Dr. Steve Mayner

My name is Dr. Steve Mayner. I am a SAFe Fellow and principal consultant at Scaled Agile, the company that brought you SAFe.

Today's session is a continuation of a conversation that we've been having at these conferences for the last several years.

Quick check: how many of you have been either in a session or have caught a video online around the transformational leadership conversation we've been having at the conference the last few years? Raise of hands.

Okay, thank you for that feedback.

We'll spend just a minute. In this session, I'm not going to go deep into the transformational leadership model. If you want more info on that, I'll point you back to, I would recommend, last year's keynote at the San Francisco conference, where I go deeper into the different elements of transformational leadership, where it came from, all of that kind of good stuff.

This session is not that. So I'm going to put this up on the screen. Read quickly, because we're going to have an opportunity to interact with this. Let me give you a little bit of the backstory, and then we're going to go right into some of our exercises.

Gene and I have known each other for quite a while. He followed my journey through my doctoral research on transformational leadership and organizational change. And a couple of years ago at the conference, he asked me to introduce it. That was cool, did that. Last year, talked on it.

This year, at the Leaders Forum that he does each year with the speakers at the conferences, he said, "Steve, you've made this interesting claim from the research that these behaviors, that transformational leader behaviors, can actually be learned. It's not in our DNA. We don't either have it or don't have it. You can actually learn to do it."

And I said, "Yes, Gene, that's what the science says."

He says, "Well, here's the deal. I want you to prove it."

So at this year's forum in April, he gave me a 90-minute block and said, "Teach us this." And so we did. A great time.

So for this conference, I had a whole other talk prepared, and he calls me about a month ago and says, "Steve, remember that thing that you did in April? I'd like for you to do that in London, but you only have 30 minutes."

So yes, I'm going to make you all transformational leaders in 30 minutes.

No.

My kung fu is not quite that strong.

But we are going to have just some rapid-fire experiential things to demonstrate and just whet your appetite enough to know that yes, in fact, you can learn to lead in a way that fosters a positive response to organizational change.

And how many of you have seen, if we do lean, Agile, DevOps, this drives what?

Change? Yes? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It challenges our existing culture, yes, in every survey you want to look at. So it's very important, if we want to succeed in our transformation, how we lead matters.

And that really is sort of the two nuggets that I got out of the research: that how leaders lead actually has a greater impact on the success or failure of change than any particular change model. Science says that. And second, that these behaviors can be learned.

All right? So we're going to experience that today, at least a little taste of it, and then at the end, I'll talk about what we're doing to have a richer experience and some ways that you can interact with that.

So you guys ready?

Yes.

That was pretty weak. Let's try that again. You guys ready?

Yes!

Okay, fantastic. Well, let's begin.

You'll notice from the picture I gave you earlier, there are four quadrants, four different areas of behaviors. We're going to talk about the first one now, and then I'm going to give you an exercise.

The first one is vision. One of the competencies of a transformational leader is the ability to inspire and motivate followers by communicating a clear and compelling vision of the future. It's answering the why question.

If you follow Simon Sinek, Start With Why, right? This particular generation, technical practitioners, they need to know the why.

So how do you do that? There's some things we've learned about what it takes to build this competency. You need to grow your ability to communicate in simple, brief, appealing kinds of terms, things that will pique people's interest and they'll want to engage with it.

We also know that science tells us some things about, for instance, frequency. Have you heard how many times we have to hear a vision before we actually internalize it? There's actually a number, mostly. Most studies are kind of in the seven range. So we have to repeat the vision over and over again. People don't get it just once.

We also know that we have to use different varieties and forms of communication. Verbal is not the only way we can communicate. You've got verbal, you've got visual. Other people learn by interacting. So you can't just communicate it one time, one way. It's many times, many ways.

Two-way engagement. One of the things that is a fallacy about a visionary leader and communicating vision is that it only comes from the top. What we promote is: engage the entire organization in a two-way conversation about what that vision should be, and people will own it much more if they're a part of it.

And then, we are a storytelling culture. We have been for thousands of years. So when we engage in stories and metaphors and pictures, it helps reinforce the learning rather than just a written message or a verbal message.

Okay? So that's just a brief little capsule about this whole topic of how you communicate vision.

So guess what? We're going to practice.

Here we go. I warned you. For those that are late, I'm sorry. The warning came earlier. This is an interactive session.

What I'd like for you to do now is find somebody next to you. That's probably, in this format, going to be the easiest thing. Yes, it would be great if you could pair with somebody over there, but logistically that doesn't quite work out.

