Analytical-Mind

Another monthly update on the books I read during the past month. For a complete a list, you can visit my virtual bookshelf.

Coaching

As part of my coaching training, I have purchased this recommended book. The book is a great introduction to what it means to be a coach. It explains how to be an effective coach and provides an approach that can be used for various types of coaching.

Coaching for Performance

My Rating: 

A few words on the book: This is an introductory book to coaching. It provides enough material for people managers who wish to improve their management style by using a coaching approach without getting into too much details. Although the author frequently refers to sport, many of the examples provided and suggested approach do apply to a business context. The book is easy to read and pragmatic but it isn’t enough to completely change one’s management style.

Leadership

Pleased with Collins’ previous books (Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies and Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t), I decided to read the third book of the trilogy.

How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In

My Rating: 

A few words on the book: Contrary to the previous two books, “How the mighty fall” comes across as an hudge-pudge of simplistic conclusions derived out of the same series of data used for the previous books. Similar to his previous books, Collins introduces a 5 stages model to explain the failures. The problem I had with the book is that the conclusion do not seem to be based on lengthy analysis but on quick conclusions that are company specific – i.e. if a similar company applied the same actions, would they actually get to the same results? It seemed to me that the failures were related to many circumstances that were specific to the organizations – not at a macro level but within the organizations. In addition, the author put too much emphasis on the leader of the organizations and very little on the inner workings.

Meditation

A friend of mine had told me about Deepak Chopra a few years ago and one day I stumbled upon this book. It seemed interesting …

The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence

My Rating: 

A few words on the book: I must admit, I didn’t finish this book. The final chapters are exercises to help improve the SynchroDestiny and that was not what I was looking for. On the other hand, I enjoyed the “scientific” explanation behind SynchroDestiny. I realize that if you are – like many – a fan of Chopra, you will probably enjoy the book. For my part, I am still trying to figure out what was the “destiny” I was supposed to achieve by purchasing this book…

If at any point while you read this post, you disagree with any of my statements, go ahead and click the “Leave a Comment” link. Express yourself!

While the original title of my post was “Why most software development managers need a leadership coach”, I changed it to “Why most managers need a leadership coach” because the situation I have witnessed in the software development industry is also present in many others specialized fields of expertise – at least that’s what many of the people I speak with confirm. Nonetheless, in order not to generalize my assumptions (yet!), I will share my assessment of the people management and leadership capabilities within the software development industry. Let’s begin…

Are you familiar with such problems?

• Unhappy employees leads to high turnover
• Communication challenges
• Employees fail to deliver on their commitment
• People who fail to deliver what they promise
• How To Deal With Problem Staff And Poor Performance

These are only a handful of typical problems encountered by a manager and for most experienced managers, they may sound trivial. Considering that new leaders are not born with management abilities, how can we expect them to be successful in their role?

People managers lack the basic skills

Here’s why I believe most software development managers (and many others) need coaching to become successful in their role (and apparently, I am not the only one who believes this is a valid suggestion). My logic goes as follows:

• Managers – including software development managers – are people;
• There are 2 ways to become successful at something. Either you learn through education or you possess above average intuition and intelligence and can figure out how things need to be done;
• Most software development managers have a technical training /education (examples can be seen here, here, here, and here);
• In addition to their education background, most software development managers mostly played technical roles (software developers, business analysts, application architect, etc.) in their career prior to getting promoted to a management position;
• Most people management positions are complex and require knowledge and experience outside of technology such as Business, Leadership, People Management, Organizational Development, or Psychology;
• Very few people in people management positions have all the requirements (see previous bullet);
• Without prior education and experience outside the software development sector, most managers are ill-equipped to successfully perform in their role.

Coaching is a solution

With an average salary¹ of $85,000 to $125,000 depending on the number of years of experience and location, why wouldn’t an organization invest a few thousands of dollars to hire a coach in order to help develop the people management and leadership abilities? Despite the economic downturn, I still see organizations spend thousands of dollars on training or conferences. Although I don’t argue the value of such events, I doubt they support the development of people management and leadership abilities.

