A Research Paper By Ying Shing Wai, Agile Coach, HONG KONG
Agile Transformation Through Professional Coaching
Under the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) environment, the effective response to the external changes becomes the inevitable challenge in all companies’ survival. Therefore, the companies are doing Agile Transformation to transit an entire organisation into a nimble and reactive approach. Before the transitions, the actions, and the decisions, the starting point is raising awareness in the senior management. Next, senior management formulates the vision and spreads the strategies to the rest of the colleagues. Then, the colleagues have to be aware of the new direction and perform the new way of working.
Without awareness, taking the internal or external changes into an employee’s account is low and random. So, raising awareness is one of the success factors of Agile Transformation in terms of velocity and precision.
In this paper, we focus on the “What” creates awareness and “How” to trigger awareness in the professional coaching in Agile Transformation. Instead of applying different Agile ways of working into processes, the sustainable way is to change the mindset with Agile values and principles.
Literature Review VUCA Environment
VUCA is the short form of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity.
- Volatility means the quality and the state are changing without expectation. The characteristic of Volatility is that nothing is expected or stable in an unknown duration. But, the situation is not difficult to understand.
- Uncertainty means the future situation is not sure. The characteristic of Uncertainty is that the causes and effects are not known easily as the information is not sufficient. Change is not a given but possible.
- Complexity means the state is hard to understand and answer as the state has many connected parts. The characteristic of Complexity is that the volume or nature of the interconnected units and variables is overwhelming to get an overview of how things are related.
- Ambiguity means there are more than one possible meaning and possible causes of confusion in understanding the fact. The characteristic of Ambiguity is that casual relationships are unclear. No precedents exist and cause an “Unknown unknown” situation.
As a result, “The One Way” and “The Management Tool” are no longer the only answer. Under crucial observation and examination, considering all experiences, paradigms, and dogmas is essential for making decisions. So, a clear picture, transparent interconnections, focusing on what counts and building up resilience through flexibility are helping the organisation to go through the VUCA environment.
Agile Transformation
Agile Transformation means that the entire organisation transits processes to a nimble and reactive approach based on Agile values and principles. So, the organisation can change quickly or deal with the new situation successfully. Instead of reaching the goal in one step, the organisation walks through a journey with a series of changes.
As the Agile Transformation is a spanning years process for full implementation, it needs full executive buy-in and consistent leadership to realise the benefits. Otherwise, all the efforts will be faded. Moreover, continuing commitment, understanding the urgency, and communicating the values to every employee are critical factors for success.
Moreover, Agile Transformation is a company culture change. Employees change their way of working in terms of development, cooperation between departments and collaboration within the hierarchy. The employees can solve the problems differently and independently through continual coaching and personal development.
Awareness
Awareness is the knowledge and understanding of an existing particular situation, subject, activity or something based on the present information or experience. It is one of the essential ingredients of developing belief and a key indicator of success in different performance environments. Whether the view is positive or negative, being aware helps to generate insight. It will give the knowledge and information to discover the directions and actions for making changes, improvements, and success. Awareness also helps to switch the inhibiting belief and use it as a positive action. Then, a person can be proactive rather than reactive if the issue is broken down specifically and peeled away the layers deeply. So, the evaluation of the beliefs and the behaviours can be precise.
Three elements that have to be aware of:
- You: It is about the strengths, weaknesses, personality, motivation, and similar items.
- Environment: It is about the culture, big picture, directions, relationships, unique factors of the best chance of success, more and not limited to the physical environment.
- Competitor: It is about the primary competitors, their strengths and weaknesses, and everything around them.
Self-Awareness and the Archetypes
Among three Awareness elements, the starting point is “You” (“Self”). The research discovered that a person is more creative and confident when the person sees himself (herself) clearly. Therefore, making sounder decisions, building stronger relationships, and communicating more effectively are foreseeable results. It leads to more effective leaders, more satisfied employees, and more-profitable companies.
There are two types of self-awareness: internal self-awareness and external self-awareness. Internal self-awareness means how clearly to see the owned value, passions, aspirations, fit with the environment, reactions and impact on the others of that person. On the other hand, external self-awareness means understanding how other people see that person. It leads to showing more skilled empathy and taking others’ perspectives. It tends to have a better relationship with colleagues, feel more satisfied with employees, and see teammates as more effective.
