1
00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:03,240
This was where we pivoted end of
year one, running an agile 

2
00:00:03,240 --> 00:00:05,800
transformation. 
We realized the error of our 

3
00:00:05,800 --> 00:00:08,880
ways and we pivoted. 
We took down all of the posters 

4
00:00:08,880 --> 00:00:11,920
that said agile and we put up 
posters that said better 

5
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products, faster. 
We've since pivoted the Simon 

6
00:00:14,440 --> 00:00:17,800
said to better value sooner 
because that's the goal. 

7
00:00:17,800 --> 00:00:21,200
We're going after quality, 
value, time to value, safety and

8
00:00:21,200 --> 00:00:23,160
happiness. 
The goal is not agile. 

9
00:00:23,160 --> 00:00:26,040
The goal is not DevOps. 
The goal is not cloud. 

10
00:00:26,520 --> 00:00:30,250
The goal is value, time to 
value, safety, happiness and 

11
00:00:30,250 --> 00:00:38,010
quality. 
Hey everyone, my name is Henry 

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00:00:38,010 --> 00:00:42,170
Surya Virawan and you're 
listening to the Technical 

13
00:00:42,170 --> 00:00:45,330
Journal Podcast, the show where 
I'll be bringing you the 

14
00:00:45,330 --> 00:00:48,450
greatest technical leaders, 
practitioners and thought 

15
00:00:48,450 --> 00:00:51,850
leaders in the industry to 
discuss about their journey, 

16
00:00:52,130 --> 00:00:55,730
ideas and practices that we all 
can learn and apply. 

17
00:00:56,320 --> 00:00:59,360
To build a highly performing 
technical team and to make an 

18
00:00:59,360 --> 00:01:03,360
impact in your personal work. 
So let's dive into our journal. 

19
00:01:08,480 --> 00:01:10,920
Hello again, everyone. 
Welcome to The Technical Journal

20
00:01:10,920 --> 00:01:13,560
Podcast, the podcast where you 
can learn about technical 

21
00:01:13,560 --> 00:01:16,560
leadership and excellence from 
my conversations with great 

22
00:01:16,560 --> 00:01:18,160
thought leaders in the tech 
industry. 

23
00:01:18,640 --> 00:01:21,320
Don't forget to subscribe on 
your podcast app and social 

24
00:01:21,320 --> 00:01:23,400
media on LinkedIn, Twitter and 
Instagram. 

25
00:01:23,810 --> 00:01:27,090
And also on YouTube and TikTok 
for video contents and to 

26
00:01:27,090 --> 00:01:29,170
support my work in producing 
this podcast. 

27
00:01:29,450 --> 00:01:33,210
You can either buy me a coffee 
at techlyjunal dot def tip or 

28
00:01:33,210 --> 00:01:36,370
become a patron at techlyjunal 
dot def patron. 

29
00:01:37,490 --> 00:01:40,890
My guests for today's episode 
are Jonathan Smart and Simon 

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00:01:40,890 --> 00:01:43,210
Rohrer. 
They are the co-authors of 

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Sooner, Safer, Happier. 
In this episode, John and Simon 

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00:01:46,940 --> 00:01:50,180
shared how we can deliver better
outcomes in a more human way of 

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working by delivering better 
value, sooner, safer and 

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happier. 
They shared several principles, 

35
00:01:56,180 --> 00:01:59,340
patterns and anti patterns 
described in the book such as 

36
00:01:59,340 --> 00:02:02,500
focusing on the outcomes, the 
leadership team as the team 

37
00:02:02,500 --> 00:02:05,940
number one and the important 
role of leadership creating 

38
00:02:05,940 --> 00:02:08,979
intelligent flow. 
Why we should stop starting and 

39
00:02:08,979 --> 00:02:12,410
start finishing instead? 
Creating alignment and having 

40
00:02:12,410 --> 00:02:15,570
the ability to unlearn and 
relearn for a successful change 

41
00:02:15,570 --> 00:02:18,450
transformation. 
I hope you enjoy listening to 

42
00:02:18,450 --> 00:02:22,010
this episode and find it useful.
And if you do, please help share

43
00:02:22,010 --> 00:02:24,730
this with your colleagues, your 
friends and communities and 

44
00:02:24,730 --> 00:02:28,170
leave a 5 star rating and review
on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. 

45
00:02:28,730 --> 00:02:31,610
It will help me a lot in getting
more people to discover and 

46
00:02:31,610 --> 00:02:34,330
listen to this podcast and I 
really appreciate it. 

47
00:02:34,850 --> 00:02:38,050
Let's go to my conversation with
John and Simon after quick words

48
00:02:38,050 --> 00:02:41,030
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those swags. 
Hello guys welcome back to 

57
00:03:07,320 --> 00:03:09,720
another new episode of the 
Technician podcast. 

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00:03:09,720 --> 00:03:13,160
Today I have with me Jonathan 
Smart and Simon Rohra. 

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00:03:13,400 --> 00:03:16,800
They are the co-authors of a 
book titled Sooner Saver 

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Happier. 
I don't know why you didn't put 

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00:03:18,840 --> 00:03:21,080
the better value there. 
I guess it's too long. 

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So today we'll be talking about 
the book, and seems like from 

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the title itself, I'm quite 
intrigued, right? 

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00:03:27,400 --> 00:03:29,160
Sooner Saver. 
Happier. 

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Who doesn't want this, right? 
So maybe later on John and Simon

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will tell you what do they mean 
by having all these attributes. 

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So welcome to the show, John and
Simon. 

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Thank you. 
Thanks for having us. 

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Thanks, Henry. 
Right. 

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So in the beginning, maybe if 
you can give a little bit of 

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background about who you are, 
right? 

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Maybe if you can tell us about 
higher highlights or turning 

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points in your career, I'll go 
first. 

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So this is John Smart and I 
started out on the trading floor

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in investment banking as a 
business technologist And that 

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something that's been important 
to me right from day one is 

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knowing as much about the 
business that you're working in 

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00:04:05,410 --> 00:04:07,570
as technology. 
And I think that's a key 

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00:04:07,570 --> 00:04:10,450
competitive advantage. 
The way I've always described it

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00:04:10,450 --> 00:04:12,810
is, you know, I started out as a
developer on the trading floor, 

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00:04:12,810 --> 00:04:17,970
so 51% technologist, 49% the 
business, maybe even 5050. 

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00:04:18,130 --> 00:04:22,130
It's our business, not the 
business, is part of my belief 

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00:04:22,130 --> 00:04:26,330
system And starting out on the 
trading floor, we were naturally

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00:04:26,330 --> 00:04:28,570
agile. 
This was in the early 1990s, 

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00:04:28,570 --> 00:04:32,610
This was before the Agile 
manifesto and we were delivering

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00:04:32,610 --> 00:04:35,930
value continuously, multiple 
times a day in a small 

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00:04:35,930 --> 00:04:39,370
multidisciplinary team. 
So for me, the topic of ways of 

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00:04:39,370 --> 00:04:42,610
working is back to the future. 
It's how I've always worked. 

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00:04:42,930 --> 00:04:46,690
I have experienced waterfall, 
big batch, sequential ways of 

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working as well. 
So I know how suboptimal that 

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way of working is. 
And then this led to me leading 

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00:04:53,820 --> 00:04:55,780
ways of working across Barclays 
Bank. 

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00:04:55,780 --> 00:05:00,300
At the beginning it was 120,000 
people, 40 countries learn a 

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00:05:00,300 --> 00:05:02,780
load of lessons and that led to 
the book. 

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00:05:03,180 --> 00:05:05,780
So that's me. 
Okay and be just as brief. 

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00:05:05,780 --> 00:05:10,620
So my career started in the 
early 90s, pretty much the 

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opposite. 
My first job was in working on a

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00:05:14,060 --> 00:05:16,770
sonar system for A. 
Submarine. 

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00:05:17,050 --> 00:05:19,010
You could not have got more 
waterfall. 

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I came in, I think about two or 
three years into the program and

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00:05:21,930 --> 00:05:27,290
it was not going to deliver 
anything to a live system until 

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about about four or five years 
later. 

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00:05:29,370 --> 00:05:32,770
I left long before that. 
I had three years in my first 

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job, so that was a little 
frustrating. 

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00:05:34,650 --> 00:05:38,250
I then went into consultancy and
soon got placed Financial 

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services organization. 
And a year or two into that, 

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somebody passed me a copy of the
Extreme Programming White book. 

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Extreme Programming explained, 
embraced change. 

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It resonated with me incredibly 
well. 

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It was how I had been working 
then, once I'd started in 

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financial services. 
So that was the real sort of 

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turning point number one in my 
career. 

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And then about 1314 years later 
I was working in Barclays and 

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had the opportunity to work with
John ways of working team there.

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And I guess that was pivot point
#2 for me. 

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And then John invited me to to 
write a chapter in the book so 

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that. 
Was fun fact I was there as well

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at Barclays, although we 
probably didn't know each other 

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back then. 
So I think it's a little 

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nostalgic moment for all of us 
here thinking looking back, 

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what's the project all about? 
But today we will not be talking

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about that project for sure. 
So I read the first few chapters

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of your book, especially the 
intro, right? 

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00:06:33,220 --> 00:06:36,700
I think there's one fun insight 
that I would like you to explain

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to the audience here about the 
rapid change of technology 

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companies, right? 
Companies who used to be in the 

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top, for example, I don't know, 
like SMP 500 and things like 

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that now suddenly change a lot. 
So maybe if one of you can 

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00:06:49,860 --> 00:06:52,860
explain to us what is this the 
age of digital that you're 

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referring to in your book. 
Every 50 to 60 years there are 

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repeating technology led 
revolutions starts in 1771 with 

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the first industrial revolution.
After that we have the age of 

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steam and railways, the age of 
electricity and heavy 

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engineering, which is Taylorism,
the age of oil and mass 

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production, which leads us to 
the Toyota production system and

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lean. 
But it's all mass production and

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00:07:16,140 --> 00:07:19,900
now we have the age of digital. 
So the previous four technology 

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00:07:19,900 --> 00:07:24,910
revolutions are all about 
mechanization, mass production, 

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output output output output, 
division of Labor, 

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specialization. 
So our ways of working in large 

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00:07:32,550 --> 00:07:37,350
organizations have evolved in 
the last 250 years to suit mass 

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production and that includes the
traditional approach to change. 

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And if you look at, for example,
PMIPMP, Project Management 

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00:07:45,910 --> 00:07:49,630
Institute, Project management, 
professional qualification, it's

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00:07:49,630 --> 00:07:52,120
sequential. 
It's yeah, we do all of the 

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planning, we do all of the 
analysis, we do all of the 

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design, we do all of the build 
and then we deploy the project 

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and then the project is declared
done. 

