Where do agile leaders come from

Where do agile leaders come from?
Kati Vilkki

kati.vilkki@nsn.com

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Agile 2012 / Kati Vilkki

1 © Nokia Siemens Networks 2012

Nokia Siemens Networks

• Joint venture of Nokia and Siemens,
acquired Motorola’s wireless networks
infrastructure business in 2011
• Started operations on April 1, 2007
• €14 bn net sales in 2011
• 120+ years of telecom experience
• c. 63,000 employees*
• Strong focus on mobile broadband and
customer experience management
• > 80 out of the top 100 operators worldwide
• 150+ countries
• 6 billion mobile subscriptions around the
world with 1.2 billion subscriptions for mobile
broadband services

* As reported on 30.6.2012

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All models are wrong, but some are
useful
George E.P. Box

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Contents

• Servant leadership
• Why self-organization?
• What impacts self-organization?
• Power
• Empowerment – personal relationship to power
• Impact of leadership style
• Some tools
• How to make this real? Experiences of changing leadership culture

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Servant leadership

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Leadership as a service

• Leadership as a service to help us to reach our goals, to be
successful

• Any act, which helps us to move forward towards our goal
• Anything that helps us to make sense or take action
• Any one can act!

• Shared leadership – from hierarchical relationships to
networks of equals and working together
– Agreeing to lead and to be lead

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Important leadership tasks

• Ensuring business profitability / success

• Creating an engaging vision of what we do

• Mentoring and coaching

• Leading the culture

• Creating an environment for people to thrive and succeed in
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Why self-organization?

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Energy

• Think back to a situation where you felt full of energy at work
– What was the situation? What happened?
– What did you do?
– Who else was involved?
– What contributed to you having high energy?

• In pairs
– Tell your story to your pair
– Listen to you pair’s story

• Discuss your experiences together; are there any common
things?
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What motivates us?

• Autonomy
• Mastery
• Purpose

• Basic factors which are needed
– Adequate rewarding
– Job security

– lack of these can destroy motivation but these will not increase motivation

Public Daniel H. Pink: Drive – the Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


What impacts self-organization?

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Components of self-organization
Organization gives the team
the opportunity to make
decisions, to exercise power
and take responsibility.
Management and the
Opportunity organizational culture have
key role in creating the
opportunity
Team understands the
Skills, purpose (goals, targets), the
whole (how we link to others),
competence the domain (product) and
product development. Team
knows how to work together.

People in the team want to
Motivation work in the team, take the
power and the responsibility

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Increasing self-organization

Organizational and leadership culture

Individual
skills and Team practices
choices

Management
and
organizational
support
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Power

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Exercise

• Discuss in your group

– What is power?

– Where does power come from?

– What determines whether some one has power or not?

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One definition of power

Power is the Requires
ability to take • Empowerment,
inner feeling of
the needed freedom and choice
actions to • Self-awareness,
fulfill own understanding of
own needs and
needs feelings
• Emotional
intelligence

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Related concepts

• Status
– Position within a group
– Based on vague things, which differ from group to group (e.g. wealth, title,
prestige, physical strength, education, skills …)
• Status hierarchy (= pecking order)
• Power difference – power distance
– Are people expected to behave differently depending on their position in the
status hierarchy? Are they expected to behave differently towards people who
are “lower” compared to people who are “higher”?
• Dominance
– “I can make you obey”. The desire to dominate and dominating behavior
• Authority, authorization
– Agreement to decide about or control some resources

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Who has power?

• Power arises in need: in a relationship the one who
is needed more, has more power
– rapidly changing, seldom equal

• Enabling / empowering use of power: try to get as
many needs of different stakeholders met as
possible
• Restricting use of power: only the needs of few (“the
powerful”) matter

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Power bases - why do we give power to others?

