This encounter landed me in a business paradox

Why plus20 & plus60 & minus20 is a transformation

It is open enrollment, so I can expect participants from a variety of industries. And so it happened. One of those participants turns out to be the partner of the CEO of a fast-growing high-tech scale-up. I see that for four days she is very actively participating, asking questions, pricking her ears and seeming to absorb every word immediately. Point blank. See, that feels good. So you can understand that my day is completely ruined when she also says this to me afterwards: “Adrie, thank you. This is exactly what we need!” Plume, feathers, bow.

Getting stuck as a scale-up

Not much later, I would get to know her partner’s scale-up better. The story of this high-tech scale-up begins in 2014 with three people in their imaginary attic room. They are working on innovations in speech technology for the telecom industry. Their distinctive competence? Usable solutions for Telcos in the business market. A success story in the making. But what were the insights the participant wanted to take away from the four-day workshop? She recognized very clearly where things were getting stuck in their organization: “We are technically driven from product thinking, instead of value driven from customer thinking. We are on hierarchical micromanagement rather than self-organization. We work with silos instead of value chains.” Nice challenges. “So Adrie, she really learned something from you,” I say to myself.

If demand grows too fast

I am therefore not very surprised, but very excited, when a little later I receive an invitation to meet the management of this scale-up. In that acquaintance, a few things quickly become clear to me; I taste the atmosphere of an organization that cannot handle the fast-growing demand. The Telcos push the organization to come up with new technology just about every day. Especially when a CEO then makes promise upon promise, things begin to stall internally. As a result? A business paradox: Order book grows, deliveries fall.

Let it rain quarters

After a quick-scan, I get to work as a coach with the board and management. We take big steps right away: we dissect the organization as a system and then reshape it. But now according to the principles of a value-creating and, above all, delivering system. It’s not just a few quarters falling, it’s pouring quarters! It provides the board and management with an enormous amount of insights on how to break through their business paradox.

And then dig in their heels

Time to take the next steps together with the teams. Bang on! It pleases me to see that the first teams are energetically picking up the new way of working. That gives confidence to the next teams. So far, so good. Until you meet that one project manager. That project leader who is stuck in waterfall thinking and has an aversion to anything that has the word Agile in it. In this case, let that also be the project leader of the most time-critical project. Oy! And let it also be this project leader who goes to the management and threatens to shut down the project if he has to work Agile. A project leader paradox! He has the most to gain from it, but goes completely off the rails. The icing on the cake: he also appears to have unique technological knowledge that is not shared: high dependence and high risk. What’s next?

Coach without heels

During the next review session of three teams (we work according to LESS), suddenly the entire management appears on the scene. “Adrie, apologies for having to inform you this way, but we are going to do things differently. As a company we do choose the Agile way of working, but this particular project we will just finish according to the waterfall model!” Yes, that does leave you perplexed. But as a coach, I don’t want to allow myself to dig in my heels. Then we won’t get anywhere. Then it becomes mud-slinging. So soon I decide to move along and I actually agree to do it according to the chosen route. Why?

Transformation = plus20 & plus60 & minus20

You can never transform an organization completely in one go. There is always a group, I call them the plus20, who are able to change right away on the basis of conviction. Then the largest group, I call them the plus60, needs the proof of the plus20 and goes along. Then comes the next group, I call them the minus20, who needs double proof; of both the plus20 and the plus60. Eventually everyone goes along, but so that takes time and proof. So don’t expect Agile Transformation to go overnight.

Agility and patience pays off

In this case, it was the project leader with the greatest time pressure, the highest dependence and the greatest risk who was in the minus 20 group. Sometimes that’s just the way it is; I’ve learned to be agile and patient just then. That pays off. Because also in this case the result is very good; this organization is now doing very well. In recent years they have acquired one high-tech company after another all over the world, and they are still growing like crazy. I recently read an interview with the CEO, who proudly talked about the high degree of self-organization and… frequent delivery of new technology for hungry Telcos!