Leading Through Environment Design

Copyright © 2013 Big Visible Solutions
Leading Through
Environment Design
Michael Hamman, Principal Agile Consultant (mhamman@bigvisible.com)
George Schlitz, Principal, Founder (gschlitz@bigvisible.com)

If
you

want
to

build
a
ship,

don't
drum
up

the
people
to
gather
wood,
divide
the
work,

and
give
orders.
Instead,
teach
them
to
yearn

for
the

vast
and
endless
sea.

-‐-‐Antoine
De
Saint-‐Exupery,

Author
of
The
Li'le
Prince

2

3

Brief Recap of Last Webinar…..

Broader
OrganizaGon
Capability

Last
Webinar….

4

Time
Performance
TEAM FOCUS

A
HolisGc
View
of
the
OrganizaGon

5

•  Leadership and management styles and beliefs
about what constitutes effective leadership and
management
•  Structures, processes and systems by which work
gets done and is organized
•  Collective beliefs, perspectives and habits by which
people make sense of things
•  Product Management/Strategy
•  Lean, continuous planning
•  Product Development/Delivery
•  Multiple Team/Programs
•  Kanban
•  Scrum
•  Automated Testing
•  TDD, CI, BDD
•  User Stories, Estimation

A
HolisGc
View
of
the
OrganizaGon

6

management
•  Kanban
•  Scrum
•  TDD, CI, BDD
Most Agile
Implementations
Focus
Here

Last
Webinar….

7

management
•  Kanban
•  Scrum
•  TDD, CI, BDD
Most Agile
Implementations
Focus
Here
Focus Across All
Five for
Sustainable
Organizational
Agility

Broader
OrganizaGon
Capability

Last
Webinar….

8

Time
Performance

From
DIRECTING

#
3:
Shifting
The
Paradigm…

Telling
Motivating
Incenting
Coordinating
Last
Webinar….

LEADING…….

#
3:
Shifting
The
Paradigm…

To
CATALYZING

Sources: Leadership Agility, Bill Joiner and Stephen Josephs; Action
Inquiry, William Torbert et. al.
Visioning
Facilitative
Empowering and Enabling
Seeing the Larger Context
Last
Webinar….

LEADING…….

11
Designing Environments: A
Foundational Practice of Catalytic
Leadership
Last
Webinar….

12

What is
‘Environment
Design’? Why ‘Environment
Design’?
The Principles of
Environment
Design
Four Practices of
Environment
Design
Start

End

Today’s
Webinar:
Deeper
Dive
Into

Environment
Design

13

Managing
By
Trying
to
Change
People’s
Behavior

Direct, incentivize,
Tell, motivate

14

Managing
By
Altering
How
World
Occurs
For
People*

* Steve Zaffron, Dave Logan, The Three Laws of Performance 2009

15

Managing
Through
the
Design
of
Environments

Environments
are

•  Physical

•  Social

•  AestheGc

•  Intellectual

•  EmoGonal

•  Technological

16

Design
is

•  Sense-‐and-‐Respond

•  Experimental

•  Acute
Sensing

•  Tight
Feedback

•  HolisGc

17

•  AestheGc

“Design
is
a
baale
between
losing
the
dream

but
naming
the
thing,
and
losing
the
name

while
keeping
the
dream
that
sGrs
others
to

make
the
dream
happen”

-‐-‐
Karl
Weick

18

19

Why Environment Design?

Why
the
Term
‘Environment
Design’

20

•  Thomas Leonard, Coach Training
•  The Portable Coach
•  Systems Thinking
10 years ago – started to bring this approach into
my coaching work with large companies

Why
the
Term
‘Environment
Design’

21

•  New agile teams got up to speed faster
•  Managers were better able to manage
appropriately
•  Organizational challenges came to be easier to
resolve
•  People self-organized around creating (and
asking for) what they needed to facilitate
desirable agile change.

22

A
Systems
Thinking
View
of
OrganizaGons

SIMPLE
Cause->Effect
Cause-Effect Relations well-understood
Do X and you’ll ALWAYS get Y
Standard operating procedures: best practices
Example: Call Center
SENSE-CATEGORIZE-RESPOND
COMPLICATED
Cause-------------------------->Effect
Cause-Effect Relations still linear, but much
harder to find
Requires high degree of expertise
Example: Building a Ferrari engine
SENSE-ANALYZE-RESPOND
COMPLEX
Cause<->Effect
Cause-Effect Relations are mutual
Do X one time, get X; but next time, you might
get T
You can only know something after the fact
Therefore, an experimental approach is better
Example: Product Development; most
management and organizational situations
TRY-SENSE-RESPOND
CHAOS
Cause -??-Effect
Cause-Effect Relations are unknown
No way to discern what’s happening
Best approach: act decisively to try to move the
system into one of the other quadrants (e.g.
Complex)
Example: 9-11
ACT-SENSE-RESPOND
Based on David J. Snowden and Mary E. Boone, A Leader’s Framework
for Decision Making, Harvard Business Review, Nov. 2007
Where most
management
situations live

Managing
for
Change
in
a
Complex
System

Since

1.  We
can
only
see
things
in
retrospect

2.  Complex
organizaGons
are
whole
systems

3.  Complex
organizaGons
are
complex
networks

23

Therefore

1.  We
need
to
take
a
Try-‐Sense-‐Respond
approach

2.  We
need
to
be
able
to
engage
the
whole
system

3.  We
need
to
help
people
see
and
align
with
the

bigger
picture
we
are
trying
to
create

24

Managing
for
Change
in
a
Complex
System
Is

About
Building
InsGtuGonal
Capability

25

OrganizaGon

Structures

OrganizaGon

Culture

Leadership

Styles

InsGtuGons
Are
Comprised
Of
Three
Domains

26

The
organizaGonal

structures,
rules
and

policies
which
facilitate

how
work
gets
done
and

how
results
get
produced.

