Lead and Serve Others: Focus on the Team, Not Individuals-AgileBrigade

You’re trying to make your agile approach work, but your culture doesn’t reinforce agile behaviors. For example, your management:

- Focuses on a person’s outputs, not team-based outcomes.
- Wants predictability, but your team needs to experiment to deliver the right outcomes.
- Doesn’t clarify the value the team offers.

What can you do?

Change your leadership from leading activities to creating an environment where everyone can lead.

In this presentation, Johanna will discuss these serving leadership actions: the value the team offers, team-based leadership, how to reinforce that leadership with regular one-on-ones, and how to create an environment where everyone can succeed.

Learn to deliver the business outcomes your organization needs when you create an environment that frees people to do their best work with your leadership. Become a modern leader who leads and serves others—not controls or directs them. And as you do, deliver the business outcomes your management wants and needs to see.

Transcript

1. Johanna Rothman
   @johannarothman
   www.jrothman.com
   Lead and Serve Others:
   
   
   Focus on the Team, Not Individuals
   

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2. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
   @johannarothman
   Think back to your “best” and “worst”
   managers.
   What do you remember?
   2
   

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3. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
   @johannarothman
   People remember how they felt.
   That’s the power of leadership. (Good or bad)
   3
   

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4. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
   @johannarothman
   Excellent leadership means serving
   the team, not only individuals
   4
   

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5. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
   @johannarothman
   The Case for Flow Ef
   fi
   ciency
   • Fastest way to create outcomes
   • Much reduced delays
   • Increased team learning
   • Makes agility easier
   5
   

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6. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
   @johannarothman
   How can you switch the focus from
   individual to team?
   6
   

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7. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
   @johannarothman
   You create an environment where
   all people can lead
   7
   

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8. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
   @johannarothman
   Lewin’s Equation: B= f (P,E)
   • Each person’s Behavior is a function of the Person and
   their Environment
   • Most performance “problems” arise from the
   environment
   • Environment:
   • How the team works
   • Psychological safety for mistakes, concerns, challenges
   • How people use their virtual and physical locations
   • How much trust the team members offer each other.
   • How organization policies and procedures help/hurt
   the team perform their work.
   8
   

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9. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
   @johannarothman
   Environment is all about culture
   9
   

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10. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    Culture Creates Teams (or Not)
    10
    

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11. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    Our Agenda
    1. De
    fi
    ne the value the team provides.
    2. Team-based leadership.
    3. Regular one-on-ones.
    4. Create an environment where
    everyone can succeed.
    11
    

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12. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    1. De
    fi
    ne the Team’s Value
    • What value does the team offer the
    organization?
    • Start with product or service
    • De
    fi
    ne the overarching goal that aligns
    with that product or service
    (outcomes)
    • Move from only individual goals to
    partly team-based goals and
    compensation
    12
    

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13. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    What’s the Overarching Team Goal?
    • What outcomes does the team need to
    provide?
    • Avoid outputs, such as interim milestone
    complete by date
    • Focus on what customers achieve with the
    product/service (outcome)
    • Customers can by
    
    • I no longer advocate OKRs, but those might
    work for you
    • Avoid individual goals that cascade down from
    something else.
    13
    

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14. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    Coalesce Around Goal
    • Learn together (
    fl
    ow ef
    fi
    ciency)
    • Technical excellence
    • The more the team checks itself as
    they proceed, the faster they can
    fi
    nish
    • Technical excellence makes
    everything much easier
    • How can the team create small
    experiments and learn from them?
    14
    

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15. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    2. Team-Based Leadership
    • Team learns how to offer feedback
    and coaching to each other
    • Promotes psychological safety
    • You “teach” feedback and coaching
    • Meta feedback
    • Meta coaching
    • Offer “labs” during work hours:
    • How to offer feedback and coaching
    15
    

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16. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    People Need Frequent Feedback
    • Feedback is about observable behavior
    • Peer-to-peer feedback:
    • Create an opening
    • Describe behavior or results
    • State the impact
    • Make a request
    16
    

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17. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    Coaching and Meta-Coaching
    • Not just teaching, offering options
    with support
    • You create an environment in which
    everyone coaches everyone else
    • Not in
    fl
    icting help on others
    17
    

