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Agile Success Pattern: Start with Managers, not Teams

The usual approach to Agile – train & coach teams to move to an Agile process – is backwards. When we approach Agile from a Team Perspective, the role of the manager usually becomes an afterthought. But wait, don’t managers need to learn how to operate with an Agile Mindset along with teams?

Start with Leaders

The usual approach with Agile is to set up autonomous self-organizing teams. The official role for a manager in Scrum – the most popular version of Agile – is nothing. There is no role for a manager. What? No role for managers? Hard to believe, but true.

 “Scrum is designed to disrupt the hierarchy.” – Ken Schwaber, founder of Scrum

Well, it’s doing a very good job disrupting the hierarchy: Version One’s research shows that 45% of organizations report “Lack of Management Support” as a challenge experienced adopting and scaling Agile. Often, their roles become conflicted as they do their best to bridge between the existing power structures and the new Agile ones. It is actually quite mind-boggling what is happening: Managers – who are “in charge” of the organization – are being disenfranchised and then labeled as resistors. 

The process level training such as Scrum or SAFe is meant for teams and products – not for the role of the manager. Teams get specific training and coaching. Managers will be lucky if they have a session that explains the Agile Mindset but, are unlikely to have any significant help making the shift to a new way of working and being.

Start with Managers!

Managers are the leaders of the organizations. They are put in charge of what happens because of their intelligence and experience. What if they were involved and guided the introduction of Agile in ways that actually fit their organizational context? What if they were responsible for modeling the Agile Mindset of learning by running experiments to iteratively and incrementally change the organization? Wow! That would be incredible. An approach like this would put the Agile Mindset at the forefront, as so it would not be skipped. 

What if managers were provided with intensive training and coaching to support their jump to the Agile Mindset? Of course, they would need to learn how to create a healthy environment for Agile, how to evolve the organization and how to lead in a new way. Ultimately, there will be team level training and intensive coaching, but this will happen as managers are able to support the success team transitions.

When consulting with organizations, we have found this to be a very practical and powerful approach we call the “Evolution of High Performance”. We have received extraordinary feedback on our public and private training from managers around the world on how this helps them finally understand their role. They are able to see, not only how they play a key role in the future of the organization, but how to begin operating in alignment with the Agile Mindset.

It’s never too late to start

We have discovered that it is never too late to start with managers. For both in-progress transformations and established Agile organizations, a strong focus on managers is what is often the missing piece for unlocking success and taking growth to the next level. Of course, starting with managers will be the most effective approach, but it’s better late than never.

Managers: How to Get Started

For sure there is a lot to learn for managers discovering how to operate in a new way of working. Here are some practical articles to understand how to operate in the new world of Agile:

Agile Mindset = Journey to High Performance

Do you know Agile Requires a Permanent Shift in Behaviours? That’s what the Agile Mindset is all about.

On the surface, Agile may seem straightforward- we change from one structure/process to another one. Just train and coach people on teams and we are good.

When we look deeper at successful Agile Transformations, we see people learning a new mindset or new ways of being that enable collaboration, engagement, and feeling safe enough to run experiments. Without the behaviour shifts there is no change – only talk or a shallow veneer. This is what we call Wave2Agile – living the Agile Mindset.

How well equipped are we to support others on their journey? 

And where are we on our own journey? Are we modeling the behaviours needed to invite people to join us on such a profound journey of personal and organizational evolution?

It’s easy to blame others for not changing. I often hear frustration, targeted at managers, workers or at teams.

An alternative is for each of us to look at how we can support others.

How we can improve the overall environment or organizational climate? 

Yet the most important, the highest impact change is to shift our own behaviour. Most people have heard: “You can’t change anyone else; you can only change yourself.” And that we do have control over. Are you ready to make the change? Change starts with us.

Agile Mindset – Where do I begin?

Here are some practical tips:

  • The most important starting place is self-awareness. Often we are not even aware of some of our challenges. If you are ready to grow, ask the people you work closely with for your top 3 challenges.
  • Check if you are in any of the common team and organizational change traps that are creating resistance: Selling, telling, convincing, mandating, etc. Learn more here!
  • Check to see how well you are modeling the Agile mindset. Some key behaviours are: Flexible, Open, Respectful, Responsive. Learn more here! 

Shift your behaviour. Hahaha.. Like that is easy. No, you don’t need 10 years of psychotherapy. You are normal, we just end up with unproductive behaviours. We have an accelerated personal growth technique.

Agile Leadership? Model the Agile Mindset

What is Agile Leadership? An Agile Leader is one that 1) Models the Agile Mindset and 2) is able to foster the development of an environment that aligns with Agile. Anyone can be an Agile Leader. It is about how we show up and what we value – not about a formal role such as a manager, Scrum Master, or Agile Coach.

