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Why Agile makes people work!
Jasper Alblas April 2016
Agile Expert Program
Why Agile Makes People Work 2
Introduction I fell in love with Agile, because it’s all about people. So this paper is about people too. I think the
Agile Manifesto itself is subsidiary to people. “Humans over the Agile Manifesto”!
I work at Eneco, a company undergoing two transitions: the energy revolution as well as the
transformation to Agile; As an Agile coach I see it clearly: everything is about people. And that’s
fantastic! So that’s why, as a participant of the Agile Expert Program at Prowareness, I want to share
in this paper my acquired knowledge of the past couple of years and why I firmly believe in Agile:
Why Agile Makes People Work!
Why this article? In Agile transitions we tend to focus
on doing the right thing and we aim
for a process that continuously
improves itself. However, it is my
strong opinion that we need to focus
on people as well. Agile makes them
part of something bigger. It enables
them to achieve their goals in their
own ways, in teams and as individuals.
So why not focus on the intrinsic
motivation of these people? If we do
that, Agile will lead to successful
people, making business successful. It
begins and ends there: with people.
Enjoy the read!
Jasper Alblas
April 2016
www.agilecoaching.works
I had a conversation with my manager in 2012. It was
one of these conversations where they ask you: “Where
will you be in five years?” or “What would the job of
your dreams look like?”. I never had a lot of interest in
five year plans for my career and I actually still haven’t.
They never worked out. Every time I looked back five
years, I realized I could never have predicted the job I
was doing now.
In 2012, I was a programmer developing in complex
Oracle database environments. Pretty awesome and
challenging work. Creative too. I loved to talk to people,
including customers and end-users. Something I
realized later was considered out of the ordinary…
The manager I talked to suggested I would sign up for a
Scrum Master course. I had no clue what Scrum was, so
at first I didn’t give it much thought.
After a while I started digging into it and participated in
the course. I was working in a team with three other
people and thought I would give Scrum a try.
And now, more than four years later, I work as an Agile
Coach in that same organization where we have dozens
of Scrum Teams divided over several departments. The
environment I work in now is unrecognizably different
from the one in 2012. Agile has grown super-fast. And
why? Because Agile Makes People Work!
Why Agile Makes People Work 3
Content Introduction........................................................................................................................................2
Why this article? .............................................................................................................................2
Motivational evolution........................................................................................................................4
Motivation 1.0: the early days .........................................................................................................4
Motivation 2.0: until the industrial age ...........................................................................................4
Motivation 3.0: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose ...........................................................................5
Agile = autonomy, mastery and purpose .............................................................................................7
Autonomy and Agile ........................................................................................................................7
Mastery and Agile ...........................................................................................................................7
Purpose and Agile ...........................................................................................................................8
Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................................9
References ........................................................................................................................................ 10
Books ............................................................................................................................................ 10
Internet ........................................................................................................................................ 10
Credits .............................................................................................................................................. 10
Why Agile Makes People Work 4
Motivational evolution In his book “Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”1, Daniel Pink explains there are
three types of motivation systems, or schemes as he calls them. They stand for the evolution of
intrinsic motivation in human behavior. The evolution of the human society plays a big role in its
development. I’ll describe these different types of motivation and their origin below. Also I will put
them in the context of today. Does it make sense if we use this scheme in today’s world? We’ll wrap
up by explaining why Agile fits Daniels Motivation 3.0.
Motivation 1.0: the early days In the early ages of mankind, with no society and primitive ways of living, survival was key. So we
search, hunt and eat. As simple as that. Everything we did was centered around survival. Pink calls
this Motivation 1.0.
Motivation 2.0: until the industrial age Later on we gradually developed a new system. We formed tribes and as relationships between
different groups of people became more complex, we formed societies. We found out that reward
and punishment worked well in establishing a society where we had to be productive and generate
lots of output. This type of motivation made its way all through the Industrial Age.
