Interview by SpeakersExcellence with Bernhard Höhne, Agile Coach at Roche Pharma Germany, and Arndt Schmidtmayer, Top100 Excellent Trainer & Coach
SpeakersExcellence: Why do so many transformation projects fail? Management consultancy McKinsey even speaks of over 70%...
Bernhard Höhne: There are indeed many reasons for this, starting with the lack of purpose or "why" and the unclear 'What's in it for me', meaning the specific benefits for employees, teams, companies, and of course customers. This is linked to low strategic and operational alignment, lack of transparency across teams and departments, and persisting silo thinking.
Arndt Schmidtmayer: Yes, exactly. Transformation begins with the mindset of each individual and shifting perspectives. Neither the human, semi-automatic defense mechanism towards new ways of thinking and behavior helps. Nor does an overly optimistic naivety that a single agile tool can solve all problems and shortcomings. In my experience, what also needs urgent improvement is a more appreciative approach to individual concerns and fears, as changes create resistance and these need to be collectively addressed in a goal-oriented manner. Otherwise, progress is hindered.
SpeakersExcellence: Why does digital and agile transformation often take so long? Arndt Schmidtmayer: Humans and collaboration have been, are, and will remain key success factors in digitalization and agility! For successful transformation, we need even greater transparency and openness as Bernhard just mentioned, and a more positive culture of trust, which is easier said than implemented in everyday work life. And this necessary more effective corporate culture with customer-centricity and employee motivation through Servant Leaders can indeed take two to five years, depending on the starting point.
Bernhard Höhne: Exactly. System and PEOPLE are often not given enough attention. Digital and agile transformation fundamentally have the same goal: "Creating value for people." Agile transformation has embedded value creation in terms of customer-centric value creation, which also involves people within the organization. The principles from the Agile Manifesto are key here, such as building projects around motivated individuals. Provide them with the environment and support they need and trust them to get the job done.
SpeakersExcellence: According to CapGemini, support for change rapidly decreases across different levels of management - how do you explain this? Bernhard Höhne: Indeed, we see the continued importance of top-level support. An example from our side is the bold decision of a departmental management to introduce the agile goal system OKR - which stands for Objectives and Key Results - for over 100 people in cross-functional settings in 2019. The experiment was successful, leading to its rollout across additional departments at the Roche Pharma site in Germany in 2020. At the leadership level, embodying the "new ways of working" is essential - especially in stressful situations like reorganization phases, which often accompany an agile transformation. What is the greatest challenge from my experience as a former line manager who supported his team with agile methods? Stepping back and letting go to give the team space to grow and develop.
Arndt Schmidtmayer: Exactly: the concept of "Empowerment": the supportive freedom provided by leaders in this Roche OKR transformation program was indeed very motivating and helpful. Some other companies could learn from that. A healthy culture of learning from mistakes helps: being allowed to dare to try new things and not having to get everything perfect the first time. And then you have to stick with it and not be like a client's executive who promises to let the teams do things, only to end up deciding almost everything themselves. It is always a fine line between strictly learning or following agile rules and trying things out independently - as in the Shu-Ha-Ri principle: first learn the recipes (Shu), then try them out yourself (Ha), and only after extensive practice cook your own dishes (Ri).
SpeakersExcellence: How else can decreasing support and agreement from all sides be addressed in agile transformation? Bernhard Höhne: It requires courageous decision-makers on one side and competent colleagues as catalysts on the other side, who empower and support teams and individuals in terms of business agility on an equal footing. The aforementioned purpose plays a key role here: What exactly is the problem and the rationale for a new solution - in terms of clarifying the mission in consideration of the company context. Because the teams or companies have been successful so far, so why all the changes...? Two more things are important: first, start small, learn quickly, and then scale the successes. And second: don't just copy tools & templates without thinking about their relevance and need for adaptation. So don't just do things because a consultant recommended it and it worked well at another company - possibly even in a different industry.
Arndt Schmidtmayer: Among some agile coaches, there was a joke about this: "Have you spotifailed today?" Meaning: Have you imposed the interesting agile models of Spotify on any of your customers and failed as a result? In your OKR implementation, Bernhard, it was also helpful that the leadership initially tried a cycle themselves and set an example; you also ensured the long-term, sustainable anchoring through internal and external agile coaches, as well as through area-specific OKR Masters or OKR Agents in each team, whom I must commend again.
SpeakersExcellence: But that sounds very hierarchical with Masters and Agents...? Arndt Schmidtmayer: Not at all: the collaboration among Masters, Agents, and Coaches should and was absolutely on an equal footing: among other things, joint, regular, and open learning sessions helped us all progress together. And these important supporters of agile transformation topics should not be appointed or named from the top, but should volunteer because they have interest and enthusiasm for it.
Bernhard Höhne: Exactly, Arndt. Without decision-making or command structures, the collaboration of different supporters ensures the avoidance of dangerous half-knowledge and preventing a relapse into old patterns and ways of thinking. Often you hear: "We are not an IT company, so we cannot use this OKR or SCRUM as it is, we have to adapt it." However, the business continues as usual, just with new "fancy names."
SpeakersExcellence: Okay, do you have any other positive or negative examples of what works and what doesn't in agile transformation? Bernhard Höhne: One of our employees actually reported after her two-year maternity leave that she doesn't recognize her old company anymore - in a positive way...! (winks) One of many nice examples: a group of assistants developed a concept for cross-departmental, sustainable collaboration in the spirit of self-organization; the process was accompanied by internal transformation colleagues and now leads to more agile collaboration with a more effective multiplication of knowledge.
Arndt Schmidtmayer: Intervening too early in a patronizing manner by anyone can lead to frustration and demotivation. At the other end of the spectrum, sometimes - also due to dangerous half-knowledge - there are "misuses" of agile methods: for example, the important retrospective as an exchange at the end of a cycle is simply - consciously or unconsciously - "forgotten." Or as I mentioned briefly at the beginning, once a department head said to me: "This agile tool OKR will solve all our shortcomings and problems." Which I had to deny, of course: Agile tools alone are not a magic wand!
SpeakersExcellence: ...and there is no one-size-fits-all solution in agile transformation either? Arndt Schmidtmayer: Indeed, there is no one ready-made recipe, otherwise it would be too deterministic and therefore not agile. (winking) That's what makes it exciting. The OKR goal system with its three-month cycles is very helpful: Firstly, teams constantly ask themselves what they can do in the next 12 weeks for digitalization and agility. And secondly, a well-functioning OKR framework demands and promotes agile collaboration.
Bernhard Höhne: As mentioned at the beginning: it's about creating value for people - both within the company, meaning employees, and outside the company, meaning customers and users. The context of the company is important to gradually approach the transformation in an empirical process control manner, to bring specific optimization ideas into the organization in a timely manner and let them take effect.
