Adaptation: The process by which organisms or organizations change to survive changing conditions. Fortunately, good organizations have one advantage over organisms. They have people who recognize the need for change and can push the organizations to do so. We call them adaptive leaders.

People First, Other Things Second
The topic of adaptive leadership is subject of Raising the Bar, a new book by Don Vandergriff that explores how the U.S. Army is developing new leaders in order to command and lead troops into ever more perilous forms of warfare. On page 68 of his book, Vandergriff, a retired Army major, quotes John Boyd, a controversial but visionary Air Force military strategist who postulated that great militaries are built on three things: “people first, then ideas and finally hardware.” That’s not too different from Jim Collins mantra in Good to Great, which underscores the need for “disciplined people, disciplined thought and disciplined action.” Central to Boyd and Collins—and Vandergriff—is the concept of leadership, adaptive leaders who value people and put them in a position to succeed.

Today’s manager may not be fighting a battle on the streets of Baghdad, but she is struggling in and around riptides of enormous consequence. If you doubt it, think back 15 years. Could you have imagined that the Internet would be the primary source of business communication as well as a leading source of commerce, not to mention a life changing technology for people of all ages? Think back 10 years: Could you have imagined that a start¿up company (Google) formed in a garage and whose only offering was a service to help people find things would be one of the world’s most valued companies? And think back five years: Could you have imagined that do it yourself everything (marketing, entertainment, video, music—you name it) would become so popular that Time magazine would mark 2006 as the year of You?

Managers not only live in this world, they must shape it. Not only their own future but the future of their company depends upon it. And for that reason, Vandergriff’s tome, while intended for the military, has applications for all of us in the civilian sector. At the core of his book is something he calls the Adaptive Course Model, a program of instruction that teaches officers the art and practice of adaptability. Let me itemize a few selections.

Experience. In the adaptive leadership program, the parameters are always changing. Why? Because that’s what today’s armed conflict is all about. The challenge is to prepare an officer for the unexpected. How? By simulating such experiences in the classroom but more especially during physical training on mock battlefields. Emphasis is placed on what Vandergriff describes as making decisions quickly, maintaining situational awareness when all hell breaks loose and developing new tactics for solving emerging problems. These points are vital to any manager working in a fast changing environment, be it product development, marketing, or IT. Things change and you have to be read for that change. Sooner than later.