As a leader, I am responsible for helping individuals and
teams to grow and take responsibility.
How do you hand over responsibility as a leader to
the teams and the individuals working in the team's.
Now, that's basically big shift. Hey everyone, my name is Henry
Surya with Robin. And you're listening to the
technology, you know, podcast the show where I'll be bringing
you the greatest technical leaders practitioners and
thought leaders in the industry to discuss about their Journey
ideas and practices that we all can learn and apply to build a
highly performing technical team and to make an impact in your
personal work. So let's dive into our Journal.
Hello, my friends and my listeners.
Welcome back to the faculty Journal podcast, the show where
you can learn about technical leadership and Excellence from
my conversations with great thought, leaders in the tech
industry. If this is your first time
listening to technology, you know, please subscribe and
follow the show on your podcast app and on LinkedIn, Twitter and
Instagram and to support my journey.
Creating this podcast, subscribe as a patron at technology.
No, dot f /, Patron. My guess what?
Today's episode is rotten are Inga rotten is a leadership
developer and one of the causes of the professional Asia leader,
and if you still remember in the previous episode 98, I had a
conversation with Kurt Bittner. Also, one of the causes to
discuss some parts of the book. This is a kind of continuation
from that previous episode. And in this episode Ron and I
discussed on how one can become a professional HR leader Ron
started by sharing his view of why agile.
Ian's usually fail and he gave advice on how companies should
adopt agile in a more effective way rather than describe the
characteristics of a professional Asia leader,
including how to apply situational leadership by
understanding the four different leadership styles which are
combative compliant competitive and catalytic leadership run
also explained how leaders can build High performing teams by
being aware of the two. Domains.
The teams are operating in which are the Well and invisible
domains. And by also understanding the
interconnection between organization structure and its
culture towards the end run shared his Utopia view of how
organizations would look like if they already become fully agile.
And he also shared some patterns for effective leadership.
I really enjoyed my conversation with Ron and I especially like
our discussion about how to build High performing team that
is truly self managing and self-organizing and the
importance of being aware of The invisible domains within the
organization and take action on how to resolve some of those
which hinders high performance and Agility.
And if you also find this episode useful, please help
share it with your friends and colleagues.
So they can also benefit from listening to this episode.
Don't forget to give this podcast a five-star rating and
review on a podcast and Spotify because it will help me a lot to
make this podcast, easily discovered by other listeners.
Before we continue to the conversation with run.
Let's hear some words from our sponsors.
Today's episode is proudly sponsored by skills matter.
The global community and events platform.
With more than 100,000 software professionals here members.
Can organize their learning experiences around the
technology topics. They care about most you get
on-demand access to their latest content thought, leadership
insights, as well, as the exciting schedule of tech events
running across all time zones. So we're the devops our data
science. Is your bus or you're a fan of
functional programming or all things Cloud, you can make real
connections with people who share your interests head on
over to skills method or Cam to become part of the tech
community that matters most to you.
It's free to join and you will find it easy to keep up with the
latest tech Trends. Hello everyone.
Welcome back to the new episode of the technology on our podcast
today. I have someone with me, I guess
who is a leadership developer sounds Strange right?
What is leadership? Developer is actually one of the
co-author of a book title professional, Asia leader.
Actually, I have a previous guests before could but not in
episode 98. Who is also one of the
co-authors today I'm going to talk with Ron specifically on
the continuation on how we can become a better leader, in the
sense of Asia world, how to become a professional Asia
leader. So, we'll be covering topic that
we haven't had a chance to discuss with Kurt before so run
really looking forward for this. This episode looking forward to
learn from you as well, thank you for having me.
So, first of all, I would like to start always with my guests
to share, maybe your career highlights turning points, maybe
that you can share with the listeners here, so that we all
can learn from your journey. There are also basically what it
comes down to. I started working in my
professional career around 2000 when I became a software
engineer back in the days, working for Phillips, when I've
been working as a software engineer for merely like six
years, But I always knew that only that wouldn't be the job
that I would end up in because I was always more like a people
person that some point in 2006. I think it was, I became a scrum
master, I heard about scrum, and we were working in a research
environment and good experiment. A lot with scrum and back in the
days. Nobody knew about scrum yet.
So it was like applying it in the basement of the building
that we're sitting. And people were asking all about
that, sticky notes on the wall and stuff like that, like, what
is this stuff you're doing over there?
So that's basically 2006. I've been a scrum master.
Sir, for about eight years until like 2014?
I think it is. And well, the good news is that
I had a team that actually was doing quite well.
So they were maturing and been great things and then at some
point, other team start asking you what are you doing?
And before you know it you're coaching like more than one team
and helping the organization in advance as well.
Basically what I found there, there was this overarching topic
that I always ended up doing which words like helping HR and
leaders to put up an environment.
We're self-organization could happen.
That's basically how I also in the end got the think about
what's my role will leadership developer?
What that means is that we're helping organizations to create
an environment where teams can self-organize.
And that's basically what it comes down to around 2014.
After being a scrum has for eight years.
I decided to take this to the next level and help other
organizations to do this as well.
So became self-employed started, working for consultancy firm, at
some point, as well. And actually, ever since I have
been here, Helping organizations to put their leadership in place
around the scrum teams. I think it was also 2014 when I
joined stranded org back then teaching the professional scrum,
Master training later. Also started teaching the PCO I
think around 2017 2018. When I started thinking about,
developing the professional agile, Lucia place together with
scrum the door. I think the turning point is the
collaboration with scrum the dorg where I really started
thinking about professional scrum, how to apply that.
