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Sampling of Practices to Build Worker Relationships

Worker Relationship

Humans are social beings and relationships at work impact a person’s morale, productivity and quality of life.  Years ago many workers were advised to keep their personal lives to themselves and only discuss business with fellow workers.  Since then many business and mental health experts recommend that workers form relationships with their fellow workers. Developing relationships in the workplace creates empathy and moves towards a more transparent, caring and open environment.  Experts recognize the presence of these attributes in high performing teams and organizations.

Given the amount of time we spend together at work, we should enjoy what we do and working with our teammates. Friendly relationships at the workplace can promote a helpful and positive attitude.  People care about other people and have a genuine interest in their well-being. Trust, the main ingredient for healthy high performing teams, thrives in this type of environment.

So how can we foster good working relationships?  Well, we can get to know our fellow workers better.  There are a number of techniques and practices that can assist here.  

As is usually the case, the discussion that takes place from doing the activity is the important and useful part.

One activity is a short Star Wars Myers-Briggs type personality test.  Another practice is to use ice breakers before starting team meetings such as a thumb ball where you catch the ball and answer the question your thumb is positioned on.

star wars            Thumb Ball

Management 3.0 has some great practices and activities for getting to know your fellow workers such as Moving Motivators and Personal Maps to name two.  I use personal maps with my teams and as training ice breakers. Each person creates a mind map representing themselves.  They draw themselves in the middle and then flesh out the personal map with categories such as family, work, education, hobbies, etc.  It is purely their choice as to what they draw. The group then inquires and discusses different areas in others personal maps. Again, the “gold” is in the discussion and relationships you build as you learn more and have fun discussing the personal maps.  I recently had a team that worked with each other for awhile do this exercise and it was amazing how much new discussions it prompted.

 

Establishing relationships and building trust within your teams and organization is key.

What are some activities, practices and tools that you use to build work relationships at your organization?

 

HiPPOs Impede Productivity

hippo

Does your organization make decisions at the appropriate levels or do they run every decision up the flag pole to seek the “Highest Paid Person’s Opinion” (HiPPO)?  Are the people doing the work consulted or are all decisions mandated from above on how they must do their work?  Is there a “HiPPO” in the room or meeting that comes out of nowhere and adds a new mandatory condition without being involved in all the previous discussions or research?  Not making decisions at the appropriate level is inefficient and ineffective; not to mention demotivating for workers.  As a manager, create autonomy within your teams!

You can imagine the time wasted if workers need to seek approval for all or most of their decisions; sometimes even having to pass through multiple levels of approval just for the HiPPO to then put the “kabash” on it.  Beware of HiPPOs that use buzzwords and mandate implementation of ideas without much if any research or validation.  If you think you may be acting like a “HiPPO” then do the following:

  • Check your ego at the door.
  • Think three times before telling people how to specifically do something, especially if you are an executive leader.  Tell them what you want to happen instead of how you want them to do it.
  • Listen, listen and listen – the best executive leaders take in as much information as possible from their people.
  • Ask open questions and explore the information you are given.
  • Create a safe environment for discussion in the workplace.
  • Establish a trusting environment and progress towards moving decisions down to the proper level.

Jurgen Appelo, author of Management 3.0, identified that not only does empowerment improve worker satisfaction, but it enables the management of complex systems.  Complex systems are not sustainable and collapse without empowerment.

General McChrystal’s troops had to be autonomous and make decisions in the moment, since Al Qaeda would change tactics constantly.  There was no longer time to assess the situation and run it up to command for a decision. The troops needed to react on their own.  They just couldn’t call back for instructions every time they got in a fire fight where things were changing by the minute.  Heuristics could be set by command, but the troops needed the autonomy to make their own decisions and at a later time share their experience and knowledge with command and other troops.

Some roadblocks for managers empowering teams is that they feel a loss of control or insecurity.  You do not diminish your worth as a manager by empowering your people.  Your worth as a manger is measured by how well your team performs and a well empowered team is a much more efficient and effective one.

In some instances, management does not trust their subordinates to make the right decisions or they’re just plain entrenched in command and control.  Hopefully, if you are a manager reading this, upon reflection you recognize the efficiency of empowering your people and teams and will work towards that end.  If you are not completely comfortable empowering your people then start out with low risk activities and build up as you progress, but you need to start.

