May 23, 2025 • 32 mins
Have you ever been "in the zone" on a critical task when suddenly a notification derails your focus completely? That mental whiplash isn't just frustrating. It's eroding our ability to solve complex problems in today's hyperconnected workplace.
Hassan Butt takes us on a fascinating journey from contact center roles to becoming a respected Agile practitioner, sharing how his own struggle with imposter syndrome evolved into expertise on creating environments where deep thinking can flourish. "Complex tasks don't respond well to chaos," Hassan explains, highlighting why protecting cognitive space has become essential for modern knowledge work.
Our conversation explores the crucial distinction between merely complicated tasks (those we've done before) and truly complex challenges that require sustained mental focus—the type increasingly demanded in today's workplace. Hassan unpacks practical strategies for protecting deep work, from creating information repositories to establishing team agreements about communication protocols. You'll learn how to advocate for deep thinking to different stakeholders by framing the benefits in language that resonates with their specific priorities.
What makes this episode particularly valuable is Hassan's blend of psychological insight with practical implementation. You'll discover how the "mirroring effect" can establish cultural norms around focused work and how small changes in communication patterns can dramatically improve cognitive clarity across teams. The episode concludes with Hassan sharing his "Deep Work Kit", a resource designed to help teams implement deep thinking practices systematically.
Whether you're a team leader frustrated by meeting overload or an individual seeking to reclaim your focus in a notification-saturated world, this conversation provides both the conceptual framework and practical tools to transform how you approach deep thinking at work.
Connect with Hassan on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nohassagile/
Download Hassan's Deep Thinking Kit:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XbOkyUUajrvXuZjvqQPIlHAn-HCWzP_J/view?usp=sharing
Follow us on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-within
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the Agile Within.
I am your host, mark Metz.
My mission for this podcast isto provide Agile insights into
human values and behaviorsthrough genuine connections.
My guests and I will sharereal-life stories from our Agile
journeys, triumphs, blundersand everything in between, as
(00:29):
well as the lessons that we havelearned.
So get pumped, get rocking.
The Agile Within starts now.
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(00:51):
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(01:13):
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And now on to the show.
Welcome back to the AgileWithin everybody.
This is your host, as always,mark Metz.
(01:34):
My guest for today's episode isHassan Butt.
Hassan, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Hi Mark, Thanks for having me.
Super, super excited to be heretoday.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
You and I have been talking about this for quite a
while.
We've had some scheduledifficulties, but we finally
found time to get together andyou've been on my list for quite
a while now to bring on theshow, so thank you for coming on
.
Hassan is from Bradford,england, and I want to find out
first of all, hassan, if I wascoming to Bradford for a day and
had never been there before,what's one thing that Hassan
(02:07):
would say that I couldn't missdoing?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
There are a few things that Bradford are famous
for.
It's just actually won theculture.
I think it's won the cultureaward for 2025.
So there's been a lot of pressabout Bradford, but for me, it's
all about the cuisine.
People come from up and downthe country to come and try the
food.
Whether you like desserts,you're a savory person, you like
spicy, you know different typesof flavors Italian, indian, and
(02:34):
so on and so forth there'ssomething for everyone.
It's the capital when it comesto food, in my opinion.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
So what's your favorite type of?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
food.
So for listeners who are maybenot from the uk, there's a
there's somewhat of a delicacywhich is cheap and cheerful,
which which is always a goodthing, and it's called a spicy
dipped chicken burger and it'sone of my, one of my favorite
things cheese slice on top withwith some with some fries, and a
(03:03):
cold drink goes down a treeevery single time, but if I'm
with family, it might be a steakor if I'm feeling traditional,
maybe a curry of some kind.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Wow, you've got me intrigued, so I've got to try
that now.
That sounds really really good.
Well, hasan, before we getstarted, I thought it would be
interesting for you to introduceyourself to our audience and
let us know a little bit aboutwho you are, your background.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Sure, sure.
So I've already said to MarkI'm not much of a speaking about
myself, but I do think there isimportance in my story and what
I want to do is maybe lightsome passion within people who
think they're not good enough orthey suffer from imposter
syndrome.
I started off well.
I did a traditional routewithin the UK of, you know,
(03:50):
doing a degree, found myselfstuck in contact center roles
where I didn't really feel likeI was fulfilling my potential.
One day, through a lot ofperseverance and hard work, I
managed to get myself into a newrole after doing loads of
voluntary work and trying tobuild on my experience, and I
managed to land the role of ascrum master.
(04:12):
Fast forward since that timewhere I didn't feel like I was
good enough for the job full ofimposter syndrome, surrounded by
loads of senior leaders aroundme who had just transitioned
sideways, where I went from, youknow, from the bottom to the
top, you know very much fearing.
I didn't know anything.
I didn't know everything.
I had to learn absolutelyeverything and I couldn't
(04:32):
satisfy for anything less thanknowing every single answer.
Here I am today.
You know delivering talks a lotmore comfortable in my shell.
I appreciate how good I am andwhat I can bring to the table,
my uniqueness as an individual.
And yeah, it's been a magicaljourney, but I've managed to do
(04:52):
that.
Coming from the contact centers,there's a lot of debate outside
of this.
Mark, you'll know, so-and-so isnot technical enough.
How do they fulfill these roles?
You know they need to be moretechnical.
We're in that kind ofenvironment.
But what I will say is thatevery day is an opportunity to
learn and if you put the hardwork in, there's no reason why
you can't bridge the gap.
We're not all born geniuses,but there's no reason why we
(05:13):
can't start to learn and bridgethat gap.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I resonate very much with the humility, with imposter
syndrome, because I suffer fromthat as well and just say it's
such a pleasure and an honor tohave you here.
You've got a great onlinepresence, you've got a great
reputation, so I'm very honoredto have you here on the show.
Well, today's episode is titledthe Importance of Deep Thinking
, and so I first want to startout Hasan, help us to define
(05:38):
what is deep thinking, to definewhat is deep thinking.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Sure.
So for me it's imagining you'reas an individual, but I always
stress this the most of theconversations I have around deep
thinking are how you canimprove it within teams, but all
of the information I tend toshare is also applicable to
individuals, so please note thatyou can use it for yourself as
(06:07):
well.
Yeah, imagine you're deep inthe zone and you're working on a
critical task.
A senior leader has said to youyou know, hassan, mark, we need
this done today.
So you know you're working onit.
And then, all of a sudden, anotification pops up Could be a
Slack message, a Teams message,any kind of notification.
(06:28):
Now, all of a sudden, you'velooked at it, you've maybe
answered the query that's comeup, something that, again, was
deemed urgent.
Now, when you go back to doingthat critical task, all of a
sudden, you've lost your flowand you're really struggling to
get back into the groove.
What once made sense doesn'tmake sense at all.
You just feel yourself staringinto space.
(06:49):
Deep thinking was what youoriginally achieved and then,
after the notification, what youlost was the end result of not
understanding things.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Can you give us an example of where deep thinking
was broken in your real life andthe effects of that?
