Bargains, Transformation, and Taoism.

The Lao-Tzu (or the book of Tao) was written 2500 years ago. It speaks about the essence of agility, about what may help people and organizations of all sorts become more agile, and about what may block it.

In the 6th episode of our Agile-Tao podcast, Peter and I talk about bargains, about what people try to gain in a transformation and what they risk losing in the process. We also take a look at why so many transformations fail and how these failures could have been avoided.

But first, here is the poem:

44. Bargains (xliv)

Some give their lives for an idea,
Some for a payday,
And some to win a game.

Noble causes come at great cost,
And glorious victories, great suffering.
Only harmony comes for free.

To stop when you have enough,
And retire before battle begins,
Incurs neither debt nor dishonour
And pays a long life.

Below are some segments of our discussion, you can listen to it all at this link.

Every change attempt has a reason. These may include ideology (how many of us wave the flag of “Agility”?), a personal gain, or the taste of a political victory. Unfortunately, these are all zero-sum games at their best, and more often than not — the overall loss they inflict is much higher than the gain. And as for the changes they intended to put in place — these are rarely sustainable.

Think of the possible suffering in a ‘Transforming’ organization, where teams are forced to adapt to processes that don’t necessarily make sense for them, where plans are often built in secret and behind closed doors, and where people’s job security and emotional safety may be at risk.

This sort of ‘change’ often causes the organization to be stuck, causes everyone to merely pretend to follow but fills the hearts with disengagement. It also pushes the people who feel at risk to do what they can to revert the change and restore the original order.

Peace, however, comes for free. It generates prosperity and outcomes rather than focusing on local-optimization and outputs, allowing to share success and cooperation while respecting everyone’s needs and contributions.

Peace is not necessarily a place of comfort, it is not a synonym for status-quo. Rather, it is a state where everyone wins, where everyone is included in a system of mutual benefits.

Lao Tzu’s advice is to avoid pushing people beyond reasonable rates of change and of delivery but rather to pull them. To listen to where they are, where their needs lie. To retire before the battles begin.

As change-agents, when the change starts awaking a conflict, we should realize that no side is right or wrong. We must search for the causes of the conflict, looking at the real benefit of the organization and its thruput; otherwise, we will suffer the consequence of change, not being able to help the company through its transformation — we become part of the problem.

No framework or Agile-war is a noble cause. Instead, we should look for long-term sustainable improvements to business thruput and help the organization adapt to changing market conditions — as helping the organization respond to change and thrive is the only bargain worth striking.

We should strive to replace games that are not beneficial for anybody with games that are benefit everybody, winning a long and prosperous life.

A personal after-note:

A great friend commented, after reading this article: That’s all great stuff, but who is courageous enough to live by and embody it?

I don’t think great courage is required, perhaps just a little is enough. If you are in the middle of a huge rollout, and if you see the symptoms I described, you can still affect micro-decisions, you can still divert conflicts into discussions, and you can still contribute your two-cents to clarity and peace, to system self-awareness. This, in turn, may “Incur neither debt nor dishonor, but win a long life.”

You can listen to my full conversation with Peter Merel on your favorite podcasting platform by pressing this link.

As for #TheAgileTao book, you can find it here: https://leanpub.com/agiletao

And finally — a disclaimer:

All opinions expressed in the podcast and this post are our own interpretations of the Lao-Tzu, you are free (and encouraged!) to have your own.