January 7, 2025 • 32 mins
Unlock the secrets of Agile transformation with industry expert Jim Calco as we explore how Agile culture extends beyond software development to drive innovation and enhance business agility. Learn how adopting an Agile mindset can align business and technology teams, leading to more effective and profitable outcomes. Jim reveals how leveraging individual strengths through tools like the Clifton Strengths assessment can foster stronger, more engaged teams.
Leadership plays a pivotal role in successful Agile transformations, and we discuss the importance of thorough assessments to identify strengths and gaps before embarking on a transformation journey. Discover how Agile methodologies can create a vital dialogue between leaders and employees, addressing challenges like change fatigue and maintaining trust through iterative adjustments and clear communication. Understand how transparency and partnership are essential in overcoming uncertainty and stress in the workplace.
Explore the nuances of leadership strategy within Agile frameworks, distinguishing between traditional management and true leadership driven by influence. With Jim’s insights, we tackle strategic thinking and the implementation of effective frameworks like OKRs and SMART goals. Delve into the dynamics of team culture and mindset, where fostering a positive, collaborative environment is a shared responsibility. Embrace the generational shift towards autonomy and the continuous attention needed for team dynamics to ensure business success.
Thanks for listening and be on the lookout for more episodes. To learn more, visit us at www.guntergroup.com, or explore additional content on our LinkedIn page. Be sure to subscribe so you can follow along with the release of each episode.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Thoughtful Action, tangible Results,
bettering your Business apodcast from the Gunter Group.
Here we believe that everybusiness decision has the power
to spark transformative businesschange.
We're not just about theories.
We deep dive into strategicissues that impact organizations
.
Thank you for joining us todayas we explore critical topics in
(00:21):
the business world.
Our goal to arm you withactionable steps to deliver real
business results.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to Thoughtful Action, tangible Results
Bettering your Business, wherewe explore the challenges,
opportunities and best practicesinfluencing business success in
today's fast-paced world.
I'm your host, nate Ferguson,and today we're tackling a topic
that continues to evolve andshape how companies operate,
specifically, the culture ofagile and what it means for
leaders trying to level up andtransform their organization.
(00:49):
Now, what most people think ofAgile?
They often think of softwaredevelopment, but Agile is much
more than that.
It's a mindset, an iterativeapproach that can drive broader
business outcomes and create amore resilient, adaptable
organization.
Whether you're in IT, marketing, product development, these
principles can unlocksignificant value.
But here's the thing Agile isn'tjust about faster delivery or
(01:09):
process tweaks.
It's deeply rooted in cultureand people, and today I'm joined
by Jim Calco, a seasonedconsultant and expert in Agile
transformations.
Jim has worked acrossindustries helping organizations
navigate change and embed anAgile mindset into their DNA.
He's seen firsthand how Agileculture can boost employee
engagement, foster innovationand ultimately lead to better
(01:30):
business outcomes.
We're going to dig into all ofthat today and more.
Jim, it's great to have you onthe podcast, and I'd love to
kick things off by asking you toshare a bit about yourself and
your background, and then we'lldive in.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Hey, nate, thanks, glad to be here, appreciate it.
So I've been with the firm for11 and a half years.
I found my way into consultingearly after the military.
I was super fortunate to meetMike early on in this journey.
It's just been a great ride,getting a chance to do a ton of
work across a variety ofindustries, like you mentioned,
and stumbling into Agile Atfirst, working with some teams
(02:06):
and science and everything'slike wow, people can really make
this more complicated than itneeds to be.
So I think for me and for us,really trying to be able to have
a pragmatic approach to Agileshouldn't be that hard.
It should be fairly intuitiveto really get to the intent of
that business agility.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, you're speaking my language there, jim.
That's great.
So to set the stage for today,I'd like to start with
acknowledging what I mentioned abit earlier that Agile is often
associated with softwaredevelopment, but you think
there's more to it and it'sreally an iterative approach to
achieving those broader businessoutcomes.
So can you share with us howthis mindset shift can benefit
companies beyond just thatfaster project delivery or IT
(02:42):
development teams?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah, absolutely Nate .
You know, like I mentionedbefore, having that pragmatic
approach to really make surethat we're delivering results.
Again, that's why we do that.
At the end of the day, if we'renot hitting our goal or our
target, we're just kind of doingscrum for scrum's sake or save
for save's sake or whatever youknow.
So I think having that sharedmindset between business and
technology teams are soimportant.
(03:03):
82% of organizations say thatthey're matrixed in some sort of
way.
It's hard to get things done sowhen we're all in it together,
working with the same mindsetand processes, that's how we can
collectively get our best workdone.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, it's more than just how they do business, but
how they think of doing theirbusiness together.
Yeah, that's a great mindset,yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
And I think oftentimes I know it's cliche,
but like we're seeing it right.
A lot of companies are digitalcompanies, even healthcare,
financial services, healthcare.
A lot of those clients aregoing through types of
transformation and they need tobe on the same page to get to
provide better services, betterproducts and better experiences.
I know Bader and Angela andsome of their work with the
Digital Transformation StarterKit they call it.
(03:46):
Like 80-some percent ofcompanies or consumers rather
look for not just products andservices, but also go to those
companies that have goodexperiences.
Again, that just doesn'tautomagically happen.
That's when thoughtful IT,business, product data,
engineering, design everybodycomes together to make sure that
(04:08):
they're working on the sameprocess but also have that
development of trust where theyunderstand what's being said,
what's not being said butimplied through those
interpersonal skills.
So having that level ofpersonal knowledge and trust
really important as well.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah, that's great.
Matt talked quite a bit aboutdigital transformation and if
you haven't listened to thatepisode yet, I definitely
recommend going back and doingthat.
Jim, I'm glad you mentionedtrust in that last little bit
there.
Can you dive a little bitdeeper on building trust in
teams?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah, yeah, no, totally.
You know, I think for me trust,like you mentioned, super
foundational For me.
I like to incorporate theClifton strengths.
You know I'm a certified coachso it's kind of my bias, but the
concept is really justleveraging what does a person
naturally do good at and how doyou do more of that?
So when people are doing theirbest work, they're feeling good
about that because they'replaying to their strengths as a
team, collectively, we can startto leverage each other's
(04:59):
strengths and we also find outwhen teams are using their
strengths they're more engaged.
Those organizations that usestrengths are more profitable.
I think Gallup says somethinglike 12% more profitable, 8.9%
more engaged in their work.
So that's incredibly importantand how I like to do that is
give people the assessment, ifthey haven't already taken it,
(05:20):
and talk about the results.
We'll do an exercise that'scalled the team grid where
basically in a matrix form,outlines what are everyone's top
34 strengths and it givespeople the opportunity to kind
of see where is everybody else'scollective strengths.
So it's a little bit ofawareness exercise, but also
like who's your go-to.
We did this with the TGGleadership team.
Laura and I did a couple ofyears ago, and Angela is big and
(05:42):
restorative, which is kind ofproblem solving, and it was
great to know that.
So, like, whenever I'm on aclient or whenever there's a
particular problem, I need to goto someone that has that
restorative strength.
It's like, hey, angela, can Ipick your brain for a few
minutes?
So there's a practicalcomponent to that, in addition
to just that overall like, hey,let's get to know each other,
let's start to build that trustso that we can collectively do
(06:03):
some of the best work together.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
That's great.
Do you have another example ofa story with a client where you
did an exercise like this, ormaybe one of your favorite
experiences using theCliftonStrengths?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
I will.
So I was doing an Agileworkshop.
It was a two-day workshop witha client in Southern California
in the footwear and apparelspace and the first day of the
workshop we talked about kind ofpragmatic Agile.
You know for them where theywere at in their maturity is
still in their infancy, so it'snot we're going to go all into
scaled agile or whatever.
So we kind of right size theprocess for their program team
(06:36):
on how do we deliver in a waythat works for them in a
consistent manner.
So that was day one.
And then day two was how do weleverage our strengths and have
going through some of theseexercises to practice and to
develop that awareness of allright so-and-so is good with
communication, so-and-so is goodwith some of these influencing
skills?
How, as a program manager, areyou being more influential
Because you don't have thatauthority to make decisions and
(06:58):
stuff like that?
