While there are certainly many more reasons for why agile change fails, I selected for you 3 reasons that I see on the field all the time impacting or totally preventing change from taking place.
And of course, I will be inviting you to think what is it that you can do as the agile coach or leader of that change. Because the reality is, if people did not need help, if it was easy, you would not be hired to support the change!
Now, the reality is that not all agile change is as enormous or disruptive as the agile transformations or digital transformations we see in big corporations. Sometimes it’s just about how to improve a team performance, motivated by the whole team. I’ve been hired by teams to improve their own life, despite of whatever happens in the rest of the company.
Yet, much smaller agile change still can fail.
So, I wanted to have this conversation with you looking at agile change, small or big, because those are patterns I noticed happen in agile change of any size. Noticing these patterns was helpful for me in the trenches and I hope it will be helpful for you as well.
As we go through these 3 reasons, I invite you to think about your current or past environments and do some of the study yourself.
What did you do that was helpful? What could have you done differently knowing what you know now?
Let’s dive in.
1 – People don’t know “What’s in it for me?”
“Yay, we are going agile in our company!”
While most change in organizations start with some sort of communication coming from senior leadership, the truth of the matter is that the rationale for the change is done mostly at that level. And then communicated top down. Have you noticed it?
That means managers and whoever speak in the name of the change knows what could be made possible for the organization as an institution. Or at least some of it. The company will make more money or cost less. Or, the current favorite, be more customer centric!
The thing is, a company is made of people. Its employees, running it. while it’s great to understand the impact of this agile change on “things”, what is its impact on the people? Maybe all the folks in the communications department already run a very agile department, with lots of collaboration, transparency and iterative learning. Or maybe they are very process-oriented, but that process is very speedy and high-quality already.
Why do they need to go through so much change? What part do they play in this thing called agile change that is taking place in the organization?
So much change coming top down! Yet, nobody’s bonuses get necessarily bigger in middle and lower levels in the hierarchy. And maybe their processes get more complicated (?!). It feels like noise. Because while the day of the everyday employee gets disrupted with the new mechanics of this so-called agile change, the gains are not clear for them.
What can the agile coach do here?
Often, senior leadership erred here due to excitement, not malignancy. It’s very helpful then to invite all people impacted to express their concerns and their views.
Yes, the whole company. Or the whole group of people deemed affected.
And literally asking “What does this change mean for you?” is a necessary step.
If the biggest outcome of the change is to create more value, do you know how much value you, or your team, or your department add? What if it’s your department that could make a difference in this change? What could that be? And how would you feel?
Get those conversations that invite the employees to see themselves as part of the whole and integral to the agile change, started. People reject or resist what they cannot understand or what they fear. The only way to eliminate that is by creating enough awareness to awaken the desire in people to participate. Not just inform.
That’s a conversation to be had with everybody, leaders included. As the coach, you help the leadership team understand what is like for their people to go through the change. You help them think about how to show support and understanding and unite the whole crew.
💡 What would you do here considering your current environment?
💡 What would you ask those leaders to invite them to open their virtual and real doors to have more of that awareness taking place?
2 – People are not invited to collaborate and share perspective
Whether or not you were part of the awakening step like I described, that awakening of an all-around awareness for the change must happen. And now we will come to this understanding: if people’s ideas don’t count, they will feel frustrated.
It never feels good to not feel listened to. Frustrated people do not cooperate well.
And in organizational and cultural change, when people feel unhappy and unheard, they are very likely to not support it. Worse, they could become detractors of the change and purposely fight it.
A much-neglected aspect of agile change in organizations is the step of listening to people’s concerns and allowing them the grace of agency. While not all companies are comfortable with every employee deciding the future for the company, these people are most likely the ones who can share insights on how things can be done in their department. If anything, they know what has been tried already.
Sure, there might also be all sorts of resistance and people not willing to change. Yet that in itself holds the key for how change can or cannot be conducted. The power of collective intelligence doesn’t reside in everybody doing whatever they want. But it’s about getting a much bigger pool of ideas to sort from and collect some allies in the making of the agile change.
What can the agile coach do here?
