Lean-Agile leadership

What is specific with Lean-Agile leadership?

From SAFe home page you can read more about the cornerstones of Lean-Agile leadership. I would like to emphasize three components that are close to my heart - emotional intelligence, growth mindset and organizational change management practices.

First, as a Lean-Agile leader you need to "Lead by Example". In order to do this you need to "model behaviors that foster a generative culture". The following behaviors create the foundation for this dimension of leadership:

• Authenticity
• Emotional Intelligence
• Life-long learning
• Growing others
• Decentralized decision making

I have been interested in Emotional Intelligence (EQ) since about 2005, starting out by reading the book "Emotional intelligence" by Daniel Goleman. I am a certified coach within the Emotional Intelligence framework EQ-i 2.0 and I strongly believe every leader has to understand this set of skills that has been defined within the positive psychology domain. From this area of research you also learn that business success is very strongly linked to your own happiness and well-being.

Read more about this in my former blog posts:

- the foundation of EQ based on the article from weforum "Why you need emotional intelligence"

- about Sustainability, happiness and authentic leadership

Secondly, as a Lean-Agile leader you need to promote a Growth Mindset. This means that you "cultivate the believe that mindsets can be developed and improved". (see picture below)

In order to grow as a leader it is important to understand that you have mindsets that "resides in the subconscious mind and manifest themselves as deeply held beliefs, attitudes, assumptions and influences". If you want to become a true Lean-Agile leader, you "must remain open to the possibility that existing mindsets based on traditional management practices need to evolve in order to guide the organizational change required to become a Lean enterprise."

I have attended several NLP trainings and have an NLP Business Practitioner certificate. NLP is partly about understanding and becoming aware of your own limiting beliefs and evolve to become the best version of yourself using various techniques to re-program your subconscious mind.

Read more about this in my former blog posts:

- describtion of a growth mindset by Carol Dweck including a link to a RSA Animate clip

- some posts about Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) - mostly in Swedish

Thirdly, as a Lean-Agile leader you have to understand the process of implementing organizational Change. This has been thoroughly described by John Kotter in his eight step model. In order to be successful with the SAFe implementation roadmap (see figure below), it is vital that you have knowledge in organizational change management methodology.

I have been part of many organizational change projects and have an APMG Organizational Change Management Practitioner certificate from Learning Tree. It is vital to understand the sense of Urgency, figuring out who should be part of the Guiding coalition, develop the Vision... Empower employees... generate Short-term wins, and so on...

Read more about this in my former blog posts:

- making sense of Change management

- the difference between Change management and Change leadership

Finally, a Youtube clip describing "What is the Lean Agile mindset":

Happiness calendar from Greater Good Science Center

Today is first of August. We have had a warm and sunny July in the south of Sweden - now it is time to think about autumn activities like going back to work. 

One way af getting a good start after summer is to follow the Happiness calendar from Greater Good Science Center, part of Berkeley university. Science tells us that focusing on your personal well-being and happiness will support you in becoming more successful in life. Sounds good?

If you are interested in the Science of Happiness, you can find more information here.

Some examples from the August Happiness Calendar:

Find your sense of purpose in life

Take a walk outside

Do something fun - play

Find experiences of awe, beauty and wonder

Take a nap

Express warmth and compassion to your kids

Make your partner laugh

Believe in human goodness

Happiness is something you can measure. I found this video on Youtube from CNBC explaining why people in the Nordic countries are the happiest in the world (find more about "Danish Lykke" and "UN Happiness day"):

Disruptive HR - the EACH model

In our last TietoEVRY global leadership call before the summer we had an inspirational session with Lucy Adams from Disruptive HR who has introduced the EACH model - "Employees as Adults, Consumers and Human Beings". Lucy has experience from leading in a disruptive world being the former HR Director at BBC. 

My summary of the EACH model:

Challenge - every leader is trying to create more:

Agility

Productivity

Collaboration

Innovation

the EACH model:

EMPLOYEES

ADULT CONSUMER HUMAN

Treat employees as ADULTS

- not too much caring

- not too critical

Start from a position of Trust

Principles, not policies

Employees can take responsibility

Encourage innovation and agility

Treat employees as CONSUMERS

provide a tailored approach that meets each individual need:

- how do I learn?

