Mental Health week

Over the last few years talking about mental health has been more prominent, which was quite helped by having major celebrities opening up about it. For instance I recommend James Arthur’s documentary on BBC – Out of our minds (you need tv license for this). I found it really relevant as it’s from a male’s perspective and unfortunately there is an internalized stigma in relation to talking about any mental health issues. Men don’t cry, men do men up but it’s a narrative that it’s been pretty harmful over the years.

Like we have physical health, mental health is even more important because if the mind is not in the right state it can trigger a series of physical issues later on for many reasons:

• If your mind is not in the right place you will start having unhealthy behaviours, like struggling to sleep, not eating well, not exercising
• Any increased stress will trigger your fight or flight response, which if sustained for longer periods of time – say over the years – it will start to impact your organs (good article here)
• It will lower your immune system given the above and make you more prone to catch any viral / bacterial infections that might be going around
• If anything happens to you, you will be weaker to fight back and raise back up

So overall, it’s a pretty good deal! It is important and there should be absolutely no shame in talking about it. As Brene Brown says, dare to lead from a place of vulnerability.

What it means from a leadership perspective?

I’m sorry but it’s far more than a few random yoga days in the office and the odd newsletter here and there. Without empathy you will loose your employees, or in a different way, if they don’t bring their best self to work because they are overworked and exhausted, I doubt they will be able to drive ROI to your shareholders. As it seems that all that matters these days is the return for the shareholders, well here’s one that is worth keeping an eye on.

If word comes out, it would become a reputational risk, both your clients, investors and future talent would avoid working with you and instead they will find a similar company where they know mental health is engrained in the culture and not just something which is “promoted” just to tick a box. Depending on the industry there could even be a regulatory board that could investigate you and fine you for it.

And don’t get me started on the “pizza rewards”. No, pizza won’t cut it for compensating employees for working many weekends in a row and crazy hours. If you want to reward your team, protect them and do all you can to avoid having people overworked.

Like any relationship, if they feel their leadership has their back and they can be their best self, they will do amazing & innovative things which will help you be at the front edge of innovation.

And keep an eye on this, new generations are seeing the impacts of workism on their parents and they realize that’s not what they want, so to retain the future talent you need to survive in the age of AI, you really have to rethink how you treat your employees. They are an asset not a liability. It’s all in your hands to turn around that balance sheet.

What can you do as a leader or line manager?

Every single person who is responsible for someone in the organization has a role to play. Even colleagues play a role here. Be humble and dare to be vulnerable. Here’s an example, during covid times there was a point where both my personal circunstances and work led me too close to burnout. I just didn’t had the energy to carry on as I was. So what did I do? I called my line manager and explained the situation, I told him I just needed a few days to reset and be back stronger. My line manager didn’t even blink, he had my back and I knew it was genuine.

What did I do next? I didn’t just setup the usual OOO, I spoke with my team. On our team meeting I told them I would be away because I wasn’t feeling well mentally and I really needed some time off to reset and breathe. It was important to me that my team saw my example (as their line manager) talking about it and saying it’s ok, it happens to all of us. It doesn’t make me any week, just makes me human. I asked them to look out after each other, if they see anyone too stressed out, to have their backs. To date, they are still an amazing team that support each other and feel happy to be there.

So a moment of vulnerability became a moment of strenght and a moment I am extremely proud of. Can you imagine how powerful this could be if every single person was brave enough to be vulnerable and say I don’t feel great (no need to disclose the why, it’s up to you) so I’m going to take care of myself. Especially if it’s someone above you. Until you walk the walk all you say is a bunch of empty words. If you really want to make a difference – and we all have the power to do so – dare to be humble, to listen, to be vulnerable.

On the other side of the coin, I had someone coming to me very close to burnout (similar situation as mine, where it was a time of too much work and problems at home). I did sit down with the person and asked him to take all the time he needed, that I would find someone to do the critical items he was doing so that he could focus on himself (it’s up to you as a line manager to ensure you have a contigency plan to cover if anyone in the team is sick or needs to take unexpected time off). Being prepared to listen and offer a plan that would help him made a difference. I couldn’t use a coach stance here (if you want to learn more about the coaching stances check here) and let him figure it out, because the most important thing was to be sure he knew I had his back and at least he wouldn’t need to worry about work.

What you can do as an employee

The most important point is awareness. You need to be aware of the state in your mind and recognize the early signs that you need to change direction. Don’t ignore them as it will be easier to recover the earlier you start (like any physical illness too). There are some expected signs – for instance check here but each person is different, so you need to be able to recognize what your ones are.

Prevention – You won’t be able to prevent everything, life is unexpected so even for those who are mentally fit, there could be a big rock on the road that makes us all stumble. However, what is in your control take care of yourself.