It was a great opportunity,nate, because folks got to have
that awareness of themselves andtheir team but also how they
could bring that into their workso that they can continue to do
their best work throughout thisagile process.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
What's the most obvious thing that you see when
the team or leaders lack trust?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Oh boy, processes fail, things don't work.
There's micromanagement youcould have the best strategy,
you could have the smartesttacticianers, but if you don't
have that fundamental element oftrust in people, the plan will
fail or it's going to be harderthan it needs to be.
That's why, especially in agile, where it requires
collaboration, it requires thattrust, not just that technical
(07:40):
proficiency and everything else.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I want to talk a little bitabout the intersection of
agility and business or digitaltransformations now.
So, before starting a bigtransformations, what are some
of the foundational elementsthat you think organizations
need to think about?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah, yeah, well, I mean shameless promotion.
I think starting with a digitaltransformation starter kit is
great, I think not just sayingthat, but I think kind of doing
an assessment to see where areyou at Again, what are you
naturally already doing?
Well, that aligns to that, andthen what are those gaps?
And the assessment helps meetyou where you're at, to help do
some of that you know, so youcan have start to put that plan
(08:17):
and not to realize halfwaythrough your when you it's like
boy, I wish we would havefocused more on culture at the
beginning.
Or I wish we had a betterchange management strategy at
the beginning, because doing achange management strategy in
the middle of transformation,there's a lot of catch-up to do.
So I think starting with thatis a great thing.
Again, shameless plug over, no,totally.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I think it helps folks walk into things with eyes
wide open or maybe clear a bitof the fog or haze if you're in
the middle of a difficultsituation.
It doesn't have to be a bigtransformation or project, but
yeah, that type of assessment,especially when you can have a
trusted partner with maybe anoutside perspective, exactly,
exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
So, aside from that, you know, to the first part of
your question, I think it reallystarts with engagement.
You know, I think you need tohave that engagement and Agile
helps create that ad, that thathighly engaged workforce, right.
It creates two way dialoguebetween leaders and employees.
It makes sure that people arestarting to understand ways of
working and developing thattrust, because otherwise, when
(09:17):
you don't have that, the workgets hard, people lose interest,
people get frustrated.
So again you're losing half ofthat two-way dialogue.
It just becomes top-down, whichisn't going to be successful,
because you need people at theclosest to the work, closest to
the data, engaged in thedecision-making process, and
leaders need to be comfortableand trust those people that they
know their job, they're good attheir job and that they have
(09:40):
the best interests of thecompany at heart as well.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, absolutely, I think, the aspect of people in
high collaboration and hightrust situations.
I think you're painting areally good picture for how
Agile can play a role in thisand what leaders can do to help
adopt a mindset, a shift towardsagility, and how we can
practically approach helpingthem with that.
Yeah, so let's talk a littlebit more about engagement.
(10:03):
You mentioned that with leadersand their teams and managers
and maybe their individualcontributors.
So I think engagement isespecially key when it comes to
handling those organizationalchanges.
You mentioned that a bit, socan you talk a little bit about
change fatigue and how you'veseen some of the agile
principles applied in situationsto improve those outcomes for
folks?
Yeah, yeah, I think two thingscome to mind.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yeah, I think two things come to mind, nate.
I think the first.
There's a study by DonaldMeichenbaum and the crux of the
study was how do people react instressful situations,
especially when there's a lot ofuncertainty?
So he took two groups.
One group received 20 strongelectrical shocks, the other
group consistently.
They received those shocksconsistently.
The other group received 20shocks, but it was three strong
(10:46):
ones and 17 less strong ones,intermediate, moderate ones, and
the group that fared worse wasthe group that received three,
not 20.
Why, because of thatinconsistency they're always
worried about, is this next onegiving me the strong one?
That sense of not being incontrol really took a toll on
(11:07):
that group, as opposed to the20,.
They knew it was coming, theyknew it was gonna be hard, they
knew it was gonna be painful,but they were at least ready for
it.
So they actually fared better,which I thought was really
interesting.
I think the other thing too iswhen you look at stressful
situations, it takes a toll onthe body.
(11:28):
There's another body of research.
It was published, I forget, ahandful of years ago in the
Journal of Occupational Healthand Psychology.
Not that I read that in myspare time, but I came across
that, and when folks are goingthrough these stressful
situations, there's asignificant uptick in people
leaving work, people taking PTO,people taking more sick time,
people quiet quitting.
So again, when an organizationis going through change, having
a strong change manager, goingthrough a lot of transformation,
it's important to have thatchange management communication
(11:49):
strategy.
It's important for leaders tobe clear on the buy-in why are
we doing this?
What's the goal?
So that people feel likethey're part of that change too,
because then they have thatcontrol to the Mike and Bob
study, but also be able tocreate that partnership to where
they can be partners in thesolutions and provide the
details based on the data andeverything else.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I totally see how acknowledging some of the agile
principles of acknowledgingchange and only making decisions
with the information you haveand really embracing that
iterative approach helps youadjust along the way If you see
folks burning out or if you seethat lack of engagement, or if
you see situations where thereshould be high trust and it's
not functioning.
You adjust along the way If yousee folks burning out or if you
see that lack of engagement, orif you see situations where you
you know there should be hightrust and it's not functioning.
You have all the process stuffdown, you have all the you know
(12:32):
the bits and the data pipelineshooked up, but it's just not
working because of that peopleaspect.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yeah, yeah and especially that, that fear.
I love that you said that, nate, because there's also this
element of fear.
Right, maybe the pipelinesaren't hooked up.
Do you want to tell your bossthat when you know he's
breathing down your neck, he orshe is breathing down your neck
or they're maybe not someonethat you have that comfort there
isn't that?
Maybe we'll talk about it later, but just again, there's the
environment, and if a leaderdoesn't have that right
(12:57):
environment set up, okay, we'regonna quietly fix this or we're
gonna dismiss it, not going tocare because maybe we're already
looking for our next job.
So having that space and havingthat trust, being able to have
hard conversations, is reallyessential in a transformation
like that.
And I think when you'reconstantly talking to someone
(13:18):
and you're in dialogue, two-wayconversation with them, you're
talking about the good, bad, theugly.
They know you're coming from agood spot, they know that you're
putting your best foot forward.
So I think that's reallyimportant having that trust and
to have those hard conversations.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah, and it sounds like early and transparent and
authentic is definitelyimportant when it comes to
leaders and their role incommunicating that change.
100% yeah, 100% Great.
So with any type oftransformation or changing the
way that an organization doeswork, it comes with a lot of
change in a lot of differentways.
People process, technology, allthose typical things, but what
(13:54):
are some of the things that theleaders need to specifically be
thinking about in order to besuccessful?
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Great question.
Two things, a couple of things,but I think the first thing is
let's be clear on the role ofmanagement versus leadership.
I know a lot of folks know that, but I think just the kind of
level set.
You know a manager is someone offormal authority, right, that's
a person who you report up toand everything else.
A leader can be a manager, butit could also be an individual
contributor.
A leader is someone that buildsrelationships, that helps
(14:21):
communicate ideas, that doesn'thave to use formal authority.
They use influence to get stuffdone.
So you can be a program manager, for instance.
Again, program managerstypically don't have other
program managers reporting tothem to get work done right.
A scrum master obviouslydoesn't have that.
If you look at scaled agile,you look at RTE, again, you know
you could pick your frameworkproduct managers right, they
don't.
They don't technically.
(14:42):
The development teams typicallydon't report up to them.
But they have to be influential.
They have to be able to havethose soft skills, the good
people skills.
They have to care and the teamhas to receive that and then
reciprocate that as well.
So a little bit of along-winded answer.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
That's great, Jim.
Can you now put that in contextof strategy for leaders and
what they should be thinkingabout and focusing on?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Yeah.
So I think a couple things.
When it comes to strategy, Ithink leaders should spend more
time on that.
You know Stephen Bacon andTracy Bell, two of our
consultants that are part of ourstrategy practice.
They did some great researchand I think part of the research
is like 85% of leaders spendless than an hour a month on
strategy.
50% say they spend no time atall.
(15:25):
Another study that they cited45% of nearly 800 executives
said their strategic plans failbecause they fail to track
progress on the execution ofthose things.