- where do I want to work?

- what makes me feel valued?

Treat employees as HUMAN BEINGS

Redesign your people processes so employees:

- are encouraged to perform better

- feel more included

- feel more valued

From Youtube, a short video from DisruptiveHR explaining the EACH model and also a keynote example from Lucy :

Sustainability, Happiness and Authentic leadership

This Sunday I had the opportunity to take part in a conversation related to Sustainability, Happiness and Authentic leadership. The host was my good friend Tomas Holasek from Abintus Consulting who had invited me to the Emprogage "Best For The World Broadcast" via Youtube. I contributed by explaining how the specific framework of Emotional Intelligence called EQ-i 2.0 can be used in order to describe which abilities that are preferable in order to act authentic and as a role model. We covered also the fact that happiness and well-being is a good starting point if you want to be successful in life.

The EQ-i 2.0 framework from MHS describing the 15 subscales of emotional intelligence:

In the video below you can among many things learn more about the six abilities that you can practice in order to become a truly authentic leader:

• Self-Actualization
• Reality Testing
• Self-Regard
• Emotional Self-Awareness
• Social Responsibility
• Independence

I hope you will enjoy the session - remember: Success comes from Focusing on your personal Well-being;

You can read more about leadership, happiness and emotional intelligence in my book "Exformativt ledarskap - 49 nyanserade framgångsrecept". Have a peek view via google books.

Buy the book via Adlibris or via Bokus.

Leading from anywhere av David Burkus

Sugen på ytterligare några heta tips på hur du leder på distans? Då ska du fortsätta läsa detta inlägg...

Boken "Leading from Anywhere -The Essential Guide to Managing Remote Teams" skriven av David Burkus ger dig verktyg för att hantera utmaningar som kulturskapande, produktivitet och kreativitet. 

Nedan axplock är en eX4Mat!v summering av ChefBOKEN #2 2021:

Forskning visar att distansarbetare får
mer gjort på kortare tid och dessutom har lägre sjukfrånvaro

Tre aspekter som ett team måste ha på plats för att distansarbete ska fungera:

• En gemensam förståelse för varandra - man behöver lära känna varandra och reda ut vilka beteenden och vanor som ska gälla för gruppen. 
• En gemensam identitet - klargör vilka vi är som grupp samt koppla individuella prestationer till gruppens överordnade mål
• Ett gemensamt syfte - ska svara på frågor som "Vad kämpar vi för?" eller "Vilket problem försöker vi lösa?"

Den viktigaste aspekten för högpresterande team är:
 psykologisk trygghet

(innebär att medlemmarna vågar visa sig sårbara samt kan ta risker utan hot om negativa konsekvenser)

För att uppnå detta behöver ledaren jobba på ömsesidig respekt och interpersonell tillit. Föregå med gott exempel genom att erkänna misstag, svara på mail och meddelande, låt medarbetaren tala till punkt och ha alltid video på under videosamtal.

Odla det digitala relationsbyggandet:

- skapa tillfällen att prata om annat än jobb

- arrangera en digital fika i veckan

- planera in gemensamma måltider

- jobba "parallellt" tillsammans digitalt

- låt kontorstider råda

Sätt upp regler för synkron och asynkron kommunikation

Asynkron:

- skriv tydliga och koncisa meningar

- anta aldrig att konsensus råder

- för aktivt in positivitet i kommunikationen

- tolka alltid kommunikationen välvilligt

Synkron:

- använd gärna vanlig telefoni

- i möte med fler än två deltagare är videomöte att föredra. Strunta i virtuella bakgrunder, ha en ljuskälla bakom kameran och titta in i kameran.

Kreativt arbete på distans - hur?

Förtydliga den digital processen och bryt ner det till tre typer av möten:

Problemmöte - där syftet är att diskutera och tydliggöra det problem som ni vill lösa.

