We meet in the entrance hall of the Museum of Art Pudong in Shanghai. We are a group of Chinese executives and consultants from SYNNECTA China. Our topic: Make my organization dance.

»After the red moon« von El Anatsui is a monumental work of art. To experience it, it needs the architecture of today’s museums – flexible in structure, open and wide inside and breaking down the boundary between outside and inside. It reflects the principles of contemporary organizational development: Transparency and collaboration, not just inwards. We look up and experience the carpet-like structures that can only be seen now in this space and this morning light – a momentary experience. Even if the work itself is constant, it changes depending on where and when it is seen. Our reflective journey through the exhibition begins with this first glance. Experience and reflection form the rhythm of our tour. Quotes from El Anatsui give us additional inspiration:

»I use multiple elements to talk about the world: not a world made up of just one culture, but a world shaped by all of us coming together.«

We linger for a long time on a sentence that we also experience when seeing one of the works:

»The process was subverting the stereotype of metal as a stiff, rigid medium and rather showing it as a soft, pliable, almost sensous material, capable of attaining immense dimensions and being adapted to specific spaces.«

We leave the exhibition after three hours. The effect: principles for an agile, flexible and yet focused organization were not only understood as theory, but also sensually experienced when looking at the works. The sensory reference point makes it much more likely that the integration into one’s own reality will go beyond words.

When was the last time you were confronted with contemporary art?

We have already written about hope as a leadership attitude* at a time when it still seemed to many to be something esoteric. Starting from Paul’s so influential phrase in the first letter to the Corinthians

»Now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but love is the greatest of these« **

we have described hope as the capacity to hold on to the possibility of realizing something even when much, indeed seemingly everything, speaks against it. Hope speaks of the future not as a form of wishful thinking, but as the power to believe in the becoming of good even when the present makes the future seem rather dark.

In our time, when a mood of depression, of despondency, is spreading and the view into the future seems to be possible only through the haze of failure and despair, the attitude of hope and thus of trust in the possibility of success becomes extremely important. In such an apocalyptic situation, leadership means anticipating a successful future with hope and working for its realization in a targeted and confident manner.

Looking at leadership attitudes, this leads us to an underestimated leadership characteristic: the preservation of a childlike naiveté. This does not mean a groundless, often narcissistic (childish) optimism that does not want to face reality, but the attitude of holding on to the possibility of »better« and drawing from hope the strength to act on reality in a way that increases the chances of making it possible. Just as grace, grace in appearance and speech is an often underestimated leadership virtue, so is naivety. It enables us to transform a »not yet« into a »now there«.

Maintaining this naiveté in the face of the many inevitable disappointments and failures in a career is no small feat, and the psychological term of frustration tolerance is a very limited description of maintaining this hopeful naiveté. Hope takes us closer to what is able to give meaning to a life as an individual and as a community. In this sense, hope carries us through the present and lets us act and shape.

Hope is not wishful thinking. It is the ability to think about the future embedded in the confidence that action is possible.

In the usual leadership trainings, one will rarely find a preoccupation with these attitudes that reach deep into the personality – they are too focused on quick tricks and tips for that. However, if we understand the need to transform hopelessness into hope, so that there is at least a chance of »better«, then it would be time to approach the topic of the future with a hopeful attitude.
Rüdiger Müngersdorff

* SYNNECTA Sophia 2017: Glaube, Liebe Hoffnung – Im Schatten der Organisation (Rüdiger Müngersdorff)

** King James Bible: And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Luther Bible 1912: But now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Empathy is not a separate perception ability; rather, it is the ability to interpret analogue communication expressions and thus also understand the emotional message in the midst of busy factual information. This requires interaction. The open spaces for interaction, as realised in the new office concepts, create opportunities for interaction – they are low-threshold and can happen spontaneously. Here, there are brief moments of leisure in which empathic perception can occur and in which – this is the second side of the empathic manager – one’s own empathic understanding can also be expressed.

Now, especially today, when opportunities for interaction are severely restricted, people need empathetic encounters – they convey what is most important for our stability: I am being noticed.

We are currently working with our customers to create digital meeting spaces that are not about pushing forward topics and tasks, but rather about conveying care, relationship and attention. Especially for department heads and group leaders, we are helping to set up weekly virtual »stand-ups« or digital coffee breaks that are not primarily about topics, but about the emotional presence of the manager. This empathetic »presence« will become even more important in the coming weeks, once the stimulating appeal of the new has worn off.

