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Hello again, to all of you, my friends and my listeners.
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My guest for today's episode is you te x times U Theta is a
coach consultant and trainer who has helped many teams and
organizations worldwide. Making an angel transition in
this episode, we discussed ideas from her book, company-wide
agility with Beyond budgeting open space and social currency,
also, widely known as the bossa nova book.
Utah started by sharing today's company challenge in terms of Of
collision of values between the shareholders customers and the
employees, and she provided the suggestion, how to align the
values better, she then broke down, Bossa Nova and explain
each concept and principles of Beyond budgeting open space,
social currency and agile. Utah also shared the four values
of Bossa Nova and how they also relate extrinsically to
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Hello everyone. Welcome to another new episode
of the package, in our podcast. Today we have a guest, she's an
independent coach very well known in the HR World.
Her name is utha Eckstein, He wrote a book that is quite
popular. The title is company-wide
agility with the on budgeting open space and social currency
or in short. People also know it as Bossa
Nova, so we'll cover why it's called Bossa Nova and we'll be
talking a lot about the concepts from this book.
So you gotta really pleased to have you in the show today.
Thank you so much for spending your time.
Thank you so much for inviting me Henry.
So you thought I always like to ask my guests to share any
career highlights or Turning Point.
It's before we start into the conversation, maybe you can
share some interesting things from your career as well.
Well maybe one of my turning points was started off as a
developer. One of the projects I was
working on so probably for three months or so the project manager
walked up to me and because he's probably in 96 or 97.
So really long time ago the project manager walked up to me
and said you too, I don't know what it is, but You're on the
team, things have changed for the better and that made me
think that maybe there is also something else that I can do
next to being a software developer on a team.
So this was probably the most important turning point for me
to think Beyond software development.
Then I started first into design and architecture and then more
into leading teams. So maybe if you can share, what
was Is it that your project manager found from your
contribution in the team? Is there specific?
But he said he doesn't know, he just sees that it has an impact.
So it he didn't know. He just said that this is what
he's observing. That things have changed for the
better, anything that you may be figured out as well, throughout
time, what I did then was trying out different things.
So next to keep being a software developer, I started into design
and architecture and then into team leading.
Then in two teams of teams leading and been into supporting
organizations. So it kind of started that whole
truly if you will but it was really more.
Like he said something that I do have an impact in some way, but
nobody knew what is so? I kept exploring.
It's very interesting that you pick this out as really great
turning points because sometimes even things that you are not so
sure about, but you'd bring good impact and you keep on exploring
until you you have this career so far.
So thanks for sharing this insightful Journey.
So you topic today going to talk about your book company-wide
agility with the on budgeting open space, on social Chrissy.
I mean, there are a few techniques inside the title
itself, but maybe let's start by why you wrote the book in the
first place? What kind of problems that
you're trying to solve? So first of all, I could do Road
it with Chum back and what I saw was around that book, mainly two
things. So the one thing, As teams in
organizations were quite successful, using an agile
approach. So some other parts in the
organization said, oh, can we benefit from this as well?
It what could we do in order to be more actual as the company?
The other thing that we also saw was some teams roll out so
successful when we dig deeper into what's the key problem then
it was, will the organization. So that That ecosystem wasn't
actual enough. They couldn't really benefit
fully from their actual approach.
So if you will, one driver was success and the other one was
maybe failure. And then of course, also around
that time. The discussion about business
agility started which is another thing that she has many things
where you could look at and say well what companies are doing,
if they Not actual, maybe, in many cases, it doesn't fit
what's really needed. What we see is happening right
now is that we have this role, but keeps changing so that it's
volatile, uncertain complex and ambiguous.
So the book of world, we are living in and companies.
Just need to respond to that. For me, a key way to respond, to
the book of world is being agile as an organization.
I'm not talking about scrum. I'm here, I'm talking about
actual more in the literal sense.
So being flexible, adaptive responsive Nimble more like
that. So I think throughout the last
few years as well, we can see as a job has transformed, a lot of
software development teams. I mean the concept of agile
methodology started maybe from a software development team from
the manifesto and then, as more and more people adopted it, I
guess it was also quite popular and hugely successful.
We're now the concept of applying it to other parts of I
think if I'm not wrong, I've heard things like a gel, HR, a
job marketing, maybe a job, budgeting and things like that.