• Rewarding power
– I give power to you, if I belief that you can do something good to me
• Coercive power
– I give power to you, if I belief that you can do some harm to me
• Legitimate power
– I give power to you based on either implicit or explicit social contract
• Expert power
– I give power to you because I belief you know better than I
• Referent power
– Is based on personal integrity, being perceived as a role model
– I give power to you, because I respect you

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John R.P. French & Bertram Raven

Illusions and mental models related to power

• Illusion of control
– “By deciding something we can make others do it”
– Often manifested in organizational planning and reporting
practices, steering groups and committees
– Means to avoid helplessness, uncertainty and anxiety

• Power is at the top of the hierarchy
– “We have to wait until they decide”
– Often manifested in people waiting, complaining but not
taking action
– Means to avoid risk-taking and related anxiety

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Reality

• Every one’s power is limited to the amount of people
we can influence (circle of influence)

• In organizations people usually have a lot more
power than they think they have

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Empowered people
working together in
self-organized teams
for a purpose
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Empowerment – personal relationship
to power

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Thinking tools

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I have to …

or

I choose to … because …
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The rule of three

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Empowerment – mmmm??
Accountability - yes

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Accountability – what does it mean?

• How is being / feeling accountable visible in a person’s behavior?

• How can you see whether I feel accountable or not?

• Accountability and responsibility - how are they connected?

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Accountability – where does it come from?

• Think back to a situation when you felt really accountable for doing
something
– What contributed to you feeling accountable?

Discuss:

• What promotes accountability?

• What prevents accountability?

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Organizational practices

• Very often the very practices, which are intended to increase a
accountability, actually destroy it

• We can’t make anyone feel accountable but we can create an
environment, which fosters accountability – or kills it

• Being accountable requires self-discipline

• Accountability and power go hand in hand

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Empowering leadership style

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Exercise

• The leadership style has a high impact on people’s level of empowerment

• Think back in your experience of being lead by others

• Collect examples of leadership actions which have
 Increased empowerment
 Decreased empowerment

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Getting aligned

• People do things to satisfy their needs – and we all have many different
kinds of needs.
• To be able to influence others, we need to understand what they need
– Win – win

• How can we find out what others need? Ask
 What is important to you?
 What do you want to accomplish?
 What is your motivation of …?
 How can I help? What can I do for you?
– Guess and check
– Do an experiment and observe

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Compliance vs. engagement

• Command and control type of management results in compliance
– Main tools for “motivating” are target setting & rewarding
– Carrots and sticks

• Engagement and commitment requires leadership based on increasing
autonomy
– People have control over what, when, how and with whom they do the work
 Task, time, technique, team
– Autonomous and interdependent at the same time

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Influencing others

• We can’t change other people, we can’t “make anyone do anything they
don’t want to do” – and be happy about it
– We can't make anyone do willingly and enthusiastically anything they don't want
to do

• When people are coerced or feel pushed, they fight, fake, ignore or in best
case comply
– There is no commitment or ownership
– Very low energy and engagement

• As a leader, ask yourself: is this enough or do I need people to be
committed and engaged (to get what I need)?

• Unfortunately, managers are often not aware of the impact of their actions
on others.

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Ways of influencing others

• Expose people to new information
– Ask questions
 Provoke new thought processes
– Educate, train
– Show new ways
– Give feedback
• Ask people to do things, make requests and proposals
– “Do this” vs. “I need this because …Could you help me?”
– People are often very willing to help (if they can) if they know why what you ask
is important to you
– Ask people to do an experiment
• Change your own behavior
– Changing one part of the systems gives room / pressure for other parts to
change, too
– Show example

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Exercise

• Whom would you like to influence in order to change the leadership
culture in your organization?

• Think of at least three things to do
1. Expose people to new information
 Ask questions
 Train, introduce new concepts
 Show new ways
 Give feedback
2. Make a request
 Be specific & concrete
3. Change your own behavior

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Emerging leaders

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Leadership

• How do you recognize a leader? Look behind
• True leaders emerge, they do not come by appointment
• Leadership is about influencing others in an empowering way
– Expose people to new information, ask people to do things, change your own
behavior
– Create the will to follow
– Create engagement and enthusiasm
• Communicate direction
– Engaging vision
– Compelling reason to change
– Clear enough, sufficiently fuzzy
• Facilitate harvesting collective intelligence

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Why is it that …

• Most managers are smart people
• Most managers have the best interest of the company at heart

• So why does so much bad management happen?

