The culture in your company defines what the default option is for tiny decisions such as “What shall I wear to the office today?” and “Am I allowed to help this customer?” to “Should we present this to the board at all?”
Every non-default decision requires a mix of effort, energy and guts that I call Leadership. Which means that most decisions are made by default, even if you have great leaders. So I will wear whatever is acceptable at work. I will stick to procedure when helping customers. And I probably do not make that particular presentation to the board.

So the trick to get people making correct decisions is to make sure that the default option is the correct one. Some people say it is impossible to change culture. I disagree and think it is merely extremely hard and takes a lot of time and dedication. The secret ingredient is to have values and communicate how a decision is framed by those values. Which of course means living by your values as well

So this is where Storytelling becomes an important Leadership tool. By not only living our values, but communicating about them with Value Stories we can slowly shift corporate culture into making the correct decision the default decision.

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Then came along the Industrial Revolution and the game changed. Over the course of 1 or 2 generations the game changed from Connect Four to Chess. It was a completely different game.
Mom & pop shops all over the world went out of business because they could no longer compete with cheap mass-produced goods out of the big factories. Planning and predictability became the name of the new game. Resource utilisation, economies of scale, supply chain management and budgets became important tools for senior management to move us pawns across a huge chess board.

But the good news is the game is changing again. Information asymmetry is gone. Fuelled by the internet in general and social media in particular consumers know more than ever, possibly more than you do. The world around us is being commoditised as Joe Pine explains nicely in his TED Talk about the The Experience Economy. And to add insult to injury cause and effect are becomes more and more fuzzy.
The world is rapidly changing to playing Texas Hold’em Poker. No amount of willing or trying will make a game of poker predictable.
The trick of the game is to learn. In an individual game you need to learn what cards your opponents have; over the course of multiple games you need to learn what playing style your opponents have and their tells.

What kind of company are you working for? Are they trying to know and predict everything? Do they have ‘The Plan’? They are still playing chess then. There is a reason serious chess players play with a clock. Given unlimited time they would never make a move.
One of the biggest hands in poker was for $5,897,501, the difference between 1st and 2nd place in the 2006 World Series of Poker. You can see it here.
Even for this hand there was no clock. It would have been pointless anyway.
Poker players know they won’t know everything, not the cards of your opponent and the cards that still need to be drawn. What they do is figure out what the possible scenarios are and try to learn as much as possible, usually by investing (betting) money.
So? Does your company have THE plan? Or does it have a few scenarios and is it betting small while trying to learn? Which one do you think is more more likely to win at poker?

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The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

Interest

Interest was and is extremely high. We probably had between 400-600 participants and a line-up of big names. There is a lot of work to be done before we get to the tipping point, but I see Stoos making the first decent inroads into the early adopters.

Technical difficulties

We had quite a few technical difficulties. Most notably the videos in the presentation by Jaap Peters. The video by Daniel Pink later ran fine, so one of the lessons would be to not play videos from within Powerpoint.
Slides from the remote locations were also problematic. So I would probably just ban them next time.
It was hard to connect to the central location. Skype refused to let me make a Stoos Connect account for some reason and I had to use my personal one.
There were some quality issues with remote presenters. Overall it was good enough.

The video problem was the most annoying by far. We need to test this better next time.

Organisational Issues

Some speakers spoke too long. Need to be more strict on it, but also make it more visible for them. Because of all the other issues I forgot to install my iPad with a countdown clock.
Wanting to keep costs down I did not include dinner with the price of the ticket. This costs us quite a bit of time as everyone had to pay individually.

Network expands

The ambition of the Stoos Network is slowly moving towards a movement of movements. How do we connect all of the different movements, ideas, organisations etc to facilitate that tipping point. During the preparation I kept getting suggestions for other people and movements. And even after the fact. As I type this I get a Twitter message pointing me towards what looks like another awesome group.

Not connecting outside enough

Because of these issues we did not connect to other satellites as much as I would have liked. We did get to see a few satellites, but I wanted to involve them more. Need to schedule more time for that.
We also did not use the backchannels like Twitter enough. Really should figure out how to include that more.

Self-organisation works!

I am extremely happy with the way the organisation was run. I was the one with the original idea, but especially Sander took upon himself a lot of work. Sander took care of the website, the eventbrite page and the video part. Especially the last part was done way better than anything I could have dreamt up. I would have had a camera record it. They came up with a 3 camera setup, video mixer, audio, presentation laptops, skype laptops, live streaming laptop. The livestream was way better because of them. And once we get the videos edited I am sure the results will be stunning.
But also being open to people suggesting speakers. Some of the highest rated speakers were speakers that were invited not by me, but others.