So I think it's important forleaders to understand and be
engaged in that strategy andthis isn't one and done,
especially as part oftransformation, where it is
going to be complex, it is goingto be hard and that
(15:45):
storytelling is so critical.
I think it's also important forleaders to be clear, because
that's how kind of subordinateteams can start to ladder their
goals up to the higher objectiveand goal right.
This is where you can start totalk about different frameworks
like OKRs, objectives and keyresults.
Folks can have MBO managed byobjective.
(16:07):
They can have goals, objectives, strategies and tactics, ghost
smart goals, et cetera.
So when we're clear on thestrategy, then other teams can
be empowered to say okay, ifthis is our goal, this is how my
work then ladders into that.
So that's, I think, one part ofthat.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Does that make sense?
So far, that totally makessense.
It's thinking about what youmentioned about change
management and communication andtrust.
I see strategy as forming thefoundation of the content of
what you're going to talk about100%, because once they know the
strategy, then that's where theroles and responsibilities come
in.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
And I think that's kind of the second thing,
because not everyone can be thequarterback right.
Everyone has to have adifferent role on that team.
Everybody has to know whatthey're doing to contribute to
that goal.
That also helps.
Again, thinking back to the 80%of organizations are matrixed.
It's hard to get work done.
Who makes a decision?
Who has a voice?
The thing we used to do with oneof our clients is who gets a
(16:57):
voice versus a vote.
Everybody gets a voice, but noteverybody gets that vote.
We need to have one decider.
If it's overly matrixed, maybetwo.
So this is where a RACI or arapid decision framework could
be helpful, where you and yourteam talk about the framework,
talk about different use casesor different scenarios, who's
(17:17):
responsible, who's accountable,who's consulted, who's informed,
and then continue to revisitthat as a team.
This isn't a one and doneexercise Until the team has that
maturity to agree to thatframework.
You know it's going to takesome time.
So I think that's where, like arapid or a racy could really be
helpful to cut through thematrix to make sure folks know
what they're.
(17:37):
Who gets that voice or who getsthat vote?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
And how do some of the frameworks that folks might
be familiar with in the agilespace like be useful in this
scenario?
Speaker 3 (17:47):
They can be useful.
So I think enterprise agileframeworks scaled agile,
disciplined agile, less, etcetera I think those can be fine
.
But again, in order to achievethe goal or the objective, you
may not need overallorganization transformation to
achieve those goals.
So those frameworks bring adifferent process, they bring
different roles.
They bring different rolestructure.
I remember I was talking to aclient in Southern California in
(18:10):
a hospital and they're goingthrough this transformation.
One of the people said thatwell, we're bringing on product
managers.
Those are basically just likeproject managers, right?
No, fundamentally no, it's adifferent role, it's a different
skill set, it's a differentmindset.
You need to make sure that whenyou're going through these
transformations, that you'reactually bringing in the right
roles that you need.
So if you need a scaled agile,great, but if you don't and that
(18:31):
can be done in a more hybridfaction, that's fine too.
Product model is kind of asimilar thing too.
Some folks we're on clientsagain down in SoCal we're
talking about going into theproduct model a little bit of a
smaller team.
They don't necessarily need to.
They can and they can grow intoit and it's great for growing
and scaling because it gives thepredictability.
It gets like all right, whatare the job descriptions we're
going to need?
What are the skills going to beneeded If we need to do
(18:53):
up-leveling, we have a frameworkBefore they're at.
It's like we can do a littlebit of hybrid and it works for
that team high-performing team.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
So you had to choose a favorite, like what do you
think you see works most often?
Or what are the situations yousee?
This is my jam.
This is what I love doing.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
I have the most success when I see teams and
this goes back a little bit tomy military days.
But I really like the team ofteams approach Because, for
those that aren't familiar, teamof teams is really kind of a
cross-functional tiger team setof approach where teams that are
closest to the work have theautonomy to make those decisions
.
General Stanley McChrystal, hisconsulting firm, wrote a book
about it.
It's a great concept.
I think that's a great way toget work done.
(19:31):
The problem is you need to havea lot of trust.
Previous client up here in theNorthwest, a really great agile
thinker, great leader.
I really enjoyed working withhim and we were talking the one
day and he was like asked me ifI read the book Team of Teams.
I told him oh yeah, years agoand we geeked out a little bit
on that and he's like I wouldlove to try that model here and
I was like let's do it.
So I set up a Miro board andkind of mapped out what are the
(19:53):
roles and who are the people sowe could actually start to apply
it.
And then we started trying todo so.
But I say trying because itultimately failed because the
organization was going throughway too much change.
There wasn't a lot of trust,there wasn't a lot of
communication.
So, yes, academically it workedwell, or it should have worked,
but it just didn't because wedidn't have a lot of those
(20:15):
fundamentals.
There's duplication of roles,there's just the laundry list
went on.
So I think, when the conditionsare right, a team of team
approach is great.
You know, I'm smiling becausethere's also this concept of
MacGyvering as a strategy and Ithink it can be actually very
relevant to digitaltransformation.
So a couple of professors thatI went to University of Portland
to get my MBA Dr Meckler, drHalloway over the years stayed
(20:36):
in touch with them and Irecently met up with them and
they were talking about.
The paper that they justpublished is about this concept
of MacGyvering.
Growing up, love, the showcontinued to use the phrase that
sort of thing.
So it's a fun article but alsovery relevant and a very
pragmatic approach.
Basically, they explore thecontext of the kind of
necessitating rapid innovationand entrepreneurial action with
immediate impact.
(20:57):
Right Looking at, like the foodservices space, that's an area
where they really care about and, as part of that focus,
focusing on kind of some ofthese other concepts of
effectuation, causation,improvisation and bricolage as
part of that get-to-marketapproach.
So as I was thinking about thisand we were talking, I was like
this is very relevant to digitaltransformation, because when
(21:19):
you start small, you need to beable to start small so that you
can start to scale and growthroughout the organization.
And we know no plan is going tosurvive the punch to the face
Again the Mike Tyson reference,right.
So if you at least have enoughto where you can start to figure
out what's our goal, how do westart to like with whatever
we've got?
How do we start to improviseand everything else, getting our
way to achieving that goal?
(21:39):
You know so that once we, oncethat we get to a spot, to where
we're successful, okay, now wecan take a step back.
Let's retro.
How do we start to scale this?
How do we start to apply thisin a different way or not, but
at least we still just didn'twaste a bunch of time going
through this transformation andhave nothing to show for it.
How can we be very practicaland pragmatic to get after this
(22:02):
goal as part of thetransformation?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
And as you talk through that, Ikept coming back to a phrase
I've heard before doing the bestwith what you have, where
you're at right now, for theoutcomes you're trying to
achieve right and then justice.
Where's that paperclip when youneed it?
(22:24):
Right, absolutely so.
You talked a bit about strategyand the roles and
responsibilities that leadersneed to be thinking about, but
before we move on to the nextsort of big question leaders and
having the right culture andthe mindset themselves can you
talk about that?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah, nate, I think that's great because I think we
could talk about strategy, wecould talk about roles and
responsibility we touched on it.
But again, just to continue tounderscore the importance of
just for leaders to have rapportAgain, this isn't just managers
with their direct reports, butleaders having that rapport,
talking to folks, having thatconnection, having room for a
healthy debate, having hardconversations, is really
(22:54):
important and there's a lot ofdifferent ways you can go about
doing that.
Again, I mentioned having aretro right.
You could have a team agreement.
This is a way that we all agreeto work and we're going to
continue to do that and then, asnew person comes on to the team
, we could adjust our teamagreement to make sure that we
all have the same understandingways of working right Again
across business and IT teams orwhoever that team is made up
that cross-functional team ismade up of.
(23:14):
So I think that's importantbeing able to retro on that.
Hey, nate, we agreed to not havemeetings after five o'clock,
but you're sending me meetingsat six and seven o'clock.
Can you please stop doing that?
I'd never do that.
I know, but you know those types.
Having a space for those typesof conversations to make sure
that we are on the same page isextremely important, I think,
also being mindful of how wecommunicate.
