Clean Language: #1 Way to Fix Poor Team Communication

01/15/18 • 36 min

"You want happy staff. You become more productive as the manager because you don't have to deal with the hassles." - Judy Rees Today on Lean Agile Management Podcast, we're talking to Judy Rees about effective communication in complex environments to learn how to improve team communication at work using a method called Clean Language. From the famous feedback sandwich to the Nonviolent Communication method, managers everywhere are eager to find an effective way to overcome the communication hurdles of a modern workplace. Different cultural backgrounds, distributed and remote teams make it even harder for contributors and managers to communicate effectively. Having poor communication in teams leads to misunderstandings and conflicts. Insufficient or ineffective communication is reported to have a direct effect on employee engagement, high employee turnover, and can even be the reason behind missed goals. Together, all these side effects lead to stress and anxious people are even harder to communicate with. Sounds like a vicious circle, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t it be great, if we could just glimpse into someone else's mind and just see why they do things the way they do? See what kind of meanings hide behind the words people say. The answer you’re looking for might be the Clean Language method. To understand what that is and how to use it, we’ve invited Judy Rees - a public speaker, trainer, and consultant as well as a co-author of a bestselling book called Clean Language: Revealing Metaphors and Opening Minds. Clean Language is a method initially devised by David Grove to help therapy clients explore their inner thoughts. In essence, it’s a very specific precision inquiry technique that’s built on the idea of probe request and response. The ultimate goal is to find out what it is that somebody really means by what they're saying even when they don't know themselves. The key points covered in the episode: The biggest challenge for modern management How to communicate effectively in highly unstable and complex environments Boosting team morale, company profits, and manager’s well-being with good communication What is Clean Language and how can it help you deal with business challenges? Giving feedback and understanding problematic employees Importance of effective communication (listening) skills in conflict resolution How to learn what's necessary for people to work at their best. Further Reading: “How to create a collaborative culture?” “Clean Language: Revealing Metaphors And Opening Minds” - book by Judy Rees How Do Agile Practitioners Benefit From Learning Clean Language? “From Contempt to Curiosity” - book by Caitlin Walker Shared leadership and self-organized teams Contact our guest: LinkedIn Twitter Website

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Business Agility is not an option. It’s a matter of business survival.

“Business Agility is not an option. It’s a matter of business survival.” - Jose Casal Will your business be around in 10 years or will you be replaced by a newcomer? How long does it take for your business to deliver a new product from the idea to the market? If questions like these make you worried, it's probably time to talk about business agility. This time on Lean Agile Management Podcast, we are talking to Jose Casal, who is a Business Agility Coach with experience working in both private and public sectors. Jose is a public speaker, chairman of the Agile Methods Specialist Group at BCS Chartered Institute for IT and is the founder of Actineo Consulting. Business Agility is not an option. It’s a matter of business survival. In this episode: Understanding what Business Agility means in practical terms Flow & Fit for purpose Learning Impact People 3 Myths of Product Development vs 3 Facts of Agile Business Practices Myth: Customers know what they want. Fact: The customers discover what they want as they go Myth: We know how to build it. Fact: We only have an approximate idea of what we want to do. We don't know how we're going to deliver until you actually deliver. Myth: Nothing's going to change. Fact: Everything will change. We should be expecting change. Culture of Discovery and Learning The toxicity of "Follow me" culture vs discovering the right solution dynamically through discovery In an Agile business, you need to be learning constantly. How are you learning? Managers should be the agile engine of learning and experimentation culture. Allow people to make mistakes. The importance of psychological safety to make mistakes and let people try things. Little by little. Problems vs Solutions In traditional management and IT education, we are schooled to be constantly looking for solutions. Stop thinking about the solutions. First, we need to be better at understanding the problems, asking about the needs before we start offering solutions. How to achieve business agility? Which method is best? Forget the methods - this is going back to thinking about a solution but what's the problem that you are trying to solve with that? Why do we need to change? What's the better kind of world are you chasing? We need a regular re-evaluation of our strategy. Traditional strategy lacks reflection, adaptation, engagement of the people who are delivering the change The hardest thing to change in an organization is not the culture, process, or boss. How to approach change management as an agile business? How can I encourage others to change? How can I get people to do things differently? Missing out on Business Agility - the answer for the skeptics Skipping agile? This is the start of a eulogy of your company Old banks vs Agile financial companies. Who wins? Much smaller firms, which are fast to deliver, perform quick experiments are disrupting centuries-old banks These little industry disruptors are out there to kill you and they will No, it's not the matter of the industry. Banking, insurance and automotive industries are all going agile with or without you The future of business is agile by default. Business agility is not just an option anymore.

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Portfolio Kanban: When It's Time to Scale Up

Is team Kanban really enough to achieve Business Agility? If you already practice Kanban, you are probably enjoying the visibility and efficiency it brings on the team level. However, the joys of having agility in a siloed team wear off quickly if the rest of the organization is inefficient and slow. The answer? Let me introduce you to Portfolio Kanban. Today on Lean Agile Management Podcast, we're talking about scaling Kanban to the organizational or the project portfolio level. Some like to say that Kanban is just for small teams. Our guest proves them wrong, as he works with groups as large as 1800 people. In this episode, you will learn how to apply Kanban end-to-end at the system level. We're talking today to Nader Talai, who is a professional IT manager, the organizer for the London Limited WIP Society and Business Agility Consultant at Value Glide. In this episode, he walked us through a range of hot topics about scaling Kanban to the portfolio level and making this a change that lasts. Here are the key questions we've covered: How to make Business Agility a change that lasts? Stop focusing on practices and labels, think about the outcomes and results you are trying to achieve using Kanban or any other tool. Nader tells us how to adopt Portfolio Kanban with the positive outcomes and lasting change in mind. What causes a high rate of expedite tasks and how to deal with them When your team is constantly putting out fires, you need to ask yourself what's the reason behind all of the expedite tasks? Nader walks us through the root cause behind the endless stream of "urgent" tasks. Is Kanban effective only for small teams? Myth or reality? What kind of teams can benefit from Kanban? How can we use Kanban on portfolio level? How to do less as an organization to achieve more? Is it possible to effectively limit work in progress on the organizational level? How to achieve work predictability at the portfolio level with Kanban Pull? The unexpected downsides of high resource utilization While it might seem like the most logical thing to do, aiming for 100% resource utilization (aka keeping everyone and everything busy) can be bad for your organization. We discussed how Portfolio Kanban lets us focus on and manage the Flow of work instead of simply keeping people busy. Kanban planning: how to set up realistic goals and expectations With all the great promises Agile and Lean worlds offer, you might be tempted to "account for it" in your goal setting process. Nader brings up the topic of setting up the right expectations in Kanban planning. Adopting Portfolio Kanban: how to get top management buy-in? Convincing stakeholders that changing the way teams or whole organizations work is not the easiest of tasks. In the interview, you'll learn how to get the top management buy-in for practicing Pull principle and Portfolio Kanban. Looking for more on the topic of Portfolio Kanban and scaling Kanban to the company level? Here are some useful resources on the topic: What is Portfolio Kanban? Implementing a Kanban Roadmap What are WIP limits and how to use them to boost productivity How to Set and Manage WIP Limits on Portfolio Level Understanding Pull Systems Did you find out something new? What should we ask our next guest and who should it be? Let us know down in the comments.