 Last week I had the great opportunity to hold a lecture at SMU with the Asia Terms students of the University of St.Gallen. A group of 60 exchange students are joining 60 students from SMU and working together on consulting projects from a wide range of corporate partners. This is an excellent opportunity for the students to get exposed to the work environment and to collaborate with their peers in cross-cultural teams.
In my experience, a critical leadership skill to deliver successful projects is to facilitate great collaboration. A group of highly skilled people do not guarantee success; especially if they focus on their own benefits and are not supporting the overall team. When teamwork is smooth and 'oiled', then the team can be high-performing and deliver any change they are set out to. Where to start with collaborative success? There are four simple areas. First, my favourite, is creating win-win situations. Starting with considering the other party's situation and win before having the courage to share our own win. In a small team it is important to keep this balance right. It is a mindset to stay curious about the diverse thoughts and experiences each team member can bring to the team. With the students we had a great discussion about how they can leverage the diversity in their teams and stay open and courageous when working together with their corporate partners. The teams then worked on their team principles. What do we value in how we are working together? What are the killers for collaboration? The initial conversation in the team about their principles is so important to get to know each other and set some ground rules. When in conflict, the principles help to bring the conversation back on track. And for sure, the team principles are continuously improved and polished. Lastly, it is important to regularly reflect not only on what the team is delivering; it is equally important to review the way of working. What are the things we need to stop doing, doing more of, or start doing? This contributes to a better understanding within the team and hence it is better to create win-win situations. In this context, teams should also connect on a social level - leave work behind for a while and simply enjoy time together. Thanks to Stefan Morkoetter and his team for making this possible! More information about the HSG Asia Term in Singapore.
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 Last week, we engaged with a client in an inspiration workshop. The company is starting a digitalisation and automation transformation in a highly conservative environment. Before we start with the design of the concrete steps we wanted to inspire the team for the journey ahead. The objective was to create excitement for a better future and get them involved from the very start.
The end result was great. The senior leadership members expressed that the entire team was extremely open and engaged during the two days - something they have rarely seen before. The workshop indeed created a stepping stone for change where we will be able to achieve significant improvements to the way the team is operating today. How did we do that? During the workshop we were focusing on four elements that made this event successful:
For sure, the teams also expressed a number of worries: will we get enough resources; how can I deal with the additional workload; after the automation, will I still have my job; how will this initiative benefit my own career? A lot of great questions which are important to address. Therefore it is vital that these concerns are expressed early in the project. Only thanks to the openness and safety the team felt during the workshop, these topics could surface. And as you can see, the entire event was embedded in a cosy, relaxing place; away from the regular work environment. Plus with excellent food that kept the energy high.  Friends often come to me and say, 'Hey Tim, you are so positive all the time - how are you doing that?'. One could say, oh, that is simply my character. It might be, though for me it is a deep conviction that positivity is the better approach to life. What led me to this conviction? There are a few elements which I would like to elaborate on here.
First is simply neuroscience: when people are exposed to negative emotional situations then the reptilian brain reacts with freeze, fight or flight. When we are in a positive emotional state, we can thrive; we are good at heuristic tasks, more curious and as a result more productive. Based on this and what I have seen in multiple workshops and real life situations, when we enjoy the situation and are in a good mood, creativity rises, brainstorming sessions work better, we easily solve problems and are overall the engagement and motivation is getting high. Further, I discovered that nothing is simply good or bad. People, processes, systems, situations always have positive and(!) and negative sides. Even a specific action typically leads to advantages and disadvantages. Life in general is nuanced. Are there really errors, mistakes, burning platforms, issues, problems? Or shall we rather say that something has led to an outcome we didn't expect and anticipated. As a result, we always have the possibility of finding something positive about any situation. And yes, that doesn't mean we naively ignore the negative impacts. We have all been in situations where we ourselves get annoyed with something or our counterparts are fuming. With these emotions we are getting defensive, losing the ability to think critically. Positivity allows us to reduce limiting emotions. Prepare a foundation where we can work together towards a better outcome. Then there is trust; an essential element for good collaboration. In order to allow people to open up to each other, a positive environment helps a lot. And, in my experience in change management, positivity makes transformation much much easier. Allows the adaptors to become more receptive and reduces the negative impact any change is creating. How can you become a positive person? First, human- and data-centric approaches like design thinking and lean management allow us to be more considerate, curious and nuanced. Mindfulness helped me a lot to become more balanced and view things in a more down-to-earth way. I love the principles of appreciative inquiry. And I can only encourage practicing more positive leadership. What are your experiences with positivity?  It never seems to stop - people around me are rushing deadlines, month-end closures and are stuck in one "burning platform" after another. I feel many people are stuck in immediate return, the quick buck and focus on financial returns (of the month, the day, the minute?). How does this lead to long-term success? Apparently not.