So pick someone right next to you, and here is your challenge. With the pair partner that you pick, what you are going to do is you're going to pick some element of the organization that you currently work for that you are passionate about. You're going to craft a one-minute elevator speech about why it is that that really jazzes you.

I'm going to give you a minute to think about it, put it together, and then you're going to share it with your pairing partner, and you're going to have one minute. I'm going to put a clock up. That's all you get.

Everybody got it?

Yep.

So you get to practice it. All right? Take a minute, think about it. I'm going to put a timer up, and then you're going to do it.

And time.

Hello.

All right.

We're going to have to do something to get you guys to talk a little bit more. That was really hard to get you going. No. Great job. Excellent.

All right, let's move on. The lower quadrant in the picture I showed you earlier. So we did vision, now let's talk about authenticity.

Authenticity is that attribute of the leader who walks the talk. They have that role model aspect. They act with ethical, honest integrity kind of thing. People want to follow somebody who has authenticity, that they can trust.

So the key attributes about authentic leadership. First of all, authentic leaders are self-aware. They know their strengths. They know their weaknesses. They're transparent. They're comfortable in their own skin talking about both their strengths and weaknesses, which means when they make a mistake, they own up to it. That's a key attribute that builds trust in the leader.

Transparency about their learning journey. Their walk matches their talk. It's not a "do as I say and not as I do." They actually model that behavior for the rest of the organization.

And then, of course, definition of integrity: doing the right thing even when no one is watching. That's what being authentic is all about.

So now we're going to practice. I told you this was going to be fun.

Here's what we're going to do. I want you to think. We're going to make it a little tougher now. I want you to think of a time when you had some type of failure, embarrassing moment, or you just screwed something up, and you're going to share it with another person.

Now, this comes right from the course I'll talk about in a minute. I use a sketch because sometimes that makes it easier for people to talk about a failure or embarrassing moment. We're time-compressed here, so you don't have to do that.

Again, you'll take one minute each. So pick something out and just practice. Hey, it's okay. This is a safe environment. Nobody's going to think less of you. Nobody's going to critique you. Just being honest about, "Hey, I really messed that one up."

It's a skill of authenticity that transformational leaders have.

So again, with your pairing partner, think about what you're going to share. Each person gets one minute. Are you ready?

All right, let's do that exercise again, and this is now what you're going to do. Two minutes on the clock. On your mark. Get set, and go.

Five, four, three, two, one, time.

All right. Now, that wasn't so bad, was it? I didn't see anybody spontaneously combust. It was all good, right?

So that's a skill. That's a capability, to have that transparency. And you know what? Transparency builds trust, and we need trust if we're going to do this kind of organizational change that DevOps requires.

Now, the first two of those, those bottom quadrants, were really about the leader leading themselves. The first person you have to lead is you. You have to lead yourself before you can lead other people.

But then we do have the opportunity to lead teams. That's going to get us into our next quadrant, which is about leading others.

One of the first things we talk about in transformational leaders in leading other people is transformational leaders are committed to growing other people. And one of the thought leaders that we use for this topic comes from David Marquet. If you've read his book, Turn the Ship Around!, you're familiar with his story. Very, very powerful about what does it take to grow other leaders.

So instead of leaders being in charge, the mantle of leadership is growing other leaders.

How do you do that? Well, he talks about two elements. The first is competence. You can't just empower people and say, "You're empowered to make this decision," and then walk away. Doesn't work that way. You have to invest and grow in them the capability to have the competence to make those decisions. That's the charge for the leader.

So specifying goals, giving intent, continuously repeating that message, creating an environment where it's safe to fail, where you can grow those competencies without feeling like, "I can't take risk." Giving guiding principles, that's part of the equipping.

The competence is setting some guardrails, some boundaries, some things that they can use to make sound decisions, and then, of course, be there to support them in that process. That's about the competence.

And then the organizational clarity is the other thing you have to do to have decentralized decision-making, so that they understand what are the parameters, what's the goal, where are we going, what's the objective of the organization. So as they now have that ability to exercise their leadership, they're doing it in the context of where the organization is trying to go.

And again, I love this quote from David. He talks about, "We are shifting away from taking control and attracting followers to giving control and growing leaders."

That's the mental shift we're making here. All right?

So guess what you get to do next? We're going to practice. Again, I want you to pair, and we're going to do a little role play here.

The way this is going to work is person number one in your pair is a team member, and they have a decision that they need to make, and they're not sure that they can make that decision.

Now, we're going to assume for the moment that person number one has the technical competence. They have everything they need to make this decision. They just don't have the confidence.

Person number two in your pair, you're the leader. And you're going to listen to what they... They're coming to you like, "What should I do?" And you're going to try to, instead of just telling them what to do, use some powerful questions and see if you can help them understand that they actually have the answer already, and that you have the confidence in them to make that decision.