(23:36):
There's a lot of research outthere we're not going to talk
about, but, just like theculture of dignity, creating
psychological safety, nonviolentcommunication, you know, being
able to avoid kind of theescalation of assumptions, and
things like that are reallyimportant for leaders to have.
25% of folks say that they're25% of employees feel like
they're not heard, not heard.
(23:58):
So just doing those littlethings can really go a long way
to create that culture of trust,so that when it comes to the
strategy, when it comes to theroles and responsibilities, we
have that space to do our bestwork together.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah, almost like building blocks, right Starting
with that, the trustcommunication.
It's only then that you canbuild into these bigger, more
sophisticated growth, real, big,audacious sort of outcomes and
goals that organizations areshooting for.
So I've worked with you longenough to know that you're big
on culture.
We've talked about it a lottoday, but talk to me a little
bit about the intersection ofbusiness agility and
transformation and culture, andwhy is it so important?
(24:27):
Here, in cultivating thatmindset.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Yeah, yeah, I think you know.
Culture, having a strongculture, isn't just a perk,
right, it's essential tobusiness success and when teams
are engaged in their work,they're empowered to make
decisions.
They know their opinions count,they know that their work is
having meaningful impact on thebottom line.
Everyone's happier andeveryone's making money or at
least, hopefully they should be.
So I think that's reallyimportant.
(24:49):
I think also, when you have andthe only way you really do that
is really through that agile,iterative fashion we're all in
this together, we're all takingthose steps together fashion
we're all in this together,we're all taking those steps
together and we're alsomitigating a lot of those risks
as opposed to maybe a big bangtype of release or big bang type
of transformation.
I think there's a couple ofbodies of research out there
that are kind of in the back ofmy mind.
I think one is from WynnConsulting.
(25:09):
They've done some fantasticresearch about really showing
the correlation of thatproductivity paradox.
When you have good businessculture along with results,
they're not separate, and whenyou have that, really part of
their formula is, this willaffect your bottom line.
There's a monetary numberaround that when 70% of
employees are not engaged intheir work.
(25:32):
That's 70% of less productivitythat you can be getting.
That translates literally tothe bottom line.
Out of part of the researchthat they've done, 9% of
companies that were able tooutperform on those metrics on
high business and people metricshad 28% higher return on
capital and 8.5% attrition.
So, again, when you're focusingon business, when you're
(25:55):
focusing culture, when you'refocusing on results, good things
happen.
It's a proven approach.
Additionally, part of theirresearch can recognize what are
the warning signs.
So, as a leader or as a manager, what's hindering your business
performance and making surethat?
How do we get ahead of some ofthese things before it really
catches up?
So, again, if half theorganization, or 75% of the
(26:15):
organization, is just there toget a paycheck, doesn't have
skin in the game.
That's less transformation,that's less work, that's less
value, that's getting delivered.
To be clear, though, it's atwo-way street, right, it's not
just all employees are checkedout and it's employees are the
problem, absolutely not.
It's very much that leaders owethat to their teams.
They owe the direction, theyowe the guidance, they owe that
(26:36):
roles and responsibilities, theyowe that space to have those
conversations.
You're seeing generationaltrends, too, nate, where folks
want more of that they don'twant to be micromanaged.
They want to be given.
What's my goal, what's myobjective, what's my role?
Let me go do that and if I needhelp I'll ask.
So the more leaders can createthat space and do that,
employees can do their best work.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
So do that employees can do their best work.
So again, very much abi-directional, two-way
conversation.
Yeah, it takes a lot to fosterthat, not just from the
beginning but throughout anorganization's lifetime.
In a team's together time weknow those stages of team
formation and whatnot.
It's things you got to payattention to around the whole
life cycle.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Exactly, I love that you said that because, again, I
did a lot of research, I've beendoing a lot of research, a lot
of numbers, I've been doing alot of research, a lot of
numbers.
But, like I think, gallupproduced a study where it said
70% of people leave theirmanager, not necessarily their
company.
So the importance of a managerhaving that a formal manager
right, not just the leader, buthaving that formal manager
that's productive and one-on-one, having a conversation, feel
(27:33):
like someone cares about them atwork.
It's super important because,even if the overall company is
maybe not clear on the strategy,that's where you as a manager,
you as a leader, can absolutelyhave that positive impact on
that person for the bettermentof that person, but also for the
betterment of the company.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
And I think, for the avoidance of doubt, we're not
just talking about culture, likefree pizza Fridays or those
sorts of things that might beparodied in movies and stuff.
But what I hear from you, Jim,in talking a lot about this, is
the individual relationshipsmatter and the context of the
organization and theeffectiveness of the team and
those things really contributeto the trust between individuals
(28:08):
and that leads to the team'strust and then scale that up to
the team of teams right.
If you have that type ofenvironment where individually
and at a team level you havethat trust, there are some great
things that can be done.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah, absolutely Absolutely, and kind of continue
that thread.
Right, like when you think ofan organization, how do as an
organization, how do you startto build that culture right?
Gallup identified what theycall the Agile Eight.
Right, cooperation, speed ofdecision making, trial tolerance
, empowerment, technologyadoption, simplicity, knowledge
sharing, innovative focus.
Those are all things that youneed to have as part of that
(28:42):
agile culture.
So again, not the free pizzaFridays and that sort of thing,
although it's great if you'regluten-free, dairy-free, like me
, sometimes it makes it a littlehard.
Salad's fine too, but when youhave that right culture to do
your best work and again deliverresults.
Again, when you look at theAgile 8, that's not fluff,
that's real work, that's realinnovation.
It's getting in front ofcustomers and saying, okay, how
(29:03):
does this work?
How does this work?
Does this land, does thisexperience land, does this
product land, does this serviceland, so incredibly important?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
And I'm sensing a bit of a sort of approach from both
angles.
Right, we've about the leader'srole, responsibility where this
weighs on their shoulders asfar as a culture that embraces
the agile principles and whatthey can do with their teams,
but it's also the folks have tobe interested in working in this
way and want to have that.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
I think the point yeah, absolutely not to cut you
off.
I think that point is you haveto have skin in the game.
Everyone has to have skin inthe game.
Everyone has to be committed todoing this work and committed
to being successful andcommitted to the excellence that
it's going to take to get thatwork done.
It's going to be.
It's a long game, as you know.
It's a long game, but they haveto be committed to each other
to do that and it starts at thatpersonal level and scales from
(29:50):
there.
That's great.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
So, jim, what are some of the things you want
folks to walk away with, or tonot forget, or remember, or
first steps to take?
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Yeah.
So I think the first thing isAgile just doesn't mean you
talked about this at thebeginning, right?
Agile just doesn't mean, likeyou talked about this beginning,
right.
Agile just doesn't mean aniterative approach to developing
software, but it's truly apeople-based, iterative approach
and mindset that's focused onan outcome for everyone
throughout the organization,from the leaders down to how the
tactical teams work.
Right?
Again, it's not just scrum,it's not just these teams
(30:32):
working over here.
They're going to workiteratively.
I'm going to continue.
It has to be together and ithas to be that shared mindset.
So it's not just about softwaredevelopment, it's about
people-based getting work doneto achieve that goal right, that
common goal, sharedunderstanding.
I think the second thing is anagile mindset is an approach to
achieve higher employeeengagement, I think, which is
absolutely critical for thatoverall successful
(30:54):
transformation.
It starts from the top down andalso goes bottom up right, it
has to be that two-way approach,like we've talked about.
I think the last thing, again,it requires trust, trust with
individuals, trust across theteams throughout the
organization.
Trust is earned.
It's, again, not just thetechnical proficiency, it's not
just the follow-through, it'spart of it, it's a big part of
it, but it also has that humancomponent.
(31:15):
Can you trust that person whenthings go sideways, when they
have those hard conversations?
Because then you walk out ofthat feeling like, oh, I feel
great, I feel good.
I think about the work, I thinkabout my military experience, I
think about the teams that I'vedone some of my best work.
Those were not easy days.
Those are hard days with hardclients, but you walk away
feeling like, wow, you have adeeper connection, you have more
(31:39):
pride in your work and peoplejust feel better and selfishly,
people reminisce about thosedays right when you have those
kind of components and it startswith that people element.
So I think keeping that in mindas part of the overall Agile
process is really important.
