Traditional management is focused on efficiency, compliance, and top-down directives from managers. However, this approach kills creativity, limits employee engagement, and pays little attention to communication and emotional needs. Radical management shifts the purpose to delighting customers, uses self-organizing teams and two-way accountability, and communicates through stories and conversations rather than commands. Work is organized into short iterative cycles driven by customer needs. This approach leads to thriving firms, deep job satisfaction, and delighted customers.

1. Srinath Ramakrishnan
CSP, CSM, PMI-ACP, ICP-Agile Coaching,
PMP

2. Purpose :
Make money
for
shareholders
Managers
act as
―Controllers‖
of
individuals
Work is
coordinated
by
―hierarchical
bureaucracy‖
Main value is
―efficiency‖
Managers
communicate
through
―directives‖
Traditional Management
2

3.  Traditional management
◦ systematically kills all the creative things in organizations such
as Innovation and knowledge management
◦ Limits the engagement and commitment of the employees
◦ Minimizes attention to necessary people issues like consistent
communication and emotional reactions to change.
 ―Only one in 5 workers are fully engaged in his or her
work‖
Source : Deloitte's Center for the Edge Shift index
3

4.  Work has shifted from semi skilled to
knowledge work
 Engagement of the workforce
 How customers were treated
 Managers have to stop doing things to
people and start doing things with
people
4

5. ―Traditional notions of management are great if
you want compliance. If you want engagement,
self direction works better.‖
http://www.yesware.com/blog/2013/02/20/dan-pink-modern-selling-strategies
5

6. Failing Firms
Dispirited
Employees
Frustrated
Customers
What we have now
What we need
Thriving Firms
Deep job
satisfaction
Delighted
customers
6

7. It‘s a set of values, principles and practices that spark
the passion, the excitement, and the insights of the
people who work there
It ignites delight in those for whom the work is done.
It happens to be much more productive than
traditional management.
―Radical management is a
way of managing that can
inspire—simultaneously—
extraordinary productivity,
continuous innovation, deep
job satisfaction and client
delight‖
https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/creating-a-company-
culture-of-joy/
7

8. It is congenial to:
• knowledge management
• innovation
• high-performance teams
• leadership storytelling
8

9. Goal : Delighting
customers
Role: From
Controller to
Enabler
Accountability:
Bureaucracy to
Dynamic Linking
Values : Radical
Transparency
Communication:
From Command
to Conversations
9

10. ―There is only one valid definition
of business purpose: to create a
customer. It is the customer who
determines what a business is. It
is the customer alone whose
willingness to pay for a good or
for a service converts economic
resources into wealth, things into
goods. . The customer is the
foundation of a business and
keeps it in existence.‖
http://www.cgu.edu/images/drucker/peter_drucker/pages/PeterDrucker004_jpg.htm
10

11.  Providing a continuous stream of additional value
to customers and delivering it sooner
 the purpose of the firm shifts from making
money for shareholders to client primacy. The
firm makes money, but this is the result of
delighting the customer, not the goal
◦ Shift from shareholder capitalism to customer capitalism.
◦ shift from inside-out (―You take what we make‖) to
outside-in (―We seek to understand your problems and
will surprise you by solving them‖).
11

12.  Identify your primary clients
 Delight primary clients by meeting their
unrecognized desires
 Explore the possibility of delighting more by
offering less
 Focus on People not Things
 Give the people doing the work a clear line of
sight to the people for whom the work is being
done
12

13.  Net Promoter Score - Fred Reichheld
◦ How likely is that you would recommend out product or
service to your friends or colleagues?
http://www.netpromotersystem.com/about/measuring-your-net-promoter-score.aspx
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14.  Traditional management was designed to
produce consistent performance from largely non-
skilled workers.
 Not suited for innovation
 Bureaucracy can produce outputs not generate
outcomes
 Shift was needed from a controller of individuals
to enabler of self organizing teams
◦ By empowering workers to facilitate collaboration, rapid
learning and innovation
◦ By being accountable to those doing the work and for
removing any impediments that are hindering the work.
14

