Are you a Leader that Serves?

Last week, I had the fortune to enjoy the benefits of a concierge lounge at a prestigious hotel.  As I was enjoying hors d’oeuvres, I initiated a game I like to play called “observe the people”.  As simple as it sounds, it allows me to discern how people interact with each other and identify any interesting traits. I noticed and talked to people who were travelling for business, those that may be considered leaders in their respective industries.  Most of those in the lounge could be considered a bit privileged in their expectations of both service and amenities of the lounge, not at all unreasonable in the context.

I noticed the host who was checking-in the guests into the lounge at his desk.  He was busy registering people and providing information about the lounge.  He was doing this continually for an hour as I was working on my computer getting some odds and ends done.  As guests were getting drinks and food, I saw that the host had nothing to refresh his palette yet he was the busiest person in the lounge.  With that awareness, I walked over to the host and offered to get him a drink and some food.  He looked at me with surprise and said, “You are the first guest in 5 years who has offered me a drink.” That caught me by surprise.  How could that be?

Have we gotten so invested in our privilege that we forget that part of our responsibility as leaders is to serve those that help us?  If you are reading this and thinking, “Why should I serve those that I lead when they should be serving me?” you may have a learning opportunity to help yourself and your team, group, division or company.  A major part of your job as a leader is to help maintain and improve the health of your employees.  This takes a page from the concept of Servant Leadership.

Robert K. Greenleaf coined the term “servant leadership” in the 1970 essay, “The Servant as Leader”. Greenleaf takes the approach of “the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived.”

While there are various key servant leadership attributes, the ones I find important are an ability to listen; capability to empathize with people; aptitude to heal others (both mentally, physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually; an awareness of your surroundings, ability to persuade and conceptualize, have foresight, be a steward to stakeholders, customers, partners, and employees; a commitment to grow people encouraging innovation, self-initiative, and learning; and a need to build community.

As a leader, your first response should be to greet your employees (aka, those you serve) and then ask if there is anything we can do for them and ask if you can remove any impediments in their way.  Understand that by being that servant leader, you make your employees feel known and important. You should also remove their impediments helping them deliver products and services quicker, which has the benefit of making you money earlier than later. Remember, employees or those that are helping you.  They are the engine to your success. Serve them. Remove their impediments, listen to their needs, and get them a drink. Is it time to get serious and sincere in helping them? 

Are you closing the Distance in your Agile Journey?

An interesting phenomenon has arisen in Agile environments that could become litmus tests to determine if you are Agile.   This phenomenon is the concept of “closing the distance”.   There are three areas that closing the distance is both Agile and good for companies.  The three areas include the distances amongst employees, the distance between employees and customers, and the distance when an idea comes in until it hits the marketplace. Let’s explore each in more detail. 

Closing the Distance amongst Employees – Agile focuses a lot on individuals and interacts as one of its values.  The intent is that employees should be on teams with a common purpose bringing people closer.  Agile advocates the concept of swarming where employees collaboratively work together to get work done.  If you are a manager, Agile asks you to get closer to your employees by removing their impediments and also aligns with the practice of walking the “gemba” (walking the halls and asking if you can help employees by removing impediments and more).

Closing the Distance between Employees and Customers – In many non-Agile organizations, there are often a number of degrees of separation between employees and customers.  Agile asks that employees come face-to-face with customers in the demos to gain the precious customer feedback.  I recommend the “two degrees of customer separation” rule where no employee (including management) should be more than two degrees of separation from the customer (e.g., you to employee to customer or you directly to customer). 

Closing the distance between recording an idea until it hits the Marketplace – In this case distance is the lead-time (clock time between the moment the idea is recorded to when it gets released).  If you are doing Agile well, you will ensure the new idea (e.g., new requirement), assuming it is of high enough value, gets looked at immediately, and not wait until the next budget cycle.  Additionally, Agile expects that you will proactively attempt to shorten the distance from idea to release by reducing wait states and removing impediments.  

In summary, have you noticed that during your Agile journey that you have seen the distances get shorter? Are you getting closer to your colleagues and employees?  Are you getting closer to customers?  And is the lead-time distance being shortened from the moment the idea is recorded to when it gets to market?  If not, then maybe you’re not as Agile as you thought.  If you have, then you are headed in the right direction.  Could awareness of these three distances provide you a litmus test on whether you are moving in the direction of agility?

The Power of Agile is in your Customers and Employees

I’m Agile, you’re Agile, everyone is Agile.  Or folks think they are.  But are they really? If Agile is only a process to you, Agile will fail. If Agile is pretending certainty without validating with customers, then Agile will fail. If Agile is commanded from above with little ownership from the team, Agile will fail.  More importantly, not only Agile will fail, so will your business.  Agile is a move to a lean culture focusing on customers and what they find as value and focusing on employees who are the engine that can create that value.  Agile is effectively about creating a thriving business. 

I believe there are the two primary success factors in creating a thriving business: a culture where customers matter and employees matter. I’m not talking about the lip service that is prevalent today. In some cases, we see quite the opposite, where employees are disenfranchised and customers are rarely engaged. Instead, the goal is to have a culture and practices in place that truly gain the benefits of engaging with customers and employees. Through the customer and employee, a company draws their power within an agile culture and, I contend, within any thriving company.

When you have a riveting focus on the customer and you believe that an engaged customer matters, then you have the basis for a relationship where you can truly understand what the customer wants. When you have a sharp focus on employees and provide them the space to make decisions and own their work, then you will begin to understand the value an engaged employee base can provide.

If the values are sincerely translated to organizational objectives and agile approaches are applied, then it can act as a differentiator between the success of your organization compared to the success of other organizations. Of course, every company likes to say that employees and customers matter, but are their objectives and actions really aligned with these values?

Upon closer inspection, the values should translate into objectives focusing on customer engagement and employee engagement.

• Customer engagement focuses on establishing meaningful and honest customer relationships with the goal of initiating continuous customer feedback to truly identify what is valuable to the customer. This includes establishing all of the activities involved in a Customer Feedback Vision.
• Employee engagement focuses on empowering employees so they can self-organize into teams and can own and be a part of the decision-making process at their own level.  When employees have ownership, they have more passion in their work.  When they have more passion, they give 110%. 

Then we add the “secret ingredient” of applying a continuous and adaptive approach (a.k.a. agile culture, processes, methods, practices, and techniques). If done properly with the ability to adapt, this can lead to an increase in customer sales and an increase in team productivity. This finally leads to your incentive, which is an increase in company profits.  

Now is time to take a moment.  Are employees disenfranchised or fully engaged?  Are customers rarely engaged or is their feedback continuously engaged?  Is Agile just a trend that others should do or are you serious about Agile and the culture shift it requires?  Keep in mind, the combination of customer and employee engagement within an Agile context isn’t just a good idea, it is great for business.  

PS - to read more about the importance of customers and employees, consider reading Chapter 3 of the book entitled Being Agile.