And what it means to actually, deploy leadership around the
scrum team over there. And I think that's basically, if
I look now at what I do, we help organizations, we have two
companies, one trading company but also one consultancy firm.
Basically what we're aimed at is to create organizations for
people after work. Will help them put self
organization in place but also develop the leadership around
the teams and that's basically what we're currently doing.
Thanks for sharing your story. I can see why you mentioned
yourself as a leadership coach, who have been doing this for
quite some time, probably around more than 20 years.
I guess you're right. You mentioned that you also part
of screamed or cried or you have been practicing scrum all along
as well. So these days this term is not
new, it's been a while. Yeah, but still companies are
still trying to do a gel Transformations within their
organizations especially for those companies who are probably
a bit lagging behind from traditional world.
So in your view in your professional career and maybe
Consulting, do you see any kind of reasons why a gel
Transformations sometimes fail and people start to become The
girl about a job these days because I think people start to
become skeptical if they apply something, but it doesn't really
work fully. So maybe you can explain here
why some major Transformations actually failed?
First kind of interesting because in the beginning days of
me implementing scrum, you could really see that it was only
applied within the it departments at software teams,
and we were quite successful back then in applying that, and
at some point organization started seeing the benefits of
that and wanting to scale, Add up to the organizational level
and I think basically, that's what we are currently in.
I think it was like 10 years ago, when organization started
shifting, which you currently see, is that a lot of large
corporates tried to implement agile at the organizational
level, but I think the way they do it is very transactional.
So meaning, they are focusing a lot on structure processes and
tradition. You tools, new roles, scaling
Frameworks, all that kind of stuff, but what they fail to
really change is there. Sure.
I've been following this survey by I think it was version one
who started with him. Now it's company called digital
a I record the state of agile and which is see in that survey
or as well as I did in the last eight years.
More and more companies have started adopting agile but for
some reason they're T matured are capability of
self-organizing doesn't go up. This is also.
What the survey reveals is that people see that practices are
being applied, but they see that their organization is not able
to adopt a culture that looks like Like the agile, Manifesto,
everything that's been said in you had a Manifesto individuals
and interactions over processes and tools and all that kind of
stuff. So it is a shift in culture.
When you start working a job. I think if the organization
doesn't have a burning platform to actually change their
culture, agile implementations are ads, all transformations
will come and get stuck which I call the glass ceiling.
If there's five levels of maturity I think they kind of
get stuck at level 2 level 3 in their maturity.
I think that's basically what we're seeing still nowadays and
It hasn't changed a lot over the last few years.
So you mentioned something that intrigued me or you mentioned
like many companies try to do it in the transactional way.
Transactional means like they for certain process tools, maybe
the scaling framework and all these things.
But actually what you're saying is the underlying important
thing is that you the culture then I can see many a Giles the
Vacations or maybe professionals who also just preach, okay, here
are set of practices that we need to do.
These are the roles that we need to have in the team.
What would You change differently knowing about this
situation, how can we become more focused starting from the
culture? What kind of things that may be
leaders need to do, not to start prioritizing from there rather
than the transactional part here.
I think it starts with realization that something
really needs to change. There's many reasons, why
organizations, nowadays start, adopting agile.
I'm think a lot of the reasons are because everybody's doing it
or because the management team wants to change or to save cost,
which is in my opinion that Reason to start doing it.
I mean, it's going to cost you in the beginning because
changing culture, a shift towards a more agile team based
mindset is hard change, and I think many organizations that
have been around there for maybe 100 years, they aren't built on
mechanisms that are based on self-organizing teams.
They're based on this like hero, executive leader, that makes all
the decisions and then the team's they Implement they
follow and they do not lead actually.
And I think Think what you should start with as a leader,
where you really want to reap the benefits of agile in your
organization. It starts with a me to change.
If you have a large corporate organization with many people
working there, they're gonna go along maybe for like a few month
or maybe a year but then they will fall back into Old Behavior
because there is no real need to change.
So, I think lead us need to connect the reasons for becoming
really agile. If they really want a jaw limit,
if they want to reap the benefits of that, connect that
to the problems that they're having, and People understand
how agile actually helps you to solve these problems.
And basically it comes down to a switching culture where leaders
are capable of delegating more and more responsibilities
towards the teams, but goal of competing faster results, right?
Wear jeans can make faster decisions without the
bureaucracy that we see in many of these traditional corporates.
And I think that's basically where it starts to connect.
The reason for the change with understanding what it means to
change a culture, Yeah, speaking about culture, I'm also a leader
myself sometimes. It's really tricky where to
start. We know, we understand we need
to change, we can see it. So called The Burning platform,
you mentioned the pain points that people are doing.
But culture is something that is not easy and straightforward to
change. It needs like an organic effort
by everyone, but they need to understand the why.
And then they need to understand the need to change and things
like that. So what do you think is the best
place to start changing? This culture is it something
like you create a town hall meeting?
Telling everyone, or is this a set of dogs or is there any
better way to do that? Yeah, that's a very good
question, actually. Let me first start by answering
the question with the worst place to start with the change
and that is everywhere in your organization because I see like
large scale. Agile Transformations, like
whole company is subject to the change from my experience in the
last at least 12 years with agile Transformations, is I
would say start at that location in your organization.
