Leading and Managing Through the Design of Environments

Copyright © 2013 Big Visible Solutions

Leading Through Environment Design Michael Hamman, Principal Agile Consultant ([email protected])

George Schlitz, Principal, Founder ([email protected])


If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

-‐-‐Antoine De Saint-‐Exupery,

Author of The Li'le Prince

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Copyright © 2013 Big Visible Solutions 3

Brief Recap of Last Webinar…..


Broader OrganizaGon Capability

Last Webinar….

4 Time

Perf

orm

ance

TEAM FOCUS


A HolisGc View of the OrganizaGon

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•  Leadership and management styles and beliefs about what constitutes effective leadership and management

•  Structures, processes and systems by which work gets done and is organized

•  Collective beliefs, perspectives and habits by which people make sense of things

•  Product Management/Strategy •  Lean, continuous planning

•  Product Development/Delivery •  Multiple Team/Programs •  Kanban •  Scrum

•  Automated Testing •  TDD, CI, BDD •  User Stories, Estimation


A HolisGc View of the OrganizaGon

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Most Agile Implementations Focus Here


Last Webinar….

7







Most Agile Implementations Focus Here

Focus Across All Five for Sustainable Organizational Agility


Broader Organiza

Gon Capability

Last Webinar….

8 Time

Perf

orm

ance


From DIRECTING

# 3: Shifting The Paradigm…

Telling Motivating Incenting

Coordinating

Last Webinar….

LEADING…….


# 3: Shifting The Paradigm…

To CATALYZING

Sources: Leadership Agility, Bill Joiner and Stephen Josephs; Action Inquiry, William Torbert et. al.

Visioning Facilitative

Empowering and Enabling Seeing the Larger Context

Last Webinar….

LEADING…….


Designing Environments: A Foundational Practice of Catalytic

Leadership

Last Webinar….


What is ‘Environment

Design’? Why ‘Environment Design’?

The Principles of Environment

Design

Four Practices of Environment

Design

Start

End

Today’s Webinar: Deeper Dive Into Environment Design


Managing By Trying to Change People’s Behavior

Direct, incentivize, Tell, motivate


Managing By Altering How World Occurs For People*

* Steve Zaffron, Dave Logan, The Three Laws of Performance 2009


Managing Through the Design of Environments


Environments are

•  Physical •  Social •  AestheGc •  Intellectual •  EmoGonal •  Technological

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Design is

•  Sense-‐and-‐Respond •  Experimental •  Acute Sensing •  Tight Feedback •  HolisGc

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•  AestheGc


“Design is a baale between losing the dream but naming the thing, and losing the name while keeping the dream that sGrs others to make the dream happen”

-‐-‐ Karl Weick

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Why Environment Design?


Why the Term ‘Environment Design’

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•  Thomas Leonard, Coach Training •  The Portable Coach •  Systems Thinking

10 years ago – started to bring this approach into my coaching work with large companies


Why the Term ‘Environment Design’

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•  New agile teams got up to speed faster •  Managers were better able to manage

appropriately •  Organizational challenges came to be easier to

resolve •  People self-organized around creating (and

asking for) what they needed to facilitate desirable agile change.


A Systems Thinking View of OrganizaGons

SIMPLE

Cause->Effect Cause-Effect Relations well-understood

Do X and you’ll ALWAYS get Y Standard operating procedures: best practices

Example: Call Center

SENSE-CATEGORIZE-RESPOND

COMPLICATED

Cause-------------------------->Effect Cause-Effect Relations still linear, but much

harder to find Requires high degree of expertise Example: Building a Ferrari engine

SENSE-ANALYZE-RESPOND

COMPLEX

Cause<->Effect Cause-Effect Relations are mutual

Do X one time, get X; but next time, you might get T

You can only know something after the fact Therefore, an experimental approach is better

Example: Product Development; most management and organizational situations

TRY-SENSE-RESPOND

CHAOS

Cause -??-Effect Cause-Effect Relations are unknown No way to discern what’s happening

Best approach: act decisively to try to move the system into one of the other quadrants (e.g.