By extending the levels (high and low) of external and internal self-awareness, there are four self-awareness archetypes found:
| Low External Self-Awareness | High External Self-Awareness | |
| Low Internal Self-Awareness |
SEEKERS They don’t yet know who they are, what they stand for, or how their teams see them. So, they might feel stuck or frustrated with their performance and relationships. |
PLEASERS They focused on appearing in a certain way to others that they could be overlooking what matters to them. As a result, they tend to make choices that are not in service of their success and fulfilment over time. |
| High Internal Self-Awareness |
INTROSPECTORS They know who they are but do not challenge their view or search for blind spots by getting feedback from others. As a result, they are damaging their relationships with limited success. |
AWARE They know who they are, what they want to accomplish and seek out and value others’ opinions. They begin to realise truly and benefit fully from self-awareness. |
The Prosci ADKAR Model
“ADKAR” is an acronym for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement are five outcomes an individual needs to achieve for a chance to be successful. This model believes that organisational change can only happen when individuals change. A person could change by guiding a particular issue and addressing any roadblocks or barrier points along the way.
To achieve a change, each person may be facing different types of potential challenges and resisting factors in each outcome:
|
Outcome |
Potential Challenges and Resisting Factors |
|
Awareness |
|
| Desire |
|
| Knowledge |
|
| Ability |
|
| Reinforcement |
|
MORE – Professional Coaching Model
The MORE coaching model is to help the clients to reorganise their status and find out their way in complex situations to improve their performance. Here is the description of each component in this model:
| Component | Description |
|
Mission |
It is the long-term result that a person, a company or an organisation is trying to achieve through its plans or actions. |
|
Option |
It is a thing in a set of possibilities that the client can choose freely. |
|
Expectation |
It is a feeling or belief that something will or should happen. |
|
Relevance |
It is a connection between things with what is happening and discussing. This connection is not limited to people and tasks. It can be materials, relationships, interactions, behaviours, emotions, mindsets, values, etc. |
This model is to bridge “Mission” and “Expectation” through “Option” and “Relevance” under the raised issue’s context. Through exploring the components, creative and innovative ideas could reveal and accomplish the mission within the expectations.
Awareness in the Traditional Organisation
There is nothing permanent except change. Heraclitus
In a traditional organisation, lower tiers make Real Change. The low-level managers were aware of the need for changes from middle-level management. The middle-level managers, who were aware of the changes from top-level management, initialise the system changes, performance indicators, and inter-group works. The top-level managers, who were aware of the changes in the market, direct the vision, directions, strategies, and policies. The market keeps changing and impacting the customers even if the company does not notice.
In the ideal situation (Scenario A), the market change triggers the organisational change straightly. The communication and transition of awareness go through each layer directly. But, generally, Scenario B is what we are experiencing with delay, clarification, feedback, confirmation, and others between different layers and people. The lead time of changes will be unpredictable. Then, the organisation may miss the chance to improve the business.
Awareness in the Agile Organisation
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often. Winston Churchill
In an agile organisation, as the short iterative planning, development, and feedback cycle are in different layers, the interactions between the people and layers are increased dramatically. Therefore, awareness is raised day by day instead of periodic reports.
To decrease the lead time of changes and increase the chance of catching the business opportunity, shortening the communication lead time or removing the dependencies between layers could also help. In Scenario C, instead of waiting for the change from top-level management, middle-level and low-level managers are also aware of the market change directly and create their response. Also, increasing the number of communication rounds between layers could increase the alignment of understanding, decisions and solutions for changes.
Awareness is the Key to Success in Agile Transformation
As a result of the Agile Transformation, the entire organisation can change quickly or deal with the new situation under the VUCA environment. The lead time between receiving the signal of the market to creating a change is one of the key measurements in the organisation. Therefore, the transition of awareness is a critical success factor in Agile Transformation.
As the transition of awareness is managed and implemented by employees, individual employee performance in each layer is critical for success. Increasing the potential and decreasing the interference is the most effective way to improve performance. It is what professional coaching stands for.
The Complexity of Agile Transformation
The Complexity of Agile Transformation is due to the coverage of related parties and the reactions from individual employees.
