Does culture eat strategy for breakfast? Maybe if it’s agile.
When it comes to organizations, there’s a perpetual dance between stability and agility. No question, orgs need a solid foundation on which to build a solid culture of aligned values, shared behaviors, and a strong identity. But too stable, and it’s hard to adjust and adapt — and if there’s one thing we’ve learned lately, it’s that survival requires flexibility. How does that impact HR? Pre-pandemic, some forward-thinking HR departments and leadership looked to leverage the digital transformation, upgrading HR tech as they reevaluated what a workplace means. Some considered leaning into agile as well. Not a moment too soon, as it turned out, given the incredible shift we had to make overnight.
Now agility is on a lot of people’s minds again. HR teams are trying to manage the endless moving parts of hybrid and remote; leaders are seeing the value of team autonomy. So here’s a roundup of some recent wisdom. These 5 pieces all take different perspectives, but have invaluable, smart strategies for today’s organizations. Here’s my take:
You may not be ready for agile
Mary Faulkner asks, “Does Agile HR Really Work?” in an insightful piece about what happens when HR departments apply Agile principles. From project management to people management isn’t that much of a stretch, she notes, given today’s endlessly morphing workforces. What gets in the way: an inflexible mindset — which I find is often based on fear and a need to lean on the status quo. Also, a lack of patience for undergoing effective and well-considered implementation. To shift to an agile HR structure takes resources and people hours, so it’s not for everyone. So it comes down to knowing if your company can execute. Is it capable of change management? If it is, you’ll benefit from a more flexible, people-centric, collaborative structure that tends to boost engagement, decision-making and business outcomes. The lesson here: as with so many transitions, every organization has to assess its readiness first.
Lean on agile to help you lead
What is agile leadership? Brad Swanson dives in — and shows how leadership shapes the workplace culture, good, bad, or otherwise. Leaders that draw from agile principles can foster unprecedented collaboration and help people learn from their failures rather than try to hide from them. I’ve seen leaders ascribe to agile and shift the whole workforce from feeling like a stratified group of silos to a far more innovative, creative, cohesive superteam. Swanson lays out how leaders can evolve in three stages — from expert to achiever to catalyst — a proactive, visionary approach that’s a great antidote to turbulence and complexity. He also describes a telecom company’s transformation from the usual over-structured, rigid culture to someone altogether dynamic. How? Among other agile methods, two words: Kanban boards. I see the merits.
Five ways to make agile work
Nuts and bolts meet methodology in Felix Emmelmann’s post on LinkedIn about how an agile approach can improve remote teams. He shares 5 effective strategies for boosting collaboration and productivity using agile approaches. If you’ve been on the fence about adding more remote-friendly tools to your stack, this may push you to act (and bring on Jira, Slack, Teams, and other collaboration enablers). If you’ve been wondering how to improve communications, there’s plenty: structured, regular, asynchronous all have a place. I like his suggestion to adapt Agile ceremonies (meetings) to the remote context, keeping things short, sweet, and clear. There’s also a lot about trust, accountability and ownership — all critical with remote teams. And to offset the burnout that can come with a motivated, never-stop team, Emmelmann has tips on improving work-life balance. I agree — except the truth is we’re not really talking about balance here so much as integration and setting boundaries. Separating work from life just isn’t that neat.
Massive but nimble?
If you’ve ever wondered how big companies manage to act as nimbly as startups, Nick van der Meulen has answers. His recent article looks at four guardrails that enable massive organizations to stay flexible but ensure alignment. To be able to adapt without anarchy and act autonomously without losing sign of the shared objectives — I know some leaders who consider this the holy grail. I won’t give it all away, but they do make sense. And he underscores their effectiveness by offering up examples from Toyota to Allstate to Mars — all companies that have managed to create innovative structures, cross-functional teams, and fast-moving, empowered performance. It’s the opposite of moving fast and breaking things: here, it’s moving fast and making things happen.
Three tools
Now for the essentials: Summit Ghimire lists the three key digital tools that will enable HR departments to stay flexible and better manage remote workplaces, from HR management software to AI to remote/hybrid work software. This one’s pretty clear, but I’ve found that sometimes simple is just what we need. Ghimire cautions that, in all cases, HR teams need to ensure employees have the digital dexterity that sets them up for success, along with the privacy and security protections that keep everyone safe.
Does culture really eat breakfast? Even a few of my team members here use the phrase. It might, but not if the culture matches the context of today’s workplace. I predict we’ll be seeing more strategic efforts to make sure culture stays relevant, drives engagement and alignment, and allows us that room to move.
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