So why do you think so many different departments?
Also need to adopt this agile, practices, or mindset.
Maybe you can explore little bit on that.
Yeah, well, it's exactly for the same book of reasons because
they are facing complexity and they need to deal with it.
They need to be responsive and adaptive.
And so they look at what's working somewhere else.
Agile, software development is working at other places and
it's, of course also very promising to work in various
non-software places. Meanwhile, a lot of people have
tried it and it's dog and figured that it is helping them.
Now with the person over, actually, we are more looking
across the department. It's also more than business
agility. It is really looking at the
company level. What can you do as the whole
company to Really be that. We actual and that literal sense
really in your book. Also, you mentioned one
particular thing which I think is quite insightful, right?
Because traditionally companies tend to maximize shareholder
values that is like the ultimate goal of company traditionally.
But with all these recent changes, maybe with Asia concept
as well, customer should become the first point of reference for
the company's success. So tell us more about this
perspective, where you shift from shareholder value to people
too. Customer.
And what would you Advocate that a company should look at as a
reference point? Actually Beyond budgeting that
said a lot as well. Is that if you look at only the
shareholder, they this is probably also what you get your
only provide value for the shareholder, which is typically
very short term thinking. Whereas if you focus on customer
value, you get, Additionally, the shareholder value.
Would be also thing. And that's again, kind of what
being budgeting also says, if we are focusing on the employees,
then the employees and sure that the customer will happy and this
will make the shareholder happy. And so we have this whole chain
of providing value for everyone in our ecosystem, actually, it's
way more long-term than if we just look at the shareholder.
The interesting thing about this is that I think it's about four
years ago. So we're the Business Roundtable
that's kind of institution in the u.s. got together and it has
like the leading CEOs of the American industry.
They made that shift as well. They said, well, in the past, we
have only focus on the shareholder belly, but we see
that this is appropriate for the Times anymore.
And maybe also be have learned that it is Too short-sighted.
And we need to really think more about the employees and the
customer and the shareholder and actually, as well about the
environment we are in. So if I can just repeat, it is a
sequential thing, right? So put focus more on your
people, when you have engaged happy employees, it will
translate to good customer value.
Maybe they produce good products or Goods Services.
Once the customer value also increase people are happy and
the a shareholder of timidly will also benefit and you
brought up that's the last point.
We should also think about the environmental aspect, the
sustainability which is quite trendy these days where people
are talking a lot about it. So thanks for sharing this as a
sequential Focus. That any company should think
about volunteerism. It's me the way you just pointed
it out. That's absolutely.
The way I thought of saying it. That's correct.
Thank you for, sorry Rising that no problem.
So let's go to your thing, right?
Which is called Bossa Nova. Maybe for people who The puzzle
like they are not sure yet. What is Bossa?
Nova, it sounds very exotic, right?
This? That's true.
It may be that as well. You mentioned the title of the
book and in that title, there are those different streams that
we had looked out for the thing as when we figured that what's
needed in the vocab, rule is actually a company.
That's actual. So, what we talked already
about, we also thought, well, there are already several
streams out there. That look at various aspects of
organizations and provide that agility.
But think that we all probably know best actual development
that. So, in the software world but
also, you could say, looking at the process aspect because
that's where actual sits more or less by keep learning from
really small steps, getting that feedback and then cause correct
this way understanding Dealing with complexity.
Now, this is not all that's needed in a company.
So, for example, Beyond budgeting looks at the financial
area, and if you think about it, if you fix your budget one year,
in advance, how actual can you actually be?
Because money is already in the various buckets, it's all sorted
out, and if you now find out about this really cool, new
innovation that you could tackle bologna.
You can because it hasn't planned for it in the battered.
So we need a way of budgeting which is really more agile.
More Dynamic, more flexible, more responsive to what's
happening at the very moment and this is what Beyond budgeting is
about. Actually, it is also probably
broader but it started that's rights in the name, it started
from budgeting but it also says, well, because we all know many
rules the world. It means, All kinds of
management is triggered, by the way, how we are budgeting so
far, you could also talk about being budgeting is actually also
a different kind of management approach that is more flexible
and is about to continuously adapt.
And it's empowering people as well so that's beyond budgeting.
So looking at the financial area in organization, then the second
stream that we found that That's really helping an organization
to become more agile is open space.
