Imagine my surprise when a candidate for an agile organizational coach role within our organization shared with me his perspective on this topic.
“Can you share with me your reasoning?”, I asked him intrigued.
The candidate went on to explain that people need direction and that people cannot self-organized without clear objectives and direction.
Indeed, I thought to myself. Who said people and teams shouldn’t be given clear objectives. On the contrary, in my opinion, clear goals are necessary for teams to organize otherwise you end up with a bunch of people who will try to find a reason, a purpose why they are all together – and their self-created goal may very well be different from what you had in mind in the first place.
Where I have a problem is that people associate self-organized teams with “abandoned teams” meaning you simply let the team figure it out – whatever “it” is.
In order to reach the level of autonomy they need to demonstrate extra-ordinary performance, teams need to reach the right level of maturity. Consequently, the manager’s leadership style is critical to achieve that objective. Within Pyxis, we often rely on the combination of the situational leadership and the group development stages to determine the proper level of involvement from the manager.
One of the way to achieve the right level of maturity is for agile managers to determine WHAT must be accomplished and let the team determine HOW it will be done – I already shared my opinion on this topic. Granted, things are more complex that I make them sound in this post but self-organization is indeed possible when the right environment is created for the team – including clear objectives – and it is then given the latitude to operate and determine how best to achieve the given goal.
If only managers would be willing to let go some of their (need to) control and trust the teams, a higher level of performance can be attained.
As you may have guessed, the candidate wasn’t called back for a second interview…
My colleague François Perron launched a very interesting discussion on our private wiki – “As a coach, what to do when executives and upper management force the project team to do over time in order to meet deadlines?”.
As you can probably guess, this initiated very interesting discussions and an obvious reaction to such an approach.
Everyone agreed that due to the project visibility and the position of the organization within its market, the project launch date was critical. Everyone also understood that the organization had very few options so nobody debated the need to achieve results. The discussion was strictly around which measures to use in an Agile context.
I’ll admit up front that I am biased toward intrinsic motivation (I really loved Drive by Dan Pink) and the fact that it is well suited for an agile environment.
As such, my first impression to the conversation that was going on were:
Does the organization wish that employees spend more hours at the office (attendance) or would they prefer more engagement (commitment)?
If their choice is to increase the hours of attendance, imposing overtime will achieve this goal while giving them a false sense of increased performance. People will show they are working longer hours but the real throughput is unlikely to be much higher. In addition, software development is a brain intensive activity and reducing the amount of rest people get is likely to increase the number of mistakes they make.
On the contrary, if the organization wanted more involvement, the inclusion of team members in determining the best way to achieve the results would probably come to a better decision – even possibly leading the willingness to do over time
It appears to me that by forcing overtime, the executives and senior managers will probably collect their bonus and congratulate each others in the short term only to realize in the longer term that they have simply pushed the problem forward for others to deal with – and possibly request more over time in the long run.
At the Agile 2010 Conference this week, out of the two hundred or so sessions presented, a number of them talked about the role of the manager in an Agile team. A few people believe managers are no longer necessary once the team has self-organized while others say people managers are still required. Either group failed to provide compelling arguments for their position.
The notion of self-organized teams keeps gaining visibility and acceptance. Those who have adopted the approach can’t stop talking about the benefits. At the same time, people realize that managers are unlikely to disappear from the organizational landscape anytime soon. In this context, it is with a mixed-feeling that Agilists talk about the role of the people manager in an agile organization – mostly as something not so useful but that the team needs to keep around in order to maintain their autonomy – something similar to the appendix.
The most common explanation for the appendix’s existence in humans is that it’s a vestigial structure which has lost its original function – source wikipedia
Then a few things happened.
First, I got to attend Michael Spayd‘s session called “Blueprint for an Agile Enterprise: Plans, Tools & Tech to Build a Human Enterprise”.
