Nurturing Indian agile leaders with insights from Indian culture and mythology - Anand Murthyraj

AGILE GURUGRAM 2017
@ Agile Network India , All Rights Reserved. www.agilenetworkindia.com
ANAND MURTHY RAJ
NURTURING INDIAN AGILE LEADERS
WITH INSIGHTS FROM INDIAN
CULTURE AND MYTHOLOGY
Blinklane Consulting NV

AGILE GURUGRAM 2017
Who am I ?
1. 20+ years of Industry experience
2. 6 years of experience in Agile Transformation
3. Trained close to 700 particpnats in SAFe
4. Work for Blinklane Consulting NV
(http://www.blinklane.com/)
5. Clients worked – Hewlett Packard, Symantec, SKF,
Healtyhways and Philips
6. Currently part of the Global Agile Transformation Program - Coach
@ Philips
7. Part of a NGO www.nisvartha.org helping 700 rural talented
students to see and realize their dreams by providing Education

AGILE GURUGRAM 2017
Inspiration and Learning
This presentation has been greatly
influenced by the work of Mr. Devdutt
Pattanaik in the form of these three books
and his multiple videos in youtube

AGILE GURUGRAM 2017
What is Mythology?
1. Old Indian scriptures written thousands of years ago
2. Written in the form of stories
3. Communication of ideas through forms, stories and
scriptures
4. Ideas that people respected are shared from generations
to generations
5. How you interpret is left to individual– its reflective and
not prescriptive

AGILE GURUGRAM 2017
Why Mythology?
Peter Senge, who has done a seminal work is the Fifth
Discipline. He talks about learning organisations and
organisational development and in reference to India and
China he said “My intuition is they (India and China) will move
somewhat together but in very distinctive ways. But I think
the thing that will be really common to both of them will be
the fact that they won’t be able to do this without connecting
to their heritage. They will have to develop a confidence that
they can do this as Indians and they can do this as Chinese.
They have learnt a lot from the West but they don’t have to
copy, they cannot create a Chinese or Indian version of a
Western model. “
“The Western model itself is basically bankrupt. It does not
give enough attention to the human side of development.”

AGILE GURUGRAM 2017
What is Lean Agile Leadership?

AGILE GURUGRAM 2017
Leadership Journey in Agile transformation
1. Matsya (Water) - Generate ideas, Creative and
Chaos
2. Kurma (Tortoise) – Leadership Support
3. Varaha ( Wild Boar) – Confusion exists, culture
germinates
4. Narasimha (Man/Animal) – Confusion exists,
formation stage
5. Vamana avatar (small boy) - Measure and proceed
6. Parashuram (Angry young man)- Strict and
Discipline
7. Rama (Leader and sacrifice) - Follow the rules
8. Krishna (King maker) – Bend the rules
9. Buddha (Nirvana) – Trusted organization
10.Kalki (Destroyer) - Kill the system and rebuild

AGILE GURUGRAM 2017
Leadership Coaching - The Agile Organization
1. 33 Million gods in Hinduism
2. Different Devatas in the system
• Ista Deveta – Personal
• Gruha Devata – Department
• Grama devata – Regional
• Kula devata – Organization
• Vana devata – Larger Geography
3. One Bhagwan and multiple Devetas
4. Alignment is achieved when Devatas are
kept Happy
5. Yagman does the Yagna, All other
Devatas get “Involved and Engaged”
6. No Tatasthu without Swaha – Leaders
need to give in order to get.

AGILE GURUGRAM 2017
Leadership Coaching - Metrics, Measurement and Growth
1. Yama – God of death - Measurement
2. Subjective vs Objective
3. Always want to see and measure
everything in an objective way
4. Measurement without unclear reference
5. Measurement is done with investing on
system and not on people
6. Productivity measure – Outcome vs
output (Cycle time vs Velocity)
7. Kama vs Yama – Need to strike balance

AGILE GURUGRAM 2017
Leadership Coaching – Narayan vs Narayani ; Durga vs Shakthi
1. Individuals and Interaction over Process
and Tools
2. Grow the Nirguna – Invisible -Narayan
• Risk taking ability
• Intangible and not measureable
• Use data to validate the gut feel
3. Focus on Saguna – Visble - Narayani
• Tangible
• Measureable
• Metrics and Data
4. Hire and build organizations with People
who posses and grow “Shakthi” and not
people who have “Durga” (certifications,
degrees and bank balance)

AGILE GURUGRAM 2017
Leadership Coaching – “Kartha vs Karya Kartha”
People can grow only when they are
1. Empowered to think of solutions
2. Given autonomy to decide the right
things for the customer
3. Given the Power to think out of the box
4. Given the platform to think and come
prepared
5. People need to “learn” to create
learning organizations; but people
learning alone is not enough
6. Ability to try take risks; Fail fast

AGILE GURUGRAM 2017
Leadership Coaching – Role of Seduction
1. Agile Transformation is Seduction
2. Leaders gets attracted to multiple
seductions in organizations
3. Leaders – posses desire or burn desire
(Kama vs Yama)
4. Leaders need to be physically come to
market place and lead the transformation
5. Leaders may not need transformation but
organizations need leaders for growth,
change and innovation

AGILE GURUGRAM 2017
Leadership Coaching – Learning techniques
1. Hansei attitude – SEEING vs
DOING
2. Reflection must be from the
past
3. Learning from multiple
hypothesis
4. Teaching by realization
7. Mental Models and Perception
8. Learning by decentralization
9. Tough/Hard decisions to
impart learning

AGILE GURUGRAM 2017
Leadership Coaching – The Secret of Learning Leaders
1. Dying man also demands respect to share –
Everyone
2. “Humility of a learner and not arrogance of
learned”
3. Become hungry to learn from teams
4. Become students worth of knowledge
5. Witness the tricks of mind - Mindset
6. Teaching by realization
7. Leaders and Organizations
• Teachers vs students
• Students vs teachers
• Getting knowledge vs securing wealth
• Material Wealth vs Intellectual wealth

AGILE GURUGRAM 2017
Leadership Coaching – Crisis Management
1. Chaos, confusion leads to Crisis
2. Chaos  survival teaches us to innovate
3. Expansion the gaze and vision results in expansion of business
4. Accept defeat and make progress
5. Experiment, Retrospect and Learn
6. Is the war worth it? Successful or Victorious ?

AGILE GURUGRAM 2017
Leadership Coaching – Observation and Darshan
1. Darshan – Power of Visibility
2. Keep your eyes open
3. Apply Lean and GEMBA principles into
practice
4. Look for hidden emotions, beliefs,
values and principles
5. Observation and Action
Rule Breaker
Rule Follower
Rule Follower
Rule Breaker

Q&A

Nurturing Indian agile leaders with insights from Indian culture and mythology - Anand Murthyraj

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

More from Innovation Roots

More from Innovation Roots (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Nurturing Indian agile leaders with insights from Indian culture and mythology - Anand Murthyraj