In my observation, this short-term focus is getting more ingrained in many company and economic structures. When is the last time that you saw a financial report that shows the trend of the last 3 years? Even country GDPs are simply compared to the previous quarter and the same quarter the previous year. And in today's volatile world, that doesn't say much. Further, is GDP (or EBITDA) even the best leading indicator for success? A key question here: how can we become more sensitive about the long-term impact of our actions? Can we justify short-term results that jeopardize long-term objectives? Our world is a complex and interwoven ecosystem; a simplification in financial figures will only lead into wrong directions and actions. What we want is lasting success: for our company, for our employees, for our customers, for our planet and for the society around us. Best explained is this with the Exponential Age, where innovative companies are spending a significant amount on R&D - tinkering to find the best solution knowing that this approach will not lead to short-term return but rather building the ramp to an exponential success in the future! This is based on the capability to change oneself and drive change in a rapid, sustainable way! How to do that? First important step, work on an inspirational Leitbild - an imagination of a future state that guides your business! This is focusing on making your customers successful - and any partner in your business ecosystem is in the end sort of a customer, right? And this success is build on your people, on business success, on technology, and considers the planet and society we are embedded in. Based on this, we can seek short-term results that are aligned with our long-term Leitbild. Any shortcut will jeopardize your long-term success. To answer the initial question: try to imagine what your company will look like in 20 or 30 years. Take a step back and focus on doing the right things. Then you will find ways to catapult your business forward; instead of taking that shortcut. "If we stopped investing we would be out of business in 10-15 years", Werner Vogel, CTO Amazon  Change Management is undoubtedly one of the key skills for leaders on all levels in the organisation. Change is THE constant in our business life and without looking at the people side of doing business, we will fail to achieve the results we are expecting. How are you structuring your change engagements? Where do you start your journey to become a change master? CPC Consulting and Hive17 Consulting are offering the Certified Associate in Change Management program here in Singapore and in the region. And now, we also provide you with an easy entry to the topic: two modules as self-paced online learning modules.
These modules give you a quick start based on a holistic and practical change management methodology. And this will be the foundation for the next level where you will apply the concepts hands-on. Find out more with the link below!
 Since a decade or so, it has been a good measure to involve people, ask for their opinion, and get them engaged in most company decisions and initiatives. This is intended to cultivate intrinsic motivation and a more enjoyable workplace. Now, we look back and think: what went wrong?
The employees don't see how their contributions have been considered in the decision making process, coordination efforts are getting bigger and complex, and managers are fighting with inertia and resistance. On top of that, everything seems to be a crisis today and we are involved in daily firefighting. As a result, we fall back to micromanagement, forget about being transparent, and all previous good intentions are thrown out of the window. It appears that we are schlepping a huge rock behind us. Who feels like this today? Is there a different, alternative way? Instead of being a truck driver with an ever increasing load, imagine you are a conductor of an orchestra. The load is distributed to the musicians in your ecosystem; you are providing a platform for the group of people to collaborate together on the output and the manage the change in their environment independently. This will create motivation in your team and it will make your job easier. How does that look like? What are the key ingredients to transform into a director's kind of leader? In my experience, it takes a few, simple steps:
I know it is so easy to fall back to the old way of doing things in times of stress. It is important to practice this leadership style and establish routines. Lasting change will come very soon. How does it feel to make this switch to an orchestra conductor?  People often see me as an evangelist for letting go of control. What I mean by this is a leadership style that is focusing on creating a platform and an environment for the organisation to be successful. Basically that is less of 'command & control' and more of 'facilitate & guide. In practical terms, this is delegating the relevant decision making power to the front.
