Business Agility: Leadership, Teams & the Work - Jude Horrill - AgileNZ 2017

theagilitycollective.com
Business agility
A new way of being, leading & working
Jude Horrill
Founder – The Agility Collective

Engagement Design - Agility Coaching - Lean Change - Communications
Speaker | Consultant | Coach | Facilitator
Founder @ The agility collective
Founder & Director @ The Change Agency www.judehorrill.com
Jude Horrill
Connect.
Simplify.
Change.
@judehorrill @123agility

THE
WHY
The Agility Collective

Because we are feeling…
Sense of urgency, loss of control, continuous change/disruption, anxiety

•Reduce Risk in constantly changing environments
• ROI/cost on big projects
• Time it takes for validation by customers
•Manage increasing complexity
• Customers expecting instant response & multi channels
• Needs are changing - Boomers ageing, Millennial’s growing
•Make faster, effective decisions
We need to…

•Manage a more fluid workplace (contingent workers)
•Engage a new generation of employees
…and
Lead with a new mindset
to become capable of responding and adapting
in dynamic environments
We need to…

This model no longer works
Control
Command

Our new networked reality
1. You, not your
organisation, are at
the center of your
network.
2. Multiple
influences reduce
the relative impact
of any one source …
and you choose.
3. Information flows
in multiple directions.
4. Connections in your
network are
unpredictable and
fluid, re-forming as
situations change.

Drivers: New path to influence
Traditional
• Organisational control
• One way information flow
• Company drives messages
• Structured around channel
• Siloed
• Hierarchical
• Measure of success = Acceptance
Agile / Networked
• Greater individual control
• Networked information flow
• Individual creates own messages
• Individual has choice
• Collaborative
• Connected
• Measure of success = Active
support

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Agility…our
people are
central to
value creation
Leadership
Direction
Manager
Employee
Employee
Leadership
Direction
Manager
Peer
Peer
Peer
Peer
Employee agility
Object of change Driver of change
Employee responsiveness

Employee drivers for value creation & agility
1. Personal connection
Understand what action team must take & the link
between their work and organisational success
2. Peer learning
Peer support and idea sharing, & what my peers are doing
to improve their performance
3. Environment / market context
Understand strategic intent, and organisational risks &
opportunities
The Agility CollectiveThe Agility Collective

Employee drivers for value creation & agility
4. Organisational encouragement
To try new things, find new solutions to problems, and
develop my own ideas
5. Confidence in leadership
Trust in leaders to make the right decisions, align purpose
and values, and to listen to the people and the system of
work.

WHAT
should leadership look like?

Leadership: current thinking
A leader’s job is to anticipate the future, to identify the
trends that will affect their organization, and to guide and
inspire people to move toward a better reality.
Today more than ever, this job requires leaders to grasp
the rapid rate of change in the business world and to build
an organisation that’s capable of continually adapting.
- Nancy Duarte & Patti Sanchez, Duarte Inc. 17 Feb, 2016
“

New reality: Leadership mindset is now …
• Self leadership
• Decentralised and Distributed
• Agile and Adaptable
• Facilitator and Enabler
• Co-creator and Ideator
• Collaborative and Interactive
• Ecosystem mindset

New Organisation Mindset
OLD
Organisation = organism mindset
• Network is inside the building
• Bounded entity, complete unto
itself
• Siloed, non-questioning
• Slow to adapt
• Stuck with old DNA while world
outside changes, recombines,
evolves
NEW
Organisation = ecosystem mindset
• Network is also outside the
building
• Part of a wider ecosystem
• Interactive, always asking “is our
network working?”
• Fast to adopt and adapt
• Able to absorb, react and transform

Agile means leaders need to…
• Foster a safe environment, with equal voice, where people are
willing to do the unexpected and challenge the norm
• Courageously unlearn command and control management
practices
• Embrace change and continuous improvement…the learning
organisation = business agility
• Role model new behaviours
• Nurture culture through aligned values
‘Leadership as a service’

Most value comes from…
Mindset and culture NOT from agile practices
DOING AGILE BEING AGILE
PRACTICES MINDSET
Ability to manage changing priorities Customer delight
Improved visibility Workplace happiness
Increased productivity Employee engagement
Improved quality Innovation, Creativity
Reduced risk Continuous learning
The Agility Collective@Michael Sahota

The
agile
environment
Chosen
Collaborative
Connected
Visible
Fluid
Relevant

THE
HOW

…the smartest person in the room is the room
David Weinberger – Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts
Aren't the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room
“
An agile leaders mindset recognises…

Agile starts with mindset
Behaviours that enable the agile mindset:
•Respect for the worth of every person
•Truth in every communication
•Transparency of all data, actions, and decisions
•Trust that each person will support the team
•Collaboration in team and goal commitment

Principles behind Agile
• To satisfy the customer is the highest priority
• Self-organising teams deliver the best outcomes
• People must work together daily
• Deliver outcomes frequently
• Face-to-face is the most efficient and effective
communication

Principles behind Agile
• Simplicity is essential…limit work in progress
• Outcomes are the primary measure of progress
not outputs e.g. customer delight vs new product feature
• Team reflects regularly on how to become more
effective and adjusts behaviour - the
retrospective.