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Unfortunately, that's not how 
reality works. 

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It's not knowable, unique change
is unknowable and the big 

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00:08:07,400 --> 00:08:11,080
thinking error, the big fallacy.
And this was written about by 

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00:08:11,160 --> 00:08:13,720
Royce, who wrote the white 
paper, the first white paper 

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that referred to the term 
waterfall. 

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00:08:15,840 --> 00:08:18,760
He said this invites failure and
it's basically a silly thing to 

155
00:08:18,760 --> 00:08:21,470
do. 
And in the white paper in 1970, 

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00:08:21,470 --> 00:08:24,750
whatever it was, he actually had
an iterative process was what he

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00:08:24,750 --> 00:08:26,670
recommended. 
So we've been living this 

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00:08:26,670 --> 00:08:31,990
fallacy of treating unique, 
unknowable change like it is 

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00:08:31,990 --> 00:08:34,669
knowable. 
It's been a collective thinking 

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00:08:34,669 --> 00:08:37,150
error. 
And in large companies we've 

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00:08:37,150 --> 00:08:42,590
then had projects with drop dead
dates and milestones where the 

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00:08:42,590 --> 00:08:47,430
definition of success is hitting
a milestone in a plan Not did we

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00:08:47,430 --> 00:08:49,550
achieve the outcome we were 
going after. 

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00:08:49,950 --> 00:08:54,310
And the management reporting and
the committees are looking at a 

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00:08:54,310 --> 00:09:00,350
rag status at red Amber green 
and the red rag status is are we

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00:09:00,430 --> 00:09:05,390
on track for the date and the 
output rather than what value 

167
00:09:05,390 --> 00:09:07,230
have we realized and what have 
we learned. 

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00:09:07,750 --> 00:09:11,030
So you know now we've pivoted 
into the latest technology led 

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revolution. 
A lot of the manual work has 

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00:09:13,350 --> 00:09:16,840
been automated, whether it's 
physical robots on the assembly 

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line, building cars, whether 
it's knowledge work, customer on

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boarding, payments, insurance 
claims. 

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A lot of it is automated. 
So we humans in companies trying

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to do stuff. 
Increasingly we're spending our 

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00:09:30,560 --> 00:09:33,520
time on unique, unknowable 
change. 

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And so that's why we have this 
big pivot where every company on

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the planet at the moment, it 
seems, is on this journey to 

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adopting agile ways of working. 
Right. 

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00:09:44,420 --> 00:09:47,300
I think it's pretty interesting.
In your book you classify all 

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00:09:47,300 --> 00:09:49,580
this as an emergent kind of 
work, right? 

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00:09:49,580 --> 00:09:52,540
It is a knowledge work. 
It's emergent, unknowable. 

182
00:09:52,700 --> 00:09:55,140
What do you mean by all these 
attributes, right? 

183
00:09:55,180 --> 00:09:57,740
Emergent, for example. 
Is it something that always 

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00:09:57,740 --> 00:09:59,900
changing, like something you 
can't predict? 

185
00:10:00,020 --> 00:10:02,220
Maybe you can touch on a little 
bit about this. 

186
00:10:02,900 --> 00:10:09,180
Yes, I think again it is the 
nature of change in the modern 

187
00:10:09,220 --> 00:10:16,270
world, a lot of consumer. 
Facing products, you really 

188
00:10:16,270 --> 00:10:19,030
don't know how they're going to 
work, what success you are going

189
00:10:19,030 --> 00:10:23,070
to get until they actually reach
the market. 

190
00:10:23,870 --> 00:10:28,630
And typically this is called 
sort of sense and respond type 

191
00:10:28,710 --> 00:10:31,550
delivery rather than predictable
delivery. 

192
00:10:31,550 --> 00:10:34,310
Again, it goes back to that 
thing that in mass production 

193
00:10:34,310 --> 00:10:36,990
you planned a thing, you 
delivered a thing and that was 

194
00:10:36,990 --> 00:10:40,870
what the consumers wanted. 
But again in the age of digital.

195
00:10:41,320 --> 00:10:44,000
Well, to an extent the consumers
don't know what they want until 

196
00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:46,720
they've got it in their hands. 
And then they might want more 

197
00:10:46,800 --> 00:10:48,800
and they might want lots more 
and they might want more the 

198
00:10:48,800 --> 00:10:52,320
same or they might want 
something entirely different or 

199
00:10:52,320 --> 00:10:55,240
they might want that this month.
And then the world changes and 

200
00:10:55,240 --> 00:10:57,600
trends change and they want 
something different. 

201
00:10:57,600 --> 00:11:01,440
And working in this age of 
digital requires that approach 

202
00:11:01,440 --> 00:11:04,560
of sense and response. 
So sense what the consumers? 

203
00:11:05,080 --> 00:11:08,800
What you think they want based 
on data, what they actually want

204
00:11:08,800 --> 00:11:12,800
based on tracking what they're 
using and then again respond and

205
00:11:12,800 --> 00:11:15,120
the most responsive companies 
win. 

206
00:11:15,920 --> 00:11:18,600
And I think in your book you try
to capture some of the 

207
00:11:18,600 --> 00:11:21,080
principles patterns and anti 
patterns, right? 

208
00:11:21,240 --> 00:11:25,160
So maybe if you can tell us how 
this idea came about and how do 

209
00:11:25,160 --> 00:11:28,240
you actually distill all these 
principles, patterns, anti 

210
00:11:28,240 --> 00:11:30,240
patterns? 
Maybe if you can elaborate a 

211
00:11:30,240 --> 00:11:34,960
little bit more. 
So the book is learnings from 

212
00:11:34,960 --> 00:11:37,360
the four of us, the four authors
of the book. 

213
00:11:37,440 --> 00:11:40,480
For all of us, it's a career's 
worth of learnings. 

214
00:11:40,920 --> 00:11:45,640
So there's very approximately, I
don't know, 100 to 120 years of 

215
00:11:45,640 --> 00:11:48,400
learning in the book just from 
the authors. 

216
00:11:48,720 --> 00:11:51,680
But also there's learnings from 
about 40 other companies as 

217
00:11:51,680 --> 00:11:54,040
well. 
So I lead a community of 

218
00:11:54,040 --> 00:11:56,680
companies that share on this 
topic and companies in my 

219
00:11:56,680 --> 00:11:59,040
network and research for the 
book and the case studies in the

220
00:11:59,040 --> 00:12:00,840
book. 
So these are learnings from 

221
00:12:00,840 --> 00:12:05,810
ourselves firsthand, and from 
many other large organizations. 

222
00:12:06,290 --> 00:12:10,930
Patterns are approaches to 
change that will generally lead 

223
00:12:10,930 --> 00:12:13,770
to a good outcome, and they'll 
give you a tailwind. 

224
00:12:13,930 --> 00:12:16,490
They will make a hard job 
slightly less hard, but it's 

225
00:12:16,490 --> 00:12:20,010
still a hard job. 
And anti patterns will give you 

226
00:12:20,010 --> 00:12:23,170
a headwind and they will make a 
hard job harder. 

227
00:12:23,690 --> 00:12:26,690
It doesn't mean that you won't 
be successful, but it definitely

228
00:12:26,690 --> 00:12:28,890
means you're making your life 
harder for yourself. 

229
00:12:28,890 --> 00:12:33,590
So why would you And we have 
made all the mistakes so that 

230
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you don't need to. 
We have failed fast and often so

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that you can succeed sooner. 
That's what the patterns and the

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anti patterns are Key point 
there. 

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There is no playbook. 
There is no one-size-fits-all. 

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That's why I like the words 
patterns and anti patterns that 

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usually successful usually less 
successful. 

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With the anti patterns, there is
no playbook because every 

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organization is unique. 
Because every organization is a 

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complex adaptive system. 
Every organization has its 

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unique history and culture and 
incentives. 

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Wow, I think that's a great 
pleasure to read this book 

241
00:13:06,980 --> 00:13:10,180
because you distill lots of 
experiences from four of you 

242
00:13:10,220 --> 00:13:12,220
from many different companies as
well. 

243
00:13:12,580 --> 00:13:16,580
And there are about 8 principles
including patterns and anti 

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patterns inside each of the 
principles. 

245
00:13:18,580 --> 00:13:21,420
Let's start with covering some 
of the principles that we can 

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00:13:21,420 --> 00:13:24,300
for today, right? 
I think the first always have to

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start with the title of the 
book, Which is sooner, safer, 

248
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happier. 
But actually the first principle

249
00:13:29,300 --> 00:13:32,100
that you mention is about 
focusing on outcomes. 

250
00:13:32,300 --> 00:13:35,820
You include better value, 
sooner, safer, and happier. 

251
00:13:36,220 --> 00:13:39,420
So tell us more about this Beefy
SSH, right? 

252
00:13:39,420 --> 00:13:42,420
Because to me it sounds like an 
ideal thing, right? 

253
00:13:42,420 --> 00:13:46,740
So can we really achieve this? 
I think we can and I think to an

254
00:13:46,740 --> 00:13:50,860
extent we have to. 
I think the idea with BVSSH is 

255
00:13:51,060 --> 00:13:54,980
achieving a more humane world of
work. 

256
00:13:55,100 --> 00:13:58,060
It goes against counter some of 
the things that again some of 

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the sort of high level anti 
patterns we've seen which is 

258
00:14:01,220 --> 00:14:05,420
just focusing on value or just 
focusing on. 

259
00:14:05,910 --> 00:14:08,670
Faster we evolved better value 
sooner, safer, happier. 

260
00:14:08,670 --> 00:14:10,430
We started with faster. 
And it's not. 

261
00:14:10,670 --> 00:14:12,550
It's about faster, it's about 
sooner. 

262
00:14:12,550 --> 00:14:14,510
It's about time to learning and 
flow. 

263
00:14:14,950 --> 00:14:19,110
So value is at the heart. 
Value is the thing that makes 

264
00:14:19,110 --> 00:14:22,950
your business unique and we'd 
recommend that's measured with 

265
00:14:23,150 --> 00:14:26,430
objectives and key results. 
So value at the heart, but not 

266
00:14:26,430 --> 00:14:29,510
value at any cost. 
There's then the full balancing 

267
00:14:29,510 --> 00:14:34,070
factors of better, which is 
quality sooner, which is flow. 