So in this Motivation scheme we discovered that if you reward good
behavior, you get more of the behavior you want and if you punish
bad behavior, you get less of that behavior. And that worked well for
a long time. It still works for a lot of tasks we do: mechanical skills,
simple steps we need to follow to perform a simple task.
1 Pink, D. (2009). Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. New York City: Riverhead Books.
Rule two of mafia life – get clearance for outside work.
The Mexican Mafia do all the sorts of things you’d expect of a big drugs gang, including
killing anyone who gets in their way. That has included some pretty direct film criticism. In
1992, a film called American Me took the story of the gang as its foundation. The director
had tried to see Morgan to get his blessing and input, but Morgan gave him short shrift and
even launched a lawsuit against a film he claimed was inaccurate. But legal redress or
boycotts aren’t enough when a gang disapproves of a piece of cinema – nope, at least two
killings have been put down to this artistic displeasure, the victims gang members who did
offer advice to the film makers.
This type of motivation relates best to our primitive impulse, to which we hopefully don’t act too much anymore:
motivation 1.0. As the example shows we still have organizations (and countries) operating this way.
Why Agile Makes People Work 5
Click or scan
But, as Pink points out, when the tasks we do involve even the slightest cognitive skill, Motivation
scheme 2.0 works contradictory. That’s why we needed a new scheme for the new age we’re in
(Information Age and Age of wisdom2).
Motivation 3.0: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose Money is a basic motivator. Actually, it’s more like a bribe that we get monthly to show up for work.
Money does not get us intrinsically motivated. For simple operational tasks it does, but not for
creative work. And with creative I mean non-repetitive. Most of the work we do nowadays is far
more creative than we often think. If you want people to be intrinsically motivated: pay them
enough, so that they can think about work and not be demotivated by money.
When that’s settled, there are three things that lead to intrinsic motivation and personal satisfaction:
autonomy, mastery and purpose.
Autonomy is the need to be self-directive. People want to choose their own ways. Make their own
decisions.
Mastery is the feeling of being able to become better at your work. Experiencing mastery makes
people feel good. This is the reason why people play instruments on the weekends or take
acting lessons, even though they know they will never get a job paying them to do so.
Purpose is the reason that we get up in the morning and go to work, because we believe in
something.
2 Pink, D. (2005). A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. New York: Riverhead Books.
Watch this video for more on Drive
Trust and ownership – a story from FAVI (reinventing organizations)
Zobrist was appointed as the new CEO at FAVI and spend four months observing the
company and its employees, making no decisions.
One day he noticed an employee waiting in front of a closed warehouse door holding a piece
of paper. Zobrist asked him what he was waiting for. The mechanic needed new gloves. The
procedure required the employees boss signing of the required use of these gloves which
confirmed that the old gloves were worn out and that he required new ones. He now needed
to wait for the warehouse manager to open the door for him in order to get a new set of
gloves. A short calculation made Zobrist realize that the time needed to follow this
procedure, the mechanic not being able to operate the machine, cost the company ten times
the price of a pair of gloves.
Let’s be honest, this is what happens in a lot of companies. People don’t trust each other enough and let the
process take charge. It’s typically motivation 2.0. Command and control.
Why Agile Makes People Work 6
Watch this video about Zappos
company culture
Zappos pay people to quit
When Zappos hires new employees, it provides a four-week training period that immerses
them in the company’s strategy, culture, and obsession with customers. People get paid
their full salary during this period.
After a week or so in this immersive experience, though, it’s time for what Zappos calls
“The Offer.” The fast-growing company, which works hard to recruit people to join, says to
its newest employees: “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve
worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.” Zappos actually bribes its new employees
to quit!
Why? Because if you’re willing to take the company up on The Offer, you obviously don’t
have the sense of commitment they are looking for. It’s hard to describe the level of
energy in the Zappos culture–which means, by definition, it’s not for everybody. Zappos
wants to learn if there’s a bad fit between what makes the organization tick and what
makes individual employees tick–and it’s willing to pay to learn sooner rather than later.