Most complexity resides because that's where the biggest
benefits can occur. If you look at scum, for
example, scrum was designed to solve complex problems.
It wasn't designed in simple problems, or maybe complicated
problems, because we've been actually capable of solving
these problems are right for many years before scrum was
designed to solve complex problems.
And the complex base. That's what we typically do when
we start working with organizations.
For example, just very recently. Last week, we started a new
change in an organization. We Actually explicitly, picked
the one project that is in the most complex domain inside the
organization. They have so many challenges
like the entire Industries, changing all the time, and the
organization cannot keep up with the change anymore and I think
that's basically the pockets of Excellence within your
organization or agile can become.
Very successful, is there where the most complexity is because
well, the Frameworks that we've been using are designed to solve
complexity. And I think that's basically
where you should start. Well, it sounds a little
counterintuitive Rod because I've seen many Team start words
easiest but you don't prove that you're actually making a big
difference by doing that. So you mentioned about complex
not complicated. Are you referring to kidnap in
model? So maybe for people who are not
familiar yet. How do you differentiate complex
versus complex? Yeah, that's a good question.
Do reference to the Keynesian Model A Lot attending use that a
lot as well. When I explain what complexity
is. Basically the most simple way to
explain. What complexity means is that
when everything is in flux, so requirements are in flux.
Like I always tell my new clients, customers think they
know what they want until they see what they get and then they
want something completely different.
Since technology is changing faster.
And faster nowadays, this phenomenon has increased
enormously over the last 10 years, I think.
And because of that phenomenon, we end up in a complex domain,
like all requirements, keep changing, technology keeps
changing. And as a result of that, the
knowledge that people need needs to be updated faster, and
faster, and because of that Dynamic, I think we are in the
middle of a complex domain. We need solutions to solve those
problems in a complex domain. So that's basically what I mean
with that. And also not to mention that the
competitors are changing a lot as well, the disruptor the
startups, right? So, I think this is also, one
thing why it becomes more complex, we mentioned about
this, that from the complex, maybe most complex projects in
the company, most competent months, but you need certain
kind of leader. I saw coming to your bread and
butter just to develop professional Asia.
Leader, what are the most important pattern do you think
for an Asia leader? To be successful heading this
transformation or running this agile practices.
Yeah that's a good question actually.
Well I think basically in this might feel a little
counterintuitive because most of the leaders don't think about
this first understand which our current culture is.
I mean I've been working with so many transformations in the past
where we started off with a, you know, very idealistic way of
implementing scrum in the organization and then we bumped
into lot of cultural problems. So if you are not aware of the
current culture, Your organization.
If you can't measure That Make That explicit, there will be a
lot of surprises when you start to change things.
So I think the basic pattern is understand your culture
understand. Also, the type of leaders that
you have currently deployed and employed try to predict if those
leaders are capable of making the shift towards, like,
delegating more towards teams, because we are going to change
the organization. We're going to replace the hero
L kind of basis, by self-organizing teams that can
make decisions. We're leaders shift towards more
supporting those teams to do the job themselves.
One of the patterns, for example, that we've been using
in our leadership Clause is to maybe you heard about the book
by Jim Collins good to Great where he talks about, getting
the right, people on the bus first.
And I think basically what he means with that is what we have
seen as well. In our Transformations is that
if you start focusing on the leader said, should move the
transformation forward. For example, the scrum Master
product owners, the Tepee is in the teams that need to help the
team move forward and grow. Mature and take more
responsibility, but if he was manager, start to focus on these
people in the organization, you will see a shift in the
leadership culture in your organization.
And at the moment that those leaders inside the teams can
actually take more responsibility, of course you as
a leader need to be prepared to let go.
And that's basically what we've seen a lot is that there's
always tension between teams wanting more responsibilities
teams, being able to take more responsibility and once they are
the ability of the leader to let go of their Ability once that
happens. Now, basically the pattern we've
been applying a lot since the last 12 years, so you mentioned
this thing. Key concept from good to Great,
which is to get the right people on the bus window company on
your team. Maybe tell us a more practical
advice. How do you assess these leaders?
Whether they are the right people, what kind of characters
behaviors trades or things like that?
Maybe. Yeah.
So maybe I'll use an example from my own experiences in the
very recent years, during the covid situation.
I started a new Simon there. I began in Manager for a company
that I work with well. The first thing I started
looking at, of course, I was responsible for a 29 teams and
do we have the right leaders in the teams, in some of the
team's, the answer was definitely, yes.
There were scrum Masters product, owners, who are really
Keen to fill in, they're all good, but obviously, there is
always like one or two teams that do not have the right
leaders yet, so we started thinking about.
So if they don't have the right leaders, how could we help those
teams move forward? We started looking at our
recruitment process? For example, if you're
recruiting a new product owner, what's the type of questions?
You kind of ask them. And a few of those things is
people need to be humble enough to understand that the team can
take over at some point in time. People need to also to be hungry
to make the next step and move forward.
And they also need the emotional intelligence to build up a team,
right? And so we've been using these
kind of questions in our recruitment process.
So we were hiring a new product owner and I still remember, we
off that new product, only the question, like, tell us about
the failures you've had in the past.
Of course, the reason why we ask that question is we were just
testing if he was humble enough to admit that also he makes
mistakes. And that's okay because people
learn from those mistakes but we ended up in a conversation where
this product on are always mentioned.