• Establish and protect your boundaries – I wrote about it in the power of saying no.
• Exercise – exercise has the obvious physical benefits but it’s also amazing for the mind and a great form of self care. A lot of people have an allergic reaction to the word exercise because we would typically link it with hitting the gymn for hours. It doesn’t have to. Just find your groove and get moving. From a mental health perspective, going for a walk in your favourite part can be more beneficial that spending 1h in a close gymn. Go for a dance with a friend, or a swim in the ocean. Find what works for you and keep it going.
• Food – Again another form of self care that also impacts your physical health. You don’t need to be a trained chef to prepare food which is good for you. Eat the rainbow, add some seasonal veggies with protein and keep it going. I would say the best way to ensure you eat well is to take the time to plan in advance and do the shopping in line with that plan. The worst is really on a busy mid-week day having to think what to eat, however if you already took the time to think about it beforehand it should be a lot easier. There are many youtubes and recipe websites which you can reach out for inspiration. Doesn’t have to be exotic. Go to your local shop (or online) and buy fresh / frozen raw ingredients and get going.
• Rest – So underrated, but rest is key. Find opportunities to rest on a day to day perspective. Some might want a power nap (I’m not good at those), a 20m reading a nice book by the window to decompress. Whatever it is, block in your calendar a moment to let your mind rest.
• Sleep – A good night sleep is a superpower, it’s the best medicine you can give your body and mind. Protect your sleep as if it’s sacred because it really is! If your kids wake up at 05 in the morning, then go to bed as early as you can. Maxime your changes for sleep, even if that means the kitchen is a mess or there are things that weren’t done, but don’t compromise on your sleep. Also try to make it as consistent as you can (wake up and sleep time) as that helps your internal clock to regulate. Avoid heavy meals, alchoohol and sugar which will impact the quality of your sleep. You could read Why we sleep by Matthew Walker for some inspiration.
• Talk about it – Finally, reach out to a close friend, your family, a work bestie or even a charity – like https://www.mind.org.uk/ . Don’t think you have to face it alone, so many others are struggling to. It’s ok not to feel ok, it’s ok and encouraged to reach out for help. Who knows, once you get back up in your feet you might be in a position to help others going through the same as you just did. The more people talk about it, the less lonely others will feel and that in itself is a great step towards better mental health.

Any other ideas you would like to share? Feel free to reach out 🙂

Lets talk micromanagement

I HATE IT!

Seriously, I hate micromanagement with all my heart. I hate micromanaging because I just hate for that to be done to me. Over the years I have been lucky to be trusted and not being micromanaged. If there’s a toxic trait that leads to burnout it has to be micromanagement. It’s even worse than a 5 year old asking when the snacks are coming every 1 second.

What is micromanagement?

Most of us will be familiar with it already and have faced it at some stage or another.

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines micromanagement as “manage[ment] especially with excessive control or attention to details”.

In essence, you are being controlled all the time and have no space to even utilise your skills. Over time being micromanaged will lead to burnout. Even kids hate being micromanaged, why do you think they throw tantrums? When you feel you have no control over what you do, your brain just goes crazy and wants to throw everything on the floor and call it quits. Whereas as a kid you can do it, as a professional you end up bottling it up until you either quit or burnout.

Where does micromanagement come from?

It comes from lack of trust. You don’t trust your team so you are on them all the time. Mostly this comes to the fact that you don’t trust yourself, so you pass that mistrust onto others. In order to confirm you still have power, you need to FEEL in control and be on top of others all the time. It feels good for a micromanager to show that he/she has power.

Lets dig deeper:

• Impostor syndrome – If you don’t believe you deserve where you are, you will be more obsessed with control, hence you will try to control every step your team does leading to micromanagement.
• Seeking power – By controlling your team you are telling them you are the one in control, in power, and that feels good. If there are other situations in your life you don’t have control (e.g. your family situation for instance) it will feel like at least you can control something: your team.
• You don’t trust yourself – If deep inside you don’t trust yourself, how can you expect to trust others?
• Perfeccionists – These struggle to delegate, so you end up being on top of every task you delegated to your team.
• Fear of losing control – You want to be seen by those above you that you are in control, so you feel the need to control every move of your team and be in copy of every single email. Again here also comes from a trust perspective.
• You are being micromanaged yourself – Micromanagement promotes more micromanagement. If your own boss is being micromanagements, the odds are that “style” will be cascaded down.

Impact on the team

Micromanagement leads to a toxic environment where no one trusts one another. By just following orders the team will shut down their own thinking – there’s no incentive to be creative, to bring ideas to the table because they know they won’t be heard. Micromanagement promotes a culture of “shut-down”, you don’t want to be in the fire line and do just the bare minimum without ever suggesting anything different. You just do what you are told.

Eventually the environment will be so toxic that people will either burn out or leave.

Some people actually need “some” micromanagement

Something I can’t comprehend, but some people have been so  ingrained in being told what to do, they can’t cope with the freedom of articulating how to deliver a given piece of work and they expect all the tasks to be spoon fed. I have had people in the team that operate like that. It’s just very time consuming and not the way I like to operate.

What can you do instead?

If you are resorting to micromanagement to manage your team I would step back and try to assess where that is coming from. If you don’t trust them, then you shouldn’t work with them. If you don’t trust yourself then try to understand why and where is that coming from.

I know a lot of managers struggle with this, just because you have amazing productivity working by yourself, doesn’t mean you will have all the required skills to be a leader. Some people are just amazing SME’s or decision makers but not necessarily good at managing people – well I would go as far as they shouldn’t even be in a position where they have to manage people.

Let me tell you a secret: if your team shines, you shine stronger. Empower your team and they will raise you up too! (this is what micromanagers believe they are doing but end up getting the exact opposite).

In order to be a true leader you need to:

• Trust your team – If they are there it’s because they are meant to be experts in their areas. Listen to them, you might develop yourself. You don’t need to know every single step they are doing, this is why they are there. You just need to ensure they have the right guidance from you in terms of what the goals are and you help them remove any roadblocks they might face along the way.
• Empower them – Once you shared the goals with them, listen to what they have to say and their ideas to meet those goals or even augment them. If you give them the right tools you will be surprised on how far they go. Let them shine as you will shine brighter yourself too.
• Have their backs – And they will have yours. People will tend to go above and beyond when they feel they are protected and their manager is there for them. Don’t believe me? Give it and go and see for yourself.
• Guide them – Help them reach the answers they seek, propose other people they could go and speak to and in essence let them grow. How amazing is it to work for a team that looks up for you and wants to deliver the very best for you?

