Exploring Forward-thinking Workplaces: What is the most important question leaders should be asking employees?

Dear Readers, for the next several weeks, this CMMI Appraiser will be sharing excerpts from a conversation with Bill Fox on Exploring Forward-thinking Workplaces™. Bill interviewed me about our innovative approach to creating forward-thinking workplaces. Here’s my response to Bill’s fourth question, “What is the most important question leaders should be asking employees?” Enjoy!

Hey, Jeff,

What is the most important question leaders should be asking employees? ~ Bill Fox, Exploring Forward-thinking Workplaces

Hey, Bill,

“How can I help?” This is a really important question that we don't hear often enough. I try to remember to ask this question every day to at least one person. How can I help you succeed in what you're doing? How can I help your each your goal? If you look at the model we've developed where people have autonomy to grow their in own area of interest, the most important thing is to help them do that.

But I also sometimes get more specific with it, “Specifically, what I can do right now to help make you more successful?” I think this notion of servant leadership is over-hyped in our market, but I really believe in the principle. Teams want you to make decisions and be a strong leader, but they also want you to serve them and help make them successful.

In the book “We Were Soldiers Once . . .and Young” the protagonist (legendary Calvary Lt. Colonel Hal Moore famously promised his young troopers that, “When we go into battle, I will be the first to set foot on the field, and I will be the last to step off.” That’s been my model since I first read those words.

[Please check back soon for Question #5 from Bill Fox on Exploring Forward-thinking Workplaces: “What's the most important question employees should be asking management?”]

Like this blog? Forward to your nearest engineering or software exec!

Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, author, and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations. Jeff has taught thousands of students in CMMI trainings and has received an aggregate satisfaction score of 4.97 out of 5 from his students.

Visit www.broadswordsolutions.com for more information about running a successful CMMI program.

Exploring Forward-thinking Workplaces: What do people really lack and long for at work?

Dear Readers, for the next several weeks, this CMMI Appraiser will be sharing excerpts from a conversation with Bill Fox on Exploring Forward-thinking Workplaces™. Bill interviewed me about our innovative approach to creating forward-thinking workplaces. Here’s my response to Bill’s third question, “What do people really lack and long for at work?” Enjoy!

Hey, Jeff,

What do people really lack and long for at work? ~ Bill Fox, Exploring Forward-thinking Workplaces

Hey, Bill,

It's interesting because this has really evolved over the last decade. When I was a young programmer and then consultant, what was most important was a solid career track, making more money, and moving up to be a partner, senior manager, or vice president. People were really focused on that. 

I've been excited this past couple of years because it seems like the workforce is evolving. People are more interested in the work environment with time and challenge being the most important things. People want to have time to do the things that are important in their life. A career, making money and moving up are the things that people do, but it's not the reason we work. We don't work to move up and get a new title. We don't work to make an additional $50,000 per year. Those things are nice and good things (and wholly necessary), but what we really work for is to spend time with our family, relax, read, and do other pursuits outside of our careers. And be challenged every day.

As part of our own Holacracy journey, we have implemented a couple of new policies. One of them is we have an unlimited Personal Time Off (PTO) policy. We have no designated vacation days by role. We used to say if you were a senior consultant you got three weeks. If you were a manager, you got four weeks. Now we say, “OK, you take the PTO that you need to take to make yourself successful.” That way people get ample vacation time, but more importantly they get ample time to take off to do things that are important to them. All they need to do is collaborate with their peers to ensure nothing falls on the floor.

What we were finding with the traditional model of time management was that someone would use up their vacation, and then they would have miss important family events, or have to come to us asking special permission to get that time off. Who likes doing that? With the model we have now, it's much more about supporting the team and being collaborative. The person brings it to the team and says, “I need to take four days off to go to a wedding.” And the team will say, “Ok that’s fine with us, we can pick up some slack and succeed without you being there.” If someone on the team were to abuse the policy – which has not happened in the two years we’ve been doing it – the team would most certainly let them know that they’re not being a team player!

We do, however, have guidelines. For example, our clients have to be taken care of, and important internal tasks must be accounted for. Team members know that if they have your back, you’ll have theirs. Allowing people to use their time in a way that satisfies their life, as well as their career, has been a game changer in the business. It frees up the organization to be a lot nimbler and a lot more focused on what is important. It's created a very strong and dedicated group of professionals.

[Please check back soon for Question #4 from Bill Fox on Exploring Forward-thinking Workplaces: “What is the most important question leaders should be asking employees?”]

Like this blog? Forward to your nearest engineering or software exec!

Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, author, and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations. Jeff has taught thousands of students in CMMI trainings and has received an aggregate satisfaction score of 4.97 out of 5 from his students.

Visit www.broadswordsolutions.com for more information about running a successful CMMI program.

Exploring Forward-thinking Workplaces: What does it take to get an employee's full attention and best performance?

Dear Readers, for the next several weeks, this CMMI Appraiser will be sharing excerpts from a conversation with Bill Fox on Exploring Forward-thinking Workplaces™. Bill interviewed me about our innovative approach to creating forward-thinking workplaces. Here’s my response to Bill’s second question, “What does it take to get an employee's full attention and best performance?” Enjoy!