268
00:14:34,070 --> 00:14:37,020
Again, time to learning. 
Safer, which is agile and 

269
00:14:37,060 --> 00:14:39,540
fragile. 
It's in particular in the sort 

270
00:14:39,540 --> 00:14:43,180
of industries we've worked in 
where there is compliance, 

271
00:14:43,220 --> 00:14:47,420
regulation, security, data 
privacy, and making sure that 

272
00:14:47,420 --> 00:14:51,540
all of these things are done but
done in a modern, collaborative 

273
00:14:51,540 --> 00:14:54,380
way rather than sort of 
traditional adversarial way. 

274
00:14:55,020 --> 00:14:58,740
And happier, which is happier 
customers is the obvious one. 

275
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But happier colleagues, Happier 
citizens? 

276
00:15:01,380 --> 00:15:05,740
Happier climate as well and 
Henry to add to what Simon said.

277
00:15:06,220 --> 00:15:10,460
The origins of these words is 
and the big lesson learnt and 

278
00:15:10,460 --> 00:15:14,140
this is chapter one of the book 
is if you want to do an agile 

279
00:15:14,140 --> 00:15:18,420
transformation the biggest 
learning is don't instead focus 

280
00:15:18,420 --> 00:15:21,940
on the outcomes. 
So to build on what Simon said 

281
00:15:22,340 --> 00:15:26,860
better value sooner, safer 
happier is instead of inflicting

282
00:15:27,060 --> 00:15:30,810
an agile transformation. 
So the big learning here is back

283
00:15:30,810 --> 00:15:34,730
in 2015 I was the head of the 
Agile transformation for that 

284
00:15:34,730 --> 00:15:37,730
organization. 
And effectively when I met with 

285
00:15:37,730 --> 00:15:40,410
leadership teams, the narrative 
was, hi, my name is John and I'm

286
00:15:40,410 --> 00:15:42,610
here to make you do Agile 
whether you like it or not. 

287
00:15:42,970 --> 00:15:46,050
As you can imagine some people 
were like, yay, this is amazing 

288
00:15:46,450 --> 00:15:48,930
and other people were like get 
out of my office. 

289
00:15:49,450 --> 00:15:53,930
We got to the end of 2015 and we
realized our mistake, which is 

290
00:15:53,930 --> 00:15:56,250
we've just been focusing on 
Agile. 

291
00:15:56,770 --> 00:15:59,810
And despite having been an Agile
practitioner since the early 

292
00:15:59,810 --> 00:16:02,130
1990s, we still made this 
mistake. 

293
00:16:02,570 --> 00:16:04,930
We were measuring the outcomes, 
but we haven't made them the 

294
00:16:04,930 --> 00:16:07,010
headline. 
So the main headline, the main 

295
00:16:07,010 --> 00:16:11,050
measures were how many Agile 
teams, how many product owners, 

296
00:16:11,050 --> 00:16:13,570
how many Scrum Masters, how many
people have we trained in Agile 

297
00:16:13,570 --> 00:16:15,650
training? 
Those themselves are not 

298
00:16:15,730 --> 00:16:19,370
valuable and you can do Scrum 
all you like, but your outcomes 

299
00:16:19,730 --> 00:16:22,970
cannot improve Nokia Mobile 
Symbian. 

300
00:16:23,130 --> 00:16:26,930
The Symbian development team 
were doing Scrum, but Scrum 

301
00:16:26,930 --> 00:16:29,610
didn't save Symbian. 
It was a lack of psychological 

302
00:16:29,610 --> 00:16:31,890
safety that killed Symbian, 
according to the chairman of 

303
00:16:31,890 --> 00:16:34,970
Nokia. 
So this was where we pivoted end

304
00:16:34,970 --> 00:16:37,450
of year one running an agile 
transformation. 

305
00:16:37,450 --> 00:16:40,890
We realized the error of our 
ways and we pivoted. 

306
00:16:40,890 --> 00:16:44,010
We took down all of the posters 
that said agile and we put up 

307
00:16:44,010 --> 00:16:46,130
posters that said better 
products faster. 

308
00:16:46,530 --> 00:16:48,050
We've since pivoted, the Simon 
said. 

309
00:16:48,290 --> 00:16:51,150
To better value sooner because 
that's the goal. 

310
00:16:51,150 --> 00:16:54,550
We're going after quality, 
value, time to value, safety and

311
00:16:54,550 --> 00:16:56,510
happiness. 
The goal is not agile. 

312
00:16:56,550 --> 00:16:59,390
The goal is not DevOps. 
The goal is not cloud. 

313
00:16:59,870 --> 00:17:03,470
The goal is value. 
Time to value, safety, happiness

314
00:17:03,470 --> 00:17:05,670
and quality. 
So that's how those words came 

315
00:17:05,670 --> 00:17:08,270
about. 
Thanks for sharing this insights

316
00:17:08,270 --> 00:17:10,390
I would say, right. 
So still many companies I would 

317
00:17:10,390 --> 00:17:13,030
say pursuing agile 
transformation I think. 

318
00:17:13,450 --> 00:17:17,130
And instead of focusing on doing
agile transformation, making 

319
00:17:17,130 --> 00:17:19,770
teams to become like agile 
teams, maybe we should focus a 

320
00:17:19,770 --> 00:17:21,650
lot more on the values, on the 
outcomes. 

321
00:17:21,650 --> 00:17:24,770
And you summarize that as part 
of the socalled patterns, right?

322
00:17:24,770 --> 00:17:28,250
Focus on outcomes, start with 
why, and empower the how. 

323
00:17:28,650 --> 00:17:30,890
So for people who are still 
stuck in this agile 

324
00:17:30,890 --> 00:17:34,690
transformation mode, what would 
you advise to them to start 

325
00:17:34,690 --> 00:17:36,530
focusing on the outcomes 
instead? 

326
00:17:36,780 --> 00:17:39,500
So what made the switch that 
last time you mentioned that you

327
00:17:39,500 --> 00:17:42,820
took down the HR posters? 
What is the first few things 

328
00:17:42,820 --> 00:17:45,300
that you do in order for people 
to start focusing on the 

329
00:17:45,340 --> 00:17:48,060
outcomes and values instead of 
just the HR thing? 

330
00:17:48,740 --> 00:17:50,980
Start with why? 
Always start with why? 

331
00:17:51,020 --> 00:17:53,260
Why change? 
And nothing to do with that job,

332
00:17:53,740 --> 00:17:55,700
just why change? 
Why don't we carry on working 

333
00:17:55,700 --> 00:17:58,260
the way we're working today? 
And if is everything OK? 

334
00:17:58,700 --> 00:18:01,580
So that's the question I usually
start with when working with 

335
00:18:01,620 --> 00:18:04,490
teams or leaders. 
And if the answer is, yeah, 

336
00:18:04,490 --> 00:18:06,730
everything's okay, carry on, 
then don't change. 

337
00:18:07,170 --> 00:18:09,690
I've never yet met someone who 
said, yeah, everything's okay, 

338
00:18:10,130 --> 00:18:11,690
okay. 
So if it's not okay, what are 

339
00:18:11,690 --> 00:18:13,570
your biggest problems then? 
Well, we've got a lack of 

340
00:18:13,570 --> 00:18:15,010
alignment. 
We don't have a shared 

341
00:18:15,010 --> 00:18:17,730
definition of value. 
It takes us too long to get 

342
00:18:17,730 --> 00:18:19,890
change. 
Our competitors are quicker. 

343
00:18:20,250 --> 00:18:22,490
We want to increase our customer
Net Promoter score. 

344
00:18:22,810 --> 00:18:26,890
There's always a list of things.
So theory of constraints, what's

345
00:18:26,890 --> 00:18:29,250
your biggest impediment? 
Therefore, what's your biggest 

346
00:18:29,250 --> 00:18:30,810
enabler? 
And that's the why. 

347
00:18:31,010 --> 00:18:34,030
So the why is we want happier 
customers, We want quicker time 

348
00:18:34,030 --> 00:18:36,710
to value. 
So be really clear on the why #1

349
00:18:37,150 --> 00:18:41,470
#2, make sure you've articulated
your measures of success. 

350
00:18:41,870 --> 00:18:44,590
So if you want happier customers
and quicker time to value, how 

351
00:18:44,590 --> 00:18:47,310
are you going to measure that 
number one, Net Promoter score, 

352
00:18:47,430 --> 00:18:51,390
for example, #2, lead time from 
committing to the work to 

353
00:18:51,390 --> 00:18:52,950
getting it in the hands of the 
consumer. 

354
00:18:53,230 --> 00:18:56,230
So #2 make it measurable and 
that Okr's are very good for 

355
00:18:56,230 --> 00:18:59,590
that objectives and key results.
The O is the outcome you're 

356
00:18:59,590 --> 00:19:01,750
going after. 
The KR are the measures. 

357
00:19:02,310 --> 00:19:04,190
For example, better value, 
sooner, safer, happier. 

358
00:19:04,310 --> 00:19:07,230
You can turn that into an OKR or
a number of OK R's. 

359
00:19:07,550 --> 00:19:09,590
So that's what I would advise. 
Start with why. 

360
00:19:09,830 --> 00:19:12,190
Be clear on the outcomes, make 
them measurable. 

361
00:19:12,590 --> 00:19:14,710
Make sure you are measuring the 
things that are measurable. 

362
00:19:15,030 --> 00:19:18,910
So you need a data team or 
somebody doing data full time 

363
00:19:19,270 --> 00:19:21,270
and then use that data as your 
feedback loop. 

364
00:19:21,590 --> 00:19:25,590
And then with agility, build, 
measure, learn, observe, Orient,

365
00:19:25,590 --> 00:19:27,910
decide, act, plan, do check, 
act. 

366
00:19:28,930 --> 00:19:31,450
And you also emphasize 
empowering the how, right? 

367
00:19:31,450 --> 00:19:34,650
So for leaders out there who are
thinking of leading all this 

368
00:19:34,650 --> 00:19:36,970
transformation. 
So let's say they have come up 

369
00:19:36,970 --> 00:19:39,410
with the outcomes, they have 
come up with the whys. 

370
00:19:39,690 --> 00:19:41,610
They understand why the need for
the change. 

371
00:19:41,970 --> 00:19:45,010
How do you empower the people? 
Because some people may be stuck

372
00:19:45,010 --> 00:19:47,930
in the traditional mindset or 
the traditional ways of working.

373
00:19:48,330 --> 00:19:51,810
So how do you empower them to do
the how in the new way? 

374
00:19:52,570 --> 00:19:57,650
So we would advise again from 
our anti patterns not to do 

375
00:19:57,650 --> 00:20:00,020
this. 
Centrally, not to have one sort 

376
00:20:00,180 --> 00:20:04,220
of ivory tower wise set of 
people saying this is your new 

377
00:20:04,220 --> 00:20:06,220
way of working. 
What we advise is a sort of 

378
00:20:06,220 --> 00:20:11,660
fractal arrangement, a Federated
arrangement to enable people and

379
00:20:11,660 --> 00:20:14,860
to have a Federated center of 
excellence. 