It seems to me that we need to help those in management position succeed. Otherwise, the performance of the entire team will suffer.

Not convinced?

Others seem to agree with this new trend…

1.- Sources:

• The 2010 IT Salary Guide
• Monster.ca Salary Wizard
• Payscale Salary Survey

In the spirit of International Coaching Week, I am offering 10 hours of leadership coaching (for free) to a leader in need. Since “96 percent* of clients report they would use coaching again to achieve personal and professional life goals such as work-life balance, increased self-esteem, productivity and much more“, this is an opportunity for you to try a coach.

In honor of annual International Coaching Week (ICW), Feb. 7-13, ICF Chapters and coaches everywhere will take time to recognize professional coaching and what it offers by hosting various coaching events within their local communities. This includes pro-bono coaching services, such as free coaching sessions, educational lectures and workshops for the public.

“This week is the perfect time for coaches to get out in their communities and show people what coaching is and how it can benefit their lives,” said ICF President and Master Certified Coach Giovanna D’Alessio. “Coaching is proven to help people attain their personal and professional goals and those who use it can expect to see a solid return on their investment.”

If you ever wondered if a coach can help you achieve better results faster, I invite you to send me an email (martin [at] analytical-mind.com) with the following information:

• Description of the professional objective you are hoping to achieve.
• Why you think a leadership coach could help you achieve your objective?
• Why YOU should be selected?

I am donating 10 x 1-hour sessions to one leader in need to help you achieve your goal. The sessions will take place over the phone (skype) at the rate of 1 session per week. You have until Saturday February 13th to submit your profile and I will select the coachee on February 15th. I am confident you will enjoy the experience.

*2009 ICF Global Coaching Client Study.

On the importance of creating the right organizational culture (Thanks to Andrew)

By the time we got to 100 people, even though we hired people with the right skill sets and experiences, I just dreaded getting out of bed in the morning and was hitting that snooze button over and over again Corner Office – Tony Hsieh of Zappos – Celebrate Individuality – Question – NYTimes.com.

On why an Agile approach is better suited to deliver value (Thanks to Alfonso)

Most organizations that depend on software are struggling to transform their lifecycle model from a “development” focus to a “delivery” focus. This subtle distinction in wording represents a dramatic change in the principles that are driving the management philosophy and the governance models – Improving Software Economics

On the meaning of Agile transformation for managers

What many people mistakenly do is equate agile project management with doing more work, with less documentation and fewer people. Although the premise is to get more done in a more favorable way, I have never met a team that could successfully implement agile principles without having to slow down first - VersionOne – Agile Adoption For Managers.

On the fact that the true value of an organization is not mapped via its organizational chart

But it’s not the fact that you have many more boxes and lines that I’m most envious of.  It’s your “white space” I want – Oh, Yeah? Well, My Org Chart is Bigger and More Beautiful Than Yours!

On the need to manage self-organized teams when required

The interesting thing is, the further we go into agile management territory the less typical the managerial job we expect. Teams are self-organizing and cross-functional, and sometimes we think a manager should just get out of the way. By the way, surprisingly often this is exactly the best choice. But whenever one of the asshole-moments is needed, it is time to show up and do what has to be done. Otherwise the atmosphere starts rotting as people wait for someone who will fix things. Someone who will do something about this guy adding a new technology every time he reads some nice article. Someone who will deal with that lass taking a few days off because she doesn’t really care about the project being late and the team working their butts off to get back on the right track. That’s always a job for a manager, and a harsh one, no matter how self-organized the team is - Good Managers Sometimes Have to Play Assholes – NOOP.NL.

The Experiment

I attempted a small experiment with my kids a few weeks ago – get them to voluntarily help clean the house. If you have children between 7 and 10 year-old, I’m pretty sure having your kids help with cleaning is nothing short of a nerve-wrecking experience. If you don’t have kids, the process typically goes like this:

• You – “Timmy, can you please pick up the toys in your room.”
• Timmy – “Why?”
• You – “Because your room is a mess and I break my face every morning when I come wake you up.”
• Timmy – “OK, I’ll clean up.”

