and that’s what I’m trying to do. I don’t rely on my own intellect but I take a deliberate process. Sometimes I might call it a sense making process where I need some time and space in order to process different ideas and consider different perspectives, but it’s not something where I’m relying independently on my own idea generation. Instead I’m trying to sort out where can we take different existing ideas and really improve them in a way that advances whatever the goal is.
DH: [0:10:53.5] And tell me about your approach to rules as well before we leave this subject. Do you see rules as a thing that must be followed or can you be a little bit flexible around them when you need to be?
EK: [0:11:06.5] Rules are a challenge for me. There are times when there are unspoken rules and I really prefer to have those clarified and just be upfront – what is the rule, what exactly that is? I don’t like to break rules necessarily. I’m really conscious about that and so there may be times where someone needs to clarify and give me permission to break the rules. That can be a limiting factor in the problem solving process where to me it’s really important to know what are the rules and not be dismissive of that – where someone on the more innovative side couldn’t care less because it’s not an initial problem to worry about what the rules are. They’ll come up with grand ideas and then figure out later did they fit within the rules? I take the inverse approach.
DH: [0:11:53.5] You mentioned before we came on air a lovely example with a children’s playground near you where a more strict interpretation of the rules actually helped. Tell us about that.
EK: [0:12:05.2] Yeah, it was really fascinating to me. This is an elementary school near my home, a place where my own children went to. They’ve got a playground that’s bounded by a street and some trees line and that has existed for a period of time. So I imagine the scenario was that there were teachers that said, “Stay away from the street. Stay away from the edges of the playground,” but it was really unclear perhaps how far to stay away.
So what you found is students at the school were clustered very close to the playground equipment, really in some ways not taking advantage of the whole playground. They installed a fence around the playground and that really opened up space in the playground for these children to play and create in a way that they didn’t before. The awareness of the clarity of that edge, that fence, really opened up opportunities that didn’t exist before.
So in many ways I really see that as a great example of how structure really is enabling and really building on that idea of paradox of structure because it creates opportunity that perhaps otherwise people were unsure of or shied away from.
DH: [0:13:17.9] So Iwan, that’s a great example, isn’t it, that Eric just gave us where the physical imposition of the rule in a form of a fence actually appeared to help everybody take more advantage of the situation they were in – in this case, using the whole playground.
IJ: [0:13:33.4] This is one of the key things. Structures actually are enabling, and as we will discuss shortly, without structures innovators wouldn’t have a platform to be able to exhibit their version of creativity.
DH: [0:13:48.8] I’ve been dying to ask you, Iwan, to give me some examples of famous creative adaptors. I wonder could you give us a few so we’ve got some exemplars to go on before we move on to the next bit of the discussion?
IJ: [0:14:00.8] Yes, although there’s a word of caution here. As we were hearing earlier from Eric, he tends to want to have time to reflect. He probably wants to have discussions with the group because adaptors are much more orientated to working within a group, coming with a group solution, than innovators who always want to hog the limelight, particularly successful innovators, because they see themselves as mavericks.
As a result of that then, the number of high profile creative adaptors are fewer than you may say about high innovators, in the more recent times anyway, but they do exist. They do exist, and they have had a huge influence on the way the world operates today.
I’ve got three examples for you. The first is Thomas Edison who famously said that genius is 99 per cent perspiration, one per cent inspiration. Most innovators would be thinking that it’s the inverse. For them, it is one per cent perspiration and 99 per cent inspiration from the news. That’s what drives their light bulbs going on, but we know the world now is an Edison world. It’s not his innovative rival, Tesla.
Another example then is Marie Curie who was fastidious in terms of her research in a very organised way. She was also the first woman to become a Nobel prize winner, first person to win two Nobel prizes in different disciplines, and then the third more contemporary example then is Tim Cook – very detail orientated, and in fact you could say when he was brough in by Steve Jobs in the late 90s into Apple, he actually saved Apple because thanks to him there were processes put in place to improve cash flow, improve productivity, which allowed Apple to survive and then be able to deliver the more innovation vision of Jobs.
EK: [0:16:07.5] I would agree with what Iwan offered, noting that often the more creative adaptors end up being overlooked. In fact, we’ve got a recent book – Jim Collins, in his book, ‘Good to Great’ noted that these Level 5 leaders that surfaced in leading great companies often were not in the news. They were not people that someone recognised their name offhand, but they were able to make changes and improvements to the organisation that really allowed them to be successful. So I think that is common.