Want your whole organization to be more like an Agile team? Starting teams is well understood; expanding Agile to the organization is definitely not. Using 8 years experience applying organization development to Agile, we’ll unfold a 7 layer organizational architecture for building a human enterprise. Each level has an overall perspective, specific tools and key practices. Part tutorial, part demo, we’ll create a change plan for one participant’s organization, exploring culture, leadership, change, team performance, and management’s role. You’ll leave with a plan template and many ideas – source Agile 2010 Program
Then, I went to Damon Poole’s session called “Getting Managers and Agile Teams Out of Each Other’s Hair”.
One of the most talked about and least well understood concepts in Agile is the “self-managing” team. This session will provide a new perspective on self-management by examining the external roots of the practice and by taking a bottom-up look at what it is, the benefits, and how it works. We’ll see how twelve widely adopted Agile practices contribute to self-management by reducing and/or redistributing traditional management activities. These practices provide a framework for delegation, communication and coordination; and encourage team ownership, commitment and accountability – source Agile 2010 Program
Finally, I also attended Jim Highsmith session called “What do Agile Executives and Leaders Do?”
In some circles agile executives and leaders are admonished to buy pizza and get out of the way. In others they are asked to be supportive of self-organizing teams. But leading agile organizations requires more. There are specific activities that help build agile organizations that can weather business turbulence. This session will explore those activities that an agile leader or executive must “do,” including: revising performance measurements; facilitating self-organizing teams; developing strategies for operational, portfolio, and strategic agility; and assessing how agile to be source Agile 2010 Program
After the sessions, I sat in the lobby of the conference and read some of the blog feeds I subscribe to and came across these…
In many organizations and depending on their level, people managers are expected to plan, direct, organize and control (Deming‘s Plan-Do-Check-Act) – more specifically, the role of the manager is to:
Define the individual objectives
Assign work to team members
Determine priorities of the tasks
Monitor progress of the activities
Make decisions for the team
Get visibility into the work of the team
Mentor and train employees
Protect the team’s financial and human resources
Provide career development opportunities
Build relationships with other departments and teams
Motivate the team members
Communicate information
What self-organization removes from the equation
Once the concept of self-organized team is implemented, there are a few things that were traditionally the responsibility of the people manager that now fall on the team. The activities are:
Assigning work – team members now select their tasks instead of the manager
Determine priorities – team members now determine the order in which they should to complete their work
Monitor progress – team members track their own progress and make it visible and accessible to those who need to know
Make decision for the team – within the team, team members get to make their decisions
Get visibility into the work – team members track their own progress and make it visible and accessible to those who need to know
Mentor and train employees – when possible, team members may decide to implement a mentoring program within the team
Motivate – self-organized individuals are known to be more motivated than traditional teams, hence the reduced need for the people manager to retain this activity
So what is left for the people manager?
In order for the people managers to transform into Agile leaders and feel as part of the team, we already stated they need to modify their role. The agile manager will achieve higher level of performance and possibly increased personal job satisfaction by macro-managing – working with an increased perspective as opposed to getting into the details. As such, the activities the agile managers need to retain are to:
Define high level objectives for their team and department instead of focusing on the tasks
Determine priorities in the objectives of the team and department instead of the activities
Build relationships with other departments and teams
I realize that this type of transition is easier said than done but with the willingness to recapture an important role as part of the team and with some external help, the traditional managers don’t have to became extinct professionals.
So you have initiated an Agile transition and have faced some resistance to change! Or maybe, you assessed your current level of Agile Maturity and are hoping to achieve the next level. Better yet, you and your team are planning to launch an Agile transition that is not driven by the wrong reasons.
Let’s cut the chase and get to the point. Are you ready? Here it is. The secret to a successful Agile Transition -> Make people look good!
Yes. That’s it. Surprised?
I’m not talking about psychological manipulation. I’m talking about finding what drives the people you are working with and the managers around them and then capitalize on their drivers in order to get them to get on board with the transition – and better yet become evangelist for your transition. Here are some examples:
Suzy is hoping to get promoted to Vice-president within her organization. She heads a business line from which you need support and a dedicated Product Owner. Why don’t you explain to Suzy how innovative her group would appear to others if she agreed to embark on the Agile initiative?
