Embracing Agile Change
Accept that workflow is something to be coordinated and refined, not something that can be solved.
To avoid the pitfalls of organizational debt, we need constant and vigilant simplification. We must create agile roles, rules, and processes — built to learn and change. Org debt creates bureaucracy, and bureaucracy protects org debt. It’s a tragic love affair. Corporations want share prices to move only up and to the right. They need to move the needle now, which means revenue or earnings growth.
Create an environment where it is safe to try and fail, and teams will learn and grow in extraordinary ways. Accept that we operate in a changing world where centralized control is too slow and disconnected from reality. Push authority to the edge of the organization — where the information is — so teams can adapt and steer. Structural mediocrity has an inertia all its own. The team is self-managed. Teams are lean — small enough to move. But they are also multidisciplinary, containing all (or most) of the skills they need to achieve their mission. Dynamic Teaming. Find a part of your business where teams change and turn it into an active two-way marketplace. There’s a lack of clarity about bandwidth because everyone is maxed out. As a result, there’s an instinct to operate at a much slower cadence than we prefer. Teams think in big chunks of polished work, in small pieces of raw output. They feel in months, weeks, or days. They coordinate through email, calendars, and assistants. We coordinate through messaging apps, cloud-based documents, and an established operating rhythm. Most people experience relief and a sense of momentum.
To embrace an Agile change, focus teams on answering clarifying questions about their workflow. How do we divide the work of the organization? What is the relationship between our workflow and our structure? How do we handle projects that are too big for one team? What is our approach to project management? Who is accountable for project outcomes? How do we maintain visibility across all our projects? How are projects initiated, canceled, or completed? What is the role of rhythm and tempo in our workflow? How do we optimize our workflow to cut waste and maximize value creation?
To be People Positive is to assume and expect the best of everyone. Increase autonomy, and motivation thrives. Decrease it, and motivation erodes. Treat them like all-stars, and they will become all-stars. We want speed and innovation, but we run from risk and inhibit our best people. We claim to work in teams but don’t trust one another. People can be trusted and will trust one another to use judgment and do the right thing. We know how we work isn’t working, but we can’t imagine an alternative. We long for change but don’t know how to get it. We are addicted, despite ourselves, to the siren song of bureaucracy. We face an array of systemic challenges — in our economy, government, and environment — stemming from our inability to change.
[^]: Brave New Work: Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization?