For me personally, Abraham Lincoln is a great example. That may surprise some people thinking about the changes that Abraham Lincoln brought about, but he really brought people together, and I think a creative adaptor is someone who is going to bring people together, so his focusing on maintaining the structure of the union in the United States, I think really was something that was a priority for him. He certainly worked hard, invested heavily, but he worked through the existing structure. Personally, he had thoughts about slavery and why that needed to change early on, well before he was in politics, but he decided it was really important to work through the structure, eventually working through constitutional amendment rather than just dictating and coercing people to change. Recognise we have a structure and if we can work within that structure, great things can come about.
DH: [0:17:36.2] Iwan, I want to ask you a little bit about the team work aspect of this now and whether you think the innovators could actually operate at all without the adaptors alongside them in the team?
IJ: [0:17:50.6] Well, if you ask innovators, they will say that they could survive just fine and dandy by themselves, thank you. In fact, as Kirton would say, ‘nothing kills innovation faster than too much innovation.’ You’re always looking to do things differently and in the end if it’s an enterprise you may have spectacular growth, but you will crash because you don’t have any cash coming in because you’re not sending out the invoices.
So, in fact, if you look at all the successful organisations – behind every successful innovator, there’s an innovator. In fact, going back to Marie Curie, the reverse shows that behind every successful adaptor, there’s an innovator. Her husband was actually a very high innovator. So innovative in fact that when he crossed the road, he looked the wrong way and was knocked over by a horse and cart and killed.
So there are costs to being high innovators and one of them is if you ignore adaptors your ideas will never see the light of day.
DH: [0:18:54.6] I wonder, Eric, what you think about this fact that the innovators seem to grab all the limelight and indeed have taken the word ‘creativity’ for themselves. We’re talking about creative adaptors today, trying to address that balance because clearly adaptors are creative, but people think that innovators are the creative ones, don’t they? That’s a common misconception.
EK: [0:19:17.3] Yeah, and I’m really cautious about moving forward this idea that the adaptors are only in a supportive role. I think in many cases they do a great job supporting someone who’s on the more innovative side, but I think there’s also a lack of recognition of when someone on the more adaptive end really has been creative. I would say I’ve been guilty of it on my own. I don’t tend to see the things that I surface as something that’s highly creative even when sometimes other people recognise it.
When I applied for my position here at Virginia Tech, I was really interested in the position and so I took ideas that I’d seen other people use, creating portfolios or things, and really set up a document that aligned how I fit with the position and I had copies available to share with people. In my view, I just made some small improvements to what I’d seen other people do, but other people who had actually been in some of the same interviews that I’ve been in in the past said they’d never seen nothing like it. It was very different, and so I had them recognise as something being creative. I think it was and so one of the challenges is that the creative adaptors, we often don’t even recognise our own contributions as being highly creative, and so if we’re not voicing how great this idea is, then it does diminish the awareness and the popularity of the adaptive side of creativity.
DH: [0:20:45.3] So Iwan, I’ll ask you the same question. Why have innovators been allowed to get away with stealing the limelight like this?
IJ: [0:20:54.2] Well, I think in more modern times it’s because innovators tend to be more individual than they are group associated, and our society then tends to be looking for exemplars around individual performance, particularly in the west.
But there are lots of examples that show how in sometimes in quite quiet ways, adaptors are creating structures, not just improving existing structures but creating new structures upon which then innovators can flourish. I’ll give you two examples.
The first of which is around Gregorian chants. Pope Gregory in the 11th Century or so- the Catholic church at the time started to have six or seven Gregorian chants, sometimes more, and because there was no musical notation at the time it would take a novice sometimes a couple of years to learn a chant, and then the novice would go out to the parts of the Catholic world and start to teach others locally. So you can imagine now, he may learn the chant in C Major, but with the passage of time as he was then moved over to the west coast of Ireland to teach the locals how to sing these Gregorian chants, that C Major may have transposed to D Major. And so there you have a completely different chant on the west coast of Ireland versus the centre of Rome.
What Guido d’ Arezzo did is he invented what we now recognise as modern musical notation – staves, notes and so on – and by using that structure he was able then to not only capture the existing chants, but making sure that they were produced to a particular standard and greatly reduce the amount of time it would take for a novice to learn these chants.
As time has gone on, we have people like Bach, we have Mozart, we have the great composers, we have Lennon, McCartney, all of whom are using this structure to create in a more innovative way a musical representation of the way that they see the world and the message they want to communicate.
The second example is going back to Edison. The electricity that we have now distributed to most of the homes and businesses across the world is based on Edison’s model of propagating electricity, and all the cell phones, all the electronic devices, the innovative electronic devices that we have now are based on the fact that we actually can have adaptive electricity at low cost at scale.