Peter is struggling to increase the performance of his group. So far, he hasn’t shown much interest in the transition but you found out that he has been under high pressure from his manager to increase the performance of his team. Why wouldn’t you show Peter how using an Agile approach could help get his manager off his back?
Monica is a project manager who has lost several key people in previous months. She is usually by-the-book (i.e. PMBoK) but during a recent lunch, she admitted that she would be willing to try something different if only it would help her retain the contributors she needs to make her project successful. Why don’t you take this opportunity to get the project manager on board with Agile by offering to help her?
Don’t get me wrong. I am not asking you to lie, to cheat or to fake the objectives and expected outcome. I’m telling you to get others on board and working WITH you by telling them the whole story and helping them understand that there is something in it for THEM too.
Agile relies heavily on communications and interactions. Why don’t you start with all the people directly and indirectly impacted by the transition? Sure, it will require more time in the short term to influence people into supporting you but in the long run, you will be glad you did it.
Go ahead. Try to figure out what drives people around you or what issues they are facing. Find a solution that can help them and you’ll end-up with a win-win scenario and a successful transition.
I already talked about silence as a communication tool but I can now estimate the value of silence at nearly $600,000 per hour. I recently came to this surprising conclusion when I bought my new car a few weeks ago.
Before I tell you my surprising story, I need to explain a few things about silence. During my coaching development program, we were explained that leaving room for silence allows the other person to clearly express their thoughts and feelings. Without silence, those thoughts and feelings would be unspoken and hence, unknown.
Keeping silence in a conversation also puts an uncomfortable pressure on the person spoken to – to speak. Try it for yourself and see how strange the situation becomes when no one is speaking.
To help us as coaches, we were told to keep our mouth shut and mind focused by counting in our head. You leave room for silence and start counting (in your head, otherwise there is no silence!). 1, 2, 3, 4… While you are counting, the other person feels some pressure and most probably will start talking – usually what follows the silence is very useful information.
So back to my story.
After seeing a few dealers and selecting the car I was going to buy, I entered into the typical negotiation scheme with the car salesman.
Salesman: “$xx,xxx. This is my final price”
Me: “Sorry, that’s too high. I did research on the Internet and I have a pretty good idea what the markup is on this car”
Salesman, looking shocked: “Let me see what my supervisor can do for you”
Salesman, coming back after a few minutes: “It’s your lucky day, my supervisor says that he wants us to reach our quota, so we’ll take out another $1,500″
Me: “That’s nice but it’s still higher than what I’m willing to pay for this car”
If you work in an Agile environment or better yet, if you manage people who have embraced the Agile principles, you have certainly bought into the concept of self-organized teams. The underlying assumptions are that:
People are more motivated when they are self-organized;
People take their own commitments more seriously than the commitments made by others on their behalf;
Teams and individuals are more productive when they are not interrupted;
Teams improve when they can settle their own issues;
Changes in the composition of the team affect the productivity of the team members;
Face-to-face communication is the most productive way to share information.
Needless to say, management hasn’t changed much in a hundred years with its need to control and its chief tools remain extrinsic motivators.
Taylor believed that work consisted mainly of simple, not particularly interesting tasks and that the only way to get people to work on them was to incentivize them properly and monitor them carefully. Later on, Maslow developed the field of humanistic psychology in the 1960s (which questioned the idea that human behavior was purely ratlike seeking positive stimuli and avoiding negative stimuli) and McGregor challenged the assumption that humans are fundamentally inert (in the absence of external rewards and punishments, we wouldn’t do much).
In his most recent book (Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us – audiobook format), Daniel Pink presents many factoids taken from scientific researches to demonstrate how people can (and can’t) be motivated. Although the author brings a scientific perspective to people motivation, the book is easy to read in addition to being entertaining.