As Agile Transformation is related to the entire organisation, it impacts different layers of the management in terms of accountability, responsibility and responsible areas:
|
Type of Management |
Accountability |
Responsibility |
Responsible Area |
|
Top-Level |
The shareholders and general public |
Controlling and overseeing the entire organisation |
Vision, strategic plans, company policies, the direction of the business |
|
Middle-Level |
Department performance |
Executing organisational plans, defining information and policies, and inspiring and providing guidance |
Group-level performance indicators, reward systems, information systems, inter-group and inner-group work |
|
Low-Level |
Implementation of outcomes and assigned tasks |
Assigning tasks, supervising daily work, ensuring the quality and quantity of outputs, giving recommendations and suggestions, up channelling the issues |
Detail planning, feasibility studies, operations, performance, inter-team and inner-team work |
As the leadership (top-level managers) triggers the Agile Transformation, any changes on the top will affect the rest of the activities. At the same time, the performance of the lower level also affects the performance of the entire organisation.
On the other hand, as the individual employee is working on different focuses and correlated with others, any changes may trigger resistance and challenge in terms of emotion, conflict and support categories:
- Emotion:
The major resistances and challenges are due to the consideration of emotion. - Conflict:
The major resistances and challenges are due to the conflicts in values, beliefs, capacities, expectations, etc. - Support:
The major resistances and challenges are due to the absence or lack of support.
|
Outcome |
Emotion |
Conflict |
Support |
|
Awareness |
Comfort with the status quo |
Denial that the reasons for change are real The debate over the reasons for change |
The credibility of the source or sender of the message Rumours or misinformation |
|
Desire |
Comfort or security with how things are now Fear of the unknown |
Change not aligned with a person’s self-interest or values No answer to “What’s in it for me?” An individual’s situation – financial, career, family, health |
Unpleasant history with change on a personal level An organisation’s track record with change |
|
Knowledge |
The gap between current knowledge levels and desired knowledge levels Insufficient time |
Inadequate resources available for training Lack of access to the necessary information Capacity to learn |
|
|
Ability |
Inadequate time available to develop skills Existing habits contrary to the desired behaviour |
Lack of support Psychological blocks Limitations in physical abilities Individual capabilities |
|
|
Reinforcement |
|
Rewards not meaningful or not associated with achievement The incentive that directly opposes the change |
Absence for accomplishments Negative consequences include peer pressure for desired behaviour |
Therefore, the employees have their unique and complex situations in terms of management level, resisting factors and challenges. Professional coaching is feasible to rebuild their thoughts and take effective responses in the Agile Transformation.
Raising the Awareness Through Coaching
The Competency of Coaching About Awareness
In ICF PCC Marker, Competency 7: Evokes Awareness,
7.1: The coach asks questions about the client, such as their current way of thinking, feeling, values, needs, wants, beliefs or behaviour.
So, the current way of thinking, feeling, values, needs, wants, beliefs or behaviour are the sources of awareness in coaching. It can help the employee comprehend the current situation during the Agile Transformation.
The Potential Challenges and Resisting Factors
|
Outcome |
Emotion |
Conflict |
Support |
|
Awareness |
Comfort with the status quo
|
Denial that the reasons for change are real The debate over the reasons for change |
The credibility of the source or sender of the message Rumours or misinformation |
|
Desire |
Comfort or security with how things are now Fear of the unknown
|
Change not aligned with a person’s self-interest or values No answer to “What’s in it for me?” An individual’s situation – financial, career, family, health |
Unpleasant history with change on a personal level An organisation’s track record with change |
Coach’s Questions on Rising Awareness with MORE Model
Coach asks below general questions to discover the current status as the fuel of awareness:
|
Types |
Model |
Questions |
|
Internal |
Mission |
What is your mission? |
|
Option |
What is your approach here? |
|
|
Relevance |
What have you experienced before? |
|
|
Expectation |
What is the expectation from yourself? |
|
|
External |
Mission |
What goal do you want to achieve? |
|
Option |
What do you want more of? |
|
|
Relevance |
What is the status quo here? |
|
|
Expectation |
What is working well right now? |
Expected Outcomes
- The clients can tidy up the facing content and context by connecting the current way of thinking, feeling, values, needs, beliefs or behaviours.
- The clients can dig out the real problem/goal in terms of emotion, conflict or support for further exploration.
Exploring the Awareness through Coaching
The Competency of Coaching about Awareness
In ICF PCC Marker, Competency 7: Evokes Awareness,
7.2: The coach asks questions to help the client explore beyond the client’s current thinking or feeling to new or expanded ways of thinking or feeling about themself (the who).
7.3: The coach asks questions to help the client explore beyond the client’s current thinking or feeling to new or expanded ways of thinking or feeling about their situation (the what).