Few remarks on the announcement of the bad news

It is an event that captures the attention of the managers involved. Although it is only one step in a longer process, it is the central event because it sets the tone for the whole following process: the official first announcement.

Moderating such an event requires high emotional stability, the ability to perceive moods in a group early on and to address them sensitively. Without such control, misunderstandings, multiple sensitivities and unrecorded emotions take over the direction of the event.

It is important to involve all managers in the preparation – because they determine an important part of the evaluative assessment of the situation in side conversations, in their posture, in what they do not say and what they say afterwards – they are an important part of the social calibration. Often they are not involved enough, it is overlooked that they themselves are also affected and by preparing for the event and the process afterwards, they also have to and can clarify their own attitude. The mantra applies: Show presence!

It is understandable that intensive preparation is shunned again and again – one deals with an emotionally stressful and difficult topic and sometimes the desire to have already left it behind outweighs. However, with a joint intensive preparation of this event the foundation for the sustainability of the whole following process is laid and this process is not linear, it needs the ability to work iteratively as a leadership group and to deal with surprises, reversals and corrections.

Too often, very differentiated presentations are shown – they are politically and legally coordinated and usually too complicated. It is therefore important to work with the executives on stage to turn the complicated and differentiated slides into simple statements – at least when speaking. It’s all about striking the local tone.

Always too short, too loveless, only partially understanding the importance – the dialogue part of the proclamation. Here it is not just about asking questions, but about creating space for speaking. There are often only statements that ask nothing, but say what is happening emotionally. This space is of high importance, because here the people experience whether it is also about them or only about the handling of an economic problem. Here it is also conveyed that it is good, right and allowed to show emotions. After all, this is a situation in which then also the managers are no longer only preachers and explain, but also become visible and perceptible in their own emotionality. In these moments the feeling of togetherness, of being together, is created, even if the tasks and concerns are very different.

If an employee who knows that he will lose his job and who is still at a loss as to what to expect, goes to the responsible manager after such an event, by looking into his eyes and saying: »This is really bad and I don’t know what I can do now, but thank you for your clear words«, then together – the moderator, the managers and the group – have laid the foundation for a process in which everyone knows: We do the best we can in this situation and we do it for the community of all people who are affected.

• Video Fetiye Sisko (SYNNECTA Booth)
• Crisis Communication I: Transparency makes credible – the need for honest leadership
• Crisis Communication II: The dilemma of local leadership or A deep conflict of loyalties

The dilemma of local leadership or A deep conflict of loyalties

There’s the decision. Costs have to be reduced, a reduction in staff is pending, perhaps the closure of a site or the sale of part of the company. The local management has the task of implementing the decision. A difficult task that plunges many managers into conflicts of loyalty. They themselves are insecure, but they want and should ensure that they act in a considered and secure manner.

So what happened before there was broader communication? There was a decision by headquarters – the local managers were hardly involved in this process, and if they were, then mainly as suppliers of analyses, data and information. With the decision, the task of implementation lies with the local management, which at first perceives the interfering support of the head office as helpful, but later, above all, as disturbing. The task now is not only to inform the people, to take their concerns and needs seriously and accompany them, to negotiate social packages, to start initiatives to give the affected MA an opportunity outside, but also to maintain productivity until the last day. The contact to the own employees becomes more intensive, they move much closer with their lives and the expectation develops that the local leadership will do everything to protect, maintain and maintain the own organisation. Naturally, conflicts arise here between what a head office wants and what local employees expect – and the responsible local management stands between both expectations. The personally challenging task now is to keep both interests in balance and to stay emotionally balanced. Good managers feel deeply committed to both sides – to the employees in their need, their worries and uncertainties, to the company that made such a decision for good reasons and with an eye to the bigger picture. A dilemma, often a moral dilemma, but always an emotional dilemma.

A particular challenge is to compensate for the loss of credibility that is inevitable from the very beginning. At the beginning, the local management already knows what is going to happen, but is bound to secrecy by very strict confidentiality agreements. If communication then takes place, one of the first accusations made by employees is: Why did you keep quiet for so long? How are we actually supposed to trust you, since you were involved in all this?

It is a difficult task, a task that deeply questions your own belief system. It is a task for which most managers are not prepared. How can they behave? How can they make room in the contradictions, the head and the heart equally? How can they deal with their own insecurities and worries and not let them distract them from their task?

