This is a rather interesting question, one that I have taken opposing views over the years. As a humanist, I would have said stress in any shape or form was bad for people and the job of managers would have been to keep this to a minimum. Minimum may imply that we can’t eliminate it altogether but as managers and leaders would we purposefully apply stress to individuals and teams? At that time in my career, I did feel that…
These principles we created for the Agile Business consortium in 2017 in collaboration with Katie Taylor, Ed Holt, Parag Googate and Rod Willis. See the white paper at the Agile Business Consortium 1. Actions speak louder than words Agile Leadership is about not only driving and promoting change, it is also about being the change. Those who lead by example and actively engage in their own development, inspire people. This is through action rather than words; as Gandhi said, “Be…
Communication is key in change initiatives. So, it’s no surprise that when I’m brought in to get a change programme back on track, that communication is almost always cited as a key issue. I’ve worked for a number of inspiring leaders in the past, who want to be agile and want to do the right thing for their organisation, but with all the complexities in their organisation and pressures of the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world, little headway is…
In my book “Leaders, it’s not how you finish … it’s how you start” I said that the Pre-Tx model could be tailored to be used in existing Agile transformations. This series of blog posts describes how this can be achieved. I wouldn’t start from here! You have probably heard to old joke where a traveller on a road to some distant destination stops a local person and asks them for directions. The response is as above “I wouldn’t start…
In my book “Leaders, it’s not how you finish … it’s how you start!” I cite 5 mistakes that result in the failure of Agile transformations.
Mistake number 3 is “Mindset of the consultants running the transformation”. But how do you know that the consultants or coaches that you are hiring have a more Agile mindset than you the leader, or the managers who are expected to be coaches by them? After all how can we go about measuring mindset?
Agile is broken … that’s quite a statement isn’t it? Bearing in mind that many people I come into contact with report higher levels of stress when they are “forced” to work in an agile team. Doesn’t this make you think that something is wrong. I believe that this is wrong. Part of the wrongness lies at the feet of the Agile coaches and how they are deployed and utilised. The model needs to be changed if organisations truly want to get more from their people .
Have you ever sat in a meeting or some other gathering where a decision is being made that you don’t particularly agree with. You maybe heard one of your inner voices say “wait a minute – that doesn’t feel right”. The group consensus appears to be saying “yes”, but then you maybe start to feel uncomfortable about being the sole voice who says “no”.
We have all heard of setting SMART goals but in my coaching practice I have come to realise that many people haven’t heard of PURE or CLEAR goals. In this article I summarise these acronyms and why they are important.