If there’s someone that despite all the above doesn’t work, then have the right discussions and either that person would be better off working on another team or just leaving altogether.

At the end of the day, whereas work is just work, having the right manager will be the one thing that makes or breaks. If you empower others, they will be the very best and trust you to share bad news because they know together you will find solutions and move on. Everyone will want to work with you and they will help you go where you want to go and that is where great work gets done.

The power of saying No

Ah No! That little word we learn around when we are 2 years old and are told by our parents that we are just a terrible 2.

Yet it’s such a powerful word despite having negative connotations and one we need to re-learn how to use all over again. Go in front of the mirror and practice with me: No. Not a but, not a maybe, just a No.

But why is it so hard to say no?

Let’s face it, we are people pleasers. We evolved by being next to others, having each others backs against predators or other enemies. Belonging to a community was part of our survival, it’s wired in our brains. So it’s not easy. Worst of them all is to say no when everyone around you says yes.

Say you get a request on a friday night to work over the weekend, if the first person of the team says yes, that’s it, the rest of you will feel cornered into pulling one for the team. You don’t want to be the one saying no, unless it’s something really major like a family funeral or your kids birthday. All of you will be upset about it, because who loves being called last minute to work when you were planning to rest? Even if you had no plans at all, well there’s one you didn’t had: work!

We avoid hard conversations – and that includes saying no – because we don’t like conflict. It’s not comfortable and we want to belong. Many of us all assume – with some evidence – that if you say no you are limiting yourself in your career growth. What if it’s not quite like that? What if you might end up being respected for it?

Establishing boundaries

The first step is to recognize what your boundaries are. What are your non compromisable slots / actions? Is it that you want to take the kids to school or want to start your day with some exercise? Or rather that after 17h30 you really need to spend time with your family, cook dinner and eventually unwind yourself? Just identify what those are and a) add them in your calendar and b) communicate to those that could impact them what they are.

The more specific you are the better, e.g. every weekday I want to run from 07h to 08h and that includes any prep time before / after running. Or maybe it’s not every day and just tuesdays and thursdays.

Communicate, communicate, communicate

Trust me, you cannot rely on common sense for people to know what your boundaries are. I guess whereas everyone can accept that being called at 03a.m, 07a.m might be ok for some but not for others. So the key here is to communicate. Be as clear and assertive as you can regarding your boundaries. This is valid with your family, friends and at work too.

Work wise, this would be a really good topic for your 1 on 1 with your line manager. If you don’t have them, then start to schedule them. If you receive requests which you don’t like, the fault is not only on the requestor but also on you for not making it clear what’s acceptable and what’s not. Most companies will have a code of conduct, and in some countries even specific laws (like in France, where it’s against the law to call employees after hours (here) – we seriously have a lot to learn from them). But as we are all unique, so our boundaries. So if you want to avoid disappointment and high levels of stress I would make them all clear.

I would go as far as also share them with your colleagues, in the coffee break you can say how taking your kids to school really makes you happy and it’s a non compromisable slot for you, or playing football with your friends thursday night. If you are willing to share them, you will find others will too, in turn making it easier for you guys to protect each other. Ah I won’t book that call with Steve as it’s thursday and he’s going to football, lets do friday morning instead.

Don’t be afraid to say No

For every yes you say, it’s a sequence of No’s you are saying. If you stay late in the office you will miss dinner with your family and your rest. Is it something you are willing to “sacrifice”? Yes it’s nice to say yes to people, it feels good as just discussed but how bad does it feel when you compromise your boundaries and over time, might end up with burnout due to saying yeses to everyone but to yourself?

So don’t be afraid to say no.

Say No is one of the best tools for self-care. Is it against one of your boundaries? Then say No. If you’ve invested the time in communicating what is not compromisable, then saying no should be a lot easier. Yes there might be the odd exception when you might end up saying yes, but it can’t be the rule.

Someone who has the courage to say no will be respected, because we ALL struggle with it after all. Your line manager has the same problem too, believe me. We all do. So if you say no and it’s clear you are doing so to protect your boundaries, you will be respected. If they still argue that you have to do x, y and z and don’t respect you, then it’s really time for you to find some other place. Most people though, would understand and be able to find a compromise somewhere.

I have to admit I’m really with Gen Z on this one. We just keep on saying yes again and again, and in turn we are boiling like our friend the frog in the pan. It’s hard, it’s itchy but if you don’t protect yourself no one will. There will always more work, more to do’s that demand your time and attention. How much are you willing to sacrifice from your mental health just so you don’t have to say no?

I do believe in the power of every single no. It will protect you and others will be encourage to do the same. Maybe it will shift organizations to understand that we are not robots and if they expect excellence and delivery they have to respect the employees too. If you are exhausted and in burnout you cannot give your best self nor resolve problems. You might break to the point of no return and might not even get a thank you back. So yes give your best, feel proud of your achievements every day but don’t forget to take care of yourself, even if that means using a good old fashioned: NO.

Great Expectations

How great expectations are leading to great disappointment and it’s all our fault.

Disclaimer: This has nothing to do with the book from Charles Dickens (or maybe it does).

Let’s face it, we live in a world with unprecedently great expectations. Everyone expects something out of you, you expect a great deal of those around you and on yourself as well. With all the technology around us, we just expect more more and more.