Agile Mindset Definition

What does it mean to model the Agile Mindset?

I have asked this question around the world at Agile Meetups (see image) and the key behaviours that people identify with the Agile Mindset are:

  • Flexible
  • Open
  • Respectful
  • Responsive

When we look back at the Agile Manifesto we can see the key words that point to these behaviours: “learning”, “individuals & interactions, and “responding to change”.

Agile Leadership = Living the Agile Mindset

The work for each of who wishes to be an Agile Leader is to be 100% honest and see where we do and do not live the above behaviours. Our challenge is to overcome our cognitive bias and see exactly when and where during the day we are not living the Agile mindset (behaviour). With this information, we can conduct our own “individual retrospectives” and self-improvement plan.

The unfortunate truth of the Agile Community is that the vast majority of people who self-identify with Agile, do not actually live the Agile Mindset. This “Wave 1 of Agile” – where we do the practices of Agile and talk about the Agile Mindset, yet fail to fully model the behaviours associated with it. The evidence of this is the vast failure rate of “Agile Transformations” where people are mandated to use the Agile framework without being respectful, open, flexible or responsive.

Wave2 of Agile

“Wave 2 of Agile” is about living the Agile Mindset in everything we do. Not just some of the time. Not just when convenient, all of the time, at work and at home. During deadlines, challenging meetings, conversations and relating to people or situations. When we live and model the values of Agile we inspire others to do the same. This is, as I understand it, the true meaning of Agile.

Agile Leadership Defined

An Agile Leader is, by necessity, someone who lives and models the Agile Mindset: Flexible, Open, Respectful and Responsive. This is the bare minimum. Here are some easy checks you can do on your own behaviour to see how you live the Agile Mindset:

  • How do you react when someone doesn’t show up for a meeting? Are you flexible?
  • When someone gives your feedback, how do you react? Are you open?
  • When someone disagrees with your idea or plan, how do you feel? Do you respect other people’s ideas? Do you push for your own ideas?

For many of us, we can easily see there is more we can do to support our own behaviour shift to the Agile Mindset. Starting with ourselves is a key way to become an “Agile Leader”. As we embrace the behaviour and shift our mindset to a more Agile way of being we will create leaders around us. Leaders who lead, inspire others to a new way of being that enables a new way of working.

Want to Learn More?

How To Change Your Organizational Culture

You will learn How to Change Your Organizational Culture. Yes. How to Change Your Culture. It requires effort and focus. And it is possible. I have done it and leaders around the globe have applied this same information to change their culture. What follows below is an outline of the proven steps. I also include pointers to supporting resources.

1. Desire for Growth

The starting place for culture change is desire – a powerful urge to create change. Nothing less than this will result in success. So that is the starting place. Anyone interested in shifting culture needs to look inside to see what is driving them and make sure they have motivation to do the work needed. I used to subscribe to Kotter’s “Sense of Urgency” and even advocate this. I no longer do. It turns out that Urgency linked to fear and a lower level of psychological safety. This inhibits personal and organizational growth. For this key reason, “Desire” is a better choice.

Strong Desire for Growth is Essential

Organizations that have sustained organizational growth over decades see improving as part of everyday work. They invest in growth because it is important. It’s the right thing to do. Not because of urgency.

2. Understand Existing Culture

The next step is to understand your existing culture. But what is Culture? We can define it as “How we do things around here”. I have experimented with a lot of culture models and recommend the two that are proven in terms of simplicity and power. You can use them together to diagnose and your culture and orient for growth. The Sahota Culture Model provides a clear understanding of culture through identification of the interconnected elements that shape culture. It also highlights the need to focus not just on Structures but also on the Consciousness (or Mindset) of a system. We often fall into the trap of focusing on structures (especially process) rather than focus on the people and how they are working together. This model reminds us that it’s really about the consciousness (or mindset), the people, not about the structures or process. The other model that is very powerful is a modified version of the Laloux Culture Model. It may be used to assess where the organization is right now. It also has the tendency to help spark a desire for shifting to a higher performance way of working such as Green or Teal. One key reason to use this model is that it has heaps of case studies and research to support the claims of high performance. It also lines up with many other models and theories of culture and behaviour such as McGregor’s Theory X – Theory Y.

3. Create a Star on the Horizon

The next step is to look at case studies and examples of the kind of company that you want to become. There are lots of great resources such as the book “Reinventing Organizations” or Diverse Paths to High-Performance Organizational Culture. It is a good idea to use these for inspiration. The goal is to create a “Star on the Horizon” that is aligned with the desire for change. Don’t try and copy structures. Copying simply gives you the structures without the shift in culture.

