Compassion is the Heart of Agility

If you've been involved in agile development in any way since its creation in 2001, you're undoubtedly aware of this line in the Agile Manifesto:

"...through this work we have come to value individuals and interactions over processes and tools..."

Look at traditional organization teams today and what do you see? You see teams that are not so much properly led as incidentally managed. You see team members who work independently, not collaboratively. Management occurs, often with no clear direction or goals, and with no one taking responsibility for the growth, welfare, and overall health of the team.

"Hey," many managers complain, "I hired adults, not children, because I don't have the time to spend pampering my employees." This is what you could call a recipe for achieving a fantastic level of mediocrity.

Human beings may not need to be pampered, but they do need to be treated with respect. They want to know the work they are doing matters; that there is a purpose to the time and effort they’re spending every day to do the work.

Agile teams require compassionate leaders, and the first step is the realization that your teams are made up of human beings, not (gulp!) "resources."

Compassionate leaders recognize that everybody has important strengths, is a critical part of the team, and works to ensure everyone has what they need for success.

The key to being successful as a leader in an agile organization is realizing that it’s your teams that do the most valuable work. It is, therefore, important that you spend less time on activities that could be delegated or dumped and prioritize far more of your time to taking care of your teams. 

Compassionate leadership results in:

• significantly higher employee engagement and improved collaboration

• lower employee turnover rates

• the leader being viewed as strong

Employee DISengagement costs US companies $500 billion in lost productivity annually and research has shown that companies with engaged employees perform 200% better than companies where employee disengagement runs at the national average of 55%.

Agility demands compassionate leadership and only organizations who learn how to teach their employees (not JUST their management and leaders, but everyone) how to lead compassionately will succeed in the 21st century.

Here's what you might consider doing to create a truly agile and successful organization and to become a truly compassionate leader:

1. Recognize that the valuable work of your organization is done by the teams, not by management. Reorient your HR policies and procedures to that reality.

2. Comprehend emotional intelligence. This means, in part, to learn how to empathize with others, how to listen and support others, and how to be more self aware at the same time. Immediately begin by breaking the Golden Rule ("treat others as you would like to be treated") and replace it with a new, better one: "Treat others as THEY would want to be treated."

3. Keep your teams on a diet of continuous learning. Work with your teams to create a learning plan for each team and every individual. Ensure that every iteration (or sprint) includes a learning goal for the team and for individuals on the team. Ensure that learning isn't just done, it's proven. A learned skill should be demonstrable.

4. Resist the urge to fix blame when something goes wrong; get your teams focused on solving problems and learning from mistakes. Trying to figure out who is responsible for a problem is a waste of time; if someone's performance isn't up to par, you should already know where the problem is.

5. Don't be afraid to move people into different roles if you believe they can play to their strengths better in another role. Likewise, don't be afraid to change the people on a team when the mission or purpose of the team changes.

Related Webinar: High-Performance Teams: Core Protocols for Psychological Safety and Emotional Intelligence 

Compassionate leadership isn't easy. No matter how you feel about someone, including yourself, every human being, by their very existence, is a unique and amazing accomplishment. They are deserving of your respect.

Compassionate leadership is essential to agility. If you value "individuals and interactions," you must do what needs to be done to create and nurture truly collaborative and essential interaction.

Looking for more tips on how to imrpove your leadership skills? Explore the Agile Leadership resources 

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About the Author

For more than 35 years, Jim Schiel has been leading teams, managing businesses, and teaching others to create high value outcomes in safe, highly productive work environments. This has given Jim the unique opportunity to investigate ways to motivate, innovate, and educate employees and coworkers, discarding the less effective approaches and honing the practices that work. He’s gained broad international training experience in diverse workplaces and heavily regulated industries, including healthcare and finance. Having seen the physical and mental damage that can be done by poor leadership and toxic work environments, Jim is Founder & CEO or Artisan Agility and dedicates his life to helping others build vibrant, successful businesses that provide value to their customers and create innovative, challenging work environments for their employees.