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18. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    What Kind of a Team Do You Lead & Serve?
    18
    

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19. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    3. Regular One-on-Ones
    • Every week or two, depending on the
    kind of work you do
    • Once a month is too long
    • Build trusting relationships
    • Learn what each person wants/
    needs
    • Check in on career development
    • Listen for bad news
    19
    

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20. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    Make Regular One-on-One Time Sacrosanct
    (You will have to protect your schedule)
    20
    

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21. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    From Manager-Led One-on-Ones to Person-Led
    • First Structure:
    • Greeting
    • Review your action items for the person.
    • Ask for obstacles, etc.
    • Ask if they want help, feedback, coaching
    • Placeholder for career development
    • What do they want to discuss?
    • Action item review
    • Second Structure:
    • From Greeting to a Checkin
    • Other person takes the responsibility to
    create an agenda
    • Include:
    • Obstacles
    • Help, feedback, coaching
    • Career development
    • Action item review
    21
    

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22. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    Minimal One-on-One Structure
    • Check-in
    • Do you need anything? (Not just from
    you, anything at all.)
    • Is anything getting in your way?
    • What can I, as your manager, do to
    help?
    22
    

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23. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    Ask Other Person to Set the Agenda
    • When the other person sets the
    agenda, you share the power
    • Power with, not power over (Mary
    Parker Follett)
    23
    

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24. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    Regular One-on-Ones Allow You To…
    • Offer reinforcing feedback often
    • Early warning signals of larger
    problems
    • See the team’s system/environment
    • Avoid performance reviews
    • Which don’t work anyway
    • Evaluations are about managing money,
    not performance
    24
    

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25. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    Change-Focused vs. Reinforcing Feedback
    • Make it a point to offer reinforcing
    feedback at least every week:
    • Something people do right/well
    • Supports other people
    • Offer change-focused feedback when
    it’s behaviors they can change
    • I am always going to be blunt and
    direct. I can learn to choose words
    that people can hear
    25
    

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26. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    4. Create an Environment Where All People Succeed
    • Collaboration over cooperation
    • Weed out non-jellers or people who can’t do
    the work
    • Hire for people who can work as part of a
    team
    • Suf
    fi
    cient cultural
    fi
    t (see the culture slide)
    not necessarily comfort
    • Hire for diversity of thought and experience
    • Reinforcing feedback
    • Drucker calls this the “harmonious whole”
    26
    

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27. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    “The Culture of any organization is shaped by the worst
    behavior the leader is willing to tolerate.”
    — Steve Gruenert and Todd Whitaker, School Culture Rewired, ch.3
    (2015)
    27
    

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28. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    Back/Support Your Team (Especially to Others)
    • “The buck stops here”
    • Take the ultimate responsibility
    • Why managing yourself is so
    necessary
    28
    

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29. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    7 Principles
    1. Clarify your purpose (you, team,
    organization).
    2. Build empathy with the people who do the
    work.
    3. Build a safe environment.
    4. Seek outcomes and optimize for the
    overarching goal.
    5. Encourage experiments and learning.
    6. Catch people succeeding.
    7. Exercise your value-based integrity.
    29
    

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30. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    Move From Individual Theory to Team Practice
    • Experiment
    • Apply
    • Engage
    • Realize results
    • Choose where you will experiment
    and learn more
    • Practice new behaviors
    fi
    rst. (Beliefs
    arise from behaviors.)
    30
    

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31. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    Culture Drives Behaviors
    • How does your environment create
    behaviors?
    • We often behave to maximize our
    rewards or minimize punishment
    • What does your organization reward?
    • Individual work (resource ef
    fi
    ciency)
    where every individual is busy
    • Team-based work (
    fl
    ow ef
    fi
    ciency)
    where the team focuses on the work
    31
    

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32. © 2022 Johanna Rothman
    @johannarothman
    Let’s Stay in Touch
    • Pragmatic Manager:
    • www.jrothman.com/
    pragmaticmanager
    • Please link with me on LinkedIn
    • Modern Management Made Easy:
    https://www.jrothman.com/mmme
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