380
00:20:14,900 --> 00:20:17,700
So depending on the size of your
organization, great, have 

381
00:20:17,700 --> 00:20:21,660
something at group level like we
were, but then federate that 

382
00:20:21,820 --> 00:20:26,140
sort of helps that enablement 
down as close as you can to the 

383
00:20:26,140 --> 00:20:29,260
individual teams. 
And say guys, here's some 

384
00:20:29,540 --> 00:20:32,740
experts, some ways of working 
coaches. 

385
00:20:33,180 --> 00:20:35,900
Again, they're here to help you.
You've told us you want to 

386
00:20:35,900 --> 00:20:38,220
improve. 
So here's some people who have 

387
00:20:38,220 --> 00:20:41,460
some ideas, have some patterns, 
and we'll work with you and your

388
00:20:41,460 --> 00:20:46,540
context and understand the sort 
of pace of change and the pace 

389
00:20:46,540 --> 00:20:50,620
of learning and unlearning that 
is appropriate for your team and

390
00:20:50,620 --> 00:20:53,220
we'll work with you. 
So it really is sort of bring 

391
00:20:53,220 --> 00:20:56,100
the help to the teams rather 
than inflicting on the teams. 

392
00:20:57,270 --> 00:21:00,910
Yeah, and to build on that, the 
how then without fractal 

393
00:21:00,910 --> 00:21:04,550
support, the how could be agile,
it could be lean if it's 

394
00:21:04,550 --> 00:21:07,710
repetitive noble work. 
It could be in some cases, 

395
00:21:07,710 --> 00:21:10,150
because of the historical 
baggage, it could be smaller 

396
00:21:10,150 --> 00:21:12,110
waterfalls. 
So then we're not being 

397
00:21:12,110 --> 00:21:16,390
prescriptive around. 
You must do scrum or you must do

398
00:21:16,390 --> 00:21:20,230
some form of Scrum scaled. 
It could be the Kanban method, 

399
00:21:20,470 --> 00:21:23,230
like I said it could be. 
In one case it was actually. 

400
00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:26,080
Take your 12 month waterfall, do
a six month waterfall. 

401
00:21:26,080 --> 00:21:28,000
Once you've done that, do three 
month waterfalls. 

402
00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:29,680
Once you've done that, do a 
two-month waterfall. 

403
00:21:29,680 --> 00:21:31,800
Then do a one month waterfall. 
Before you know it, you're 

404
00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:33,600
exhibiting agility without doing
agile. 

405
00:21:34,080 --> 00:21:37,480
So there's an empowerment in 
autonomy and now there is one 

406
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:39,720
thing that is needed. 
However, for that to be 

407
00:21:39,720 --> 00:21:42,000
successful, there has to be an 
incentive. 

408
00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:44,960
Because if there isn't an 
incentive to change, people 

409
00:21:44,960 --> 00:21:47,440
won't change because change is 
difficult. 

410
00:21:47,880 --> 00:21:50,320
It's fearful. 
You're going to fail. 

411
00:21:50,440 --> 00:21:52,080
It's going to feel 
uncomfortable. 

412
00:21:52,360 --> 00:21:55,960
I'm not sure I can do this. 
I might fail, I might lose my 

413
00:21:55,960 --> 00:21:58,680
job, I might not be able to pay 
my mortgage, put food on the 

414
00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:02,400
table, feed my family. 
So therefore there has to be an 

415
00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:05,160
incentive. 
The flip side of incentive is 

416
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:08,080
threat, and a lot of companies 
miss this point. 

417
00:22:08,440 --> 00:22:13,000
You have to minimize threat, 
nurture, psychological safety, 

418
00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:15,640
the number one determinant of 
high performing teams and 

419
00:22:15,680 --> 00:22:18,760
organizations, and you have to 
maximize incentive. 

420
00:22:19,190 --> 00:22:23,310
And from a neuroscience 
perspective, our brains are 

421
00:22:23,310 --> 00:22:28,070
still wired to not be eaten by a
tiger, so we have loss aversion.

422
00:22:28,470 --> 00:22:33,190
We are more likely to avoid 
losing something than gain 

423
00:22:33,190 --> 00:22:36,870
something. 
It's more painful to lose $100 

424
00:22:36,870 --> 00:22:38,750
than the benefit of winning 
$100.00. 

425
00:22:39,110 --> 00:22:42,870
So we humans, we would rather do
nothing than do something and 

426
00:22:42,870 --> 00:22:46,110
fail. 
So therefore we have to maximize

427
00:22:46,110 --> 00:22:48,910
incentive. 
That can be implicit incentive 

428
00:22:49,310 --> 00:22:52,750
and it can be explicit incentive
and we have to minimize threat. 

429
00:22:53,150 --> 00:22:56,630
But usually if a company does a 
top down Big Bang, we're going 

430
00:22:56,630 --> 00:23:00,430
to do squad to tribes, chapters 
and guilds, we're doing a reorg.

431
00:23:00,710 --> 00:23:02,710
10,000 of you are going to lose 
your jobs. 

432
00:23:03,230 --> 00:23:05,550
The threat is high with that 
type of approach. 

433
00:23:05,910 --> 00:23:07,470
So yeah. 
Yeah. 

434
00:23:08,060 --> 00:23:11,060
So I can see from my previous 
career experiences as well, 

435
00:23:11,060 --> 00:23:12,700
right? 
So many HL transformations is 

436
00:23:12,700 --> 00:23:15,260
always coming from the top down,
from new leaders. 

437
00:23:15,260 --> 00:23:16,900
They come in, they bring in all 
this. 

438
00:23:16,900 --> 00:23:20,020
You know, we have new ways of 
working, new roles, new 

439
00:23:20,020 --> 00:23:22,900
everything, right? 
And then they enforce people at 

440
00:23:22,900 --> 00:23:25,460
the bottom to actually adopt 
these practices. 

441
00:23:25,990 --> 00:23:28,150
And I think it's still happening
these days as well, although I 

442
00:23:28,150 --> 00:23:30,190
don't work in such an enterprise
anymore. 

443
00:23:30,630 --> 00:23:33,950
And that's why we go to the next
principle, which is about the 

444
00:23:33,950 --> 00:23:36,830
leadership role, right. 
So if listeners here are the 

445
00:23:36,830 --> 00:23:40,150
leaders, so you say in the 
principle, leadership will make 

446
00:23:40,150 --> 00:23:43,150
it or break it. 
So tell us more about this 

447
00:23:43,150 --> 00:23:46,790
important principle so that 
leaders can understand what is 

448
00:23:46,830 --> 00:23:49,870
actually their role in all this 
change of the ways of working. 

449
00:23:50,550 --> 00:23:52,070
Leadership is the biggest 
enabler. 

450
00:23:52,110 --> 00:23:53,590
It's also the biggest 
impediment. 

451
00:23:54,070 --> 00:23:57,470
It's the biggest lever, and 
that's because change is 80% 

452
00:23:57,470 --> 00:24:01,910
culture, only 20% process. 
So doing Scrum won't help. 

453
00:24:01,910 --> 00:24:04,670
I mean, it might help, it will 
help a bit, but you know, if 

454
00:24:04,670 --> 00:24:07,270
you've got a bad culture, you'll
still have a bad culture and the

455
00:24:07,270 --> 00:24:08,870
outcomes won't necessarily 
improve. 

456
00:24:09,350 --> 00:24:11,230
So there are three key 
behavioral traits. 

457
00:24:11,230 --> 00:24:14,230
I believe the top three 
behavioral traits are #1 role 

458
00:24:14,230 --> 00:24:18,310
model, the definition of leader.
The definition of the word lead 

459
00:24:18,430 --> 00:24:21,230
is to guide from the front to 
guide on a journey. 

460
00:24:21,550 --> 00:24:23,990
That's the etymology of the word
lead. 

461
00:24:24,390 --> 00:24:27,990
So lead from the front role. 
Model the behaviors you expect 

462
00:24:27,990 --> 00:24:30,350
to see in others. 
For example, a couple I'm going 

463
00:24:30,350 --> 00:24:32,270
to come on to like. 
Psychological safety, 

464
00:24:32,270 --> 00:24:36,750
experimentation, empowerment, 
autonomy, servant leadership, 

465
00:24:36,910 --> 00:24:38,950
intent based leadership. 
How can I help? 

466
00:24:39,750 --> 00:24:44,510
So that's the role. 
Modeling #1 #2 is psychological 

467
00:24:44,510 --> 00:24:48,830
safety, nurture and environment 
which is psychologically safe. 

468
00:24:49,260 --> 00:24:52,420
Now what that means is 
minimizing a culture of fear, 

469
00:24:52,740 --> 00:24:56,900
because people need to be able 
to experiment and fail without 

470
00:24:56,900 --> 00:24:59,140
fear of failure. 
And I'm talking about 

471
00:24:59,140 --> 00:25:03,460
intelligent failure here, Not 
stupid failure, not deliberate 

472
00:25:03,460 --> 00:25:06,620
failure, not being fraudulent, 
but, you know, actually trying 

473
00:25:06,620 --> 00:25:09,340
to improve. 
So that means having a blame 

474
00:25:09,340 --> 00:25:12,060
free culture. 
It means setting the stage. 

475
00:25:12,260 --> 00:25:14,460
This is a behavioral trait that 
is important. 

476
00:25:14,780 --> 00:25:18,160
It means inviting participation.
And then it means responding 

477
00:25:18,280 --> 00:25:20,920
positively. 
And those steps 123, those are 

478
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:23,680
from Amy Edmondson, who wrote a 
book called the Fearless 

479
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:26,160
Organization. 
So that's Psychological safety 

480
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:28,720
Project Aristotle. 
Google determined that 

481
00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:30,920
psychological safety is the 
number one determinant of high 

482
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:34,640
performing teams. 
And then #3 is an emergent 

483
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:36,840
mindset. 
As a leader, that means 

484
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:39,400
acknowledging that the future is
not knowable. 

485
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:43,080
So therefore we're going to have
outcome hypotheses, which we're 

486
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:45,360
going to test. 
We're going to run experiments. 

487
00:25:45,830 --> 00:25:48,350
We're going to try to turn the 
unknowable into knowable. 