Idémöte - med fokus på att vaska fram idéer. Se till att alla bidrar och fokusera på kvantitet.

Beslutsmöte - ta fram en prioriterad lista och diskutera de bästa idéerna en och en. Ta beslut på hur ni går vidare.

Prestation och engagemang

- chefen har till uppgift att sätta upp mål för teamet

- personliga mål samskapas mellan chef och medarbetare

- fokusera på kontinuerlig uppföljning, t ex genom "dagliga stand-ups"

- stäm av regelbundet med alla i teamet

- kommunicera "small wins" regelbundet

Det är inte så stor skillnad mellan att leda på distans och leda från ett klassiskt kontor. Dock, distansbaserat ledarskap kräver mer av dig som chef. Inget får lämnas åt slumpen. Inget får bli osagt. Inget kan lämnas åt oskrivna regler och normer.

Avslutningsvis, en video via Youtube där David pratar om "How to lead remote teams effectively": 

International Day of Happiness 2021

Today is the International Day of Happiness. It is an annual event organized by the United Nations to promote the idea that feeling happy is a global human right. The theme for this year´s International Day of Happiness is "Keep Calm, Stay Wise. Be Kind" and is in response to the COVID pandemic. Learn more about this day from United Nations or from the site Happiness.com.

Every year UN publish a World Happiness Report including among many things a global survey measuring  subjective well-being among countries, mainly using the Gallup World Poll which measures life evaluation and positive/negative emotions. For many years the Nordic countries have been in the top in this ranking and this is also true this year. Below picture shows the top 20 countries in Ranking of Happiness 2018-2020:

To learn more about happiness in the Nordic countries, you can read my short summary of the book "The little book of Lykke (Happiness)" written by Meik Wiking. From this book we learn that the Nordic societies have six things in common that impacts happiness: 

Togetherness, Money, Health, Freedom, Trust, Kindness.

You can find many sites that help you in order to learn about how to become more happy. One of them is Action for Happiness where you among many things can find coming Events and inspiring YouTube webcasts...

An infographic from Action for Happiness giving us keys to happier living:

From the site dayofhappiness.net, you find three ways you can celebrate the International Day of Happiness:

HAPPIER

Do something for your own happiness - make time to do something you really enjoy, get moving outside, learn something new or write down three things you are grateful for.

KINDER

Do something for someone else - donate to a food bank or charity, text or call someone to tell them what you appreciate about them, volunteer in your local community.

TOGETHER

Share the International Day of Happiness with others and help more people get involved in the day and thinking about ways to promote happiness and mental health.

Finally, a clip from YouTube introducing the Smurfs and Unicef collaboration:

Supporting the mental health of Remote employees

From Forbes.com you can find a post describing "10 creative ways Organizations are supporting the mental health of Remote employees". A research study conducted partly by Harvard Business Review found that:

 "85% of people have expressed a decline in well-being since the start of the pandemic"

From the article, a summary of what you can do to promote mental health:

Make Mental Health a Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

Set health and wellness targets and value these just as much as your Business KPI´s. This is to signal to people that they take their well-being seriously

Extend Employee Mental Health Benefits to Dependants

Support not only the employee, but also their spouse and children in various health benefit programs in order to promote employee emotional well-being

Make Mental Health a Company Value

Define values like "Be Kind to Your Mind" meaning that you should avoid unnecessary urgency and have a 48 hour response time to team emails

Adopt an Outcome First Approach to Working

Give employees the autonomy and flexibility to work when they want and how they want, as long as weekly outcomes are being achieved

Help People Learn a New Instrument

Playing an instrument is like a mental full-body workout, so support employees in learning to play an instrument

Organize Lunch Roulette

To encourage people to form new relationships, now and then assign someone random in the business to have an hour lunch with

Start an Interactive Mental Health Slack Channel

Give employees a venue to share their feeling out in the open, let others know that they´re not alone, and ask for help

Move your Meetings Outside

Identify meetings where you can connect while walking outdoors, e.g at the closest park, and get some much-needed fresh air

You can read a Swedish translation via "Chef" by following this link...