Slack saved my live

We build in a LOT of slack. We planned to be at the venue way too early. So my train breaking down, the forgotten cable or the audio problems weren’t the end of the world. In the schedule I had planned a maximum of 45-50 minutes for every hour. And 30 minute breaks instead of 15. It was still not enough, but we did managed.

Speaker quality varied greatly

Almost every agreed that some speakers were much better than others. What most people disagree on is which speakers were good and which ones bad. Take Vlatka for example: A few people thought it was not all that inspiring, many more found it great to have a scientific background to what they felt was right. Some people thought Niels was just bashing management, others found him thought-provoking. In a remote satellite 3 managers got into a heated debate what it meant for their company. So that is mission accomplished.

Conclusion

It was an awesome event. Certainly for the first time. When I started on this journey 6 months ago I was not sure how it was going to pan out. I remember finding a venue that was nice, but not too expensive, so I would not lose a lot of money if it failed.
I remember having booked Jurgen Appelo and Niels Pflaeging and thinking I at least had some names on the list people recognised.
Turned out even more people know Steve Denning, Daniel Pink and Roger Martin.
All in all I think it was an amazing event. Feedback has been great so far. The technical problems sucked and we need to learn for next events, but we do need to remember we did something not many people have done before: Having a truly global conference where both audience and speakers were not in the room. I still feel humbled, proud and excited when I think about the day.
I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions in the comments.

PS: My awesome co-organiser Sander Huijsen now has some free time and is looking for a new challenge. If you or anyone else you know needs a Java/C/Android developer and/or Scrum Master/Agile Coach, take a look at: http://imagile.nl. He gets things done.

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Most people do not like contemplating their mortality. It is unsettling to think about it. But I also think it is the best way to inspire us to be our best. It is a painful lesson I learned at age eighteen, when my six year old nephew died.
Every now and then I wonder if my life will ever be as good as his. In the few years he had he lived more than most people do in decades and he has put a smile on the face of everyone he met.
And it can all be over at any time. You might be planning to do something in a future that will never happen.

So this morning I started thinking about my ultimate KPI again: Who will be present and what will they say at my funeral.
And for the first time I am starting to like the picture. I am marrying the love of my life, someone who gets me. I am doing meaningful work with and on the Stoos movement. Facilitating the required paradigm shift in management thinking is something that is sorely needed and I am passionate about. I have met quite a few extremely interesting and talented people over the years.
The one area that needs more work is friends. They have not had enough of my attention over the past year or two. And that is something I am going to focus on this year.
So a year from now I’ll have an amazing bunch of people together who can say we had a lot of fun and achieved our first steps toward a better world.

So what would your funeral look like if it happened one year from now? Yes it does feel uncomfortable, but it is the best inspiration I know to do truly meaningful work and to spend enough time with the people you care about. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a nephew to catch up on.

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Disclosure

In the interest of full disclosure, I have since done the Train the Trainer program and I am now a licensed ‘Drive Workshop Facilitator’. Now I did the Train the Trainer program because I like the workshop format. I do not like the workshop format because I am a facilitator. Either way you have been warned

Pros

Result Oriented

As I mentioned before, this is not really a training. It does not just go over the material in a slightly different way than the book. It is about becoming aware on what to change, how to change and creating a plan to (collectively) get there.
The result of the workshop is an action plan for both the individuals and the organization.

Appropriate for all levels

The focus of the workshop is on what the people in the room can achieve towards Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. So you do not need to have the entire executive team in the room to get anything done. Some professionals and maybe a line manager or two and you are set to go.

Cons

Works best with multiple people from an organization

The workshop we did was an example for the training for facilitators that followed. That meant that we had a bunch of individuals from almost as many organizations as participants. While we had some absolutely brilliant discussions on the concepts it was harder to take the results beyond an individual level.

Conclusion

We need better organizations. Better for the people in them and better for the organizations themselves. I strongly believe the Autonomy, Mastery & Purpose model described in Drive by Daniel Pink is a great model to kickstart that journey of continuous improvement. And the Drive Workshop does a great job of figuring out actionable results, especially with a group from the same organization.

PS. As I am now a licensed Drive Workshop Facilitator I am currently looking for a pilot group to have a trial run with. Contact me if you are interested in a full day workshop at cost price.

The post Review of Drive Workshop appeared first on Erronis.

The Blue Zone[1] is the bit between what you are supposed to do (green) and what you are forbidden to do (red). For the visual learners, it looks a bit Like this:

Although if you put that in the proper perspective it looks a lot more like this:

That assignment was the first time I ventured into the Blue Zone. They had a bit of work on the crappy application left, but other than that I started looking around for interesting stuff to do. I started fixing build systems, introduced performance testing and continuous integration, helped other groups and had a blast. I even extended the contract another 6 months because of the good times I was having. And the client was extremely happy.
I have been a Blue Zone Explorer ever since. You do not change anything by doing what you are told. Leadership is taking responsibility of changing something in the status quo, and that is almost always in the Blue Zone.

