In the first edition of the Brave New Leaders newsletter, I explored why human-centered ways of working, organizing, and managing/leading are required now, why you should care, and briefly introduced the principles of these new ways. In this second edition, I’ll dive deeper into these five principles.
principle /ˈprɪnsɪp(ə)l/ noun
The premise of the DNA of Human-Centered Ways of Working is that adopting these principles will enable your organization to drive:
As Gary Hamel put it in “The Future of Management,” the ultimate goals are to:
Your organization and/or team has a clear mission and idea of what needs to be accomplished. Everything the organization and/or team does is focused on achieving that mission.
Ideally, the purpose or mission is defined from a human perspective and not in financial, business, or offering terms. Externally it’s guided by customers, users, partners, the ecosystem, and other stakeholders’ needs; internally by employees and other internal “user groups “. It’s about creating and delivering value for these, and it’s focused on outcomes from a human perspective that will have an impact.
Now, I’m not necessarily talking about a “save the planet” kind of purpose. If that’s your thing, sure, go for it. But purpose can be much more straightforward. Like for example, for a help desk: “Solve users’ issues on the first call “or for order fulfillment: “Deliver 100% of customer orders on time” or for HR: “Ease the onboarding process so that employees feel operational within 1 day “or for Risk: “Simplify the KYC process as much as possible and reduce the burden for our customers to a minimum “. The ultimate goal should be to delight your customers and users.
As Peter Drucker said already 50 years ago: “What [the customer] considers ‘value’ is decisive — it determines what a business is, what it produces and whether it will prosper”.
Focusing on progress means being action-oriented and continuously delivering outcomes. It means getting sh*! done, fast, in short cycles, which allow for rapid feedback from customers, employees, users, stakeholders, … as to whether you’re creating value and having an impact or not.
Focusing on progress also means continuous iteration and learning through action, enabling you to adapt and continuously improve.
It requires an experimentation and “safe to try” mindset, limited work in progress that teams can focus on without interruptions, and limited handoffs.
“Do less. More often.”
— Gothelf & Seiden
All this DOES NOT mean “good enough is good enough”. It means delighting your customers with the progress you’re making.
The myth of the lone genius and innovator is dead. Gee, even superheroes collaborate these days (Avengers anyone?). Making meaningful progress requires collaboration with all the people and functions having the necessary expertise to make that progress, create and deliver that value. Collaboration means establishing the connections between the parties required to make progress. And it means harnessing the range of perspectives a diverse set of connections bring. Collaboration means co-creation with these connections.
Collaboration also means engaging in conversations instead of communication. It means listening to what stakeholders have to say.
And it means interacting in human ways.
If this can be done in small, co-located, and autonomous teams, great. This might be the ideal setup. But that is not necessary. It can also be informal teams. A genuinely collaborative mindset is way more important than the org chart. An organization full of small, autonomous teams in which people don’t collaborate is worse than a traditional organization with many informal, spontaneous interactions and collaboration happening. Companies like Google design their offices to foster spontaneous interactions.
Working in the open means being transparent, providing access to all information, and sharing that information not on a “need to know basis “, but making it available to everybody by default. Yes, by default, information is all access to everybody, and only if for legal reasons for example, it’s not possible, information gets treated as confidential.
Being people positive means, you believe that as human beings, we are internally motivated, enjoy our jobs, take full responsibility for our actions, and do not need close supervision to create quality work.
It means that you have trust in and respect people. Trust that they have the best of intentions. Trust that they do want to do great work. And the right attitude. An attitude that allows you to meet people at eye level. “…treat people as people and engage in authentic adult-to-adult conversations,” as Stephen Denning puts it in “The Age of Agile”.
“To be People Positive is to assume and expect the best of everyone.”
— Aaron Dignan
I borrowed the expression “people positive” from Aaron Dignan. In his book, Brave New Work (which might also have inspired the title of this newsletter 😉), Aaron writes that “…our way of working is a reflection of our assumptions and beliefs about human nature.” Our assumptions about human nature will lead to the corresponding ways of working, organizing, and managing/leading.
A “people positive” mindset is at the core of the new, human-centered ways of working, organizing, and leading. Without it, the other principles won’t be possible to put into place.
Having a “People Positive” view of human nature will allow you to put human values and a human-centered purpose at the core of your mission. It is the basis for unleashing creativity and establishing genuine autonomy. Without being people positive, you won’t be able to work in the open or to truly focus on making progress without being bogged down by bureaucratic structures, processes, policies, and procedures.
Being People Positive is the basis for autonomy and self-management.
It should be clear by now that changing our mindsets is the key to enabling human-centric ways of working, organizing, and leading. Org chart changes, process changes, policy changes, … all these will be wasted efforts if the underlying assumptions about work don’t change.
If you have New Ways of Working or Future of Work in your title or are “just interested” in new, human-centric ways of working, the Brave New Leaders are your tribe.
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Here’s the list of references and links to the sources mentioned throughout the article.
PURPOSE
PROGRESS
COLLABORATION
OPEN
PEOPLE POSITIVE