A lot of people I can imagine in the edge of Roland who are
listening to this right now might know open space as a
facilitation techniques so you can run workshops conferences.
And so on in an open space format, the key to that open
space format is actually that everyone is invited to suggest a
topic that's really pressing and kneading, To discuss and been
whoever is interested in that topic, discusses Ed resolves,
make suggestion in it, develops ideas, and so on based on in my
tation and this thing that everyone can suggest a topic
which is also the love to feed or the loss of Mobility, where
you can then contribute to whatever is interesting.
You most, these are principles of which we think Super
important for an organization. So we are not thinking so much
about the facilitation technique as such, but more, as about the
principles open face frames. So if you think about, but we
see in organizations with their lord, actual is, you are having
chopped descriptions for people where we say, well, there's and
that is what we are needing. And therefore, we look for a
person who fits that Trump description, and the way I often
look at, Is kind of we put people in a box.
And the box is defined by the chalk description, which also
means that we are not thinking beyond that box.
Now, if you take open space, as a principle here, you're more
looking at. What is the potential of the
individuals that we are having in the organization and then you
have this continuous invite ation for people to come up with
ideas and suggestions. It could be about features
products, anything. And then if you have enough,
people who think this ideas create, I want to contribute to
it and I want to learn about it. And so on, then this is a girl
and that companies who are really set up like this, for
example, not sure how well load it is in your area, WL, Gore and
Outdoor Equipment, recreating shoes, and jackets, and all of
that. And this is how they are set up
that really everyone in the company.
And come up with the idea at any time and if there are people who
are interested, praying that idea forward then it is ago.
So that's the second Stream. So secrecy would be the third
stream that we found is helping an organization to become more
agile. So sir Percy, looks at how power
is really distributed or not. And also what we see attached to
power is how decisions are made. If you think about it, you want
to be agile as an organization but you make decisions in a
centralized way or if you are having like a strict top-down
hierarchy, then you might already figured that this slows
you down because everything has to run through the top or
through this centralized decision-making body, but you
need to be quick like that, you can, if you're using it in a
normal, whatever rate. And so surprised, Is providing
structures that helps you to make the hierarchy more flexible
and more liquid if you will and also ensures that decision
making is decentralized and now putting this all together.
So the shortcut of that whole concept is or send over and so
we had the be that comes from Beyond budgeting that's feet
into the be, then we have open space.
That's the heroes of The bossa then we have the next ass.
That's the Subscribe, / C and then the a is actual.
And so we played around of course with these characters and
then Bossa Nova is actually a bird in Portuguese.
That means New Wave new trend. And so this is what we hope that
we can provide here with an idea about a new trendy way for
organizations to become actual. It actually is also a style of
music Bad style of music. It's a merger between cool
chests and summer. And so by looking at these
different streams, but we've done.
This also melting these together or bringing these together,
those different streams. And then the third thing is that
was analyzed. Actually also Advanced, we just
think about, if you want to be agile with an organization, it
really is a little bit like in a dense.
So when you are dancing, when you are cooperating
collaborating, whatever listening responding to the
moves of people on the dance floor, it could be chest to your
papa, you're dancing with or everyone who's in on the dance
floor. But you're also doing this to
the music that's played. However, it's also vice versa.
So the way you are dancing often influence is what kind of music
is played next. So it is a continuous kind of a
dialogue that's happening and that's also what we Is needed
for agile organization, my final work to this, I explained the
bossa where this is coming from and then the Nova, of course,
because there's this music and dance and so on.
But the Nova is also there because we believe the four
streams that we have put together as kind of the call for
being agile as company. Most likely, there are small out
there and most likely more stuff will be invented.
Please take a look at what else is out there.
Are that helps you to be actual as a company.
So it's not that putting Beyond budgeting Open Spaces are can
see and actual together is the end of the whole story.
You need to continuously maybe Invent Yourself.
Wow. Thank you for this beautiful
explanation, how you come up with this name Person over it
has actually different types of meaning.
So the first Bosa is a combination of these four
techniques Beyond budgeting open space and social currency, and
agile, putting it together as Bossa Nova it.
Actually means different thing. So it could be a new way for
Trend. It could be music, it could be
also dance and it could be also like learning new things.