Like yeah, but I do this ride and have that certification.
So testing the humbleness was something that we're doing there
and this is just one of the examples that we've been using
to see. Do we have the right people?
And that I think admitting that you also make mistakes and that
you were actually learning from these mistakes.
As one of the biggest qualities you could.
Actually look for in a team and in a leadership team.
Yeah, I really love what you said humbleness, right?
So the admittance that you did some mistakes.
It may be catastrophic, it may be small, but at least the
humbleness to actually mention about that.
And the other thing I would add probably is about ownership
because you keep mentioning about self organizing team,
right? So that he doesn't need to be
able to also own the things that they are leading.
So that if you don't always need to go back to the leader.
The other important thing that you mentioned in the book for
the role of leaders is to actually make sure that the
teams have enough. Opportunities to learn the
skills to learn maybe anything that they need to perform their
job. Tell us the importance of this
learning. There are, I think that is one
of the most important mechanisms that leaders can use at least
new leaders can use to make sure that new leaders arise in the
organization. What I have seen so many
organizations do is that they only sent their management teams
to leadership classes and to educate them or how to take on
more responsibility. But what I have seen, is that
leadership can be everywhere in the organization.
So I think It basically in this is what we've been developing in
our consultancy and training company is we've been designing
learning Journeys for the agile professionals.
So for example, we've been designing learning Journeys for
scrum Masters, learning Journeys for product, owners learning
Journeys, from managers. So how do you teach yourself to
require skills that we need to actually lead instead of manage
for example, good coaching skills or facilitation
techniques or how do you engage large groups to actually come up
with better solutions to stuff like liberating structure?
Or other facilitation techniques that kind of stuff.
And also, it's helping people understand what we actually mean
will culture and measuring the cultures.
So as part of these learning Journeys, we typically
developed, for example, a culture Workshop, where we help
people speak the same language when we talk about culture and
actually measure the culture in your organization.
So we could do better predictions about that.
And it's not only sending the managers to these classes but
it's sending all the leaders inside the teams also to these
Clauses. So they can help their teams
grow to a more higher. Our agile maturity level.
It's all about learning Journal that think and offering that to
the people. Yeah, so when you mention about
Learning Journey is right, I think the does here.
You should try to build some kind of learning Journeys for
your people. I think it depends on the
company's maturity. Maybe also the HR people process
for some companies. Don't really have learning
Journeys. So I think it's also good.
Reminder, for those leaders out there, please try to look at the
kind of Journey that you have for people to learn and I think
I remember in my episode with Kurt he mentioned that
leadership is not Just roll, right?
It actually can be anyone's to assume the role gentler you
mention here as well, right? So you should not just cater the
training for the actual leaders, the one who has the titles, but
also for everyone for different roles.
So thanks for mentioning that another thing that you have in
the book is actually, you kind of like categorize leadership
styles into four different things so I'm quite interested
in this. So maybe you can brief us a
little bit more about, what are these leadership styles?
Yeah, so basically, our summary is there's like a more complex.
System behind this bad. What we've done in the book, we
kept this very sharp and concise, we defined for
leadership styles that we have there.
We have the calmative leadership style, a, which is connected to
a culture that looks a little bit like an arena.
Her people fight all the time and have to fight for their
survival. The calmative leadership style
is actually very needed in an environment where there's
continuous fighting going on. So in an unsaved and hostile
environment, we demand the leadership style of Courage
power and domination. Basically, that is accommodate
leadership style, And the second style we mentioned, there is the
compliance style, which is typically useful in an
environment that can be summarized with something like
an institution, right? Large communities, like States
corporate environments. They need rules processes and
leaders that are responsible respectable, but also stable, of
course, the need behind, this is stability, keeping large
communities work together, let them work together, keeping them
safe. That's basically what the
compliant leadership style is all about.
Then the next style that we typically see he developed is
the competitive style, which is really like a game or a
competition, which is describing the environment competitive
environments have lots of opportunities and it also
demands that leaders and start challenging people to make use
of these opportunities to start winning, using an evidence-based
approach and keep analytical thinking at a high level in the
organization. And I think many of the
corporate environments that we currently encounter, do have a
very competitive environment, where the competitive leadership
styles, also pops up and of Since we already sent it, with
calmative compliant competitive be needed.
A four-term would see. So we call that catalytic, which
is the leadership style that we as agile organizations very
often need because we're shifting towards his individual
thinking that is typically residing in a competitive
environment towards a more Community kind of way of dealing
with things. So we want teams to come up with
better Solutions because the brains of multiple people are
always smaller than one individual can come up with.
So this is typically what works well in a A complex environment.
The reason why I think agile has become so attractive is because
people start to understand that if you have a team of
individuals suddenly work, we as a team, there's more to gain
from working as a team, a base combat.
So this catalytic leadership style that we described is
capable of relying on the wisdom of many, that's what working
well in a complex environment because the many can come up
with better solutions for complex problems.
So, this is why we need this catalytic leadership style will
lead us Open authentic and very supportive towards teams.
So maybe if I can repeat again, combative compliant, competitive
and catalytic. I see them as a, like a
spectrum, right? It's like you start, maybe from
combat. If you have a very bad culture,
moving into catalytic, right? And maybe you're in a market
where you have to fight through and make some gain.
So yeah, that's typically where it starts.