Facilitating group discussions is a key part of agile change, and not a simple skill for any agile coach. But it is necessary. While you can and should start with small groups, like teams and departments. At some point the ideas need to be brought to a bigger stage and shared with the bigger group, part of which is the leadership.
Also because listening to everybody means that every person should understand the pain points of their colleagues as well. The first part was to see yourself as part of the whole. Now it’s to consider ideas and solutions that integrate everybody.
Collecting ideas without judging is a great first step. Listening to people’s point of view on the ideas and the pain or perceived solution behind it is invaluable. Eventually, some ideas have more merit than others and by voting, discussion, and arbitration, the best ones will be used.
Three things are important here:
- The best ideas should be used. You don’t want to collect ideas to ignore them. This type of exercise is demanding and generates momentum (good) for the change and frustration (bad) if despite the disruptive exercise its results are discounted. People might feel lied to or reinforce negative assumptions such as “I knew they wouldn’t listen”.
- Make everybody understand that the best ideas selected are the best ones for the moment. Maybe some ideas are too aggressive for this stage of the change, and they can be parked for later. Others might be left aside because they are impractical or too costly. Whatever the decision is, it’s not because the idea is crazy or without value. It’s always an ROI decision.
- The agile coach facilitates this process. And as a facilitator, you help people make decisions. You can challenge assumptions and share your insights. But ultimately people live with the consequence of their decisions. And that decision is not yours. Later you can be very helpful showing your tool arsenal to help implement whatever is decided Wait for that turn!
💡 What is something you can do in your current environment to help ideas surface to everybody?
💡 What can be experimented with in smaller scale for people to learn safely?
3 – Reinforcing the wrong behaviors
Once again, regardless of whether you supported the initial stages of change or if you arrived at the scene when the mechanics for the agile change is in motion, you might notice one of the most challenging pieces of any change.
Idea versus reality.
Remember those early 2000’s fancy walls showing the company values? Some were nice pictures; some were graffiti walls. And remember people around the coffee machine joking, half sad half angry, that these values are just for show?
OK, maybe you didn’t live that, but in many ways the new policies, new email and communications might be announcing a beautiful reality that is not quite the real reality. Either because the policy of one department is in conflict with another or because sometimes even leaders get confused about how much they are willing to support the change.
For example, executives might say collaboration and teams are at the heart of everything but have a hard time enabling team bonuses and other self-management rewards. If people continue to be judged individually, the “collective” approach is nothing but a speech; it will be deemed just for show. Terrible for the reputation of the change and for the morale of everybody involved.
What can the agile coach do here?
Your job as the agile coach is not to force collective remuneration and management approaches to take place. There are many different ways for implementing collaboration in communities and workplaces. And ultimately, agile is not only about collaboration. Also, there are several degrees of implementation of any idea until everybody can reach a level they are satisfied. If a team cannot even orient themselves consistently around a goal, it’s probably too soon to talk about team-driven bonuses.
What is your job as the agile coach, though, is to make the discrepancies visible. What are behaviors in place that are in contradiction with the change taking place? Why are these things happening? And why are they allowed to happen? What kind of message this sends? Even better if you were there facilitating the discussions that led to the decision they all made. You can reference those moments.
You help the leaders understand that the only way to change culture and values is to live the behaviors that enact them. The culture in place is the culture reflected in peoples actions, which in turn is how they think. So, be courageous and speak about the inconsistencies you see that undermine the agile change.
💡 What behaviors do the leaders of your current workplace want to see happening?
💡 How do they see the discrepancies and what are they prepared to do to close the gap between the dream and the reality?
In conclusion
One of the biggest results you could get for any change is that people listen to each other. When everybody can resist the urge to give a solution alone, better solutions emerge.
That is not to say that a person or a group cannot experiment on their own. In fact, how possible is that in your workplace that, given a direction from leadership, people come up with localized solutions? Say, more speed of delivery means what and can be accomplished how by different departments? What is the 15% tweak that each person or group is prepared to do?
In fact, you might want to read a blog post where I talk a bit how Liberating Structures can be an asset to growing your facilitation skills precisely on that.
Facilitating agile change is never easy, hence why we have a job as agile coaches!
What part of it excites you the most? And what part of it tells you about the next place for you to growth?