488
00:25:48,750 --> 00:25:51,950
The opposite of an emergent 
mindset is a deterministic 

489
00:25:51,950 --> 00:25:55,190
mindset where we treat the 
future as if it is predictable 

490
00:25:55,510 --> 00:25:59,150
with a Gantt chart, with a 24 
month project plan, with 

491
00:25:59,150 --> 00:26:03,870
milestones and language like 
drop dead date, which is an 

492
00:26:03,870 --> 00:26:06,950
analogy of death. 
So those are the three key 

493
00:26:06,950 --> 00:26:10,470
behaviors, role model, 
psychological safety, and an 

494
00:26:10,470 --> 00:26:13,390
emergent mindset. 
I really love the way you 

495
00:26:13,390 --> 00:26:15,790
summarize it though. 
I think the first key thing be a

496
00:26:15,790 --> 00:26:18,030
role model, right? 
You mentioned it in your book. 

497
00:26:18,030 --> 00:26:19,910
The pattern is leaders go first,
right? 

498
00:26:19,910 --> 00:26:23,790
So showing the example, maybe 
doing 7 leadership, intent based

499
00:26:23,790 --> 00:26:26,670
leadership, right, then nurture 
psychological safety. 

500
00:26:27,070 --> 00:26:29,950
And then the third is actually 
the emergent mindset, right. 

501
00:26:29,950 --> 00:26:32,790
So don't think things could be 
determined, doing a lot of 

502
00:26:32,790 --> 00:26:36,310
analysis and you know, upfront 
big design and things like that,

503
00:26:36,590 --> 00:26:39,190
but doing it as a series of 
hypothesis, right, outcome 

504
00:26:39,190 --> 00:26:40,870
hypothesis. 
So I really love that. 

505
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:43,760
And I think that's also one 
thing in particular I found when

506
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:46,720
I read that chapter right, you 
mentioned that leadership team 

507
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:50,400
is actually the team #1. 
So especially in some companies 

508
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:53,400
where the leadership team 
probably is a bit dysfunctional 

509
00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:55,320
that have ego, they have 
politics. 

510
00:26:55,480 --> 00:26:57,800
So could just tell us a little 
bit more about this part? 

511
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,280
So yeah, concept of the 
leadership teams team number one

512
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:04,320
is start with the leadership 
team, ideally the most senior 

513
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:07,440
leadership team possible on this
journey in terms of. 

514
00:27:08,050 --> 00:27:10,690
Ways of working. 
You will have a bubble of ways 

515
00:27:10,690 --> 00:27:14,010
of working, anchored at the top 
by the most senior leader who's 

516
00:27:14,010 --> 00:27:18,210
supporting it. 
So if it's not the CEO of the 

517
00:27:18,210 --> 00:27:22,450
company, you'll have bubbles of 
better ways of working in a 

518
00:27:22,450 --> 00:27:25,010
company, but it won't be able to
span the whole company. 

519
00:27:25,410 --> 00:27:30,570
And when you go and talk to 
finance or HR or procurement, 

520
00:27:30,850 --> 00:27:34,530
there's no incentive to have a 
conversation about improving our

521
00:27:34,530 --> 00:27:36,910
ways of working. 
If it's not coming from the 

522
00:27:36,910 --> 00:27:40,270
executive committee, the top 
table, so leadership team is 

523
00:27:40,270 --> 00:27:43,550
team #1 and that's because the 
more senior the leader you are, 

524
00:27:43,550 --> 00:27:45,990
the bigger your shadow. 
And it also comes back to this 

525
00:27:45,990 --> 00:27:49,190
word incentive. 
This whole topic boils down to 

526
00:27:49,190 --> 00:27:53,190
one word, which is incentive. 
And the senior leadership team 

527
00:27:53,190 --> 00:27:56,990
can create the incentive, the 
explicit incentive the most 

528
00:27:56,990 --> 00:28:00,930
senior leadership team can say. 
It is one of our top three 

529
00:28:00,930 --> 00:28:05,210
priorities for this organization
that we continuously improve how

530
00:28:05,210 --> 00:28:08,130
we do what we do. 
Bingo, everyone's in. 

531
00:28:08,130 --> 00:28:11,490
You put it in your performance 
appraisals, your appraisal, your

532
00:28:11,490 --> 00:28:15,850
promotion, your pay is dependent
upon you continuously improving 

533
00:28:15,850 --> 00:28:18,850
how you do what you do, 
including your behaviors like 

534
00:28:18,850 --> 00:28:21,610
psychological safety, servant 
leadership and so on. 

535
00:28:22,050 --> 00:28:24,930
Now in terms of your comment, 
Henry, about often there are 

536
00:28:24,930 --> 00:28:28,370
leadership teams that are 
political or dysfunctional or 

537
00:28:28,370 --> 00:28:31,000
whatever. 
Obviously, as humans, change is 

538
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,880
messy. 
It's always organized chaos. 

539
00:28:34,120 --> 00:28:36,880
In a way. 
We are emotional, irrational 

540
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:40,840
human beings and also we have 
our own get back to incentives. 

541
00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:42,480
We have our own incentives and 
threats. 

542
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:47,320
So often if you have a team of 
people and there is a lack of 

543
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:50,640
harmony in the team of people, 
typically it's because people 

544
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:54,000
feel threatened and either they 
know that they feel threatened 

545
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:57,720
consciously or sometimes people 
subconsciously don't even know. 

546
00:28:58,140 --> 00:29:00,580
That they feel threatened. 
So it could be because you've 

547
00:29:00,580 --> 00:29:04,460
got two people who are competing
to become the leader or to be 

548
00:29:04,460 --> 00:29:07,420
promoted because there's only 
one promotion spot, but we've 

549
00:29:07,420 --> 00:29:09,300
got two people. 
And that leads to some negative 

550
00:29:09,300 --> 00:29:12,180
behaviors around I'm going to 
withhold information or I'm 

551
00:29:12,180 --> 00:29:13,780
going to. 
It's like politics, isn't it? 

552
00:29:14,060 --> 00:29:18,300
I'm going to dig out dirt on you
so that you don't get promoted 

553
00:29:18,300 --> 00:29:21,140
and I do. 
And that's a problem with our 

554
00:29:21,220 --> 00:29:23,980
appraisal system rather than 
having shared goals. 

555
00:29:24,180 --> 00:29:27,740
Having siloed goals and OK ours 
can help solve that problem. 

556
00:29:28,090 --> 00:29:32,770
So my personal philosophy on 
this is empathy, kindness, and 

557
00:29:32,810 --> 00:29:36,450
understand what people's 
motivators and incentives and 

558
00:29:36,450 --> 00:29:39,050
threats are. 
Because there are very few 

559
00:29:39,050 --> 00:29:41,810
people who are deliberately 
setting out to be a pain. 

560
00:29:42,210 --> 00:29:44,770
Very few people. 
There are a few people who are 

561
00:29:44,770 --> 00:29:46,770
just not sound people. 
Very few. 

562
00:29:46,770 --> 00:29:49,330
And it's unfortunate that there 
are some companies that tolerate

563
00:29:49,330 --> 00:29:52,570
some negative behavior. 
So that's very rare in my 

564
00:29:52,570 --> 00:29:55,450
experience. 
So figure out the incentive. 

565
00:29:55,970 --> 00:29:58,810
One other thought to add is the 
diffusion of innovation curve. 

566
00:29:59,090 --> 00:30:00,370
You'll have innovators on the 
left. 

567
00:30:00,370 --> 00:30:03,290
You'll have laggards on the 
right, any group of 10 people. 

568
00:30:03,610 --> 00:30:06,530
You will have innovators on the 
left and laggards on the right. 

569
00:30:07,010 --> 00:30:10,010
Identify your champions. 
It might be one or two people in

570
00:30:10,010 --> 00:30:13,690
the leadership team for all of 
your energy behind those people.

571
00:30:13,970 --> 00:30:17,090
Don't try to convince the 
laggards of anything, just leave

572
00:30:17,090 --> 00:30:20,460
them be. 
And just to add to that to build

573
00:30:20,460 --> 00:30:23,340
on that. 
I think one of the things that 

574
00:30:23,340 --> 00:30:27,460
I've sort of found practically 
really useful here is that focus

575
00:30:27,460 --> 00:30:30,940
on the movements, the focus on 
outcomes, where previously 

576
00:30:30,940 --> 00:30:34,900
you've got sort of hippos 
highest paid person's opinion on

577
00:30:34,900 --> 00:30:37,140
the next thing that they think 
would be good to do. 

578
00:30:37,460 --> 00:30:39,580
If you're focusing on outcomes, 
if you're focusing on 

579
00:30:39,580 --> 00:30:42,580
measurability, transparency and 
especially if you're focusing on

580
00:30:42,620 --> 00:30:46,340
a sort of cascaded OKR 
objectives and key results 

581
00:30:46,340 --> 00:30:50,070
framework where the highest 
level goals of the organization 

582
00:30:50,070 --> 00:30:52,430
of transparent, so the North 
Star style goals and then 

583
00:30:52,430 --> 00:30:56,070
everything aligns not 
necessarily cascades but aligns 

584
00:30:56,270 --> 00:30:59,430
to those and the measurable 
outcomes that everybody in the 

585
00:30:59,430 --> 00:31:01,590
organization is working on are 
clear. 

586
00:31:01,990 --> 00:31:04,910
It's not a silver bullet, it's 
not going to solve everything, 

587
00:31:05,390 --> 00:31:09,830
but it definitely helps aligning
people and taking some of the 

588
00:31:09,830 --> 00:31:13,550
politics and some of the egos 
out of some of those decisions. 

589
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:16,800
Thanks for adding that. 
So I like the way that John 

590
00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:19,440
mentioned, built the right 
incentives, right and also 

591
00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:22,280
create like nurture the 
environment so that people are 

592
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:25,520
not threatened, They want to 
cooperate and focus on the same 

593
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:28,160
outcome, like someone said 
aligned with the same outcome, 

594
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,040
which brings us to the next 
principle, which is the build 

595
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:32,720
the right thing or intelligent 
flow. 

596
00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:35,440
In the beginning you mentioned 
about flow, lead time and all 

597
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:37,360
that. 
So assuming that we have a good 

598
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:40,080
outcome set, we know what we 
want to achieve. 

599
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:42,420
The why? 
We have the fully functional 

600
00:31:42,420 --> 00:31:45,860
leadership team, so how to 
translate this to building the 

601
00:31:45,860 --> 00:31:48,420
right thing and creating this 
intelligent flow? 

