Category Archives: leadership

Change: “You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”

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This is a quote by Wayne Gretzky.
I am flying to Canada now. And I like hockey.

Today the quote reminds me of how hard change is.

To make any change happen in an organization is hard.  Takes a lot of energy.  Takes a willingness to miss a shot, to make a mistake, as Gretzky says.  That takes guts.  Most people don’t have guts for things they don’t really really care about.

Why is it so hard?

First, I think organizations are mainly there to remain ‘static’.  A company is there to preserve the situation.  Yes, yes, of course any corporation is building things or providing services for its customers.  So, a kind of change is happening all the time.

But the main idea of the corporation is to assure that the basics are there every day.  Regular, unchanging.  The building is there, its warm (or cool), the lights are on, the processes are known, you know who to go to, etc, etc.  The same.  Every day.  Despite all the other things in the world that are changing.

And people want that.  They need that stability.

Second.  While people actually like some change, some degree of variety, still…

Still they don’t want to be changed.  They don’t want to be the helpless pawn of some brilliant change that I (the great and wonderful Oz) am bringing them.  No one wants to be a helpless pawn.

Also, there is too much change these days.  People are tired of it.  Why was everything stupid yesterday, and today, again for the 1000th time, we must change everything?  Too much (damn) change!  Stop it!

And you can feel this yourself, and see that it ties back also to that helplessness.

Still, people like change, they believe in improving their situation.  So, if you can tie your idea to that inner feeling of progress, then they will want the change.  Want it, at least to some degree.

Third, politics.

By this I mean the messiness of dealing with people in groups.  The hierarchy, the power, the games. So, with any change, we must ‘play politics’ to some degree. Very bothersome for most of us.

So, where am I going with this?

To this idea: That one must be very motivated if one is going to start to make a significant change in a company (or any organization).  Very motivated.  Otherwise, one is easily stopped by all the barriers to change.

Kotter calls this motivation a sense of urgency.

***
I recently had an in-house class.  And I was teaching them Scrum.

And most in this class found some aspects of it ‘impossible’.  Meaning, that most of them did not think they could get the culture in their company to change that much.

My initial reaction was an inner anger (not shown outwardly).  Anger that they in effect wanted me to change Scrum.  Anger that these very talented people would let so much potentially good change go by, ‘merely’ because they thought that such as change was ‘impossible’.  I say this in part because I know that people — less talented than these people are — have made this kind of change happen. And against odds equally as great.

But, looking back, anger is not good. And also not appropriate.  They don’t owe it to me to change.  And my getting angry that they can’t see the benefits and push through to get them, for themselves, my being angry about that, well, it is sweet and all, that I want them to have a better life, but also kind of silly.

Now, later I am reading Fearless Change by Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising.  One of the change patterns in the book is Personal Touch.  I start reading that pattern.

Aha!

I got two big flashes of insight.

First, most of the people in that group do not value the change in the way I do.  And they have no reason to.  They had no experience of its real success.  To them, it was just ‘Joe talking’ — maybe sounds good, but no inner conviction yet.

Secondly, every one is different.  One has to explain the change to each person, slowly, and help them come to see that it will benefit them (or even, that it has benefited them).

So, once you have helped someone care enough, gotten through to them in some unique way, then you will see someone who will make change happen.

Someone who will take many shots, and happily miss many.  Knowing that eventually they will win the game.

Radical Management

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Steve Denning has written a great agile book for managers, called The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management.

Here are the five principles:

  • A shift in goal from making money for shareholders to delighting customers through continuous innovation.
  • A shift in the role of managers from controlling individuals to enabling self-organizing teams.
  • A shift in the way work is coordinated from bureaucracy to dynamic linking.
  • A shift in values from a preoccupation with efficiency to a broader set of values that will foster continuous innovation.
  • A shift in communications from top-down commands to horizontal communications.

I recommend the book.

6 Myths of Product Development

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I was going through the articles I have, and this one struck me.  A HBR article by Stefan Thomke and Donald Reinertson.  Reinertson is known well in the lean-agile community.  And it is an excellent article.  Go here to buy it for $6.  Well worth it.

Here are the myths or fallacies:

1. High utilization of resources will improve performance.

By ‘resources’ they mean mainly people. Speed of delivery is much more important.

2. Processing work in large batches improves the economics of the development process.

Hence, small stories in small sprints. And get fast feedback from business stakeholders.

3. Our development plan is great; we just need to stick to it.

For many reasons, during the course of ‘development’, the needed features will change. Hence, the plan must also change.

4. The sooner the project is started, the sooner it will be finished.

Reduce WIP.

