Are we the baddies?

It's important to reflect on both the value we create and the harm we do. In order to improve we must scrutinise what isn't working or what may reduce the safety in organisations.

There’s a classic sketch from ‘That Mitchell & Webb Look’ Are we the baddies? The sketch features two German soldiers discussing the possibility that they may indeed be the baddies. One of them worries they may not have the moral high ground citing as evidence their Totenkopf, the skull and crossbones insignia, a common feature for German Military 19th and 20th century. I've always found this sketch hilarious but recently it took on a new relevance.

For some context, I’ve been involved in the adoption of practices which in many contexts are considered a significant change. For instance the introduction of agile and lean concepts, DevOps and other types of automation, product management and product development concepts and more.

My Experiences With Agile Transformation

Observing the Effects of Agile Transformation Initiatives As a Senior Leader

Across a number of organisations I have led significant change as a salaried senior leader - examples include Hitwise, Experian, Seek Asia. In dozens of other organisations I have supported similar changes in a consulting capacity.

As a senior technology leader in these organisations, I was the spearhead of the change, the change agent or the leader responsible to achieve an outcome and in a position to influence the way work would be done. I would not describe any of these significant changes as a purely agile transformation in the way that Digital Transformation and Agile Transformation consultancies have come to sell it but each of these experiences involved increasing the ability to respond and adapt to needs. Overall my experiences in bringing about more responsiveness to needs in organisation’s I have worked at has been positive.

What I have observed on that journey, however, are lots of opportunity for these changes to become destructive. For our experiences these we made missteps which we soon identified and course corrected, it was all part of the learning. Having been through such changes, first in smaller company environments and then later in larger, multi-team, multi-location environments along with others with similar experience meant we had strategies for monitoring and adjusting to such missteps and overall maintaining the flexibility necessary to have some resilience.

Not every organisation has established the mechanisms to do such course correction by the time they are making such missteps. This is in part because of a lower appetite for risk which can lead to organisations bundling up large amounts of change to occur at once - which unintentionally can expose them to higher risk for changes of this nature. And this also is often enabled by the influence of the ‘Agile Industrial Complex’ which encourages large, bandaid pull change on the promise of an organisational reset and the appeal of larger deal sizes for the consultancies and a promise that hiring the agency insulated the organisation from such risks.

In the environments were the change was successful it was either already obvious to most people these practices were appropriate due to the challenges the organisation faced - such as battling against fast moving competition or we made it obvious through communication and reconnecting every team into relevant feedback loops. In these organisations, when the needs were apparent to the team members - i.e. when they were experiencing the challenges that being more adaptive and responsive could address was when change was easier, and the benefits followed quickly.

Observing the Effects of Agile Transformation Initiatives Working as a Consultant

I was also able to observe the effects of these dynamics as a consultant where I have been called in to organisations where efforts to make similar change has led to more mess than was present before and without the desired benefits. In these cases its in engagements where we are there to help develop more internal capability which can support more evolutionary and internally driven change.

In some organisations, though, those who felt the change in question was the right one, were in the minority. Often for reason of culture or structure where teams had become disconnected from customers and the needs was less visible. The benefits of being more responsive to those needs, and being able to learn quickly and adapt based on the market or user needs was less apparent. Eventually the leadership might succeed with bringing about change, and the doubt was replaced with an embrace of the new way. But to get there often meant pain and stress for people along the way. More often, however, this path led to failure and disillusionment. The apparatus to support the change was lacking. Or worse, it was the wrong change applied to the wrong context.

Are We Doing More Harm Than Good?

And so with this context, I ask, with all our great intentions of a better tomorrow, ‘Are we the baddies?’. We must be careful to not fall in love with our ideas and be aware that sometimes our actions may cause harm.

An example might be the application ideas into a context that may have become mired in bureaucracy, too many projects and the feeling of frustration and futility has already set in. Such a setting may seem like an obvious candidate for the injection of agility and we the change agents are drawn to it like moths to the porch light.

We love the potential of our ideas and we believe that, with the ideas from the bodies of knowledge that are the foundation of our confidence, we can make a difference. The excitement of that potential can motivate us to engage in bold change.

Defending The Ideal Over Being Open To Understand The Context

In the sketch the other soldier predictably pushes back on the notion they may be the baddies. Its instinctual to do so when a challenge is presented to your belief system. After some debate he too has an epiphany; the extent of the deathly iconography pervades their livery and campsite and even the pastimes of their fellow soldiers; the skull and bones are suddenly everywhere he looks.

Introducing change can often feel like you are under siege. It can be easy to fall into the trap of always defending or making the case for the path you are advocating but with this comes the risk of a blind spot. It’s important to always look with a critical eye. When we do, like the soldier, we start to see the potential for harm everywhere.

And it can be with transformational change. How often are you truly scrutinising not just whether your change is working but whether it is improving the lives of the people its intending to help? Do we fall into the trap of justifying the means for the ends?

Some Of The Ways We May Be Doing Harm

Here are a few ways we may, in our enthusiasm, be doing harm:

• Are we agile-washing a destructive change?

• Are we asking people to engage in high degrees of friction, causing stress and worry?

• Do we understand enough of the domain to avoid guiding towards destructive pathways?

• Are we listening closely enough to understand when someone is telling us something that may keep them or the team safe?

• Are we applying ideas that worked in another context without assessing the appropriateness in our new context?

• Did we set the expectations on the size of the change involved?

• Is there the commitment to the training on new skills and roles we expect people to shift to?

• Are we making it harder for people to contribute the value in the present for a distant future state which promises to be better?

• Are we guilty of ‘agile everywhere’ thinking when other approaches maybe more appropriate?

• Are we treating agility like it’s the destination rather than a means to achieve value?

• Is there an adequate theory of value present or are we helping people deliver waste more quickly?

• Are we attempting change where the pre-requisites for success are missing?

• Are we weaponizing accusations of wrong mindset?

• Are we not following the values we espouse in what we expect of others?

I could write a post about each of these - providing examples of when I’ve seen these issues in action and how to detect these situations and guard against them. Let me know in the comments which you’d be interested in me writing about first.

Here is the first of these deep dive posts on the ‘Are we the baddies?’ theme:

Are you complicit in 'Agile-washing' cost-cutting?

Conclusion

All of this said - my conclusion may seem like I am making the case against becoming more adaptive and responsive - some of desirable traits associated with Agility. That’s not the conclusion to draw at all. What I am advocating for is a reconnection with the values and principles and assessing these against the context you are in.

Firstly apply these practices only in contexts where they are relevant and are responses to what people are experiencing such that they can help them have more success in their work.

Secondly, find ways which are more humane, ways which are more evolutionary, involve people affected by the change more and lead to measurable outcomes. Agility is not the destination, it is merely a vehicle and like all vehicles there should be care that it helps you arrive at your destination safely and successfully.