602
00:31:49,220 --> 00:31:53,620
So intelligent flow build the 
right thing, it segues nicely 

603
00:31:53,620 --> 00:31:59,100
off of what Simon said which is 
outcomes and in particular the 

604
00:31:59,180 --> 00:32:02,060
important thing here is the 
golden thread of value is the 

605
00:32:02,060 --> 00:32:05,380
important thing and aligning 
strategy to execution and vice 

606
00:32:05,380 --> 00:32:07,700
versa. 
So you have your multi year 

607
00:32:07,700 --> 00:32:12,490
outcomes, your annual outcomes. 
Double click your quarterly 

608
00:32:12,490 --> 00:32:16,890
outcomes, double click monthly 
experiment, weekly iteration, 

609
00:32:16,890 --> 00:32:19,250
daily story. 
Now if you have all of that in 

610
00:32:19,250 --> 00:32:22,290
some tooling that's really 
powerful because you could be 

611
00:32:22,290 --> 00:32:26,730
working on a one hour task or a 
one day story and you can see 

612
00:32:26,730 --> 00:32:29,530
how your work aligns to the 
multi year strategic intent. 

613
00:32:29,970 --> 00:32:32,130
So this is the golden thread of 
value. 

614
00:32:32,450 --> 00:32:35,690
Super powerful because you then 
end up with two way strategy. 

615
00:32:35,770 --> 00:32:39,890
So usually strategy is one way. 
Top down, fire and forget. 

616
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:42,920
Here's our three-year strategy 
with very little feedback loop. 

617
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:47,480
Now we can have effectively a 
daily if we wanted to, we could 

618
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:49,960
have a daily feedback loop on 
our multi year strategy. 

619
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:54,360
So for example, we might have a 
multi year ambition to be the 

620
00:32:54,360 --> 00:32:57,640
number one brand in our industry
in three years. 

621
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:01,640
We want to increase our market 
share in, let's say, North 

622
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:07,490
America to go from #3 to #1. 
By the end of the year, we want 

623
00:33:07,490 --> 00:33:10,770
to be in a subset of our market 
market share. 

624
00:33:10,770 --> 00:33:15,170
We want to go from #5 to #2. 
By the end of this year, in the 

625
00:33:15,170 --> 00:33:18,610
next quarter, we want to double 
our sales in New York City. 

626
00:33:18,970 --> 00:33:21,570
To do that, we're going to run a
promotional Instagram and 

627
00:33:21,570 --> 00:33:23,850
Facebook, and we're going to do 
that in the next month. 

628
00:33:24,210 --> 00:33:27,250
So that's an example of how you 
might slice the outcomes. 

629
00:33:27,610 --> 00:33:30,210
And the important point here is 
to the point of the quarterly 

630
00:33:30,210 --> 00:33:32,290
outcome. 
It doesn't say how we're going 

631
00:33:32,290 --> 00:33:34,460
to do it. 
We're articulating the outcome. 

632
00:33:34,460 --> 00:33:36,140
We want to double our market 
share. 

633
00:33:36,220 --> 00:33:38,860
We want to increase our sales in
New York City. 

634
00:33:39,180 --> 00:33:42,260
The boundary is when you go from
the quarterly OKR down to the 

635
00:33:42,260 --> 00:33:46,860
monthly EPIC initiative 
experiment, now we're in output 

636
00:33:46,980 --> 00:33:49,220
land. 
So you end up with both an 

637
00:33:49,220 --> 00:33:51,980
outcome road map, which doesn't 
change very much. 

638
00:33:52,460 --> 00:33:54,940
And at the same time, in 
parallel, you have an output 

639
00:33:54,940 --> 00:33:58,220
road map, which is your product 
road map, and you will have an 

640
00:33:58,220 --> 00:34:01,820
architecture vision, an 
architecture runway, a product 

641
00:34:01,820 --> 00:34:05,350
vision. 
You know, UXCX, everything else.

642
00:34:05,830 --> 00:34:09,710
However, your product road map 
should be pivoting all over the 

643
00:34:09,710 --> 00:34:13,590
place without change control. 
And your outcome road map won't 

644
00:34:13,590 --> 00:34:16,710
change much because, you know, 
we thought that doubling our 

645
00:34:16,710 --> 00:34:19,469
sales in New York City would 
lead to us increasing our market

646
00:34:19,469 --> 00:34:21,870
share in the US. 
Turns out it doesn't. 

647
00:34:21,989 --> 00:34:24,230
We were wrong. 
We need to be selling more 

648
00:34:24,230 --> 00:34:27,389
products on the West Coast. 
Quick, let's pivot. 

649
00:34:27,550 --> 00:34:30,389
Let's double our sales in LA and
San Francisco. 

650
00:34:30,510 --> 00:34:33,810
Let's run a promotion. 
So that's how you focus on 

651
00:34:33,969 --> 00:34:36,090
building. 
The right thing is through the 

652
00:34:36,210 --> 00:34:39,210
OKRS objectives and key results 
through the KR. 

653
00:34:39,449 --> 00:34:42,530
A regular cadence on the KR and 
you pivot your output. 

654
00:34:43,290 --> 00:34:46,690
Thanks for the example of how 
the OKR alignment works, right. 

655
00:34:46,929 --> 00:34:49,690
So one maybe extension from that
example, right. 

656
00:34:49,690 --> 00:34:53,090
So typically in some companies 
that I see is that instead of 

657
00:34:53,090 --> 00:34:55,810
just pivot means like change 
from what they're doing. 

658
00:34:56,110 --> 00:35:00,070
They create a new initiative, 
maybe a team, you know, whatever

659
00:35:00,070 --> 00:35:03,070
that they set up, meaning that 
they will add more initiatives 

660
00:35:03,070 --> 00:35:05,350
inside the company. 
And in your book you mentioned 

661
00:35:05,350 --> 00:35:08,190
this stop starting, start 
finishing, right. 

662
00:35:08,190 --> 00:35:11,470
So I think that's a very, very 
important pattern I would say. 

663
00:35:11,630 --> 00:35:14,150
Maybe if you can elaborate. 
Furthermore, what do you mean by

664
00:35:14,150 --> 00:35:15,950
this? 
Stop starting and start 

665
00:35:15,950 --> 00:35:20,070
finishing. 
So really this comes down to 

666
00:35:20,670 --> 00:35:25,070
smaller batch work. 
It's down to some of the sort of

667
00:35:25,070 --> 00:35:28,550
lean approaches that say any 
feature that's not in front of 

668
00:35:28,550 --> 00:35:31,270
the customer, that's in the 
middle of being delivered is 

669
00:35:31,270 --> 00:35:34,590
eventually and two degrees waste
until it's there in front of the

670
00:35:34,590 --> 00:35:36,310
customer. 
Goes back to what we said 

671
00:35:36,310 --> 00:35:40,430
earlier that what we're trying 
to really improve on is time to 

672
00:35:40,430 --> 00:35:44,110
learning. 
One of the patterns to improve 

673
00:35:44,110 --> 00:35:47,190
time to learning is to deliver 
smaller and smaller and smaller 

674
00:35:47,190 --> 00:35:49,110
chunks of. 
Value. 

675
00:35:49,670 --> 00:35:51,470
Get them in front of the 
customer soon. 

676
00:35:51,470 --> 00:35:53,900
Get them done. 
If that works, do more. 

677
00:35:54,340 --> 00:35:57,900
If it doesn't work, if the 
indicators, the key results that

678
00:35:57,900 --> 00:36:00,820
you're seeing are showing that 
actually, again, you need to 

679
00:36:00,860 --> 00:36:04,860
pivot or change, then do that. 
The only way you're going to do 

680
00:36:04,860 --> 00:36:10,180
that is by delivering valuable 
features faster, and one of the 

681
00:36:10,180 --> 00:36:12,380
tactics to do that is to make 
them smaller. 

682
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:14,600
So thanks for sharing that, 
Simon. 

683
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:17,560
So I think, yeah, focusing on 
bringing it to the customer 

684
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:21,320
instead of finishing in, I don't
know development or in testing. 

685
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:23,080
So that actually doesn't mean 
anything. 

686
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:25,520
So in lean, they categorize that
as ways, right. 

687
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:29,120
So by delivering value, it means
that you deploying it to 

688
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:31,520
production and being used by the
customer. 

689
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:34,440
So I think that's very, very 
important concept from AGR, from

690
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:37,000
lean, right. 
So don't focus on too many 

691
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:39,840
things at once, right. 
Try to deliver that as early as 

692
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:42,420
possible. 
Ultimately, I'm sorry, Henry, 

693
00:36:42,420 --> 00:36:44,860
there's this sort of definition 
of done thing for me. 

694
00:36:44,860 --> 00:36:46,900
It's fairly simple. 
It's done when the customers 

695
00:36:46,900 --> 00:36:47,980
using it. 
That's it. 

696
00:36:48,820 --> 00:36:50,500
Yeah, thanks for emphasizing 
that. 

697
00:36:50,780 --> 00:36:54,140
So another key thing about doing
all these ways of working is 

698
00:36:54,140 --> 00:36:58,220
about how people can get into it
right, can adapt to the ways of 

699
00:36:58,220 --> 00:37:00,180
working. 
First of all, understands also 

700
00:37:00,180 --> 00:37:02,620
the need for change the 
techniques that they're going to

701
00:37:02,620 --> 00:37:04,500
use, right? 
How do they come up with the 

702
00:37:04,500 --> 00:37:06,580
how? 
How they come up with the road 

703
00:37:06,580 --> 00:37:08,380
map alignment and things like 
that? 

704
00:37:08,970 --> 00:37:12,890
And how do you actually bring 
people so that they can all 

705
00:37:13,050 --> 00:37:16,290
align, they can all get 
upskilled, they can all have 

706
00:37:16,290 --> 00:37:19,490
this learning ability. 
So maybe some tips from your 

707
00:37:19,490 --> 00:37:23,090
previous experience, past 
projects, how can you align 

708
00:37:23,090 --> 00:37:25,610
people so that they are into 
this change? 

709
00:37:26,370 --> 00:37:29,370
So again, start with the why. 
So that's step number one. 

710
00:37:29,610 --> 00:37:32,730
There has to be a clear why for 
change and that why should 

711
00:37:32,770 --> 00:37:37,610
ideally appeal to the individual
team, the organization, to 

712
00:37:37,610 --> 00:37:39,690
clients. 
And to society. 

713
00:37:40,170 --> 00:37:43,970
Now usually when an organization
articulates why change, it's 

714
00:37:44,170 --> 00:37:47,090
purely for the company. 
And that articulation doesn't 

715
00:37:47,090 --> 00:37:51,130
cover why change for the 
individual, for the team or for 

716
00:37:51,210 --> 00:37:53,530
customers or for citizens for 
society. 

717
00:37:53,890 --> 00:37:57,330
So usually the why is not well 
articulated and the why 

718
00:37:57,330 --> 00:38:00,450
typically comes from usually a 
focus on shareholders. 

