Paul’s 40 years of experience includes co-authoring the ABC of ICT publication and developing ITSM and ITIL workflows. He was also a contributer to ITIL publications. He is now retired but still actively attends ITSM conferences to pass on his experience and help others avoid the mistakes of the past, especially those that hurt the most.
What are the most common areas of failure in business and companies? Where should we focus on making improvements? Which part is the most critical?
I often get asked what is the most critical. I think the most important is leadership development, because Organizational change is all about changing peoples ‘Attitudes, Behaviors and Culture‘. Obviously workflowand processes are also key, but that’s not the main thing. You have to first change people’s attitudes to embrace the new working practices, and then you have to consistently apply them, give feedback and coach them until the new new behaviors become part of the culture. The only way to do this is through effective leadership development. However, our survey reveals that many organizations do not have leadership development programs that focus on developing these skills and capabilities. They are not taught how to change people’s behavior. Many hope that by introducing new procedures and mechanisms that behaviors will automatically change, which is often not the case, often people don’t follow them, and they don’t see any value in them. And before you know it, everyone is back to the old ways of working. So leadership is critical, but it has to be coupled with continuous improvement. Because there is no working method that can be implemented from zero to optimal state all at once, it is not possible. Regardless of whether it’s ITIL, DevOps, Safe or any other method, you need to implement it as part of continuous improvement culture adopting small and incremental improvement. Management has to foster this culture and embrace continual improvement otherwise people get frustrated and start saying: “See? We said the new practices dont’t work.” So leadership development has to be linked to a structured, continuous, strategic, tactical and operational approach to learning and improving. And that’s the only way we can continually and repeatedly make things better. Change for the better should be an ongoing process.
Let’s imagine I’m the CEO of my own company and I’m open to your advice. What should I do to motivate my employees who don’t believe in our goals and think they are unattainable?
One solution is to start with the principles of DevOps, Agile and Lean, their core values. You could ask your employees: “Okay, we’re a team. I’m not your boss, we’re team members. What values do we consider most important? Are we customer-centric? Do we want to be the best in the market? How do we perceive ourselves and the company?” You yourself may already have some values in mind and may suggest, “This could be one of our core values.” But the goal is for the team itself to choose no more than five core values, for example, “We are customer focused”, “We collaborate”, “We deliver on our promises”. Once you’ve articulated them, go on to say, “Okay, if those are our values, what three behaviors do we want to agree on as a team? What does that mean for our interactions with customers? How are we going to treat each other?” Discuss this and have people write their suggestions on sticky notes and stick them on the board. Finally, summarize, “So we all agreed that our core values are. Do we agree to follow them?” Once this is agreed, set the rule: “If someone doesn’t act in accordance with these values, we can call them out on it.” For example, “I see you’re upset right now, but you haven’t provided feedback. If we have agreed to give each other honest and open feedback, we need to follow through.” This way, the team creates its own values instead of having someone from above mandate them. And then you show that you’re really empowering them and giving them space.
Are there differences between working with people in the Czech Republic, Germany and the US?
For example, in the openness of people and in the management hierarchy. In Germany, I noticed people are very reticent to give feedback in our simulation workshops when managers are present. The German culture is very hierarchical and people are afraid to give negative feedback to superiors. In Japan I found it even more complicated. No one would give feedback in the simulation workshop unless the manager gives it first. That’s why I took a different approach in Japan: I asked the manager to share his feedback first. Then I asked the team to write their opinions on sticky notes, and then I asked them individually, “What three values did you write?” Once they had written something down, it was easier for them to talk about it.
So is the solution to giving feedback in private if the team is unable to communicate with their supervisor?
Yes, if employees are afraid to give feedback publicly, then another way needs to be found. For example, I can collect the feedback and present it anonymously to management. But it is important to agree in advance with management that they will accept and respond to the feedback. Otherwise, people will feel that nothing is changing and will lose trust.
According to your surveys, the situation has deteriorated between 2022 and 2024. How do you explain this?
Because when I asked how many companies have leadership development programs, the answer was almost zero. Yet leadership is a key success factor. Then I asked about strategic continuous improvement, again no hands up. If companies don’t have these capabilities, things will never improve. You can pick up a lot of inspiration at seminars, but if you don’t have a way to apply it, change won’t happen.
If I understand correctly, the change and transformation process has to start at the top management level?
Yes, they have to agree to that.
Because if they don’t change anything, nothing will change.
Yes, they will. If the managers don’t say, “We’ll listen to your suggestions for improvement,” nothing will happen. But for suggestions to be effective, they have to be well-founded. It’s not enough to say, “This isn’t working.” You have to show the impact, how much time is wasted, how it affects customer satisfaction, what the cost is to fix the bugs. When managers see specific impacts, they usually want to find solutions. But if you just present them with a list of complaints, they’ll see it as just normal grumbling and nothing will change.