30 minutes later, you go see Timmy.

• You, slightly annoyed – “Timmy, what are you doing?”
• Timmy, looking up – “I’m building a castle, daddy. You want to play with me?”
• You – “Yes, I’d like to play with you as soon as I’m done cleaning up. Why didn’t you pick up your toys like I asked you too?”
• Timmy – “OK, I’ll clean up”

30 minutes later, you go see Timmy

• … (you can guess the rest)

So, back to my experiment. A few weeks ago, while my wife was grocery shopping I decided to use an adapted version of Scrum. I called my son and his twin sister and told them we would do a little activity. To their enjoyment, they were wondering what I had in mind. They sat next to me at the table while I the took 4 x 6 index cards and on each of them, I wrote a task: pick up the toys, put your clothes in your drawers, empty the garbage cans, bring the recycling to the garage, put the Tupperware away in the drawer, vacuum the floor, etc.

• My son – “Daddy, why are you writing these down?”
• Me – “We’ll play a little game.”
• My daughter – “Can I play too?”
• Me – “Of course. Here’s how it goes. I wrote 8 cards and each card has a little task. I need you to help me clean up the house while mommy is doing grocery.”
• The twins – “OK, what do we do with the cards?”
• Me – “You will each select the cards (the tasks) you would like to do. You then decide in which order you want to do them.”
• My daughter – “Daddy, some tasks are longer than others. What do we do about that?”.
• Me – “It’s up to you to decide.”
• The twins – “It doesn’t matter. We’ll decide which ones we pick.”
• My son – “Do we get a reward for doing the work?”
• Me – “Mmmm, good question. I know you like to read. How about I give you tokens for each task? Once you get 50 tokens, I’ll buy the book you asked me.”
• My son – “OK.”
• My daughter – “Can I buy a beeds set instead of a book?”
• Me – “Sure.”
• The twins – “Can you write how many tokens each task gives on the cards?”
• Me – “Good thinking! Picking up the toys is 3 tokens, bringing the recycling to the garage is 1 token, …”
• The kids – “OK, but who picks first?”
• My son – “Let’s do rock – paper – scissor.”
• My daughter – “Yes, let’s do rock – paper – scissor.”
• The twins – “ROCK, PAPER, SCISSOR…”

After determining who would start, they quickly picked the cards and started doing the assigned task. At their own pace, they executed on the cards. Then, something cool happened.

• My son – “Daddy, can we add a card? We need to water the plants.”
• Me, laughing – “Of course. Who’s going to take this one?”
• The twins – “Me, me, me!”
• Me – “I guess we’ll have to write another card so you are even.”
• My daughter – “Can I dust the bureau? I saw mommy do it the other day and I’d like to do that.”
• Me, with a big smile – “OK, if you’d like to do that. I’m OK with this.”

Together, they successfully completed all their tasks. All of their tasks! No fighting, no screaming. That was a “proud moment” Imagine when my wife got back home after the grocery…

With the Xmas Holidays and the broken routine, I was pleased to see my kids grabbing the cards by themselves this past Saturday and starting to execute on the routine. “Wow, this self-organization thing really works! Even with kids…”, I told myself.

The Take-Away

If you want people to carry out a task, here are a few suggestions:

• Describe the task;
• Let the team self-organize;
• If the team needs help, you may suggest tools or a process – but do not impose them;
• Get out of the way;
• If possible, make it fun;
• That’s it.

Another monthly update on the books I read during the past month. For a complete a list, you can visit my virtual bookshelf.

Systemic Thinking

I read Senge’s The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization a few times so I was looking forward to his new collaborative book.

The Necessary Revolution: How individuals and organizations are working together to create a sustainable world

My Rating: 

A few words on the book: This time, Senge and his collaborators propose a systemic approach to help solve the environmental and social challenges we are currently facing (Energy & Transportation, Food & Water, and Material Waste & Toxicity). He provides real life examples of people and organizations who have successfully implemented sustainable solutions by: following a systemic approach, collaborating, and inspecting & adapting their production methods.  Although at times the picture seems very bleak, seeing true solutions to some of the most complex problems our planet is facing was encouraging. Overall, a good book to read.