Share with us an example fromyou personally, and then let's
share an example of you at ateam level.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Okay.
So, like probably manylisteners, you know I'm, I have
a partner, I have children.
That's one thing I do know isis every every minute moment of
the day my children would likemy time.
It's really hard sometimes toget down some critical thinking,
(07:35):
for example, if I need todeliver a presentation.
You'll know, mark, that my talkhas been doing the rounds
recently on this specific topicand it's not the easiest thing
to do when you know my maybe mychild is knocking on the door
saying dad, I want to, I want toplay a game together.
When are we going to do, youknow this?
When we're going to, when arewe going to go to the park?
And it is almost an emotionalpull and a want and a desire to
(08:00):
do everything.
But I very much realize, assoon as I start maybe not
focusing on the work I'm tryingto do everything.
But I very much realized, assoon as I start maybe not
focusing on the work I'm tryingto achieve, everything almost
gets pushed to the back andbefore I know it, I'm trying to
do something at midnight and I'munable to complete it with the
same vigor and passion and focusof what I might've been able to
do during the day if I'd havefocused out some time, set some
(08:23):
time aside to make sure I'mdoing what I set out to do
originally.
So having a plan and I thinkthis is really important and
this is something we can touchupon later is communicating with
others.
It's not enough for me to justset my timer on and say I'm
going to do half an hour offocus time and I'm going to do
(08:44):
this specific task.
There are other individualswithin the same house as me
taking the time to communicatewith other people within my
environment my wife, my children.
That daddy's going to go dosome focus work.
I need for you to not interruptme for that or come and knock
on my door for the next half anhour or so, or ask mommy before
you come and knock on my door,just as a control.
(09:05):
We sometimes assume, when tryingto protect your deep thinking
time, that it's enough to justhave that conversation with your
inner self and say and that's abattle in itself, right To
dedicate some time to focus onsomething when you could be
playing computer games, watchinga TV, a TV show, a movie and so
on and so forth, or listeningto your favorite podcast, like
you are today on the AgileWithin, but you have to be
(09:29):
ruthless, almost, with it.
You have to make sure thatyou're dedicating that time, but
you also have to educate othersaround you, because if people
don't understand what you'retrying to achieve, what you're
trying to do, it's going to fallon deaf ears and, before you
know it, all the hard work youchannel with your inner self is
going to be broken in a matterof moments, innocently, of
course.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
So I've got a question for you on that,
because this can happen, eventhough you don't intend for it
to be.
But maybe it's just apersonality quality or a
personality trait of you.
Maybe you're the type of personthat just maintain a stern face
and when you tell people, maybe, as a dad, let's use as a
reference.
This is my complete antithesisbecause I am the ultimate teddy
(10:12):
bear when it comes to I've got ahuge heart.
But let's say, if you just havethis persona where you just are
really gruff and you tell yourkids you're like dad has
important things to do and don'tinterrupt dad for the next 30
minutes, and the kids aredownstairs and they noticed that
the stove was left on and therewas a piece of paper on the
(10:35):
stove and all of a suddenthere's a fire that starts.
Well, dad said veryunequivocally do not interrupt
dad for the next 30 minutes.
So does the child obey becausedad might be angry if he gets
interrupted.
That's a silly example.
I mean, every kid I hope wouldknow that it's okay to interrupt
(10:56):
dad in that case.
But in our own lives, how do weshow up?
Do we show up in such a waythat, if an emergency does
happen?
Our teams, our people, ourindividuals do?
They shy away from coming to usbecause of the way that we have
represented ourselves?
Does that make any sense?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
That makes 100% sense .
And again, this is reallyinteresting because one of the
things my teams any person who'slistening to this, who's worked
with me before, will know thatI'm a very approachable person
and I like to ooze positivitywith consistency.
And it's not positivity for thesake of it.
I just have lived a life whereI know there's worse things that
(11:41):
could be happening in life.
I'm getting the opportunity towork with awesome people and
awesome projects, trying todeliver fantastic things.
Yeah, it might not always besunshine and roses, but I'm
pretty sure there's people outthere that would give their
right arm to be in my positionworking with these teams and
doing these great things.
Reflecting back on myselfworking in a contact center
rather than answering the phones, even though it was an honest
(12:03):
job and I was happy to helppeople.
If I could go back to thatindividual and say, right,
you've got an opportunity towork with team delivering these
awesome projects for a massivecompany, I'd probably bite your
hand off.
And if I saw my future selfcomplaining, being negative
about doing this job, I'dprobably want to give myself a
(12:24):
good shake and say you know whatare you playing at?
What are you doing here?
You're so lucky.
You're so fortunate to be inthis position.
Enjoy it, embrace it.
Every time my teams come to mewith a problem, you know and I
this this language that I use.
I use it at home, I use itwithin my teams.
When mistakes happen, I sayaccidents happen.
(12:45):
It's a phrase my children useoften if they see me drop
something, and it's so sweetwhen I see my own child look up,
look up at me and say it's okay, daddy, accidents happen.
I'm trying to teach that andingrain that within my teams,
because there's a fear culture,unfortunately, that when you do
experiments or you try somethingnew, or you're doing your work
from day to day, and you make amistake, you're going to be
(13:08):
punished or there's going to besome scary thing which is going
to come of it.
And it's about trying to breakthat fear culture and get people
in a position where they feelexcited about their work, they
don't feel afraid to makemistakes, they know that it's a
learning opportunity.
Of course, if we're not learningfrom something, that's not good
, and that's when you need tochange.
(13:29):
Can we be too approachable?
Yes, 100%.
And it goes back to the idea ofkind of almost being a teacher.
Some of my best mentorsteachers were the ones that
didn't give me all the answers,but I did know if it got to a
point where I was really, really, really, really struggling, I
(13:50):
was at the bottom of the barrel,they would come out and they'd
support me, they'd give me someideas, they'd give me some,
maybe some direction.
I think you can be in a positionwhere you give all the answers
and that's no good becauseyou're almost acting as a crud
and when you're not thereanymore, that person's going to
struggle.
And on the opposite hand, ifyou give them absolutely zero,
(14:10):
then again it's the, it's thesame thing.
You know they're not going toknow where to go, what direction
to go into.
You're almost becoming, asGordon Ramsay would put it, a
busy idiot.
You're putting all your energyin the wrong places because you
don't understand where to start.
I said to you, mark, at thestart of this I'm a person who
point me in a direction.
Let me go and off I go, almostlike a Jerusalem burner.
(14:31):
I'm off to the races.
So I think giving that kind ofinsight to someone, this is
where you start and how you wantto get to the end destination
is up to you, and let them pavethe way.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
So let me ask you, San, what is required for deep
thinking?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Sure.
So for me, mark, whenever I tryto share the practices of deep
thinking within teams I'veworked with, it's all good me
being an advocate of deepthinking.