Ok, nice. "I agree with the principles but it is so hard." - that is what I often hear from leaders. And yes, this requires a mindset shift from everyone in the organisation and that a bit of an effort to establish new routines. So, why should I invest in change? Through my change management practice, I have collected evidence from four different sources that illustrate why delegating power and providing self-control leads towards success. Drive, Dan Pink - As a change manager I believe in motivating people intrinsically and Dan Pink describes this with simple principles in his book 'Drive'. Purpose, Autonomy and Mastery are the key ingredients to intrinsic motivation. The element autonomy is then about giving the people and the team to freedom to decide on their priorities and to design their way of working by themselves. In the end, autonomy removes a lot of frustration and is key to engagement. Turn the Ship Around, David Marquet - If delegating power works as a leadership principle in a submarine of the US Army, then this can work anywhere! David Marquet has transformed Santa Fe into a leadership development campus where leaders are leading leaders. In his book he describes why bringing control to the front is so important and explores the two support pillars: capability and clarity. Scrum.org - agile software development has taken over the business world and it is all about delivering results fast. The key principles here are understanding the customers, experimenting fast in short iterations and establishing a self-organising team. The scrum teams take ownership of their priorities, their roles, their way of working. Lean Management - when managing change in operations, teams often rely on lean management. We have all heard of the 7 wastes of lean and how the goal is to create flow. All of this though, is only possible if this can happen directly within the operations, removing hierarchical bottlenecks and allowing the frontline teams to make decisions; this is called shared leadership in lean. In simple terms, I believe if you want to reach your targets faster, and you want that your outcome is creating more value, then letting go of control is a great recipe; the changes in your organisation will happen smoother and with more success. What are your routines and behaviours that are supporting this new leadership style? Sources: Drive, Dan Pink Turn the Ship Around, David Marquet So What is Agile Really About? What Is Shared Leadership For Lean? Change Management is the Umbrella for all your Innovation, Excellence and Leadership Campaigns7/4/2022  We heard this many times: Change is Everywhere! We are continuously advancing, improving, tinkering and even disrupting our own products, operations and organisational models. Recent conversations, studies and experiences confirmed this again: to be successful with these initiatives, we need to bring people together and enable an effective collaboration. "We build people; and these people build our business." And, this people side of the business is the concern of Change Management.
Now, many companies have engaged in a series of different frameworks and concepts in order to bring their initiatives forward. And in recent years I have become proficient and excited about them. Here some examples.
All these concepts look at the mindset and the behaviour of people and are designed to enable the success of your projects and initiatives. They are very much concerned about the people side of doing business. This is where I recently made the link that change management actually acts as an umbrella to all these initiatives. They can be brought together by creating a common platform and defining how they support each other (instead of stealing resources from each other). Change management can then facilitate a set of leadership qualities, creating a glue between the individuals and silos, and as a result enables longterm success through collaboration. At Hive17 Consulting we drive people excellence through positive leadership. We assess individuals and teams with our Antifragility Score and our leadership development programs then allow these teams to strengthen their people skills and drive success for their projects.  Yes, I am a positive person. I smile a lot and people around me tend to like the energy I am spreading. I hear that a lot and I am very glad about this. And for sure, this is a personality trait of mine. Though, I am also convinced that positivity is the right approach to facilitate change. Neuroscientific studies share that when we bring people into a positive emotional state, they will be more creative, malleable, become better at solving problems and are simply more energetic.