As a manager, consider the correct empowerment decisions based on the competence level of your people. Don’t misunderstand empowerment. It is not something that is either present or not. Below are seven authority levels that have been extended by Management 3.0 from Situational Leadership Theory; each with a different level of empowerment:

  • Level 1: Tell: You make decisions and announce them to your people. (This is actually not empowerment at all.)
  • Level 2: Sell: You make decisions, but you attempt to gain commitment from workers by “selling” your idea to them.
  • Level 3: Consult: You invite and weigh input from workers before coming to a decision. But you make it clear that it’s you who is making the decisions.
  • Level 4: Agree: You invite workers to join in a discussion and to reach consensus as a group. Your voice is equal to the others.
  • Level 5: Advise: You attempt to influence workers by telling them what your opinion is, but ultimately you leave it up to them to decide.
  • Level 6: Inquire: You let the team decide first, with the suggestion that it would be nice, though not strictly necessary, if they can convince you afterward.
  • Level 7: Delegate: You leave it entirely up to the team to deal with the matter.

The bottom line is that as a manager you need to get the HiPPO out of the mix and start finding a way to empower your people.  In doing so, you’ll find that their motivation will increase.  Daniel Pink, world renown author and business thinker, tells us that the three factors that lead to better performance are Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.  The first, “Autonomy”, (click here for Dan Pink’s video), is ones desire to be self-directed.  People and teams can accomplish amazing things when given autonomy and this greatly contributes to intrinsic motivation.

If you are a worker, the best way to battle a HiPPO is with facts.  If the HiPPOs ego does not allow them to relinquish their position, especially with an audience present, then do whatever you can to try and gain more trust from them in the future and increase levels of empowerment for you and your team. Another tactic is to have a set of objective criteria in selecting ideas or setting priority.  If the door is open to an opinion then the HiPPO can certainly insert theirs at the top of the list, even if it will not provide the most value to the organization.

So as we move forward with our organizations, let’s concentrate on empowering our people (see empowerment video “Greatness“) and reducing those HiPPO moments. If we do then we will find we have benefited by having more motivated workers and a more efficient and effective work environment.

Agile Open Florida

agileopenflorida

Have you ever been to a conference where you don’t know the specific topics of discussion until the morning of the conference?  That’s what Agile Open Florida and other OpenSpace Conferences are all about.  OpenSpace conferences rely on the attendees through self-organization and spontaneity to create the agenda as part of the conference’s opening ceremony.  An overall arching topic is designated for the conference.  Meeting rooms are allocated and time slots are defined.  At the beginning of the conference, any attendee can write their discussion topic on a piece of paper, get in line, announce it on the microphone to the group and then tape their paper on the big board in an available time slot and room of their choice.  You may be an expert on the topic looking to educate others or someone who knows little about the topic and is seeking to draw others opinions to the discussion.

There are four rules and one law of OpenSpace:

  1. Whoever comes are the right people.
  2. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.
  3. Whenever it starts is the right time.
  4. When it’s over – it’s over.

Law of Two Feet:  Use your two feet to take you where you can contribute, share and enjoy and feel free at any time to leave and join a different discussion.  It’s OK to move around.  It liberates you and keeps the energy level high.

Agile Open Florida has been utilizing this format in the past and this year was no different.  The conference was energetic.  Attendees were meeting new people, catching up with old colleagues and exchanging ideas both in and outside of the sessions.  You learn so much from hearing others situations, ideas and remedies and just being part of the community outside of your own workplace.

Agile Open Florida was one of many events in the community that allows you to draw from different people’s experiences and expertise. There are also Meetups, Guilds, Slack channels, etc. that are open to all with little to no fees.  So if you’re not involved in your community, think about doing so.  Find out what’s available in your area.  You’ll find you have a wealth of knowledgeable people out there willing to share their experiences.

Watch the Work Product, Not the Worker!

Manager Watching Clock

At a number of organizations, I am observing management concentrate on the number of hours a worker has worked, ignoring some of the more important factors impeding software development.  The worker’s hours may be one of the most visible factors, but rarely the most significant.  Singular or heavy concentration on this by management indicates that the organization has a poor software development economic framework.

As direct or indirect pressure is applied to the worker by measuring hours worked without addressing product related factors, the worker will be pressed to engage in inefficient activities and context switching.  This activity further camouflages some of the important economic factors we really should be addressing.

We need not concentrate so much on the inefficiency of the worker, but instead more on the product. If we have no economic standard to order our efforts, then a couple of things could happen.  We work on efforts depending on which “HIPPO” (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) matters at the time.  We stop and start efforts as the next important emergency trumps the previous.  We take in new work without finishing the work we already started. If this were manufacturing, we would see incomplete inventory laying all over the warehouse, visibly showing us something is dreadfully wrong.  In software development the inventory remains invisible.