The mindset and the people arevery important.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
That's where we started and I think that's a
great note to go out on today.
Jim, thanks for being with ustoday.
This has been fun for me, a lotto think about, very complex
but also very practical.
Thanks for joining us.
Happy to Happy to yeah.
So for Jim Calco, this is NateFerguson.
Thanks for joining us onThoughtful Action, tangible
Results, bettering your Business.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
We'll talk to you next time.
Thanks, this has beenthoughtful action, tangible
results presented by the GunterGroup.
To discover how the GunterGroup can help your organization
maximize its potential, visitguntergroupcom.
Thanks for listening and don'tforget to subscribe on your
favorite podcast platform tostay updated on our latest
content.
Welcome to Thoughtful Action, tangible Results,
bettering your Business apodcast from the Gunter Group.
Here we believe that everybusiness decision has the power
to spark transformative businesschange.
We're not just about theories.
We deep dive into strategicissues that impact organizations
.
Thank you for joining us todayas we explore critical topics in
(00:21):
the business world.
Our goal to arm you withactionable steps to deliver real
business results.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to Thoughtful Action, tangible Results
Bettering your Business, wherewe explore the challenges,
opportunities and best practicesinfluencing business success in
today's fast-paced world.
I'm your host, nate Ferguson,and today we're tackling a topic
that continues to evolve andshape how companies operate,
specifically, the culture ofagile and what it means for
leaders trying to level up andtransform their organization.
(00:49):
Now, what most people think ofAgile?
They often think of softwaredevelopment, but Agile is much
more than that.
It's a mindset, an iterativeapproach that can drive broader
business outcomes and create amore resilient, adaptable
organization.
Whether you're in IT, marketing, product development, these
principles can unlocksignificant value.
But here's the thing Agile isn'tjust about faster delivery or
(01:09):
process tweaks.
It's deeply rooted in cultureand people, and today I'm joined
by Jim Calco, a seasonedconsultant and expert in Agile
transformations.
Jim has worked acrossindustries helping organizations
navigate change and embed anAgile mindset into their DNA.
He's seen firsthand how Agileculture can boost employee
engagement, foster innovationand ultimately lead to better
(01:30):
business outcomes.
We're going to dig into all ofthat today and more.
Jim, it's great to have you onthe podcast, and I'd love to
kick things off by asking you toshare a bit about yourself and
your background, and then we'lldive in.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Hey, nate, thanks, glad to be here, appreciate it.
So I've been with the firm for11 and a half years.
I found my way into consultingearly after the military.
I was super fortunate to meetMike early on in this journey.
It's just been a great ride,getting a chance to do a ton of
work across a variety ofindustries, like you mentioned,
and stumbling into Agile Atfirst, working with some teams
(02:06):
and science and everything'slike wow, people can really make
this more complicated than itneeds to be.
So I think for me and for us,really trying to be able to have
a pragmatic approach to Agileshouldn't be that hard.
It should be fairly intuitiveto really get to the intent of
that business agility.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, you're speaking my language there, jim.
That's great.
So to set the stage for today,I'd like to start with
acknowledging what I mentioned abit earlier that Agile is often
associated with softwaredevelopment, but you think
there's more to it and it'sreally an iterative approach to
achieving those broader businessoutcomes.
So can you share with us howthis mindset shift can benefit
companies beyond just thatfaster project delivery or IT
(02:42):
development teams?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah, absolutely Nate .
You know, like I mentionedbefore, having that pragmatic
approach to really make surethat we're delivering results.
Again, that's why we do that.
At the end of the day, if we'renot hitting our goal or our
target, we're just kind of doingscrum for scrum's sake or save
for save's sake or whatever youknow.
So I think having that sharedmindset between business and
technology teams are soimportant.
(03:03):
82% of organizations say thatthey're matrixed in some sort of
way.
It's hard to get things done sowhen we're all in it together,
working with the same mindsetand processes, that's how we can
collectively get our best workdone.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, it's more than just how they do business, but
how they think of doing theirbusiness together.
Yeah, that's a great mindset,yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
And I think oftentimes I know it's cliche,
but like we're seeing it right.
A lot of companies are digitalcompanies, even healthcare,
financial services, healthcare.
A lot of those clients aregoing through types of
transformation and they need tobe on the same page to get to
provide better services, betterproducts and better experiences.
I know Bader and Angela andsome of their work with the
Digital Transformation StarterKit they call it.
(03:46):
Like 80-some percent ofcompanies or consumers rather
look for not just products andservices, but also go to those
companies that have goodexperiences.
Again, that just doesn'tautomagically happen.
That's when thoughtful IT,business, product data,
engineering, design everybodycomes together to make sure that
(04:08):
they're working on the sameprocess but also have that
development of trust where theyunderstand what's being said,
what's not being said butimplied through those
interpersonal skills.
So having that level ofpersonal knowledge and trust
really important as well.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah, that's great.
Matt talked quite a bit aboutdigital transformation and if
you haven't listened to thatepisode yet, I definitely
recommend going back and doingthat.
Jim, I'm glad you mentionedtrust in that last little bit
there.
Can you dive a little bitdeeper on building trust in
teams?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah, yeah, no, totally.
You know, I think for me trust,like you mentioned, super
foundational For me.
I like to incorporate theClifton strengths.
You know I'm a certified coachso it's kind of my bias, but the
concept is really justleveraging what does a person
naturally do good at and how doyou do more of that?
So when people are doing theirbest work, they're feeling good
about that because they'replaying to their strengths as a
team, collectively, we can startto leverage each other's
(04:59):
strengths and we also find outwhen teams are using their
strengths they're more engaged.
Those organizations that usestrengths are more profitable.
I think Gallup says somethinglike 12% more profitable, 8.9%
more engaged in their work.
So that's incredibly importantand how I like to do that is
give people the assessment, ifthey haven't already taken it,
(05:20):
and talk about the results.
We'll do an exercise that'scalled the team grid where
basically in a matrix form,outlines what are everyone's top
34 strengths and it givespeople the opportunity to kind
of see where is everybody else'scollective strengths.
So it's a little bit ofawareness exercise, but also
like who's your go-to.
We did this with the TGGleadership team.
Laura and I did a couple ofyears ago, and Angela is big and
(05:42):
restorative, which is kind ofproblem solving, and it was
great to know that.
So, like, whenever I'm on aclient or whenever there's a
particular problem, I need to goto someone that has that
restorative strength.
It's like, hey, angela, can Ipick your brain for a few
minutes?
So there's a practicalcomponent to that, in addition
to just that overall like, hey,let's get to know each other,
let's start to build that trustso that we can collectively do
(06:03):
some of the best work together.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
That's great.
Do you have another example ofa story with a client where you
did an exercise like this, ormaybe one of your favorite
experiences using theCliftonStrengths?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
I will.
So I was doing an Agileworkshop.
It was a two-day workshop witha client in Southern California
in the footwear and apparelspace and the first day of the
workshop we talked about kind ofpragmatic Agile.
You know for them where theywere at in their maturity is
still in their infancy, so it'snot we're going to go all into
scaled agile or whatever.
So we kind of right size theprocess for their program team
(06:36):
on how do we deliver in a waythat works for them in a
consistent manner.
So that was day one.
And then day two was how do weleverage our strengths and have
going through some of theseexercises to practice and to
develop that awareness of allright so-and-so is good with
communication, so-and-so is goodwith some of these influencing
skills?
How, as a program manager, areyou being more influential
Because you don't have thatauthority to make decisions and
(06:58):
stuff like that?
It was a great opportunity,nate, because folks got to have
that awareness of themselves andtheir team but also how they
could bring that into their workso that they can continue to do
their best work throughout thisagile process.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
What's the most obvious thing that you see when
the team or leaders lack trust?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Oh boy, processes fail, things don't work.
There's micromanagement youcould have the best strategy,
you could have the smartesttacticianers, but if you don't
have that fundamental element oftrust in people, the plan will
fail or it's going to be harderthan it needs to be.
That's why, especially in agile, where it requires
collaboration, it requires thattrust, not just that technical
(07:40):
proficiency and everything else.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I want to talk a little bitabout the intersection of
agility and business or digitaltransformations now.
