– And what about me then? Am I still needed at all? –

“My company wants to become lean/agile. They don’t need me as a manager anymore! What will happen to me then?”

This or something similar is often the first reaction of managers when an agile transformation program is announced – especially in middle management. Most of them ask themselves: is in agile leadership even possible?

The first trainings and workshops start, the agile manifesto is read and the fear seems to be confirmed. There is nothing in the Scrum Guide about the role of the manager, the agile coach ignores the manager (if he is allowed to join the trainings at all) and many of the classic leadership tasks move to the product owner and scrum master. 

In fact, the answer is simple. Well, at least simple to understand – but difficult to implement. Just like the agile motto:

🌟”Scrum is easy to understand, but difficult to master” 🌟

5 tasks of an agile manager = agile leadership

And what are the tasks 💪🏻 of a lean/agile leader❓
Ultimately, the tasks can be summarized as “Support and develop your employees” – and that is indispensable. 
More specifically, they include:

👉🏻 Be the role model
👉🏻 Empowerment
👉🏻 Vision & intrinsic motivation
👉🏻 Team development
👉🏻 Lifelong learning

Be the role-model

Live and breathe the agile mindset & culture and lead change through it. If the leader is behind the change, the team will be able to change faster.

Empower

The world is too complex to be mastered by one individual. Only when all the knowledge and skills of the team are incorporated and if they make their own decisions will the best solution emerge – and even faster.

Vision and intrinsic motivation

For employees to make their own decisions, they need a vision and a framework. The agile leader must communicate these. A nice side effect: a vision motivates and gets you out of bed in the morning. A vision or a purpose promotes the intrinsic motivation of the team members.

Team development

1+1>2❗️ A team achieves more than a lone fighter. An agile leader helps the team to grow together and removes stumbling blocks.

Lifelong learning

In our fast-moving times, standing still is tantamount to taking a step backwards. An agile leader creates the space for his/her employees (and him/herself) to evolve.

Ultimately, the tasks can be summarized as: Be a leader instead of a manager!

Are you still managing or are you already leading?

I have never been able to stand terms like “human resources” and “human capital” perhaps combined with a “manage”. To me, they represent the epitome of the dehumanization of the working world. They are leftovers from a time when it was still mainly about factory workers 🏭 who were only supposed to be recipients of orders and just not have any ideas of their own💡. People are nothing more than the other factory inventory 🛠 and capital💰.

To me, the term “manager” belongs in the same category. It sounds like soulless and thoughtless people who have to be (micro-)managed like smallest children. It doesn’t fit at all into our modern, complex and fast-paced working world, where we need highly qualified, highly intelligent people. 

If we want to have and keep such people in our companies, if we want to use their potential, we have to treat them accordingly – and for me that means leading instead of managing.

So what is the difference between an (agile) leader and a manager?

👉🏻 Creating a vision vs. setting goals
👉🏻 Inspire people vs. (micro-)manage people
👉🏻 Coaching vs. guiding
👉🏻 Initiating change vs. cementing the status quo
👉🏻 Shaping relationships vs. defining processes
👉🏻 Encouraging teamwork vs. being a lone wolf
👉🏻 Supporting personal initiative vs. making decisions
👉🏻 Rolemodel vs. determine

And what is the difference for you between a leader and a manager?

– Faster and faster, more and more complex –

What a crazy world we live in 🌍

in which change and complexity overwhelm us with the force of a tsunami.

There is even a technical term for it:

The VUCA world

【V】Volatility – Rapid change and huge bandwidths.
【U】Uncertainty – Future unclear even with great experience
【C】Complexity – Countless variables and dependencies
【A】Ambiguity – Unclear relationships of cause & effect.

You can’t control this world, but you can learn to ride the wave.
This is true for managers as well:

Typical command & control management methods are no longer applicable. 
Because the necessary prerequisites no longer exist in VUCA: 

❌ Without consistency of products, customers, competitors 👉🏻 no clear process specifications & sets of rules.
❌ Without long-term forecasts and planning 👉🏻 no MbO and target agreements
❌ Without clear, controllable facts 👉🏻 no central decision-making
❌ Without clear cause and effect 👉🏻 no individual bonus systems

Now what?
Try an environment where the team can make the decision for the best way forward themselves:

【V】Vision – Everyone knows where they want the journey to go.
【U】Understanding – All the necessary information is available to everyone.
【C】Clarity – Everyone has clarity about all the framework conditions 
【A】Agility – Fast adaptation according to the latest knowledge

– And therefore especially for leaders who want to enable change –

I don’t like sandwich ❗️ 

At least not as feedback 

So often in communication and leadership training I have been taught to always present the negative feedback with a slice of positive feedback before and after – the so-called sandwich feedback: 

“Your presentation was great. Unfortunately, topic X was missing. At least you explained topic Y great” 

👉🏻 Honestly: 
I find such sandwich feedback almost an insult to the intelligence of the recipient. You smell a rat right away and feel like you’ve been made fun of. 

