In my Agile workshops I ask participants a question: ‘What pictures come to your mind, when we talk about Agility?’ Some of the typical answers are Cheetah, Squirrel or Dolphin etc. Then I ask them what aspects of them relate to Agility in their mind? Typical responses are that they are quick, fast, swift, they flow, adopt to change quickly and so on. As we deliberate in the class further about what is Agility, it emerges that Agility is about how quickly the entity senses the environment and responds back.
Essentially Enterprise/Business Agility is about Sense & Respond – how quickly the organization Senses the Market/Customer/Consumer/Competition and Responds with solutions. This requires openness & empathy in people to sense the needs, adopt to changes, collaborate through the value-streams, deliver innovative solutions and respond to feedbacks swiftly. Organization has to function like an Organism.
This end-to-end sense and respond mechanism requires multiple aspects to be addressed under People-Process-Technology triad. This blog-post will explore the mindset and culture aspect needed for Agility under People dimension.
Another question I ask in the Agile workshops is ‘what makes Agile succeed?’ and I take the Iceberg metaphor to make a point. Typically 10% of iceberg is visible and about 90% of the iceberg is submerged under the water. Iceberg moves not because of the visible wind outside, but because of subtle, not-so-visible undercurrents in the water. In a similar way, critical success-factors for Agile projects is not so much the visible aspects like process, tools, metrics, ceremonies, artefacts but not-so-apparent factors of behavior, culture and mindset – it is about BEING Agile beyond just DOING Agile.
The critical success factors for agile Culture are Servant/Facilitative Leadership, Cross-Functional Collaboration and Self-Organizing Teams. The This is the realm of Emotional Intelligence (EI/EQ) as depicted in the below diagram.
Mindfulness is a practical way to develop Emotional Intelligence
Mindfulness is about being in the Present moment with full Awareness of what is happening within oneself (thoughts, feelings, emotions) and outside (situations, people) and Responding wisely & consciously rather than Reacting compulsively.
Download our free eBook on “Mindfulness@Work – Managing Outside by Mastering Inside” to understand about Mindfulness techniques, its effects and evidences of neuroscience research.
As the neuroscience researches confirm, Mindfulness practices help to enhance EI by transformations in brain cells, nervous system and endocrine systems, there by making people more self-aware, self-regulating, self-motivated, empathetic and more socially skilled.
Back to the iceberg metaphor – this diagram shows how IQ, EQ and MQ (Mindfulness Quotient) stack up. At the outcome level, we want to get business results, for which we plan and execute several activities – these are at the top of the iceberg, visible, IQ oriented. Beneath the water level are the not-so-visible soft aspects which are EQ oriented. Mindfulness is at even subtler level, impacting the outcomes deeply.
Mindfulness is gaining more and more prominence in many organizations as part of Agile Transformation and Leadership Development initiatives, especially after Google’s “Search Inside Yourself” program.
4 Responses
Hi Shiv, I can relate to this, it is a real different world.
I was invited a few times to address students appearing for CET exams as an industry person and found it challenging to connect with them. I was able to connect somewhat as one of their concern was what if they do not get into a good college, which I was able to address by sharing real life examples.
Thanks Vasu. College “brand” no doubt helps early on in work life – corporate doors open more easily. But down the line, it is people’s motivation and track record that helps build careers. I am sure we have all seen examples affirming this. I have stressed with the mentees that I work with. An aside, the mentorship program I am involved in spans 4-5 months and so, I have had time to work on the “connect”! Yes – takes time and effort.
Hi Shiv – very well written – thanks for the write-up.
Many years ago I was a volunteer mentor for a couple of youth as part of Dream A Dream’s life skills mentoring program. This was in person mentoring where the mentee and I would meet periodically (usually on a weekend) and discuss general topics. There was no prescribed structure though all mentors did go thru a few hours of in person training. Based on that experience I can corroborate that it takes time for the mentee to open up, especially in that case given their lack of confidence in expressing in English which was the recommended language for communication. Switching to Tamil (in one case where the mentee was from Tamil Nadu) helped.
Can also relate well to your point on swings in mood and engagement level of the mentee and the need for mentor to shift gears accordingly.
I am sure the mentees are benefiting a lot from your vast and varied experience – hope you will come back to mentor more such students after you complete the current mentorships and possibly take a break!
Thank you, Bhasker!