Many people smile when they hear the word Agile yet again. There is a popular image circulating online where the head of a well-known bank is talking about Agile and other innovations, while below, an unfriendly branch employee tells a customer: "Go back to wherever you opened your card!"
One of the key ideas behind Agile is that projects are successfully driven not only by highly professional individuals, but also by motivated and responsible people capable of high-quality human communication. All a company needs to do is provide such employees with interesting, complex tasks and the necessary working conditions — and these people are fully capable of maintaining and developing a culture of mutual respect, support, and trust on their own.
Unfortunately, unlike the United States, where decades of established business culture have given rise to a whole range of successful Agile projects, in Russia the word Agile is increasingly used as a synonym for "chaos." If we work "in an agile way," it merely means we have neither a real strategy nor even an action plan, and we are constantly improvising.
Let me give you an example — one that is, unfortunately, quite typical. Eager to impress the shareholders, a new CEO introduces Agile with extraordinary energy. Employees cannot keep up with their actual work, torn between endless trainings and meetings. The stated idea is sound: move away from a vertical management structure, save time through flexible and open communication, give key employees more freedom and creative fulfillment, and offer consumers a wide variety of relevant products.
But what happens in practice? Managers rotate as if in a kaleidoscope. The structure has plenty of so-called "leaders," yet clients are unable to find anyone actually responsible for their projects. Meanwhile, employees now have the right to "assert their character" — they simply do not report to anyone. And the business owners regularly receive formal reports about "profound changes" in the company and modest, if any, growth in financial metrics. The product, in the end, becomes increasingly primitive.
A company's purpose must touch the emotional core of its people! You cannot build a "great company" through pointless trainings and increased revenue targets. When people hear about the miracle of Agile in meetings but in practice face an avalanche of additional workload due to staff turnover and rigid targets imposed from above, there can be no creativity and no productive open relationships.
The packaging looks nice. But in reality, this is no Agile at all — it is a way to manipulate employees, contractors, clients, and even shareholders.
Gradually, the most valuable employees can no longer endure it and leave. Those who remain are either susceptible to manipulation or skillfully play along with the destructive side of the company's leader. They "promote" themselves on the remnants of the company's reputation, taking advantage of the opportunity to earn good money without truly being accountable for anything.
As a psychotherapist, I can say that the variety of neurotic relationship patterns is wide, but it all comes down to one thing: these relationships have nothing to do with the effective development of a business and its people. If a company once built up a large resource base, this kind of remarkably unhealthy existence can continue for quite a long time.
The CEO may sincerely be playing at utopia, wishing for "everyone around to be happy" (which cannot help but suggest delusions of grandeur). But it can also be an inherently manipulative project aimed at exhausting the best qualities in people and earning career points. A combination of both is also possible.
Who is to blame for this situation? The responsibility lies with the destructive leader who is satisfying personal ambitions. It is no longer fashionable to be a power-hungry, directive boss. It is fashionable and advantageous to appear modern, progressive, a bearer of progress, spreading Agile and other attractive buzzwords.
When Does Agile Actually Work?
My practice shows that there are six essential conditions for Agile implementation to succeed.
1. The company operates in a genuine competitive market
Having "unlimited" resources, a weakly competitive market, and low consumer selectivity rule out a transition to Agile. If the head of a company has a monopolistic "infinite" resource, then implementing Agile will be merely a game. In reality, there is no motivation to invest effort in qualitatively changing oneself, one's people, or one's product. Why bother? The process is laborious, and today everything is already working and generating profit. The key word is "today." What will happen tomorrow with this business interests them very little.
During a discussion with one such executive, I asked: "Why do you spend time and money on pointless behavioral trainings for employees? Can you not see it does not work? Those who are incapable of anything do not improve. And those who are talented do not need training. Why will you not invest in qualitative changes in your team's people and relationships?" The executive honestly admitted: "Why would I develop my team and change my relationship with them? They will only become harder to manage."