So, before starting a bigtransformations, what are some
of the foundational elementsthat you think organizations
need to think about?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah, yeah, well, I mean shameless promotion.
I think starting with a digitaltransformation starter kit is
great, I think not just sayingthat, but I think kind of doing
an assessment to see where areyou at Again, what are you
naturally already doing?
Well, that aligns to that, andthen what are those gaps?
And the assessment helps meetyou where you're at, to help do
some of that you know, so youcan have start to put that plan
(08:17):
and not to realize halfwaythrough your when you it's like
boy, I wish we would havefocused more on culture at the
beginning.
Or I wish we had a betterchange management strategy at
the beginning, because doing achange management strategy in
the middle of transformation,there's a lot of catch-up to do.
So I think starting with thatis a great thing.
Again, shameless plug over, no,totally.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I think it helps folks walk into things with eyes
wide open or maybe clear a bitof the fog or haze if you're in
the middle of a difficultsituation.
It doesn't have to be a bigtransformation or project, but
yeah, that type of assessment,especially when you can have a
trusted partner with maybe anoutside perspective, exactly,
exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
So, aside from that, you know, to the first part of
your question, I think it reallystarts with engagement.
You know, I think you need tohave that engagement and Agile
helps create that ad, that thathighly engaged workforce, right.
It creates two way dialoguebetween leaders and employees.
It makes sure that people arestarting to understand ways of
working and developing thattrust, because otherwise, when
(09:17):
you don't have that, the workgets hard, people lose interest,
people get frustrated.
So again you're losing half ofthat two-way dialogue.
It just becomes top-down, whichisn't going to be successful,
because you need people at theclosest to the work, closest to
the data, engaged in thedecision-making process, and
leaders need to be comfortableand trust those people that they
know their job, they're good attheir job and that they have
(09:40):
the best interests of thecompany at heart as well.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, absolutely, I think, the aspect of people in
high collaboration and hightrust situations.
I think you're painting areally good picture for how
Agile can play a role in thisand what leaders can do to help
adopt a mindset, a shift towardsagility, and how we can
practically approach helpingthem with that.
Yeah, so let's talk a littlebit more about engagement.
(10:03):
You mentioned that with leadersand their teams and managers
and maybe their individualcontributors.
So I think engagement isespecially key when it comes to
handling those organizationalchanges.
You mentioned that a bit, socan you talk a little bit about
change fatigue and how you'veseen some of the agile
principles applied in situationsto improve those outcomes for
folks?
Yeah, yeah, I think two thingscome to mind.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yeah, I think two things come to mind, nate.
I think the first.
There's a study by DonaldMeichenbaum and the crux of the
study was how do people react instressful situations,
especially when there's a lot ofuncertainty?
So he took two groups.
One group received 20 strongelectrical shocks, the other
group consistently.
They received those shocksconsistently.
The other group received 20shocks, but it was three strong
(10:46):
ones and 17 less strong ones,intermediate, moderate ones, and
the group that fared worse wasthe group that received three,
not 20.
Why, because of thatinconsistency they're always
worried about, is this next onegiving me the strong one?
That sense of not being incontrol really took a toll on
(11:07):
that group, as opposed to the20,.
They knew it was coming, theyknew it was gonna be hard, they
knew it was gonna be painful,but they were at least ready for
it.
So they actually fared better,which I thought was really
interesting.
I think the other thing too iswhen you look at stressful
situations, it takes a toll onthe body.
(11:28):
There's another body of research.
It was published, I forget, ahandful of years ago in the
Journal of Occupational Healthand Psychology.
Not that I read that in myspare time, but I came across
that, and when folks are goingthrough these stressful
situations, there's asignificant uptick in people
leaving work, people taking PTO,people taking more sick time,
people quiet quitting.
So again, when an organizationis going through change, having
a strong change manager, goingthrough a lot of transformation,
it's important to have thatchange management communication
(11:49):
strategy.
It's important for leaders tobe clear on the buy-in why are
we doing this?
What's the goal?
So that people feel likethey're part of that change too,
because then they have thatcontrol to the Mike and Bob
study, but also be able tocreate that partnership to where
they can be partners in thesolutions and provide the
details based on the data andeverything else.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I totally see how acknowledging some of the agile
principles of acknowledgingchange and only making decisions
with the information you haveand really embracing that
iterative approach helps youadjust along the way If you see
folks burning out or if you seethat lack of engagement, or if
you see situations where thereshould be high trust and it's
not functioning.
You adjust along the way If yousee folks burning out or if you
see that lack of engagement, orif you see situations where you
you know there should be hightrust and it's not functioning.
You have all the process stuffdown, you have all the you know
(12:32):
the bits and the data pipelineshooked up, but it's just not
working because of that peopleaspect.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yeah, yeah and especially that, that fear.
I love that you said that, nate, because there's also this
element of fear.
Right, maybe the pipelinesaren't hooked up.
Do you want to tell your bossthat when you know he's
breathing down your neck, he orshe is breathing down your neck
or they're maybe not someonethat you have that comfort there
isn't that?
Maybe we'll talk about it later, but just again, there's the
environment, and if a leaderdoesn't have that right
(12:57):
environment set up, okay, we'regonna quietly fix this or we're
gonna dismiss it, not going tocare because maybe we're already
looking for our next job.
So having that space and havingthat trust, being able to have
hard conversations, is reallyessential in a transformation
like that.
And I think when you'reconstantly talking to someone
(13:18):
and you're in dialogue, two-wayconversation with them, you're
talking about the good, bad, theugly.
They know you're coming from agood spot, they know that you're
putting your best foot forward.
So I think that's reallyimportant having that trust and
to have those hard conversations.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah, and it sounds like early and transparent and
authentic is definitelyimportant when it comes to
leaders and their role incommunicating that change.
100% yeah, 100% Great.
So with any type oftransformation or changing the
way that an organization doeswork, it comes with a lot of
change in a lot of differentways.
People process, technology, allthose typical things, but what
(13:54):
are some of the things that theleaders need to specifically be
thinking about in order to besuccessful?
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Great question.
Two things, a couple of things,but I think the first thing is
let's be clear on the role ofmanagement versus leadership.
I know a lot of folks know that, but I think just the kind of
level set.
You know a manager is someone offormal authority, right, that's
a person who you report up toand everything else.
A leader can be a manager, butit could also be an individual
contributor.
A leader is someone that buildsrelationships, that helps
(14:21):
communicate ideas, that doesn'thave to use formal authority.
They use influence to get stuffdone.
So you can be a program manager, for instance.
Again, program managerstypically don't have other
program managers reporting tothem to get work done right.
A scrum master obviouslydoesn't have that.
If you look at scaled agile,you look at RTE, again, you know
you could pick your frameworkproduct managers right, they
don't.
They don't technically.
(14:42):
The development teams typicallydon't report up to them.
But they have to be influential.
They have to be able to havethose soft skills, the good
people skills.
They have to care and the teamhas to receive that and then
reciprocate that as well.
So a little bit of along-winded answer.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
That's great, Jim.
Can you now put that in contextof strategy for leaders and
what they should be thinkingabout and focusing on?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Yeah.
So I think a couple things.
When it comes to strategy, Ithink leaders should spend more
time on that.
You know Stephen Bacon andTracy Bell, two of our
consultants that are part of ourstrategy practice.
They did some great researchand I think part of the research
is like 85% of leaders spendless than an hour a month on
strategy.
50% say they spend no time atall.
(15:25):
Another study that they cited45% of nearly 800 executives
said their strategic plans failbecause they fail to track
progress on the execution ofthose things.
So I think it's important forleaders to understand and be
engaged in that strategy andthis isn't one and done,
especially as part oftransformation, where it is
going to be complex, it is goingto be hard and that
(15:45):
storytelling is so critical.
I think it's also important forleaders to be clear, because
that's how kind of subordinateteams can start to ladder their
goals up to the higher objectiveand goal right.
This is where you can start totalk about different frameworks
like OKRs, objectives and keyresults.
Folks can have MBO managed byobjective.
(16:07):
They can have goals, objectives, strategies and tactics, ghost
smart goals, et cetera.
So when we're clear on thestrategy, then other teams can
be empowered to say okay, ifthis is our goal, this is how my
work then ladders into that.