Should managers be accompanied in such tasks? In all social professions it has proven to be a good idea to offer supervision for individuals as well as for teams. The point is to be aware of the situation and one’s own actions even in difficult situations. Only a guided self-reflection can help to be able to act and to act in the interest of all participants. We have had very good experience with a supervision approach in all the processes we have accompanied. The support helps all sides – the head office because it achieves its goal, the local management because it does not betray the interests of either side and can leave the process even with a clear awareness, and the employees because only a stable local management can ensure that new options for their own future can emerge even in this emergency.

• Video Fetiye Sisko (SYNNECTA Booth)
• Crisis Communication I: Transparency makes credible – the need for honest leadership
• Crisis Communication III: Few remarks on the announcement of the bad news

Transparency makes credible – the need for honest leadership

It is a classic starting situation: A general manager, a plant manager, a divisional manager is informed that significant redundancies are imminent in his area, that a site is to be closed or an entire business unit sold. There may have been a hunch, and yet it is always shocking. The person in charge experiences what he will have to communicate to the employees in the near future. And he/she very quickly feels that he/she feels left alone and that he/she only receives reliable information in slices. The situation is confusing and will remain so for quite some time. It is the first scene in a process that now follows, in which every scene has to be rethought and redesigned again and again.

SYNNECTA has been supporting companies and responsible managers for many years in the design of such processes, which focus on communication. It is a different kind of communication – it requires a much higher degree of transparency, honesty and credibility than standard communications and it cannot be delegated. The communication cascades are already problematic in normal times, in crisis communication they are dangerous – the uncontrollable infectious rumor bags are created.

Our affected manager has a first task – he/she must form a team, a management team, which is able to deal sensitively with the situation from their own concern and is prepared to show a high level of presence throughout the entire process. We know the closure process from managers who like to visit the headquarters in such times. The management team with clear knowledge of the task and an honest willingness to go down this path with all employees is the backbone of the process. It is the time when the local managers, the micro-politics learned in seminars and their own tactical behaviour have to leave behind. Fetiye Sisko, who has supported many companies in these phases, says that in the beginning, support always involves developing a common attitude, which makes it clear that the focus is always on all the people concerned.

The people entrusted with communication are too often still young employees, without their own network, with little experience and little influence on content. Their commitment is often remarkable and yet they need support. Because crisis communication has a few special features. Again and again we experience phases of confusion, anger and rage when discrepancies become visible on the various communication channels. In particular, synchronised external and internal communication is required – any discrepancies spread by the press, social media, etc. must be included in internal communication. This is the only way to prevent irritations from the outside to the inside and to avoid strong emotional reactions. Differences in communication create mood and the situation is unstable.

The lively Q&A is an important component in successful crisis communication – every question stands for a need and a necessity, every question must be answered. And if it cannot be answered in the status of the process, exactly this must be said and justified. This is the only way to actively shape the mood part of a crisis and, as experience shows, to prevent the emotional substitutes such as actions of sabotage, refusal to work, etc. This also makes it clear that crisis communication is an iterative process; none of them proceeds in the way that very clever people, who are far away from what is happening, have imagined in advance.

As we have already said, delegation to a communication cascade is not helpful – it creates differences in communication and is no longer controllable by the responsible management team. Therefore it is essential for us to communicate with everyone at the same time as often as possible. Dialogue is already important in a normal situation, here it becomes decisive. It is one of the aims of crisis communication to reduce rumours, and for this to happen, joint communication experiences are needed. They are emotional, sometimes turbulent in the middle – but what happens in a meeting does not happen outside. Of course, this requires an experienced moderator who is able to keep an overview even in emotionally violent reactions and who can behave with appropriate empathy towards everyone.

We have had good experience in organising communication meetings together with the works council, employee representatives and management. This is where similarities become visible and differences become transparent. Each side has a different role and yet they are jointly responsible for shaping the situation for the people. And here again, every concern is to be taken seriously. In one case, the management had a reduction target which in their eyes was marginal (below the 10% mark) and therefore did not consider extensive communication necessary. One morning, the managers came to the site and saw 100 scarecrows wearing black T-shirts by the fence. It was the number of those to be dismantled. It may hit 100 people in the end, but in the beginning it hits everyone. And the principle is, what you do to one, you do to all.