2. The company leader must have a strong internal motivation, an idea, and a passionate desire to build a Great company
The leader has matured to the understanding that such a company can only be built with high-quality people and with open (and therefore flexible) relationships within the team. One person alone cannot build such a company.
When something is discussed in the process of team communication, each participant takes their share of responsibility for the final result. The formal boundaries of "mine" and "yours" dissolve. The distribution of responsibility happens naturally, as it comes from within people. Innovative products are created by innovative people.
3. The leader is ready to change personally
The leader must learn and change first. A new company cannot have an old leader with destructive habits. If the leader urges employees in a weekly newsletter to respect one another and their clients, but at the next board meeting calls them idiots and threatens to fire them — guess what people will respond to? Employees do not react to what the leader declares or what they sincerely want to do, but to what they actually do. First and foremost, this means developing emotional intelligence and the soft skills based on it.
4. The business leader is ready to invest money, time, and effort in qualitative changes in employees
Finding a sufficient number of personally free and professional employees is impossible — because they simply do not exist in our population. Russian people carry a heavy cultural emotional legacy. Those over 35 still remember the Soviet Union. In that era, there was no respect for private property, for human dignity, or for work as a means of self-fulfillment and a way to make one's life materially prosperous. The consequences are serious. By and large, people grew accustomed to rigid vertical authority and adapted well to it. Hence the closedness, distrust, envy, aggressiveness, or complete inability to assert oneself respectfully — or to speak up at all. Moreover, they have a distorted understanding of virtues, poorly suited to a developing and effective business.
The situation is no better with Generation Y. They stand at the other extreme of the emotional spectrum. Many of them, uninspired by their parents' lives, reject authority altogether. They want plenty of freedom and money right now and are not willing to work toward it for a long time. On top of this, there is the sharp decline in the quality of higher education in Russia.
Looking at this bleak reality, it becomes clear: a leader will have to work hard to attract professional people to key positions — people who are at least open and willing to grow personally.
5. The leader takes on the primary risks of change in the company
The transition to Agile relationships within a company is a laborious process, consuming time, effort, and finances. Even when people are motivated to grow, they change their habits painfully. This is a fact from my many years of practice. Before, everything was clear and fit into a few behavioral stereotypes: "the boss is to blame for everything," "initiative is punishable," "if not me, then who," "the important thing is to report properly and on time." Everyone pulled the blanket toward themselves and their department, alternately "shielding" each other from the boss's repressions or "throwing each other under the bus" — depending on personal style.
When people begin to abandon old, familiar patterns of relationships, it represents an enormous risk for them. Win-win relationships are the unknown. Not everything works out right away. It takes time for the new quality of relationships between employees and the boss, with one another, with subordinates, and with clients to take root — for new values and habits to gain substance. During the transition period, quantitative business metrics may even decline. When this process is predictable and manageable, there is nothing frightening or strange about it. However, only a leader who has the courage to risk their own money and status quo can take this on. The end product must have a champion — an entrepreneur who assumes the primary risks.
I do not believe in the ability of hired CEOs to carry out such serious and qualitative changes. When a hired general manager decides to introduce Agile, it is worth carefully examining their true motives. It is a completely different matter when a hired CEO holds a significant stake in the business or, for example, is open to stock options and personally shares the goals and risks of the primary owner. Without a leader who personally takes on the key risks — without their drive — change will not happen.
6. The leader is personally and deeply involved in the process of changing relationships within the team
Is the executive ready to give up absolute power and become first among equals? For people to be able to demonstrate their flexibility and creativity, to openly express their opinions and disagreements, a specific environment of psychological safety must be created. Only then can participants in an Agile group become capable, in certain situations, of stepping into leadership roles and taking on leadership responsibility.
In my practice, I do see clear requests from business leaders to improve and heal relationships within the management team. More and more executives understand that this is where the leakage of energy and money occurs, and where growth is blocked. The response to such a request must be adequate. Typically, leaders are least inclined to reflect on their own internal limitations — for example, a low level of emotional intelligence. But the fact is that working on these limitations is the cornerstone of success for any innovation. And it matters little whether it is the implementation of Agile or something else entirely.