Alumni Profiles - Navigating Complex Challenges

Intelligence agency manager energizes mandated cultural shift with insights gained through CCL program.

 

"Navigating Complex Challenges was one of the two or three most important professional experiences I've had. It allowed me a number of insights that led me to where I am today."

- Adrian "Zeke" Wolfberg
Director, Knowledge Laboratory Defense Intelligence Agency

Adrian "Zeke" Wolfberg was charged with a daunting task — to lead the cultural transformation of an expansive government agency, characterized by a rigid command-and-control management style, into an innovation-friendly organization that fosters collaboration and fresh ideas. "I had made about a year's worth of progress, and I couldn't see what the next step was."

By attending the Center for Creative Leadership's (CCL^®) Navigating Complex Challenges, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency's Knowledge Laboratory experienced his own shift from problem solver to facilitator, a shift that has enabled Wolfberg to capitalize on the talents and skill sets throughout DIA and energized the innovation process.

"In that first year, I was focused on identifying problems and then finding the techniques to solve the organizational problems; I focused on the negative things that needed to be fixed," Wolfberg says. "After CCL, I was focused on the capabilities of our organization and how they could be improved. It was a big shift in how I viewed my role and what I was doing."

As a part of his mission to transform DIA's work-place culture, Wolfberg has been instrumental in establishing DIA's Crossing Boundaries program, an innovation network gaining recognition for its ability to pool the energy, resources and passion of an ever-changing set of individuals to address complex problems that previously had seemed unsolvable. Navigating Complex Challenges gave him the insights to maximize the efforts he was beginning to set in motion prior to his CCL experience.

Designed for leaders facing an unprecedented challenge with no clearly identified solution, Navigating Complex Challenges emphasizes assessment of a leader's role in handling the challenge and provides techniques for managing the challenge within the context of the organization. After 12 weeks of 360-degree personal and organizational assessments, individual coaching (by telephone) and a three-day in-class course, Wolfberg better understood his role in enabling 8,000 people operating in locations throughout the world to build more productive inter-departmental relationships, without interrupting work flow.

"Through Navigating Complex Challenges, I realized I couldn't look at what I was doing as some abstract social engineering task," he says. "It's really about meeting people where they are, listening to them and taking them as far as you can."

During his Navigating Complex Challenges experience, Wolfberg set several goals pivotal to increasing his effectiveness as a change agent. Rather than attempting to transform people, he now focuses on understanding how others see their world and how those perceptions impact their relationships and performance. Taking a more strategic approach, rather than letting urgency reign, he allows individuals time to grasp and respond to messages or situations. The result: A more effective approach to directing the shift toward an increasingly progressive and collaborative organization that has created a new model for organizational change.

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