Change Management Agile Leaders Insights
Change, Change, Change. How change can be controlled, predictive and beneficial. I live in such a dichotomy of time and space sometimes; for I love change and I love consistency.
Is that why I'm consistently changing?
Regardless of my self indulgent musings it's important for today's organizations to embrace change; plan for it, learn from it and create the environment for good change.
As a leader and scrum professional I am often charged with the responsibility of introducing change - or given targets that require a marked difference in the delivery.
One of the very first things I do before even mapping out the change, is understand the lay of the land as it is now. This is such an important step because knowing what (especially who) the challenges are and where the quick good wins can be made will help to break down 'historical inertia'.
Often action plans for change don't include this very important step, which is unfortunate because I've seen enthusiastic people charge ahead with a new methodology or process without realizing they have actually swept away good people and good knowledge.
My steps for getting the big picture is built around being a Third Culture Kid and the study of what it means to be human - not industry processes, not fancy methodologies - just simple old fashioned understanding of people.
Every Third Culture Kid knows that when you move to a new land (country, culture, school, university, business, party...) you;
a) Identify the sub-cultures that drive the real procedures b) Identify the 'drivers' of those sub-cultures c) Work out an exit strategy in the case of clashing d) Understand why the need to change - what's the real pay offs? e) Who wants what 'they want', who doesn't want what 'they want' f) What style do 'they respond to' g) What is there 'listening' - are they individual, community orientated, gender orientated etc. h) What's the cost, the pain, the suffering and the willingness to sacrifice
and finally - where's the tipping point for a culture to change?
Someone once said to me in response to me saying "I can't stand politics";
"yes, and you are actually very good at it".
This isn't a political agenda - it's a proactive human practice to ensure the integrity of what happens is understood by all parties who need to be involved in changing their organisation. It is also more efficient to speak french to a french-person and English to an English-person, so why do we constantly try to force people to speak one language, or our own language.
What's they lay of your land? Are you about to embark on a change management agile process? Would you travel from Rome to Moscow on the wrong side of the road, and never embrace the cultures along the way? Would you not sit back and look at a map, or would you just head east?