:AACE CERTIFICATION 2009-2010:

Interesting development in the two weeks since all disbanded from the workshop in Jakarta and returned to their individual cocoons of daily activities and routine. Reflecting on the result of the team development stage assessment it is easy to comprehend why many have seen the team at the performing stage. Performance is certainly given, but it is with the individuals and not with the team. What we are experiencing is very much the behavior of “free radicals”, all raging into different directions, which of course from the view point of the individual certainly make sense.
For millennia leadership was coping with above effect with clear hierarchical structures trying to give a clear “sense of direction[1]” to the free radicals, making sure all are moving (or pulling) in the same direction. That kind of structure also required a very close (physical) collaboration between individual and leadership, often reflected in a temporary or even sometimes permanent collocation for project teams.
And here we see the challenge of today’s working environment with globally distributed, highly volatile matrix organizations, where accountability often has a very blurry nature. While the basic motivation for companies to move towards new forms of organization structures often lies in the demand to act more flexible to new requirements or changes in demographics and market environments I strongly believe that changing organization structures and communication methods (e.g. new IT tools – such as Blogs) alone. In reference to Lau’s Blog #2 below and his citation of Keith McFarland - The Right People vs. Getting the People Right, regarding what management really needs to do is put less emphasis on getting the "right people" and more on getting the "people right" I certainly would also see the major challenge of all organizational transformations in exactly that point.

How to apply this learning first thing on Monday morning would be to multi-million dollar question (and I would not need to sit here Saturday night’s, writing philosophical blogs in preparation for my AACE certification … ;-)

Certainly the learning to share will be the fact that again it seems to be proven that any kind of successful undertaking, at least in the geographical and cultural domain of Asia (I won’t exclude other parts of the Globe from this statement, but I am certainly only able to reflect on Asia through my own experience), is fully dependent on a strong voice of leadership, making sure that the common direction is clearly heard, understood and adhered to by all team members. Management by objective, if the objective is too general and/or leaves too much room for interpretation, will certainly lead to massive double or even triple work as well as friction in between the team(s) working on the objectives. Following the red tape of my analyses and assessment of Agile Management in our environment and its general application in the Telco industry I would likely tend to the first conclusion that this type of management style will certainly require a much higher “maturity” of each individual within the (project) organization – again the challenge to get the people right rather than getting the right people (which of course does have as well its relevance in building a mature team/organization).

For the better part of the ongoing certification program Chris and I will have to become the voice of leadership to be heard, understood and adhered to ….

Klaus
Back in Singapore

[1] to lead according Concise Oxford English Dictionary: ▶ be a route or means of access to a particular place; ▶ be someone's reason or motive for; ▶ the one who gives the direction