Our greatest waste is not unproductive developers, but instead the wasted time incurred by product thrashing, poor communication, idleness due to dependencies, working on the wrong things and other product related factors.

Let’s start concentrating on these more important factors first instead of singularly concentrating on the more visible factor of how many hours our workers worked this week.

Daily Scrum Personas

Daily Scrum Team

The Scrum Guide defines the Daily Scrum as a “15-minute time-boxed event for the Development Team to synchronize activities and create a plan for the next 24 hours”.

Each person answers 3 questions:

  • What did I do yesterday that helped the Development Team meet the Sprint Goal?
  • What will I do today to help the development Team meet the Sprint Goal?
  • Do I see any impediment that prevents me or the Development Team from meeting the Sprint Goal?

The Development Team leverages these 3 questions to inspect, self-organize and empirically adapt to deliver the Sprint Goal.

The above information is straight out of the Scrum Guide, but as we practice our Daily Scrum we just might meet up with some of these people, listed below, that will provide us some coaching opportunities.

I hope these examples are helpful for the person just starting to implement Scrum at their organization and a review for other experienced Scrum practitioners.  Anyone who has any additional examples, please feel free to add them as a comment and we can build on the list!

Larry

Larry “Looking for a Leader”

Larry is 45 years-old and has been in IT for nearly 25 years.  All of those years have been working in a strong command and control environment. He’s a very structured individual and a compartmental eater.

Larry looks directly at the Scrum Master while answering the 3 questions.  This is a tell-tale sign that Larry is looking to provide a status report to a person in charge.  He has not yet embraced the philosophy of a self-organizing and empowered empirical team.  He should be speaking to the team and not any one person. Explain and reinforce the empowered empirical team through coaching, games and exercises.

Penelope

Penelope “Problem Solver”

Penelope went to well-respected university and was a double-major in Computer Science and Philosophy.  She doesn’t have much patience for useless formality or rules that get in her way.  She loves to dive into the detail and solve problems.  Her mantra is “Patience is a waste of time!”

Penelope conducts an immediate deep-dive into details surrounding information voiced during the Daily Scrum.  When an issue comes up during Daily Scrum, she asks questions and begins to solve the problem on the spot.  We need to coach Penelope and the team to list topics for further discussion in a parking lot or discussion list.  When the Daily Scrum is done then you can identify who wants to participate in the discussions.  There is no reason to involve teammates who are not interested in that topic.  The conversations can be conducted right after the Daily Scrum or later as the team sees fit.

Nicholas

Nicholas “New Guy”

Nicholas is 22 years old. He just graduated college and joined the company about 3 months ago.  He’s a little overwhelmed with all the things he needs to learn at the new job.  He’s hardworking, but insecure about the amount of work he can get done in a day compared with his experienced teammates.

Nicholas talks about anything he can think about that he did in the day, so that his team will not think he is unproductive.  He mentions the meetings with his manager and other non-sprint related activities.  Nicholas and the team need to be reminded that they need not speak about non-sprint related activities during the Daily Scrum.  They should only be speaking about information that pertains or impacts the sprint.

Sammy

Sammy “Scrum Master”

Sammy was a project manager for 5 years until his company adopted Scrum and he transitioned to Scrum Master.  Sammy likes nice orderly meetings and ensuring that the team is on track for delivery.

Sammy sets rules for the team, such as punctuality, no interrupting, etc.  He sets the order in which people should speak to increase efficiency.  Although rules are not necessarily a bad thing, the team should create rules of engagement and determine the speaking order on their own.  We need to take every opportunity in having the team realize and practice that they are a self-organizing team.  Conduct activities and games to fortify this concept.  Try having the person currently speaking choose the next person to speak.

Priscilla

Priscilla “Product Owner”

Priscilla has worked for this company for 20 years.  She is very intelligent and understands the sales and advertising business very well.  She also loves technical work and is adept at pulling data and analyzing it.  She always wants the latest technology solution and, even though she works in sales herself, is an easy sell.

Priscilla listens to the Daily Scrum, but cannot help advising the team on how to order their work effort to be more efficient.  She questions remaining time on tasks and pushes the team regularly at the Daily Scrum. We need to counsel Priscilla that the Daily Scrum is for the Development Team to assess progress and figure out as a self-organizing team how to accomplish the Sprint Goal and deliver the agreed upon sprint backlog items by the end of the Sprint.  As the Product Owner, Priscilla should not be interjecting during the Daily Scrum.