There are many important characteristics of crisis communication – its quality makes a big difference, for the employees concerned and for the company. It takes experience to design such processes – and always a high level of emotional competence. Managers who have to deal with insecure people on a daily basis, and who are often insecure themselves, need support in these phases. If the attitude in the management circle is right, a constant empathic behaviour can be learned. Transparency, honesty and empathy are essential behavioural aspects in these processes. We at SYNNECTA are happy to do this task, even where it is very difficult, if one thing is given: the responsible leadership wants to make the process as honest and appreciative as possible for all those involved.

• Video Fetiye Sisko (SYNNECTA Booth)
• Crisis Communication II: The dilemma of local leadership or A deep conflict of loyalties
• Crisis Communication III: Few remarks on the announcement of the bad news

In the current issue of managerSeminare, Petra Martin describes the format of an agile leadership development programme at Bosch Automotive Electronics, which radically focuses on the self-organisation skills of the participating managers, in a vividly illustrated article entitled Aufbruch ins Unbekannte. In co-creative collaboration with the author (who was also the courageous and visionary client for the project) and the managing director of the Kalapa Leadership Academy and great consultant colleague Liane Stephan, I was able to help design the programme from the ground up and support its implementation.

In this article, I do not want to describe the course of the programme – for this, I recommend that every reader reads the article mentioned above. Rather, I would like to briefly highlight the most important principles from the trainer’s point of view, which make it possible to focus on the participants and the ever-increasing competence for self-organisation among them.

The principles are based on the main intrinsic motivators identified by Dan Pink: Purpose, Autonomy and Mastery. I also work along these principles in other counselling contexts wherever possible. This is accompanied by a change in my role: I step back as an organising, thematically leading, (teaching) trainer; in return, I empower the participants to self-organise, self-lead and self-directed learning. My (not to be underestimated) main function will be to hold the space. The vision that Petra Martin, Liane Stephan and I formulated at the very beginning of the concept phase was analogous to this: »We want to create a trainerless academy!«

Without claiming to be exhaustive, I would like to formulate the principles as follows:

Creating meaning and value

There should only be room in the event for what creates meaning and value from the participants’ perspective. Anything that does not meet this requirement will not even be started or will be cancelled. The question of the meaning to be created introduces the event, from which all topics are derived. This means that the preparation of content is completed in advance (in both a positive and challenging sense). The continuous question of whether the participants are on a meaningful journey and spending their time in a value-creating way allows them to prioritise and make consistent decisions during the event.

Secure and demand autonomy

Participants are positioned and treated as radically self-responsible. They decide for themselves where and how they want to develop and where not. They are free to stop or do something else at any time – but they are responsible for the consequences. In the programme described by Petra Martin, for example, one of the biggest challenges was that participants repeatedly ‘invited’ us trainers (and sometimes even energetically demanded) to take the lead, for example by introducing topics. In order to ensure the autonomy of the learning process, we had to consistently delegate the invitations back to the self-organisation.

Design space

In order to enable the autonomy of self-learning, a space must be created that is both safe and creatively appealing. This applies to the conditions of the venue, but also to event formats, methods and the participants’ thinking space. Modularised frameworks, tools and worksheets from which the participants can choose themselves depending on the situation, inclination and dynamics, and which they can quickly acquire themselves, allow autonomy without creating chaos and disorientation.

Agile architecture

Sprint logic, timeboxing, review and retro (as I described in another blog post in a different context) are the main agile tools that can be used to steer from the background. This alone is the guiding and organising aspect of the trainer role – cyclical time discipline and cybernetic feedback ensure freedom and further development.

Flow confidence and tension-based work

One of the biggest challenges of holding space is to trust in the dynamics of the self-organised group. Tensions and conflicts are highly likely to arise – confirming all the rules of team dynamics. However, ‘only’ recognising this and delegating the responsibility for dealing with the tensions and resolving any conflicts back to the group sometimes produces aversion to the trainer or format. However, standing firm here, patiently mirroring and empowering pays off in the long term. It allows perhaps the biggest leap for groups into self-organisation. As one participant put it: experiencing group dynamics for yourself and working through tensions yourself (empowered by the trainers) proved to be far more valuable than all the conflict management theory you had previously learnt.

Familiar, diverse team of trainers

Both in the conception and realisation of the event, it is essential to work in a team that can trust each other blindly, is well reflected in terms of relationships and approaches the work with role awareness and leadership flexibility. This is the only way to make productive use of the tensions that inevitably arise in self-organised contexts. Diversity-orientated, the core expertise in the team of trainers should be distributed differently; however, each team member should also share a degree of generalist moderation, mediation and coaching skills (sensible combination of T-profiles).