Scientists then knew that two main drivers powered behavior. The first was the biological drive (comes from within) and the second comes from without – the rewards and punishments the environment delivered for behaving in certain ways [...] The third drive – performance of a task provides intrinsic reward. The joy of the task is its own reward.
Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose
In his book, Pink states that human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another.
Autonomy
The opposite of autonomy is control. Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement.
Pink’s book provides valuable scientific explanations to the concept of self-organised teams. He presents the ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment) concept and the Self Determination Theory (SDT) to demonstrate the relationship between autonomy and well-being. He goes further to associate autonomy with higher productivity, less burnout, and greater level of psychological well-being. More closely related to software development, the author presents the level of authority given to employees at software giant Atlassian where people decide: what they do, when they do it, how they do it, and whom they do it with.
Mastery
The desire for intellectual challenge (the urge to master something new and engaging) was the best predictor of productivity.
Daniel Pink explains that people are motivated by self-development and learning of new skills or developing existing abilities. The actual challenge of mastering a discipline is often a better motivator than money can be (assuming a minimal level of income). Similar to children who easily get motivated with playing – which is a way for them to learn and master a skill – managers can leverage that ability to motivate individuals.
As such, human beings are said to have an inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges to extend and exercise their capacities to explore and learn – which are in themselves powerful motivators.
Purpose
The science shows that the secret to high performance isn’t our biological drive or our reward-and-punishment drive, but our third drive – our deep-seated desire to direct our own lives, to extend and expand our abilities, and to live a life of purpose.
The author points out that many psychologists and economists have found that the correlation between money and hapiness is weak – that is past a certain level, a larger pile of cash doesn’t bring people a higher level of satisfaction. As such, contrary to traditional motivational techniques, money does not increase happiness and performance – some research have actually demonstrated the opposite effect! It is possible to keep people highly motivated without constantly leveraging money as a motivator.
Human motivation seemed to operate by laws that run counter to what most scientists and citizens believe. When money is used as an external reward for some activity, the subjects lose intrinsic interest for that activity. Rewards can deliver a short term boost but the effect wears off and worse can reduce a person’s longer-term motivation to continue the project.
In direct contravention to the core of tenets of motivation 2.0, an incentive designed to clarify thinking and sharpen creativity ends up clouding thinking and dulling creativity. Why? Rewards, by their very nature narrow our focus. That’s helpful when there’s a clear path to a solution. They help us stare ahead and race faster but “if then” motivators are terrible for challenges. The rewards narrowed people’s focus and blinkered the wide view that might have allowed them to see new uses for old objects.
Carrots and Sticks – The Seven Deadly Flaws
They can extinguish intrinsic motivation
The can diminish performance
The can crush creativity
They can crowd out good behavior
They can encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior
The can become addictive
The can foster short-term thinking.
The relation to software development
Algorithmic tasks are tasks in which an individual follows a set of established instructions down in a single pathway to one conclusion. That is, there’s an algorithm for solving it.
A heuristic task is the opposite precisely because no algorithm exists for it, individuals have to experiment with possibilities and devise a novel solution. Software development is a heuristic task.
During the twentieth century, most work was algorithmic but as McKinsey & Co. estimated that in the United States, only 30 percent of job growth now comes from algorithmic work, while 70 percent comes from heuristic work.
Researchers have found that external rewards and punishments – both carrots and sticks – can work nicely for algorithmic tasks but they can be devastating for heuristic ones.
Conclusion
If you need scientific explanation and useful examples to explain to people around you why a self-organized (autonomous) team with team members who are striving to develop their skills in an attempt to reach a common purpose is possibly the most impactful motivator, you may want to read this book.
In conversations with upper management, I often hear that they wish to start using an Agile approach to increase their return on investment (ROI) and the employee motivation – which is great! They have read or have been told that changing their approach should lead to:
Delivering solutions that meet the business needs…
…without exceeding time lines or costs and…
…increase efficiency and productivity.