You are expected to be a great parent, the best employee your company can have, the best partner at home and be extremely fit – both physically and mentally. Although we always had expectations – it’s part of being human after all – the imbalance started to come when suddendly work expectations just kept on growing as if not even the sky is a limit.

In a post-covid world, companies got hooked to the long hours we were doing when working from home while at the same time they started to demand all employees to be back at the office, some the full 5 days others some kind of hybrid in between.

The concept is a lot older really, but did indeed accelerate with technology and the rise of the smart phones. You can have emails and internal messaging 24/7 so you are expected to pick up on those email and messages all the time. Bit by bit we started to do so. We wake up in the morning and check emails and work messages (not just instangrams and tik-toks). In the evening, while you are doing dinner, you end up checking emails too and after dinner might even be back to your desk – now that we all know we can work from home – and continue just to catch up on a few things.

Then weekend comes and because the week was so crazy we end up doing some work over the week too. What was meant to be just a quick scroll through the emails and to dos, easily becomes a few hours which are not eating from your personal and rest time. Little by little we do more and more.

This keeps getting encouraged when celebrating success at your organisation. How many individual or team awards will contain something in the lines of: “This team or individual worked weekends and really long hours to get this work done! Amazing, well done!”. I can’t but roll my eyes at this as I know it keeps on fueling the expectation that we need to carry on to do more.

If you see your whole team logging late and sending emails over the weekend you will end up – unconsciously – feeling guilty and also wanting to be there for the team. But the more everyone does, the more management expects you to do.

The reward for good work is always more work.

Now breaking news, it’s all our fault as well.

Gen Z has a point here (Good summary from Deloitte on Gen Z here). All other generations believe they are lazy, spoiled and don’t want to commit to anything. But what if they have a point? They want to do meaningful work and want to feel connected and don’t seem to be willing to accept workism. I say they do have a point and we should try to see the world from their point of view.

If we all continue to fueling the constant rising expectations how can we expect they will become realistic? It’s everyone’s role to bring them down to earth.

Protect your boundaries

We all have the same 24h, but if you want to avoid burnout or end up consumed by work (workism) then you have to protect your boundaries. Yes there will be cases where indeed you have to do more work. There are major milestones and it’s really critical you are there. But then you need to be able to step down when it’s no longer critical.

A lot of the work that comes late – including requests to work late evenings and weekends – comes down to bad planning. If we don’t challenge those asks, the people responsible for articulate the plans will never step back and revisit what they are doing, they will just continue to use your personal time (and all your team’s time) as contigency to get work done.

Always start by asking: is this really critical? Is someone dying? Will the organization go down or could this result in a major reputational risk? Or does it come down to someone doing bad planning and now you don’t want to say no to the leadership team? If it’s the latter, I’m afraid to say it, but step up to your mistakes. A lot comes due to missing communications between those responsible for planning and the team actually doing the work.

I would never expect someone to be able to plan everything in isolation, you need the experts to tell you how long it takes. With experience, the ones responsible for planning can judge if the estimates are being conservative or not, but that dialogue needs to exist. Just don’t come and ask for your team to work every weekend (or quite a big number of them).

Don’t be afraid to challenge the asks by having a constructive dialogue with your line manager, you might find both learn quite a lot along the way.

As for the organisation’s point of view – as I’ve written quite often – a well rested brain is more efficient at resolving difficult situations and bringing up creative to either resolve big problems or keep on adding more value to clients and stakeholders alike.

You can’t have it both ways

It’s really interesting to realize that the “new world ” we were expecting – a world post covid – looks more and more like old world.

There is a major difference though…. we’ve seen how it could be!

Before covid

Most of us were in the office Mon – Friday with a clear separation of home and office modes. We would leave the office and call it a day.

Some of us had worked the odd Friday from home and it felt amazing, but it was more an exception rather than a rule.

You were expected to be in the office every working day no matter what and going to doctor was something you had to plan months in advance, it felt almost has hard as if you were asking if you could be naked in there.

We didn’t know any other reality

During covid

We suddenly had to work from home full time, from our kitchens, from our sofas, from our beds. We missed our daily commute where we could listen to podcasts, music, catch up with your favourite series or just sleep. It all blurred up.

The number of emails increased like a never ending tsunami.

New joiners would come and leave without meeting anyone in the flesh.

The instant chat was bipping like a disco.

Meetings became the modos operandis. If you need something, book a meeting.

As a consequence, most of us ended up working longer and longer hours. The time spent on cummuting went into working, with the flexibility to take / get the kids to school, take them to their after school clubs or even a change to say hi to the neighbours.

Post Covid Year 1

As covid rules started to ease, it was the age of hybrid working. At the beginning there was quite a lot of freedom. People were encouraged to try to return to the office and for many of us it was pleasent to return back a few days to interact with the colleagues. The coffee chit chat was back, it felt refreshing but also less productive.

Where we stand now

Bit by bit, we are being asked to be there full time. Why? I don’t quite know. The only thing I can think of is because the ones making the decisions don’t know any other way. I struggle to compreenhed why companies can’t embrace flexibility. It works both ways!

You can’t expect your workes to do the same hours they were doing from home AND return more often to the office.

An article from guardian (here) says that more than a third of the workers would quite if they were asked to return full time.

Give me an article that shows that being in the office increases productivity

Yeah I’m waiting…..

No?