So that's, I think, one part ofthat.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Does that make sense?
So far, that totally makessense.
It's thinking about what youmentioned about change
management and communication andtrust.
I see strategy as forming thefoundation of the content of
what you're going to talk about100%, because once they know the
strategy, then that's where theroles and responsibilities come
in.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
And I think that's kind of the second thing,
because not everyone can be thequarterback right.
Everyone has to have adifferent role on that team.
Everybody has to know whatthey're doing to contribute to
that goal.
That also helps.
Again, thinking back to the 80%of organizations are matrixed.
It's hard to get work done.
Who makes a decision?
Who has a voice?
The thing we used to do with oneof our clients is who gets a
(16:57):
voice versus a vote.
Everybody gets a voice, but noteverybody gets that vote.
We need to have one decider.
If it's overly matrixed, maybetwo.
So this is where a RACI or arapid decision framework could
be helpful, where you and yourteam talk about the framework,
talk about different use casesor different scenarios, who's
(17:17):
responsible, who's accountable,who's consulted, who's informed,
and then continue to revisitthat as a team.
This isn't a one and doneexercise Until the team has that
maturity to agree to thatframework.
You know it's going to takesome time.
So I think that's where, like arapid or a racy could really be
helpful to cut through thematrix to make sure folks know
what they're.
(17:37):
Who gets that voice or who getsthat vote?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
And how do some of the frameworks that folks might
be familiar with in the agilespace like be useful in this
scenario?
Speaker 3 (17:47):
They can be useful.
So I think enterprise agileframeworks scaled agile,
disciplined agile, less, etcetera I think those can be fine
.
But again, in order to achievethe goal or the objective, you
may not need overallorganization transformation to
achieve those goals.
So those frameworks bring adifferent process, they bring
different roles.
They bring different rolestructure.
I remember I was talking to aclient in Southern California in
(18:10):
a hospital and they're goingthrough this transformation.
One of the people said thatwell, we're bringing on product
managers.
Those are basically just likeproject managers, right?
No, fundamentally no, it's adifferent role, it's a different
skill set, it's a differentmindset.
You need to make sure that whenyou're going through these
transformations, that you'reactually bringing in the right
roles that you need.
So if you need a scaled agile,great, but if you don't and that
(18:31):
can be done in a more hybridfaction, that's fine too.
Product model is kind of asimilar thing too.
Some folks we're on clientsagain down in SoCal we're
talking about going into theproduct model a little bit of a
smaller team.
They don't necessarily need to.
They can and they can grow intoit and it's great for growing
and scaling because it gives thepredictability.
It gets like all right, whatare the job descriptions we're
going to need?
What are the skills going to beneeded If we need to do
(18:53):
up-leveling, we have a frameworkBefore they're at.
It's like we can do a littlebit of hybrid and it works for
that team high-performing team.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
So you had to choose a favorite, like what do you
think you see works most often?
Or what are the situations yousee?
This is my jam.
This is what I love doing.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
I have the most success when I see teams and
this goes back a little bit tomy military days.
But I really like the team ofteams approach Because, for
those that aren't familiar, teamof teams is really kind of a
cross-functional tiger team setof approach where teams that are
closest to the work have theautonomy to make those decisions
.
General Stanley McChrystal, hisconsulting firm, wrote a book
about it.
It's a great concept.
I think that's a great way toget work done.
(19:31):
The problem is you need to havea lot of trust.
Previous client up here in theNorthwest, a really great agile
thinker, great leader.
I really enjoyed working withhim and we were talking the one
day and he was like asked me ifI read the book Team of Teams.
I told him oh yeah, years agoand we geeked out a little bit
on that and he's like I wouldlove to try that model here and
I was like let's do it.
So I set up a Miro board andkind of mapped out what are the
(19:53):
roles and who are the people sowe could actually start to apply
it.
And then we started trying todo so.
But I say trying because itultimately failed because the
organization was going throughway too much change.
There wasn't a lot of trust,there wasn't a lot of
communication.
So, yes, academically it workedwell, or it should have worked,
but it just didn't because wedidn't have a lot of those
(20:15):
fundamentals.
There's duplication of roles,there's just the laundry list
went on.
So I think, when the conditionsare right, a team of team
approach is great.
You know, I'm smiling becausethere's also this concept of
MacGyvering as a strategy and Ithink it can be actually very
relevant to digitaltransformation.
So a couple of professors thatI went to University of Portland
to get my MBA Dr Meckler, drHalloway over the years stayed
(20:36):
in touch with them and Irecently met up with them and
they were talking about.
The paper that they justpublished is about this concept
of MacGyvering.
Growing up, love, the showcontinued to use the phrase that
sort of thing.
So it's a fun article but alsovery relevant and a very
pragmatic approach.
Basically, they explore thecontext of the kind of
necessitating rapid innovationand entrepreneurial action with
immediate impact.
(20:57):
Right Looking at, like the foodservices space, that's an area
where they really care about and, as part of that focus,
focusing on kind of some ofthese other concepts of
effectuation, causation,improvisation and bricolage as
part of that get-to-marketapproach.
So as I was thinking about thisand we were talking, I was like
this is very relevant to digitaltransformation, because when
(21:19):
you start small, you need to beable to start small so that you
can start to scale and growthroughout the organization.
And we know no plan is going tosurvive the punch to the face
Again the Mike Tyson reference,right.
So if you at least have enoughto where you can start to figure
out what's our goal, how do westart to like with whatever
we've got?
How do we start to improviseand everything else, getting our
way to achieving that goal?
(21:39):
You know so that once we, oncethat we get to a spot, to where
we're successful, okay, now wecan take a step back.
Let's retro.
How do we start to scale this?
How do we start to apply thisin a different way or not, but
at least we still just didn'twaste a bunch of time going
through this transformation andhave nothing to show for it.
How can we be very practicaland pragmatic to get after this
(22:02):
goal as part of thetransformation?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
And as you talk through that, Ikept coming back to a phrase
I've heard before doing the bestwith what you have, where
you're at right now, for theoutcomes you're trying to
achieve right and then justice.
Where's that paperclip when youneed it?
(22:24):
Right, absolutely so.
You talked a bit about strategyand the roles and
responsibilities that leadersneed to be thinking about, but
before we move on to the nextsort of big question leaders and
having the right culture andthe mindset themselves can you
talk about that?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah, nate, I think that's great because I think we
could talk about strategy, wecould talk about roles and
responsibility we touched on it.
But again, just to continue tounderscore the importance of
just for leaders to have rapportAgain, this isn't just managers
with their direct reports, butleaders having that rapport,
talking to folks, having thatconnection, having room for a
healthy debate, having hardconversations, is really
(22:54):
important and there's a lot ofdifferent ways you can go about
doing that.
Again, I mentioned having aretro right.
You could have a team agreement.
This is a way that we all agreeto work and we're going to
continue to do that and then, asnew person comes on to the team
, we could adjust our teamagreement to make sure that we
all have the same understandingways of working right Again
across business and IT teams orwhoever that team is made up
that cross-functional team ismade up of.
(23:14):
So I think that's importantbeing able to retro on that.
Hey, nate, we agreed to not havemeetings after five o'clock,
but you're sending me meetingsat six and seven o'clock.
Can you please stop doing that?
I'd never do that.
I know, but you know those types.
Having a space for those typesof conversations to make sure
that we are on the same page isextremely important, I think,
also being mindful of how wecommunicate.
(23:36):
There's a lot of research outthere we're not going to talk
about, but, just like theculture of dignity, creating
psychological safety, nonviolentcommunication, you know, being
able to avoid kind of theescalation of assumptions, and
things like that are reallyimportant for leaders to have.
25% of folks say that they're25% of employees feel like
they're not heard, not heard.
(23:58):
So just doing those littlethings can really go a long way
to create that culture of trust,so that when it comes to the
strategy, when it comes to theroles and responsibilities, we
have that space to do our bestwork together.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah, almost like building blocks, right Starting
with that, the trustcommunication.
It's only then that you canbuild into these bigger, more
sophisticated growth, real, big,audacious sort of outcomes and
goals that organizations areshooting for.
So I've worked with you longenough to know that you're big
on culture.