5. The more features we put into a product, the more customers will like it.

Deciding what to omit is as important as deciding what to include.

6. We will be more successful if we get it right the first time.

Demanding that teams “get it right the first time” just biases them to focus on the least-risky solutions.

***

This article is good in helping managers see what lean-agile-scrum is all about.

 

We want a Stable Team

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I think our (your) business is about knowledge creation.  (Well, knowledge creation is key for almost all the people who come to my courses and workshops.)  It is about innovation, creativity, inventiveness. About cool solutions to hard business-technology problems.  It is about some sort of intersection between people and technology. So, coming up with a great product requires something special.

And I believe the ‘special thing’ these days is far more likely to come out of a good Team.

So, from a business management viewpoint (and it is the managers we most need to convince about this) — we need a stable Team.

And it needs to include virtually all the functions (or far more so than we ever did before).  And that also means it needs to include business people and technology people.  Just for amusement, I like to call them suits and geeks. To me it suggests that it just might be ‘interesting’ to put them together.

We must mention two things.

It should be FUN to work in a real Team.  And in fact, in Scrum with all but dysfunctional teams, it is fun. (But maybe could be more fun, if you had a good ScrumMaster helping the fun along.)

It should be more satisfying working in a Team. It is my belief that the human animal has been selected to enjoy life in a small Team.  Like a family, but a bit different.  A small ‘pack’.  Maybe within a larger pack.

So, how long should a Team be stable?

To answer this question, we need to identify basically three situations.

1. Mediocre Team. This team improves 20-50% with Scrum.  Give them 6 months.  If they don’t become better by then, then try putting the individuals in different Teams.

2. Good Team.  This team improves in the 100-200% range.  Wow. Leave them alone. They are doing pretty darn well.

3. Great Team. This team improves in the 5x-10x range. Wow!  Don’t mess with them.  This is the goose that laid the golden egg.  You would be crazy to bother them unless and until they want to be bothered (want to change).  And, if you continue to give them good satisfying work to do, they may never need to change. But, of course, something will eventually happen…one of the usual human things (birth, marriage, death, move, etc, etc).

(There is also the situation of the occasional dysfunctional team. Usually that can be identified in a few Sprints. As soon as you are sure it is not just ‘storming’, then you must change the team composition or totally bust up the team.)

***

This idea of stable teams leads to a major shift in orientation. (The change can happen over time.) We no longer start with projects, and find people to do them.  We now start with a Team, and find good work for it to do.  Who knew that people were important?

Who is Scrum for?

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A few months ago someone I know and respect in the Agile community said that they do agile to make the world safe for programmers.

This phrase has stuck with me. I don’t know how seriously the person meant it. I suspect it was partially a joke and partially a stronger statement than one might think.  I suspect it is a real driving force for that person.

And it is true that many implementers have had terrible lives, at least often, and making the world better for them is a very good thing.

But I think we should strive for more than that.

We need to make the world better for everyone.

For example, the customers do not want software (usually), they want something useful that will make their lives better.  The managers need a better life.  The project managers need a better life.  The business owners need a better life. The testers need a better life.

Everyone around or affected by Scrum should be getting a noticeably better life.  And one easily noticed, in terms of the improvement.

This is happening, although it is not happening as much and for as many people as it should. And when it is happening, it is not being noticed and celebrated as much as it should.

Why?

Well, I think one fairly important reason is that too many of us are being selfish.  For example, we are so afraid that the programmer may have to work and be modest and admit failure, that we disable the mechanisms (velocity and demos, for example) that enable the customers and business people to collaborate with the Team.

Anyway: It is an odd request. We want everyone’s life to improve at the same time. No trade offs.

Can it be true every minute?  Well, perhaps not.  But can it be true every sprint, looking back at the sprint in total?  Yes, I think so.

What to do with managers?

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First, unlike some in the agile community, I think managers can and should be useful in lean-agile-scrum.

Still, there is a lot of evidence, on many levels for two propositions:
1. Some managers can be very detrimental to a lean-agile-scrum implementation.
2. Many managers have not been well trained in how to manage. In fact, what they have been taught seems to be, to a large degree, the wrong stuff. (At least, it seems, in the US.  In other countries, this may be better.)

So, we agile advocates have a long way to go to get all of management ‘fixed’.  I mean both middle and senior managers now. (Yes, the solution for the middle managers might be somewhat different than the solution for the senior managers.)  On the right page with the right attitudes and practices that are consistent with lean-agile-scrum.