It's not just the four techniques that you mentioned
and that's it forever. So thank you for sharing that
maybe if we can just go deep into each of the techniques
shortly, you mention about Beyond budgeting.
I think many people might have heard about this technique as
well and we all acknowledge that Financial budgeting system, is
kind of like rigid most companies will do yearly.
Budgeting I assume. It's still It is in many parts
of the company's. Maybe you can also see it in
your Consulting techniques how this method is actually being
adopted. Is it something that many
corporates have already Incorporated and you mention
that Beyond budgeting is not just for finance, right?
So maybe you can share a little bit about this.
How is the adoption? Like and how other principles
actually helping people to be more agile from Beyond
budgeting. Yeah, so again be a budgeting
really understands itself more asking Yawn command and control
because you command and control also with the budget a lot.
This is really deeply connected here and so one way of looking
at it, it's really thinking about being toward the
management model that is more empowered and adaptive, maybe we
start with one key idea is to look at the different purposes
at that budget provides. For example, one reason why you
are coming up With the budget in the first place is because you
want to look at what are we aiming for?
So what's our Target actually that we are aiming for?
Then the second thing is that you're trying to make a forecast
by asking. Okay, what do we think will
happen? So you know what you're aiming
for and now you make a kind of an estimate, what you think will
happen in the future and therefore, you put an x amount
in that bucket. And then the third thing is,
what the fuck. To best.
It's a way of allocating resources.
The resource here is the money, which goes into all different
directions. If you want to really do this in
that project, we would need to spend money on a given
technology or we need to run whatever rooms.
And of course, we need to ensure that we have the people and they
are equipped with all kinds of stuff and so on.
So it's all of these three things so Target, forecast,
resources, Location know, the one understanding in
traditional, budgeting way, is that these three things are put
together into one number? The first idea is already
understanding that. These are actually three
different things and you don't need to put them all together
into one thing because if you do, then you're being super
inflexible. But you need to be more
adaptive. Once you understood that this is
already super helpful but then what you could also do you And
think about the targets, not being fixed.
So you have a Target that's most often.
The best ways to do it. Relative to whatever you have
done before or relative to a competitor.
It could be also, of course, the demand that's out there may be
an encounter example for that. If you think you are a
salesperson and your target is that you sell, let's say, 100 of
whatever your product you're selling, and they then at the
end of the year, you will find out that you managed to sell the
hundred and so you are happy and you get your bonus.
However, if you then look and see that, the competitors have
actually sold 500 of their competitive products in that
time, then maybe the hundred isn't really that good and vice
versa. If you found out that all the
competitors had sold, only maybe 20, then the hundred means it's
something completely different. Having fixed targets isn't
yearly adaptive enough to what's happening in Bible cover.
So that was making targets relative.
Then we have the forecast, which was about thinking what's
happening or what's my assumption about what's
happening and because things keep changing the whole time.
But you need to do is to have kind of patrolling forecast
which is pretty known. I would think in the actual
World which is we keep reading Planning all the time.
So with every Sprint it for use from, for example, we look
again. Where are we and what's coming?
Next Rochester? Highest priority now and
therefore, we aim for it and plan for it, and that's actually
exactly needed in the way as well for budget.
So it's having a rolling forecast then also to rise from
that the resource allocation needs to be as well.
Dynamic based on what we came up with our rolling forecast, so
again, She fixed that a year that groans.
Oh my God, then you might have people sitting around and doing
stupid Southall. They are way too busy because
you are lots having enough people there.
For example, all you didn't spend enough money on the right
technology or you have a lot of money left over, which is also
happening at times. And then, what do people do?
Well, they keep spending it. Anyway, this is also that
helpful for the company, so if you keep being more flexible,
Belen, adaptive to the current need.
This really means that the company can be more successful,
also financially, although I ought to know it sounds a bit
scary. It sounds more secure to fix it,
but it in advance, but actually, it's not, it's just a perceived
security, but it's not really there.
So, how about the adoption? Because again, like you said,
people may be a scared, right? Because financially want to
secure the sustainability of The company.
Probably they note the prophets and the expenses they want to
Project based on your target before cars and the resources
allocation. So how does the company adoption
so far? Has the company understood and
if it's not nearly, what would you Advocate that?
