LILA ~ Learning Innovations Laboratory at the Harvard Graduate School of Education

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  1. Marga Biller

    Trust – Harnessing the Power of Agency and Belonging

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    People have an inherent need for belonging and agency, which can be fulfilled by trust in different ways. But just what is trust? It is the willingness to be vulnerable—to take a risk—in a relationship based on positive expectations of the trustee. And in the workplace belonging and agency matter because of their impact on job performance, commitment to the organization, and well-being. Mike’s research suggests that feeling trusted and having an opportunity to trust others can increase employees’ sense of belonging and agency. By a wide margin, the three biggest predictors of trust are ability, benevolence and integrity. (There is also trust propensity – a personality trait where someone is more willing to believe that others are reliable – but this can go away.) A few examples of trusting behavior include the supervisor’s willingness to rely on the employee’s skills and abilities, to disclose sensitive information or feelings to the employee, and to reduce monitoring of the employee. What are your thoughts? When have you experienced trust that led to your feeling a sense of agency, belonging and connection?
  2. Marga Biller

    Uniting Through Difference with Rachel Arnett

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    In the first presentation Rachel spoke about the benefits and risks of navigating a minority identity in the workplace.  In this  presentation she spoke about one way to bring attention to a cultural identity in a way that doesn’t necessarily activate bias and exclusion, and can actually activate and increase inclusion. 
  3. Marga Biller

    Agency in the Context of Diversity with Rachel Arnett

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    In her first presentation, Rachel shared some of her work about agency in the context of diversity.  Diversity is increasingly a reality of the workplace, and it brings lots of benefits – we gain new perspectives, we gain access to broader and better talent pools, for example, which helps us to innovate and improve how we do things in organizations. And there are also many challenges for example,  how do we navigate sources of differences.  Rachel’s research explores how the perceived risks and benefits of sharing features and aspects of identity can influence and enhance both individual and collective agency at work.
  4. Marga Biller

    Agency for Unimagined Events

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    Agency and structure matter for how you act but also for what future events you imagine or can’t imagine.  Lets look at reflective agency - when you consider scenarios that could happen, you do so based on your current position and the information available to you at the time which lead you to consider different alternatives and contingency plans.  Pre-reflective agency driven by past experiences, will lead you to take for granted that some aspects of reality will be as they have been in the past – leaving you in the dark about the future.  
  5. Marga Biller

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    What is the impact of multiple interfering change initiatives on employees? During the March LILA Harvard meeting, Rouven Kanitz shared the findings from a 4 year longitudinal qualitative study which revealed key factors that contributed to the harmful outcomes. The values and norms signaled by different initiatives led to negative individual emotional states such as those related to uncertainty (confusion and worry), moral (indignation and shock), and detachment (annoyance and apathy). Individual emotions were later translated into the social network and became collective emotion where a significant number of people were sharing, thinking, and feeling negative emotions. Over time, these negative emotions affected people who then became disengaged. This affected the performance of the change initiatives through delays, requirement of more resources, and departure of senior management.
  6. Marga Biller

    Leadership in Times of Diversity: Astrid Homan

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    What can leaders do to effectively manage diverse teams? If a diverse team is functioning well, what can a leader do to encourage the teams’ continued progress? Or conversely, if a diverse team is embroiled in conflict, how can a leader intervene in order to turn things around? Essentially, which competencies do leaders need in order to adapt and appropriately respond to their teams’ needs?
  7. Marga Biller

    Curiosity Where are You? Spencer Harrison

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    Curiosity is a great source of new ideas, a great source of finding these patterns – and yet the majority of people don’t feel like they have permission to be curious at work. Spencer and his colleagues spent six months creating a new set of measures to assess curiosity. During this process, he and his colleagues identified that there are different types of curiosity. There is productive curiosity – where someone is actively investigating problems that are associated with the work that they’re doing. And unproductive curiosity, where someone is taking a break at work to look at something else – usually sports or social media related and doesn’t have anything to do with work. These two types have different consequences.
  8. Marga Biller

    LILA Theme 2020-2021: System Leadership

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    Each year, LILA focuses collective discussion and exploration around a contemporary theme that optimally encompasses members’ practical interests and illuminates challenges in the larger field of human learning and innovation. A fruitful theme is typically identified by criteria such as its resonance with members’ concerns, its readiness to be explored through multiple, interdisciplinary lenses, and its ability to frame and advance the experimental practices of LILA members. Based on member interviews, the discussions during past gatherings, availability of academic research on the topic, and the current social context, the theme for 2020-2021 is System Leadership – Navigating Complexity at Scale.
  9. Marga Biller

    Navigating Complexity at Scale with Mary Uhl Bien

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    System leadership creates the container that allows solutions to emerge over time. Complexity Leadership is leadership in and of emergence. Emergence is what allows individuals and organizations to adapt and survive. The pressure of survival is the strongest complexity pressure that promotes the most adaptation. Three different types of leadership is required - entrepreneurial leadership, enabling leadership, and operational leadership.

Harvard Graduate School of Education