Servant Leadership

In the past year, I have heard references to servant leadership hundreds of time. Since I like to learn about various leadership styles and after a colleague suggested this training course, I jumped in. For more details on this training course, you may want to read my summary.

The Servant Leadership Training Course: Achieving Success Through Character, Bravery, and Influence

My Rating:

A few words on the book: A word of advice, although the beginning of this training course (audiobook) sounds like preaching by an experienced motivational speaker, the references and analogies used throughout the course are useful and eye-opening. Our organization strongly relies on servant leadership principles and getting the bigger picture will hopefully help me improve along those lines.

Stewardship

After releasing his audiobook The Right Use of Power, Peter Block wrote this book that provides more explanation around his philosophy of stewardship.

The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters

My Rating: 

A few words on the book: In this book Block details his philosophy about life and work and breaks many of the common assumptions one makes when entering the work force. He offers new paradigms and presents why the old patriarchal type relationship between boss and employees does not work. If like me, the status quo isn’t your perspective, you will like Block’s thinking but beware implementing some of his suggestions is very demanding as society doesn’t (yet) work as Peter suggests.

People keep asking “How?” as a defense against living their life, says best-selling author Peter Block. In this witty, insightful award-winning book, Block shows that many standard solutions and improvement efforts, reinforced by most of the literature, keep people paralyzed. Here he places the “how to” craze in perspective and teaches individuals, workers, and managers ways to act on what they know. This in turn allows them to reclaim their freedom and capacity to create the kind of world they want to live in. Block’s “elements of choice” — the characteristic of a new workplace and a new world based on more positive values — include self-mentoring, investing in relationships, accepting the unpredictability of life, and realizing that the individual prospers only when the community does.

Amazon.com

I finally completed the 360 degrees feedback exercise I initiated a few weeks ago. At the time, I created a document to collect my colleague’s feedback and explained why I was using this method for my performance assessment this year.

Before I get into the results, I must say that I was very pleased with the new tool as it forced people to make some choices in where they would allocate their points for the strengths and weaknesses. One of my evaluator had a comment that summed up the process nicely. He said “Your tool is very similar to you. It is simple yet it has a playful complexity behind it. It forces the evaluator to really give some thoughts to his answers”.

The graphic below presents the average score for each question, in descending order. Out of the 20 people I invited to take part of my evaluation, 17 people participated and filled out the questionnaire while 1 participant preferred to provide an evaluation without filling it out.

Graphical representation of the results of my 360 degrees feedback

Evaluators could score each question on a scale from -4 to +4. The explanation of each score is presented at the end of this post.

Although the results are very interesting, the process allowed me to receive a lot of feedback and have open conversations with people I work with. In my opinion, this is by far the most positive aspect of this process. I look forward to repeating the process once again next year.

-4: This competency is below the 1st percentile compared to the population.

-3: This competency is below the 10th percentile compared to the population.

-2: This competency is below the 25th percentile compared to the population.

-1: This competency is below the 50th percentile compared to the population.

0: This competency is average.

+1: This competency is above the 50th percentile compared to the population.

+2: This competency is above the 75th percentile compared to the population.

+3: This competency is above the 90th percentile compared to the population.

+4: This competency is above the 99th percentile compared to the population.

A fair number of people who read my blog posts also end up consulting the list of books I’ve read in recent years. Based on their reaction, I’ve come to realize that the organization of my virtual bookshelf could be improved. Moving forward, I will publish a monthly post on the books I’ve read during the previous month – this is the first of such posts.

Meeting Facilitation

In preparation for our Strategic Café I read the following two books. I’m working on a post describing the process which should come out in the next few weeks.

The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter

My Rating:

A few words on this book: This is a great book if you are looking to start meaningful conversations on topics that are close to people’s heart. The book covers the requirements to organize a successful World Café.