Die sich ausbreitende Sensibilität für Agilität in Unternehmen eröffnet ein neues Spielfeld, in welchem Experimente gewagt werden dürfen. In diesem Blogbeitrag möchte ich das Format eines Sprintworkshops vorstellen, das aus einem solchen Experiment entstanden ist und mit dem ich in mehreren Projekten gute Erfahrungen gemacht habe.

Den ersten Prototypen entwickelte ich bereits vor einigen Jahren aus einer gewissen Frustration heraus: Eine Veranstaltung mit 50 hochrangigen Führungskräften zum Thema Agilität war in die Sackgasse geraten. Statt der Bearbeitung relevanter Themen hatten nur Scheindiskussionen stattgefunden, die jede tiefe Reflexion verhindert hatten. Eine Taktik des Dauerkommentars hatte jegliche Maßnahmenbildung unmöglich gemacht. Auch ein kontinuierliches Spiegeln der wirkenden destruktiven Muster in die Gruppe hinein hatte keine Effekte generiert. Irgendwie hatten wir es dann doch noch einigermaßen fertiggebracht, den Workshop zu einem Minimalziel zu bringen. Aber die Frustration war sowohl auf Seiten der Teilnehmenden als beim Moderator groß.

Gemeinsam mit einer mutigen Auftraggeberin kam ich im Nachgang zu dem Schluss, dass wir – um mit dieser Gruppe Wert und Wirksamkeit stiften zu können – im nächsten Workshop die Muster komplett brechen mussten. Aus dieser Erkenntnis heraus entwickelte ich das im Folgenden beschriebene Format eines Sprintworkshops. Dieses Format half nicht nur, die oben geschilderte Gruppe in eine produktive Diskussion relevanter Themen zu bringen und sie greifbare und greifende Maßnahmen entwickeln zu lassen; es bewährte sich auch in der Umsetzung mit mehreren anderen Großgruppen und in anderen Kontexten. Heute setze ich dieses Format vielfach ein, um agile Prinzipien in der konkreten Arbeit an drängenden und komplexen Themen erlebbar und wirksam zu machen.

Das Format versucht zum einen, die drei von Dan Pink prominent beschriebenen Hauptmotivatoren des Menschen anzutriggern: Es setzt auf Purpose, Autonomy und Mastery. Zum anderen nimmt es die Vorzüge einer Scrum- bzw. Sprintlogik in Dienst, kombiniert mit supervisorischen Rollen und kontinuierlichem Feedback. Es setzt dabei folgendes Framework:

1. Erstellung eines Themenbacklogs (90 min)
Die Teilnehmenden werden in kleine Teams von ca. sechs Personen aufgeteilt. Gemeinsam sammeln sie in einem ersten Schritt unter einer geeigneten Leitfrage die Herausforderungen bzw. Hürden der aktuellen Situation. Anschließend schreiben sie aus Perspektive entsprechender Stakeholder- bzw. Zielgruppen (mit Hilfe von Templates) User Stories zur Bearbeitung der jeweiligen Herausforderung bzw. Beseitigung der Hürde.

Im Falle eines Workshops mit Führungskräften könnten User Stories zum Beispiel wie folgt klingen:

• »Als MitarbeiterIn möchte von meiner Führungskraft regelmäßig über die Ziele orientiert werden, damit ich für mich gut planen kann.«
• »Als KollegIn möchte ich von anderen Führungskräften maximal unterstützt werden, um die mir zugeordneten komplexen Ziele wirklich erfüllen zu können.«
• »Als Vorgesetzte(r) möchte ich von der mir unterstellten Führungskraft frühzeitig über Probleme informiert werden, damit ich mich sicher fühle.«

Alle aus der Diskussion abgeleiteten User Stories werden dann im Plenum vorgestellt. Im nächsten Schritt werden sie in eine priorisierte Reihenfolge gebracht. Hierzu bietet sich eine einfache Schwarmbewertung an: Jede(r) Teilnehmende erhält die gleiche Anzahl von Punkten und kann sie auf die User Stories verteilen. Letztere werden dann entsprechend der Punkte von oben nach unten im Themenbacklog sortiert.

2. Sprinteinheiten (je 90 min)
Ist das Themenbacklog fertiggestellt, geht es in den Sprintmodus. Die Teilnehmenden werden in cross-funktional/divers zusammengesetzte Sprintteams (fünf bis sieben Personen) aufgeteilt, deren Aufgabe es nun ist, die Backlogthemen von oben nach unten zu bearbeiten. Ziel ist es, aus den User Stories konkrete Maßnahmen abzuleiten und deren Umsetzung konzeptionell abzusichern.