Is it monthly? What is the Cadence for this
budgeting cycle? So, then try some companies
doing that. Because we are now talking about
this exact year, not about the bossa nova in general, So on the
Beyond budgeting website, that's actually bbrt dot-org for Beyond
budgeting Round Table. I guess we can provide links
later on. You will see they're all the
companies listed. They are worldwide.
It's really a long list. So it's not anything exotic if
you will, there are different ways.
Well, as you can imagine because we are speaking of the book a
brawl, there's not one size fits all playing.
So there are different approaches, how you can be?
With it just to give you some ideas but companies are doing
for example, you can think of defining a burn rate as a
guidance. So you can ask your team's to
operate with full autonomy within specific Rage or level.
So where you say okay? You can't over spend that amount
but as long as you are in that range, you just do whatever you
think is needed. Another thing that people do is
unique cause targets where it It says, well, you can always spend
more if you produce also more, so then it's Dynamic to what's
the need in the market right now.
All you can think of Benchmark targets where you can look at
unit costs that are below the average of the piers, and the
pills could be inside your company or external.
If you compare to that, or it can be also like a story beta of
yourself, or you can think of profit.
It's that you spend in a way that you are maximizing your
overall, bottom line. So this is another way.
All you could also say well we don't have any kind of Target
and it's just monitored probably top management.
Also will only intervene if they feel like it's needed, that's
also something that we see that's happening again.
There's no one-size-fits-all which is I think good.
Because in the book Cabral that can't be Exist.
And so, they are just various ways that are done.
Also, depending on the department, that you are able,
whatever kind of work we're doing here.
Thank you for sharing some of these permutations of different
ways you could do this. So, I myself don't come from the
financial background, so some of these things could not relate to
well, but I think for those people who are so maybe you can
use some of these techniques and maybe you can find Inspirations
from some of the companies who have adopted this technique.
So let's move to this open space because you And in the
beginning, it came from. This facilitation technique,
right? We're probably it's like a
conference, you can have people opening up a certain topics any
random people can just go in and chip in collaborate and comment
or they can also decide to work out.
Something people can just easily come and go and make decisions
and run away, right? I guess there's something else
that you want to pick up from this technique.
Maybe there are some values from it.
Maybe you can share a little bit about this technique so I first
would like to do a very quick recap on Open space.
So there are those principles. The one is it starts when it
starts, it ends when it sends, whoever is there are the right
people. And I just want to repeat this
there a bit more than that. But just with those three very
often, we sit in meetings and for example, we wait for
somebody to show up who then doesn't show up.
Instead of we are saying, well, whoever is there are the right
people because they have the passion to really work on that
topic. But Meeting is about and
therefore, these are the right ones and also if I refer to the
second one that I just mentioned, like it ends when it
ends. But I've also seen kissing, if
you think of regular meetings that sometimes it feels like the
time is Phil just because the meeting has been set up to a
one-hour thing and therefore we meet for one hour or so, we
might be done earlier only, we might even need more time.
Also this can happen and so open spaces here.
More focused on what? What's needed really, and where
is the passion? You know, keeping on with the
principles. There's also, whatever happens
is the only thing that could. So the topic might also shift a
little bit because that's where the passion leads us to.
And then, it also says, the last principle here is wherever it
happened. Is they own the place, it
should. So it might happen like wherever
we are right now or we need the specific location.
I talked already about This law of two feet.
If we don't think about taking those principles to the
organizational level then. Well, we talked a lot here about
self organization meaning that everyone really is invited and
we even rely on everyone to suggest and burp on any idea
that important for the company. However, that invite ation has
some limits. And the limits should Should be
guided by the passion. People are having if I'm not
passionate about it, but I think, well, somebody should
really work on this. Well, then it's not going to
happen, and I see that a lot as well that people say, well, this
is some advice this and bad, not really working out, but if
nobody has the passion to fix it, nothing will happen.
So passion is some kind of very constrained.
Another constraint is the responsibility.
We actually put this often together and say Passion, Bound
by responsibility. The responsibility is, for
example, the overall vision of the company or another thing is,
well, we know about the ethics of the company, and then, there
are other things. So, like the passion follows
that old-world strategy, the other thing is that we are all
self responsible for the learning of ourselves, but also,
Kind of helping others to learn. So what we are basically talking
about is empowerment because anything can happen.
That's inspired by anyone actually so yeah.
Thanks for sharing this open space.
