Ambidexterity. A Key Element in the Adaptive Zone model.

In my previous article, I've shared on the favorable climate required for adaptive zone (https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/climate-adaptive-zone-allan-cheng/).

Figure 1: The Adaptive Zone model, created by Allan Cheng (linkedin.com/in/allan-cheng88).

The Butterfly Effect

While traversing along the adaptive zone, one self-organized and emerged ("emergence") as what Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann defined as "Indeterminism". This indeterministic effect (a.k.a. frozen accidents) is what rarely been noticeable by people.

“Each of us human beings, for example, is the product of an enormously long sequence of accidents, any of which could have turned out differently.” — Murray Gell-Mann

These random “accidents” are — the little blips that could have gone either way and had they, would have produced a very different kind of world. Source: https://fs.blog/2016/11/frozen-accidents/

For every step of change we take, it is noticeable that some ripple (or domino) effect has taken place. This first-order consequence is visible to the naked eye, usually. However people, in their limited perspective in this first order layer, have not gone beyond the second- and third-order of consequences have given up progressing their steps of change; or worse, didn't even think it is worth the effort of making the first step. I've illustrated this phenomena in the simple diagram below.

It is, then, important for us to recognize the existence of higher order of consequences and take the first step of change in order to 'chance upon' the second and third order of consequences. Imagine, this "butterfly effect" is created by one person. Imagine again, a group of people taking that first step of change collectively.

As a leader, embracing this form of uncertainty and acknowledging that one is not able to foresee the outcome of change is nature. One's life journey is full of "frozen accidents", it is that first step of change (that little blip) that will uncover and activate those "accidents".

Organizational Ambidexterity

In this article, we will further explore how Organizational Ambidexterity is required to traverse seamlessly across the adaptive zone and to encourage indeterministic behaviors.

In the comfort zone, it is more about knowing the known but that doesn't mean it's easy. 'Business-as-usual' has its difficulty too. While, in the adaptive zone, we aim to know the unknowns. This could be achieved with organizational ambidexterity.

Ambidexterity is the ability to develop current situations by optimizing the existing business model while scanning opportunities to reinvent that business model by taking revolutionary risks; when a business is able to tango well between both terrains, it is positioned to achieve rapid and sustainable competitive advantage.

From this standpoint, ambidexterity must be cascaded down to the lower levels in the hierarchy to fully be effective in delivering its peaked effect. The route to ambidexterity begins with the critical change in perception before the change of reality. Therefore, a leader must embrace change as a driver for them to see beyond the horizon and to always be ready to shift gears relevant to the shifting business landscapes. Also, we must be mindful of the two variations in ambidexterity - Structural and Contextual ambidexterity.

Definition of Structural and Contextual ambidexterity

Structural ambidexterity is all about creating separate organisations or structures for different types of activities - organisations that are either solely aligned or solely adaptive, where employees have clear mandates and then they are rewarded accordingly.

Contextual ambidexterity is when individuals make choices between either the exploitation-oriented or the exploration-oriented activities in their daily work. And to allow this, it is necessary for the organisation context to be more flexible, allowing employees to use their own judgement as to how they divide their time between their adaptation-oriented and their alignment-oriented activities.

Source: https://www.london.edu/think/organisational-ambidexterity

In other words, Contextual ambidexterity relates more to A.R.C. Autonomy, Relatedness and Competence where favorable context / atmosphere is built for employees to facilitate ambidexterity (soft play). Structural, on the other hand, is more process or policy driven (hard play).

The Ambidextrous Butterfly

Below Butterfly diagram is a curation of various studies and has been complied as a simple way to understand and visualize ambidexterity - The Ambidextrous Butterfly.

On the outlook, the representation of this butterfly is Structural. The direction in which it wants to fly towards is Contextual. <-- as how the meaning of this sentence is constructed, both structural and contextual ambidexterity is essential for success. For example, the atmosphere to which a person's freedom to decide when and which area to explore or venture, comes with a proper structure for reward and recognition.

On its left wing, it's business-as-usual (a.k.a running the business) where exploitation is encouraged to fully realize the potentials of the existing business or personal strengths (at a personal level). Although short-term, its motive is to execute exploitative innovation to improve current winnings. These exploitative steps create incremental changes that may rippled to what we have called "the butterfly effect".

On the right wing, this is where transforming the business takes place for a mid- to long-term value. The organization or individual then shifts gear from Exploitation to Exploration. Exploratory innovation is exercised to trigger another butterfly effect. This act is similar from one's moving from the comfort zone to the adaptive zone as depicted in figure 1. Similarly, the adaptive climate in figure 1 is naturally fostered by contextual ambidexterity.

What's most important for the butterfly to soar lies in its leadership; ambidextrous leadership.

Ambidextrous Leadership Culture Assessment

First of all, let's us find out if an organization has an ambidextrous leadership culture by rating ourselves in the below table.

Source: Finzi, B., Firth, V. & Lipton, M. (2018). Ambidextrous leadership, Keystone of the undisruptable CEO. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/topics/leadership/ambidextrous-leadership-ceo-traits-in-digital-era.html

CEOs and other C-suite executives who can honestly respond to each of these statements with “Yes! We consistently do this” are likely succeeding in pushing an ambidextrous agenda through their organizations. Kindly contextualize the above questionnaire to your environment.

With an ambidextrous leadership culture, the promise of a new transformation, a new dawn is apt.

Herding the Butterflies

In a myopic view, the ambidextrous butterfly represents a single unit or a single domain. In my humbled opinion, the new age of ambidexterity comes from a herd of butterflies enabling "Cross-Domain" interactions.

With this perspective, one should not limit to be ambidextrous only in their domain. Learning how radical innovations are made possible, by learning from other domains, and integrates those learning to create novel inventions is "cross-domain"; at the same time, interdisciplinary competency is nurtured.

Imagine, what inventions from a science domain can be applied to a business domain?