Submitted by: Chrissie Bonner, Founder, Illustrating Progress
Our large systems across government, healthcare and education are inundated by adaptive challenges. 
We struggle to keep up with the pace of change; new information, advancements in technology, evolving relationships, and shifting mindsets around our own roles in all of it.
Our leaders need to be experts in constant adaptation and fluent in the practices necessary to build cultures that tap the best awareness, thinking and creativity of everyone in the system.
My colleague, Dr. Nancy Aronson, playfully explains our time as “an age of permanent whitewater” as she walks onto stage in front of 150 leaders in education, wearing a life jacket and holding a paddle.
She asks the audience,“Do you ever feel like you are just waiting for things to slow down?”
And everyone is. 
Our organizations often get stuck in problem-solving mode, struggling to keep up with the pace of technical challenges which may arise from a larger adaptive tension. While not necessarily “quick fixes,” technical challenges are problems with a clear cause and a solution. They can be addressed using available knowledge, data, technology or other resources.
Adaptive challenges, on the other hand, are characterized by complexity and ambiguity and require sustained attention over time. They may be invisible or we may not even be conscious of them. Poverty, healthcare, evolving local and global relationships and shifting mindsets about ourselves, and our identities are elements of adaptive challenges.
To effectively address adaptive challenges, leaders at all levels need to be equipped with frameworks and practical tools to utilize the thinking, skills, and experiences of those around them. They need to be able to shape a culture that fosters learning, self-awareness and creativity.
Graphic recording of a presentation by Dr. Stephen Klasko, President and CEO of Jefferson Health and Thomas Jefferson University. Klasko is outspoken about the need for healthcare to continue to adapt to a changing consumer landscape. He also describes empathy and creativity as critical traits in navigating health challenges, among others. Image provided with permission from Penn Foundation.
For more on Dr. Klasko’s thinking, as well as my illustration work, check out Bless This Mess: A Picture Story About Healthcare in America.(2018)
Fostering more intentional thinking environments through creativity and play are key tools for learning and innovation. But this isn’t a shift that can be made overnight. Leaders have to believe in the value. They must believe in experimentation in order to give people the emotional space to think for themselves.
In our work at Illustrating Progress, we foster and support creative leadership with multi-modality meeting designs, live illustration, and reflection tools to help groups go deep, innovate, plan, and learn together.
Read the full article at illustratingprogress.com.