I think it makes sense, right? It is not just to be translated
as is. So some of the principles that
you mentioned, whoever that is there is the right people,
whenever it starts to the right time.
And when it's over, it's also, it's over.
So I guess these are some of the principles from the open space
technique and some of the values like you mentioned, Asian
passion and self-responsibility. And the last one is empowerment
people to be empowered to make decisions and work on what the
things they are. Passionate about, can I add one
more thing? Because people keep asking us so
often about that because there is open space at reality as a
concept that some people might know.
So they are asking how this relates for US Open Space
agility which is actually using open space, the workshop format
for your ankle. Surely if so, for bringing agile
to a team or two teams of teams and so on.
And so this is how we think about open space.
So you can also start thinking of getting on your journey for
company, right? Agility, by using various shops
that are following an open space format, but we are doing is
feeling Mall doping, at how can be used the principles on the
Strategic level. So is the principles and the
values rather than just doing the activities of the
techniques. So let's move to the third
technique, which is social croscill you mentioned.
It's about having people working together.
It's about collaboration, distributive, decision-making
process. So tell us more about.
Maybe there are some principles as well behind the social policy
and how should we use it in organization?
So at the core of So Co can see we have equivalence.
That's I would say, we leave the key to everything.
Nothing maybe I'll start with decision-making.
So one thing that so surprised because she is suggesting is to
make decisions by consent if you think about the way, how we of
make decisions so they are very sprays, the one can be
autocratic. So one person says this is the
way we go and decides for everyone else which is super
fast and sometimes really super helpful as well and other times
not so much because people don't have the buy-in The decision
because they never got asked, then we have like maturity
votes. So what we often do in
retrospectives that people do dot voting on things and where
we have the most thoughts is kind of the thing that we are
doing then which is creating a sense because we ask everyone,
everyone has a voice. However, the minority is
ignored, it might not have to buy into what we're doing.
There are other ways to come up with a decision for people with
consensus, where we really ask everyone.
And we have long, long discussions, until we are coming
to an agreement. And this is the way we go.
Of course, you can also do like a random decision making.
So you throw a dice and says, if it's a 6, we do this and if it's
a one, we do the opposite or something now.
So, sir Percy comes with another way of making decisions which is
called deciding by consent. It sounds a bit like consensus
but it's not Remember consensus was about coming to an agreement
now, consent is about coming to acceptance.
One of the key questions, we often ask there is, can you live
with that decision? Do you have an objection that
might go in the direction that you see our joint goal at risk?
If we decide that way, or can you tolerate that decision?
So it's really more about About, can I accept it and not
necessarily do? I agree with it.
I might favor something different but can I live with
it? Maybe yes.
So and then there are some other things that we also put together
here. Like we asked, well, is that
decision may be good enough for now safe enough to try and safe
enough to try mine? Then also be true.
If we say, what about if you put the time box to it but about if
we try that for the next three months and then revisit every
Off with think, whatever we do is for eternity, but it's seldom
really is if we look back, what happened in the past, right?
And so why not making that more transparent?
That it's not for eternity or poet?
Feels like that. So again, the key thing is
looking for acceptance, not agreement, and asking everyone's
voice. So ask the really everyone who
is involved here. So that decision making another
thing that That's really super important.
And so sir Percy is how we are looking at the structure in an
organization. So I mentioned before that very
often, we see like more hierarchy that's top-down and so
the information trickles down and decisions, go top to bottom
and so on it's not only slow. But it also means we are
ignoring a lot of people on the way from top to bottom that
maybe know a lot about The stuff that we are looking at right now
again in that book of world, we need all the different
perspectives to make good decisions or to bring all the
information together and so on and so.
So sir, Percy kind of starts of where we are.
So we have a top-down hierarchy but then it introduces now I'll
be using more natural term a feedback Link in the structure
because that's what's missing and then top-down hierarchy
everything goes top the The bottom.
But now if we introduce a feedback link, it's also having
that structure bottom to top. This is done by electing
representatives of every level in the hierarchy.
That's representing that level one level higher.
And so if you think of a department or a team that they
have kind of two leaders, so one is appointed top to bottom,
maybe a classical manner. Sure.
And the other one is elected bottom to top.
Now they both together collaborate with everything
that's around leading the team. And then if you think of how we
make decisions based on consent, they ain't you also know that we
always hear all voices. Also the ones from the bottom.