Here’s some that shows remote working does:

• Business news daily https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15259-working-from-home-more-productive.html
• And another here

There’s really good reasons teams should get together in the office – at least once in a while:

• To establish relationships
• To welcome a new joiner – and here I would suggest different team members rotate the days so that the new joiners gets to interact with everyone in the team, get to ask questions and as a consequence learn from different people.
• As I wrote in the future of the office here the office should be it’s own experience, with a valid reason why it makes sense to go. Celebrate success together, team lunch, team brainstorming, you name it.
• I tell you what is not a good reason: To tick a box and because the ones on the top making a decision can’t embrace new ways of thinking.

Why are people reticent to embrace being back in the office more often:

• Because it’s expensive – yeah my friends, it’s expensive to go to work even if you bring your own breakfast, lunch and snacks
• Transport is totally unreliable – As I type, I just discovered there is another train strike next week in the UK with only 1 train an hour in my area. There is no way I would be able to drop / pick the kids from school.
• Because we don’t see the value in it. When I go to the office I want to chit chat to my colleagues, which is the point of going right? But this means I am less productive or sometimes I don’t even get the chance given I’m in the office while in back to back meetings with a remote team all over the world.
• It’s exhausting – the time spending in commuting is no small ask. On a good day it’s a good 2h20 per day lost, which I could have used to sleep and / or work a bit more while having the chance to be more present with my own family.
• No infrastructure – Where do we leave the kids? Let’s face it, costs are going up everywhere, we can’t just simple fund enough after care hours. It’s also not fair on the kids to leave them in after school care until 19h because the parents don’t have a choice. The way I see it, we should embrace decentralization and having smaller centers close to schools and embrace community life.

I’m pretty sure this list could be augumented a lot.

I am curious to see what will happen to the talent pool once they send more applications to companies offering flexibility. I do believe we have the power to strike back and change the paradigm of work. We can work differently, there are other ways, not just the old way.

We need to embrace the leadership skills of tomorrow and not be afraid to do different. We need different, we need better!

@champagnecruze

*Pulls up Linkedin – Which one are you? 😂 #generations #corporate #workhumor #workfromhome #relateable

♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey

Agile continues

The previous post was agile on it’s own. It was too big so had to split into smaller pieces.

Today we continue around the overal “cerimonies”.

Like all good stories, it always starts with planning. If you have a big list of wishlist items – which you’ve already agreed with your PO that they form part of the MVP. The first step is to have a backlog meeting.

Backlog meeting

Consider this as the house cleaning. You need to clean on a regular basis to ensure there’s no weird dust that went below the carpet. The backlog meeting aims to check what’s on the list, check what needs to be done in 1 or 2 sprints ahead and be sure all the depencies are understood. It aims to ensure you know what the team will be doing next and ensure by the time the new sprint starts you have enough stories “ready” to keep the team going and not loose momentum. Ideally the backlog meeting should happen mid sprint so there’s enough time to clear any dependencies and even for the team members to try to quantity how big the next stories will be and break them down further.

Sprint planning

This is where you look into what you’ve agreed to do and then ensure all the tasks are added so each team member knows what their priorities are. This is an opportunity to look into the work for that given sprint and measure criticality of stories between one and the other. Are there any high value quick wins (big points and low effort)? Then do those first. They will bost the moralle of the troops. It’s about every day improving 1%.

Daily scrum

I wrote about it in the previous post and this is where the magic happens. The daily scrum should happen with or without the scrum master there (at least in my view), it’s about team members to align and discuss any dependencies or blockers among them which can then be raised to the scrum master. If there are multiple scrums / workstreams, then you might need a Scrum of Scrums, so any resource dependencies between workstreams can be discussed and overall priorities assessed.

I really love love love this episode. It explains it a lot better than I did 😀

Retrospective

I know in a lot of places this is about getting the metrics. And yes indeed they are quite important, but even more so it’s to get the team together and look into what went well, discuss if the sprint goal was achieved, what didn’t went so well and what’s the one improvement everyone commits to implement. It doesn’t matter how small it is. Could be as simple as no mettings without an agenda, or that an additional SME is needed for the next few scrums. Whatever the team agrees.

What agile is not

No, it’s not a means of cutting documentation or cutting corners. The shift changes from the PM telling people what to work on or spending a lifetime writing the perfect documentation – be it a requirements document or a design document – to start by doing. Applying marginal gains and moving one step forward and documenting. It’s about a continuous assessment of what’s working well and what’s not and allow the experts in the team to propose where things can improve. As the functionality / product is build so is the documentation (incrementally).

Agile is not about cutting planning, in fact it’s about a new way of planning. One that relies on working closely with the product owner and the team members.

It’s not unstructured. It’s structured diferently around smaller workstreams with a brand new framework.

For further reading check here

Sourced from: https://wiki.cantara.no/display/dev/About+failing+agile+projects

What’s in it for me?

But aren’t you a convert already?

It doesn’t even matter if your team does any software development or not. It’s the whole mindset of breaking something bigger into smaller achievable pieces. It’s about having the priorities clear and cutting the crap. It’s about empowering the team to make decisions around the how to deliver something based on their expertise as well as to measure how big a piece of work is. It’s about understanding any dependencies upfront before commiting to something.

It changes the shift from spending months or years doing something that went presented back to the “requestors” – be it another team in the organisation or your clients – is miles away from what’s needed or you’ve spent so long in development the product / service is no longer relevant.

It’s about spending the minimum time possible from prototype to output and figure out (fast) if something could work or not. Put it up there, in front of a small user base to smash it to pieces and confirm it you are going in the right direction or you need to go back to the drawing board.

Don’t believe this can work for you and your team? Then try it and let me know!

