Presenter: Deborah Hartmann Preuss
Length / Format: 60 minutes / Talk with slides and bibliography for listeners.
Abstract: Too often we shift to a process that promises improvement - but remain limited by old mental models; and the expected performance boost doesn't materialise. I think of this as “If you keep doing what you did, you’ll keep getting what you got.” While we carefully train teams in the Agile practices, we sometimes neglect to prepare the team's leaders to help the team grow into their self-organization, an important role. The resulting dissonance between an Agile team and traditional-thinking leaders can cause confusion and waste and quietly limit the team's effectiveness. The days of micromanagement, "make it so" or absentee leadership must end - but with what are they to be replaced?
Who is this for? Any team member, leader, or client whose team is unhappy, stuck or not yet delivering its very best. Suitable for users of any process, not just Scrum or XP, as it starts from where they are.
Why? Your team is limping, or in conflict, or perhaps just complacent. You’ve tried approaches that show promise, but they don’t deliver the smooth synergy you seek. Yet, your gut tells you it’s possible.
What? Set up a learning culture, and help your teams to grow into shared ownership & leadership, for greater impact, innovation and job satisfaction. Let’s call this ‘Leaderful Teams’
How? I’ll challenge traditional mental models of leadership with what writers are saying about Leaderful Teams; look at why this model is helpful; and introduce some thinking tools you can experiment with. The bibliography will help you follow up on ideas that challenge you or pique your imagination.
Notes:
I prefer to talk without slides, but in this case, talking about models and metaphors, I use images to enhance the talk. I invite listeners to put aside their assumptions about what constitutes good leadership, and to listen to what may be strange-sounding ideas, using words and images to present mental models that help grow and and energize self-organizing teams. These models spring primarily from the writings of Harrison Owen ("Wave Rider" / Open Space in business), Joseph Raelin ("Creating Leaderful Organizations" / fourfold model of self-organization), and thought leaders in the coaching discipline (Ontological Coaching). I also mention , the McCarthys' "The Core Protocols", Avery's "Responsibility Process", and double-loop learning (Agile retrospectives).
At the end, I summarise with a concept map of ideas I've presented, challenging listeners to notice which ideas they gravitate toward and which they resist, and to follow up on one or two of these afterwards. The slide deck ends with a large, commented readinglist, for those who would like to go further. (You can see a pdf of my concept map and biblography at http://snipurl.com/leaderfulmap). Raelin's book, in particular, offers diagnostics and suggests how to use existing practices from more traditional management methods to balance out a given leader's approach to fostering self-organization.
I could also include an additional question period, which would require a total of 75 or 90 minutes.