Many people manager (although not all) understand that people are more motivated when they are self organized and as such, take their commitments more seriously than if the commitments were made by others on their behalf (i.e. their manager).
What is news to many of these managers is the impact an Agile transition will have on them – and their management style. I like to point out that to them that:
Teams and individuals are more productive when they are not interrupted;
Team performance improves greatly when people settle their own issues;
Changes in the composition of the team affect the team’s productivity.
As such, people manager need to learn to:
Transfer the authority and the responsibility to the team members to allow them to do their job properly;
Avoid interference and micromanagement;
Promote collaboration and teamwork;
Support learning without systematically penalizing failures;
Establish a culture conducive to Agile projects;
Adapt their management style to the context of team.
One of the frequent obstacle encountered by project teams when transitioning to Agile is the resistance of their manager. When an executive declares that the organization is moving to Agile, many team members look forward to working differently – that is until their manager gets involved.
As an organizational coach, I often use a simple questionnaire to assess the level of agility of the managers I deal with. Below are nine questions to help determine how Agile the manager I’m talking to actually is.
Go ahead – try the short test.
True or False?
To get the best results, it is preferable to properly control the activities of the team members
A process that is not well defined at the outset will always give sub-optimal results
To reduce the loss of productivity, it is preferable to isolate team members in cubicles and use email as the preferred a mode of communication
A team of experts with specialized knowledge is always more efficient than a multi-disciplinary team
The best tools and processes are those selected by the organization and standardized for all groups
It is generally preferable to thoroughly document what we people do even if it reduces their speed
Money is the best way to keep individuals motivated
It is more important to follow the plan than to adapt to changes
A signed contract is better than an informal agreement to ensure cooperation between different departments
How did you do?
If you answered True:
9 times (out of 9): As you enter an Agile transition, your current management paradigms are likely to be severely tested, but with the right mindset and the willingness to change you could be surprised. You may want to take this test again a few months after the beginning of the transition to see how much you have progressed.
Between 5 and 8 times (out of 9): You have some of the right reflexes but you haven’t fully grasped the concepts behind Agile. With some work and an open mind, you could modify your leadership style and eventually become an Agile manager.
Between 1 and 4 times (out of 9): You’re almost there. You are comfortable with most of the Agile concepts but still need to fine-tune some of your reflexes to make it to the top of the chart.
0 time (out of 9): Congratulations! You seem to understand the Agile approach and the underlying concepts very well. If you behave the way you answered these questions, you are an exemplary Agile leader. Send me an email, I certainly would like to hear from you.
Following my posts on delivering results in an agile context, the 7 dimensions of an agile project team and their agile work environment, this fifth and final post on Agile Leadership presents the “Leadership” level of the model. I’m hoping to help managers, leaders, and stakeholders better understand which behaviors to modify in order to obtain better performance and improve employee satisfaction within their organization. I came up with five dimensions associated with Leadership in an Agile context.
Before I begin, I want to make a distinction between management and leadership. Over the years, the terms “leadership” and “management” have often been used as synonyms. To distinguish the two words I would specify that leadership is “transformational” in nature while management is more “transactional”.
Leadership
Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task” (wikipedia)
Servant Leadership
Servant-leaders achieve results for their organizations by giving priority attention to the needs of their colleagues and those they serve. Servant-leaders are often seen as humble stewards of their organization’s resources (wikipedia)
Management
Management in all business areas and human organization activity is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal (wikipedia)
Goal Setting
Goal-setting ideally involves establishing specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-targeted objectives. Work on the goal-setting theory suggests that it can serve as an effective tool for making progress by ensuring that participants have a clear awareness of what they must do to achieve or help achieve an objective (wikipedia)
A few questions to assess the Goal Setting dimension of the Leadership model:
Are the team members objectives aligned with one another?
Are the suggestions coming from the retrospection of the team taken into consideration in the objective settings?