So is this something that all leaders should be able to adapt?
So they should change their leadership styles as and when
the situation requires them to do so Well, I think there's
certain situations that the mom a different leadership style.
So situational leadership is important, so I can imagine that
if you are in a hostile environment using a catalytic
leadership style doesn't work because well, people need to
fight their way through. So I would be the last person to
say that, every leader needs to adapt the catalytic leadership
style, but I think if you are residing in an environment where
there's enough wealth, where it is opportunities to grow and
where does a lot of complexity going on at a larger Of
technical challenges. I think the catalytic leadership
style works better because it provides for that environment
better Solutions. But again not every situation
demands tis catalytic leadership style so we should be aware of
that. So I would be the last person to
say about everybody. Now should switch to a cattle
and give shipped style right away.
I think you should look at what is my environment asked for
especially in those environments where there's a lot of
complexity that the monster is cut a little bit.
You should style to work more with community-based.
Team-based self-organizing team-based situations.
So you mentioned in catalytic you rely on the wisdom of the
team's, right? So these days people refer to
the team such as like the high performing teams or
self-organizing in. So now maybe do you have any
kind of advice how we can build High performing teams all in the
first place? What is actually a high
performing team so maybe he can explain from their first.
It's kind of interesting because in the beginning days of scrum,
I remember dad the jessalyn started talking about High
performing teams all the time, they need to continuously
improve. But of course, at some point
teams will reach this stable can own way of dealing with
complexity. So what we've been using for
measuring, if teams are really mature and high performing in
this complex environment, a few patterns that you can see in
those teams. First of all, they use very
clearly defined explicit goals. Very explicit conversations
about how to reach these goals Soper gamble.
I'd scream door, we have this evidence-based management stream
where we talked about out. How do you actually measure that
you are? Accomplishing the goals at you?
So explicitly defined. So basically that's a very
important one explicit goals and measuring towards those goals.
The other thing is being present, meaning that
understanding why people were together.
Why are your team in the first place?
Why did people show up at work and join the company.
So what are people's values and what are the values of the
company? What's the reason for people to
come out of bed every morning? So understanding that will help.
You understand better also how to Operating as a real team.
So that's the presence part, then the third thing ownership,
meaning that. Yeah, you can Define your goals,
but, of course, if it's just a go lab, some slogan on the wall,
it becomes. Well, what we typically call
management porn? Meaning, it's just a slogan on
the wall, but there's no Behavior behind this.
So, what I would like to see you that if you have defined the
goals, I would also like to see the behavior to support those
goals. So do people really believed in
the goals and are they chasing them?
I think that's basically what it comes down to and then the last
part Art is awareness more explicit conversations.
Good communication. Deliberate conversations like
retrospectives, where we really are have the intention to
improve the way that we communicate with each other, but
also with our stakeholders and with our clients and that kind
of stuff. So, it's for things,
explicitness presence ownership and awareness.
That's basically what it comes down to.
I really love that term, just do management for the, I haven't
heard about it before, but I can see some of these management and
Tibetans of this week, you just create a As you maybe create a
few sessions about it, you put it as slogan, emails and all
that. But the behaviors actually do
not actually reflect the kind of goals or values that you appear.
Exactly. The first thing I do when I
start working with a new client, I look at their slogans and look
at their messages that they're radiating to the outside world
and then I look at the behavior inside the company and if
there's like a gap between that, well, I know there's work to do.
So in your book, apart from these four characteristics, you
also mention about two domains. That the teams are operating,
which the visible and invisible domains.
When I read that, I think it's really a good concept for people
to think about whenever they want to build High performing
teams. Maybe can explain a little bit.
What do you mean by visible and invisible?
Domains. Yeah, so maybe it's best to
explain this with an analogy of an iceberg.
If you have like a water level, where this iceberg is floating
in my the visible domain reflects, everything that's
tangible that you can see that you can observe.
So this basically come down to the categories that we mentioned
before. So, for example, explicitly
defined goals here, the stuff that you put on your wall, the
things that you radiate, that's something that is very visible
and the way that you communicate.
However, if you start looking at ownership, for example on
presence that's basically the stuff that's underneath.
So one of our drivers. So that's the stuff under the
water level. That's the biggest part of the
iceberg that you might not see, right?
We have this analogy of a boat, hitting the iceberg like the
Titanic. Well, the biggest mistake that
they made is that they didn't see what was going on
underneath. With the water level, which
actually led to a big failure. And I think that's basically
what happens in many organizations because they focus
so much on the processing and the structures and the roles in
the organization. If they do not understand how
that relates to the culture in their organization and they
can't make that explicit, they're going to end up in
trouble at some point in time because adopting agility means a
shift in your culture. I think you should make that
invisible stuff, underneath the iceberg aware with people so I
think that's basically what our jobs as leader.
Is to work with the invisible domain more.
It's about psychological safety, it's about dependability.
All I can just so I can see your point.
He just tried to focus a lot on processes structure fixing all
this, but actually the underlying or do you call the
ice? But he did Ice Buck the
underlying things, that probably is, not serviceable, rise, not
something that people can see in concrete, I park and things like
psychological safety. The meaning, the impact that you
want to do, thanks for mentioning that.
So you mentioned about structure, right?
And initially, when we We talk to you also mention about
scaling framework. Why is scaling framework doesn't
work in a jar. I thought anything can be scaled
by following a certain Frameworks and things like that.