But if the others don't see orthey don't buy into what deep
thinking is and what thebenefits are, then there's no
real point.
Because, just like anything inlife, if I am not a fan of
(15:08):
something, I'm not going to makeuse of it.
Think of it like mobile phonesYou're either an Android user or
an Apple user.
If I don't get behind one ofthem, I'm not going to
continuously use it.
I might use it for a day.
Then I'll put it down.
I'll go revert back to type.
You know, I'll revert back tothe model that I like or the way
(15:29):
of working that I like to workin.
I think of a diet.
A diet's good right, yeah,diet's good right, yeah, but you
use it.
100 a diet or exercise.
You know anyone who goes to thegym.
You know there's someinteresting points of the
psychology of mirroring thingsand why people tend to do better
(15:49):
when they go to the gym versuswhen they do exercise at home.
Surrounding yourself bylike-minded individuals who are
on the similar journey or thesame journey makes you more
inclined to persevere with thework that you're doing at hand.
So that ties back into what Ido with teams.
I want the buy-in, I want themall in a position where they see
the value and they agree.
(16:09):
My bartering tool, or a way ofsaying this to my team members,
is my job, or what I'm here todo is I'm here to help you do
your job better.
I want you to succeed.
I want you to have all thethings that you need to do your
work.
And, in a utopia, if I was togive you a critical task to
(16:30):
complete a complex task, whatwould you want?
What would be the conditionsthat you would need?
Probably time, space, minimaldistractions, a chance to focus,
to think deeply and to get intothe groove, into the flow.
Because, as we know, mark,you've got a background in
(16:50):
software development.
Complex tasks don't respondwell to chaos.
Complex tasks don't respondwell to chaos.
You know.
You need clarity, you need thatcognitive runway to get you
know.
Get into the group so youunderstand exactly what you're
doing.
You know.
So that's the utopia.
And then I say to the individualright, so what does a normal
day look like then?
And they say, well, hassan, ona normal day I get pulled into
(17:11):
five meetings.
I get, you know, 10 messagessaying just a second.
I just want to you know,wondering if we can touch base
on this specific topic.
Uh, what's the latest on thispiece of work, this complex work
that you're working on, and soon and so forth.
What I pitch is I want to giveyou what you initially asked for
, but I can't do it by myself.
There's going to be a fewtrade-offs where I need a few
(17:32):
things from you so that I cangive you these things that
you're trying to get a hold of.
Does that seem fair?
And 99.9% of the time, thepeople I speak to are on board
and they can see the value in it.
And I say, like anything, it'sjust an experiment.
Guys and girls, it's anexperiment, we'll try it.
If you detest it, you hate it,you don't see any value in it
(17:53):
whatsoever, we'll drop it.
I'm never, ever, precious aboutembedding an experiment or
embedding a way of working.
For me, it's not a one shoefits all approach.
There might be one or twothings that people can take away
from the model that I sharewith how I put it together, and
they might not.
And if they don't no problemand if they do fantastic.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
I want to ask you is deep thinking, does it apply
just to individuals, or can youapply it as a group, where a
group is involved in deepthinking?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Whenever I talk about deep thinking, I always talk
about it specifically withinteams, creating an environment
for people to do deep thinking.
And whilst, yes, the actions orcontrols, guardrails that you
might put in place might improvethe individuals within the team
, there's going to be instanceswhere team members might come
(18:46):
together and they're going to beresponsible for helping each
other.
I mentioned already about themirroring effect, if you can
take the time to mirror anindividual.
So, for example, I know Googlewere doing some sessions where
they were getting onto meetingsand just doing their work in
silence, and that feeling ofknowing that your colleague is
(19:08):
not playing video games, is notwatching a movie, but is
actually cracking on with somereal important, complex work
makes you feel like you want todo the same.
You know you want to match thatenergy, you want to go that bit
further.
You want to.
You know you want to do thatpiece of work, but also you will
.
You'll know of other thingsmark like pair programming,
mobbing.
If I could create anenvironment where we could get
(19:31):
two developers, three developers, four developers, a space where
no one's going to interruptthem, no one's going to come and
bother them, no one's going toask them for updates every two
seconds, then no doubt that deepthinking as a group would be
that much more improved.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
So I have to share an example from my past on that.
That is, I think, probably isthe top experience I have been a
part of, with deep thinking.
And this was a particular group, that a group of developers
they were all about the same agehad the similar likes and
(20:10):
interests professional interestsas well as outside of their
career.
They just generally liked eachother.
And this wasn't anything that Idid.
This was something that theydid.
I just happened to be able towitness it.
And so they started challengingsome of the activities that I
was doing because, quite frankly, they were mob or I think the
(20:32):
term is ensemble now to make itmore sound, a little less, a
little less threatening, butthey were doing mob or ensemble
programming a majority of theday.
Yes, they would have breakswhere they would talk about
something fun, but they werevery much working together.
They were very, very good at it, and one of the things they
(20:52):
questioned was do we need adaily scrum?
Do we need a daily stand uppoint?
We're already in touch allthroughout the day.
So they really worked as a teamand you know, it's almost a
thing where, when the team isworking so well together and
they're so engaged, you'll findthat people don't want to
(21:16):
interrupt them, right?
If somebody is sitting aloneand they're working and you're
like, hey, maybe I'll justinterrupt this person.
But when you see a group andthey're just super engaged,
you're like, oh, probably not agood time, Maybe I better come
back.
So just the act of doing thatin and of itself reduced some of
the interruptions.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Just the act of doing that in and of itself reduced
some of the interruptions.
To be honest, I can see a lotof things that resonate with me
there and I think one thing topoint out is the difference of
in-person working to virtualworking, because you rightly
mentioned there, when peoplephysically see people busy at
work, they're less inclined, youknow.
You think if you've got a roombooked out, you know, so someone
(22:00):
might be less inclined to knockon that because they see people
are busy doing their workversus people are just in a chat
and they've got so manydifferent avenues of.
You know you're able to accessthem.
Mark's in a meeting on teams,but his slack shows he's online.
I'll drop him a slack messageand so on and so forth.
So you know, or his emails arethere, I'll drop him an email,
(22:20):
I'll ping him.
And how often do we see, withthe modern day area of not
everyone's on the cameras, it'seasy to not be present and all
of a sudden, you know Markspeaking, but I'm checking my
emails.
You know someone's just pingedme because they want to book me
in for another talk maybe, orI'm doing something else.
Intro you know someone,something else is coming up and
my cognitive capacity is beingpulled in so many different
(22:43):
directions that I just can'tfocus.
I can't get into the zone, evenon this call, for example.
You know, whilst we're havingthis chat, I might be getting
pulled out from so manydifferent avenues.
My phone might be vibrating inmy pocket and that's making me
think.
I I wonder who's messaging me.
I might see someone walkingdown the street wave at me Again
.
It's just making your braintick and tick, and tick and tick
(23:05):
and get pulled in so manydifferent avenues that
everything just becomes sodiluted.