So next time you want something changed, do not wait for permission. Do not even try to get permission. No one has told you you can not do it, so make it happen! As the amazing Grace Hopper said:

It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission

[1] The term Blue Zone comes from the book Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies: Understanding Patterns of Project Behavior by the consultants of The Atlantic Systems Guild.

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Now this is not to say that they basically rehashed the same ideas, quite the contrary. Everyone looked through their own lenses: Daniel Pink researched employee engagement, David Marquet did not want 129 blind followers, but 129 people who are involved and thinking leaders. Dave Logan and crew looked into the impact of culture on the performance of organisations.
They all came to pretty much the same conclusion: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose on all levels in an organisation is great for the people in the organisation, the customers it serves and the bottom line of the company.

Mastery, Competence and “I am great” (level 3)

Not only is getting good at something people really enjoy, it is also a pre-requisite for the later stages of self-organisation and autonomy. When no one is telling us what to do, it is up to us to make those decisions.
The best description of Mastery, how it works and what you can do to achieve is is still: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

Autonomy, Control and “We are great” (level 4)

This is where things get really interesting. Now that we have the foundation of good people it is time to step aside and trust them to do their job. It continues to baffle me how even in this day and age of knowledge work we still tell people not just what to do, but how to do it.
In my trainings and workshops have asked a lot of people what their best moment at work was and pretty much all of them mentions a time where they, with maybe a few others, were tasked with getting something done. Where they were free to figure out how to accomplish something tough.

But it is also very good for the bottom line. Our world is simply changing too fast for a central authority to keep up and control. A great example of autonomy is customer service in Zappos. They have a huge part to play the Zappos Experience(tm). They have no scripts, no call-time targets. They are tasked with delivering the best customer service on the planet. Watch this: A talk show host decided to find out for herself what the Zappos Experience is.

Turn the Ship Around!, Tribal Leadership and Delivering Happiness are both great books with enough tips on how to create such a culture.

Purpose, Clarity, “Life is great” (level 5)

The best motivator for people is to be part of something bigger then themselves. What is the purpose of your organisation? Your department? That goal, that vision, the clarity of what we are trying to accomplish is what makes autonomy work. When people are supposed to make their own decisions they need to be able to figure out which alternative is best. The purpose of the organisation should give you the tools for that. This does not need to be touchy-feely, save the world kind of purpose. It can be about making a million dollars in the next year, but it does help if it is about other people.
Simon Sinek’s quote says it all. “Martin Luther King did not say: ‘I have a plan’.” MLK had a dream and gave millions of people a purpose and changed not only his country, but the entire world.

A great book about Purpose is: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

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And the trick is not to let the haters get you down. Even while I was at the client there were people who did not like what I was doing.
All of the criticism I have received over the years about that job can be traced back to one decision I made very early on. The IT department was so inefficient and ineffective there was no point in doing things slightly better in one project. My goal at the time was to have them do projects in half the time for a quarter of the money. It was my default answer to the question: “So what do you do?”
I was laughed a lot at those days..

One of the first things I did was instead of assuming Indian developers were incompetent and lazy I started with the assumption they lacked experience and were very motivated. So instead of telling them exactly what to do I explained them the vision on where to go and handed over more and more responsibility to them. Using something like what Jurgen Appelo later described in his 7 Levels of Authority.
Not much later they who wrote down how they should do things instead of me. And they did their own reviews, with me just listening in and jumping in when needed. This allowed the team members to really grow very quickly, because they had to look at what they were doing through the bigger picture. And in turn it allowed me to start looking for other things to do.
I started championing initiatives to improve code quality, have mixed on-site/offshore teams, introduce continuous integration, give developers tools they could actually use and radically simplify infrastructure. Oh and introduce Agile.
Right now they are very close to developing software in half the time for a quarter of the money in some projects.

And yet it still hurt to hear those comments. At least until I remembered a conversation with one of my team leads when I left their project. I joked that the rest of the team must be really glad to be rid of someone so picky and tough on quality. Instead of doing the Indian head bobble (which no one outside of India knows is yes or no) he was a bit too serious when he said they had learned much more in the past 4 months that sometimes the 1-3 years before. And that they were very grateful for the chance to step up and take responsibility.
That was one of the best compliments I ever got. And he was right, they had grown.

So be warned. Creating a culture of responsibility and empowerment will certainly improve the overall performance of the organisation, but not necessarily that of you personally. At least not measured in the traditional sense.
If you do meaningful things, if you decide to stick your neck out, there will always be people waiting to chop it off. And sometimes it is hard to ignore them, but remember who we do it for.
As Bob Woodruff famously said:

“There is no limit to what a man can achieve as long as he doesn’t care who get’s the credit”

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