2.1. Arbeitsphase (45 min)
In der Arbeitsphase jedes Sprints »zieht« sich jedes Sprintteam jeweils das oberste Thema und arbeitet an der Erstellung eines Maßnahmenprototyps, der auf einer Pinnwand präsentiert werden soll. Es hat sich hier bewährt, Canvas-Poster zur Verfügung zu stellen, die über Leitfragen einen groben Orientierungsrahmen setzen, von den Teams jedoch in selbstorganisierten Brainstorming-, Diskussions- und Ableitungsphasen unmoderiert befüllt werden. Ziel ist es, dass jedes Sprintteam den Maßnahmenprototyp an der Pinnwand jeweils so aufbereitet, dass er quasi selbsterklärend präsentiert werden kann. Befindet das Sprintteam eine User Story als zufriedenstellend in Maßnahmen übersetzt, »zieht« es sich die nächste, oberste User Story vom Backlog und startet sofort deren Bearbeitung. Zu Beginn jeder Arbeitsphase bestimmt jedes Sprintteam aus der eigenen Mitte einen stillen Beobachter. Dieser hat die Aufgabe, das Team in der Arbeitsphase supervisorisch zu beobachten, um später Feedback geben zu können.

2.2. Review-Marktplatz (15 min)
Nach der Arbeitsphase findet in Marktplatzlogik ein Review der Maßnahmenprotoypen statt. Hierzu bleibt jeweils ein Vertreter des Sprintteams als Repräsentant an der Pinnwand des Sprintteams stehen; die anderen schwärmen aus, um sich die Prototypen der anderen Sprintteams anzusehen bzw. vorstellen zu lassen und zum jeweiligen Arbeitsstand Feedback zu geben. Der Repräsentant des Sprintteams sammelt dieses Feedback, sodass sein Sprintteam den Maßnahmenprototypen im nächsten Sprint gegebenenfalls optimieren kann.

2.3. Sprintteam-Retrospektive (15 min)
Anschließend trifft sich jedes Sprintteam wieder im eigenen Kreis. Der Beobachter teilt der Gruppe innerhalb von fünf Minuten seine Beobachtungen mit, adressiert wahrgenommene Hürden und macht Verbesserungsvorschläge für den nächsten Sprint. In den nächsten fünf Minuten melden alle Sprintteammitglieder kurz zurück, wie sie die allgemeine Zusammenarbeit in der Arbeitsphase wahrgenommen haben. Die letzten fünf Minuten der Retrospektive werden dazu genutzt, dass sich die Sprintteammitglieder in einem 1:1-Dialog jeweils gegenseitig kurz rückmelden, wie sie den jeweils anderen in seinem Einzelverhalten in der Arbeitsphase wahrgenommen haben.

2.4. Pause (15 min)
Bevor der nächste Sprint beginnt, wird eine Pause eingelegt.

Der nächste Sprint läuft wie der erste ab. Hat das Sprintteam von den anderen Teilnehmenden die Rückmeldung erhalten, dass der Maßnahmenprototyp noch nicht zufriedenstellend ist, wird an diesem weitergearbeitet. Ist dieser von der Gesamtgruppe für gut befunden, holt sich das Sprintteam das nächste Thema. Es wählt einen neuen Beobachter aus und startet in die selbstorganisierte Themenbearbeitung…

3. Schlussplenum (60 min)
In einer letzten Runde werden die fertigen Maßnahmen noch einmal kurz vorgestellt und – so kein Veto geäußert wird – gemeinsam verabschiedet. Der Sprintworkshop endet mit einer finalen Feedbackrunde, in welcher individuelle Erfahrungen mit dem Format vergemeinschaftet und gegebenenfalls Schlussfolgerungen für eine folgende Veranstaltung gezogen werden.

