How to Obtain Senior Leader Buy-In for a Better Way of Work with Matthew Skelton and Jon Smart
- Sydney Lego
- Aug 8, 2024
- 3 min read
September 26th, 2023
Q: Given that you are both pursuing humane ways of working; how open are you finding senior leaders to be with that pursuit in the current economic climate?
A:
Matthew - It’s a good question and I think part of it is that it is such a switch from the mechanistic, factory-based mentality that many people in senior leadership have developed, since the 1950s. Some leaders are very open to it and show great leadership in the space. Others less so. This shift is going to take a while, and maybe some organisations will never get there.
Jon - I echo what Matthew said. Some leopards don’t change their spots, and some leopards believe they can command and control. What got the leader to their current position was a culture of fear and that is what will carry on getting them to where they want to be. I do think in some cases it may even be generational. Then some people recognise that a culture of fear and command and control is not the most humane way to achieve things. So, it's difficult and there has to be an incentive to change. My rule of thumb is 80% culture and only 20% process.
Q: How do you get the conversation started with leaders about continuous improvement, and penetrating that message to the people pulling the square wheel when you are in a perpetually busy culture?
A:
Jon - It is a universal human condition. Everybody is too busy doing. Every single organisation that we have worked with, we have observed that people are too busy doing.
For me, the key to the unlock here is an incentive. So, it all comes down to incentives and this whole topic comes down to incentives. How am I incentivised to behave? It needs to be clearly signposted by senior leaders. It will be anchored at the top by the most senior leader who understands this topic. You will have a bubble of better ways of working or a bubble of improvement. Ideally, it is the ex-co. If not the ex-co, then the ex-co minus one.
It needs to be a narrative and then you need to both be implicitly and explicitly incentivised. So, we expect to see continuous improvement and you can visualise it for types of work, new features, failure demand, risk stories, and continuous improvement type work. You can visualise it, and if you know you are not doing it, you know you are storing up a problem for the future.
So, I would signpost it and then make it have teeth. Follow-up on making sure people are continuously improving.
Q: What is the support like for Team Topologies and Better Value Sooner Safer Happier from the executive level outside of technology?
A:
Matthew - What is really interesting is that the industries well outside of IT are now looking at Team Topologies, and I am pretty sure Sooner Safer Happier too. They are going “Wow, we can use this!”
For example, we know a law firm in London that is looking to use Team Topologies principles to help run legal services in a different way, a more human way, and a way that meets user needs better without all the old-style, fee-earner lawyers, who has to control everything and what not. We are seeing people wanting to and trying to use Team Topologies ideas in the UK health service for managing Doctors' practices and accidents and emergency teams.
So, I think that is where humanity shines through in both these approaches. People can recognize humanity and see that it works well, and it is not about controlling people and squeezing the last drop of juice out of them. There is a humanity that shines through, which is why, I think, people outside of IT are starting to use these approaches. It is amazing to see it.
