Is your road to agility being stabbed in the back? Are you in the crossfire of office politics hell? Did the new guy at the top just kill your Agile efforts? Are your senior leaders busy playing the blame game? Or worse, does the thought of untangling the political emotions and acrimony cause you to lose your hair, and fail to suppress that tick you’ve developed over the past 6 months? Check out Culture Hacking!

1. Dangerous Of
fi
ce Politics
Murders Agility
1
@CatherineLouis
“Whenever I go into our Sprint Review with our new
VP, I dunno, I just get this funny feeling….”

2. @CatherineLouis
Welcome!
2
Schedule: 9:15am start, 75 min workshop
• Intro
• Sharing stories about o
ffi
ce politics
• Hands-on:
Let’s address some stinky o
ffi
ce politics
Lets make a hack
Let’s test the hack
How to
fi
nd me:
Catherine Louis - (919) 244-1888
email cll@cll-group.com
@catherinelouis
linkedin: linkedin.com/in/catherinelouis

3. @CatherineLouis
Catherine Louis
Specialty: Helping established companies move fast and innovate, and
helping start-ups organize for pro
fi
t
20+ years of development experience (software, hardware, services,
operations) in complex product development
Extensive business development experience in technical marketplaces
worldwide
Volunteer: 17 years as SAR II and K9 trainer and handler with Wake
Canine Search and Rescue
3

4. @CatherineLouis
What is Of
fi
ce Politics?
4
Me: An emotionally driven process of working out goals, making
decisions and taking action in a workplace where people have
competing interests and personalities.
Merriam-Webster: The activities, attitudes, or behaviors that are
used to get or keep power or an advantage within a business or
company.

5. @CatherineLouis
Common problems we see:
5
Power plays in the upper echelons wreaking havoc on
product plans
Reward/recognition policies driving bad behavior and
ultimately impacting deliverables
Placing your own interests ahead of any obligation to the
team/organization/company
Not trusting your team, colleagues or leaders
Customer loyalty, even when it’s the wrong customer
Running your team into the ground
Refusing to recognize the legitimacy of di
ff
ering points of
views

6. @CatherineLouis
Why this happens
6
Power plays: where folks are competing for something that is
in short supply.
Reward and recognition: where what/why we are rewarding
people is rewarded is driving bad behavior
Process: We’ve always done things this way

7. @CatherineLouis
Power Plays
7
4 VP’s competing for the same pool of people: their IT
experts.
Immediately after Sprint Planning ended we were
interrupted with 4 new hot problems.
@catherinelouis

8. @CatherineLouis
Power Plays
8
“Don’t worry about anything while you’re on
vacation, I’ll take care of your team….”
@catherinelouis

9. @CatherineLouis
Power Plays
9
@catherinelouis

10. @CatherineLouis
Power Plays
10
“Hey that product show case event was great!”
“What event?
@catherinelouis

11. @CatherineLouis
Reward and Recognition
11
“But I want my bonus!”
@catherinelouis

12. @CatherineLouis
Process
12
@catherinelouis
“We’ll be under budget and early with a slight change in plans.”

13. @CatherineLouis
What is Culture Hacking?
13
“Culture hacking can be understood as in
fi
ltration into
systems, …is a critical even subversive game with
culture codes, messages and values.”
- Hedinger, Com&Com, culturehacking.wordpress.com/culture-hacking
Hacking is messing around with a highly complex
system until you
fi
nd a simple way to make it do
things it can’t do now
- Dave Logan, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-3-best-leadership-hacks/

14. @CatherineLouis
How to hack a culture
14
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojQT6U-gRAM

15. @CatherineLouis
Remember these people?
15
What do you think the underlying tension was?
@catherinelouis

16. @CatherineLouis
“Stop The Sprint” Black X Card
16

17. @CatherineLouis
Remember Mr. Oranger?
17
@catherinelouis
What do you think the underlying tension was?

18. @CatherineLouis
Persona for Mr. Oranger
18
@catherinelouis

19. @CatherineLouis
19
Observe and describe the culture
Find the crack
Make art
Find others
Catalyze
Exploit language
Institutionalize, let go,
fi
nd another (rinse and repeat)
Now it’s your turn

20. @CatherineLouis
Hands-on time!
20
6 minutes in groups of 4, share your absolute worst
example of o
ffi
ce politics, something you’re dealing
with right now.
Choose one example to hack. (If you
fi
nish your hack
early please pick a second example.)

21. @CatherineLouis
Find the “crack”
21
A crack is something which feels uncomfortable. It’s
the underlying tension, perhaps a con
fl
icting idea or
assumption which would be revealed by or could
serve as a leverage for the hack.
5 minutes: With the example you have chosen,
discuss:
Where is there the most tension?
What is at the heart of this tension?
If you have time left, work on a second one!

22. @CatherineLouis
Make art
22
8 minutes: Ideate/draw/create: How could you
perhaps exploit this tension?
Art supplies: Lego bricks, play dough,
fl
ip charts,
markers, ROLE PLAY…

23. @CatherineLouis
Share
23
3 minutes each hack:
Share your results including how you might test your
hack.
Look for feedback - ask
are there others with this problem?
how else might we test this?

24. @CatherineLouis
Possible Next Steps
24
Observe and describe the culture
Find the crack
Make art
Find others
Catalyze
Exploit language
Institutionalize, let go,
fi
nd another (rinse
and repeat)
See bizculturehackers.com

25. @CatherineLouis
What is your 1 key take-
away?
25
What can you apply in the real world?

26. @CatherineLouis
Thank you!
Please keep in touch, call/text/email any time for help!
26
Mobile: +1.919.244.1888
Email: cll@cll-group.com
Twitter: @catherinelouis
Web: cll-group.com & www.podojo.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/catherinelouis