Complex) Example: 9-11

ACT-SENSE-RESPOND

Based on David J. Snowden and Mary E. Boone, A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making, Harvard Business Review, Nov. 2007

Where most management situations live


Managing for Change in a Complex System

Since

1.  We can only see things in retrospect 2.  Complex organizaGons are whole systems 3.  Complex organizaGons are complex networks

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Therefore 1.  We need to take a Try-‐Sense-‐Respond approach 2.  We need to be able to engage the whole system 3.  We need to help people see and align with the

bigger picture we are trying to create


Managing for Change in a Complex System Is About Building InsGtuGonal Capability


OrganizaGon Structures

OrganizaGon Culture

Leadership Styles

InsGtuGons Are Comprised Of Three Domains


The organizaGonal structures, rules and policies which facilitate how work gets done and how results get produced.



CollecGvely held beliefs, values and assumpGons which determine how people think and how they behave.



How leaders and managers lead, inspire, direct and moGvate others.



By building insGtuGonal capability we are effecGvely crahing the environment in which

people live and work.


But, why the Term ‘Environment Design’

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A Simple Example:

We Reflect On and Improve How we Work through RetrospecGves

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Photo provided under Creative Commons by Improve IT



OrganizaGon Culture

Leadership Styles

Using Our Earlier Lens…


OrganizaGon Culture

Leadership Style •  Leaders publicly reflect on their own successes and failures – and improving

•  Leaders demonstrate acGve learning

•  It is safe to admit failures •  There is a constant drive for improvement


•  Structures support people gathering to reflect •  Team spaces •  CollaboraGve technology


•  Leaders and managers hypothesize capabiliGes which are likely to lead to the realizaGon of declared insGtuGonal outcomes and goals.


For Example

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Outmaneuver the compeGGon by implemenGng high-‐value product features faster than they do

Goal

We are able to experiment with new product ideas, quickly idenGfying what is worth invesGng in and what is not

Capability

•  Leaders support experimentaGon <L> •  Fast failures are celebrated <C> •  Org structures facilitate

experimentaGon <S> •  Lean startup vocabulary is used <C>

Environment Design


Practices of Environment Design


Em

pow

er/E

nabl

e ‘C

ham

pion

s’ Tackle the B

ig E

lephants

Improving Org’l Conditions

Orient Shared Vision

PracGces of Environment Design

ENVIRONMENT


Committed Wants it, will make it happen, creating/changing “laws”

Greater Level of E

ngagem

ent

Source: “The Fifth Discipline” Senge

Commitment Levels…

Compliant Sees benefits in general. Does what’s expected, bare minimum

Noncompliant Does not see benefits, does not do it

The Need for Engaged Employees


OrienGng Shared Vision

The Laminated Vision Statement


Is Declaring a Vision Enough?

The problem is, with so many concerns and commitments…

… it’s hard for people to connect in a meaningful way with abstract vision statements


Is Declaring a Vision Enough?

Declare vision, Champion.

People become weighed down by exisGng organizaGonal rules, structures, and beliefs...


Rather Than Promoting a Declared Vision

Agile Leaders Orient Associates Around a Shared Vision

Therefore…


When people are invited to parGcipate in the creaGon of a

vision…

they come to own that vision.


Venues for OrienGng Shared Vision

Brownbags

Pizzas

Town hall meetings

Informal 1-on-1s


IdenGfy and Empower/Enable Champions


IdenGfy and Empower/Enable Champions


Thinking through..

Ongoingly Improve OrganizaGonal CondiGons

Agile Teams

Blocks, impediments, bad behaviors, inefficiencies

Management Team

How might our thinking and leadership styles be impeding the capacity for effecGve agile delivery, product development, and organizaGonal agility?

What assumpGons, collecGvely held beliefs, or percepGons of our values are blocking our ability to imagine new ways of working?

What org. structures, rules, or policies, which once may have been needed, have now become boKlenecks to effecGve agile delivery?


Ongoingly Improve OrganizaGonal CondiGons

ORGANIZATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

Agile Teams

Blocks, impediments, bad behaviors, inefficiencies

Management Team

Agile Leadership Principles

How are management and leadership styles impeding the capacity for self-‐organizaGon and distributed ownership?

What assumpGons, collecGvely held beliefs, or percepGons of our values are blocking our ability to imagine new ways of working?

What org. structures, rules, or policies, which once may have been needed, have now become boKlenecks to effecGve agile delivery?

Tactical : solve immediate problems

Strategic: Craft and build upon longer term goals and directions

Transformational: Alter aspects of the environment to help people improve themselves


Tackle the Big Elephants


Next: Transformation Beyond Agile Teams, Part III


THANK YOU!!