Archiv der Kategorie: Management

Here you find topics like planning, organization and leadership.

Agility does not tolerate a bonsai style

Bonsai is the art of influencing the growth of trees in such a way that the trees have a beautiful growth habit through artistic designing, but kept small in pots by regular cuts. The result is a large variety of original, apparently wild trees. In nature these trees would grow into the sky. A similar approach has evolved within enterprises. Bonsai style is the art of keeping employees small. This micro management affects the employee activities, like the scissors on the growth of trees. Agility that depends on pro-activity, initiative and flexibility of the people, cannot tolerate bonsai style.

What defines the bonsai style that undermines agility?

  • More criticism than praise
    Representatives of the bonsai style have the tendency to nip the however small commitment of employees in the bud by caviling incessantly. It makes no difference, whether the objections are justified or not. The whole is intensified by the absence of praise. In an agile world such leader could not take a stand, since nobody would follow them.
  • Devalue results with formalities
    The agile employees are driven people of their own aspiration. The attention is limited to the resolution. This leads to the fact that aspects that do not have much to do with the solution are faded out as of minor importance. Does the tie fit? Did you use the official forms? Is the Font correct? The result consists of eighty-percent problem solution. The bad evaluation of the formalities completely misses the goal and tramples all over the tender seedling of the employee commitment.
  • Consistently pulling the superior joker
    After many years of the development, the learning organization, the employee participation, and the teambuilding with their standards, evaluations and decisions from above, the power structures are still in place. Now those, who came to their limits, expect a debureaucratization and the utilization of the inherent employee energy of wanting to create something. However, if no one comes forward voluntarily, the volunteers are determined. If nobody delivers what the superiors expect, the employees get their result adapted by micro management. For safeguarding the business, the hierarchical structures are kept besides the agile ones.
  • Disparaged in the plenum
    A very effective approach, in order to keep the employees small, are offending comments in the public. Devaluing remarks on the personal work style, on small mistakes in the argumentation or on the editing, guarantee that the employees lose their face. The anticipatory commitment of the agile employee is then no longer probable.
  • Micro management
    The always not available, but obsessed with details 24/7 micro managers are actually their best agile employees. Their commitment always is at maximum. They worry about everything and they are decisive. Unfortunately they don’t have the time to consider, because they have incessantly tasks, which they obviously have to worry about. Since everything excites their attention, they cannot manage to get used to the work and contribute thereby nothing. Understandably, they cannot accomplish their actual function. Micro management is one of the largest hurdles on the way to the agility.
  • Missing covering
    The attitude to correct at any time each detail at discretion leads to the fact that the employees are quickly alone without covering, exposed to the problem in case of crisis. In order to be able to act agilely, they need however the trust from above that their actions always take place in the interest of the larger whole. Where a lot of things happen, there happen also many errors. Error tolerance is an approach, to provide good covering. In the context of agility a remaining leadership task is the boundless support and employee shielding, when they process the topics self-organized.
  • Rule one and two
    Apart from the micro management the largest agility killers are the rules of power. Rule 1: The boss is always right. Rule 2: If he is not right, then automatically rule 1 is valid. Thereby the budding initiative has no chance to prove itself on a long-term basis and to develop an effective solution.

Bottom line: As long as the old approaches for the company design remain unchanged, like the hierarchical structure, the chain of command, or the superior joker, the associated disadvantages also remain. The generous authorization of the employees with sufficient resources, powers and support is crucial for exhausting the advantages of agile approaches. Bonsai style prevents thereby the desired effects since an employee initiative nipped in the bud cannot flourish.

Conserve energy in agile activities

Agile activities are determined by the acting people, who produce seizable results. Each particular aspect that makes a contribution to the overall outcome is thereby of interest. These are on the one hand the memetic results – ideas, topics, concepts, models, plans and practices. On the other hand it’s a matter of the physical products – prototypes, parts, components and assemblies. In order to exploit the opportunities of agility, the acting people need a constant energy level. Nothing else remains to be done by the managers than tackling things or doing anything, so that the involved people do not work to hard, not to burn out, but to conserve their energy.

The stamina of employees in the context of agile projects and, above all, the duration of a high agile energy level are apparently not yet analyzed. Factors that affect the duration and encourage on a long-term basis are among other things the following aspects.

  • Positive self-image
    A positive assessment of the self-esteem results from the own, recognized strengths (e.g. skills, creativity) and the controllable weaknesses (e.g. impatience, being nutty on details). The self-image is often reinforced by the comparison with other people.
    The manager should suppress all disturbing impulses, like the feeling of competing with the employees, in order not to put scratches on their self-image.
  • Aligned doing
    As soon as the employees have found their direction; they become bound to everything that goes into this direction. All thoughts turn around planning, execution and implementation of the various parts as well as around similar results that other people created.
    The manager can foster this momentum, by providing appropriate material, trainings and events for the employee.
  • Real autonomy
    The feeling of having control of your own fate and to determine your own career with suitable measures create self-confidence that allows admitting difficult tasks. This results in a confident attitude that achieves more than a negative.
    The manager is crucial for the elbow spaces that are available to the employees. This takes place on the one hand through the fact that they do not interfere into each detail as well as to prevent on the other hand that others limit the autonomy of the employees.
  • Official acknowledgment
    The results that are obtained by the employees, should be honored by the internal public. This can take place through respective publications in the available media, mentions within given events or through appropriate trophies (e.g. certificates, cups, and badges).
    The manager is responsible to take care that the employees are praised and/or for the fact that deliverables become officially visible.
  • Equal workload
    Dependent on the employee type they work with their personal rhythm. There are morning and evening beauties, short-distance and long haul runners as well as short- and long-winded, rhythmic and flowing characters. It is common for all that an interruption of their work is counter productive, since the resumption of the thread always takes a lot of time.
    The manager should know the rhythms of their employees and do everything that they are not thrown out of their rhythm or will be interrupted.

Whereas leaders in the past intervened from above with defaults, demands and instructions in order to prove themselves, now the conception of the world is put upside down. With the old approach they would destroy the mechanisms that keep the employees moving. In agile environments they carry the needs of all employees on their shoulders.

Bottom line: The pro-active actors are located in the center of a self-organized world. Their positive self-image, their aligned doing, their need for real autonomy, their official acknowledgment and their equal workload are apart from other aspects the pre-requisites for agile approaches. The managers have the duty to support the employees in all areas. Thus, the energy is extensively longer conserved in agile activities.