So tell us more about the concept of this structure and
also the culture well just to start with bad, I mean, I
wouldn't say that structure isn't important, it is important
but implementing a structure without understanding the
culture leads to failure. That's what we've seen.
So basically like a scaling framework and let's not mention
the Pink Elephant. Therefore, Bowl of many
organizations are using safe, right?
There's a lot of structure in. There are a lot of processes.
If you do not understand how the scale culture, you're going to
end up in trouble, because it is a lot of structure in there to
grab for our men to work with very recently.
Maybe you heard about Jurgen uploads new framework, unfix?
If you haven't heard about that, I would really recommend you to
look that up what he is doing. He's actually saying, like, do
not Implement a framework in your organization but Implement
patterns. Look at The needs for people and
look at what patterns work for you.
So what he has done, is created a library of patterns that many
organizations use to scale agility in their organization.
So basically, I think what you could do is to compare your
organization with some kind of spaceship, right conditions.
Keep changing all the time, the world is changing faster and
faster and I think leaders should be able to rebuild their
spaceship as they go through their environment.
Use the patterns that work but also Way the patterns that don't
work and I think what many organizations are currently
doing, is they're blindly implementing this blueprint of a
framework of scaling in their organization without the ability
to break down the stuff that doesn't work.
If you look at organizations and look at separate value streams
within the organization, some value streams might need a very
different structure than the other ones.
And I think many organizations are trying to do this one
approach for all their value streams, over all their people
in their organization, which obviously doesn't work.
Also there Are you should look at the parts of your
organization and the needs of those parts of the organization
and maybe put different structures in place there and
also align with the organization culture.
What those value streams are doing?
Yeah, I think these days people tend to up for an easy solution.
So to speak, write something that is already probably
publicized, or maybe other people have tried, so they just
apply the same things looking for the same results, which in
your case you mentioned that it doesn't always work that way.
Sometimes we don't need to implement All the certain
practices structure and things like that.
But look for the patterns. So I'll make sure put that in
the show notes. I haven't heard about that
before there is called unfixed. It's actually quite recent.
You may be people know you're gonna upload from the management
for your little book that he wrote, but he started developing
this unfixed framework September last year.
So it's quite fresh and recent. But I think there's a very
interesting set of patterns that organizations could use to
actually unfixed are scaling the implementation that they
currently have. So that's the reason why you
call this, I'm fixed. Maybe you can provide the links.
Later when we finish this conversation.
Yeah. I like the panda.
It's like unfix it and fix your scaling agile practices.
I guess it's never too late to look at your structure and see
what works and what doesn't work and the stuff that doesn't work.
Just cast it away and do something differently.
Your organization doesn't have to be this.
Large oil tanker that moves in One Direction.
Maybe it's like a fleet of smaller boats that still need to
work together, but use patterns at work and Cast Away.
The patents are don't work for you.
Totally makes sense. So Ron you have Done this for
quite many years, right? So you have helped some
organizations successfully transform in the end.
My maybe haven't experienced it. Fully what does an organization
look like? If they are fully a job and all
these things work. So, tell us what's the heaven
here. The picture where people will
have, when they're fully a gel there are, will we have the risk
here of losing a lot of people because they don't completely
recognize our organization anymore.
But I think if we look at nature how do large networks of people
look like at work together? Her, do they have a leader in
nature. So, if you look at those
patterns in nature, that would compare with a cell structure,
maybe you've heard about the book Reinventing organizations,
or written by Frederick Lulu? He Compares it like with, for
example, circles people think that there's no hierarchy
anymore in a fully agile organization, which I think is a
very silly idea because I think we still need hierarchy.
Otherwise, we will get an icky right if there would be no
leaders anymore. No managers.
So I definitely think that they're still years in an agile
organization. My opinion that there would be
leaders everywhere. Some leaders would be more
acting at the team level and some leaders are acting at the
organization level to keep the entire organization together.
I think the biggest difference is where the decisions are being
made and I think the decisions are being made in an agile
organization, which is maybe acting at the level 5 of
maturity being the highest level, well teams make decisions
on their own. They are self-organizing
self-managing as scrambling calls it nowadays, they take the
decisions and the leaders Is in the highest level over the
organization, they take care of the stuff, for example,
infrastructure, that enables the teams to paint those decisions
themselves. Or for example, to provide the
organization in the teams with those learning Journeys that we
talked about, so that those seams can actually become self
organizing and continue to learn about this.
There's a few organizations, by the way, that already used this
way of working very recently. There's also a book that I'm
currently reading a written by two guys in the Netherlands.
They called the corporate Rebels, the book is called
startup Factory where they describe higher.
It's a Chinese company, they sell air conditioning systems
and Refrigeration stuff like that.
Actually this is interesting because this is an 80,000 people
company with, like almost 4000 self-organizing cells that acts
independently. I maybe even competing with each
other, but they're still a company.
So there's still hierarchy the sill structure in there and so
there are more and more organizations experimenting with
these ways of working. So, this is not kind of a
fictive thing that only Ron maybe things about, it's already
out there and I think it's our job to help organizations see
the possibilities of how these companies work.
So when you mention higher is actually covered as well, in the
previous episode in 114 with Matt K Parker.
So he wrote a book called radical Enterprise.
So, higher is like, one of the examples where you can see this
kind of self-organizing teams. He even mention it's like micro
Enterprises within the company web technology.
