Julia Gillard’s adaptive challenge?

With just two weeks to the federal election has Julia Gillard realised in time what her adaptive challenge is?  Can she make up the ground lost by being what she now calls her authentic self? The media claim that until recently she was running a so-called safe ‘technical’ campaign which seems to have lost her a lot of following. 

If we compare Julia Gillard’s dilemma to BP’s former CEO Tony Hayward we may see some similarities. Ron Heifetz, in Boss Magazine 10th July 2010, suggested that why Hayward failed was he took a technical approach to an adaptive challenge. Heifetz gave this advice:

  1. There is no substitute for presence: CEO needs to be there to manage the panic, chaos and frustration, and to provide a frame.
  2. Communicate in a way that demonstrates that one understands the difficulty people are going through.
  3. Maintain poise. CEOs have to give people confidence that a situation can be continued, even if they aren’t so confident themselves.
  4. Drive the organisational response.
  5. Frame the adaptive challenge.  Regarding the BP situation Heifetz argues Hayward should have said: “We were over our heads and in deeper water than we should be and I call on my colleagues to slow down deep-ocean work until the proper technology is developed to prevent this happening in the future.” The world is enormously forgiving when people step up to the plate, but this has to happen straight away.  The longer you wait the deeper the hole you dig for yourself, Heifetz said.

We will soon see if Gillard has waited too long.

Administrator