• Agile Leadership

Managers biggest obstacle in Agile transition

According to a survey by Scrum Alliance, over 70% of people who work Agile experience tensions between their teams and the rest of the organization. I do recognize this picture. At many organizations, I do the speedboat game with Agile teams to find out what hinders their Agile way of working the most. Two items invariably come up: IT capability and management. And if you listen to the examples, they mean the organization.

“The traditional organizational model with the traditional management role is increasingly pinching as teams become more Agile”

Managers who have heard the bell ring but don’t know where the Agile clapper hangs often see Agile as anarchy where everyone does what they want. And when they do start using it, they use it as a means to make their teams work harder and more efficiently. The latter usually succeeds quite easily compared to traditional working in silos, so they think the transition is done. Ticked off on their to-do list, they happily continue planning in a consultation and control culture. These are management views that miss the mark considerably. First, Agile working is synonymous with super-intensive disciplined collaboration, based on a shared vision with a focus on what contributes most to the value for the customer or user. So far from anarchy. And customer interest determines, rather than HIPPO (Highest Payed Persons Opinion). Here the market is leading the pace, not the manager.

“And the agile transition is only successful when the organization is agile and not when a few teams show that you work more efficiently with Scrum.”

Agile practices are catching on pretty well in a world with transparent markets, where buyers are cutting corners with suppliers who are more concerned with themselves than with their value to the customer. And where true Agile organizations quickly stand out and are rewarded with a pull effect in their market. Agile organizations achieve significantly better results this way, measured in the shortest time-to-market, the fastest growth, the best customer loyalty and fantastic margins!

But isn’t that exactly what the manager wants? So what about the manager? And are the stories in the media true that 70% fewer managers are needed in agile organizations? Or even sturdier, that no managers are needed at all?

The manager of the future is not gone, but is ensuring the best execution of work in a different way. In a different role. A much more sophisticated role than the traditional manager, so not for everyone.

First, we need to understand the difference between leadership and management. Leadership is about developing, sharing and continuously improving a vision in such a way that an ever-increasing group gets to work with the same vision in mind. Management ensures that needed work gets done and operational problems are solved. In a traditional organization, leadership, management and execution are separate. In the Agile organization, these roles are merged. Everyone can contribute vision and multidisciplinary teams take care of execution themselves. They learn at lightning speed from small experiments and direct feedback, rather than having endless meetings or relying on the authority of management. They solve their own problems and improve the way they work together.

What is left for management?

Management transforms in the Agile organization to Agile leadership. In other words, how to develop, grow and maintain a shared vision as a leader. How to ensure that this is a vision that moves the organization forward. And which ensures that people inside (and outside!) the organization perform their work from this vision with great passion. We call this principle in Agile: Shared Vision – Shared Goals.

In an Agile organization, you need a shared vision and shared goals at many levels. Such as in the areas of innovation, value creation, expertise development, HR, resources management and the continuous inflow of passion. Plenty of work for the manager who moves with the times and transforms to Agile Leader! Not a politically sensitive meeting tiger, but a collaborative visionary who spends most of his time on organizational development and business model innovation. That’s where the scarcity is in organizations. And there is also the profit for managers who dare to transform themselves in time.