Ein so gestalteter Sprintworkshop kann an einem Tag mit insgesamt vier Sprints bereits hohe Wirksamkeit erzielen. Werden anderthalb oder gar zwei Tage in diesem Format gestaltet, kann eine beachtliche Anzahl an Maßnahmen mit hoher Umsetzungswahrscheinlichkeit generiert werden. Je nach Zielgruppe, Themenfokus und Dauer des Workshops können die Maßnahmentemplates, Leitfragen und Sprintlängen individuell angepasst sowie Zwischenplena oder Gesamtretrospektiven eingezogen werden. Der vorgestellt Gesamtframework des Formats hat sich jedoch in dieser Form in mehreren Projekten als tragfähig und überaus produktiv erwiesen. Das Feedback der Teilnehmenden thematisiert immer wieder das eigene Erstaunen, wie zielfokussiert und produktiv das Format wirkt; gleichzeitig melden viele Teilnehmende zurück, dass sie aus dem eigenen Erleben von Sprintlogik, Retrospektiven und Feedback einen wertvollen Zugang zum Thema Agilität erhalten hätten.

As organizations are growing increasingly sensitive to agility, we gain new ground for experiments. This blog text will introduce a sprint workshop format, which has evolved from such an experiment and has yielded good results in several projects.

I developed the first prototype several years ago from a certain sense of frustration when a leadership workshop with 50 high-ranking managers focused on the topic of agility had come to a dead end. Instead of working on the topic, we had got stucked pseudo-discussions, which had prevented any form of deeper reflection. A tactic of constant commentary had made it impossible to draw any conclusions. Even continuously making the group aware of the destructive patterns at work had not generated any effects. Somehow we still managed to take the workshop to a minmal goal. Yet participants and moderator alike were left with a sense of frustration.

During a follow-up, the courageous internal project leader and I concluded that if this group was to be given value and effectiveness, the next workshop would have to utterly break the pattern. From this insight, I developed the sprint workshop format, which I will describe below. This new model not only helped to introduce the group to a productive discussion of relevant topics and allow them to develop tangible and significant measures, it also proved of value to several other large groups in other contexts. I now use this format on many occasions in order to achieve an effective approach to agile principles within concrete work on pressing and complex issues.

On the one hand, the format aims to trigger the three intrinsic motivators of the human being as prominently described by Dan Pink: Purpose, Autonomy and Mastery. On the other hand, it adopts the advantages of Scrum or sprint logic combined with continuous feedback. The following framework is given:

1. Creating a topic backlog (90 min)
The participants are grouped into small teams of approx. six persons each. Together, they begin by gathering the challenges and impediments they face in the current situation under the lead of an appropriate guiding question. They then write user stories from the perspective of appropriate stakeholder or target groups (there are templates to support this process), in order to work on the given challenge or remove the given impediment.

In a leadership workshop, the user stories might, for example, look like this:

• »As an employee, I want to regularly be given guidance about goals from my management, so that I can plan for myself appropriately.«
• »As a colleague, I want to receive maximum support from other managers, in order to really be able to fulfil the complex goals I am responsible for.«
• »As a supervisor, I want managers in my charge to inform me of problems early on, so that I feel secure.«

All user stories emanating from the discussion are then presented in a plenary session. The next step is to order them by priority. This works well with simple swarm evaluation: each participant has the same number of points that can be allocated to the user stories. These are then sorted into a topic backlog according to the points they received from top to bottom.

2. Sprints (90 min each)
Once the topic backlog is done, we enter the sprint mode. The participants are divided into cross-functional/diverse sprint teams (five to seven members each), whose work on the backlog topics from top to bottom. The target is to conclude concrete measures in response to the user stories and conceptually secure their realization.

2.1. Work phase (45 min)
The work phase of every sprint sees each sprint team ‘pull’ the given top topic and work on a prototype of measures, which is to be presented on a poster board. The provision of canvas posters has proved helpful; with the help of guiding questions these canvases provide a rough frame of orientation, but are completed in autonomously organized brainstorming, discussion and conclusion phases that are not externally moderated. It is the aim that each sprint team presents the prototype of measures on the poster board in such a way that it can be presented without further explanation. Once the sprint team considers a user story sufficiently translated into measures, it ‘pulls’ the next top user story from the backlog and immediately starts work on that story. Each work phase begins with the nomination of a silent observer from among each team. This person will silently observe the team during the work phase in order to provide feedback later on.

2.2. Review: market place (15 min)
Following the market place logic, the work phase is succeeded by a review of the measure prototypes. In this phase, a representative of the sprint team will remain with their own team’s poster board, while the others swarm out in order to view or be introduced to the prototypes developed by the other sprint teams and provide feedback on the given progress status. The sprint team representative will collect the feedback given, so that the team can optimize their prototype of measures during the next sprint, where necessary.