It's an unfortunate thing thatwe have to deal with these days,
but this is why deep thinkingis important and this is why I'm
such a massive advocate for it.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
How do we scale that?
How do we gain awarenessthroughout our teams, throughout
our organizations, theimportance of deep thinking,
what it is and so that we dolimit these interruptions that
come in?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
So interesting that you mentioned that, actually,
because I just did a talkyesterday with a lovely company
called Opencast who invited meto do a talk, and they
specifically are a consultancy,so they work with clients.
So a lot of my conversation wastailoring it to how you would
deal with clientele andstakeholders.
From your clients is from yourclients and for me it's all
(24:01):
about being comfortable in firstactually believing in what
you're talking about so you knowthat there's real benefit from
there, and making sure that whenyou articulate yourself you're
talking in the language of theperson that you're speaking to.
For example, I know, mark,already from speaking to you
that you were a softwaredeveloper, so there's certain
things that you have a passionfor.
So when I say you'll have moretime to do your development work
and you will be interrupted,you know that hits a chord with
(24:23):
you and you can get behind it.
If I'm speaking to a seniorleader or a client in the
context of clients money talksand if I can tell that
individual that from doing thisthey're going to save money,
money, that's going to be myfirst getting them interested or
hooking them.
Hooking, you know hooking themin, getting the door slightly
opened, you know, challengingtheir thoughts and maybe, you
(24:46):
know, intriguing them as to whatthis actually may be.
So it's one thing.
So it's one thing getting themintrigued, but then you've got
to back it up right.
And this is where I think,starting off with with a small
team or a team running theseexperiments, creating some
actual measures that you cantake and say, okay, look, this
team improved, you know,throughput, the cycle time
improved, and so on and so forth, the item age improved.
(25:09):
So you've got all these flowmetrics that you can look at.
Maybe the morale alone improved, the way in which they're
understanding.
It might not be somethingspecifically tangible, but it's
something there that you canmeasure and say, right, okay,
this, this improved.
And then going back to thosesenior leaders and saying I'm
not coming empty-handed because,if you think of it, nobody
wants someone to comeempty-handed to you know a
(25:30):
scenario or situation.
But if you can come bearingfruit, bearing gifts of ideas
and measures and value, thatperson's going to sit there and
take heed rather than just metalking about something with no
proof.
So I think, number oneunderstand the language of the
individual you're speaking toand try to mirror that.
Again, it goes back topsychology mirroring a person's
(25:53):
language mannerisms we can see,I know you everyone listening
today can't see me and Mark, butfull of smiles.
Mark smiles, I smile, I smile,mark smiles.
It's just a natural thing.
And it's the same thing whenyou're speaking to individuals.
So if you can mirror their tone, their language, they're going
to be more open to listening towhat you've got to say.
(26:13):
So I think talking the rightlanguage, having the right
tangible proof measures that youcan use and show them, this is
the value that this can bring.
Maybe say this is what we'vedone internally within the teams
that we work with, within ourconsultancy, this is the value
is brought with other companiesand so on and so forth.
And here's the value here thatwe think we can bring to your
team and how we can save youmoney and become more efficient
(26:35):
so your teams can get thingsover the line both faster but
with the right kind of value andquality that you desire.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Are there any techniques that you've applied,
maybe across a team or across adepartment?
Is there any tools that you'veapplied to help with this?
And I'll give you an example.
One of the things that I'vedone in the past is establish a
no meeting Friday.
What are some other tools maybethat you might have for
starting to establish that deepthinking time?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
So I think a lot of it and I probably didn't touch
about it enough as I should havewithin the previous question
that you gave me but a lot of itis about education and setting
up controls, making things easyfor people to access, because,
at the end of the day, thissenior leader, for example, who
wants to know what the latest ison this complex matter or this
(27:29):
issue that you know that hasarisen, if you can facilitate a
way for them to access that sameinformation without having to
ping your developer or you knowthe person doing the work,
you're then taking that theinterruption, out of the
equation.
So things I like to do is, forexample, a confluence page maybe
, maybe a pattern of what, whata person can do or steps that a
(27:51):
person can take to get theinformation that they're after.
You know you need to.
You want to understand what'sthe latest on this piece of
information.
Here is our board.
There will be all the listedpieces of work that you're after
, rightly labeled.
Click on the one you want, goto the comment section, check
the latest piece of commentary,what the latest is, and see if
that suits what you're trying toachieve.
(28:13):
If not, come and speak to mefirst and I'm able to give you
some more information.
So setting up some controls.
And again, this is where thetrade-offs happen, because I
would have spoken to my team andsaid for me to get you this
break so you can do your work, Ineed you to be kind enough to
put the commentary in and it'sthat trade-off between the two.
I'm giving you some shallowpiece of work, some admin for
(28:33):
the trade of your deep work,where you can actually get
focused and do your piece ofwork.
So that's an example of acontrol, but it's education.
So there's many things that tiein well, and I think one of the
Achilles heels of a lot ofsenior leaders in the modern day
era is the lack of appreciationfor complex work, the
differences, the nuances betweensomething which is complicated
(28:55):
ie, I've done this a hundredtimes but it's still quite
complicated to do or this iscomplex.
I've never seen anything likethis before.
I'm doing it for the first time.
It's something different.
It's uncharted waters, the fogis dense, I can't see where I'm
going versus.
I've trodded this path, you know, hundreds of times.
(29:17):
It's a difficult path, but Ican do it.
I've done it before and I feela lot of senior leaders struggle
so that education.
There's a framework I'm goingto butcher the pronunciation
here it's either the Knafen orKenevin framework and it talks
about these things and what Ilike to do is run workshops and
(29:38):
take the time to educate seniorleaders on the differences
between complexity, complicatedand so on and so on.
Something which is clear andsomething which is chaotic in
terms of the workflow or workstreams that we work in and that
usually is a brilliant openerinto helping people understand
and appreciate why deep thinkingis important.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
So this is great.
Hassan, you talked abouteducation.
You and I had talked about somework that you're doing, a work
kit that you're working on.
Tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, sure.
So I want this to be asaccessible as possible.
Right as I've kind of gone onmy journey through my career so
far, I've I've learned that Ialways used to think knowledge
was power, but now I believesharing knowledge is the true
power.
What I have done is puttogether a deep work kit so
people can have a quick insightinto, you know, a roadmap or
(30:33):
mechanics they can use to embeddeep work within their teams.
It's got some, it's got somefurther learning in there, so
things that I've takeninspiration from some, you know,
some books, some podcasts youknow I've quoted the talk today
because I'm hoping it's going tobe useful and and some of the
bits and bobs that I think wouldbe really, really useful for
people who want to get into deepwork but not sure where to
(30:56):
start.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
We'll put a link to that in the show notes so people
can get to it very easily.
Thank you very much for sharingthat.
I want to ask you for ourlisteners out there who might
want to get in touch with youwhat's the best way for them to
do that, San?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
So the best way to reach out to me is probably
going to be my LinkedIn.