The
agile working
style
Connected
Co-created
Feedback driven
Experimental
Visible
Non-linear
CONNECT
COMMUNICATE
CREATE
SIMPLIFY EXPERIMENT
SHARE

As agile mindset and processes enter
management mainstream, organisations are
learning how to draw on the full talents of
those doing the work, involve customers at
every stage of product development and so
generate innovations that customers value.
- Steve Denning, May 22 2017
“

Key Concepts
•Agile is based on empiricism – evidence, as
discovered in experiments
•We use the word ‘experiment’ to describe work
that is uncertain
•Experiments have a ‘hypothesis’ to test our
understanding - this is a key metric

Key Concepts
•Work (in an experiment) is sliced as small as
possible so it can be delivered quickly to a
customer to be tested
•If it matches what we expected, the hypothesis, it
is accepted and delivered or ‘done’ - if it does not
it is rejected
•Small improvements are delivered quickly, rather
then big ones slowly

In other words, agile is…
The ability to slice work into increments that is
the minimum required, to satisfy a piece of
‘done’ work …so it can quickly be validated or
rejected by customers.
Customer feedback is used to inform the next
iteration.

The customer is directly involved in the
work
Which removes risk
…associated with lengthy planning, staging, project
management, production, testing, then delivery …
in an uncertain and changing environment.

Summary
WHOLE OF BUSINESS AGILITY CAN
REDUCE UNCERTAINTY AND RISK

LEADERSHIP
IMPACT

The focus on leadership is shifted, affecting 3
organisational domains…
Thinking
Design
Engagement

In other words
HOW THE WORK GETS DONE

Organisational thinking
Strategy & alignment
Agile strategy = Strategic Intent
High-level intent, aligned to purpose
• The what we seek to achieve …and why
• Not ...what to do and how to do it
• Operational details are added as it moves down the chain
• Greater detail is added at the final stages, giving the ability
to respond to changing needs.

Planning & decision making
Agile leadership:
• Is shifted from telling people what to do, to making
sure the intent is being carried out
• Removes impediments
• Creates trust, alignment and systems to support fast
‘iterations’ of work
• Seeks to constantly improve delivery of services and
products to customers, throughout the system.
‘Manage the system not the people’

Accounting and measurement
New metrics will be required
• Budgeting e.g. CapEx and OpEx may need to change
from those required for big, long term projects, to
support smaller faster ones
• Change from Return On Investment to Cost of Delay i.e.
the cost of not doing something, versus potential future
value.

Organisational design
• How do we structure ourselves?
• Includes Corporate Centre i.e. redesigning HR, Finance,
Risk, Governance, and Marketing functions
• Some roles are embedded in a lean/agile environment e.g.
Project & change management, communications,
employee engagement
• Building cross functional ‘line of business’ teams

Organisational engagement
•How we do the work – Agile ‘doing’
•Change ‘management’ moves to lean
•Communication is everyone's responsibility
•Collaboration is everyone’s responsibility

Organisational engagement
•High visibility of decision-making
•Planning and decision making is collaborative and
performed by the team – it happens where the
work is done
•The style of work is visible so that anyone can see it,
offer feedback, or act as input to another team.

 Transparency – increases clarity and collaboration
 Empowerment – increases autonomy and self
organisation
 Focus – increases productivity/ outcomes

From silos to collaboration
 At the heart of agile
Powers collective ideas
Accelerates learning
 Helps build for meaning

Summary
BUSINESS AGILITY REQUIRES
STRATEGIC RE-ALIGNMENT
ACROSS THESE THREE CORE DOMAINS

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER

Business agility
Helps deal with complexity Requires new leadership
Creates shared purpose Builds a collaborative workforce
Aligns values Manages risk
Enables innovation Improves workplace happiness
and …delivers CUSTOMER DELIGHT
Start a new way of being, leading and working tomorrow
“

One Degree
of Influence:
170 Contacts
Two Degrees of Influence:
25,400 Contacts
Three Degrees of Influence:
2,145,900 Contacts
Source: N.A. Christakis and J.H. Fowler (2009), Connected; LinkedIn;
Communications
Executive Council research.
A single individual
can have huge
influence in a network
Be the leader who inspires
others to
join you on your
business agility quest
You are the
change catalyst

PREPARE TO BE
DISRUPTED

Many businesses are only now coming to
terms with disruption, and responding through
new ways of working.

The old disruptors

The new disruptors

The tsunami of change about to hit us
will make the last 20 years of disruption
look like a water feature.

Thanks for listening

Business Agility: Leadership, Teams & the Work - Jude Horrill - AgileNZ 2017

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