When to adapt

• Use adaptability to respond to unknowns
• Use adaptability to simplify regulation
• Adapt to improve capabilities and options
• Adapt to situations that cannot be controlled
• Adapt in uncertain or volatile situations when time is available
• Open systems require more adaptation
• Be careful when changing things that have been stable for long periods

Increase adaptability

• Expand sensing and monitoring capabilities
• Prioritize the speed of change over management of change
• Match detection and adaption times to the frequency of the operating environment
• Increase drivers of competition, obsolescence, and elimination
• Increase the diversity of resources that flow into the system
• Improve capabilities to use and access diverse resources
• Build new partnerships, resources, and connections
• Increase the size of the population
• Increase the independence of system elements
• Increase skills, experiences, and knowledge
• Increase the gain on positive feedback loops
• Increase diversity in information, perspectives, interpretations, heuristics, and mental models
• Seek out and maintain low-cost options
• Seek out novelty and new experience
• Design for desired average and distribution of outcomes rather than a specific single outcome
• Value connectedness over continuity
• Accept higher error rates and variation
• Add features that allow users to adjust, re-use, refit, convert, scale, or move products
• Incentivize risk taking and experiment
• Develop a growth mentality and belief in self determination
• Fear of blame, criticism, and litigation can paralyze adaptability
• Increase decentralization
• Increase situation assessment

Decentralize

• Implement decentralization by design, rather than philosophy
• Focus on influence, constraint management, and coordination over command and control
• Use more decentralization when facing high complexity, time pressure, and uncertainty
• Support decentralized execution with centralized regulation
• Place decision making capabilities close to areas of uncertainty
• Carefully select and maintain a small number of core processes, rules, and priorities
• Establish and enforce shared ethical and behavioral principles
• State the principles and purposes behind objectives
• Evaluate actions based on conformity to guiding principles
• Ensure both costs and benefits impact decision-makers
• Modify incentives or context to guide behavior
• Place responsibility for rule enforcement and dispute resolution at lower levels
• Provide regular feedback at lower levels
• Build robust feedback mechanisms
• Retain information at lower levels, but allow it to be accessed globally
• Create mechanisms that average and aggregate results
• Provide tools for planning, rather than controlling lower level planning
• Develop mechanisms for controlling nonlinear dynamics
• Design methods for predicting and influencing critical transitions
• Increase information flow and decrease power differences
• Increase discipline and self-accountability
• Encourage face to face communication
• Don’t wholly delegate critical functions
• Emphasize the overall benefits of decentralization over the cost of occasional abuse