In addition, depending on the type of person, the praise is either completely devalued or the criticism is overheard. If it goes badly, the recipient is also conditioned in such a way that he expects a criticism after each praise in the long run. 

👉🏻 Of course the thought behind it is correct: 
If you feel appreciated by the feedback provider, it is much easier to accept suggestions for improvement. 

However, when used as a method, it seems very artificial to me and not meant honestly. 

👉🏻 In contrast, I find the idea of the relationship bank account much better: 
Those who regularly pay into it over a longer period of time through praise, support, interest, etc. can also take off from it if they express constructive criticism in clear words. 

So to speak a sandwich over a very long period of time. 

For the actual suggestion for improvement, I like best the „SAY IT” simply method. But more about that in the next post.

– Because the right mindset in feedback is crucial –

SAY IT simple❗️(SAG ES Methode)

For constructive feedback there are many different feedback methods, not all of them I really recommend (see my post on the Sandwich Feedback Method).

For me, the most important thing in feedback is the mindset.
It’s not about criticizing the person, but about change:

1️⃣ supporting the other person in their development
2️⃣ or to reduce an unpleasant effect of a behavior.

That’s why, for me, there is no such thing as positive and negative feedback, but only constructive, goal-oriented feedback – or not.

However, the feedback can of course be pleasant or unpleasant for the receiver (and the giver).

👉🏻 One method that supports you in this basic attitude is the „SAY IT“ (SAG ES) formula, often also known as the I-message:

🆂 ay your point of view: “I noticed that.”
🅰 dmit impact: “This leads to”
🆈 our feelings: “I feel with it”
🅸 nquire point of view: “How do you see this”
🆃 ogether: “How could we solve this together?”

The basic idea behind this is to describe what is causing the behavior and then find a solution together. This leaves it up to the recipient to decide what to do with the feedback.

However, it is crucial not to let “SAY IT” degenerate into a method, but to be genuinely interested in what the positive intention behind the action was.

– An error culture wich supports change –

Honestly, I don’t know if this is true …

But I don’t care, because I like this image of appreciation and dealing with mistakes.

I think we can take a leaf out of that book – also in the working world. A positive error culture is a vital part of lean and any company which wants change. Only if people dare to make errors they are able to improve, learn new things, transform.

🎆The birth song of the Himba 🎆

(Loosely based on Cohen, Alan (2002): Wisdom of the Heart) 

Among the Himba tribe of Namibia in southern Africa, the date of a child’s birth is not set at the time of its arrival in the world, nor in its conception, but much earlier: from the day the child is in the mind of its mother.
⠀
When a woman decides to have a child, she settles down under a tree and listens until she hears the song of the child who wants to be born. And after hearing the song of that child, she comes back to the man who will be the father of the child to teach him that song. And then, when they make love to form the child physically, they sing the song of the child to invite it.⠀
⠀
When the mother is pregnant, she teaches the child’s song to the midwives and older women of the village. Then, when the child is born, the old women and the people around it sing its song to welcome it.⠀
⠀
When the child grows up, the other villagers learn his song. So when the child falls or gets hurt, he always finds someone to pick him up and sing his song. And when the child does something miraculous or successfully goes through the rites of passage, the villagers sing his song to honor him.⠀
⠀
In the tribe, there is another occasion when the villagers sing for the child. When a person commits a deviant crime or social act at any time in his life, he is called to the center of the village and the people of the community form a circle around him. Then they sing his song.⠀
⠀
The tribe recognizes that correction of antisocial behavior is not through punishment, but through love and remembrance of identity. When you recognize your own song, you don’t want or need to do anything that would harm the other person.⠀
And so it goes throughout life. In marriage, the songs are sung together.⠀
⠀
And when the child grows old and lies in his bed ready to die, all the villagers know his song, and they sing it for the last time.

– What is your secret for motivation ? –

Many companies still use “Carrot 🥕 and stick 🦯” (bonus and fear) methods to motivate their employees to give their best … but we are not donkeys.

Today’s still most used system to “motivate” people to be more productive is from a time where work was in most cases very different from todays work. It originates back to factories with mostly labor work, where people had to follow simple, straight forward rules. The believe behind the bonus system is that you get more of the behavior you want if you reward it and if you punish something you get less of it.

While this might have worked back then, in todays mostly creative, intellectual work it leads exactly to the opposite – performance drops due to pressure. You don’t believe that? There are proves in many different studies (see video).

For intellectual work money is only a “hygiene factor” i.e. people have to have enough money to not worry about their live and money has to be spread in a fair way. Beyond that it has only low impact to motivation and eventually negative impact to performance. 

So what else can companies do to stimulate performance (and keep high performers in the company)?

• Give Purpose
• Allow Autonomy
• Offer Mastery

Purpose gives people the feeling that they are doing something important, it drives them out of bed in the morning and equally important it allows people to autonomously decide the best way forward.