Find Your Own Path.

The secret here is to find your own path. Selecting a path is primarily a function of two things: 1. The existing situation in your organization. We can only grow and evolve from the place we are at. 2. The shared desire of people to create a new future. The desire could just be top leadership, or they may co-create this with people throughout the organization.

4. Culture Grows Locally

A common misconception is that culture change is for the whole organization. It is important to understand that in most organizations culture varies by team, department, and location. It is as unique as each individual manager. So, keep in mind this key point:

Culture is a local phenomenon.

Since it is a local phenomenon, it means that it is possible to make changes locally within your part of the organization. The most common way for culture to grow is Culture Bubbles. Of course, when we do this, there will be culture gaps that create tension and challenges. The key idea for reducing the tension is to Build Culture Adapters. There will be different ways of working and different values inside the bubble and outside the bubble. The adapter idea is to reduce conflict with the rest of the organization by building adapters between the ways of working. It’s a key pattern for creating sustainable culture bubbles.

5. Leaders Go First

Culture is primarily a reflection of Leadership. What happens at the bottom of the organization is a fractal of what happens at the top of the organization. (Thanks to Glenda Eoyang for this wisdom). It is well known that the performance of a team is a direct reflection of their manager – this was proven through validated real-world research almost 20 years ago through the Gallup 12 “Engagement” Questions.

Culture Change is Not Delegable

The way to change culture is for leaders to change how they interact with people and the organizational system. A key concept here is that Organizational Behaviour Follows Leadership Behaviour. A new kind of organizational behaviour way of working requires that leaders behave in a new way of working. So successful transformation requires that Leaders Go First!

6. Leadership Growth is Required

A key lesson in my career is that the Leader is the Limit for Growth. I notice that to create high performance organizational systems, leaders needed to develop themselves as human beings. They needed to grow into the kind of leaders we see in high performance environments. This means inner work cultivating trust, safety, and connection. As leaders we need to get our egos under control so we can develop leaders around us. This is not for the faint of heart. We are talking about developing ourselves not just as leaders but as human beings. Like you, I am on this journey too. I created the 4A’s Conscious Leadership Model to capture the step-by-step approach I have been using to grow myself. It’s a powerful tool to help rewire our unconscious behaviours that are preventing us from showing up as the leader we desire to be. We are so deeply conditioned by society to have behaviours that are contradictory to high performance. Dedicated focus and effort is required to shift our habits and unconscious behaviours.

A learning organization is a place where everyone grows.

Remember the desire for organizational growth in step 1? This is where you need it. Personal growth requires a strong drive to keep up the effort. This is the secret of changing culture: All we need to do is change our behaviour and culture will follow.

It’s a Journey

The above steps are sufficient and necessary for culture change in an organization. What is shared here is the key starting elements for culture change. Or course there are a lot more details on how to do the steps outlined here and even more on supporting the journey.

You Can Do This Regardless of Your Role

Execs, managers and coaches that I have trained have successfully applied what I am sharing here. We are all leaders. We may be a leader because people report to us or we have more seniority or expertise. And we can also be a leader because of how we choose to show up.

You Can Implement This Immediately

Regardless of your role you can chose to show up NOW the way a leader of the future organization would. You have full control over your behaviour.

You don’t need permission, budget or authority.

You don’t need permission, budget or authority to start acting in ways that model high performance behaviour. All of us can shift our local culture immediately. The only limit here is your desire and your investment in developing yourself. It’s a big shift for us as leaders. Sure, we still need to support the development of people around us so that we have leaders at all levels. But this is secondary to growing ourselves to fully model the kind of organizational leader needed for the future organizational culture/organization we wish to create.

Summary

So, here are the six key steps to change your culture:

  1. Desire for Growth
  2. Understand Existing Culture
  3. Create a Star on the Horizon
  4. Grow Culture Locally
  5. Leaders Go First
  6. Leadership Growth is Required

And here are the important tips to keep in mind:

  • It’s a Journey
  • You Can Do This Regardless of Your Role
  • You Can Implement this Immediately
  • You do not need permission, budget or authority

2020 Update: It’s A Journey

It’s been two years now since I wrote the original post. I have come to realize that although the “laws of organizational dynamics” seem obvious to me, it takes time for leaders to adapt to seeing reality as it actually is. One key reason is that it can be difficult for any of us to accept the full responsibility for our role and how we are contributing to the problems we face. Another is that the existing structures and reinforcement mechanism keep people bound in the existing world view. As such a broad or at the very least localized and intense desire to change is needed to overcome the challenges faced.