So it's the normal LinkedInforward slash.
No has agile and that's thebest way you can get to me, and
I'm sure Mark will be kindenough to put my LinkedIn
address in the show.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
We'll definitely do that.
Well, hassan, we really ran outof time.
There's more meat left on thebone, so I want to do a part two
to this episode.
So that's the cliffhanger.
So, hassan, thank you for whatyou do.
Give back to the Agilecommunity, appreciate your
service to that, and it's justbeen a true pleasure to have you
on the show.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Thank you so much.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
I hope those who are listeningfind benefit from this and, yeah
, watch this space.
Can't wait for part two Awesome.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
All right, everybody that brings it into another
episode of the agile within.
We'll see you next time.
Thanks for joining us foranother episode of the agile
within.
If you haven't already, pleasejoin our LinkedIn page to stay
in touch.
Just search for the agilewithin and please spread the
(32:18):
word with your friends andcolleagues Until next time.
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Welcome to the Agile Within.
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(00:29):
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And now on to the show.
Welcome back to the AgileWithin everybody.
This is your host, as always,mark Metz.
(01:34):
My guest for today's episode isHassan Butt.
Hassan, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Hi Mark, Thanks for having me.
Super, super excited to be heretoday.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
You and I have been talking about this for quite a
while.
We've had some scheduledifficulties, but we finally
found time to get together andyou've been on my list for quite
a while now to bring on theshow, so thank you for coming on
.
Hassan is from Bradford,england, and I want to find out
first of all, hassan, if I wascoming to Bradford for a day and
had never been there before,what's one thing that Hassan
(02:07):
would say that I couldn't missdoing?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
There are a few things that Bradford are famous
for.
It's just actually won theculture.
I think it's won the cultureaward for 2025.
So there's been a lot of pressabout Bradford, but for me, it's
all about the cuisine.
People come from up and downthe country to come and try the
food.
Whether you like desserts,you're a savory person, you like
spicy, you know different typesof flavors Italian, indian, and
(02:34):
so on and so forth there'ssomething for everyone.
It's the capital when it comesto food, in my opinion.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
So what's your favorite type of?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
food.
So for listeners who are maybenot from the uk, there's a
there's somewhat of a delicacywhich is cheap and cheerful,
which which is always a goodthing, and it's called a spicy
dipped chicken burger and it'sone of my, one of my favorite
things cheese slice on top withwith some with some fries, and a
(03:03):
cold drink goes down a treeevery single time, but if I'm
with family, it might be a steakor if I'm feeling traditional,
maybe a curry of some kind.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Wow, you've got me intrigued, so I've got to try
that now.
That sounds really really good.
Well, hasan, before we getstarted, I thought it would be
interesting for you to introduceyourself to our audience and
let us know a little bit aboutwho you are, your background.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Sure, sure.
So I've already said to MarkI'm not much of a speaking about
myself, but I do think there isimportance in my story and what
I want to do is maybe lightsome passion within people who
think they're not good enough orthey suffer from imposter
syndrome.
I started off well.
I did a traditional routewithin the UK of, you know,
(03:50):
doing a degree, found myselfstuck in contact center roles
where I didn't really feel likeI was fulfilling my potential.
One day, through a lot ofperseverance and hard work, I
managed to get myself into a newrole after doing loads of
voluntary work and trying tobuild on my experience, and I
managed to land the role of ascrum master.
(04:12):
Fast forward since that timewhere I didn't feel like I was
good enough for the job full ofimposter syndrome, surrounded by
loads of senior leaders aroundme who had just transitioned
sideways, where I went from, youknow, from the bottom to the
top, you know very much fearing.
I didn't know anything.
I didn't know everything.
I had to learn absolutelyeverything and I couldn't
(04:32):
satisfy for anything less thanknowing every single answer.
Here I am today.
You know delivering talks a lotmore comfortable in my shell.
I appreciate how good I am andwhat I can bring to the table,
my uniqueness as an individual.
And yeah, it's been a magicaljourney, but I've managed to do
(04:52):
that.
Coming from the contact centers,there's a lot of debate outside
of this.
Mark, you'll know, so-and-so isnot technical enough.
How do they fulfill these roles?
You know they need to be moretechnical.
We're in that kind ofenvironment.
But what I will say is thatevery day is an opportunity to
learn and if you put the hardwork in, there's no reason why
you can't bridge the gap.
We're not all born geniuses,but there's no reason why we
(05:13):
can't start to learn and bridgethat gap.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I resonate very much with the humility, with imposter
syndrome, because I suffer fromthat as well and just say it's
such a pleasure and an honor tohave you here.
You've got a great onlinepresence, you've got a great
reputation, so I'm very honoredto have you here on the show.
Well, today's episode is titledthe Importance of Deep Thinking
, and so I first want to startout Hasan, help us to define
(05:38):
what is deep thinking, to definewhat is deep thinking.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Sure.
So for me it's imagining you'reas an individual, but I always
stress this the most of theconversations I have around deep
thinking are how you canimprove it within teams, but all
of the information I tend toshare is also applicable to
individuals, so please note thatyou can use it for yourself as
(06:07):
well.
Yeah, imagine you're deep inthe zone and you're working on a
critical task.
A senior leader has said to youyou know, hassan, mark, we need
this done today.
So you know you're working onit.
And then, all of a sudden, anotification pops up Could be a
Slack message, a Teams message,any kind of notification.
(06:28):
Now, all of a sudden, you'velooked at it, you've maybe
answered the query that's comeup, something that, again, was
deemed urgent.
Now, when you go back to doingthat critical task, all of a
sudden, you've lost your flowand you're really struggling to
get back into the groove.
What once made sense doesn'tmake sense at all.
You just feel yourself staringinto space.
(06:49):
Deep thinking was what youoriginally achieved and then,
after the notification, what youlost was the end result of not
understanding things.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Can you give us an example of where deep thinking
was broken in your real life andthe effects of that?
Share with us an example fromyou personally, and then let's
share an example of you at ateam level.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Okay.
So, like probably manylisteners, you know I'm, I have
a partner, I have children.
That's one thing I do know isis every every minute moment of
the day my children would likemy time.
It's really hard sometimes toget down some critical thinking,
(07:35):
for example, if I need todeliver a presentation.
You'll know, mark, that my talkhas been doing the rounds
recently on this specific topicand it's not the easiest thing
to do when you know my maybe mychild is knocking on the door
saying dad, I want to, I want toplay a game together.
When are we going to do, youknow this?
When we're going to, when arewe going to go to the park?
And it is almost an emotionalpull and a want and a desire to
(08:00):
do everything.
But I very much realize, assoon as I start maybe not
focusing on the work I'm tryingto do everything.
