Agile Know-How Magazine • Fall 2017
Special collaboration
Mission. Values. Meaning.
Professional environments are more
and more characterized by uncertainty
and the unexpected.
I
f I have understood the work of business managers correctly,
their job is just about the simplest in the world because we only
ask one thing of them: to guarantee results. The only problem
is that nowadays, it’s about guaranteeing results in a world
where there are fewer and fewer guarantees on means.
A lot of people find themselves torn between this type of
expectation for results and the absence of guarantee on the
means. And in a world that has become uncertain, businesses’
traditional approaches are no longer working.
The purpose
I profoundly believe that the base—the foundation—is
constructed from the meaning and the mission. It’s not about
answering the question “what,” that is to say, “what do we have
to do?” Nor is it about answering the question: “how are we
going to do it?” The question is “why?” And not “why,” the
cause, but rather “why,” the purpose. In other words, what is
our mission?
An efficient organization is one that has a true mission. Some-
thing that goes beyond what we have to do, to achieve, and
to prod uce, and that serves a greater purpose that will bring
everyone together around something that carries values. When
I say “something that carries values,” it’s about true, noble and
embodied values. Making sure that people’s values and the
organization’s values are aligned will create an extraordinary
force within the teams.
The necessity to be Agile
The second thing we need after the mission is the ability to
be Agile. In other words, an organization must be able to take
action, plan, develop, test, and verify that a strategy works,
and then implement it when needed. Because in an uncertain,
complex and changing environment, and considering the time
it takes for the process to happen, the best case scenario is that
we will have products that correspond exactly to what we had
decided in the beginning, but that no longer correspond to
what we actually need.
If there is something unexpected, such as a change in the
environment, in the end what we had planned is no longer
applicable. We thus need to be Agile and to plan action in short
cycles with quick feedback. It’s about establishing iterative and
incremental processes. We constantly need to adapt.
In a world where the organization’s environment would only
change once in a while, we could produce or sell to the best
of our ability, and once in while, have a Change Management
Project to realign the organization with the needs of the envi-
ronment. However, if we do that in a world of constant change,
as soon as the project ends our new organization starts to be
out of synch with what we need.
Today, in a world of constant change, our work is to do what
we have to do and adapt at the same time. If my work is to
produce, I don’t produce from Monday to Thursday and then
take care of quality only on Friday. What I do is I produce
from Monday to Friday, and there is a transversal process that
takes care of quality. In a world of continuous change, I need
to produce while changing the way I produce. Changing is a
transversal process, just like quality is. If I am a salesperson, I
need to sell and change the way I sell on a daily basis.
When I am moving forward on a glacier, if the terrain is flat
and crevassed, I need to keep the rope very long and tight
between my partner and I. If the glacier is really steep, or if
we are on an icy slope, the rope between us needs to be really
short. If I am on a flat glacier and I am getting near a steep
slope, I will not wait to be at the foot of the slope to make
a change and adjust the rope. I anticipate. I observe what is
in front of me, and as I move forward, I change the way I
progress. I gradually shorten the rope so that when I get to the
ledge, the rope is already short and we can move on fluidly.
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