So, a few quick ideas on how to fix this:

1. Check out the “Stoos” group. A few are a bit too radical for my taste, but that group is working on ‘management’.  They have useful ideas on this problem.

2. Respect change. It is hard. It does happen. You cannot always make it happen, especially on your own schedule. But sometimes, either before or after you want, people will change. And even in the direction you want, due (partly) to the efforts you made.   …Do not let yourself get depressed, do not give up.

3. Respect the people you are trying to change, and that, at least in some ways, their concerns are legitimate.  At least from where they are coming from, there is typically some internal logic to the way they think.  … I find this is hard, because I can so palpably feel the damage these people are doing. It feels like they are trying to be evil sometimes.  Certainly stupid. And I grow impatient.  But mostly there are not (evil); they are usually trying to do they best they know how.

4. Look (again) at the standard change books. Kotter’s books. Fearless Change by Manns and Rising. Others (if you prefer). Many great ideas about getting people to change.  Most of the following are discussed well and at length in these books.

5. Make the case. Repeat it often.  It starts with a Sense of Urgency.

6. A sense of urgency, to me, starts with one person having a passion that, dammit, things have to get better. And conveying that passion. Maybe in a quiet way. Certainly in a respectful way. But in more an emotional way than a ‘numbers’ way. Although numbers usually need to be in there as well.

7. Use some experiences. Maybe from articles. Maybe from nearby firms. Maybe from your own firm. Data of one sort or another.  There are tons and tons of great articles about lean-agile-scrum now.

8. Five books for managers.
Toyota Production System by Taiichi Ohno.
Radical Management by Stephen Denning.
The Power of Scrum by Jeff Sutherland et al.
Software in 30 Days by Schwaber and Sutherland
Drive by Daniel Pink.

9. Motivation. Often the key, I think, is they misunderstand motivation. Particularly motivation for knowledge workers. This is why I think Daniel Pink’s book is so useful.

***
Please comment here. I think this is a hard problem. If we knew the answer well, this problem would be a lot better now.  So please suggest better things.

We are also discussing this topic in the Agile Business yahoo group. Please join us.

John Kotter Explains the 8 Steps to Create Successful Change

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Here is a slide show and voice over by John Kotter (our big expert on change) talking about how to get organizations to change.  Watch and listen here.  About 7 minutes.

Of course, your organization is smarter about change than John Kotter, so your colleagues do not need to see this.  (smile…I might have been sarcastic.)

In fact, my premise is that no organization is professional about introducing ‘different’ changes within the organization.  (Example: I don’t know Apple well.  I am impressed by how much their products have changed things. But I am far less confident about how well Apple itself has changed internally. Still, maybe they are the exception that proves my point. As a small example so far, they seemed to have adapted well to the new leader. Oh yeah, Tim Cook is his name.)

Leadership – 2

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“To lead people, walk beside them … As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!’” —Lao-Tsu

This quote, perhaps relatively well-known to some in several different translations, was found on the Tom Peters blog. Maybe you will enjoy it.

Simple is hard. Staying ‘out of the way’ is hard, for example.

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Leadership – 1

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Takeuchi and Nonaka have written an article on Leadership in the Harvard Business Review. The latest issue.

Since they are the godfathers of Scrum, one feels compelled to discuss leadership in the context of Scrum.

First. we must note this is a big topic, and with somewhat different issues depending on the size of the firm. Also, leadership is separable from lean-agile-scrum.

Within the context of Scrum, let’s over-simplify and consider leadership at three levels. Within the team, immediately around the team, and top-level leadership.

Within the team.

We find that the most important thing that a team does is create knowledge. (Knowledge creation has been one of the main topics for Takeuchi and Nonaka throughout their careers.)

We find that power and knowledge creation do not go well together. Let’s mention some words that go with knowledge creation: innovation, invention, creativity, discovery, seeing new, finding creative unexpected solutions to tough technical problems, intuition, prescience, sympathy.

And the innovation, the new new product, must be not only clearly new, but also relevant to the customers. And, usually, something that can also make money for the firm. And we want all three of these (new, for customer, brings bucks) to the utmost degree.

So, inventing a new product is somewhat like magic. Certainly in some degree, it is magical when successful.

So, perhaps you can see now why power and creativity do not work well together. We want all the team to contribute together, to try to see, like blind men, the full elephant together. Acting from power, or even just perceiving power, can inhibit this creativity. Or so it can usually. And the inhibition is hard to see or feel.

Leadership and power are not the same thing. Of course. Although they are often thought to be related.

The Product Owner and the ScrumMaster are often thought to be leadership roles. And I would agree. This means, when things must happen or when decisions must be made, they should make them. Typically, each in his own sphere. (We won’t go here into the distinctions between the two roles.)