So I know it's a very compressed time, but this is what we do in the course I'll talk to you in a minute about.

Based on time constraints, we're not going to be able to flip. So whoever person one is, is the team member. Person two is the leader, and you're just going to get to see what this conversation might look like.

All right? Everybody got it?

So set your pairs. Think about your scenario.

All right?

Now, two minutes on the clock. On your mark, get set, and go.

And time.

Let's come back.

Oh, boy, you guys got really started on that one.

Okay. Woo-hoo.

Thank you very much. All right. Boy, there was a lot of energy in that one. I think we touched on a nerve there.

All right. One more to go.

Not only in leading others do we need to commit to their growth, but we also need to unleash them to their creativity and their innovative power to really create differentiating solutions for our organization.

Conceptualizing innovation, it's the ability to foster innovation through high-performing teams that challenge status quo and create differentiating solutions.

It's great that we grow the people, but then we've also found that creating high-performing teams is really how we make the difference. Great individuals are, for sure, but working together in teams so you've got that creative synergy is absolutely essential.

So how does the leader create the environment that allows and fosters high-performing teams? And of course, in the State of DevOps surveys for the last several years, we've been talking about the attributes of high-performing teams. So we know this conversation.

The role of the leader is to create the environment where that fosters. It's about creating the space and the time to allow that creativity to happen. We know that face-to-face communication is powerful, the synergy of being co-located, if at all possible. If not, you have the technology that allows that to happen.

But allowing the time, whether it's the Google 20% or whatever metaphor you want to use, if you do not create the time that allows that to happen, it's the tyranny of the urgent. There's always one more feature, always one more story, always one more thing to deliver. And when do we have the time to really let that creative conversation and work happen? Well, if we don't set the time aside for it, it won't.

Decentralizing decision, truly empowering and emancipating, as David Marquet talks about, for people to use that creative energy, and creating also the environment where it's okay to say, "Why are we doing that? Yeah, I know that's the way we've usually done it, but is there a better way?"

So having that in, obviously, a respectful way, but saying it's okay to challenge the status quo. It's okay to look for a different way of doing things. And again, the leader creates the environment that fosters that kind of creativity.

So in our last interaction, in our two-minute time box, we're going to think about the organizational context that you are in today. Does that environment you're in today foster innovation or not?

Okay? So with your pairing, talk about that, and what suggestions might you have and your pairing partner that you could go back and maybe help catalyze a better environment that allows innovation to flow.

All right? So that's our last time box. I'll put time on the clock. There's your conversation. On your mark, get set, go.

Five, four, three, two, one, and time.

Hello.

All right. This is a lively bunch. Once I get you started, I can't get you to stop. That's awesome.

All right. Great conversations.

Obviously, what you just got was a tiny little taste of how this works. If you go back and look at last year's keynote I mentioned before, I talked in San Francisco about an experience I had building out something much larger than 30 minutes, that we did in my last company to create an immersion experience for our leadership corps, about the top 400 leaders in the company, and how it really transformed the entire corporation through this experience that we took them through, and could we recreate that.

Well, since last November, we in fact have. I just took a very large media and entertainment company, their top-level leaders, through it, and I'm going to the next level in July and August. Just testing the hypothesis: can we recreate this kind of experience that we do over the course of actually six weeks, three full days, three half days, and those experiential kinds of interactions and videos and all kinds of stuff that we put in there?

And it ends, the cool thing, and this is what the group said was the most powerful part of it, is we end with this adaptive challenge. An adaptive challenge is something that's facing the organization that requires a solution, something we don't know what the answer is. And every single member of the leadership team picked an area in their company that was an adaptive challenge, that they could immediately take these skills and competencies they just learned and apply it directly to some type of opportunity or challenge within the company.

Pretty cool.

And the results, I'll let this scroll up on the screen. You can read them for yourselves. It was pretty amazing.

So as we wrap up here, this is the end of the time box. The next slide you'll see Gene's typical, what's the help I'm looking for or thing I'm trying to learn.

We need more experiments. We need more companies that would be willing to go on this journey and see, can we truly transform the leadership language and culture and approach and mindset, so that we have this powerful synergy of a leadership cadre driving change, driving the transformation to whatever industry you're in and whatever your challenge is in front of you.

And so if you're interested in that, there's my digits. That's how you can find me. I would love to talk to you further. You can come find me in our booth out on the floor, and that's kind of it.

So 30 minutes went by pretty fast, didn't it? Thank you guys for coming. If you have any questions. We're out of our time box, I think. So thank you very much for coming.