7.4: The coach asks questions to help the client explore beyond current thinking, feeling or behaving toward the outcome the client desires.
So, after the employee comprehends the current situation (including thinking and feeling), the coach can help the employee expand the current situation or explore further from different perspectives to discover new awareness. This new awareness is coming from the discovered linkages between “who” and “what” and targeting the desired outcomes of the client in Agile Transformation.
The Potential Challenges and Resisting Factors
|
Outcome |
Emotion |
Conflict |
Support |
|
Knowledge |
|
The gap between current knowledge levels and desired knowledge levels Insufficient time |
Inadequate resources available for training Lack of access to the necessary information Capacity to learn |
|
Ability |
|
Inadequate time available to develop skills Existing habits contrary to the desired behaviour |
Lack of support Psychological blocks Limitations in physical abilities Individual capabilities |
Coach’s Questions on Exploring the Awareness with MORE Model
|
Types |
Model |
Questions |
|
Internal |
Mission |
What is the meaning of your life to achieve this issue? |
|
Option |
What do you want to change? |
|
|
Relevance |
How the change may help you? |
|
|
Expectation |
What will you feel if it is a success? |
|
|
External |
Mission |
What is the meaning of the others to achieve this issue? |
|
Option |
What changes are needed to be successful? |
|
|
Relevance |
Who is your stakeholder? |
|
|
Expectation |
What happens if the issue is solved? |
Expected Outcomes
- The employees can explore the gaps between the current situation and the desired goal by exploring beyond and expanding their current thinking and feeling.
- The employees can connect different parts around the gaps and move forward to the goal.
- The employees can find out the options related to the gaps and move forward with the goal.
Proceeding the Awareness through Coaching
The Competency of Coaching about Awareness
In ICF PCC Marker, Competency 8: Facilitates Client Growth,
8.1: The coach invites or allows the client to explore progress toward what the client wanted to accomplish in this session.
8.2: The coach invites the client to state or explores the client’s learning in this session about themself (the who).
8.3: The coach invites the client to state or explore the client’s learning in this session about their situation (the what).
8.4: The coach invites the client to consider how they will use new learning from this coaching session.
8.6: The coach partners with the client to consider how to move forward, including resources, support or potential barriers.
8.7: The coach partners with the client to design the best methods of accountability for themself.
So, the best way to proceed with the awareness is to take action and the employees are accountable for those outcomes and actions. The most effective way to make this happen is to review the employee’s learning, which is coming from the employee, in the professional coaching session.
The Potential Challenges and Resisting Factors
|
Outcome |
Emotion |
Conflict |
Support |
|
Reinforcement |
Rewards not meaningful or not associated with achievement The incentive that directly opposes the change |
Absence for accomplishments Negative consequences include peer pressure for desired behaviour |
Coach’s Questions on Proceeding the Awareness with MORE Model
|
Types |
Model |
Questions |
|
Internal |
Mission |
How to apply the learning in your life? |
|
Option |
What action do you do? |
|
|
Relevance |
What is motivating you to take action? |
|
|
Expectation |
Is this match your expectation? |
|
|
External |
Mission |
How to accomplish your mission? How to apply the learning in your situation? |
|
Option |
What support do you need? |
|
|
Relevance |
What difficulties you may face? |
|
|
Expectation |
Is this match your stakeholders’ expectations? |
Expected Outcomes
- The employees can define the first step to accomplish the goal.
- The employees can take accountability for their actions.
- The employees can find out or review the learning in the coaching session and apply it in their life.
The Professional Coaching and the Agile Transformation Results
Handling the VUCA environment is the most critical topic in every organisation. The effective response to external changes is the key to a company’s survival. The market is impacting the customers. Then, the customers create expectations for the organisation. Therefore, raising awareness in different management layers is the key success factor.
As awareness is the critical success factor, how professional coaching helps employees raise, explore and process awareness is discussed in this paper. It improves individual performance under the Agile Transformation through exploring employee emotion, conflict and support.
According to the ADKAR model, organisational change can only happen when individuals change. Then, the organisational change is possible to happen. That is the coaching way to work on Agile Transformation.
This paper has covered all parts from raising, exploring and proceeding with the awareness. But, the willingness of the client is not. As stated in the previous studies, four types of people (Seekers, Pleasers, Introspectors, and Aware) have different behaviours that would affect the effectiveness of the professional coaching and the Agile Transformation results. How to help each type of people in different ways is another important topic. It can be the next research topic.
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