(About ten percent of new call-center employees take the money and run.)
More and more companies today are looking for evolutionary purpose and want people to be engaged in this
purpose. For Zappos, “The Offer” is a test to see if people are intrinsically motivated to join the company for its
purpose. A purpose where profit is not the primary goal, but it emerges from the fact that they want to
contribute in making the world a little bit better. And that appeals to customers and employees. These
companies embrace autonomy, mastery and purpose!
Why Agile Makes People Work 7
Agile = autonomy, mastery and purpose Autonomy and Agile Autonomy is the need to be self-directive. People want to
choose their own ways. Teams want to be successful, they don’t
want to be told how to do their work.
Trust. Agile and trust are glued together. We need to trust each
other in that we’re all trying to do the right thing. We also need
to trust each other in making mistakes and being transparent
about it. Trust makes autonomy flourish, thus it helps teams to
become more Agile.
When we look at the Scrum Framework, autonomy is in the
basics of the Scrum Roles.
The Product Owner has the job of maximizing the work the development team does. He or she has no
say in how the team should do the work, but sets the goals!
The Development Team works together on the Sprint Backlog. This backlog is a breakdown of the
work that needs to be done to meet the goal. This development team is also a stakeholder for the
Product Owner, so that work gets done in order to get the best possible outcome for the end-users
and stakeholders. To be able to do this the development team needs to self-organize.
The Scrum Master is coaching the team in becoming a better version of themselves. He or she is
continuously helping them improve and challenging them to achieve the best possible outcome.
The combination of these roles makes the Scrum Team (which consists of the Product Owner,
Development Team and Scrum Master) self-directive.
Note the difference between self-organization and self-direction. The Product Owner sets the
direction of the team, its goal. The development team organizes itself around that goal.
So we could say a Scrum Team is self-directive. However in larger organizations we see that the
Product Owners do not have the mandate to actually decide the direction of the company. They are
organized within a larger system of additional governance and the autonomy can make way for top-
down decisions.
Mastery and Agile The second important element of the Motivation 3.0 scheme is Mastery. That is the feeling of being
able to become better at your work. Experiencing mastery makes people feel good. This is the reason
why people play instruments on the weekends or take acting lessons, even though
they know they will never get a job paying them to do so.
What Agile strives to do, is to get in touch with the human aspects of the work. The
reason why people choose a certain profession or started a specific education is
because they wanted to become good at it. And it’s that same passion that we look
for in people when they work in Agile teams. The reason we leave the “How” up to
the development team and not to the Product Owner is exactly this: mastery. We know you know
best, so let’s get out of the way and let you do what you do best!
This is the reason that there is no project manager role in Scrum. The traditional manager with its
Motivation 2.0 scheme would think that you are only good at what you do because we tell you to do
Why Agile Makes People Work 8
Watch this video about great leadership.
it and pay you for it. The assumption is: If we raise the pay, you raise the production (output). As we
now know, that is true only for straight forward, simple tasks. What works is: create the environment
for teams to be successful. Facilitate change and boost creativity. That’s how teams (and individuals)
can become successful. Mastery!
Purpose and Agile Goals are important. They can set the road to purpose. Purpose is the
highest goal of them all; The ultimate goal, possibly a goal we will always
strive for, but never reach. It is the reason that we get up in the morning
and go to work, because we believe in something.
This purpose naturally could be one of many things. Within Agile I can see
that when people feel the company’s mission is the ultimate goal and their
work is contributing to that mission (hopefully being some evolutionary purpose), they will be
intrinsically motivated individuals. And those individuals will create an atmosphere in the workplace
that makes teams potentially high performance teams.
The role of the Product
Owner (and other
leaders) is important in
creating meaningful
purpose for the teams.
Having a vision for the
product(s) the team is
working on makes
collaboration far more
successful.
