Practices or Principles?
It’s been a wild ride and I’m exhausted! Here’s my final reflections from the wonderful ‘Practical Self-Management’ course from Better Work Together
Gary Hamel once recalled Corinthians “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast…” and contrasted this with reducing love to a set of practices “bring flowers on Friday, put the toilet seat down, cook dinner…”
His point is that practices need deeper principles to underpin them, if you are to bring about lasting change in an organisation.
We’ve been here before
Almost 20 years ago, the Agile Manifesto described the values that supported “better ways of developing software” and the principles underpinning these (including a reference to self-organising teams!) Sadly, many leaders ignore these principles, and think of Agile as a complicated set of practices to get more work done. While great practices like Retrospectives and Sprints survive, the intent and principles of the manifesto are less well known.
Recent criticisms of Valve and Spotify warn us what can happen when organisational practices are optimised for efficiency, without having deeper human principles to underpin them.
It’s easy to fall head-over-heals for a clever analogy, but instead of ‘bring flowers on Friday etc’, what if we agreed to ‘take meals and celebrate together, and to talk regularly and honestly’? With practices that acknowledge some deeper principles, could we possibly create the conditions for love to grow?
Perhaps too much ink has been spilt trying to convince leaders of the need to adopt more human principles. In my time on this course, it’s the practices that have clarified the principles, reminding me that “it’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than think your way into a new way of acting”.
If we want to help organisations make the shift to Self-Management, we cannot simply insert new practices and hope for the best, neither can we assume that with better information, our leaders will see the light.
So what if we double-down on practices that optimise for psychological safety (even over efficiency), and trust that these will guide us towards more human principles?
This third way requires knowledge of the appropriate practices, and the humility, dedication and patience to help them stick. Here’s a reminder (to myself really!) of how I might bring about lasting change:
1. Start by listening
While conversations may be “the smallest currency for change” that currency is easily devalued. Learning to be a better listener is a great place to start, and it’s fundamental to so many other lessons.
So I commit to becoming a better listener, by asking questions that build real understanding, and not steering conversations towards my desired outcome.
2. Mind your language
It’s hard explaining a concept like ‘Self-Management’, and it’s tempting just to throw it out there and expect others to do the work, but this isn’t cool.
So I commit to using language that unites us. Where a new concept needs explaining, I will do this with patience and care.
3. Bias towards action
With so many books, podcasts and forums, it’s easy to get caught up in theories, and I must remind myself that “practice makes perfect!”
So I commit to spend more time trying out the practices that support more fundamental change in our organisations. I’m going to start with more inclusive meeting and decision making techniques.
Final thought
When applied with humility, good practices can soon make a meaningful impact on those around us. With dedication and patience, these practices might even change our organisations. Whatever happens, I’m already a changed human, and the main beneficiary of ongoing practice is surely me.