But I very much realized, assoon as I start maybe not
focusing on the work I'm tryingto achieve, everything almost
gets pushed to the back andbefore I know it, I'm trying to
do something at midnight and I'munable to complete it with the
same vigor and passion and focusof what I might've been able to
do during the day if I'd havefocused out some time, set some
(08:23):
time aside to make sure I'mdoing what I set out to do
originally.
So having a plan and I thinkthis is really important and
this is something we can touchupon later is communicating with
others.
It's not enough for me to justset my timer on and say I'm
going to do half an hour offocus time and I'm going to do
(08:44):
this specific task.
There are other individualswithin the same house as me
taking the time to communicatewith other people within my
environment my wife, my children.
That daddy's going to go dosome focus work.
I need for you to not interruptme for that or come and knock
on my door for the next half anhour or so, or ask mommy before
you come and knock on my door,just as a control.
(09:05):
We sometimes assume, when tryingto protect your deep thinking
time, that it's enough to justhave that conversation with your
inner self and say and that's abattle in itself, right To
dedicate some time to focus onsomething when you could be
playing computer games, watchinga TV, a TV show, a movie and so
on and so forth, or listeningto your favorite podcast, like
you are today on the AgileWithin, but you have to be
(09:29):
ruthless, almost, with it.
You have to make sure thatyou're dedicating that time, but
you also have to educate othersaround you, because if people
don't understand what you'retrying to achieve, what you're
trying to do, it's going to fallon deaf ears and, before you
know it, all the hard work youchannel with your inner self is
going to be broken in a matterof moments, innocently, of
course.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
So I've got a question for you on that,
because this can happen, eventhough you don't intend for it
to be.
But maybe it's just apersonality quality or a
personality trait of you.
Maybe you're the type of personthat just maintain a stern face
and when you tell people, maybe, as a dad, let's use as a
reference.
This is my complete antithesisbecause I am the ultimate teddy
(10:12):
bear when it comes to I've got ahuge heart.
But let's say, if you just havethis persona where you just are
really gruff and you tell yourkids you're like dad has
important things to do and don'tinterrupt dad for the next 30
minutes, and the kids aredownstairs and they noticed that
the stove was left on and therewas a piece of paper on the
(10:35):
stove and all of a suddenthere's a fire that starts.
Well, dad said veryunequivocally do not interrupt
dad for the next 30 minutes.
So does the child obey becausedad might be angry if he gets
interrupted.
That's a silly example.
I mean, every kid I hope wouldknow that it's okay to interrupt
(10:56):
dad in that case.
But in our own lives, how do weshow up?
Do we show up in such a waythat, if an emergency does
happen?
Our teams, our people, ourindividuals do?
They shy away from coming to usbecause of the way that we have
represented ourselves?
Does that make any sense?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
That makes 100% sense .
And again, this is reallyinteresting because one of the
things my teams any person who'slistening to this, who's worked
with me before, will know thatI'm a very approachable person
and I like to ooze positivitywith consistency.
And it's not positivity for thesake of it.
I just have lived a life whereI know there's worse things that
(11:41):
could be happening in life.
I'm getting the opportunity towork with awesome people and
awesome projects, trying todeliver fantastic things.
Yeah, it might not always besunshine and roses, but I'm
pretty sure there's people outthere that would give their
right arm to be in my positionworking with these teams and
doing these great things.
Reflecting back on myselfworking in a contact center
rather than answering the phones, even though it was an honest
(12:03):
job and I was happy to helppeople.
If I could go back to thatindividual and say, right,
you've got an opportunity towork with team delivering these
awesome projects for a massivecompany, I'd probably bite your
hand off.
And if I saw my future selfcomplaining, being negative
about doing this job, I'dprobably want to give myself a
(12:24):
good shake and say you know whatare you playing at?
What are you doing here?
You're so lucky.
You're so fortunate to be inthis position.
Enjoy it, embrace it.
Every time my teams come to mewith a problem, you know and I
this this language that I use.
I use it at home, I use itwithin my teams.
When mistakes happen, I sayaccidents happen.
(12:45):
It's a phrase my children useoften if they see me drop
something, and it's so sweetwhen I see my own child look up,
look up at me and say it's okay, daddy, accidents happen.
I'm trying to teach that andingrain that within my teams,
because there's a fear culture,unfortunately, that when you do
experiments or you try somethingnew, or you're doing your work
from day to day, and you make amistake, you're going to be
(13:08):
punished or there's going to besome scary thing which is going
to come of it.
And it's about trying to breakthat fear culture and get people
in a position where they feelexcited about their work, they
don't feel afraid to makemistakes, they know that it's a
learning opportunity.
Of course, if we're not learningfrom something, that's not good
, and that's when you need tochange.
(13:29):
Can we be too approachable?
Yes, 100%.
And it goes back to the idea ofkind of almost being a teacher.
Some of my best mentorsteachers were the ones that
didn't give me all the answers,but I did know if it got to a
point where I was really, really, really, really struggling, I
(13:50):
was at the bottom of the barrel,they would come out and they'd
support me, they'd give me someideas, they'd give me some,
maybe some direction.
I think you can be in a positionwhere you give all the answers
and that's no good becauseyou're almost acting as a crud
and when you're not thereanymore, that person's going to
struggle.
And on the opposite hand, ifyou give them absolutely zero,
(14:10):
then again it's the, it's thesame thing.
You know they're not going toknow where to go, what direction
to go into.
You're almost becoming, asGordon Ramsay would put it, a
busy idiot.
You're putting all your energyin the wrong places because you
don't understand where to start.
I said to you, mark, at thestart of this I'm a person who
point me in a direction.
Let me go and off I go, almostlike a Jerusalem burner.
(14:31):
I'm off to the races.
So I think giving that kind ofinsight to someone, this is
where you start and how you wantto get to the end destination
is up to you, and let them pavethe way.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
So let me ask you, San, what is required for deep
thinking?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Sure.
So for me, mark, whenever I tryto share the practices of deep
thinking within teams I'veworked with, it's all good me
being an advocate of deepthinking.
But if the others don't see orthey don't buy into what deep
thinking is and what thebenefits are, then there's no
real point.
Because, just like anything inlife, if I am not a fan of
(15:08):
something, I'm not going to makeuse of it.
Think of it like mobile phonesYou're either an Android user or
an Apple user.
If I don't get behind one ofthem, I'm not going to
continuously use it.
I might use it for a day.
Then I'll put it down.
I'll go revert back to type.
You know, I'll revert back tothe model that I like or the way
(15:29):
of working that I like to workin.
I think of a diet.
A diet's good right, yeah,diet's good right, yeah, but you
use it.
100 a diet or exercise.
You know anyone who goes to thegym.
You know there's someinteresting points of the
psychology of mirroring thingsand why people tend to do better
(15:49):
when they go to the gym versuswhen they do exercise at home.
Surrounding yourself bylike-minded individuals who are
on the similar journey or thesame journey makes you more
inclined to persevere with thework that you're doing at hand.
So that ties back into what Ido with teams.
I want the buy-in, I want themall in a position where they see
the value and they agree.
