What companies and management can learn from Agile and its first core value.

Naturally, as an ex-project manager, I have a soft spot for Agile. I love its simple to understand step-by-step philosophy, as well as its flexibility. I love how Agile, way before the global pandemic, foresaw a need to create a work environment where changes are embraced and encouraged.

What I also love about Agile is its incredibly straightforward four values:

1. Working software over comprehensive documentation.
2. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
3. Responding to change over following a plan.

And of course, the very first of the four values that I intentionally skipped:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. So, for example, communicating with your team over introducing multiple apps to “increase productivity”. Or giving your team enough autonomy to determine which tools will help them, instead of imposing spreadsheets that the senior manager thought would “work well”. As well as working hand-in-hand with your colleagues to solve an issue over “in our company, everyone does their own work”. Quite easy to understand, right? But although the value is very clear and simple, it is definitely “easier said than done”.

In fact, it’s quite human to try to “solve” the process first, instead of trying to understand the human. This is what is known as the “traditional approach”. Below are highlighted the differences between traditional approaches and Agile with regards to different project components:

Based on e.g. Nerur, Mahapatra et al. (2005) and Schuh (2004)

As we can see, the main features of the traditional approach seem to correspond greatly with two of Golem’s leadership styles (1): the commanding leadership and the pacesetting leadership, where command and control are the main components. And although they surely have their own benefits at times of crisis, during problems and situations where instant results are needed, they overall contribute to a negative climate. However, analyzing the Agile approach, its principles correlate with, and somewhat combine, Golem’s remaining leadership styles: visionary leadership, affiliative leadership, democratic leadership, and coaching leadership.

The reason I bring Golem’s leadership styles is because of his belief, that high emotional intelligence (further on “EI”) in management is tightly linked to better performance and overall satisfaction, contributing to a positive climate. But that’s not all that high EI is linked to, it’s also linked to the Agile Leader.

But who is an Agile Leader? What makes an Agile leader? According to Carrie Louise Foster, the author of “Developing Agile Leaders” (2), they are: “An authentic and humble individual, who is receptive to ambiguity and connects with others to adopt a tenacious and positive response to the demands of a complex organizational environment”. In other words, as again per Carrie Louise Foster, they are a person, who develops a holistic concept, taking into account leadership vision, systems thinking, creativity, emotional intelligence, tolerance of ambiguity, flexibility, and boldness.

That brings us back to the main question — what can companies and management learn from Agile and its first core value? The answer is: become a better leader and better the interactions.

With regards to better leadership — how can it be achieved? Let’s look into it.

But before we dive into it, here are some stats:

• In a study of over 1,000 workers, 31% reported having quit a job within the first six months. According to the research participants, the top reasons for leaving so soon after starting a new job were poor onboarding experiences, a lack of clarity surrounding job duties and expectations, or a less than stellar boss (3).
• A recent study by CareerBuilder.com shows that a whopping 58% of managers said they didn’t receive any management training. Most managers in the workforce were promoted because they were good at what they did, and not necessarily good at making the people around them better. This statistic obviously unveils a harsh reality. We have a bunch of leaders who aren’t trained on how to lead (4).
• A Harvard Business Review survey reveals 58% of people interviewed say they trust strangers more than their own boss (5).

Wow, right?

Now let’s take a look at the definition of an Agile leader provided above by Foster: “An authentic and humble individual, who is receptive to ambiguity and connects with others to adopt a tenacious and positive response to the demands of a complex organizational environment”. The steps seem rather straightforward. It also seems that by following the definition, one can combat all the above-mentioned issues.

Now let’s dive right in.

Step 1: Practice authenticity. Fred Walumbwa (6), developed a theoretical authentic leadership model with 4 steps, which are:

• Self-awareness: having a clear understanding of who they are and what their strengths and weaknesses are;
• Internalized moral perspective: the ability to behave ethically, have a firm value system, and strong moral compass;
• Balanced processing: acts based on objective evaluation and promotes this approach to others, is aiming to be as unbiased as possible;
• Relational transparency: remaining true to themself, transparent with regards to themselves and others around them.

How to develop authenticity:

• Encourage diversity of thoughts and opinion;
• Ask yourself: “What do I not know?” and “What can I do better?” and follow through on that;
• Questioning whether you are a good leader and truthfully answering that is crucial;
• Focus on self-improvement;
• Engage in frequent feedback and be open to criticism;
• Supporting others in their personal leadership;
• Promote honesty and transparency.

Step 2: Practice humbleness. Although “agility” is now a hot and trending word, the key to becoming a leader that incorporates those Agile beliefs is far less sexy: it is humility.

According to Rainer Neubauer, Andrew Tarling, and Michael Wade (7): “Being humble means learning to accept, welcome, and leverage the knowledge of team members, peers, and employees for the benefit of the business”.

How to develop authenticity:

• Reflect on mistakes made without judgment and determine lessons learned, openly talking about mistakes is also crucial;
• Let go of the desire to control, embrace ambiguity;
• Let go of micromanagement and let people do their jobs;
• In addition to the above mentioned, let go of fears of failure;
• Put others first, build meaningful relationships, encourage others and keep an open mind;
• Listen to all ideas, no matter how ridiculous you think they are, be curious.

Step 3: Work on ambiguity. Ambiguity is more than just embracing change and surviving challenging circumstances, it is the ability to bounce back and lead organizational revival, restoration, and renewal.