The World Café is a flexible, easy-to-use process for fostering collaborative dialogue, sharing collective knowledge, and discovering new opportunities for action. World Café originators Juanita Brown and David Isaacs outline seven core design principles and provide practical tips and tools for convening and hosting “conversations that matter,” even with very large groups. Each chapter features actual stories of Café dialogues from business, education, government, and community organizations across the globe, demonstrating how the World Café approach can be adapted to many different settings and cultures. Based on living systems thinking, this is a proven approach for fostering authentic dialogue and creating dynamic networks of conversation around your organization or community’s real work and critical questions––improving both personal relationships and people’s capacity to shape the future together.

Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future

My Rating:

A few words on this book: Margaret Wheatley wrote the foreword to the The World Cafe book and as such I assumed this book would be a good complement. Unfortunately, this book focuses much more on “restoring hope” than it does on initiating conversations. From my perspective, the book is more about the soft side and the philosophical aspect of conversations.

“I believe we can change the world if we start talking to one another again.”

With this simple declaration, Margaret Wheatley proposes that people band together with their colleagues and friends to create the solutions for real social change, both locally and globally, that are so badly needed. Such change will not come from governments or corporations, she argues, but from the ageless process of thinking together in conversation.

Leadership and Stewardship

The Right Use of Power (The Inner Art of Business Series)

My Rating:

A few words on this book: Although I listened to Peter Block’s audiobook a few months ago, I decided to invest another 3 hours to better understand the philosophical aspects behind stewardship. My friend François told me he listened to this audiobook 6 or 7 times and he has been greatly influenced by it.

The words of Peter Block convey the essence of his revolutionary message. On “The Right Use of Power,” this bestselling author and distinguished management consultant fast forwards us to the business model of the future: a self-governing, accountable organization where power is shared equally and work has meaning far beyond conventional measures. Join this business visionary as he explores:

The “community” of workers and how faith, service and communication redefine success

How to retain the best co-workers and why it has little to do with money

The “high control, low adaptive” organization and its roots in the parent-child relationship

What the philosopher-artist can teach us about pure motivation

The “controlling” boss: the surprising truth about why they do it

Spirituality in the workplace and the hidden strengths of our co-workers

Performance appraisal: obsolete artifact or necessary evil?

Breaking the cycle of “unfulfillable expectations” in the workplace through the partnership model

The “Great Questions” technique for building skillful communications and trust at work

If we redistribute power do we have to redistribute wealth, too?

Compelling real-life examples of the power of stewardship, gained from Peter Block’s years of work in both the public and private sectors

Concluding with a tough question-and-answer session with Peter Block, “The Right Use of Power” will help prepare you for the changes, challenges and rewards coming in the new era of business — an era that has already begun.

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t

My Rating:

A few words on this book: I read this book in 2002 a few months after it came out. After listening to The Right Use of Power I wanted to go back to Collins’ book to find if there were any similarities between the concepts brought forward in these 2 books – and there are. I will document them further in an upcoming blog post.

Few people have the courage to kill their "puppy"

Before you call animal protection agencies, I need to warn you upfront that this blog post is not about taking the life of man’s best friend. This post is about making difficult decisions – very difficult decisions when it comes to ending your own initiatives. For the record, I love animals but I found the analogy so powerful that I decided to use it to support my perspective [thanks to André for the analogy].

I wrote about an organization’s ability to create, select and grow new ideas in an earlier blog post. I already highlighted 2 very different methods of launching new initiatives and in this post, I want to write about a leader’s ability to kill an initiative before it reaches full potential. No sane person launches an initiative or a project with the objective of not being successful.

Too many organizations lack the ability to innovate so when an organization has the amazing ability to generate new ideas, it is a wonderful thing. In such organizations, employees are motivated and the company makes sure it will continue to grow by bringing innovations to the market. Such organizations typically have a healthy pipeline of ideas that help them re-invent themselves. Some large organizations even have the goal to generate more than 30% of their revenues from products created in the last 24 months. That’s an aggressive but worthwhile strategy.

