AL for Local Governance

I. Diagnose the system

1. Be ready to observe and interpret before intervening

2. Diagnose the system itself

2.1. Appreciate the elegance and tenacity of the status quo

2.2. Discover structural implications

2.3. Surface cultural norms and forces

2.4. Recognize default interpretations and behavior

3. Diagnose the adaptive challenge

3.1. Determine the technical and adaptive elements

3.2. Listen to the song beneath the words

3.3. Distinguish the challenge from four archetypes

4. Diagnose the political landscape

4.1. Uncover values driving behavior

4.2. Acknowledge loyalties

4.3. Name the losses at risk

4.4. Realize hidden alliances

5. Understand the qualities that makes an organization adaptive

5.1. Name the elephants in the room

5.2. Share responsibility for the organization’s future

5.3. Value independent judgment

5.4. Build leadership capacity

5.5. Institutionalize reflection and continuous learning

III. See yourself as a system

1. Identify who you are

1.1. Identify your many identities

1.2. Identify your loyalties

1.3. Prioritize your loyalties

1.4. Name your unspeakable loyalties

2. Know your tuning

2.1. Know your triggers

2.2. Pay attention to your hungers and others’ expectations

3. Broaden your bandwidth

3.1. Discover your tolerances

4. Understand your roles

4.1. What roles do you play?

4.2. Identify your scope of authority

5. Articulate your purposes

5.1. Prioritize your purposes

5.2. Test the story you tell yourself

II. Mobilize the system

1. Make interpretations

1.1. Notice when people are moving toward technical or adaptive interpretations

1.2. Reframe the group’s default interpretations

1.3. Generate multiple interpretations

1.4. Audition your ideas

1.5. Generate a diversity of interpretations

2. Design effective interventions

2.1. Get on the balcony

2.2. Determine the ripeness of the issue in the system

2.3. Ask “Who am I in this picture?”

2.4. Think hard about your framing

2.5. Hold steady

2.6. Analyze the factions that begin to emerge

2.7. Keep the work at the center of people’s attention

3. Act politically

3.1. Expand your informal authority

3.2. Find allies

3.3. Stay connected on the opposition

3.4. Manage authority figures

3.5. Take responsibility for casualties

3.6. Protect and engage the voices of dissent

4. Orchestrate the conflict

4.1. Create a holding environment

4.2. Select participants

4.3. Regulate the heat

4.4. Give the work back

5. Build an adaptive culture

5.1. Make naming elephants the norm

5.2. Nurture shared responsibility for the organization

5.3. Encourage independent judgment

5.4. Develop leadership capacity

5.5. Institutionalize reflection & continuous learning

IV. Deploy yourself

1. Stay connected to your purposes

1.1. Negotiate the ethics of leadership and purpose

1.2. Keep purposes alive

1.3. Negotiate your purposes

1.4. Integrate your ambitions and aspirations

1.5. Avoid common traps

2. Engage courageously

2.1. Get past the past

2.2. Lean into your incompetence

2.3. Fall in love with tough decisions

2.4. Get permission to fail

2.5. Build the stomach for the journey

3. Inspire people

3.1. Be with your audience

3.2. Speak from the heart

4. Run experiments

4.1. Take more risks

4.2. Exceed your authority

4.3. Turn up the heat

4.4. Name your piece of the mess

4.5. Display your own incompetence

5. Thrive

5.1. Grow your personal support network

5.2. Create a personal holding environment

5.3. Renew yourself