Self-organizing maybe even competing with each other.
They're just given a goals and they figure it out together.
As a team, exactly. Another thing that you mentioned
in the book, The Real success probably is also that the change
is self-perpetuating, right? So it doesn't rely on certain
leaders to be there. It doesn't rely on certain
things in place. So tell us how we can build
something that is self-perpetuating.
So I always love to mention about the Simon.
I used to work in a Consulting, I used to mention that the true
success of a Consulting is after you leave a project, the things
can still continue or even getting better, right?
So, this self-perpetuating is actually very difficult because
sometimes we agree. Rely on certain people, certain
charismatic leader to tell us what's the right way of doing
things. So maybe from your journey.
Is there any tips for creating this guy returning?
As you mentioned that because I think that's basically how we
approach our consulting jobs with our clients.
So the first thing we start talking about with our clients
is, what are you going to do to make me Superfluous as fast as
possible as consultant. For example, hiring an agile
coach in your organization. I think that is a dysfunction.
The reason why I'm Saying that is that well, a job coaches.
It's a good idea to get some external knowledge if you don't
have the knowledge yet on how to become agile.
But I think what leaders and managers when they hire these
people need to do is immediately have a conversation on.
What are you going to do as consultant to make sure that we
adapt these capabilities so that we can take over?
So what I've been doing is I've been helping managers to start
coaching people so that I don't have to coach them anymore.
I've been helping scrum Masters for example, also to engage with
the transformation. So that they can become in
control of the transformation rather than external coaches who
will run the transformation. So I think if you look at it
from that perspective, I think the leader is dead, should take
over a transformation, should be the managers in the
organization. They should be the scrum asset.
Should be the product owners question.
Of course, would be, do they have the skills?
And if they don't have the skills, how can external
Consultants hand over those skills?
As fast as possible? And I think organizations should
be very sharp and when they hire an external consultant have
Conversation. What are you going to do as
external consultant to help house as company?
Take over as fast as possible and become self refrigerating?
I think that's basically what it comes down to.
So one of the common things that I see when you hire external
Consultants, you have a set of metrics, maybe these teams have
implemented. This age of framework or these
teams have completed their sprained or deliver projects the
box. But actually you mentioned a
good points that we should probably think about upskilling.
Right. Obscuring, the managers the
leaders in the team's I think that probably is one of the
Better metrics instead of looking at the implementation
level only does, that probably is one of the key factors how we
can serve perpetuate, this kind of a cultural changes.
The answer may be a metric, like, how many leaders in your
organization are capable of coaching people and I have their
coaching degree or something like that.
That could be a very interesting metric because that actually is
an explicit way to see that. You don't need the external
Consultants anymore speaking about effective leadership.
So in your book, you have some patterns for effective
leadership. I think there are a number of
them we don't need to cover all of them.
Maybe if you can pick some of the favorites, what would you
tell us some of the patterns for effective leadership?
That's an interesting question. So, let me start with the first
one. As a leader, I'm responsible for
helping individuals and teams to grow and take responsibility.
We kind of talked about this already, right?
How do you hand over responsibility as a leader to
the teams and the individuals working in the team's, well,
decisions need to be taken by those who do the word because
that's where the most knowledge is right.
Also, they might be closer to the actual more than you as a
manager might be. So I think that is why you need
Authority everywhere because every opportunity that one of
the people in the teams are aware, that a team can actually
directly have a conversation with the customer enables you to
make fast decisions. So my power in the organization
is determined by my ability to enable others to take
responsibility and that's basically how power changes from
a management perspective. In the past, it was like power
of making the decisions and being in control of the budgets
and stuff like That but in the end, if you have self-organizing
teams, your power as a leader is more creating new leaders in the
organization and that's basically a big shift.
So that's shifting responsibility towards teams.
That's think of the second one. Talented teams and individual.
We talked about the learning Journeys.
I think that's an important one. So I need to provide the people
with a goal and I think that's a very important leadership role.
So do people connect to that goal?
For example, we have the organizational goals, we have
them product goals as we have defined in the scrum guide.
So, for example, also the sprinkles.
But also, how does the organization goal connect to the
product goal? How does a prodigal connect to
the sprinkles? And how do those sprinkles?
And maybe all the other goals, connect to people's individual
goals? I think that's the job of the
leader to help people connect their goals towards what the
organization has in terms of goals.
And that is not easy. It requires a lot of focus and a
lot of conversation with each other.
The third one to choose a lost pattern that we discuss in the
book. It's the right for people to
vote. Cutters in creating the goal.
What we've been used to is that normally, the executive leaders,
they create the goals, right? And then the gold drips down to
as a team. But how about engaging people to
actually maybe be open that your organization's goals might
change. So what if the people in your
organization can see new opportunities and therefore the
goal shifts? Because of the input, you get
from your appellees and not only like a few individuals that had
got that executive level in the organization and of course what
you need there is having a safe environment.
A moment where people can discuss this and make mistakes
and learn from that and adapt to that situation as well.
I think those are patterns where leaders can really become
effective at what they do, but it requires a real shift in
thinking from a traditional managers.
Thanks for mentioning some of this pattern.
So you start with shifting responsibility, right?
So for leaders, not to always make the decisions by yourself
at actually to start shifting growing the team, letting them
decide and be responsible of their own challenges and
problems. And then, that you'll mention a
lot of times about goals for I think the goals connecting them
from the top from organization to individuals and also like
creating the safe environment. Sometimes I see that managers
leaders individuals. They are all tied down to just
doing the tasks during the features.