During our leadership development programs at Hive17 Consulting, we are putting a strong focus on positivity as well - part of our change management practice. As positive leaders we can create a safe work environment that drives creativity, motivation and hence productivity. This will result in better solutions for the customers, improved operational excellence and stronger retention of your talents. How can you practice the right leadership qualities so that positivity becomes your second nature? Here are some hands-on tips to build new routines. As a start, know your direction and write down a meaningful vision that you want to achieve. Then it is important to meet and interact with a variety of people. Practice the appreciation of different opinions and ideas; stop judging them and be open for new discoveries. Lastly, stay fit with sports, good food and mindfulness. How antifragile are you? Assess all your leadership qualities based Hive17's Leadership Wheel. Check out the link below. Painting credit: Annika Wieringa, March 2022  What are the right leadership qualities? I would argue that most leaders and managers either consciously or intuitively know what leads to better results in their teams. Are we following these concepts and applying the relevant skills often enough? Most probably not. These qualities are not yet our second nature. How do I fare in cultivating an environment that allows my team to drive change and to create lasting success? How do my peers feel about the same? Where do we align on improvement potential? At Hive17 Consulting we have started back in 2014 on a framework that measures a set of qualities that are essential in driving and facilitating change, innovation, excellence and engagement - how to become antifragile? The assessment is covering a broad set of aspects including behaviour, mindset and skills. "Most assessments I have looked at in the past focus on me as an individual. We at Hive17 Consulting strongly believe that success comes from collaboration, diversity, alignment, transparency, relationships,... - all elements that happen in the space between people. This is also the reason why the best value of our antifragility score is achieved with an entire team. We will run group assessments where we bring the individual scores anonymously together. This will lead to great conversations on what we can learn from the different leadership pillars; where do we excel as a team? On which qualities are we aligned? How can we further improve to create a platform for success?
Where to start? First, get your individual score with the link below; and experience the four pillars in action. Based on this, we can continue to build a group score; this will help the team to discuss areas how all together can bring the team forward and cultivate the right space for success. Starting with some concrete action points. Give it a try...  One of my past time activities is tending to a garden and growing plants. This requires preparing the soil, nurturing to the seedlings, watering regularly (not too much, not too little), checking on pest and allowing the right amount of sunshine. In short, creating an environment where the plants can flourish!
This is how we look at change management at Hive17 Consulting. We aspire to create an environment where the people understand and are excited about the change to come. We are looking at the long journey ahead, keeping an eye on the imagination of the future state and then enjoy the steps that lead in that direction. I like this link to gardening and landscaping because of the number of similarities. Forcing change will not lead to lasting success. A series of environment ingredients need to fit together - it is an ecosystem. While grow and change takes time, it happens constantly and we might be surprised about the speed. When we have a fertile environment, the results are solid and beautiful. How are you cultivating a great environment in your organisation?  One observation I made over the past years is that there seems to be a growing gravitation towards focus on individual work. This not only establishes silo mentality and makes collaborating across departments, geographies and hierarchical levels more difficult. This also stimulates individualism within teams; a blame culture is nurtured and the spirit of working together fades away. Elements that are nudging in this direction are the way we set objectives and rewards, the mandate of individual job description, the setup of functional organisational structures, etc. They often reward individual contribution over team achievements.
At the same time, there are tons of information and concepts that praise and promote the fact that we can reach ultimate success only by collaborating with others: Google research, High Performing Teams, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, etc. While we can be efficient as an individual, the great achievements and the effectiveness of an organisation only stems from the collaborative advantage we develop in groups of people. Why do we have this controversy between individual and collaborative efforts? Maybe it is the lack of ability and tools that nurture, cultivate and nudge towards the right behaviour and mindset. Here are some ideas from my experience.