• Low self-awareness
• False assumptions
• Long feedback cycles

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Working with

• Creating Win-Win situations
– Getting my needs met while meeting others’ needs
– Acknowledging needs and working for a new solution where more needs get
met
– Increasing the amount of empowering power in relationships

• Communicate with compassion and clarity

• Listen with empathy and respect

• Building relationships based on trust and integrity
– Honor your agreements

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Making conscious choices

Increases dependency Increases self-
and resistance, reduces organization and often
some times anxiety causes some anxiety
Telling the way to find solution Open questions
Focus on Plan how you could use pair- What would help you forward
process programming now?
(“how” the Let’s discuss the pro’s and con’s What other options there might
of these design solutions be? Supports
team finds the
solution) Let’s discuss the values and What is happening? self-
working agreements for our team organization
Telling the solution “Loaded” questions, proposals
Focus on Use pair-programming Do you think pair-programming
content Design solution A is the right one would help here?
(“what” the These are the values and working Does solution A meet the criteria?
team does, the agreements for our team Some teams have found team Increases
values and working agreements dependency
solution) useful. What do you think?

Directive Supportive
(Telling what or how to do) (Helping the team to find the
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solution on what or how to do)

Should I interfere?
Not present
What are the
Observe consequences if I
Ask open interfere?
questions • To me
• To the team
• To the task at hand
Tell your • To the customer and
observation to the company
the team What are the
Ask loaded consequences of not
questions interfering?
Make proposals

Tell the team
what to do
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Learning new ways

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Learning process

Result
Work with others (experience,
consequence)

Action, work
Reflection

Act
differently Reflect, get
• Conceptual feedback,
analysis understand deeply
• Forming new what happened
working theory Making sense, finding
Learning process
meaning, explain why
consists of several cycles
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Agile 2012 / Kati Vilkki New theory, concepts, ideas, training, reading
46 © Nokia Siemens Networks 2012 Learn with others, discuss, read, share experiences

Different levels of the learning process

• Individual level
• Learning (reading, training, reflection)

• Team level – build a leadership team
• Joint reflection, creating concepts – close the learning loop
• Agreeing on actions
• Working together as a team

• Organizational level
• Organizational practices and culture
• Feedback loops
• Cross-organizational and cross-level dialogue and cooperation

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Changing old habits (changing the culture)

• Talk together about the new values and principles and what should
change
– Why do we need to change? How do we know we have been successful?
• Think together about concrete behaviors which would reflect the values
• Make agreements that support behaving in the new way
• Be consistent, do not give up
– Unlearning old habits and learning new ones takes time
– Truly understanding the consequences and what a value means in practice, in
every day actions takes time
• Reflect together
– Have we followed the new ways of working? What has happened? Why?
– Make new agreements, take second round of learning

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Different levels and cycles in sync

Daily actions and choices
Actions
reflect values

Practices Values
become real
in actions

Principles
Mind-set, attitudes, principles bridge
between
practices and
values

Values, basic assumptions
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Examples

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Improving team work, leadership and
organizational learning
• Training and coaching combined with doing actual work
• Both group level and individual consultations
• Align development activities of different levels of organisation

Teams

Coaching Department Leadership Teams
Manager
groups forums

Unit Leadership Team

Cross-organizational project team arraigns coaching and other
support, creates materials, analyses progress

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Coaching program for team coaches, part I
Self-study and reflection of own learning
Practical development work
Participation in team coach meetings

Modeling Report / study
Development
operational of results
plan
environment

1. 1. Changing 2. 2.
Start Cons module Session End
Session ultati
Consult
ation
on