For the agile manifesto check here

Sourced from here: https://sander-dur.medium.com/10-agile-memes-to-lighten-up-your-day-7f577ffbfe89

1 step backwards 2 steps forward

It is no surprise that careers today are no longer linear, nor the climbing ladder that they used to be. In the past you would expect that after a certain number of years you would go up and level and so on until you would eventually retire. It was an expected pattern.

Nowadays if we know anything it is not to expect anything at all.

Careers go all over the place, sometimes up, other times you move horizontally and even backwards to then continue ahead again.

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/life-never-linear-my-career-visualized-neil-patwardhan/

Why is that?

• The nature of the job has changed in itself. Even from the moment you accept a new role and it’s job description, by the time you leave the role itself would have changed. You have the freedom – to a certain extent – to change and control what you do, to explore the boundaries and interact with different stakeholders, assume more functions, etc. In fact this is totally expected out of you. You need to be adaptable and flex to the business needs. If you don’t adapt you are simply obsolete and soon enough you will be left in a corner. This is valid for people and organisations alike. The next new thing might be outdated by the time it gets out to the market. Adaptability is key.
• The new generations need meaning and fulfilling roles. It’s not enough to have a title, it’s not enough to have a job description, they expect continuous learning and to feel part of “something” that links with their values. They need to feel energised and they welcome change. We could even say change is their middle name. Don’t forget they (we!) grew up without any certainties. We never know when the new crisis will strike us or war. We know we can’t feel secure anywhere so there is a huge focus on building our skill set so it’s as fungible as possible. We take Darwin to a whole new level. You can never feel comfortable in your seat. Most of us will be itching to find what’s next.

What’s the impact for the organisation?

In a short and sweet version, I would say it’s amazing.

• If the very fabric of the organisation is embedded in the fact it will continue to change, it will be a lot easier to adapt to the next big thing, either business disruption, covid, whatever it is. You need all employees to be ready to change what they do and be ready to drop a few activities in prol of learn new things or do more of something the next day. I find a job description almost irrelevant these days. The moment you start it’s no longer relevant. I would say as opposed to a job description I would include an expected skill set and level of expertise within that skillset.

• If your employees are more demanding, you need to ensure every single voice can be heard within their own groups. It’s up to each leader in the organisation to ensure the whole team / department is learning and feel they can contribute to the company’s growth. Let’s face it, we’ll have to work until we die. It’s a lot more for us than just a 9 to 5 job to pay the bills. It’s part of our identity. If we don’t feel connected to the company mission, if we don’t understand it we might leave to a company where we feel more connected. Don’t be single minded in thinking that all that moves us is money. Yes, money is a big motivational factor, but it’s not the only thing.

• If we are to work 10, 12h a day we need to feel connected, we need to feel our work is valued and we are contributing. We need to “click” with our colleagues and especially with our line manager. If we feel we need to keep silent and just follow orders like dogmas that you must accept and just do without understanding the why, people will just leave. Especially now that the workforce is going more global and it’s a lot easier to work from anywhere in the world. There will be a point where even the whole taxing system will align to this new reality and not only will it become more common to have people all over the world but it will be the new norm. Oh brave new world. I’m really looking forward to seeing it.

And what’s in it for the employee?

Well you need to be comfortable so that you will be uncomfortable. And that feeling (a little bit) uncomfortable about doing something means you are facing something challenging, something that will lead you to growth. The more you are willing to drop the hierarchy and focus on what you can learn and in return contribute to where you’re working, the more in demand your skillset will be. Accept that everything is changing all the time and we all have something to learn every day, including from people who are fresh out of uni. You can also be sure there’s no 2 days the same and hence you will never find yourself bored. If you are, well, then it’s time for a change.

Leaders of tomorrow

As the world evolves and younger generations enter the workforce, leaders also need to stay relevant if they aim to inspire and attract the best talent.

It’s amazing to see today’s leaders starting to bring diversity to the table and start to apply different facets of what it means to be a leader.

When we think of the leadership in the past it you can almost stereotype it:

• White male in his 50’s, drinks whiskey, likes to play golf and smoke cigars
• It was all about power and power circles
• Controls the team by fear and authoritarianism
• They know best / arrogant
• Workaholic
• Loves micromanagement

I’m not saying they were not good examples of leadership in the past, there were. But, the world has moved on quite a lot, and if you have any hope to attract talent, authority alone won’t do. New generations care about the vision, what they are contributing for, and they need to feel they are trusted and their voice matters.

So let’s jump in into what I think are the most important skills of today’s / tomorrow’s leaders.

Agile

Yes I know I love agile, and I really do. But more than just a tool for project management I see it as a mindset. As a leader you need to adapt really fast and be ready to repivot again your ideas. Fail fast, learn even faster! And it’s not even just about failure, you might be doing well right now, but you need to think about what will work tomorrow, and sometimes you might need to take 1 step back to be able to move 3 steps forward. Like parents with young children, what worked today might not work tomorrow. You can’t ever be stuck into ways of working. I’m sorry Mandalorian, but there is “no way”. The way is many ways that you don’t even know are there. You have to be willing to try and see what works.

Communication

Not only you need to have a vision of where you want to be (yourself as a leader and how you see the team / company), but you need to be able to communicate it. I just can’t see how a leader with a good vision can be a great leader if he’s unable to communicate it down the chain. It’s the troops on the ground that will make it or break it unless you’re a company of one. I see so many great ideas dying at the beach because they can’t be articulated in a way that everyone understands what it means for them. It might be obvious to the C-suite, but is it clear what it means to every single employee? As I’ve said, younger generations need to buy into the vision, if they don’t, they will jump out to where they will. (I wrote about it here).

