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CHAPTER 4
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Diagnose the System
T
HE FIRST STEP in tackling any adaptive challenge is to get on
the balcony so you can see how your organizational system is
responding to it. Informed by this perspective, you will gain a clearer
view of your company’s structures, culture, and defaults (its habitual
ways of responding to problems). You will grasp the nature of the adap-
tive challenges at hand. You will map the networks of political relation-
ships that will be relevant to how effectively you mobilize people to
deal with that challenge. And you will assess your enterprise’s overall
capacity for adaptation, by considering distinguishing characteristics
of an adaptive organization.
The Elegance and Tenacity of the Status Quo
We start with the assumption that ...