We have heard from organizations that culture is hard to define and harder to change. It requires changing behaviour. How a leader shows up, how they react during a crisis and what goes on behind closed doors is what creates culture. Culture is defined by behaviour and leaders shape the collective behaviours of an organization.

One of the reasons we moved from Agilitrix to SHIFT314 is to put our work with shifting mindset or consciousness on equal footing with our organizational change work. It’s simply not possible to shift culture without developing people in deep and profound ways.

 

Advice Process for Effective Organizational Decision-Making

The Advice Process allows organizations to balance speed and quality of decisions. Use it to create more engaged and effective workers.

Advice Process Summary

The diagram below summarizes the key points to know about the advice process. There is someone – the decider – who will make a decision on how to move the organization forward. They get input from other people in the organization. That helps get to a better decision. And build relationships. They talk to people with experience making this type of decision, people from different parts of org and level to get perspective and the people impacted.

Advice Process Overview

At the bottom of the diagram, we can see the foundation needed to fully implement the advice process. Use of the advice process also help cultivate these. So we don’t need all of it to be in place to get started.

How to Introduce the Advice Process

I use advice cards to introduce the advice process in a gradual way. As a result, we  may develop the foundation of safety and trust. See: Improve Decision-Making with Advice Cards

Advice Process Slides

Here are the slides I created for my Agile2016 and Agile Toronto 2016.

5 Practices for an Agile Mindset

Excited to share slides from my workshop/talk at PMI Professional Development Symposium in Toronto today. Great group. Great questions. A lot of motivated, caring people in the room today.

Agile Mindset Summary

“Agile is both a set of practices and a mindset. Success lies in understanding both “Doing Agile” as well as “Being Agile”. In this hands-on session, 5 key practices to support an Agile Mindset will be demonstrated so that you have some practical tools use immediately at work. You will also be left with some deeper challenges about what it takes achieve Organizational Agility.”

Slides

Top 2 Tips

high-performance-equal-voicehigh-performance-safety

4A’s Leadership Model – How to Grow Yourself

Want to grow and develop quickly? The 4A’s Leadership Model is a simple and effective process for personal growth. In this post, you will learn how to use it.

Stand in the Truth – A Leadership Model Summary

One can see “Stand in the Truth” as a summary of the 4A’s leadership model. When we stand in the truth we discover what reality really is. In this process we learn about ourselves and discover a path for growth.

Why? Our minds are nothing but reality distortion devices. Our minds are designed to add, delete, distort and confabulate (that means to make up stuff) information. When we stand in the truth, we discover how the model of reality in our head is different from external reality. This process is often discomforting and can be painful since we are very attached to our model of reality. Especially our self-image.

Standing in the truth is an essential practice. When we stand in the truth, we can see to the heart of our challenges. To what is really happening. And from this place we may create lasting solutions. When we are disconnected from the truth of reality, all action and solutions will actually lead to more problems since they will fail to address what is really happening.

While “Stand in the Truth” is fantastic guidance, it is too abstract to help us know what to do. That’s where the 4A’s help us.

4A’s Leadership Model

The 4 A’s Leadership Model is very simple:4A's Leadership Model

  1. Awareness
  2. Acceptance
  3. Aspiration
  4. Ask for help

Each step builds on the earlier step. Let review each one in turn.

Awareness

Awareness means that we have a conscious understanding of a particular personality edge or issue with how we show up. We may notice how our behaviour is not getting us the results we want. Or we may notice when the results are what we don’t want.

Sometimes we may get stuck on this step. Something the issue is so outside of our model of reality that we have a hard time even becoming aware of it.

Example: I am aware that I get attached to my ideas and have a hard time really listening to other people. (This is a true example. I do have an developmental edge around this. It’s better and still a work in progress at times.)

Acceptance

Acceptance means that we accept that the thing we are aware of is actually true. We fully believe it to be true. We accept the truth of the situation and are no longer resisting it. We accept how the behaviour impacts our life including those around us.

The opposite of acceptance is denial. When we are in denial, we are aware of something but we deny the truth of it. we choose to believe something else as true.

Even more dangerous is partial acceptance. We use words like, “I mostly see this, but …” Partial acceptance is not acceptance. It’s a self-deceptive version of denial. We are in denial and we lie to ourselves about this. Why? We are not ready to acknowledge we are in denial. So if you see this, simply become aware of this.

Example: I accept that I get too attached to my ideas. And the more passionate I am about the topic, the more attached I get. So really listening to people about culture and leadership can be challenging for me – it’s either a love-in or I have to struggle to really listen.

Aspiration

Aspiration is what we want for ourself. We might also call this desire. When we connect in with our heart, our gut, our highest self, we get a sense of what we want in our life. It may be the cessation of a negative behaviour or the fostering of an alternate more healthy behaviour. It is our deepest hope for ourselves. This is aspiration.