719
00:38:00,890 --> 00:38:01,970
Yeah. 
What do we need to do to 

720
00:38:01,970 --> 00:38:04,530
increase the share price to 
achieve our own personal 

721
00:38:04,530 --> 00:38:06,850
incentives at the executive 
committee level? 

722
00:38:07,270 --> 00:38:11,390
Where the incentive is typically
aligned to the financials not 

723
00:38:11,390 --> 00:38:13,430
surprisingly in the current 
construct. 

724
00:38:13,870 --> 00:38:16,030
Good news is you know there's a 
bit of evolution on this. 

725
00:38:16,030 --> 00:38:18,590
So it's not just shareholders, 
it's stakeholders and 

726
00:38:18,590 --> 00:38:21,550
stakeholders is a broader term 
which is good that includes the 

727
00:38:21,550 --> 00:38:23,190
planet. 
So that's good. 

728
00:38:23,590 --> 00:38:27,070
So start with Y with the balance
Y and then once the Y is clear 

729
00:38:27,190 --> 00:38:30,830
invite over inflict because we 
want the Champions, we want the 

730
00:38:30,830 --> 00:38:33,590
passionate people and we want to
minimize threat. 

731
00:38:33,830 --> 00:38:36,670
If it's inflicted upon people, 
it's very threatening. 

732
00:38:37,110 --> 00:38:39,590
And there'll be lots of 
antibodies to change. 

733
00:38:39,710 --> 00:38:41,910
The change will be rejected. 
In some cases it will be 

734
00:38:41,910 --> 00:38:44,550
sabotaged if it's perceived to 
be threatening. 

735
00:38:45,070 --> 00:38:48,390
So invite to participation. 
And again, there needs to be a 

736
00:38:48,390 --> 00:38:50,910
clear incentive here. 
So the why is part of the 

737
00:38:50,910 --> 00:38:52,910
incentive. 
But also there should be both 

738
00:38:53,030 --> 00:38:57,070
implicit incentives, which is as
an element of social proof here.

739
00:38:57,270 --> 00:39:00,950
So the implicit incentive is all
my colleagues are doing this and

740
00:39:00,950 --> 00:39:02,990
they're having a great time and 
they're loving the new ways of 

741
00:39:02,990 --> 00:39:04,630
working. 
I want to do that too. 

742
00:39:04,830 --> 00:39:07,820
Don't leave me out. 
FOMO, fear of missing out 

743
00:39:08,260 --> 00:39:13,020
explicit incentives is pay, 
promotion, performance 

744
00:39:13,020 --> 00:39:15,500
appraisal. 
And again, that's not about 

745
00:39:15,500 --> 00:39:17,660
doing Agile. 
It's not about are you doing 

746
00:39:17,660 --> 00:39:21,660
Scrum, it's have you improved 
your outcomes, quality, value, 

747
00:39:21,660 --> 00:39:23,220
time to value, safety and 
happiness. 

748
00:39:23,620 --> 00:39:26,780
And I think, Henry, that's the 
recipe you need really, a clear 

749
00:39:26,780 --> 00:39:30,340
why a clear incentive invite 
participation to continuously 

750
00:39:30,340 --> 00:39:33,580
improve, aligned to measurable 
outcomes, and then you're off to

751
00:39:33,580 --> 00:39:35,790
the races. 
You know, maybe just one thing 

752
00:39:35,790 --> 00:39:38,150
to add is there are minimal 
viable guardrails. 

753
00:39:38,150 --> 00:39:41,990
A wide Rd. with high curbs. 
There are some things that are 

754
00:39:41,990 --> 00:39:45,150
just not negotiable. 
Information security, data 

755
00:39:45,150 --> 00:39:48,790
privacy fraud, anti money 
laundering compliance. 

756
00:39:49,190 --> 00:39:52,150
Depends on your industry. 
There are some controls that are

757
00:39:52,150 --> 00:39:55,390
non negotiable, but within them 
knock yourself out. 

758
00:39:56,230 --> 00:39:58,470
I like the term minimum viable 
guardrails. 

759
00:39:58,470 --> 00:40:01,110
This is like the constraints, 
the boundaries, right? 

760
00:40:01,110 --> 00:40:03,750
So it's like the hard rules that
people cannot. 

761
00:40:04,110 --> 00:40:06,790
You know, violate, I would say. 
But apart from that, they are 

762
00:40:06,790 --> 00:40:10,350
free to be creative, try to 
adopt the new ways of working. 

763
00:40:10,830 --> 00:40:13,190
Another thing that I think I 
found really interesting in that

764
00:40:13,270 --> 00:40:15,390
particular chapter about 
learning is that you said that 

765
00:40:15,390 --> 00:40:20,030
people have limited velocity to 
unlearn and relearn, especially 

766
00:40:20,030 --> 00:40:22,750
for leaders who come with this 
agile transformation mindset. 

767
00:40:22,750 --> 00:40:24,550
They all want a fast change, 
right? 

768
00:40:24,590 --> 00:40:28,390
Like people have to adopt from 
1:00 to 2:00 to 3:00 to 4:00 and

769
00:40:28,390 --> 00:40:30,470
suddenly they become all agile 
teams, right? 

770
00:40:30,830 --> 00:40:33,830
So tell us about this important 
thing about limited velocity. 

771
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:36,920
Yeah, the pace of change is 
determined by the speed of 

772
00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:39,760
unlearning and relearning. 
You can't force the pace of 

773
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:43,240
change in an organization. 
You have to read the tea leaves.

774
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:47,800
You have to do sense making. 
So if the speed of change is 

775
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:50,880
determined by the speed of 
unlearning and relearning, the 

776
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:53,760
next question is how do we 
increase the speed? 

777
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:56,040
Assuming we don't want to take 
too long with change, and we 

778
00:40:56,040 --> 00:41:00,320
want to do it sustainably, how 
then do we increase the speed of

779
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:03,150
unlearning and relearning? 
So, Henry, what do you think is 

780
00:41:03,150 --> 00:41:06,150
the number one determinant of 
the speed of unlearning? 

781
00:41:06,950 --> 00:41:08,350
Well, there are a few things in 
my mind. 

782
00:41:08,350 --> 00:41:10,150
The 1st is whether we want to 
change. 

783
00:41:10,150 --> 00:41:12,510
That's the first thing, right? 
Coming back to the why, why we 

784
00:41:12,510 --> 00:41:14,590
have to change. 
The second thing is I have so 

785
00:41:14,590 --> 00:41:16,310
many work that I'm doing as 
well. 

786
00:41:16,950 --> 00:41:20,350
So these things seems new and 
I'm tied up with what I'm doing 

787
00:41:20,350 --> 00:41:21,430
now. 
Yep. 

788
00:41:21,590 --> 00:41:25,110
So incentive, incentive to 
change is one of them, because I

789
00:41:25,110 --> 00:41:28,150
have to now make time for change
and then the other one is again 

790
00:41:28,150 --> 00:41:31,530
psychological safety. 
So the speed of unlearning and 

791
00:41:31,530 --> 00:41:34,970
relearning is determined by the 
amount of psychological safety, 

792
00:41:35,290 --> 00:41:38,090
the minimal amount of a culture 
of fear. 

793
00:41:38,370 --> 00:41:43,290
If there is a culture of fear 
and failure is punished, nobody 

794
00:41:43,290 --> 00:41:47,290
is going to unlearn and relearn.
You will have stasis. 

795
00:41:47,570 --> 00:41:50,330
Nobody will change. 
And there was one organization 

796
00:41:50,330 --> 00:41:53,250
I've worked with where the 
previous leadership had a 

797
00:41:53,250 --> 00:41:57,530
behavior of a lot of fear. 
Messengers were shot. 

798
00:41:57,890 --> 00:42:01,900
People were punished. 
And so the language that I was 

799
00:42:01,900 --> 00:42:06,860
hearing from people was that it 
is safer to do nothing than to 

800
00:42:06,860 --> 00:42:10,300
do something. 
And I mean absolutely nothing. 

801
00:42:10,660 --> 00:42:12,500
And I'm not talking here about 
just change. 

802
00:42:12,500 --> 00:42:15,220
I'm talking here about even just
your daytoday work. 

803
00:42:15,740 --> 00:42:18,820
The pace of work at this 
organization was so slow, was 

804
00:42:18,820 --> 00:42:21,580
because people didn't even want 
to do their daily work for fear 

805
00:42:21,580 --> 00:42:24,140
that they'd get something wrong,
never mind changing how they do 

806
00:42:24,140 --> 00:42:25,780
what they do. 
This was just what they do. 

807
00:42:26,230 --> 00:42:29,790
It's incredible. 
So psychological safety, again, 

808
00:42:29,950 --> 00:42:32,590
the speed of unlearning is 
determined by the amount of 

809
00:42:32,630 --> 00:42:35,110
psychological safety, minimizing
threat. 

810
00:42:35,110 --> 00:42:38,390
So that I can say, hey Simon, do
you want me to help you out on 

811
00:42:38,390 --> 00:42:41,510
that thing you're working on? 
I've never done it before, but 

812
00:42:41,510 --> 00:42:44,350
in order to become 
multidisciplinary T shaped or π 

813
00:42:44,350 --> 00:42:47,630
shaped or comb shaped broken 
comb shaped teams, I'm going to 

814
00:42:47,630 --> 00:42:51,390
jump in and I'm going to learn 
something about big data or BI 

815
00:42:51,390 --> 00:42:53,520
or something. 
Simon, can you show me how to do

816
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:56,200
it and then next time I'll be 
able to take some work and help 

817
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:57,760
you. 
Yeah we compare on it next time.

818
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:00,920
So you've got to be able to fail
and say you don't know and also 

819
00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:03,320
challenge authority which is a 
learning from airlines. 

820
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:06,120
The first officer needs to be 
able to challenge the captain to

821
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:09,960
avoid some bad outcomes and 
likewise for large companies. 

822
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:13,160
Usually 2 levels up all of the 
rag status. 

823
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:15,600
The red amber, green status. 
It's all green green green 

824
00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:18,880
because bad news is buried And 
I've spoken to some senior 

825
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:21,000
leaders who say John if I look 
at my. 

826
00:43:21,380 --> 00:43:23,220
Status reports. 
Apparently everything's on 

827
00:43:23,220 --> 00:43:24,940
track. 
Of course it's not. 

828
00:43:25,380 --> 00:43:26,860
So there you go. 
Yeah. 

829
00:43:27,340 --> 00:43:28,500
Yeah. 
It's a classic thing. 

830
00:43:28,540 --> 00:43:30,220
I think it's almost everywhere, 
right? 