We've talked about it a lottoday, but talk to me a little
bit about the intersection ofbusiness agility and
transformation and culture, andwhy is it so important?
(24:27):
Here, in cultivating thatmindset.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Yeah, yeah, I think you know.
Culture, having a strongculture, isn't just a perk,
right, it's essential tobusiness success and when teams
are engaged in their work,they're empowered to make
decisions.
They know their opinions count,they know that their work is
having meaningful impact on thebottom line.
Everyone's happier andeveryone's making money or at
least, hopefully they should be.
So I think that's reallyimportant.
(24:49):
I think also, when you have andthe only way you really do that
is really through that agile,iterative fashion we're all in
this together, we're all takingthose steps together fashion
we're all in this together,we're all taking those steps
together and we're alsomitigating a lot of those risks
as opposed to maybe a big bangtype of release or big bang type
of transformation.
I think there's a couple ofbodies of research out there
that are kind of in the back ofmy mind.
I think one is from WynnConsulting.
(25:09):
They've done some fantasticresearch about really showing
the correlation of thatproductivity paradox.
When you have good businessculture along with results,
they're not separate, and whenyou have that, really part of
their formula is, this willaffect your bottom line.
There's a monetary numberaround that when 70% of
employees are not engaged intheir work.
(25:32):
That's 70% of less productivitythat you can be getting.
That translates literally tothe bottom line.
Out of part of the researchthat they've done, 9% of
companies that were able tooutperform on those metrics on
high business and people metricshad 28% higher return on
capital and 8.5% attrition.
So, again, when you're focusingon business, when you're
(25:55):
focusing culture, when you'refocusing on results, good things
happen.
It's a proven approach.
Additionally, part of theirresearch can recognize what are
the warning signs.
So, as a leader or as a manager, what's hindering your business
performance and making surethat?
How do we get ahead of some ofthese things before it really
catches up?
So, again, if half theorganization, or 75% of the
(26:15):
organization, is just there toget a paycheck, doesn't have
skin in the game.
That's less transformation,that's less work, that's less
value, that's getting delivered.
To be clear, though, it's atwo-way street, right, it's not
just all employees are checkedout and it's employees are the
problem, absolutely not.
It's very much that leaders owethat to their teams.
They owe the direction, theyowe the guidance, they owe that
(26:36):
roles and responsibilities, theyowe that space to have those
conversations.
You're seeing generationaltrends, too, nate, where folks
want more of that they don'twant to be micromanaged.
They want to be given.
What's my goal, what's myobjective, what's my role?
Let me go do that and if I needhelp I'll ask.
So the more leaders can createthat space and do that,
employees can do their best work.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
So do that employees can do their best work.
So again, very much abi-directional, two-way
conversation.
Yeah, it takes a lot to fosterthat, not just from the
beginning but throughout anorganization's lifetime.
In a team's together time weknow those stages of team
formation and whatnot.
It's things you got to payattention to around the whole
life cycle.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Exactly, I love that you said that because, again, I
did a lot of research, I've beendoing a lot of research, a lot
of numbers, I've been doing alot of research, a lot of
numbers.
But, like I think, gallupproduced a study where it said
70% of people leave theirmanager, not necessarily their
company.
So the importance of a managerhaving that a formal manager
right, not just the leader, buthaving that formal manager
that's productive and one-on-one, having a conversation, feel
(27:33):
like someone cares about them atwork.
It's super important because,even if the overall company is
maybe not clear on the strategy,that's where you as a manager,
you as a leader, can absolutelyhave that positive impact on
that person for the bettermentof that person, but also for the
betterment of the company.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
And I think, for the avoidance of doubt, we're not
just talking about culture, likefree pizza Fridays or those
sorts of things that might beparodied in movies and stuff.
But what I hear from you, Jim,in talking a lot about this, is
the individual relationshipsmatter and the context of the
organization and theeffectiveness of the team and
those things really contributeto the trust between individuals
(28:08):
and that leads to the team'strust and then scale that up to
the team of teams right.
If you have that type ofenvironment where individually
and at a team level you havethat trust, there are some great
things that can be done.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah, absolutely Absolutely, and kind of continue
that thread.
Right, like when you think ofan organization, how do as an
organization, how do you startto build that culture right?
Gallup identified what theycall the Agile Eight.
Right, cooperation, speed ofdecision making, trial tolerance
, empowerment, technologyadoption, simplicity, knowledge
sharing, innovative focus.
Those are all things that youneed to have as part of that
(28:42):
agile culture.
So again, not the free pizzaFridays and that sort of thing,
although it's great if you'regluten-free, dairy-free, like me
, sometimes it makes it a littlehard.
Salad's fine too, but when youhave that right culture to do
your best work and again deliverresults.
Again, when you look at theAgile 8, that's not fluff,
that's real work, that's realinnovation.
It's getting in front ofcustomers and saying, okay, how
(29:03):
does this work?
How does this work?
Does this land, does thisexperience land, does this
product land, does this serviceland, so incredibly important?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
And I'm sensing a bit of a sort of approach from both
angles.
Right, we've about the leader'srole, responsibility where this
weighs on their shoulders asfar as a culture that embraces
the agile principles and whatthey can do with their teams,
but it's also the folks have tobe interested in working in this
way and want to have that.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
I think the point yeah, absolutely not to cut you
off.
I think that point is you haveto have skin in the game.
Everyone has to have skin inthe game.
Everyone has to be committed todoing this work and committed
to being successful andcommitted to the excellence that
it's going to take to get thatwork done.
It's going to be.
It's a long game, as you know.
It's a long game, but they haveto be committed to each other
to do that and it starts at thatpersonal level and scales from
(29:50):
there.
That's great.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
So, jim, what are some of the things you want
folks to walk away with, or tonot forget, or remember, or
first steps to take?
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Yeah.
So I think the first thing isAgile just doesn't mean you
talked about this at thebeginning, right?
Agile just doesn't mean, likeyou talked about this beginning,
right.
Agile just doesn't mean aniterative approach to developing
software, but it's truly apeople-based, iterative approach
and mindset that's focused onan outcome for everyone
throughout the organization,from the leaders down to how the
tactical teams work.
Right?
Again, it's not just scrum,it's not just these teams
(30:32):
working over here.
They're going to workiteratively.
I'm going to continue.
It has to be together and ithas to be that shared mindset.
So it's not just about softwaredevelopment, it's about
people-based getting work doneto achieve that goal right, that
common goal, sharedunderstanding.
I think the second thing is anagile mindset is an approach to
achieve higher employeeengagement, I think, which is
absolutely critical for thatoverall successful
(30:54):
transformation.
It starts from the top down andalso goes bottom up right, it
has to be that two-way approach,like we've talked about.
I think the last thing, again,it requires trust, trust with
individuals, trust across theteams throughout the
organization.
Trust is earned.
It's, again, not just thetechnical proficiency, it's not
just the follow-through, it'spart of it, it's a big part of
it, but it also has that humancomponent.
(31:15):
Can you trust that person whenthings go sideways, when they
have those hard conversations?
Because then you walk out ofthat feeling like, oh, I feel
great, I feel good.
I think about the work, I thinkabout my military experience, I
think about the teams that I'vedone some of my best work.
Those were not easy days.
Those are hard days with hardclients, but you walk away
feeling like, wow, you have adeeper connection, you have more
(31:39):
pride in your work and peoplejust feel better and selfishly,
people reminisce about thosedays right when you have those
kind of components and it startswith that people element.
So I think keeping that in mindas part of the overall Agile
process is really important.
The mindset and the people arevery important.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
That's where we started and I think that's a
great note to go out on today.
Jim, thanks for being with ustoday.
This has been fun for me, a lotto think about, very complex
but also very practical.
Thanks for joining us.
Happy to Happy to yeah.
So for Jim Calco, this is NateFerguson.
Thanks for joining us onThoughtful Action, tangible
Results, bettering your Business.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
We'll talk to you next time.
Thanks, this has beenthoughtful action, tangible
results presented by the GunterGroup.
To discover how the GunterGroup can help your organization
maximize its potential, visitguntergroupcom.
Thanks for listening and don'tforget to subscribe on your
favorite podcast platform tostay updated on our latest
content.
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