Empathy

I’ve said it again and again and I will say it once more. Empathy is key. For the time being at least, we are dealing with humans, people with lives outside work (yes I know, it’s possible), and unless you have the ability to walk in someone’s shoes and try to understand what your employees might be feeling or how they might perceive your ideas, you won’t go far. The “just do as I say because I say so” era is gone. Yes gone. You need to show to them you are human if you want them to follow you and help you with your vision. (I wrote about it here)

Seeks diversity

In the past the “boss” had to be perceived as the most clever person in the room, and they would unconsciously surround themselves of people who thought like them and said yes to every idea – without any challenge. This was linked to the leading by fear, so there was no incentive of calling out a bad idea. Nether less to say this will jeopardize any ideas of growth. You want to surround yourself of people who are smarter than you and bring a completely different angle to the table, a different idea. You also want do avoid any “yes-sir”. You want to seek different views to then measure them up and understand what could work. Also, you want the surrounding people to challenge you if your idea has any flaws. If there are better ways of doing things, you want to have people around you that will point you in the right direction. If everyone thinks like you, you will just get ideas that you can reach on your own.

Active listeners

For some reason there is the perception that leaders have to be extrovert and talk a lot. But if coms are important, being active listeners is even more so. You need to be aware of what’s going on around you, at all levels of the organization. But unless you’re an Alexa, you can’t be everywhere and know everything, so you need to be able to listen to those you interact with. Not just being able to listen to what they are saying, but on why they are saying and what’s between the lines. The ability to pause and actively listening is one of the most powerful tools a leader can possess, for only then he will be able to have a wider view on anything impacting the company both internally and externally. Don’t forget, it’s the troops on the ground that ultimately interact with clients, that see what’s working and what’s a total failure. Only by listening and observing without judgment you’ll be able to gather insights on any steps that need to be taken next and re-pivot as per my point 1.

From http://quietandstrong.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/introverted-leader.jpg

Always learning, always thinking

My final point is about keeping an open mind and constantly be willing to learn. This is achieved by listening to others, by seeking formal training in any new technology / processes or by reading books. But in order to consolidate all these insights and knowledge, I would say it’s critical to have some thinking time. Not because you did something wrong like we tell the kids, but because the brain needs time to consolidate all the information. Blocking time to just sit down and absorb all the information you’ve collected on a daily basis is fundamental. It’s very easy to just get stuck on the busy-wheel, but you must carve out time to think and define what you need to learn next.

Accountability

Ok, I lied, there’s one more point. Accountability. It’s very easy to take accountability for success, but it’s crucial to take accountability for any failure. Great leaders will recognize what went wrong – as opposed to blame someone else or some other team – and will learn from it. Everyone should incorporate accountability in their ways of working, as it is a powerful tool to build trust. In fact, it was accountability that made me start this blog all these years ago (the one to be blamed), so couldn’t finish the list without it.

The Great Resignation

Historians will be pretty busy trying to understand what exactly happened in 2020 and 2021. 2020 was THE year the whole world stopped thanks to the pandemic, and then 2021 continued with lockdowns. When people spend more time at home and not being able to hide behind their all mighty business, they had time to do something they weren’t doing much: to think. (We are all guilty here)

To think about the priorities, to think about what they really wanted to do in life in general, especially as everything could just vanish pretty quickly. Who are the friends you would see yourself going in lockdown with? Whom did you contact? And on the professional side: Am I doing the job I enjoy doing?

For many the answer was NO! And enter the great resignation. And no, this is not just something that happened in the states, where everything is big and GREAT. No, really, it was all over the world.

Disclaimer: To be able to resign without thinking of the financial implications is quite a privilege. Still some people concluded they would rather downsize their lives and enjoy more what they had.

Anyway, back to the great resignation (and by the way I do believe this is a trend that will continue throughout 2022), the same way Londoners realized they wanted more space rather than being in the city center in a shoe box, there was also a big rethink about what people really wanted to be doing.

Flexibility

Throughout lockdown – where possible – everyone had to work from home. Companies had to make a huge shift to web based technologies to ensure everyone was online and getting the job done. Meeting room meetings moved to video calls. The office suit was replaced by a presentable shirt and comfy trousers (and slippers). And then as the world started to open up, companies started to ask everyone to be back in the office. A good example of that was JP Morgan (Forbes article here). Then you had companies like Deloitte that said employees didn’t had to work from the office (CityAM article here) – as if consultants worked from the official office anyway…. so I actually took this one with a pinch of salt.

Anyway, people realized they could work from home and enjoying flexibility such as having time to exercise, take the kids to school, sort out the laundry, while at the same time maintaining the productivity (or increasing it) and loosing that didn’t felt right.

If you have 2 good equal companies and one of them allows you flexibility and the other doesn’t, which one would you choose? It’s a no brainer really.

Flexibility is a sword that cuts both ways. If you want flexibility from your employees you have to give flexibility back. If you want to retain your key people, well I would suggest burying old fashion ways of “controlling” employees by seeing them (I wrote about it here). Also, some empathy would be good. Just because you enjoy being in the office, being in your suit doesn’t mean everyone enjoys the same, or even if some enjoy, maybe they can’t afford it (enter the world of childcare or carers in general).

There’s a life outside

For a lot of people it was also about: do I even enjoy my job at all? A lot of people developed hobbies – or enhanced them – and realized they could try to make a living out of it. Even if that meant less money, it meant being in control of when to work and where to work from. (And here’s me wishing I had hobbies that made any money!)