Example: I aspire to share my ideas without attachment. So that people have freedom to believe or to disagree. I aspire to listen to others fully – especially when they are sharing ways of thinking that are conflicting with my beliefs.

Ask for Help

If we control our thoughts and actions, then we simply go ahead and change the behaviour or personality edge.

If you are like me, you may have some awareness that we don’t control our thoughts and actions. So how do we approach growing and evolving? Ah! We need to approach growth and change differently.

I like to think of the human mind as a complex system. We don’t actually control it. All that we do control is our awareness. And if you have ever tried to meditate, you already know it is really hard to even control awareness. So what to do?

Our work is the first 3 A’s. To have awareness, to stay in acceptance and to be connected with our aspiration. That requires effort and attention.

The 4th A is for Ask for help. If you, like me, want to grow quickly, then the 4th A is the secret sauce.

Ask People for Help

The most common use of “Ask for help” is to ask people around us to help. Pick people you trust. People who care about you as person. Explain to them your awareness and aspiration. Then ask them to help: “Hey, when you see me doing this, will you please let me know in a kind and caring way.”

It turns out that this is very practical. Even though it is hard for us to be self-aware, it is really obvious to others when we are stuck in a personality edge. It’s obvious to them because they need to put up with our behaviour. You may notice how easy it is for you to recognize when other people are exhibiting unhelpful behaviours.

Example: I have a standing invitation with my kids, some friends and some colleagues to let me know if it looks like I am getting too attached to my ideas and not listening to others fully.

Ask the Universe for Help

This is the part where we leave the natural, scientific frame of understanding reality.

There are many ancient wisdom traditions as well as modern ones such as The Secret, hold that the universe is designed to give us what we ask for. So this is the second meaning of Ask for help – to surrender the personality edge (which is outside of our control) to the universe.

One may approach this from a spiritual practice or from a purely logical and pragmatic place. Both are lovely.

In my own personal practice, I connect in my heart centre. To my connection with the universe/creation/divine/higher sacred self. This is a feeling, not a thinking thing. Once connected, it’s can be as simple as sharing intent to surrender of the behaviour.

Example: I accept that my pattern of staying attached to my ideas is not in my control and I ask the universe to alter my unconscious mind so that I stop acting like this.

Start with Awareness

Sometimes people learn this model and are not sure where to start. They say: what should I have awareness around?

One good answer is to focus on awareness.

  • Awareness: I don’t really know what edges I have that are harming my relationships.
  • Acceptance: Yup. I don’t know. I get that I do something not useful since I am human and I see it in other people. So it must be in me too. I just don’t know what it is.
  • Aspiration: I want to learn about my edges so I can be a better leader, parent, etc.
  • Ask for help: Hey, I am working on my awareness. When I do stuff that is creating problems, will you please tell me?

Example: I asked some very good friends to let me know when there was stuff going on that I have no awareness of. I was very surprised to learn how my mind was completely deleting information. It reshaped my reality in good ways.

Example: I have noticed a pattern where all the edges I thought I had worked on in the past are all still there. Just more subtle but just as devastating in impact. So if you need to look for something, look really carefully at what you think has been “resolved”. You may be surprised.

4A’s Leadership Model – Where does it fit?

The 4A’s is a super-light-weight leadership model. It is compact and minimalistic.

Some leadership models have many dimensions of leadership, detailed surveys and reports. This is all truly wonderful stuff and can help increase awareness of our edges.

And all we can really focus on is one or two edges at a time. So just notice what edge is causing you the most problem right now and work on that. If you don’t know, just ask people around you – they will be happy to help.

History of the 4A’s Leadership Model

When I was going through the accreditation process with the Scrum Alliance for the new Certified Agile Leadership program, Peter Green asked me: “What is your leadership model?”

I first responded with what I had included in my submission – the VAST Model (Vulnerability, Authentic connection, Safety and Trust). But that didn’t feel like the full story.

I then shared other things I was doing working with leaders and organizations to help them develop. How I would invite awareness to foster growth.

Lovingly Invite AwarenessThis is so important, I have this on the back of my business card:

I realized that that moment that I was “Unconsciously Competent”. I was competent in leadership development but that I was unconscious of how I did it. This question triggered my reflection on how I help people grow.

The Truth Will Set You FreeThe formulation of the 4A’s came together with input from two good friends, Olaf Lewitz and Marion Willeke, during a magical day in Asheville, NC in the days leading up to Agile 2016 Conference. I had all the bits and pieces, but I needed my friends to help come up with the 4A’s. We did this in a T-shirt shop in about 5 minutes. We were there to custom print the model so I could wear the T-shirt at the conference. Here are the first moments with the T-Shirts. As you can see, the first version had “The truth will set you free” instead of “Stand in the Truth”.