Autonomy creates engagement. People don’t wait until they are told what to do, they simply do it as soon as needed. They feel responsible. They develop their own ideas, find and fix errors without being told to do so.

Mastery drives people to do things even without payment like in sports, puzzle solving etc. Mankind simply wants to prove that we can do it. So we need in live enough tasks that challenge us, not only boring, repetitive tasks.

The logical conclusion is that a traditional, top-to-bottom leadership style, where the manager decides what to do and how, does not stimulate motivation and performance for any type of work that requires more then rudimentary cognitive skills. The modern world needs a much more cooperative leadership style than we typically see in many traditional companies.

Thanks to Jürgen Dittmar for re-sharing this great video from RSA Animate, which he shows in his really recommendable Management 3.0 courses.

In every change and even more in a transformation people go always through the same phases before the change is the new normal.

1. Shock
   👉🏻 We get to know that something changes. If the change is not immediately positive for us, we go through some first negative emotions with a small drop in motivation.
2. Refusal
   👉🏻 People now get angry about the change or refuse to accept it. With it comes a certain amount of energy which often results in quite some activity.
3. Rational comprehension
   👉🏻 At that moment the person rationally understands that there is no way to avoid the change. Motivation is dropping significantly.
4. Emotional acceptance = valley of tears
   👉🏻 This is the lowest point of the curve where people emotionally accept that the past is over and stop all discussions. Motivation and performance is very low.
5. Trial
   👉🏻 The person starts to experiment how they could integrate the change in the (work) life. Mood is starting to get better.
6. Realization
   👉🏻 It becomes evident that things are still working and a (positive) life after the change is possible.
7. Integration
   👉🏻 The change is the new normal.

The phases are not necessarily linear and people can go back and forward several times. Not all employees are at the same time in the same phase of the change curve. In each of the phases different support is needed to move on.

1. Shock
   👉🏻 Somebody is needed who listens and is empathetic.
2. Refusal
   👉🏻 The change needs to be continuously repeated in an understanding way
3. Rational comprehension
   👉🏻 Concrete tasks help to move on and to experience one is still needed
4. Emotional acceptance = valley of tears
   👉🏻 People need time and empathy for their emotions
5. Trial
   👉🏻 People need the safety to try new things without fearing for punishment – a blame-free culture.
6. Realization
   👉🏻 Now acknowledgment is need that people are on the right way
7. Integration
   👉🏻 Back to daily business

To be able to move on after the valley of tears, people need to feel secure enough to try things out. If they fear punishment or even get actually blamed for making errors while trying to adapt to the new circumstances, they will stay forever in the valley of tears. The transformation fails.

– Clearly yes! –

Both have a lot of commonalities…

The systemic, solution-oriented approach was the same breakthrough for coaching as agile methods were for software development 👉🏻 a small revolution in mindset that allowed to achieve better results much faster.

Both have similar values and principles

Agile Manifesto:

★ Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
★ Working software over comprehensive documentation
★ Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
★ Responding to #change over following a plan

Systemic attitude:

★ Individual persons over standard „rules“ how a person has to be
★ A working solution over „documenting“ comprehensively the past
★ Collaboration with the client over negotiation “who has the best solution”
★ Adapt to changes in the system over laying out the perfect plan once

Induced behaviour for both:

 👉🏻 Openness & transparance – Allow and accept different opinions
👉🏻 Courage – Be honest to others and yourself
👉🏻 Respect – Trust the competencies of the counterpart
👉🏻 Commitment – Accept own responsibility and trust others engagement
👉🏻 Focus – Clearly define the goal and go for it
👉🏻 Continuous Learning – Adapt to the changes introduced by your actions/deliveries

Commonalities in practise:

Both the systemic and the agile approach are very aware that they are operating in a dynamic, continuously changing system that is influenced by their behavior. With each change/code-release, one has to adapt again to be successful. Nobody can act independently, a lasting solution is only possible in collaboration. A fixed plan from the beginning will fail.

Therefore an overall cycle is defined with the final goal broken down into small, self-contained session/sprint goals. The client/customer is responsible for these goals, only he can judge whether they have been achieved or need to be adapted. 

A key component for both is the confidence in the competence and willingness of all involved.

The focus is on a working solution not on the failures of the past. Retrospectives take place for reflection and new ideas, not to blame – a crucial difference to earlier approaches. 

Regularly everybody reflects where they are and where they want to go, what is (not) working, what has changed. Then the next short-term goals and steps are planned.

The similarities are even evident in sayings such as that of Steve de Shazer for the systematic approach “It’s simple, but not easy” and in agile “Scrum is easy to understand, but difficult to master”.

Realizing those similarities, I found it very fascinating how such similar attitudes and approaches can appear in such very different fields of profession. It seems time was simply ready for this attitude in all facets of life.

Did you ever before realize the similarity between agile methodology and systemic attitude? Let me know what other similarities you see