Agile Organization explained to my daughter

My 17 years old daughter asked me “dad, what’s your job?”.

Me?: “usually, I say, I’m a consultant”

Daughter: “seriously? That’s super vague.”

Me: “I agree, I don’t want to bother the others with my job”

Daughter: “I told my teachers that your job is to make companies better in performance.”

Me” “That’s a clever explanation. Thank you.”

Daughter: “On the other side, I didn’t told them that you are coach. And a coach, is like a frustrated therapist who wasn’t good at school.”

Me:” Haha, that’s a good one”.

Daughter” “Now, seriously, tell me what you are doing?”

Me: “ Hmm, let me try to keep it simple. I design organizations so people can fully express their talents and the company will make profit from happy customers so they can invest more on their people.”

Daughter” “Cool. You say making profit from people?”

Me:” Good point, yes. If companies don’t make profits, they will be in surviving mode I.e. reactive to situations instead of leading and creating opportunities. There is a relationship between happiness at work and profit. If the workers are doing a work that matters to them, that makes sense, and if they can work directly with the customer, they will provide the best service they can.”

Daughter:”Got it. It is like our favorite restaurant. We are always going there, we are feeling so welcome, you even go chatting with the cook. Feels like a family, and I noticed that you spend more and more money there and now all your friends are going there.”

Me:” Good point again. This restaurant is a great example. It is not pretty, not fashion, but there is something in the air. You know, when they are welcoming us it feels honest not played. Have you seeing how they behave together? Do you know who the boss is? I have the feeling that everyone is the boss here.”

Daughter:”Yes absolutely, Now when you telling it, this sounds weird.”

Me:”Why weird?”

Daughter:” Because, usually the boss is the owner, the one who pays the bills.”

Me:”Why?”

Daughter:”Because it always has been like this.”

Me:” Hmm, the boss is Karen. She is never here. She lives in Australia.”

Daughter:”What? How is this possible?”

Me:” She trust the people to do their best. Once a week and not every week, she calls in and ask if she can help.”

Daughter:”What? How should she know if they are not stealing or getting bankrupt?”

Me:”Good point. She explained the rules of the game. They all have shares of the restaurant. They all know how much to do weekly to be break even and everything is online for her and all the associates.”

Daughter:”That’s insane. Is she some kind of hippie?”

Me:”Haha, not at all. She is a very clever business woman and she opened a dozen other restaurants like that around the world.”

Daughter:”Crazy. How did she get that idea?”

Me:”Your father”

Daughter:”What you?”

Me: “Indeed. We met on a social project in Beyrouth long time ago. My colleague and I were proposing an organizational model to create a free open university for woman who left early school. She liked the concept and asked me if we can transpose this model to a restaurant. I didn’t find any objections to it.”

Daughter:”How come?”

Me:”You know, if you are stuck in the idea of a restaurant, you can’t see how work is organized. So, the main idea was to create an environment where workers are feeling good so they can fully express their talents independently from what kind of kitchen they want to propose, and how big the team might be. One the tricks was to consider Karen as part of the team. So, all the rules for the employees where the same for her.”

Daughter:”Wow, I like that. It sounds to good to be true. How easy is it?”

Me: “And here it comes. It is not easy at all. You have to forget all habits like control, patronizing, waiting that your manager assigns tasks to you…”

Daughter: “I don’t understand. I understand patronizing and I hate when you try to impose something to me. Regards control, how can you measure performance without it? And, tasks assignment, how do you know what to do?”

Me: “You got me with patronizing. For performance, what really matters is the amount of work you deliver during the day. Someday you are a high performer, and some days you don’t. And that’s ok. It is ok because the real value is delivered by the team. If you measure the value delivered by a team, you are reducing the stress when you have your bad days because it will be compensated by another team member. It is a watching your back approach.

?How to know what to do is again the result of a team dynamic. Let’s say you are joining a team that already know what to do, you join the team and work in pairs so you will quickly understand what to do. If you understand the power of collective learning, you will have a key for university next year.”

Daughter:”What?”

Me:”At high school you still have to follow the curriculum that your teacher is providing. At the university, you will become a list of books to read before joining the university, and still at day one, the assumption is that you read it. You won’t have home work, you can attend the course if you like and you have to score in your quarterly exams to pass. Nobody will tell you how to organize your time, what to learn, how to learn. This will be all up to you. One of the tricks is to organize a team around you to learn faster in a more effective manner.”

Daughter: “Got it. How do you call what you are doing?”

Me:”I call it Agile Organizational Design. I help people to become designers of their organizations because it is never the same and you have to rethink the ecosystem in which you are working each time you are serving a new customer, addressing a new challenge, having a new team member or one mate left.”

Daughter: “ Hmm, I thought you were a coach?”

Me: “ I’m indeed a coach. My work is to resonate with people and to coach them towards their goals so the learnings are they own. If I push my knowledge, it will work faster and disappear once I left, and that’s not what I want.”

Daughter: “I’m ok with that. Thanks dad.”

Me:”Sweaty, I know that you want to study psychology at university. I can give you some recommendations or books to read.”

Daughter:”Thanks dad, but you are only a coach.”

Mostly true

From Zürich with love

Pierre