2.3. Sprint team review (15 min)
Each sprint team will then come together again. The observer will take five minutes to inform the group of their insights, address impediments that were observed and provide suggestions for improvements to be made during the next sprint. Within the next five minutes all sprint team members briefly reflect on their experiences of the team perfomance during the work phase. The last few minutes of the review are to be used for one-on-one dialogues during which the sprint team members each provide feedback on their observations of their opposite’s individual behaviour during the work phase.

2.4. Break (15 min)
There is a break before the next sprint begins.

The next sprint takes the same form as the first sprint. If the sprint team has received feedback from the other participants that the measure prototype is not yet sufficient, work continues on that prototype. Once the entire group has approved of the prototype, the sprint team will proceed to get the next topic. A new observer is chosen and autonomous work on the topic will begin…

3. Concluding session (60 min)
The finalized measures will be briefly presented once more during a final round and will then be concluded together, unless there is a veto. The sprint workshop ends with a final round of feedback, during which individual experiences with the format will be shared and conclusions may be drawn for a follow-up event.

A one-day sprint workshop of this type can include a total of four sprints and thereby achieve great effectivity. A workshop of this format over the course of one-and-a-half or even two days can generate an impressive number of measures with a great likelihood of realization. Templates of measures, guiding questions and sprint duration can be individually fitted to the given target group, thematic focus and duration of the workshop; even intermediate plenary sessions or general reviews can be included. The overall framework of the format described above, however, has proved to be particularly sustainable and especially productive in this shape. Participant feedback has time and again stressed the amazement experienced in the face of the focussed and productive effect of the format. At the same time, many participants have reported that they themselves attained a valuable approach to agility from their own experience of sprint logic, reviews and feedback.

Since the turn of the millennium, a mission statement should be part of every corporate identity. If you don’t have one, you shouldn’t wait any longer and get one! Why?

Because they provide an orientation in times of globalization and of fall in value, where well-known boundaries become blurred and where personal safeties are not that secure anymore; they offer guidance in times of increasing size and complexity of enterprises, where sustainable management is often postulated and in times of continuous changes, of post- and post-post-merger cultures and the related challenges of management control. Mission statements shall motivate and give action-based orientation to the organization as a whole and to every single employee. Is this task too demanding for a mission statement? Or is a mission statement more about conveying a positive image inside and outside a company? If so, the mission statement would neither meet its own expectations nor have any effect. It would be obsolete from the start. So what is it about?

Generally, the establishment of corporate mission statements is highly related to the mechanisms of development of nations, as well as national cultures and national societies. Those are determined by many different aspects, such as language, education, holidays, capital, national teams, narratives and myths and many more, all aiming to create a deep feeling of community.

The concept of »nation«, particularly due to the political and intellectual authorities of a country, has been a highly successful concept in the past – especially regarding the social and economic development of many nation states. There is no need to emphasize that nation-building sometimes paved the way for radical nationalism.

Anyway, today is the crucial question: In how far is the concept of a homogenous national state up-to-date, regarding the political, social and economic development? How can it ensure its inclusive character and its function of giving orientation? In Germany, these questions are discussed regularly and controversially in debates on the »deutsche Leitkultur« (German guiding or mainstream culture).

A theory that emphasizes the heterogeneity of modern societies is called »hybrid society«. According to Homi Bhabha, a key theorist of this school of thought, hybridization is not merely a blending, but the strategic and selective adoption of meanings, containing creating space for those people, whose freedom and rights might be at risk. This concept is not about forming a common, national culture by same language, same education etc.. It is about mutually creating space for heterogeneous ways of living together and side-by-side, a way of living that reflects much more the social reality than a homogeneous national culture.

Transferring these descriptions of social realities to the ones of today’s enterprises, one finds that these too are spheres where heterogeneity becomes more and more visible and common, due to increasing internationalization, fusions and/or purchases of other companies. It is questionable in how far a traditional mission statement can fulfil the demands of a modern enterprise and which guiding elements could take its place.

Diversity Management deals with these questions and offers a number of interesting solutions, but is very often reduced to single aspects like gender, age or disability integration, or it is practiced to establish a homogenous corporate culture. More radical would be a concept like »hybrid society« which does not aim to create a homogenous culture, but instead accepts the existing diversity and aims to foster the diverse potential of all kinds of people. Google might be a suitable example for this.

We at SYNNECTA practice these concepts in our daily consulting work, linking them with our own approaches like the community or »Durchwegung« concepts. We discuss an alternative to the traditional mission statements among our colleagues. We are looking forward to all further debates on the topic with colleagues and customers.