Hey, Jeff,

What does it take to get an employee's full attention and best performance? ~ Bill Fox, Exploring Forward-thinking Workplaces

Hey, Bill,

This is a complicated question, with many inputs and qualifiers. I've struggled with this idea my whole career. But if I’m proud of anything in my career, it’s that I’ve done a decent job bringing great performance out of people. I think the way to do that is to encourage and motivate them to want to do it and to be excited about what they're doing.

I'm always reminded of the mantras of the Armed Services. The Navy says, “People, People, People” is their focus. The Army says, “Process, Process, Process.” And the Air Force says, “Mission, Mission, Mission.” These are the things that you hear military professionals talk about as being what really drives them in their particular branch.

What I've learned in my company is that people want to be excited about all three of those things, the mission being the most important one. It isn't enough just to give them a mission and a goal. You also need to focus on the people, making it easier for them to focus on the mission.

Finally, process is important too. Process is nothing more than a definition of expected behavior, and I find that the right amount of process guidance can be very liberating and a powerful force in growing your culture. So, it’s a three-legged stool – and architecture of sorts. Laying out a very clear mission that's exciting to them, laying out a clear vision for culture that helps people be successful, and laying out the process in a way that makes their job easier and more successful. All three things together have to be intertwined and work together.

Anyone interested in CMMI Training, as a way to receive the right amount of process guidance so you can change behavior and improve performance, is invited to attend our Intro to CMMI training class on September 20-23, outside of Detroit, MI. Register here!

[Please check back soon for Question #3 from Bill Fox on Exploring Forward-thinking Workplaces: What do people really lack and long for at work?]

Like this blog? Forward to your nearest engineering or software exec!

Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, author, and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations. Jeff has taught thousands of students in CMMI trainings and has received an aggregate satisfaction score of 4.97 out of 5 from his students.

Visit www.broadswordsolutions.com for more information about running a successful CMMI program.

Exploring Forward-thinking Workplaces: How can we create workplaces where more voices matter?

Dear Readers, over the next several weeks, this CMMI Appraiser will be sharing snippets from a conversation with Bill Fox on Exploring Forward-thinking Workplaces™. Bill interviewed me about our innovative approach to creating forward-thinking workplaces. Here’s “Making Every Voice Matter at Broadsword.” Enjoy!]

Hey, Jeff,

I’d like to start by asking, how can we create workplaces where more voices matter, people thrive and find meaning, and change and innovation happen naturally? ~ Bill Fox, Exploring Forward-thinking Workplaces

Hey, Bill,

We've been struggling with this question for 10 years at Broadsword, the company I founded eleven years ago. We started out as a traditional consulting firm with a leveraged model and different levels of performers - senior consultants, directors, and managers. We were a little bit like a traditional Big 4 consulting model, which is where we some of us came from. 

Last year we had a joint epiphany. We were out there in the world talking with our clients about agile, self-organization and collaboration when we realized we weren't doing a good job at it ourselves! We really wanted to ensure that all of the smart people who worked at our company had a voice, but more importantly, felt like they were contributing and thriving in their own lives. We wanted them to feel like they were empowered to do the things they needed to do to be delighted. So I started what I call the "no victims" policy. There are no victims in our company - everyone is empowered to do what they need to do to be successful. They're empowered to resolve issues and be equals. No managers.

Of course, you can’t be successful without some level of organization, so in order to facilitate this policy, we've started to adopt a model called “Holacracy.” I was literally Googling “self-organizing companies” when I ran across the Holacracy website. I'm not sure how much you've been following Brian Robinson and his journey, but Brian created this model a number of years ago and has helped many companies find great success with self-organization. It's a constitution-based model where your organization is self-governing. In some ways it’s a super-charged version of what we’ve been doing with our clients – crisply defined processes where people have very clear defined roles in the constitution. They have a lot of input into each role, and theirs is is designed to give them the meaning they are searching for. Obviously, we have some roles that have to be performed, but there are also elective roles so that people are focusing on the things that make them most empowered and most successful in their careers.

One of the key concepts in Holacracy is "learning to separate role from soul." An individual at our company might have 20 roles. For example, I have a role such as “writer of proposals,” and another like “reviewer of financials.” I also have “teacher of classes” (a role others also have) and “planner of retreats. We're codifying all of the roles in our constitution, and are starting to become proficient in this self-organization model where every employee is responsible for their own meaning and their own innovation. It's really starting to change the face of our company.

For a while we had a couple of dedicated managers - people whose job it was to direct the other people. We realized early on we were uncomfortable with this because everyone in our company is a high performer. People needed coaching more than management, and I became concerned that too much oversight was stifling innovation (another thing we always tell our clients!). We haven't fully implemented Holacracy yet, but we are on the path. The results have been overwhelmingly positive.

[Please check back soon for Question #2 from Bill Fox on Exploring Forward-thinking Workplaces: What does it take to get an employee's full attention and best performance?]

Like this blog? Forward to your nearest engineering or software exec!
Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, author, and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations. Jeff has taught thousands of students in CMMI trainings and has received an aggregate satisfaction score of 4.97 out of 5 from his students.

Visit www.broadswordsolutions.com for more information about running a successful CMMI program.