So they have a goal normally is from the top but then it gets
translated to task. They don't even have the time to
actually think of other. Maybe means to implement the
goal, right? Only what do you think a company
or organizations you do so that they can invite people to
actually start thinking about? About may be different ways of
solving a certain problem or different ways of implementing
the goals. Because sometimes people are
just broke down into tasks and firefighting sometimes.
So they don't necessarily have this time.
Yeah, that's an interesting question, actually.
So, let me first start with why this is so important.
We talk about. Self-organization all the time.
The reason why we want self-organization is, we need
faster decision making. That's basically what it comes
down to. However, I think
self-organization can become quite dangerous.
If the organization doesn't have go Because in what direction,
have people going to run when they don't have the goals ride.
So I think that is why it is so important from a leadership
perspective that there needs to be a lot of clarity around the
goals of the company. That's why we need to do this
together. To answer your question.
I think what is needed for that is intrinsic motivation, people
feeling intrinsically motivated and that's why they need to
connect their personal goals to the organizational goal, because
if they don't believe in the goals that the organization has
said, you're going to get resistant.
And I think that is the Reason why it's so important to dive
under the Ice Berg and be good at the invisible domain, because
in the invisible domain, that's where the magic happens.
That's where intrinsic motivation starts to happen.
And that's where people start, connecting to the bigger picture
if you have that in place. Well, I think that's the best
starting point to start working on self-organizing teams, but in
the end, the only reason why we're doing it is faster
decision making in this complex domain, and I think that's how
it's connecting to everything we talked about in the last hour.
I still remember, Kurt mentioned this thing called decision,
latency, right? So one of the true measure of a
self-organizing Iman Angel team is actually how much latency you
have to make a decision. So thanks for reminding us again
about this speed, make decision and I think you touch something
very important intrinsic motivation.
So I believe in many companies, not all people will have this
intrinsic motivation that is connected to the company.
But yeah. How can we facilitate that?
I think is the most important thing, right?
Maybe having psychological safety, explaining the why Why
we do certain things in the company or kind of customer
problems that we are solving. I think, let's not forget to
implement that to all the people inside the company as well, so
that they have intrinsic motivation to be self organized
run. It has been a pleasure talking
to you. So as we are driving towards the
end of our conversation, I have one last question that I always
love to ask my guess, which is to share your version of tree
technical leadership wisdom. So maybe if you just summarize
professional Asia leadership. Maybe this can become your three
technical leadership, wisdom as well.
And so Missing one so. Well, I think I can't avoid this
one. So the first one is don't start
any change. Before you understand culture in
your organization because you're going to end up in trouble if
you don't. So that's the first thing.
The second one is the way to change the culture is actually
through structure. So don't forget about this
fracture, it seems like we were against structure and processes,
know you need that, but the start with culture first and
then the last one, I think, well, I've been in leadership
positions myself and It is not easy to let go of stuff,
especially if it's your child, your baby ride, if you created
it. So I think we as Leaders need to
learn ourselves how to let go and how to delegate decisions
and feel comfortable. Let me rephrase it like that.
Every decision that you make is a missed opportunity for
somebody else to take the decision.
And I think that's basically what might help you let go more
when you start deleting in this way.
Well, I love that Mantra, right? Every decision you make is a
missed opportunity for someone else to make that decision.
So I love that. Haven't heard about that.
So, yeah, I think as a leader myself, sometimes, it's really
difficult to let go or maybe delegate because we have even if
certain ways of doing things, and when we see someone else not
doing the same thing, we feel a little bit uncomfortable.
So I think again the Mantra every decision you make is a
missed opportunity for someone else to make that decision.
I think it's a good reminder for all of us leaders.
So run if people want to continue the conversation if
they are interested about your work, maybe it's their place for
them to find you on my yeah. So I think the best Asian to
refer them, to is our company evolutionary leadership.
So it's www, evolutionary leadership Dot and L or Dutch
based company, but we place our blogs there.
And we're shifting our Focus, all towards that website, where
we share more of the leadership ideas that we're having.
And, of course, also to the website of our book, The
Professional agile leader.com. So, if you're interested in
reading a book, that's where you can find it.
And, of course, you could also find that on Amazon, on all the
normal Book, Sales challenges around the world.
So I would love to engage more. People on these subjects.
So thank you for inviting me. Yeah I read the book as well so
I think it's really good. So for leaders out there who
want to really understand what does it take to become an Asia
leader. I think there's so many insights
inside the book, so thanks again for your time run.
Looking for when we start seeing more agile leaders in the world,
cool, thank you. Thank you for listening to this
episode and for staying, right until the end, if you're highly
enjoyed it, I would appreciate if you share it with your
friends and colleagues who you think would also benefit from
listening to this episode. And if you are new to the
podcast, make sure to subscribe and leave me your valuable
review and feedback. It helps me a lot in order to
grow this podcast better. You can also find the full show
notes of this conversation on the episode page at tackling
Journal, dot death website, including the full transcript.
With interesting quotes and links to the resources
mentioned, from the conversation.
And lastly, make sure to subscribe to the shows mailing
list on package. You know, dot f to get notified
for any future episodes. Stay tuned for the next
technology. No episode.
And until then goodbye.