Change Organizations By First Changing Yourself
Photo by Indian Yogi (Yogi Madhav) on Unsplash
There is something pretty big that I want to share with you today.
Over the last few years, a kind of deep transformational shift has been underway in our business culture. If you have been reading my stuff for a while, you’ve probably picked up on it. It is evident in my own experiences with my work, my writing, and my life in general. But it’s bigger than me. It’s clearly detectable in the zeitgeist, in the culture as a whole. I see it in the books I am reading, in material that gets sent to me online, in the coffee conversations I am having with colleagues.
Building Things Right
I have been building digital products and companies for two decades now. During the first quarter of my 20-year career in tech, my main focus was on engineering excellence. And the second quarter was more about groups of engineers, how to build things properly as a team. These first ten years centered intellectually around Agile Software Development and software craftsmanship more broadly. I remember being really excited about building awesome digital systems, tools, and products. I remember struggling to explain to reticent clients why Agile was so much better, so much more effective, than the clunky error-prone Waterfall approaches that preceded it.
But something was missing.
Building The Right Things
The third quarter of my career coincided with the emergence of Lean Startup. I remember first reading 4 Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank back in 2010, and being struck by the feeling that I had wasted years building things that no-one wanted. So, I recommitted myself to incorporating Customer Discovery and Validation, or Build-Measure-Learn, into all of the work that I took on. I refused to take assumptions for granted, and vowed not to write one more line of code that didn’t have a clear justification from the market.
Living and breathing the Lean Startup philosophy, of testing every assumption with data before investing time and energy in building anything of significance, utterly changed my world. It affected how I looked for jobs, how I wrote my book, Startup Patterns, and how I advised the clients and customers that I worked with. Clearly this new way of thinking was the missing piece.
But it wasn’t. Something was still not right.
Rebuilding Ourselves
The last five years, the last three in particular, have narrowed my focus (or broadened it, depending on how you look at it) on the people, organizations, and leadership methods that are building the next generation of tools, products, and services. I have had the opportunity to work closely with smart and dynamic leaders who are attempting to transform their organizations (both enterprise and startups) from a traditional company culture into a more flexible, nimble, and innovative environment.
The type of leadership we see in these endeavors, not just at the top, but throughout the organization as a whole, makes or breaks the long-term success of the organization.
No matter how many canvases, frameworks, workshops, tools, classes, and webinars we create to train entrepreneurs and product organizations to think critically, all too many continue to feel stuck, spinning their wheels and unable to break through to the next level.
What is going on here? Why is it still so hard for us to build the kinds of organizations that we want to work in? To build the types of products and services that people love and that will actually make a difference in their lives?
Still further, what is so different about people and teams who are able to succeed and those who continue to struggle to grow, to evolve, to develop the skills and capability needed for continuous breakthrough?
The answer to these questions is deceptively simple. But all the more revolutionary because of that simplicity. A small number of you are already doing it, while many others know the answer, but can’t quite get it to stick in the day-to-day hustle and bustle of business-as-usual. The vast majority of folks grinding away out there, unfortunately, will probably never get it.
It didn’t suddenly occur to me in a lightning-strike epiphany. No, this realization has been slow to emerge, through many hours of conversation with peers and colleagues, dozens of books and articles, and deep, sometimes rather painful, introspection into my own limiting beliefs, hopes, and fears.
I have written extensively in the last year about the idea of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. These were the key concepts imparted to us by Daniel Pink in his amazing book, Drive, on performance and motivation. It aligned directly with what I already knew from reading W. Edwards Deming, Taiichi Ohno, Don Reinertsen, and many others.
But, while I excitedly incorporated Pink’s suggestions into my own work, I was really only paying attention to the first two, and glossing over the third. I have railed against top-down management styles in my talks and writing, urging leaders to support autonomy. I encouraged technical excellence, and continuous improvement, my version of building mastery.
But what about purpose?! Clearly, purpose is on everyone’s mind. We are no longer content to simply work, to make money (if we can), to build startups, to transform organizations… without a clear sense of purpose. I see this in almost every interaction I have, formal or informal. People are craving purpose.
Why was I almost sub-consciously glossing over the importance of individuals, teams, and organizations having a clear sense of purpose? I now realize it was because up until a few months ago, I had not been directly tackling that question myself!
That all changed at the beginning of this year when I started offering to work directly with leaders, when I created my Mindful Leadership Accelerator and started doing one-on-one coaching with emerging new leaders.
What is your purpose?
No, seriously. Think about it.
I’ve been going through a process of redefining my purpose, and grappling with what I want Startup Patterns (the company, not the book) to be all about moving forward. Here’s where I am landing, and I’d really welcome your feedback.
I want to build better technology leaders. Everything else is secondary.
Don’t get me wrong — I love product development, software engineering, customer interviews, marketing and growth experiments, and copywriting and design. Yeah, all that stuff is still interesting to me.
But none of it matters if we lack the leadership within ourselves to make the kind of lasting change we want to see in the world. Everything has shifted for me now. I am no longer content to simply “coach Agile teams” or “advise startups.” My purpose is to build new technology leaders equipped to create the kind of world we desperately need. Everything else is just noise.
And don’t get me wrong, I still believe very strongly in teamwork, and I am not saying that the most senior person in an organization is the most important person.
In the prologue of Startup Patterns, I said:
“The mythology of entrepreneurship leaves out a lot of critical detail about how startups actually work in the real world. The most stark difference between myth and reality is that great products are always built by teams, not individuals. It is the painstaking execution of the vision by a great team that makes the real difference between success and failure.”
That is still true, and probably always will be. But teams do need leadership.
The key to being a great leader is, above and beyond all other considerations, a willingness to look inside yourself, to discover your fears and limiting beliefs and face them, or as Shakespeare said, “to know thyself.” And that’s one of the toughest things for leaders to do, look inside themselves, because they often feel like they are supposed to already have all the answers! Nothing could be further from the truth. Being honest about your own shortcomings and working transparently and authentically to overcome them is the only way you can truly inspire others to follow you.
If all of this jibber-jabber about leadership and feelings is not what you’re looking for, or not what you thought you were signing up for when you subscribed, I would absolutely not be offended if you stop following me right now. In fact, I encourage you, implore you even, to not waste another second of your life reading my articles if they aren’t providing value for you. You have too many things vying for your attention already. No problem. I’ll always be here if you change your mind.
For everyone else who’s still here, I am truly honored to have your time and attention, and I will treat it with the utmost care. There is much work to do in the coming years, to heal the world, frankly. I am committing to redouble my efforts to bring everything I have to offer, everything I am, to the cause of building a better world for future generations. I invite you to join me in that pledge.
Let’s make it happen.