 

4A's Leadership Model With Rainbow

Where Does It Come From?

I made it up based on my own understanding of how I develop myself. When I realized a few years ago that my ability to help others is limited by how I show up, I have been very deliberately developing myself and working through edges. I have learned many things from many traditions and people.

The most significant influence is from the teachings at Oneness University in India – the place where I go to learn and grow. There I learned very deeply how to see the truth of how I am as human being. How my mind works. How reality is perceived. This is where the phrase “Stand in the truth” comes from.

Another key influence is Buddhism. The key phrase that lives in my mind is:

Suffering is caused by resisting reality.

I see standing in the truth as a way to cease resisting reality. As a way to reduce suffering. As a way to begin real and sustainable growth.

Where To Learn More?

The 4A’s is a key part of my ongoing Certified Agile Leadership Training classes. Please join me to learn more about this and other ways of growing ourselves, and our organizations. Attending a Oneness course in India or via livestream is also an excellent option.

10 Secrets of Agile Transformation

Want increased success with your Agile Transformation? Here are the 10 most important Navigation Secrets for Execs and Coaches. In this post, I share key lessons I have learn over years of industry experience.

This presentation came out of a webinar I ran with Maria Matarelli to help generate interest in execs and coaches for my upcoming Certified Agile Leadership Training.

10 Secrets of Navigation

I have worked hard to boil years of learning into the key actions. Enjoy!

  1. Clarify Purpose by asking “Why?”
  2. Focus on Org Goals, not “Agile”
  3. Increase Safety for Leaders
  4. Increase Awareness of Organizational Context
  5. Increase Awareness of Global Context
  6. Clarify Focus of Initiative
  7. Honour Leader’s Freedom to Choose
  8. Build a Shared Understanding of What Culture Is
  9. Clarify Leader’s Role in Transformation
  10. YOU Are the Limit for Transformation
  11. (Bonus) Growth Can Start Anywhere

These collectively may be thought of as a playbook or set of patterns that I have seen emerge with successful Agile transformations. But remember, every situation is different it’s important to adapt and fit to your context.

Slides – 10 Secrets of Agile Transformation

Low Levels of Organizational Awareness

Poll: 50% of Organizations Have a Low Level of Awareness

One very interesting result from a poll is that the level of organizational awareness of how things are actually working is not in very good shape. Surprisingly, a whopping 50% reported Low and 30% reported Average. My conclusion is that org awareness is a key inhibitor for inviting transformation.

Webinar

Where Can I Watch The Webinar?

You can watch the replay of the webinar here.

Where Can I Learn More?

Some of this material is written up in my blog. Many of the slides have links to full articles explaining the concepts so you can learn more that way.

The best way to really understand this stuff is to spend time learning with me. Please join me in a Certified Agile Leadership Training class.  This is a new program by the Scrum Alliance designed to help execs and coaches learn the essentials of navigating Agile transformation and fostering and Agile organization.

 

Organizational Behaviour Follows Leadership Behaviour

One of the most important lessons I have learned over the last few years is that Organizational Behaviour Follows Leadership Behaviour. Lasting improvements can only start with leaders modeling new behaviours. I use this all the time to help leaders choose what they really want for themselves and their organizations.

Current Organization Behaviour is a result of Current Leadership Behaviour

Current org function a reflection of leadershipThink of your organization. It has certain characteristic or properties that determines how well it functions.

Q: Who is responsible and can take credit for how the organization is functioning?

A: The leaders of the organization. They are responsible for the organization and how it is changing over time.

On the left we see an illustration of structured, low-flexibility organization resulting from one kind of leadership and culture.

When we examine culture and leadership closely, we see that they are two sides of the same coin; neither can really be understood by itself. On the one hand, cultural norms define how a given nation or organizations will define leadership—who will get promoted, who will get the attention of followers. On the other hand, it can be argued that the only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture.

– Prof. Edgar Schein, MIT Sloan School of Management

New Organizational Behaviour Requires New Leadership Behaviour

Future Organization Results from Future LeadershipImagine we want a new kind of behaviour in our organization. For example, we want to be more agile – able to be nimble in the market and innovate our products and services to delight our customers and make waves for our competition. The image on the left illustrates this.

Q: What kind of leadership will be required in this new way of working?

A: Different from what we have now!

If we want to have a new way of working, many things will change. In particular, leadership which fosters culture will need to be very different.

Growth Starts with Leaders

Since Organizational Behaviour follows Leadership Behaviour, we can see that leadership is the limit for growth in organizations.

