Agile transformations tend to focus on the team and management level. A typical transformation is largely about creating teams, implementing team practices, and implementing management practices. We implement these practices and eliminate obsolete ones with the intent to maintain alignment with Agile values and principles, but also because we have the most access to these areas. It's easier to change something when we have the authority to change it. But what about transformation at the leadership and executive level? How do we transform leaders when our access is limited and there are few practices we can apply to guide their behavior? An Agile transformation cannot exclude leadership. Executives and leaders need to be included as a specific element of a transformation, but they cannot be transformed simply by implementing a set of practices. Mindsets must be transformed. John Krewson, Agile Transformation Lead at MasterCard, identifies the required skills and characteristics of a successful change agent, then outlines an approach for changing mindsets at the leadership level, drawing from personal experience and several change models.

1. Transforming Leaders
John Krewson
MasterCard Worldwide, Inc.

2. How confident are you…
In your ability to change team behaviors?
In your ability to change manager behaviors?
In your ability to change leadership behaviors?
How critical is leadership behavior to
transformation success?
Who’s in the room?

3. Leadership
Management
Teams
Continuous integration
Pair programming
Self-organization
Unit testing
Backlog refinement
Release planning
Portfolio kanban
Retrospectives
Ummmmmmmmmmm…
Be a servant leader?
Simplicity?
Trust?

4. Give them the environment and support they
need, and trust them to get the job done.
Simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount of
work not done – is essential.
The manifesto is silent

5. What do they do?
Grow the business
Increase revenue, decrease expenses
Beat the competition
Optimize
Build a vision
Make decisions

6. Cost focused
Under pressure
Spread thin
Successful
Tensions and disconnects

7. Start Doing, Stop Doing
Start Doing Stop Doing

8. Empirical vs. defined
Principles vs. practices
Products vs. projects
Outcome vs. output
Teams vs. pools
Learning vs. best practices
Discovering vs. bestowing
The Agile Leadership Mindset

9. Empirical vs. CONTROL
Principles vs. CONTROL
Products vs. CONTROL
Outcome vs. CONTROL
Teams vs. CONTROL
Learning vs. CONTROL
Discovering vs. CONTROL
The Agile Leadership Mindset

10. Let’s define leadership.

11. Management is
doing things right;
leadership is
doing the right
things.
Peter Drucker

12. Someone who will
inspire us to be what
we know we could be.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

13. The greatest leader is
not necessarily the one
who does the greatest
things. He is the one that
gets the people to do the
greatest things.
Ronald Reagan

14. Leadership is
the art of
getting
someone else
to do
something
you want
done because
he wants to
do it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

15. Nelson Mandela
A leader...is like a
shepherd. He stays
behind the flock, letting
the most nimble go out
ahead, whereupon the
others follow, not
realizing that all along
they are being directed
from behind.

16. Ralph Nader
I start with the premise
that the function of
leadership is to produce
more leaders, not more
followers.

17. • Empirical vs. CONTROL
• Principles vs. CONTROL
• Products vs. CONTROL
• Outcome vs. CONTROL
• Teams vs. CONTROL
• Learning vs. CONTROL
• Discovering vs. CONTROL
Who’s the leader?

18. Trust.
The opposite of control?

19. Where is trust?
Agile Scrum XP
Individuals and interactions Focus Simplicity
Working Software Courage Courage
Customer Collaboration Openness Communication
Responding to change Commitment Feedback
Respect Respect

20. blah blah blah agile blah blah blah blah ag
blah blah blah blah blah blah agile blah bl
blah blah agile blah blah blah blah blah bl
agile blah blah blah blah agile blah blah b
blah blah blah agile blah blah blah blah ag
blah blah blah blah blah blah agile blah bl
blah blah agile blah blah blah blah blah bl
agile blah blah blah blah agile blah blah b
blah blah blah agile blah blah blah blah ag
blah blah blah blah blah blah agile blah bl
Do something.

21. Effectiveness of words vs actions in establishing trust
words
actions
A simple pie chart

22. What will you do?

23. Trust
Compassion
Stability
Hope
Strengths Based Leadership
Your followers’ requirements

24. From Trust to Transformation

25. Vision
Goal
Communication
Behavior
Emotion
Change Management

26. The Vision
Product Innovative
Operationally Efficient
Customer Intimate
Workshop: The Discipline of Market Leaders

27. Improve quality
Increase speed to market
Reduce waste
Align expectations
Prioritize
Improve morale
The Goal

28. Leading Outside the Lines
Facilitate, don’t execute
Pair
Effective frequency
The Communication

29. Proactive metrics
“Start Doing”
Invent skills
The Behaviors

30. Acknowledge past decisions
Start with Why
The Emotions

31. The first time people look at any given ad, they don't even see it.
The second time, they don't notice it.
The third time, they are aware that it is there.
The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they've seen it somewhere before.
The fifth time, they actually read the ad.
The sixth time they thumb their nose at it.
The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it.
The eighth time, they start to think, "Here's that confounded ad again."
The ninth time, they start to wonder if they're missing out on something.
The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbors if they've tried it.
Effective Frequency
Successful Advertising, Thomas Smith (1885)

32. The eleventh time, they wonder how the company is paying for all these ads.
The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product.
The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value.
The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like this for a long time.
The fifteenth time, they start to yearn for it because they can't afford to buy it.
The sixteenth time, they accept the fact that they will buy it sometime in the future.
The seventeenth time, they make a note to buy the product.
The eighteenth time, they curse their poverty for not allowing them to buy this terrific product.
The nineteenth time, they count their money very carefully.
The twentieth time prospects see the ad, they buy what is offering.
Effective Frequency

33. Switch, Heath
Influencer, Grenny
Leading Change, Kotter
Strengths Based Leadership, Rath
Leading Outside the Lines, Katzenbach
The Discipline of Market Leaders, Treacy
The Future of Management, Hamel
Management 3.0, Appello
Start with Why, Sinek
Mindset, Dweck
Suggested Reading

34. linkedin.com/in/krewson
@johnkrewson
ItemsOnTheLeft.com
Thank you.