The challenge I have seen is with smaller organizations where the initiator of the idea is also typically its leader. In such circumstances, the leader no longer has the ability to take a step back and see things as they are – not as he wants them to be. After investing money and personal energy and imagining such high potential, making the right decision about pursuing the project (or not) when the results aren’t there is nearly impossible. The emotional ties to the project are so strong, it requires a lot of courage to make the decision to kill the project.

What do you do when the initiative doesn’t deliver on its expectation? Do you keep moving forward or do you put an end to the project? When do you know when enough is enough? How do you know you didn’t kill the idea too soon?

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to these questions except it depends… It is obvious that the decision to end an initiative is much easier to make when you are not emotionally associated with the initiative. Not having taken part of the initiative makes it easier to use clear-cut criteria and apply them. If the project didn’t generate the expected revenue or doesn’t meet which ever other criteria used to evaluate it, it is much easier to decide to cancel it – to make a rational decision instead of an emotional one.

As with every thing in life, no one can ever be certain that the decision was the right one but I firmly believe that making no decision (or maintaining the status quo) is worst than making a decision. Isn’t insanity the behavior of repeating the same actions and expecting a different outcome?

As for your initiatives, stop seeing them as puppies. Take a step back and if you must kill your project, see the experience as an opportunity to develop new skills that you will need further down the line. As Agile people keep saying “Inspect and Adapt” which is a clever way of saying “Learn from your mistakes, and move on”. Very few large success happened on the first attempt. See your failed initiatives as a pre requisite for your next success.

I’ll tell you about some of my “puppies” in an upcoming post…

The seven levels of authority or how to empower people

Every topic requires its own level of authority, and the further you go the better it is. But in some cases, it is best to start by telling or selling, and then gradually increase the authority of team members as their experience grows. [Choosing Authority Levels for Team Members - NOOP.NL].

Using Humility to Improve Performance

When people act humbly, they are acknowledging their limitations and accepting that they cannot go it alone. This mindset is valuable to a team because it serves as an invitation for others to help. [Use Humility to Improve Performance - John Baldoni - HarvardBusiness.org].

Listening, Humility, and Accountability as part of Leadership Training

GE has revised the curriculum at Crotonville, its famed management development center, to learn from mistakes it made in the current recession. There is an emphasis on teaching executives to focus on humility and listening as well as encouraging them “to challenge assumptions, think more globally,” and be “more accountable.” Listening, humility, and accountability are good first steps to inspiration; and assumption busting and global thinking may help with setting better direction. [What It Takes to Lead Now - John Baldoni - HarvardBusiness.org].

Self-Organizing Team versus Anarchy

First, I’d like to get away from the idea that agile teams are leaderless and that leadership only revolves around the team depending on the situation (this type of situational leadership does occur, and often, it just does not replace a good leader). There is just too much experience and management literature that shows that good leaders make a big difference. The anarchist wants to eliminate leaders and merely go with situational leadership. However, there is also a large contingent in the agile community that think the right approach is to change the style of leadership, not to eliminate leaders. It’s easy to rail against poor managers or leaders and advocate eliminating them. It’s much harder to work with organizations to change their leadership style to one that supports an agile environment. [The Cutter Blog » Blog Archive » No More Self-Organizing Teams].

Leadership and Agile Teams

As for leadership, it’s like mom-and-apple-pie. Everyone seems to agree that leadership is a good thing, don’t they? Though how that leadership is appointed, sanctioned or manifested is the subject of debate, I think we all agree that leadership is a good thing on Agile teams. My own position is that, if we can find ways to reduce non-value added management work caused by the reality of organizational silos (via Lean Kanban systems, etc), we can then all — managers and non-managers alike — get down to the important business of figuring how to lead our Agile teams. Until then, having a role that addresses the management work is simply a necessity. [LitheSpeed's LitheBlog: Exploring Lean and Agile: Is it Groundhog Day? Thoughts on Self Organization, Self-Discipline & Light Touch Leadership].