Archiv der Kategorie: Management

Here you find topics like planning, organization and leadership.

Momentum always evolves from within

The readiness to stand up for something cannot be stipulated. At best, you can try to extort fulfillment with sanctions. However, this works only for simple, rather uncreative results. If individuals should develop commitment, nothing else remains, then providing an activating framework that creates the desire to engage inside of the people. Momentum always evolves from within.

Commitment02

Despite this fact executives wish for possibilities of awaking this momentum inside the employees. Three basic starting points are available: formal, contentual and personal flywheels.

  • Formal flywheels
    With formal measures that are tailored to the company, employees can be activated. Acceptance can evolve with collaboration guidelines, role clarity, leadership and sponsorship tools. The collaboration guidelines that should be available in the context of governance include defined reporting processes, the organizational interaction, employee participation and similar. Role clarity is achieved by documenting the essential roles with their tasks, authorities and responsibilities. The leadership tools are characterized by transparent evaluation systems, clear leadership style, target agreements, feedback talks and similar tools. The sponsorship tools are not only for commitment amplifying, but also for increasing the sustainability. This includes training and skill management, career development programs as well as performance-oriented incentives. In daily business it is easier for the target group to commit based on the appropriate amplifiers.
  • Contentual flywheels
    The topic-oriented approaches are the most diverse that result from the field of work. They include various, interesting tasks, focus on reputation-enabling elements, visibility as well as challenges that maintain autonomy, are innovative and support changes. Interesting tasks appeal the individual interests of an employee. The variety of opportunities comes from cross-functional project alternatives that allow a broadening of knowledge. Reputation-enabling elements, like certifications and employee diploma, should be integrated into the measures. Visibility is realized by an open communication style of the content. Challenges emerge from new topics, cross-functional and personal responsibility. Take a look at your initiatives from the perspective of your teams and make your tasks more attractive.
  • Personal flywheels
    Personal approaches for amplification are the most sensitive, because they are tailored to the interests of individuals that are triggered by internal controlling convictions. They are created by feeling of self-efficacy, justice, satisfaction and curiosity. Internal controlling convictions are provided by alternatives, creative and decision freedom. Self perceptible authority (self-efficacy) results from recognition of existing skills and personal offers. Justice is transferred by transparency, fairness and legal certainty. Satisfaction results from a desired integration of the target group into the overall organization and the creation of an attractive identity. Curiosity can be satisfied by an appropriate exchange of information. Consider personal incitements and leave enough space for the creativity of the individual people.

Bottom line: Even if you do not have direct influence on the readiness of the employees, there are sufficient starting points available for the organization of an activating framework. The formal flywheels should be already intuitively used in day to day business. The contentual flywheels result from the zest for action of the client, if he is appropriately on fire. The personal flywheels are the most complex, since you have to be actively interested in the people and their needs. Momentum always evolves from within – particularly with the appropriate stimuli from the outside.

Becoming agile! But how?

After years of productivity increase through standardization, we now arrived in a dead end. The formal requirements pollute the actual work more and more. The creation of a plan became the central task of project management. Thus, the fulfillment of the standards increases the work load. The introduction of agile actions promises a way out. Based on the agile manifesto work is deregulated. The following values put the emphasis on the left side of the table, even if the right side remains important.

Individuals and interactions
Working solutions
Customer collaboration
Responding to change

over

 processes and tools
comprehensive documentation
contract negotiation
following a plan

Most people already understood the need of dusting off the currently overwhelming formal requirements. We will become more agile. But how?

Agilisierung

Let’s look at four alternative ways.

  1. Revolutionary
    Either one of the other is carried away by the conclusive perspective. These zealots dream about the possibility of introducing the agile values by shifting a lever from today to tomorrow. Since in a running company initiatives are continuously accomplished and the employees are not able to simply change their work style, this approach creates stress and a high risk for the fulfillment of the initiatives. Eventually the current and newly started projects are shaken by incompetency. They fail thereby.
  2. Evolutionary
    Less decisive people desire a smooth transition from classical to agile methods. However, employees work in different projects. If one takes place in a classical and the other in an agile way, the load of the change has the individual employee. Beyond that, the responsible people of the overall portfolio can only manage parts, since agile projects do not provide the relevant information any longer due to a lack of an appropriate planning. To what extent agility could be slowly implemented that way remains to be seen.
  3. Need orientation
    Pragmatics expect the possibility to install the one or the other procedure punctually, the way it appears most useful. Individual building blocks of a venture are selected for using agile mechanisms. A team of agile experts could take care of these tasks and exploit the advantages in the context of classical projects. The challenge is the interface to the classical activities and their bureaucratic needs – the clear direction, specific components and results.
  4. Separatist
    Some enterprises create a parallel playing field for the new ideas. On the one side projects are classically completed and on the other side accomplished agilely. In the long run the better one may win. Those parallel universes mean to the employees that sometimes they are included in the classical, bureaucratic environment and sometimes they have to cooperate agilely. The good news is that the employees can participate easily in the agile world. To what extent the classical projects are thereby contaminated in the short and medium term should be observed.

Bottom line: The introduction of agility is an extensive cut into the established practices of an enterprise. The roles of the employees, the reporting duty and the planning of individual and cross-functional projects are changed in the core – off taut clarity, towards flexible, trustfully cooperation. The solution is again the focal point of work, any more the formal administration. No matter how you decide, you should make clear, how to cooperate as well as to provide corresponding training courses for the employees.