(16:09):
My bartering tool, or a way ofsaying this to my team members,
is my job, or what I'm here todo is I'm here to help you do
your job better.
I want you to succeed.
I want you to have all thethings that you need to do your
work.
And, in a utopia, if I was togive you a critical task to
(16:30):
complete a complex task, whatwould you want?
What would be the conditionsthat you would need?
Probably time, space, minimaldistractions, a chance to focus,
to think deeply and to get intothe groove, into the flow.
Because, as we know, mark,you've got a background in
(16:50):
software development.
Complex tasks don't respondwell to chaos.
Complex tasks don't respondwell to chaos.
You know.
You need clarity, you need thatcognitive runway to get you
know.
Get into the group so youunderstand exactly what you're
doing.
You know.
So that's the utopia.
And then I say to the individualright, so what does a normal
day look like then?
And they say, well, hassan, ona normal day I get pulled into
(17:11):
five meetings.
I get, you know, 10 messagessaying just a second.
I just want to you know,wondering if we can touch base
on this specific topic.
Uh, what's the latest on thispiece of work, this complex work
that you're working on, and soon and so forth.
What I pitch is I want to giveyou what you initially asked for
, but I can't do it by myself.
There's going to be a fewtrade-offs where I need a few
(17:32):
things from you so that I cangive you these things that
you're trying to get a hold of.
Does that seem fair?
And 99.9% of the time, thepeople I speak to are on board
and they can see the value in it.
And I say, like anything, it'sjust an experiment.
Guys and girls, it's anexperiment, we'll try it.
If you detest it, you hate it,you don't see any value in it
(17:53):
whatsoever, we'll drop it.
I'm never, ever, precious aboutembedding an experiment or
embedding a way of working.
For me, it's not a one shoefits all approach.
There might be one or twothings that people can take away
from the model that I sharewith how I put it together, and
they might not.
And if they don't no problemand if they do fantastic.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
I want to ask you is deep thinking, does it apply
just to individuals, or can youapply it as a group, where a
group is involved in deepthinking?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Whenever I talk about deep thinking, I always talk
about it specifically withinteams, creating an environment
for people to do deep thinking.
And whilst, yes, the actions orcontrols, guardrails that you
might put in place might improvethe individuals within the team
, there's going to be instanceswhere team members might come
(18:46):
together and they're going to beresponsible for helping each
other.
I mentioned already about themirroring effect, if you can
take the time to mirror anindividual.
So, for example, I know Googlewere doing some sessions where
they were getting onto meetingsand just doing their work in
silence, and that feeling ofknowing that your colleague is
(19:08):
not playing video games, is notwatching a movie, but is
actually cracking on with somereal important, complex work
makes you feel like you want todo the same.
You know you want to match thatenergy, you want to go that bit
further.
You want to.
You know you want to do thatpiece of work, but also you will
.
You'll know of other thingsmark like pair programming,
mobbing.
If I could create anenvironment where we could get
(19:31):
two developers, three developers, four developers, a space where
no one's going to interruptthem, no one's going to come and
bother them, no one's going toask them for updates every two
seconds, then no doubt that deepthinking as a group would be
that much more improved.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
So I have to share an example from my past on that.
That is, I think, probably isthe top experience I have been a
part of, with deep thinking.
And this was a particular group, that a group of developers
they were all about the same agehad the similar likes and
(20:10):
interests professional interestsas well as outside of their
career.
They just generally liked eachother.
And this wasn't anything that Idid.
This was something that theydid.
I just happened to be able towitness it.
And so they started challengingsome of the activities that I
was doing because, quite frankly, they were mob or I think the
(20:32):
term is ensemble now to make itmore sound, a little less, a
little less threatening, butthey were doing mob or ensemble
programming a majority of theday.
Yes, they would have breakswhere they would talk about
something fun, but they werevery much working together.
They were very, very good at it, and one of the things they
(20:52):
questioned was do we need adaily scrum?
Do we need a daily stand uppoint?
We're already in touch allthroughout the day.
So they really worked as a teamand you know, it's almost a
thing where, when the team isworking so well together and
they're so engaged, you'll findthat people don't want to
(21:16):
interrupt them, right?
If somebody is sitting aloneand they're working and you're
like, hey, maybe I'll justinterrupt this person.
But when you see a group andthey're just super engaged,
you're like, oh, probably not agood time, Maybe I better come
back.
So just the act of doing thatin and of itself reduced some of
the interruptions.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Just the act of doing that in and of itself reduced
some of the interruptions.
To be honest, I can see a lotof things that resonate with me
there and I think one thing topoint out is the difference of
in-person working to virtualworking, because you rightly
mentioned there, when peoplephysically see people busy at
work, they're less inclined, youknow.
You think if you've got a roombooked out, you know, so someone
(22:00):
might be less inclined to knockon that because they see people
are busy doing their workversus people are just in a chat
and they've got so manydifferent avenues of.
You know you're able to accessthem.
Mark's in a meeting on teams,but his slack shows he's online.
I'll drop him a slack messageand so on and so forth.
So you know, or his emails arethere, I'll drop him an email,
(22:20):
I'll ping him.
And how often do we see, withthe modern day area of not
everyone's on the cameras, it'seasy to not be present and all
of a sudden, you know Markspeaking, but I'm checking my
emails.
You know someone's just pingedme because they want to book me
in for another talk maybe, orI'm doing something else.
Intro you know someone,something else is coming up and
my cognitive capacity is beingpulled in so many different
(22:43):
directions that I just can'tfocus.
I can't get into the zone, evenon this call, for example.
You know, whilst we're havingthis chat, I might be getting
pulled out from so manydifferent avenues.
My phone might be vibrating inmy pocket and that's making me
think.
I I wonder who's messaging me.
I might see someone walkingdown the street wave at me Again
.
It's just making your braintick and tick, and tick and tick
(23:05):
and get pulled in so manydifferent avenues that
everything just becomes sodiluted.
It's an unfortunate thing thatwe have to deal with these days,
but this is why deep thinkingis important and this is why I'm
such a massive advocate for it.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
How do we scale that?
How do we gain awarenessthroughout our teams, throughout
our organizations, theimportance of deep thinking,
what it is and so that we dolimit these interruptions that
come in?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
So interesting that you mentioned that, actually,
because I just did a talkyesterday with a lovely company
called Opencast who invited meto do a talk, and they
specifically are a consultancy,so they work with clients.
So a lot of my conversation wastailoring it to how you would
deal with clientele andstakeholders.
From your clients is from yourclients and for me it's all
(24:01):
about being comfortable in firstactually believing in what
you're talking about so you knowthat there's real benefit from
there, and making sure that whenyou articulate yourself you're
talking in the language of theperson that you're speaking to.
For example, I know, mark,already from speaking to you
that you were a softwaredeveloper, so there's certain
things that you have a passionfor.
So when I say you'll have moretime to do your development work
and you will be interrupted,you know that hits a chord with
(24:23):
you and you can get behind it.
