This article was first published on LinkedIn in January 2020.
I've been reflecting on the things that I've learnt in my career so far about leading in agile organisations. I started with a long list of 'things I've found to be true' which I thought might be worth sharing in more detail, so I've tried to organise this into four broad sections:
People: Things I've found about working with and leading people
Structure: Things I've found about organising teams, people and work
Execution: Things I've learnt about getting sh*t done
Managing Yourself: How can you manage other people when you can't manage yourself?
With the pressure of the new role, I've not been able to get these all written up, so my plan is to publish one section at a time, over the next few weeks... The second part on structure is now published!
I hope you find the ideas that follow to be useful or at least interesting. Everyone is different, but they have worked for me... With that disclaimer, let's take a look at 'people'.
Sure, everyone says that, but it’s literally true… If you attract great people to your team, you are (collectively) very likely to achieve great things. If you drive all the good people away, you are basically screwed… No amount of luck or money will likely fix that…
The single best way to drive good people away is to ensure that you are the organisation, and that somehow the team work for you… Or worse still, the organisation is some sort of greater entity that you are servant to, and which will continue to function even after everyone has left...
The organisation does what it does because everyone in it does their part, making decisions, clarifying the unclear, creating things that are needed, removing things that are broken. You can think about it like a biological system - doing so will almost certainly not help you at all, but hey, you can.
The truth is that everyone works for everyone else, and everyone has a role to play. If you are the leader, you role is to empower people to get the work done by setting direction, supporting, and removing obstacles. Most half-decent people want to do great work, you need to help them to do it.
Great people want to work in great teams. Every great team I’ve worked in acted with respect - people respected each other, people respected the work, and people respected other teams. Disrespect is like alcohol, a bit can be fun, but it doesn’t take much to be toxic, and so you are probably better off trying to have none at all.
Assume positive intent. Most people don’t do knowingly do stupid things. So assume that there is probably a good reason why that ‘strange’ decision was made, or that important email went unanswered. Try to understand, try to help the person do better.
Everybody wants to be a hero, and everyone wants to recognise and reward heroics. Heroes are larger-than-life characters, heroes get it done when nobody else can. Heroics are also addictive, and an addiction to heroics can quickly cycle into destructive behaviour.
Some heroics are not a bad thing, but it’s vital to ensure that people are recognised for a range of activities, not just ‘heroic’ ones. For instance, for doing their ‘ordinary job’ really well, for stepping up to a task that nobody else wanted to do, or for helping each other. The problem with heroics is when you can only be recognised for doing things that ‘nobody else can’, and people start to hoard. They hoard knowledge, they hoard opportunities, they hoard connections. Soon, the team is divided into the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. People who have all the things they need to do their jobs, and people who get by on the margins. People who have the admiration of the team and are drunk on their own greatness and people who feel they are inadequate and are viewed with disdain. This is a waste of talent, creates huge resentment, and kills teams from the inside.
As leaders, we should recognise heroes, but we should build heroes out of the people doing the things that makes the team better. The person who fixes that bug at 2 am and restores the system is a hero, but so are the people who add tests to ensure the bug can’t happen again, or the people who help someone new to the team get started, or the people who write beautiful clean code, or the person who refactors that really nasty code, or the person who shares their connection to a key stakeholder to help another member of the team, or the person who finds a restaurant for a team dinner. All heroes.
In an organisation built around people, the old true-ism is particularly important: it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. The more people you know, and have a genuine connection with, the more you can draw on the collective power and knowledge of the organisation. And do be genuine - don't be that person who smiles and says 'how interesting' while staring over your shoulder for someone more important to talk to.
Conversely, never destroy a relationship - when someone does something annoying or rude or stupid, it’s so very tempting to say something harsh, or cruel, or petty. But stay classy, it’s never worth it to make someone into an enemy if you don’t need to. You never know when you might need their help.
Never, never, never make it personal. Attack ideas, counter opinions, but never attack people. No sentence that starts with “Well you would say that because….” is going to end well.
I’ve never met anyone who didn’t have something to offer or teach. Listen, and treat people with respect. Everyone has a valid opinion (although some are more useful than others!). Be sure to include everyone in the conversation - too many times have awesome ideas only been shared when someone said “what do you think?”.
One of the most powerful ideas I have ever heard is “growth mindset”. Having a growth mindset means believing people can grow, can learn, can be more than they are today. It also means believing that you can grow, and learn, and be more than you are today. It’s not so hard to do, and is one of the few things that are likely to come true if you believe hard enough.
Don’t goof off… Or mess about… But do try to make work more fun for everyone. People do their best work when they are happy and energised and having fun. People often work twice as hard when they enjoy what they do. Never confuse fun for disrespect or unprofessional behaviour.
If you read this far, I hope you found this useful! In a few weeks, I'll publish the next section on 'Structure', and how to organise people and ideas in an agile way.