There are only a small number of options around developing an agile organization:

  1. Support leaders on a transformational journey to become the future leaders.
  2. Exit the leadership of the organization and replace them with leaders with the desired mindset/culture. This is exactly what was done with the NUMMI joint venture by GM and Toyota.
  3. Abandon the goal of developing an agile organization.

I don’t see #2 very often in my practice. It does happen, though. Here is a recent article about a CEO who fired his management team in order to shift the culture.

In my own work helping leaders, I always offer a choice between #1 and #3. After all it’s their organization. I used to really want leaders to pick #1, but now I am less attached and focus on creating safety and control for leaders.  And now I have had more leaders pick #1. And helping leaders on this journey is what I am about.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Glenda Eoyang who shared a very important teaching with me when I was in one of her trainings: “The organization is a fractal of the leadership team. Whatever you see in the leadership team, you will see in the organization.”. It also applies to each leader: “Whatever is in the head of a leader, you will see manifested in the leadership team.”

Olaf Lewitz created the wonderful question: “Who is responsible for the current organization?”

Leader is the Limit for Growth

I noticed a pattern early on in my career helping organizations use Agile as a way to grow their capabilities: The Leader is the Limit for Growth.

I am speaking about the most senior person involved in the change initiative: Director, VP, or CEO. How they show up as an individual would determine how far the change initiative could go.

Leadership Characteristics Needed for Growth

What are the qualities that I have seen missing? What is it that limits these leaders?

Here are some questions that we might ask:

  • Do they value people as human beings?
  • Do they trust others?
  • Do they admit mistakes?
  • Do they seek to learn and grow?
  • Do they have humility?
  • Is their ego in check?

If we take these all together we might create a summary as: The Consciousness of the Leader. See also: VAST Model for Leaders.

Leader is the Limit

The more conscious the leadership, the greater the possibility for growth. My Culture Bubble Model, shows how the consciousness of an organization is connected with the governance structures. How the most senior leaders in an organization show up is a key driver for this.

There are two options in any change initiative:

  1. Upgrade structures to match consciousness of the leader.
  2. Co-evolve leaders and structures.

See also related posts:

I Hired You to Fix My Organization – Not Me!

I am often hired by organizations who want me to help them with Agile. The usual requests are to “fix their staff”, “fix their process” or “make people collaborate”. My strategy is to bring the conversation to Doing Agile vs Being Agile dilemma – very early on. If there is interest in looking at “Being Agile”, then they discover that it’s not just about staff. It’s about them. And how they show up.

Then they have a choice: Do they want to start change with themselves? Or just “Roll out Agile”?

How to Express Empathy – Avoid the Traps!

It was the Fall of 2011 and I began to cry as I was reading Brene Brown’s book I thought it was just me. I discovered that at age 42 I was unable to express empathy. This came as a huge shock.

In this post you will learn the common empathy traps that we tend to fall in. Once you know the how to avoid the pitfalls, you’ll be ready to start building your emotional muscles. Fortunately for us, awareness and a little practice goes a long way to improving empathy.

Why care about empathy?

The practice of empathy builds trust and increases safety in your family and work environments. It supports the social fabric required for communication and shared activities. A world with empathy is nurturing and supportive – it creates an environment where people can be creative and take risks.

Empathy Traps (Anti-patterns)

Most of us have a basic understanding of how to express empathy.

The HUGE PROBLEM is that we are really good at BLOCKING EMPATHY to protect ourselves from feeling.

Photo by Sydney Sims on UnsplashImagine someone is in emotional distress. By blocking their emotions from our reality, we can avoid acknowledging and connecting to their pain. In the short run, this is great – we avoid pain. In the long run, we destroy the fabric of our relationships and our environments.

Three common traps and pitfalls are indicated in the diagram below. I am (sadly) an expert in the use of each one and am still working on being authentic and not running these anti-patterns.

Empathy - Pitfalls and Traps

Trap #1: Even Worse – the basic idea here is to compare the person’s problem with someone else’s problem that is even much bigger. On the surface this may seem like we’re helping them: we’re letting them know that their problem is not that substantial and that surely this will help them see how unimportant it really is. What we are really doing is that we are saying that their problem and feelings are invalid or unworthy. Brene calls this “stacking the deck” and give this example from being trumped in cards: “I’ll see your ‘drunk mother’ and raise you a ‘drug-addict sister'”

Trap #2: Look on the Bright Side – in this approach we ask people to focus on the positive outcome of the situation. Remember the saying “Every cloud has a silver lining?” or “The glass isn’t half empty, it’s half full.”  While I believe strongly in both of these statements and the related NLP technique of reframing, these have no place whatsoever when seeking to express empathy. When we focus on the positive, rather than acknowledge a person’s feelings, we ignore and dismiss them as unimportant. The net result is that we invalidate the other person. Hint: once someone feels fully heard and supported in their emotion, it maybe it may be appropriate and helpful to help them see the bright side.