831
00:43:30,220 --> 00:43:33,420
When you go to the top, right, 
people always report the greens.

832
00:43:33,460 --> 00:43:36,580
If there's an ember or the red, 
right, people will try to hide 

833
00:43:36,580 --> 00:43:39,860
it or maybe do something, maybe 
massage the information such 

834
00:43:39,860 --> 00:43:41,260
that it doesn't look so bad, 
right. 

835
00:43:41,540 --> 00:43:43,460
So I think thanks for 
emphasizing again about fear, 

836
00:43:43,460 --> 00:43:46,510
psychological safety. 
Unfortunately due to the limited

837
00:43:46,510 --> 00:43:48,470
time, we have to cut pretty 
soon. 

838
00:43:48,750 --> 00:43:50,430
But I have one last question for
each of you. 

839
00:43:50,430 --> 00:43:53,510
If you can give us some, what I 
call 3 technical leadership is 

840
00:43:53,510 --> 00:43:55,030
them. 
So think of it like an advice 

841
00:43:55,030 --> 00:43:57,670
that you want to give listeners 
here to learn from you. 

842
00:43:57,990 --> 00:44:00,270
So maybe one of you can start 
first. 

843
00:44:01,270 --> 00:44:06,990
I would say the one piece of 
advice is listen to people, have

844
00:44:06,990 --> 00:44:11,190
some empathy. 
There is a great book on clean 

845
00:44:11,190 --> 00:44:14,400
language, which we've not. 
We talked about at all today 

846
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:16,680
called from contempt to 
curiosity. 

847
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:19,120
People will be doing things that
you disagree with. 

848
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:25,520
You'll be genuinely if you are 
experienced in ways of working 

849
00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:28,080
in technology. 
Our first reaction from any 

850
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:31,080
technologists is WTS is going on
here. 

851
00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:34,840
But if you take the theory why 
approach, people are always 

852
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:38,240
taking their best intention and 
their incentivized to do 

853
00:44:38,240 --> 00:44:40,760
something in some way there in a
context. 

854
00:44:41,300 --> 00:44:42,740
She's led them to do something 
in somewhere. 

855
00:44:42,740 --> 00:44:45,500
Listen to them, talk to them, 
take them for a coffee cup of 

856
00:44:45,500 --> 00:44:48,900
tea and just find out and then 
put yourself in their shoes. 

857
00:44:49,460 --> 00:44:52,820
That's the best place that you 
can then help them, if they need

858
00:44:52,820 --> 00:44:54,380
help at all. 
Or maybe you do. 

859
00:44:55,140 --> 00:44:59,940
For me, in terms of three pieces
of advice, the first one is you 

860
00:44:59,940 --> 00:45:02,700
are a leader. 
Doesn't matter how many years 

861
00:45:02,700 --> 00:45:05,700
experience you have, It doesn't 
matter what your grade is. 

862
00:45:06,100 --> 00:45:09,540
Everybody is a leader. 
Look at Greta Thunberg. 

863
00:45:09,700 --> 00:45:12,400
She was at school. 
And she is a great leader. 

864
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:15,880
So this topic is leaders at all 
levels. 

865
00:45:16,240 --> 00:45:18,720
So you are master of your own 
destiny. 

866
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:22,920
You are not a victim. 
One of my personal bugbears is a

867
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:25,880
victim mentality. 
So it's not a case of pointing 

868
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:29,160
up and blaming them up there, 
which is easy to do. 

869
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:31,440
It's also likewise on social 
media. 

870
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:35,840
It's easy for some people just 
to be negative or moan, moan, 

871
00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:37,600
moan, complain, complain, 
complain. 

872
00:45:38,150 --> 00:45:40,950
Don't just moan and be a victim 
and point and blame other 

873
00:45:40,950 --> 00:45:42,630
people. 
No, you're a leader. 

874
00:45:42,950 --> 00:45:46,190
Exhibit some leadership. 
And it doesn't need to be 

875
00:45:46,190 --> 00:45:48,590
positional power. 
It doesn't need to be people 

876
00:45:48,590 --> 00:45:51,270
reporting to you. 
You can create a rebel alliance.

877
00:45:51,430 --> 00:45:53,590
And that's what I did back in 
2012. 

878
00:45:53,590 --> 00:45:56,830
I created the ways of working 
community of practice in the 

879
00:45:56,830 --> 00:45:59,790
organization I was working in. 
Nobody asked me to do it. 

880
00:46:00,110 --> 00:46:03,110
I connected multiple business 
divisions geographically, 

881
00:46:03,110 --> 00:46:05,230
worldwide. 
We ended up with two and a half 

882
00:46:05,230 --> 00:46:07,310
thousand people in this 
community. 

883
00:46:07,620 --> 00:46:10,260
Entirely voluntary, entirely law
of two feet. 

884
00:46:10,660 --> 00:46:14,340
And we created a movement, we 
created a social movement, which

885
00:46:14,420 --> 00:46:17,140
ultimately led to, with support 
from the leadership team at the 

886
00:46:17,140 --> 00:46:19,140
top, doing it across the whole 
company. 

887
00:46:19,500 --> 00:46:22,140
So that's my advice. 
Number one is be master of your 

888
00:46:22,140 --> 00:46:26,220
own destiny. 
Don't be a victim #2 is just 

889
00:46:26,220 --> 00:46:29,140
general career advice. 
And this is my personal 

890
00:46:29,140 --> 00:46:33,100
philosophy is get good at every 
level before you. 

891
00:46:33,450 --> 00:46:36,210
Take on your next role and it 
could be a sideways role. 

892
00:46:36,210 --> 00:46:38,370
It doesn't need to be a move up 
always, especially for 

893
00:46:38,370 --> 00:46:41,850
individual contributors, but 
become a guru at your topic 

894
00:46:41,850 --> 00:46:44,210
before you move on. 
That's been my personal 

895
00:46:44,210 --> 00:46:46,690
philosophy. 
Be the best whatever your role 

896
00:46:46,690 --> 00:46:48,090
is you know, whatever your 
speciality is. 

897
00:46:48,090 --> 00:46:51,690
Be the best developer. 
Be the best scrum master. 

898
00:46:51,850 --> 00:46:54,530
Be the best product owner. 
Be the best product manager. 

899
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:57,840
Be the best leader. 
Because then in the future, 

900
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:00,440
whether you're an individual 
contributor or whether you are 

901
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:03,920
leading people, you know the 
jobs that the people are doing 

902
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:05,600
that you're leading because 
you've done it. 

903
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:07,600
And that's the philosophy at 
Toyota. 

904
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:10,760
The leaders at Toyota have been 
on the assembly line. 

905
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:14,080
So that's a general piece of 
career advice, that one. 

906
00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:18,240
And then #3 is change your 
company or change your company. 

907
00:47:18,560 --> 00:47:20,920
As you create the movement, you 
create the Rebel Alliance. 

908
00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:24,600
Hopefully you pick up champions 
at multiple levels of formal 

909
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:27,080
leadership and then you change 
your company. 

910
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:29,600
But however, if there are 
leaders who don't want to 

911
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:32,720
change, then go and work 
somewhere where you're happy and

912
00:47:32,720 --> 00:47:35,480
where there is a desire to 
improve, which is back to the 

913
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:37,840
point around being master of 
your own destiny. 

914
00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:41,680
I really love the last one. 
Change your company or change 

915
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:42,600
your company. 
Right. 

916
00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:45,710
So I think that's really, really
a key thing for everyone who are

917
00:47:45,710 --> 00:47:48,430
not fulfilled in the company 
because they want to instill 

918
00:47:48,430 --> 00:47:49,790
change, but they couldn't, 
right. 

919
00:47:49,870 --> 00:47:52,350
And they are always trapped in 
this kind of bad ways of 

920
00:47:52,350 --> 00:47:53,910
working. 
So thank you so much for your 

921
00:47:53,910 --> 00:47:55,630
time today. 
If people want to continue this 

922
00:47:55,630 --> 00:47:58,390
conversation, any place they can
reach out online. 

923
00:47:59,150 --> 00:48:01,990
LinkedIn or sooner 
saferhappier.com. 

924
00:48:03,150 --> 00:48:05,870
And we have a Slack community 
there as well, right? 

925
00:48:05,990 --> 00:48:08,390
So maybe we'll put it in the 
show notes later on as well. 

926
00:48:08,390 --> 00:48:11,830
So thank you for sharing today 
about BVSSH. 

927
00:48:11,950 --> 00:48:14,190
So better value, sooner, safer, 
happier. 

928
00:48:14,190 --> 00:48:17,350
So I hope people learn today how
we can achieve this ideal thing,

929
00:48:17,390 --> 00:48:19,470
right. 
So with principles, patterns and

930
00:48:19,470 --> 00:48:20,670
patterns that you put in the 
book. 

931
00:48:20,910 --> 00:48:23,590
So thanks again for sharing this
with us, John and Simon. 

932
00:48:24,030 --> 00:48:25,150
Thanks so much for having us, 
Henry. 

933
00:48:25,790 --> 00:48:26,550
Yeah. 
Thank you. 

934
00:48:26,550 --> 00:48:31,790
Thanks, Henry. 
Thank you for listening to this 

935
00:48:31,790 --> 00:48:34,150
episode and for staying right 
until the end. 

936
00:48:34,630 --> 00:48:37,670
If you highly enjoyed it, I 
would appreciate if you share it

937
00:48:37,670 --> 00:48:40,670
with your friends and colleagues
who you think would also benefit

938
00:48:40,670 --> 00:48:43,470
from listening to this episode. 
And if you're new to the 

939
00:48:43,470 --> 00:48:46,470
podcast, make sure to subscribe 
and leave me your valuable 

940
00:48:46,470 --> 00:48:49,470
review and feedback. 
It helps me a lot in order to 

941
00:48:49,470 --> 00:48:52,750
grow this podcast better. 
You can also find the full show 

942
00:48:52,750 --> 00:48:55,630
notes of this conversation on 
the episode page at 

943
00:48:55,630 --> 00:48:59,070
Techlyjournal dot dev website, 
including the full transcript, 

944
00:48:59,350 --> 00:49:02,950
interesting quotes, and links to
the resources mentioned from the

945
00:49:02,950 --> 00:49:05,770
conversation. 
And lastly, make sure to 

946
00:49:05,770 --> 00:49:09,290
subscribe to the show's mailing 
list on techlyjuno dot dev to 

947
00:49:09,290 --> 00:49:11,610
get notified for any future 
episodes. 

948
00:49:12,090 --> 00:49:15,370
Stay tuned for the next 
Techlyjuno episode, and until 

949
00:49:15,370 --> 00:49:16,450
then, goodbye.