The document discusses how leadership culture is the last barrier to achieving truly agile organizations. It argues that many common leadership practices like budgets, plans, and performance reviews are problematic because they involve predicting the future with limited information. They also tend to optimize for the wrong metrics like utilization and presence. The document suggests that "we are the problem" as leaders due to beliefs and behaviors that make the world worse, and that by identifying and stopping anti-agile practices, organizations can become truly agile and make the world better.

1. You’re the Problem.
Why Leadership Culture is the Last Barrier
Charles Randles
charles.randles@gmail.com
@charlesrandles
github.com/CharlesRandles

2. Delivery is a Solved Problem
• It’s Agile.
• Collaborate with your actual customers
• Deliver what they need
• Deliver it frequently
• Learn and adapt as your knowledge increases
• Scrum, Agile….

5. From Agile Team to
Agile Organisation
• What is an agile organisation?
• What does it look like?
• To its customers
• To its people
• To its owners

6. The Agile Organisation
Owners:
Profitable
Competitive
Responsive
Smart risk taking
Transparent
Predictable
People:
Fun
Rewarding
Exciting
Safe
Challenging
Worthwhile
Engaging
“I’m Proud to
Work Here!”
Customers:
Gives me things I
need!
Listens to me
Understands me
Keeps its promises
Is exciting to be a
customer
Adaptive
Delivers value

7. So why is it still hard?
• Us. We’re the problem
• Beliefs and Behaviours that make the world a
worse place.
• By identifying our anti-agile behaviours, we can
make the world better
• Root causes
• Predicting the Future
• Optimising for the Wrong Things
• Managing People

8. Predicting the Future
• Budgets
• Plans
• Performance Reviews
• Common Element: making decisions about our
work from the peak of the pinnacle of ignorance.
Then we act surprised when we turn out to be
wrong.

9. Budgets
When do we commit to our budgets?
When we have the least information.
From “How much will it cost”
To “How much is it worth?”
Go here => http://bbrt.org/

10. Plans
Plans are Great!
“You are wrong” vs “The plan is wrong!”
“The Universe is Defective!”

11. Performance Reviews
“The reality is that constructive
criticism is an oxymoron. All
criticism is inherently destructive
and negative”
- Ray Williams, author “Wired
for Success”
“[Performance reviews are
perceived as] threats to self-esteem
and sense of self-worth in the form
of criticism can feel like threats to
our survival.”
- Daniel Goleman, author “Emotional
Intelligence”
Performance reviews are
"destructive and fraudulent."
This corporate sham is one of the
most insidious, most damaging and
yet most ubiquitous of corporate
activities
Performance reviews "instil feelings
of being dominated”
The practice is more about
intellectual laziness and ego-
building for managers
- Samuel Culbert, Professor
of Psychology, UCLA
“The best kind of performance
review is no performance review”
- Aubrey Daniels, inventor
of “Performance Management”

12. Optimising for the Wrong
Things
• Utilisation – Project Planning Tools
• Presence – Timesheets
• Minimising Blame – Status Reporting

13. Managing People
• “There are people here! I am a manager! I must
manage these people!”
• “Where did we get all these miserable, unhappy,
demotivated people? I don’t remember hiring
them.”

14. Summary
• We have a restricted amount of resources to
expend
• We are spending a lot of those resources on
making the world worse
• We can make the world a better place just by
stopping that
• So do! Find something stupid your organisation is
doing, and stop it.