InsGtuGons
Are
Comprised
Of
Three
Domains

27

CollecGvely
held
beliefs,

values
and
assumpGons

which
determine
how

people
think
and
how
they

behave.

InsGtuGons
Are
Comprised
Of
Three
Domains

28

How
leaders
and
managers

lead,
inspire,
direct
and

moGvate
others.

InsGtuGons
Are
Comprised
Of
Three
Domains

29

By
building
insGtuGonal
capability
we
are

eﬀecGvely
crahing
the
environment
in
which

people
live
and
work.

But,
why
the
Term
‘Environment
Design’

30

A
Simple
Example:

We
Reﬂect
On
and

Improve
How
we

Work
through

RetrospecGves

31

Photo provided under Creative Commons by Improve IT

32

OrganizaGon

Structures

OrganizaGon

Culture

Leadership

Styles

Using
Our
Earlier
Lens…

33

OrganizaGon

Culture

Leadership
Style

•  Leaders
publicly
reﬂect
on
their
own

successes
and
failures
–
and
improving

•  Leaders
demonstrate
acGve
learning

•  It
is
safe
to
admit
failures

•  There
is
a
constant
drive
for

improvement

OrganizaGon

Structures

•  Structures
support
people
gathering

to
reﬂect

•  Team
spaces

•  CollaboraGve
technology

34

•  Leaders
and
managers
hypothesize

capabiliGes
which
are
likely
to
lead
to
the

realizaGon
of
declared
insGtuGonal

outcomes
and
goals.

For
Example

35

Outmaneuver
the

compeGGon
by
implemenGng

high-‐value
product
features

faster
than
they
do

Goal

We
are
able
to
experiment

with
new
product
ideas,

quickly
idenGfying
what
is

worth
invesGng
in
and
what

is
not

Capability

•  Leaders
support
experimentaGon
<L>

•  Fast
failures
are
celebrated
<C>

•  Org
structures
facilitate

experimentaGon
<S>

•  Lean
startup
vocabulary
is
used
<C>

Environment

Design

36

Practices of Environment Design

37

Empower/Enable
‘Champions’
TackletheBig
Elephants
Improving Org’l
Conditions
Orient Shared Vision
PracGces
of
Environment
Design

ENVIRONMENT

Copyright © 2013 Big Visible Solutions 38
Committed
Wants it, will make it happen, creating/changing “laws”
Greater
Level
of
Engagement

Source: “The Fifth Discipline” Senge
Commitment
Levels…

Compliant
Sees benefits in general. Does what’s expected, bare
minimum
Noncompliant
Does not see benefits, does not do it
The
Need
for
Engaged
Employees

39

OrienGng
Shared
Vision

The Laminated Vision Statement

Is
Declaring
a
Vision
Enough?

The
problem
is,
with
so
many
concerns
and

commitments…

…
it’s
hard
for
people
to
connect
in
a
meaningful

way
with
abstract
vision
statements

Is
Declaring
a
Vision
Enough?

Declare
vision,

Champion.

People
become

weighed
down
by

exisGng

organizaGonal

rules,
structures,

and
beliefs...

Rather
Than
Promoting
a

Declared
Vision

Agile
Leaders
Orient
Associates

Around
a
Shared
Vision

Therefore…

When
people
are

invited
to
parGcipate

in
the
creaGon
of
a

vision…

they
come
to
own

that
vision.

Venues
for
OrienGng
Shared
Vision

Brownbags
Pizzas
Town hall meetings
Informal 1-on-1s

IdenGfy
and
Empower/Enable
Champions

Thinking through..
Ongoingly
Improve
OrganizaGonal
CondiGons

Agile

Teams

Blocks,
impediments,
bad behaviors,
inefficiencies
Management

Team
How
might
our
thinking

and
leadership
styles
be

impeding
the
capacity
for

eﬀecGve
agile
delivery,

product
development,

and
organizaGonal

agility?

What
assumpGons,
collecGvely

held
beliefs,
or
percepGons
of
our

values
are
blocking
our
ability
to

imagine
new
ways
of
working?

What
org.
structures,
rules,
or
policies,

which
once
may
have
been
needed,

have
now
become
boKlenecks
to

eﬀecGve
agile
delivery?

Ongoingly
Improve
OrganizaGonal
CondiGons

ORGANIZATIONAL
ENVIRONMENT
Agile

Teams

Blocks,
impediments,
bad behaviors,
inefficiencies
Management

Team

Agile
Leadership
Principles

How
are
management
and

leadership
styles
impeding

the
capacity
for
self-‐
organizaGon
and
distributed

ownership?

What
assumpGons,

collecGvely
held
beliefs,
or

percepGons
of
our
values
are

blocking
our
ability
to

imagine
new
ways
of

working?

What
org.
structures,
rules,
or

policies,
which
once
may
have

been
needed,
have
now

become
boKlenecks
to
eﬀecGve

agile
delivery?

Tactical : solve immediate problems
Strategic: Craft and build upon longer
term goals and directions
Transformational: Alter aspects of the
environment to help people improve
themselves

Tackle
the
Big
Elephants

Next: Transformation Beyond Agile Teams,
Part III

THANK YOU!!

Leading Through Environment Design

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