• Organizational Different topics:
culture • How to end
• Purpose • Own role as a coach • Change • Role of a team coaching
• Objectives • Analyzing need for management coach assignments,
in teams projects or
and change / • Resistance
motivation development • Managing teams
• Leadership • Self-evaluation
• Commitment • Change in thinking own work
to coaching and leadership load • Empowerment • Final
• How to get • Systematic • How to define evaluations of
• Facilitation
started? improvement success criteria the coaching
• 1 day • Development plan • Conflict
• 2 days process
for own project resolution
• ½ -1day
Public • 2 days • ½ day

Duration 6-8 months

Example # 2

Self-organizing Ways of working
agile teams (1 d) workshops for
teams
Introduction
to self-
organizing Self-organizing Ways of
agile teams agile teams working
(2 h) and line workshops for
manager role LT’s
(2 d)

Becoming a coach (2 d+2 d)
Boot-camp on coaching self-organizing teams (3 d)

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Self-organizing Scrum teams and line manager role

Day 1 Day 2
Start
Start Coach’s role
Getting oriented Direction and boundaries for
Concepts the team
Empowerment, self- Ways of working
organization, power Team working skills

Lunch

Leadership tasks in lean Decision making
Aspects of line manager role Healthy conflicts
Using observations What do teams need from
Feedback their environment?
Influencing others Line manager role in agile
and lean

Finish
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Example # 3
Call for
all
All hands
sessions
Work Reflect
Discussions in
What does this teams Continuous
mean for us? improvement
What do we Leadership
want to do? workshops
Change Improve
agent
workshops Coaching sessions for leaders

SW craftsmanship
workshops in teams
Coaching on engineering skills

Kick-offs: how do we work together

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Recommended books on lean and management

• Lean Software Development - Poppendieck
• From Concept to Cash: Implementing Lean Software Development - Poppendieck
• Leading Lean SW development: Results are not the point by Mary and Tom Poppendieck
• Lean Product and Process Development - Allen C. Ward
– Distills what might be termed "cornerstones" from the practices of lean product developers, most
notably Toyota and its partners, which differ remarkably from conventional practice
• Managing the design factory by Donald G. Reinertsen
• The Principles of Product Development Flow by Donald G. Reinertsen
• The Machine that changed the world - Womack
– Book introduce the word "Lean" to the world. Comparison of companies in the car industry
• Lean Thinking - Womack
– Summary of the lean thinking concepts.
• The Toyota way – Jeffrey K. Liker
• Durward K. Sobek II., Art Smalley: Understanding A3 Thinking: A Critical Component of
Toyota's PDCA Management System
• Toyota Kata by Mike Rother
• Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations
– Classic MUST-READ on metrics, measurement and incentive systems
• Gary Hammel: The Future of Management
• Jeffrey Pfeffer, Robert I. Sutton: Hard facts, Dangerous Half-truths & Total Nonsense

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57 © Nokia Siemens Networks 2012 Agile and lean mgmt / KV

Leading teams
• Christopher M. Avery: Teamwork Is an Individual Skill
– For anyone who want to improve their team experience by understanding better their own impact –
helps to make concious choices
• J. Richard Hackman: Leading Teams. Setting the Stage for Great Performances
– What do teams need from their environment & how to lead teams
• Kimball Fisher: Leading self-directed work teams, a guide for developing new team
leadership skills
– How does the role of a team leader change from the role of a supervisor. Examples are from
manufacturing, but are general.
• Patrick Lencioni: The 5 dysfunctions of a team and Overcoming the 5 dysfunctions
of a team
– Two books on how to improve the way your team works. Eventhough the examples are mostly from
leadership teams, findings apply to other teams, too.
• Marshall B. Rosenberg: Non-violent Communication
– For anyone who wants to learn to communicate better
• Sam Kaner: Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making
– Facilitation techniques and tools for many kinds of situations
• Jean Tabaka: Collaboration Explained. Facilitation Skills for Software Project
Leaders
– Facilitation techniques and tools for Scrum and other agile events
• Eshter Derby & Diana Larsen: Agile Retrospectives, Making good teams Great
– Some ideas on how to improve your retrospectives
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58 © Nokia Siemens Networks 2012 ©
Agile and lean mgmt / KV

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