As Yogi Berra said: When you come to a fork in the road, take it. Or, as Ken Schwaber has said: Few things are worse than not taking the decision. It is almost always better to take the decision and learn from the results. (Not always, but almost always.)

We also recommend each member of the team consider himself or herself a leader in some area (typically, the area where he or she is strongest). Depending on who each team member is, this may not be realistic, but I suggest it is almost always realistic to some degree. In any case, we suggest that team members consider that they are all responsible for the success of the team. This means that. when they see something that should be exploited more, or a problems that must be addressed, that they each have the right and the responsibility to step up and lead in addressing that issue.

The standard leadership style recommended with Scrum is what Robert Greenleaf called Servant Leadership. The simplest version of that is the ScrumMaster who asks the team ‘what is your biggest impediment now?’ and then goes about getting it addressed.

The more complex version involves a few things:
* caring for the team (so that the team know it)
* trying to help the team be more successful, both in their immediate effort (the new product goal), but more broadly as a team and as individuals, each in his own life.
* being willing to sacrifice himself for the benefit of the team
* respecting the team

Let us stop for today on this difficult and interesting topic.
More soon.

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Getting Senior Buy-in

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Questioner: How do I sell my executive team on doing this stuff?
Jim Highsmith: Don’t. Just do it. They don’t know what you’re doing anyway. [1]

Umm. This is taken from a tagline on a Ron Jeffries’ email. Ron has many wonderful taglines. Watch for them.

Tom Peters thinks that John Chambers may be the best business leader we have these days. One fairly wise opinion. Ecco homo. (Said not without irony in this season.)

So, do we need permission to live our lives? Often, it is better to ask occasionally for forgiveness, rather than wasting so much time asking repeatedly for permission.

Still, it is usually better if eventually you get the senior guys involved, on-board, on the program, drinking the kool-aid, supporting the new idea.

First, “don’t follow leaders, watch your parking meters”. Said a long time ago, but true way before then. Leaders are much over-rated. Napoleon met his Waterloo. And his Moscow. Following leaders can get you killed. Leaders are as much followers as anything. If they are smart.

By which we mean “the big guy at the top”. The Supreme Leader.

Individual acts of real leadership happen all the time, at all levels, and they are still and always important. But expecting the pronunciamentos of any one person to forecast the weather very reliably (or anything else reliably) is a fool’s errand. Not that Leaders are bad, just that they are, well, human. Have you noticed that lately? (In fact, it is in the newspapers daily. Probably hourly or less.) Power corrupts and the more the power, the faster and more complete the corruption. Or so Lord Acton taught us. It’s just human nature. We wish to fantasize that we are [pick your superlative] than we are. We would be just like them. Almost every single one of us.

Still, maybe it is worth some time, at some point, getting “some senior guys” to support Agile, Scrum, Lean or whatever. I think I agree with that. So, four suggestions:

1. First, in your own head, don’t make it so important. For exmaple, everyone in sports knows that if you try to hard to hit a homer, your likelihood of striking out goes up a lot.
2. Read Fearless Change by Manns and Rising. Lots of good, specific ideas.
3. Read A Sense of Urgency by John Kotter. Short (a virtue) and again, lots of good actionable ideas.
4. It is not one punch, but several rounds. As in boxing.

First, a “leader” is not going to really start to understand agile/scrum/lean until she sees and touches it. Do a pilot so she can. Do not expect to fully convince in the first discussion. Or at first sight. Expect many conversations and experiences. No one knows which one will be the tipping point, and probably will not be able to say accurately later which one was. But truth, told with honesty, will win in the end.

Sometimes, in their fantasy, they want a silver bullet. Never lie that agile/Scrum/lean is a silver bullet.

My Hapkido master once showed me how the stomach can “defend” against one hard punch. But two lighter punches, delivered almost at the same time, set up a vibration in the gut that is most uncomfortable, usually one becomes incapacitated. In a similar way, we know in football, that it you hit someone high with one blocker and low with another blocker coming another way, almost always that man will fall.

Perhaps even more revealing, any 6 year old can throw a 300 pound man, if they apply learned cleverness (from many of several martial arts). If they use the energy of their opponent. The same is true in other parts of life, as story after story tells. David can best Goliath.

5. “People don’t resist change. They resist being changed.” Umm. Might even apply here. Let it become their idea. ‘Nuf said?

Find your lever, Archimedes. You can move the world.

[1] This quote is taken from Fearless Change, by Rising and Manns.  A great book, recommended. See Chapter 6.

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