Do you struggle with...
An organization is comprised of a group of individuals working to achieve a set of goals by executing on the overarching strategy. Often, what gets lost in the shuffle is the realization that people make the difference, not the organizations they work within!
The tendency in organizations, however, is to place controls, constraints, and measurements on people to instill compliance and drive behaviours. Sometimes they even attempt to “dehumanize” the workforce by calling people “resources”, like they were computers or raw materials, but there is another way.
We believe organizations and leaders should focus on managing the work and the value they deliver through the products and services they provide, not on managing the people that do the work. People, and particularly knowledge workers should be placed in an environment that cultivates creativity, engagement, collaboration, customer focus, and the adoption of a continuous learning and improvement mindset. In turn, those motivations will result in engagement and a desire to do more.
In simpler terms, if we really want people to be engaged, then they should be appropriately encouraged and motivated to constantly grow and evolve themselves, the teams they are on, the products and services they offer, and the organizations they work within.
Read on to learn more!
The challenge
If teams are the engines of organizations, then people are the fuel. Unfortunately, these individuals often get lost in organizational bureaucracy, politics, and finance decisions that impose constraints that ironically hinder motivation and engagement.
Instead of treating people like resources that require constant oversight, leaders and managers should subvert their efforts to support and encourage people through constant growth and development. We’re not suggesting free reign, but we are suggesting a fundamental shift in the way people are supported, and managed. It means management’s purpose fundamentally shifting from driving compliance to coaching growth and agile skills development. It means people being given clear goals that align with the organization, and then empowering and encouraging people to learn and grow so they may contribute to the evolution of their organization.
Long-term commitment to new learning and new philosophy is required of any management that seeks transformation. The timid and the fainthearted, and the people that expect quick results, are doomed to disappoint.
W. Edwards Deming1
The challenge
If teams are the engines of organizations, then people are the fuel. Unfortunately, these individuals often get lost in organizational bureaucracy, politics, and finance decisions that impose constraints that ironically hinder motivation and engagement.
Instead of treating people like resources that require constant oversight, leaders and managers should subvert their efforts to support and encourage people through constant growth and development. We’re not suggesting free reign, but we are suggesting a fundamental shift in the way people are supported, and managed. It means management’s purpose fundamentally shifting from driving compliance to coaching growth and agile skills development. It means people being given clear goals that align with the organization, and then empowering and encouraging people to learn and grow so they may contribute to the evolution of their organization.
Long-term commitment to new learning and new philosophy is required of any management that seeks transformation. The timid and the fainthearted, and the people that expect quick results, are doomed to disappoint.
W. Edwards Deming 1
People in the organization then respond favourably to being given autonomy, the opportunity for mastery, and to alignment on a transcendent purpose.2
By focusing on improving people, we can then leverage that knowledge to improve the customer experience. Simply put, we come to value individuals and interactions over processes and tools.3
The opportunity
This is where the opportunity lies…you can evolutionize your skills, knowledge, and abilities so you may then help evolve yourself, your teams, and your organization, and improve your agile skills development.
We provide the knowledge, practices, methods, and the means for you to grow and enhance your current knowledge.
We leverage industry-proven Lean, Agile, and Innovation practices to show you how to:
- make commitments and promises you can be confident with.
- deliver a smooth flow of predictable value.
- engage with your team to build trust.
- align on values, needs, and approaches.
- build a high-performance, mutually respectful team.
- manage capacity and work at a sustainable pace indefinitely.
- lead decisions and solutions using a systematic, empirical-based approach.
- provide your customers, stakeholders, and peers with amazing experiences.
- leverage the knowledge, power, and enthusiasm of the people working within your system.
- identify blockers and impediments including root cause so you may systemically tackle them.
Identify bottlenecks, constraints, and dependencies so you may strategize on resolving them.
Implement effective metrics that provide real insights so effective, empirical, data-driven decision can be made.
Collaborate with everyone in the value stream to align on outcomes and commitments, build trust, and increase engagement.
Innovate through the power of cyclical learning, knowledge, experimentation, and empiricism.
Foster a continuous learning and a customer focused service-delivery mindset to create customers that are passionate about your products and services.
Simply put – we will work with you to evolutionize your agile skills development, practices, methods, knowledge, and approaches.
Let us help you to evolutionize your skills today!
- “The Essential Deming: Leadership Principles from the Father of Quality”, p.18, by Edwards Deming, Edited by Joyce Orsini and Diana Deming Cahill (2012)
- “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” by Daniel H. Pink
- Adapted from the “Agile Manifesto” – https://agilemanifesto.org/