Trap #3: Problem Solving – rather than be with the person in an emotion, we immediately jump to problem solving mode: How can we fix this problem? Typically, we start by assuming the person has invited us to solve their problem by telling us about their situation. (Why else would they tell us?) With this trap, we avoid acknowledging or recognizing the emotion and keep it just to the facts of the situation. We discuss how the situation came to be so it can be avoided in the future.

What to do about this?

  • Notice when you are running these anti-patterns and STOP TALKING. Saying nothing is much better than falling in these traps. Rewind the conversation if you need to. It’s never too late to go back.
  • Be kind to yourself. You are human like the rest of us. You’ve probably been running these patterns for years and years – it’ll take time to get better.
  • Take a deep breath and practice your empathy muscles. Yes! You can learn these skills. See below for one way to do this.

Four Elements of Empathy

The following infographic show four elements of empathy as defined by Theresa Wiseman:

Four Elements of Empathy

These are:

  1. See their World – to be able to see the world as others see it. This mean that you cognitively understand what they are saying and can see it from their point of view.
  2. Appreciate them as Human Beings / No-Judgement – to be nonjudgmental. I have restated the original “non-judgmental” in the positive, so it provides an actionable checklist. Judgement is actually another trap. We go into judgement to discount the persons situation so that we can avoid experiencing their pain. For us to express empathy, we need to see the person as a human being – someone who is valuable in their own right. Warning: this can be very difficult to overcome. I have an upcoming post on the “Anatomy of Peace” that will help clarify.
  3. Understand Feelings – to understand another person’s feelings. We need to get in touch with our emotions in order to truly connect with another person’s feelings. There is lots of brain research on mirror neurons and how we are neurologically wired to relate to other human beings. A common reason to skip this element of empathy is that we don’t have our own emotions sorted out. So, you may need to do some of your own mental housekeeping in order to be in a place where you can acknowledge other people’s feelings.
  4. Communicate Understanding – to communicate your understanding of that person’s feelings. The final element is that someone feels like they are understood – that they are seen and heard. This part for me has been a real struggle since I often don’t know what to say. Here is a great phrase from Brene Brown that can be used verbatim or as a starting point: “It sounds like you are in a hard place now. Tell me more about it.”

My Experiences with Empathy

It has been a little over a year since I developed a clear intent to increase my practice of empathy.

The good news is that I am much better at it. Over the last year, I have seen many people touched by the simple act of listening and just being there for them. It is so simple and so powerful.

The bad news is that I still struggle at times. I respond without thinking. Or my own feelings or wounds interfere with my ability to see someone else as a valuable human being. Continued and persistent success with empathy requires higher levels awareness of ourselves as well as healing of past trauma.

The ugly news for us a society is that the empathy deficit is very large. I have noticed that it is commonplace for people to avoid emotions and empathy altogether. Many are lacking empathy skills and, far worse, not even aware that they are missing.

I encourage you to make a difference in the world. Practice empathy on your own and tell others about how they can too.

Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to Brene Brown for creating such a wonderful book – I thought it was just me (but it isn’t) – it has helped me in so many ways. The subtitle of the book is “Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame”, but men are in just as desperate need for reclaiming empathy and courage in a culture of shame.

Thanks to my dear friend Olaf Lewitz who suggested I read Brene’s book which has launched me on a tidal wave of change. I would also like to thank Pierre Lagacé and my “Gifts of Imperfection” meetup group for a chance practice empathy.

Update 2020: What I Learned Since I wrote The Original Post

As I look back on this work, I realize the most important part of growth is not just learning what good looks like but learning how to identify the traps and challenges that often go without notice.

The other, perhaps more profound learning is that empathy is “table stakes” or a basic requirement for human relationships. I have learned that it is an effective steppingstone to start the journey towards compassion.

The journey for me has been to walk through my own darkness so that I am comfortable with myself. It is only from that place, that I can be comfortable with the darkness, the challenge, the hurt in others. I find I no longer need to block my feelings and experience a genuine response of care for others when they are in suffering. For me today, crying is not a shock, it’s a happening that is welcome. Empathy is a way of being, I have an ability to hold a person, without expectations or trying to do it “right”. My heart is more open to express authentic connection.

To quote Nickelback:

“If everyone cared and nobody cried

If everyone loved and nobody lied

If everyone shared and swallowed their pride

Then we’d see the day when nobody died

… I’m Alive”

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