If I'm speaking to a seniorleader or a client in the
context of clients money talksand if I can tell that
individual that from doing thisthey're going to save money,
money, that's going to be myfirst getting them interested or
hooking them.
Hooking, you know hooking themin, getting the door slightly
opened, you know, challengingtheir thoughts and maybe, you
(24:46):
know, intriguing them as to whatthis actually may be.
So it's one thing.
So it's one thing getting themintrigued, but then you've got
to back it up right.
And this is where I think,starting off with with a small
team or a team running theseexperiments, creating some
actual measures that you cantake and say, okay, look, this
team improved, you know,throughput, the cycle time
improved, and so on and so forth, the item age improved.
(25:09):
So you've got all these flowmetrics that you can look at.
Maybe the morale alone improved, the way in which they're
understanding.
It might not be somethingspecifically tangible, but it's
something there that you canmeasure and say, right, okay,
this, this improved.
And then going back to thosesenior leaders and saying I'm
not coming empty-handed because,if you think of it, nobody
wants someone to comeempty-handed to you know a
(25:30):
scenario or situation.
But if you can come bearingfruit, bearing gifts of ideas
and measures and value, thatperson's going to sit there and
take heed rather than just metalking about something with no
proof.
So I think, number oneunderstand the language of the
individual you're speaking toand try to mirror that.
Again, it goes back topsychology mirroring a person's
(25:53):
language mannerisms we can see,I know you everyone listening
today can't see me and Mark, butfull of smiles.
Mark smiles, I smile, I smile,mark smiles.
It's just a natural thing.
And it's the same thing whenyou're speaking to individuals.
So if you can mirror their tone, their language, they're going
to be more open to listening towhat you've got to say.
(26:13):
So I think talking the rightlanguage, having the right
tangible proof measures that youcan use and show them, this is
the value that this can bring.
Maybe say this is what we'vedone internally within the teams
that we work with, within ourconsultancy, this is the value
is brought with other companiesand so on and so forth.
And here's the value here thatwe think we can bring to your
team and how we can save youmoney and become more efficient
(26:35):
so your teams can get thingsover the line both faster but
with the right kind of value andquality that you desire.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Are there any techniques that you've applied,
maybe across a team or across adepartment?
Is there any tools that you'veapplied to help with this?
And I'll give you an example.
One of the things that I'vedone in the past is establish a
no meeting Friday.
What are some other tools maybethat you might have for
starting to establish that deepthinking time?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
So I think a lot of it and I probably didn't touch
about it enough as I should havewithin the previous question
that you gave me but a lot of itis about education and setting
up controls, making things easyfor people to access, because,
at the end of the day, thissenior leader, for example, who
wants to know what the latest ison this complex matter or this
(27:29):
issue that you know that hasarisen, if you can facilitate a
way for them to access that sameinformation without having to
ping your developer or you knowthe person doing the work,
you're then taking that theinterruption, out of the
equation.
So things I like to do is, forexample, a confluence page maybe
, maybe a pattern of what, whata person can do or steps that a
(27:51):
person can take to get theinformation that they're after.
You know you need to.
You want to understand what'sthe latest on this piece of
information.
Here is our board.
There will be all the listedpieces of work that you're after
, rightly labeled.
Click on the one you want, goto the comment section, check
the latest piece of commentary,what the latest is, and see if
that suits what you're trying toachieve.
(28:13):
If not, come and speak to mefirst and I'm able to give you
some more information.
So setting up some controls.
And again, this is where thetrade-offs happen, because I
would have spoken to my team andsaid for me to get you this
break so you can do your work, Ineed you to be kind enough to
put the commentary in and it'sthat trade-off between the two.
I'm giving you some shallowpiece of work, some admin for
(28:33):
the trade of your deep work,where you can actually get
focused and do your piece ofwork.
So that's an example of acontrol, but it's education.
So there's many things that tiein well, and I think one of the
Achilles heels of a lot ofsenior leaders in the modern day
era is the lack of appreciationfor complex work, the
differences, the nuances betweensomething which is complicated
(28:55):
ie, I've done this a hundredtimes but it's still quite
complicated to do or this iscomplex.
I've never seen anything likethis before.
I'm doing it for the first time.
It's something different.
It's uncharted waters, the fogis dense, I can't see where I'm
going versus.
I've trodded this path, you know, hundreds of times.
(29:17):
It's a difficult path, but Ican do it.
I've done it before and I feela lot of senior leaders struggle
so that education.
There's a framework I'm goingto butcher the pronunciation
here it's either the Knafen orKenevin framework and it talks
about these things and what Ilike to do is run workshops and
(29:38):
take the time to educate seniorleaders on the differences
between complexity, complicatedand so on and so on.
Something which is clear andsomething which is chaotic in
terms of the workflow or workstreams that we work in and that
usually is a brilliant openerinto helping people understand
and appreciate why deep thinkingis important.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
So this is great.
Hassan, you talked abouteducation.
You and I had talked about somework that you're doing, a work
kit that you're working on.
Tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, sure.
So I want this to be asaccessible as possible.
Right as I've kind of gone onmy journey through my career so
far, I've I've learned that Ialways used to think knowledge
was power, but now I believesharing knowledge is the true
power.
What I have done is puttogether a deep work kit so
people can have a quick insightinto, you know, a roadmap or
(30:33):
mechanics they can use to embeddeep work within their teams.
It's got some, it's got somefurther learning in there, so
things that I've takeninspiration from some, you know,
some books, some podcasts youknow I've quoted the talk today
because I'm hoping it's going tobe useful and and some of the
bits and bobs that I think wouldbe really, really useful for
people who want to get into deepwork but not sure where to
(30:56):
start.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
We'll put a link to that in the show notes so people
can get to it very easily.
Thank you very much for sharingthat.
I want to ask you for ourlisteners out there who might
want to get in touch with youwhat's the best way for them to
do that, San?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
So the best way to reach out to me is probably
going to be my LinkedIn.
So it's the normal LinkedInforward slash.
No has agile and that's thebest way you can get to me, and
I'm sure Mark will be kindenough to put my LinkedIn
address in the show.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
We'll definitely do that.
Well, hassan, we really ran outof time.
There's more meat left on thebone, so I want to do a part two
to this episode.
So that's the cliffhanger.
So, hassan, thank you for whatyou do.
Give back to the Agilecommunity, appreciate your
service to that, and it's justbeen a true pleasure to have you
on the show.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Thank you so much.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
I hope those who are listeningfind benefit from this and, yeah
, watch this space.
Can't wait for part two Awesome.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
All right, everybody that brings it into another
episode of the agile within.
We'll see you next time.
Thanks for joining us foranother episode of the agile
within.
If you haven't already, pleasejoin our LinkedIn page to stay
in touch.
Just search for the agilewithin and please spread the
(32:18):
word with your friends andcolleagues Until next time.
This has been your host, markMetz.
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