15. ◦ Organize work in self organizing teams
◦ Keep teams small
◦ Be patient
◦ Hold teams accountable
◦ Recognize performance
◦ Remunerate fairly
15

16.  The group is given responsibility – the team has
the ball
 The team is working together – focused on solving
the problem – taking the ball whole length of the
field
 Ordinary lay people often make better decisions
than experts do
 Diverse groups of problem solvers outperformed
groups of likeminded individuals
16

17. “ In resolving complex problems,
ordinary people make better
decisions than experts do. That
is because cognitively diverse
group of ordinary people do
better than groups of like
minded experts‖
http://www.amazon.in/The-Difference-Diversity-Creates-Societies-
ebook/dp/B003TFELFI/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1407152209&sr=8-8&keywords=scott+page
17

18.  Articulate a compelling purpose in terms of
delighting clients
 Consistently communicate a passionate belief in
the worth of the purpose
 Transfer power to the team for accomplishing
team purpose
 Make the transfer of power conditional on the
team‘s accepting responsibility to deliver
 Recognize the contribution of people doing the
work
 Make sure remuneration perceived is fair
 Consistently use tools and techniques that create
and sustain self organizing teams
18

19.  Bureaucracy is
◦ inherently demotivating
◦ inhibits innovation
◦ not agile enough to delight customers in the modern
workplace
19

20.  Organize work in short cycles or iterations
 Team estimates how much time work will take
 Team decides how much work it can do in an
iteration, and how to do it
 Team measures its own performance
 Define work goals through user stories
 Systematically remove impediments
 Conduct retrospective reviews
20

21.  Toyota‘s goal was to go ―from ‗Order‘ to ‗Cash‘ as
fast as possible at a sustainable pace to deliver
things of value to the customer in shorter and
shorter cycle times … while still achieving highest
quality and morale levels‖.
 Quadrant Homes in US sells the home before
building it and involves the buyer iteratively in
the design and building of the homes. The
customer can choose from multiple footprints and
floor plans.
21

22.  Focus on stakeholders and what is of value to
them
 Consider how to deliver more value sooner and
cheaper
 Decide as late as responsibly possible what work
is to be included as part of each iteration
 Find out more about the client‘s world
◦ Jeff Patton – Grocery Store
◦ Toyota Lexus – Teams sent to California beachfront
22

23.  The goal shifts from making money for the
shareholders – to a broader focus on the values
that will grow the business by generating
innovation and customer delight.
 radical transparency
◦ Display real time information
◦ Set priorities at the beginning of each cycle
◦ Embrace two sided accountability
 commitment to continuous improvement.
◦ Embrace continuous improvement
◦ Align the team‘s interests with the organization
◦ Share, rather than enforce, improved practices
23

24.  Have the team estimate how much time it would
take to complete the task
 Let the team decide how much work to undertake
 Establish a clear line of sight from the team to the
client
 Align the team‘s interest to those of the
organization
 Embrace the need for continuous self
improvement
24

25.  None of the above shifts will be sustained if
management communicates in the traditional
mode of top-down commands, one way messages
that dispirit knowledge workers.
 Interactive communication is characterized by
◦ Authentic narrative
◦ Open ended questions and conversations
25

26.  Use authentic story telling to inspire a passion for
delighting clients
 Deploy user stories as catalysts for conversations
 Practice deep listening
 Give recognition for identifying impediments
26

27. Traditional management Radical management
Delight clients
(& stakeholders)
Purpose of
of the firm
Produce goods and
services
How managers
communicate
Top-down: Tell
people what to do
Interactive: stories, questions,
conversations
How work is
structured
Bureaucracy & hierarchy: Self-organizing teams
Impact on
employees
Only 20% fully
engaged
THINGS
High productivity &
continuous innovation
PEOPLE
How work is
organized
Single big plan: Client-driven iterations
Transparency Tell people what they
need to know
Radical transparency:
27