Does this sound like a lot of work? I admit, this is not a shortcut. Still, these efforts are a worthwhile investment that leads to lasting success and extraordinary results. Benefits are that we unleash creativity, we engage and motivate the people, we establish a psychological safe work environment, we retain people and we enable the company to grow beyond the current box. What have you recently done to stimulate cross-silo collaboration in your team? Source: re:work - The five keys to a successful Google team Read more about Magic Pill #1 - Reflect  Together with TTIP we have launched the Innovation Forum in APAC. The first session was all about the Role of Leadership in Innovation. After an insightful presentation from Maurits van Tol, the almost 20 participants discussed in groups their experiences and insights; here are the key insights:
Listen to Maurits' presentation here! Join us for our next interactive and insightful session on 23 February 2022 - Developing Better Technical and Business Judgment. Discuss and learn from innovation leaders in the region and bring successful change to your organisation.  A few years back, we have been engaged in a regional project to drive manufacturing excellence in 15 factories with a special focus on energy and how to create a better place for future generation. While this was a technical project with clear value targets, we also understood that this initiative will only be successful when we engage with the people, make them excited about the vision, and create opportunities to learn and progress.
Communicating was not enough - we knew that. Because we wanted to enable and facilitate the change from within, we established a group of change ambassadors who were working closely with the frontline people. We identified a cohort of 25 engineers who were driving the initiative in their respective sites. They became project ambassadors for one year in a full-time ambassador position. How could we motivate them to join this role? How could we overcome their concerns that this assignment was hindering their career development? We designed this ambassador program with two clear and distinct objectives in mind. First, we know that the group of ambassadors were vital to achieve the business objectives of the initiative. They were responsible in the identification of energy saving potential in their sites; and then responsible to execute this potential. With these goals we were able to save costs, reduce the environmental impact and increase the reputation of the business. The second objective of the program was about developing future leaders. The engineers were identified talents and following a development path to potentially become plant managers. One important set of skill they had to learn for their future were leadership and people capabilities. As change facilitators they had tons of opportunities to learn, apply and experiment with different tools, skills and behaviours to engage with the frontline people and the management. As part of the program, we continuously evaluated them based on a change leadership skill framework. In essence, while working together with human resources, the ambassador program was part of the talent management activities. And it was a huge success! All engineers improved their leadership skill scores while part of the program. And, all engineers joined back their career paths in higher positions than before. A fantastic achievement! This is how we design our leadership programs at Hive17 Consulting. We always keep this dual objectives in mind: improving the business results and(!) improving the leadership qualities. We believe that in this way we can establish lasting success and drive the change from within.  The New Year has started; and we are all excited about the things we want to achieve in 2022. There are so many changes we want to realise; so many innovations we want to trigger. How can we be successful with that?
As leaders we have a strong impact with our actions and with our behaviour to nurture innovation; and to strangle creativity. What is the leader's role in innovation? Join Maurits van Tol, CTO of Johnson Matthey as guest speaker in our 'Innovate for Success' Networking Forum. TTIP and Hive17 Consulting are jointly launching the 'Innovate for Success' Networking Forum in Asia. This program is tapping into the combined knowledge and experience of our global community of business & innovation leaders. In monthly, highly participative sessions we bring together business leaders around the current innovation topics.  The New Year has started - we refueled our energy and are excited what 2022 will bring for us? Let's get into it! Here in Singapore, one immediate topic: how to get the people back to the office! Government regulations allow to raise office space occupancy to 50%; let's fill up our physical workplace again!
