> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://urd.gitbook.io/compass/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://urd.gitbook.io/compass/learning-and-adapting/practising-adaptive-management/creating-an-enabling-environment.md).
# Creating an enabling environment
Adaptive management is not primarily a technical challenge — it is a cultural one. An organisation can have all the right tools and processes in place and still fail to adapt, simply because the people, the team dynamics, or the organisational culture are not ready for it. Before looking at what to do differently during a project, it is worth asking what conditions need to be in place first.
Mercy Corps' research on adaptive management (2015) identifies four components that consistently distinguish organisations that can adapt from those that cannot:
| Cover image |
|---|
| Organisational culture | 2.png |
| People and skills | 3.png |
| Tools and systems | 4.png |
| Enabling environment | 5.png |
{% file src="/files/KtEVxvrc3yv814uYQx7z" %}
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### **Organisational culture**
Enabling adaptation is, above all, a cultural challenge. A few aspects of organisational culture consistently support — or block — adaptive practice:
* **Accepting uncertainty and an appropriate level of risk** — rather than expecting every decision to be backed by complete information
* **Valuing reflection and learning** — giving them real priority, not treating them as optional extras squeezed in when time allows
* **Open communication** — including the willingness to share what did not work, not just what did
* **Facilitating flexibility** — reducing unnecessary friction when a team needs to adjust
* **Accepting error and learning from it** — rather than treating mistakes as something to hide or punish
Leadership plays a decisive role here. Visible signals — how leaders react to bad news, whether they ask "what did we learn?" rather than only "did we deliver?" — shape what staff believe is actually safe to do, regardless of what policy documents say.
***
### **People and skills**
Not everyone responds to uncertainty in the same way. Some general competencies make adaptive practice come more naturally:
* **Curiosity** — a genuine interest in whether one's work is actually achieving its intended results
* **Communication and listening skills** — essential to facilitate a culture of openness and exchange
* **Critical thinking** — the ability to examine, understand and use information critically, rather than relying on opinion
* **Comfort with uncertainty and change** — including the humility to admit what is not known, or when something did not work as planned
* **The capacity to unlearn** — letting go of familiar approaches when the situation calls for something different
* **Exploring new opportunities rather than only exploiting known solutions**
These qualities can be developed, but valuing them at recruitment stage makes a real difference. A short self-assessment exercise — sometimes called an "Adaptability Quotient" — can help individuals and teams reflect on where they stand:
> *Rate yourself from 1 (never) to 5 (always):*
>
> * *I think of new and different ways to achieve my objectives*
> * *I challenge myself to question what I assume I know*
> * *I can change tools or methods without too much complaint*
> * *My core values are clear to me and to my colleagues*
> * *I can easily imagine new uses for old ideas*
> * *I am used to asking for help, and grateful when I receive it*
> * *I enjoy experimenting with new ideas*
> * *I never get too comfortable with success and proactively look for the next challenge*
> * *I see my failures as opportunities to innovate*
Agile staff are sometimes described along four dimensions: they focus on results and impact, they welcome change, they facilitate learning and build relationships, and they learn and improve continuously.
***
### **Team dynamics and leadership**
Adaptive management puts real pressure on teams. Constant change and uncertainty affect people, and the quality of human relationships within a team often matters more than any process or control mechanism.
A team becomes genuinely able to respond to complexity when it can share information openly — including failures — and take decisions without waiting for systematic validation from above. This requires accepting a level of delegated decision-making as close as possible to where the intervention is happening, tolerating measured risk, and allowing space for honest, critical, respectful conversation.
This changes what is expected of a project manager. Many project managers are used to being the central point of coordination — tracking status, reporting upward, controlling execution. In a genuinely adaptive project, the role shifts: the manager moves from the centre of coordination to the service of the team, facilitating collaboration rather than managing it. This is sometimes called **servant leadership** — a role judged primarily by its ability to make others more effective, not by its control over the process.
> *"A group of passengers on a bus is not a team. It can become one if the bus breaks down."* — Jean-Paul Sartre
***
### **Organisation and sector**
Beyond the team, organisational systems and processes (finance, human resources, logistics, supply chain) either reinforce or block adaptive initiatives. Many organisations struggle to adapt not because staff lack the right mindset, but because internal support functions cannot adjust as fast as the intervention needs to.
At the sector level, **donors** play a decisive role, since the behaviour of implementing organisations is strongly shaped by their funding sources. Donor practices that genuinely enable adaptation include allowing decision-making closer to the field, simplifying budget and activity amendment processes, building in crisis modifiers, and accepting a degree of uncertainty about outcomes at the start of a project.
This is a deep, system-level challenge that goes beyond what any single project or organisation can solve alone. For a fuller discussion of what this requires — at individual, team, organisational and sector level (*See the 2020 Groupe URD guide on adaptive management, which remains a useful reference* [Adaptive management](/compass/documentation/adaptive-management.md#general-guidelines-and-tools)).
{% file src="/files/b57U8kIiNkTTHxtuK6PH" %}
***
### **Key points**
* Adaptive management depends on culture, people, tools and an enabling environment, in that order of difficulty to change
* Leadership behaviour, more than policy statements, determines whether staff feel safe to take risks and admit mistakes
* The role of the project manager shifts from coordinator to facilitator, a form of servant leadership
* Organisational systems (finance, HR, logistics) and donor practices either enable or block adaptive practice at a structural level
### **Links and toolbox**
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[Adaptive management](/compass/documentation/adaptive-management.md)
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