A responsive (Agile)
enterprise is creating
alignment throughout
the organization by
giving the people
purpose to show up for
work!
Henrik Kniberg, known as the Agile Coach at Spotify captured this in the figure you see here. High
alignment (setting goals), but no autonomy means no creativity. Thus motivation 2.0.
High autonomy with no goal means we’re all having fun but we’re not being effective.
We need to be on the top right: setting goals and using the teams autonomy to figure out how to
reach that goal!
Alignment and autonomy (by Henrik Kniberg)
Conclusion Hopefully my story on how Agile and Daniel Pink’s book on intrinsic motivation go hand in hand, sounds logical to you. Also, the reality shows that in most cases we haven’t incorporated his philosophy (motivation 3.0) into the workplace. And Agile might be a start to begin that change! I encourage you to start changing today and focus on people. Their wisdom, creativity, knowledge and skills will bring your company, department or team to the next level. It will help you to stop thinking for other people. Start by creating an environment where people feel good, can be creative and bring their whole self to work. Change is very hard, so this will not be done overnight. It takes time. But start taking steps, and you will get there. Inspire and be inspired, so you can continuously grow. Often people ask: “Does Agile fit all people? Can they handle the autonomy we give them, that responsibility?”. Well, books are written on that, but ultimately: yes. A great deal of the human population is capable of thinking for themselves, making decisions, taking responsibility, having fun and yes… creating revenue. The problem is that for the last century we have created a working culture that forced people to be different in the workplace than at home. To take orders instead of think for themselves. And people have grown accustomed to that culture, so not everybody wants to change. But people will surprise you. Give people a chance to let Agile grow on them. Give them the autonomy, mastery and purpose to become Agile.
Is Agile a hype?
No. It’s the evolution of work to
the point of wholeness, where
people work together as we
have done in society for quite a
while now. It provides ways to
discover new structures of
working together. It helps to
achieve the best possible
outcome, so that we can have
impact as human beings through
the organizations we work in
and ultimately the world we live
in and the way we live in it.
Besides, it’s celebrating its 15th
anniversary this year!
If you want to know more about Agile, Scrum, self-organization or have other needs on organizational
development, contact me on [email protected].
You can also visit my blog www.agilecoaching.works to read more on these topics or go to
www.agiletraining.works for an overview of training opportunities.
References
Books Laloux, F. (2015). Reinventing Organisations. Haarzuilens: Het Eerste Huis.
Pink, D. (2005). A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. New York: Riverhead Books.
Pink, D. (2009). Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. New York City: Riverhead Books.
Robertson, B. (2015). Holacracy. New York: Henry Holt & Company.
Sutherland, J. (2014). The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time. Danvers: Crown Business.
Internet Kizaz. (2014). 10 Chilling Mafia Stories. Retrieved from http://kizaz.com/
Taylor , William C. (2008). Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit–And You Should Too. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2008/05/why-zappos-pays-new-employees/
Credits First of all I want to thank Ron Eringa and Stephan van Rooden for starting the Agile Expert Program
2015/2016. Training, facilitating and coaching us through a year of Agile development. Wouter van
der Meer and Marjans van Benthem also, for attending regularly and helping us out. Of course also
the Agile Expert Training class of 2015/2016: Jeroen van der Brink, Cor Laan, Rogier den Dulk, Hugo
de Groot, Willem Laarman and Hendri Fidder for being open and honest, sharing experiences and
knowledge. It was unique to be able to participate in your Agile Journeys as well as your personal
lives. I will miss our times at the spider!
Special thanks to Hendri Fidder who was willing to read this paper over and over again and provide
valuable feedback in the process of writing.
Lots of thanks also to my sister in law Esther Alblas who was also willing to read this paper many
times and provide valuable feedback and a curious mind.
Last to mention the most important of all: my wife Christine Alblas who supports me in doing what I
love to do. She keeps me sharp. Her lovingly feedback is always honest and true. Thanks for being my
friend for life!