28.  Where the work is best done alone.
 E.g. writing novels, composing symphonies or being a
lighthouse keeper.
 Where the work has a small knowledge component:
 Not suitable for traditional organizations with mainly
unskilled labour
 Where a public sector organization must be neutral e.g
dispensation of justice is required to be neutral for all
parties.
28

29. Innovative practices at the workplace
http://www.amazon.com/Joy-Inc-Built-Workplace-People/dp/1591845874
https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/creating-a-company-
culture-of-joy/
29

30.  Innovative practices at Menlo Innovations
• Pairing
• High Tech Anthropology
• open and collaborative
workspace
• high speed voice
technology
• daily stand up
• 40 hour work weeks
• pets and babies at work
• making mistakes faster
• doing the simplest thing that
could possibly work
• origami project mgmt
• work authorization boards;
story cards, yarn, and stickers
• estimation without fear
• integrated quality advocacy
• test-driven development
30

31.  Research what makes users successful in their
interactions with an application.
 ―The only way to understand what makes a new
system successful is to study and observe the potential
end users in their native environment‖
 Gather requirements by designing potential solutions
and checking design assumptions with representative
users
 Techniques used
◦ job shadowing
◦ Personas
◦ use cases
◦ hand-drawn screen mock ups
◦ workflow assessments,
◦ high-level screen designs
31

32.  Innovative way of hiring people
 3 basic principles
◦ Drop regular job interviews
◦ Involve existing team
◦ Personality matters
 Goals for recruiting
◦ Don‘t increase headcount, increase team‘s output
◦ Get new hires up to speed quickly
◦ Continue work while interviewing
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33. 1. First interview
◦ All candidates given an overview of XP
◦ Evaluated not on programming skills but ability to think
critically, ask good questions and make their partner feel
good
◦ Given 3 twenty minute exercises – after which
candidates sorted based on team work skills
◦ 15 of those with the strongest team work skills invited
back for second interview
33

34. 2. Second interview
◦ work on actual Menlo tasks by pairing with an existing
employee
◦ Assess technical skills and the candidate‘s fit at Menlo
◦ Candidate gets a feel of what work is being done
3. Make the decision
◦ Ranking based who would make great pairing partners
◦ Letters of offer released to top 8 candidates
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35. http://baohouse.net/post/8076471854/tearing-down-the-cubicle-walls-the-case-for-
open-space 35

36.  Set in a big ―open factory‖ – no walls, offices, cubes or
doors
 Space can be reconfigured regularly as projects end, new
projects begin, or current projects change size.
 Pull-down power and network drops from the ceiling
 counting on teams overhearing one another - exchange
of knowledge across projects is a big factor in their
success
 Client discussions also take place in these open spaces
36

37. https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/creating-a-company-culture-
of-joy/
37

38.  Two heads, two hearts, four hands, one computer
 Pairing
◦ fosters a learning system
◦ builds relationships
◦ eliminates towers of knowledge
◦ simplifies on boarding of people
◦ flushes out performance issues
 Pairs assigned and switched every week
 Lunch ‗n Learn
◦ Deals with a topic related to client work
◦ Build self confidence to present before others
 Give the team permission to learn through pairing
38

39.  http://www.amazon.in/The-Leaders-Guide-Radical-
Management/dp/0470548681/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407153987&sr=8-
1&keywords=radical+management
 http://www.amazon.in/Joy-Inc-Built-Workplace-
People/dp/1591845874/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407154016&sr=8-
1&keywords=joy+inc
 http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/03/07/measuring-what-
matters-from-outputs-to-outcomes-part-3/
 http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/02/27/measuring-what-
matters-from-outputs-to-outcomes-part-2/
 http://stevedenning.typepad.com/steve_denning/2010/11/the-deathand-
reinventionof-management-a-draft-synthesis.html
 http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/02/25/measuring-
businesss-new-bottom-line-customer-delight/
 http://positivesharing.com/2006/09/extreme-interviewing/
 http://www.menloinnovations.com/our-method/high-tech-anthropology
 http://www.infoq.com/articles/agile-team-spaces
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40. Thank you
Email:
Twitter
feed:
ramakrishnan.srinath@gmail.com
@rsrinath
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