How to develop ambiguity:

• Have an open mind, even with regards to road bumps and challenges;
• Occasionally step out of current issues and problems and evaluate risks;
• Facilitate the growth of an adaptive mindset, both your own and your team’s;
• Challenge negative thinking and the desire to “keep things as they are no matter what”.

Step 4: Develop tenacity. So the tendency to strive for achievement, practice self-discipline, and maintain focus.

How to develop tenacity:

• Understand your goals and which ones are worth it even despite the risks;
• Encourage others to achieve their own goals and establish support networks;
• Learn from failure instead of shifting the blame on others;
• In addition to the above mentioned, allow room for failure on all levels.

Step 5: Don’t forget about positivity. Studies prove that positivity in teams leads to high performance, higher satisfaction, and higher motivation, as well as creates a great environment inside of the team (8).

How to be more positive:

• Introducing workplace factors that make people feel more positive in the workplace.
• Work on interpersonal and communication skills;
• Start seeing challenges as opportunities;
• Practicing positive attitudes, beliefs and practices helps;
• Focus on well-being, both your own and your team’s;
• Embrace creativity, accept challenges, and encourage brainstorming.

These steps pretty much sum up what it takes to be a good leader, who relies on Agile principles and who has an Agile mindset.

But what about interactions? What can a “better”-ed leader do about them?

Although there is no accepted formula and no strict procedure (that’s Agile in a nutshell!), the steps highlighted below can serve as a reference to heading in the right direction.

Now the steps…

Step 1: Encourage participation and collaboration.

Allow ideas to flow, allow the team to self-organize, allow them to take initiative (in fact, encourage it!), allow them to not be afraid to reach out to one another, ask for feedback, communicate and help each other out.

Don’t scold your team for taking a 10-minute coffee break. Encourage them to talk, share ideas, laugh, and learn more about each other. As a leader, make sure to create an environment where everyone can talk freely, without being afraid of getting ridiculed, discouraged, or patronized.

Step 2: Make yourself available.

A lot of companies implement processes or tools because people can’t or don’t want to make themselves available to interact with others.

It can be really easy to hide behind emails or tools in the belief that these things are more efficient, but things will happen much faster if you just speak to your colleagues about the idea or suggestion you have, or by listening to them and understanding their needs or motivations.

Why are people afraid of talking to others? My guess would be — because it takes you out of your comfort zone. It forces you to let your control down because you cannot control the words and actions of another. There is also a fear of failure and a natural desire to avoid discomfort. Not to mention, that in environments where transparency and availability aren’t encouraged, oftentimes people tend to assume things about others, like: “If I go to my boss now and ask for help, she will yell at me” and “I can’t go tell this idea to my CEO because they are bound to hate it or feel it’s a waste of time”.

So making yourself available and encouraging people to reach out and communicate, without them having to worry about anything, is incredibly crucial not only in an Agile-like environment but any healthy one, for the matter.

Step 3: Improve how you give and receive feedback

One example of where valuing individuals over processes is vital is when you’re encouraging staff to give more regular and constructive feedback to one another.

Feedback in itself is a powerful tool. The beauty of it? It’s free, works both ways, and is incredibly valuable to all involved. However, it mustn’t be used to belittle and degrade, rather encourage and improve. This is why working on healthy ways of how to give and receive feedback is incredibly beneficial on all levels. Meaning, not only in the common “up to down” direction (from boss to the manager, from manager to the worker, etc.), but also “down to up” (for example, from manager to the boss) and any other direction that is possible within the company (for instance, worker to worker).

Summing up, Agile’s first value is about people. In fact, I believe it to be the most important value of them all. I genuinely believe that any company, whether it considers itself agile or not, should keep the first value in mind:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.

Because what good are processes and tools without the people?

P.S. As a small bonus for scrolling to the end of the article — here are some book recommendations for those, who wish to learn more about feedback, establishing a people-oriented culture, and developing an Agile-like leadership mindset.

References:

1. Goleman, Daniel, “Leadership that Gets Results” Harvard Business Review. March-April 2000 p. 82–83.
2. Foster C.L. Developing Agile Leaders. Researchgate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325757353_Developing_Agile_Leaders
3. Dickson, G. 20 Surprising Employee Retention Statistics You Need to Know. Bonusly. https://blog.bonus.ly/surprising-employee-retention-statistics#:%7E:text=2.,within%20the%20first%20six%20months.&text=According%20to%20the%20research%20participants,a%20less%20than%20stellar%20boss.
4. Nordstrom, D. S. A. T. (2018, March 9). 10 Shocking Workplace Stats You Need To Know. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidsturt/2018/03/08/10-shocking-workplace-stats-you-need-to-know/?sh=64e60a7af3af
5. A Global Survey on the Ambiguous State of Employee Trust. (2016, July 22). Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2016/07/a-global-survey-on-the-ambiguous-state-of-employee-trust
6. Walumbwa, F. O., Avolio, B. J., Gardner, W. L., Wernsing, T. S., & Peterson, S. J. (2008). Authentic leadership: Development and validation of a theory-based measure. Journal of Management, 34(1), 89–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206307308913
7. Wade, M. R., Tarling, A., & Neubauer, R. (2018, September 24). Redefining Leadership for a Digital Age. IMD Business School. https://www.imd.org/research-knowledge/reports/redefining-leadership/
8. Proof That Positive Work Cultures Are More Productive. (2017, May 8). Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2015/12/proof-that-positive-work-cultures-are-more-productive