“Be the leader you wish you had”. You hear that phrase a lot in life: usually with parents not wanting to make the mistakes that their parents made when raising them, perhaps you’ll be striving to be a confidant for your children, and be more supportive of things that your parents were not. Hindsight in this particular example is often used to an advantage.
Similarly, some workplaces may not be ready to fully embrace agility and its subsequent practices. It is okay to take the leap on your own. The “unwashed masses” as Simon Sinek called us, “feel that something needs to change” and eventually the world will change in the wake of innovation. CEOs and their compliance-based management systems will eventually retire and those who strive to succeed them will be ready. It is survival of the fittest in the corporate world, those who thrive are the people who dare to think outside of the box, especially when it comes to leadership.
In hindsight, of course, many companies find themselves unable to understand how they had not foreseen such change. Such as the idea of working from home, which prior to the Covid19 pandemic, was a concept unheard of in most organisations, despite how significant it could have been in improving the local environment, reducing pollution, accommodating for women in the workplace who have outside commitments such as childcare and elderly relatives to assist as their ICE’s, and, of course, the large number of full-qualified and highly-skilled disabled people that often find themselves falling to the wayside due to lack of internal accommodations in a rigid work environment, as Anne Cantelo highlights in her Ted Talk: Agile Working: An Innovation In The Way We Work. Working from home, as Cantelo said, was something that few companies were willing to implement, and therefore, their employees were leaving due to the lack of accommodations made for them. Cantelo’s business, was, evidently, more prepared for making a full transition to this method to the businesses that rejected the idea until it was made compulsory by the Prime Minister in March 2020.
During his short YouTube video, How Can I Change My Company Culture? Q&A, he explained that what motivates him to lead the way he does is as follows: “I commit to come to work to ensure that they feel that I’m here to support them and help rise to be there for them, when they need it and make them feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves.” Sinek’s perspective on this is similar to the idea proposed by Daniel Pink in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us: employees are more likely to be motivated to succeed and go above and beyond in the workplace when they are in an environment that allows you to be autonomous, hone your skills in order to achieve mastery of your craft and to have a sense of purpose whilst at work. Obviously, of the three, the primary motivator for Sinek as a leader, is purpose as he said. Making sure his colleagues and subordinates “feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves”.
This relates to what Chris White said in his own YouTube video: 3 Ways To Create A Work Culture That Brings Out The Best In Employees. By allowing employees to be heard within their work environment, they will be more engaged in their company, find themselves feeling valued as a member of their team, and will form stronger ties to their company.
All of these positive changes to your team’s culture could have been made through a singular agile innovation within a small team. And, through observing increases in productivity, proactivity etc. you may have left the foundations in place for a greater agile development. Everything is dominoes, and every piece has a purpose: to fall into place.
Based in London, U.K., and founded in 2016 by Arvind Mishra The Agile Works (www.TheAgileWorks.com), is an up-and-coming recruitment and Agile consulting company. Arvind is a Certified SAFe SPC and regularly delivers both private and public SAFe certification workshops.
He is a design thinking expert, Sr. enterprise, portfolio Agile Coach with over a decade of experience working as an Agile coach in diverse industries such as banking, pharma, retail, auto, oil, gas, consulting and government.
The Agile Works; a small team of three strive to help shape the leadership's mind-set and values in readiness for their business transformation journey challenges. With Arvind at the helm, we strive to provide you with the agility tools to make your company that can thrive, and not just survive.
To book a consultation, or for any enquiries, you can contact Arvind via the following email address: arvind@theagileworks.com