Performance Management
Performance management includes activities to ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner (wikipedia)
A few questions to assess the Performance Management dimension of the Leadership model:
Does the leader clearly define the objectives of his people?
Does the organization measure its progress toward its goals?
Is the performance measured at the team level in addition to the individual level?
Does the company evaluate both the individual’s work behaviours and outcomes against the defined objectives?
Do the team members receive timely and frequent feedback?
Remuneration
Remuneration is pay or salary, typically a monetary payment for services rendered, as in an employment (wikipedia)
A few questions to assess the Remuneration dimension of the Leadership model:
Do managers mostly rely on intrinsic (rather than extrinsic) motivation?
Does the remuneration model reflect the individual’s contribution to the team or is it based on seniority?
Is the compensation model clearly understood by all team members?
Is the leader rewarded for the development of his members?
Do team members participate in the definition of the compensation of their colleagues?
Is the compensation model strictly based on individual performance?
Coaching
Coaching refers to the activity of a coach in developing the abilities of coachees. Coaching tends to focus on the achievement by coachees of a goal or specific skill (wikipedia)
A few questions to assess the Coaching dimension of the Leadership model:
Does the leader support its members in their skills and competences development?
Does the leader take the time to teach his team members on how to increase their skills and better themselves?
Is the leader selected by the team members?
Is the leader evaluated by his team members?
Change Management
Change management is a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state (wikipedia)
A few questions to assess the Change Management dimension of the Leadership model:
Does the leader work with the team members to establish a clear change management strategy?
Does the leader acknowledge that the pace of change is different for all team members?
Does the leader deal constructively for team members’ resistance to change?
Leader’s Qualities
Finally, in order to assess if the leader has the right qualities to be successful in an agile environment, I have selected a handful of qualities the leader should clearly demonstrate.
Agile Leadership is the application of the Agile principles (as defined in the Agile Manifesto) to the leadership of software development endeavours.
In addition to encompassing the processes, tools and rules of Agile Scrum, Agile Leadership extrapolates them to change how teams and projects are managed within the context of the work environment and new leadership paradigms to deliver better results.
Agile Leadership Model
Where Agile Scrum mostly focuses on the organization of the project team, the roles and responsibilities of the team members, the artifacts, and the rules under which the project team operates, Agile Leadership includes the work environment as well as the specific leadership abilities expected from the managers and stakeholders.
Agile Leadership is a fundamental paradigm shift with the objective of making the project team successful and the people within the team happier in order to deliver better results. The shift mostly comes from the leadership (aka management style) and the rules used to govern the actions, the behaviours and the outcome of the team.
Getting managers to become more Agile requires changing behaviors and to use a more democratic approach to management. More specifically, Agile Leadership requires to:
Transfer certain powers to the team members themselves to let them determine how best to accomplish their tasks;
Empower the project team through self-organization and commitment to results;
Transfer decision-making to individuals who are closest to the activities;
Demonstrate a greater openness to ideas and innovations emerging teams;
Clearly define the desired vision and to adapt to the context of each team to ensure alignment with the overall objective of the project and to ensure cohesion between the team members;
Provide the necessary support and resources to the project team so they successfully accomplish the expected results;
Become a change agent within the organization by accepting and publicly endorsing the idea that the status quo is not acceptable and that the old methods are no longer adapted to the new reality;
Systematically involve business people in the definition and execution of solutions;
Adapt the style of management so as to use an inclusive and democratic approach.
In addition to bringing new concepts, Agile Leadership also revisits and adds to some of the concepts on which Agile Scrum relies. There is already much documentation (books, blogs, podcast, etc.) on the topic of Agile. In an upcoming blog post, I will add details to the areas of focus listed below and associate the underlying concepts with theories explained at length elsewhere in other areas of expertise such: as organizational behavior, organizational development, management science, and coaching.
This blog discusses new leadership paradigms and innovative organizational structures with the intend of improving teams' performance and people's quality of life at the office.
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