Well, this is a very interesting technique.
So there are so many things that you unwrap here about social
Chrissy. The first is about decision
making Aching by consent is not consensus again.
You explained it very clearly consent doesn't mean that
everyone agrees and accepts, but you will have some of these
questions. Can you live?
Can you tolerate with that decision?
So it's not necessarily just acceptance and you also mention
about election, right? The concept of top bottom bottom
up, right? So you should have two leaders
may be representing from the bottom as well, so that it's not
biased just from the leaders point of view.
But the feedback from the bottom is also kind of like a Channel
Through the top and Everyone make decision by the consent
together. Again, it's really beautiful way
of explaining that. So, the last one, I think most
people know about a job, a job, Manifesto.
But I would like to pick up this values that you actually took
from the Asia Manifesto. You use it as a generic thing,
not just for software development but for the
organization in general. So maybe can you share us this
for values of the age are part of Bosa, Nova?
So yeah, I said, we looked at the Manifest because what we
found was that the book of world is asking for companies to be
agile and therefore, we have a lot about actual out there.
And so looking at the manifesto just made sense.
If you look at the values, what they basically mean is that you
need transparency, you need self organization, you need a
constant customer focus and continuous learning.
So, these are the four values that guide A company towards
being actual. If we then look at what this
means is, well, transparency means that we need to be
transparent for everyone who is involved in two directions to
directions mean, I am transparent about what I am
doing but I also know that if I seek information for something
that other people are also lowering those barriers that I
Find the information. So the thing for us is that we
don't think necessarily that everything needs to be
transparent, but whoever needs whatever kind of information
will be able to get that information.
For me, at least it's kind of rapport with to not necessarily
make everything transparent because there's so much
information overload already. So there are also things that
are not important for me to know and so I'm fine with that.
And of course This also here, it depends whatever your setting
is, it might be important to you to make everything transparent.
If you look into self organization as the next thing
is that we really think it's super important to have
cross-functional teams and we recommend that the team select
themselves which is actually sitting in open space as well
but you have the passion dieting.
The people what they want to work on.
So if they select So they also follow their passion with
responsibility. Remember, we said that passion
also should be linked together with being responsible in what
we are doing. And then if we look at constant
customer focus, that means in whatever we are doing we always
need to have the customer focus in mind.
So no matter if you looking at the product process structure
strategy or our individual contribution kind of every Spect
should be related back into, how does it provide the value for
the customer? And then the fourth thing was
continuously rolling, which is really about, we never should
stop learning and we also have a responsibility to contribute to
other people's learning and then we keep getting feedback in the
deck which probably sits the most in the actual area.
Here, there's maybe one thing that I find important, we talked
a little bit that I said Ability.
And the environmental aspect is kind of important to me, at
least there's a reason for it. So if you manage to be agile as
a team or as an organization as a company and you also say so
that you say, oh we are natural T, we are lateral company, then
this comes actually with an expectation.
So just consider you say you are natural team and then people
find out that you are not inclusive that you Not welcoming
all kinds of people. They then I'm pretty sure people
will say, well, I thought your actual or if a company says its
actual but then people find out it's not paying fairly or its
maybe even polluting the environment.
Then also people would say, well, I thought your actual
that's actually still in the bossa nova book as well.
The last part where we say well okay you think you have managed
that Shirley yes and one hairdo Did it.
But now I would you need to look at your external responsibility
if you then look, again at the values.
That's why I wanted to make that point here.
Those values, the meaning of the values shift a little bit, so
transparency, then leads to making the company's actions,
transparent bowls internally and externally, or
self-organization. Then means that we should regard
the company as one node of a Double letter, that creates an
environment that lifts in together with other companies
and societal institution. So self-organization is now
really not only what's happening with the teens inside but what's
actually the bigger part of the come, if we look at constant
customer focus, then it means like understanding the economic
economic societal and social environment as a customer that
needs permanent attention. So sometimes I do a shortcut to
that and say, well constant customer Sing, that sense means
we also take the planet as one of the stakeholders, and then
continuous learning, then means learning continuously from and
West Society to make the whole world, a better place.
So, again, it's the same values. But now, we really mall with the
shift to what's our external wall responsibility.
In the ecosystem, we are living in as a company.
Thank you for the plug of this sustainability angle.
