Riddle: they are directly opposite yet connected?

Any idea what I’m pointing to with this Agile title? I’ll point you in the right direction: job happiness and challenging goals. In no particular order, by the way. But they are diametrically opposed and yet intertwined in many organizations. They also can’t exist without each other as far as I’m concerned. What do you think about that? I would love to spar about it. Feel free to contact me .

It’s great fun to be in a nice team, but if no results are achieved, the team won’t have a long life. The other way doesn’t work for me either: being in a team where very good results are achieved, but where the atmosphere is totally ruined. That doesn’t last long either. So how do you achieve that good balance? A team where work happiness and achieving high goals go hand in hand? Looking for the sweet spot where opposites work together.

High Impact with Happy Teams.

That has become my work motto. And not entirely coincidentally also the motto of our Scrum Academy team. Anyway, how do you make high impact with a happy team? The key to this lies in creating an organizational culture where work happiness and high goals go hand in hand. And now it gets really interesting! Several theories (Quinn & Cameron, Schneider, Laloux) describe different types of culture, each with a dominant way of working. Each culture has strengths, but also some pitfalls. For example, the different cultures form a kind of characters that sometimes clash. Similarly, you could say that work happiness and challenging goals do not go hand in hand.

How do you connect opposites?

Indeed, in a number of theories, they are each other’s opposite, also called “competing values. For example, a culture where the goal is to become one big happy family often dislikes setting high goals and being results-oriented. And the culture of achieving high results has little regard for good teamwork. After all, it’s all about achieving (individual) goals and not about getting together around the campfire. Recognizable? So how does teamwork work?

From principles to behavior

When you work from an Agile mindset, you will find that both work happiness and goal setting are incorporated into it. I’ll explain it to you using two Agile principles. Working from these principles requires specific behaviors.

‘Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software / product / service.’

What does that look like in practice? Then you would like there to be contact with customers. To measure whether customers are happy with what you deliver. That value is seen in it, which is also paid for. That behavior is encouraged in Scrum by holding Reviews, prioritizing the backlog and a very tight sprint schedule. And by smooth Daily’s where eyes are kept on the ball: did we get closer to our goal yesterday and today?

“At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

In Scrum, this second principle is what the Retrospective is set up for. The time for a team to reflect on how they are working together. Plot during these sessions increasing work happiness and achieving results. See then you are very focused at work to grind with the team step by step to a High Performing team.

Agile and Scrum are not enough

Simply nailing the Agile principles on the wall and implementing the rules of Scrum, by the way, won’t get you there overnight. Unfortunately, “High Impact and Happy Teams” is not that easy. It’s about making it second nature to work on that culture. And therein lies the beauty of our profession. In breaking with existing patterns. And in continuously working to create a culture and achieve results that make you happy. This requires an approach from high to low in the organization. At the team level, a different way of working together. A different type of leadership. A different design of systems, such as reward structures and mandating. In this way, you work on a modern, future-proof organization.

4 contradictions in a campaign

Let’s inspire you by just flatly naming the undesirable behaviors we encounter in teams and organizations. And then let’s immediately contrast that with a desired contradiction from our best practices. The four contradictions we use to give you insight into our Agile work field?

Geeske tells you more about celebrating successes instead of taking credit.
Tim explains how to turn the headwind from the organization into wind at your back.
Rose-Anne tells you all about harnessing new perspectives instead of getting upside down.
And Steije gives an insight into his views on fear culture and daring to take risks.

Everything to inspire you to get started with your team and organization as well. Create your own “High Impact with Happy Teams. Or give it another name, but make sure that happiness at work and high goals go hand in hand. You will benefit and have a lot of fun with that now and in the long run. Want to know how to make that happen for your specific situation? Send me an email, I like to think along with you.