Starting with why is the first step to affecting real and sustainable organizational change. In his book, Simon Sinek describes how leaders and organizations have failed in demonstrating the vision of their company, not only to their customers, but to their employees as well. This is the primary reason we start all of our client engagements with a cultural assessment and an awareness of how the organizational values align with agile values and what leadership can do to bridge the gap
Most organizations seeking to be more agile start with their process, because this is the easiest area to see and impact. However, as soon as they implement a change to their processes, they run into organizational impediments – often within the structures and culture of the organization. Starting with why and aligning the structures of the organization to the goals of agility, provides an infrastructure for an agile process to succeed.
By studying influential leaders around the world, Sinek describes that they each think, act, and communicate in exactly the same way and this becomes a framework on which organizations can be changed, movements can be lead, and people can be inspired. On the other hand, if neither the customers nor the employees understand the essence of the company and why they are doing what they do, it’s simply a failed model all around and unfortunately too many organizations, too many movements, and too many groups are failing by getting the why right.
In our Leading/Coaching Agile Organizations Master Workshop, we’ll dive into the unseen norms and values of your company to see why leaders act the way they do and create awareness to enable agile growth instead.