Are these the right questions and intentions? Owl Labs shares in their annual report 'State of Remote Work' that "1 in 3 would quit their job if they could no longer work remotely after the pandemic". This against the "39% of employers [that] are requiring employees to be in the office full-time post-pandemic". Friction is programmed. This will be a change which requires a good conversation. Yes, as leaders we know that solid change management is based on listening to our employees, giving them flexibility, providing them a inspiring vision, etc. We intellectually know how to do this right. Why then, do we feel the urgency which is overruling the correct way of facilitating the change? Where do you think this falling back to old routines is coming from? Adopting the right leadership behaviour is difficult, it takes time until it becomes second nature. Urgencies trigger a relapse to these behaviours which we know are creating dissatisfaction, irritation and frustration. We need a practice field for the leadership qualities we want to strengthen until they become our second nature. My suggestion, use the conversation around hybrid workplace for this! Take out the urgency, we have been working for almost two years in a sub-optimal environment. Let's go slowly back; any mix in hybrid working is better than what we had before (during and before the pandemic). At Hive17 Consulting we offer a simple framework for leadership qualities that support success in your transformation. And we help to adopt them until they are second nature. This will help you to reach your results faster and to create more value for the people in the ecosystem. Let's get started! Source: State of remote work 2021, Owl Labs  Many people say that the pandemic brought a lot of change. Though, when looking at 2010s, we talked a lot about digitalisation, working from home, e-commerce, VUCA, new digital currencies, psychological safety, and many more topics. Some people argue that we are not introducing new topics, though the transformations are happening a lot faster due to a new urgency and necessity.
Here is where agility comes into play. Is it sufficient to simply run faster? This typically doesn't last long because things break and the quality suffers. We want to speed up in a smart way to create lasting success in times of transformations. And one important element here is creating value to our customers. At Hive17 Consulting we have been evolving our four pillars for lasting success since the year 2014. We identified, validated, enhanced, applied four topics that we found helps teams to speed up by creating value:
In collaboration with Tigerhall, we have created this trail of podcasts that introduce these four pillars based on case studies and the underlying principles. This first episode is giving an overview to start of. Listen to this short introduction and enjoy how the four elements fit together. Which of the four pillars do you experience as the biggest barrier in your organisation?  Yes, I am an avid reader of Wired UK; I like to read their magazines because often they introduce novel topics which help to broaden my view of the world. In one of the last editions, an article was talking about the exponential gap - and I was hooked. We all heard about exponential growth; and most of us have difficulties to grasp the reality of it. Take the story of Lord Krishna who took a chessboard and asked to fill each square with the double amount of rice. Once you reach the 64th square, there is so much rice on the chessboard that it would fill India with a 75 cm layer of rice. Exponential growth is inconceivable. This is what Hans Rosling also mentions in his book Factfulness; he calls this the third mega misconception - the Straight Line Instinct. Let's look at the graph below showing a general picture comparing linear and exponential growth. The linear line is steady; with each unit of investment you get a specific return. The exponential line instead stays below the linear line for a very long time; it almost appears not to move up. Then suddenly, the line shoots up and is going past the linear line. What does that mean for us?   CFOs Leading Business Intelligence – Digital Workshop Series in 5 Parts | Q3-Q4 2021
In today’s business world, the markets are changing in an accelerated fashion; customers shift their preferences, supply chains are facing major challenges, and the workforce requirements are evolving. In this context, business intelligence covers a broad range of important topics. Whilst the topics individually are important, it is by connecting them and thinking about business intelligence holistically that CFOs can preside over a best-in-class process which is both effective and efficient.  So far in this trail about agility, we talked about two major things: giving people direction based on our purpose and the value we can create to customers; and starting to experiment and continue to learn. Both are focusing on what we deliver and what we produce. All of this is only possible when one magic ingredient is present: the foundation of agility. Besides the delivery, our way of working is highly determining if we will be successful. Do you sometimes feel that your daily work feels like a constant fight, peers around you are not aligned, the processes and approvals are bottlenecks that slow you down?
In this episode, we talk about how we can create solid connections between people. Establishing alignment and transparency, and cultivating a safe environment where people can share their ideas and thoughts. A place where it feels like we are working together and pulling on the same string. What portion of the delivery can we fully delegate to smaller teams and allow them to be self organising?  Every day we are confronted with challenges that require solutions - they might be small, they might be big. Following the same patterns and focus on past achievements is at best futile - what we need is creativity. And why not ask the creatives for their tips?