DH: [0:23:41.7] So Eric, tell me about the downsides of being a creative adaptor, if indeed you think there are any.
EK: [0:23:47.3] Well, I do think at times working with innovators can be a downside because they can really stress us out. We’re really trying to work within the bounds that we’ve been presented, and the innovators continue to work outside out of those rules and so that can be a challenge. But I think there are times where it is really important to think beyond the existing structure and the rules. I think the creative adaptors can get there, but it takes a little bit more time.
As an example, I’m working with a local group here in my community serving in a leadership role and we have this massive committee structure. It is has existed for a long period of timer. I’m looking for ways that we can remove some of that structure in favour of something that’s more positive, but it’s a little bit slower process and it takes some work to do that. And so being on the more adaptive side, what I’m looking for is what’s the next structure to jump to before I announce that we’re going to remove structure? Sometimes that’s a slower process and at times can be frustrating for someone who sees the need for change. To wait and be patient, I think can be a challenge.
I also do feel sometimes we’re looking to others for ideas and at times not even going ourselves enough credit for what ideas we might have. So I think that’s really important to not be so dependent upon others. I think there are scenarios where someone who is more on the adaptive side and looking for structure can be really creative with the existing structure, but there may be a tendency to rely on others a little bit more so than might be necessary in certain circumstances.
DH: [0:25:34.3] Iwan, before we wrap up this episode, I wonder whether you could talk a little bit about what innovators can do to make the most of their more adaptive colleagues. Have you got some hints and tips for the frustrated innovator?
IJ: [0:25:52.6] I think there are mechanical activities that individuals can do to make the most of their adaptive colleagues, but I think the biggest impact you could have in terms of working with adaptors for greatest mutual benefit is to have a mindset shift, and when you think about adaptors stick the word ‘creative’ in front of that label, so that you think of your colleagues as creative adaptors and recognising that they are 50 per cent of the world. You just happen to be on the 50 per cent where there’s more sunshine and less shadow at the moment, but if you think about having creative adaptive colleagues and how you can work with them to the greatest effect, that to me is the most important impact you can have in the short term.
DH: [0:26:38.3] And Eric, I wonder if I can ask you the same question. As somebody who is on the more adaptive end of the scale, how do you see that interaction between adaptors and innovators, so that they can help each other and work effectively together?
EK: [0:26:52.0] I really appreciate what Iwan shared in terms of appreciating what they have and the creative opportunities. Sometimes what people have highlighted is “Well, we’ll let the innovative folks come up with the ideas and then the more adaptive folks can make them a reality.’ I don’t want to create separation of the process, but instead a shared approach and I think allowing the more adaptive folks to engage in that creative process, I think is really important to get the most of them and I think you can do that in a way that values the contributions.
Probably one of the considerations is making sure that you give them enough time. I think probably at times the more innovative may be frustrated that the adaptive person wants to take time to think about it and ponder. That may be a challenge along the way, but giving them that space, I think is really going to allow them to get the most potential benefit.
EK: [0:27:51.0] I would like to express this in terms of three watch outs that high innovators need to just bear in mind when working with more creatively adaptive colleagues.
No 1 – In terms of their communication method, creative adaptors need time to digest. So don’t rush and provide written documentation and don’t expect people to get it first time. They need time to digest.
No 2 - Compared to innovators, adaptors have a preference for working in groups, so they will want to because it’s the group which is the one who is the keeper of the key around structure and in fact often the keeper of the conscience. So allow the group to have a conversation, don’t just expect individuals to get stuff first time.
No 3 - The third and final thing is if you say the structure is wrong, some adaptors may take that as everything in the past that we have done has been undervalued – which has not been the case, because if you wouldn’t have had a track record of success, you wouldn’t be in the position to have the resources to make the necessary changes. So recognise that the past has been successful and what we’re looking now is shifting the structures because the nature of the problem that we’re facing is shifting as well.
DH: [0:29:10.5] You’ve been listening to the KAI Foundation Five Podcast – Part Four, with our special guests, Dir Iwan Jenkins and Dr Eric Kaufmann.
If you’ve found the discussion interesting, you can find out more about the KAI system and its first class team development potential at www.kaicentre.com. In the meantime, the final part of the KAI Foundation Five Podcast Series ‘Leading Diverse Teams in Uncertain Times’ will be along very soon, where we’ll be pulling together all the strands of the first four parts and discussing why KAI is so applicable and effective in the real world. So please subscribe and keep listening.