So I really love It the way you explained and using the same
four values. You mentioned.
Transparency, self-organization, constant customer focus and
continuous learning. I have one interest about this
transparency because I myself have experienced in non
transparent company faces, very transparent company and its
really totally different. In a transparent company where
you have access to all the information, you could even make
sense of why certain decisions are made pick up a quote that
you mentioned in the book from Michael Herman saying, Troubles
can be bounded by transparency so I like you to maybe elaborate
on this angle because I can see this is probably one of the
inside that distinguish between non-transparency versus
transparency. Why is it such the case that
sometimes troubles is because of the boundary of transparency?
Well, the one thing is that we cannot solve the problem if we
don't know about it. And so if we keep hiding stuff
like any kinds of trouble so far, Problems, then they will
sit there. Most of, that's at least my
experience. If we have a problem and it sits
there, it typically doesn't go away.
Most often it gets bigger, there might be some exceptions, but
most of the time, a small problem got bigger over time.
So we need to be transparent, maybe it's also has to do with
courage. So we need to be courageous
about stating the problems and therefore, then being able To
address them. The thing is, again, we are
coming to the passion again. I mentioned that before, but
what I see as well, but people point out problems, but then you
find out, nobody has a passion to solve it.
So then we really have to accept that a problem.
Maybe that's not a pauper to us and then we should also start
stating it as a problem, if that's the case, or we keep
stating it as a problem, when then we need to Ask why has
nobody to Passion to work on it? Maybe it's not so pressing.
I also had an episode with Jim Benson not so long ago and he
shared this concept called obey. Yeah, people put all the
information in one place so that everyone gets informed of
anything that happens within the project or maybe the department
and team and so you can make informed decision what the
problems are and what the solutions you decision records,
probably. I think it's also an interesting
concept that I learned from Jim. So you thought thank you so much
for sharing all this. I think there are so many
information. It's like an information
overload because there are so many techniques that you
mentioned the values. And the principles, I will refer
people to read your book if they want to know more about all
these different techniques. Unfortunately, we have to wrap
up pretty soon. But before I let you go, I have
one last question that I normally ask for all my guests,
which is to share this thing called three technical
leadership wisdom. So it's like some kind of advice
that you want to give to the listeners for them to also
reflect and maybe adopt if it makes sense for them.
So maybe If you can share, what are your three technical
leadership is them? Well, I would think the first
thing is you need to keep learning so your Learning
Journey, never finishes and maybe that's a he thing,
especially for leaders because sometimes we think we are now in
a leading position. And therefore, this means we
never at all, which definitely is not true.
So we have to keep learning also from the people, we are leading,
maybe the Will thing is you should be aware that we are only
a leader because somebody's following us so there is no
leadership By Appointment really.
Because if nobody follows and they don't trust us.
As a leader, they will find their way around us.
This of course, is saying a waste of time of everyone.
It's my own waste of time because I tried to be beneficial
for my team but my team doesn't want that.
Because it doesn't feel it's my team because it's not following.
So it's also a waste of my own time and of course, the time of
the team as well. So there is no leading without
following. And then probably because we
have talked so much around that, which is Passion Bound by
responsibility. So also the people you are
leading. And the way you're working
yourself, and sure that people can follow their passion that
And bound by the responsibility that it cannot be something
that's completely outside of what the company is doing, or
what's important for us and so on.
So it's not that it's going by wild.
But if you are working with the passion of people and which is
also true for yourself, then I think everything is possible.
Well, I really like the leader. You cannot be without any
followers, so it's not only by appointment actually, you need
to make sure that people can and do what To follow your, maybe
comes back to the consulate soon.
They consent to have you as a leader as well.
Right there are two. Yes.
So thank you so much Utah for your time, so for people who
would like to follow your work or maybe reach out to you if
they want to ask further questions, is there a place
where they can reach out? Well, the easiest is to reach me
on Twitter and my Twitter handle is you textiles of first name,
last name, one word, or on LinkedIn.
And I should be easy to be found there also.
Just with my name there, that boasts fine.
Thank you so much for your time and your time for explaining all
this concept. I really like the bossa nova.
So the different types of meanings that can come up out of
that term. So thank you so much for sharing
today. Thank you for having me.
Thank you for listening to this episode and for staying, right
until the end if you highly enjoyed it.
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