Then for sure, the family side. For a lot of people I know, it was really important to finally be able to take the kids to school / or collect them. To have lunch at the table in your kitchen. To be able to stop working and enjoy family time or even to have time to finally exercise on a daily basis (which for me was only achieved during Lockdown 1.0). Before Covid, I rarely managed to take my daughter to / from the nursery, but now I am doing it on a daily basis. It means the world to me and her. Without working from home and with the long commute would be next to impossible to do the same.

Whatever rocks your boat, I’m pretty sure you’ve found something you enjoy that you could do more of.

So what does it mean for companies?

For companies in the long term, will be quite binary: do they offer flexible working? Yes or No:

• If you want to retain your employees as opposed to having to hire more expensive ones without the same knowledge, offer flexibility (in its true form)
• If you want to attract the highest talent (e.g. new grads or experience hires alike), you have to office flexibility. If you don’t, I’m pretty sure your competitors will. There’s more to life than just the income.

What does flexible working even mean?

• Flexibility of hours – In its highest form it means employees should be working towards goals they need to meet. It’s up to them how they meet them. In a lighter version just means there’s some flexibility of when to start the work, when to stop and which breaks can be done in between.
• Flexibility of location – (this discounts any tax implications of working outside of the country). If there are critical meetings which demand an in person meeting, by all means get together in the office, but for everything else it’s up to the employee of where he’ll get the job done. From the comfort of his bed, to a hipster coffee shop, take your pick (note, certain roles might now allow for coffee shop meetings due to the confidentiality of the information being shared in conference calls). It still looks nice to work from a coffee shop though, although expensive in the long run.
• Flexibility of roles – here I should say, embracing a skill based approach – in essence it means allowing employees to move horizontally and take on completely different roles where they could still use the same core skillset. (I wrote about the importance of skills from an employee point of view here). How is this even related to the mass resignation? Well it is. Many employees might feel they are not developing or are not given opportunities for development. Allowing (and even encouraging) changing roles would benefit one’s development as well as the company itself by utilizing diversity across departments (even if they seem unrelated). An HR guy, an IT guy and a procurement guy walk into a bar…. this could be a good conversation by the way.

What are the benefits for the company to embrace flexibility

As we have seen with the pandemic, people are working more from home, not less. If you give flexibility, you get flexibility back.

One thing that always puzzled me, was why companies never consider existing clients? Yap, I mean clients, like they always have massive discounts for new clients and totally forget the existing clients? This encourages clients to shift to also benefit from a new client discount. Same is valid regarding employees. Companies don’t always make the effort to keep the best people. They think just some random salary increases will do the trick and given the employees are there they will always stay or if they leave it’s because they are not worthy. No joke, I felt this in the past myself and this was also the view of the CEO of a company I worked for many moons ago.

What is the cost of recruiting? I have also been in companies that would give me a fee for bringing candidates from my network of contacts (as it’s cheaper than paying a recruiting agency). So how about companies make the effort of keeping what they already have?

And the cost of training someone new? I don’t enjoy spending time doing KT. Nop, not a bit. The existing team rarely has the time to properly train new hires, which means eventually some of the valuable information just vanishes. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to allow people to move roles within the existing organization or allow them some flexibility? You might not even have to spend a penny on it!

Let’s throw bodies at a problem

Ah my beloved management falacy: let’s throw bodies at a problem.

Let’s face it, nobody likes problems even small ones and if they are bigger even worst. The bigger or the more complex the problem the harder it is to find an obvious solution. If you’re lucky you’ll get the team members to work together to brainstorm some ideas that can work and resolve it and apply “trial and error”, which might or might not work as per desired timelines.

So what’s the “easiest” way out?

Let’s throw bodies at a problem.

I’ve lost count as to how many times different levels in the organization come up with let’s get more people, because more people the faster it is to resolve something right?

No!

Just because you get 9 mothers it doesn’t mean you’ll get the baby delivered in a month. Would be good, but that’s not how it works.

https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-illustration-throwing-money-business-cartoon-people-problem-image71736617

Every time I hear this answer to any given problem this song plays straight into my head

It’s very easy to believe that the more people you get the more problems / tasks they can achieve. The problem which is easily forgotten is that the more people you need the stronger the communication needs to be to be able to split a big piece of work in smaller parts, distribute the workload and all still fit together. The more people, the more management and if they happen to not have the right skillset for the problem it might end up having the undesired impact.

When you have a problem to tackle you need different ideas. Having 1 or 2 people from outside helping to brainstorm on how it can be tackled can indeed be quite helpful, but ultimately you need to be able to know how to distribute the work among all the “new joiners”. You’ll also have to spend some time explaining what the problem statement is so the additional resources can help to tackle it. I suppose if you have a big problem in the hands of a given team, the last thing the team will want is to have to do knowledge transfer to someone new. You’ll easily end up with a spaghetti monster of communication when no one knows who needs to do what.

Good article here

So what can you do instead?

Well, I’m a firm believer in the power of small teams. Hence, if you have a big problem to tackle, whereas you might benefit from some specific help (1 or 2 people), I would say it needs to come down to priority. What can be dropped from the team’s plate to tackle “the problem”. Get the team to brainstorm what could be done, split the work and let them try to achieve it.

Add into the backlog all the other items which are being paused, in priority item so they can start to be addressed as the resources become free from tackling the bigger issue.

Define quick wins that will booste the morale of the team and ensure they can indeed resolve this massive problem in front of them.

Empower them to make the right decisions within the team, which will reduce the time required to get all the buy in from the different stakeholders and let them present their findings and progress.