Hideo Kojima is a Japanese video game design since over 35 years and can celebrate decent success in his industry; and, he wrote a book about his secrets. One key thing he shares that without fail, every day he is visiting a book store and browses through the books. He then buys a book that talks to him and reads it. This routine brings him a wider perspective of the world, provides him new inputs, and also gives him the opportunity to get a break from work. He also emphasises that he keeps this routine from being mundane. The same book in a different store is speaking in a different way to you. Therefore, he keeps visiting new bookstores to keep his mind and heart fresh. What can we do to keep a fresh perspective and stay creative? Find an activity that suits your surrounding and interest, which allows you to get a perspective of the bigger world around you! And establish a routine for that; a simple 30 minutes task every day. What can that be? Walk around your neighbourhood as a tourist; call a friend you haven't spoken with in two months; find an online course about a topic you want to discover more. There are plenty of things to learn and discover. What will you start with? Please share! Source: Hideo Kojima on What Makes Hideo Kojima Tick, Wired UK, October 2021. Photo credit: Charlie Clift.  Agility is in everybody's mind. And yes, its principles can help any part of the business to build lasting success in an environment that is complex and ever-changing.
Tigerhall invited me to a series of podcasts to share my experience with agility in the manufacturing and financial service sector. Here is the first episode! How do you enable your team to define their change journey from within? Since years, I am advocating that the traditional change management, enabling people to switch to a future state, needs rethinking. Our world has become complex and changes are happening faster and faster. This means the 'future state' is soon obsolete and we need to change to the next one. We are in a state of continuous change.
This means we need to cultivate an environment that allows people to thrive during their change journey! For example, when you introduce a new performance management system, or a new hybrid working policy, or a refreshed regionalised organisation, for all of these transformation projects the end is not the installation of these end states. Rather, we want to enable the adopters of this change to be able to evolve their system, processes and team structure by themselves. And this requires direction, guidance and support. Leadership is essential in this context. Leaders cultivate the environment where successful change can happen. While we all heard of these leadership qualities, it is essential that the right behaviours are becoming a second nature. How are you developing these routines and master positive change leadership qualities?  Last week we conducted the fifth session of the workshop series 'CFOs Leading Business Intelligence' organised by CFO Connex. This last session was all about change management, in particular: how can we define that dream state of the new finance team and how we can take the first steps in that direction. We also had a great panel that provided insights on how to bring change to the finance team and how this team can facilitate change in the broader organisation. Here some interesting bits and pieces. Starting with the senior leadership team, it is important that transformation initiatives receive commitment from the top, often in the form of a prioritised vision of where the company is heading. This means that we are creating space to think - with creativity and with curiosity. The CFO is the objective sparring partner for the business and is in a very good position to guide and drive change projects. For the finance team, the business leaders are the customers. With continuous conversations finance is able to deliver value to their customers. When we are leading the finance team to that new future state, it is important to look at the change journey of each individual team member. What are their skill gaps and their career ambitions? Coming back to the senior leadership team, we need to acknowledge that transformations require to investigate how the cultural environment is contributing and blocking change. The senior leaders are significantly shaping the company culture and hence contribute to the success of the change. Thank you to all the panelists: David Newton, Lisa Dawson, Michael Zimmel, Shin Yng Lee, Tim Wieringa.
 For years, I have been looking into agility, its principles and how they help to create lasting success in teams. We have brought agility into manufacturing, R&D and for sure also in IT teams. Earlier this year, I then decided to jump deep into the certification for Scrum Master. What did I learn?
There is one thing that becomes obvious very quickly: scrum as methodology is not prescriptive. Instead, it contains a series of suggested activities, templates, processes, etc. The key foundation is empiricism! Each team then needs to find out what works best for them - based on a set of principles. In my projects, I am mostly engaged in leadership development. And while going through the scrum master certification, I understood that the principles are strongly supporting a modern, dynamic leadership approach. Scrum can give us answers to the question: how can we deliver maximum value in complex environments? Are you curious to bring agility to your organisation? Then let's look at these key principles! Here my take:
How can you follow these key principles in your organisation? Where do you see the obstacles for agility? Thank you, Takeshi Yoshida, for pushing me on this path! |
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