Nick Horney

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  00:39

Who is Nick Horney and what’s been your journey?

Speaker: Nick Horney  00:45

Miljan, thank you again for the opportunity and a chance to share my journey. As many that may be watching this can tell it’s been a little bit longer journey. But maybe it’s not a typical journey that you might find most people that are working in as an agile professional, or an agility professional. So my journey really began when I learned a lot about the kind of the life and death scenarios in terms of working in Navy Special Operations, I did that after completing my college program and went directly into the Navy as a Navy officer. And for special operations, for those of you that may not be aware of that, that’s an umbrella term that that really characterizes Navy SEALs, explosive ordnance disposal, deep sea diving, etc. And most of my work was explosive ordnance disposal, and deep sea diving, submarine salvage, that type of thing. So when I say that I learned about agility, basically, as a result of my experience, I could really distinguish between those teams and those leaders that were really faster, focused, flexible, etc., characteristics that could describe better leadership. At that time, I didn’t have a term that I used for that. I was busily trying to do the work that I was doing, but I’ve been able to reflect back on that and look back at my history, which is 23 years, you know, of that. And look back at that and said, “what are those characteristics that really make a difference in good leaders and really great leaders”, and that was the leadership agility component of that.

So I took that and I got out of the Navy, at least of active duty, I got off of active duty remained as a reservist in the Navy, and got my PhD in organizational psychology, so I wanted to apply psychology to the business world. And in those days, essentially, again, agility was not a buzz term, and this is back in the early 80s. It was mostly focused on quality initiatives, as well as process improvement and as well as change management. Change management, you know, certainly was critically important in terms of SAP implementation, big dollar technology, implementation efforts, etc. And so I really got my early exposure there and I left corporate America, which was Nestle, and PepsiCo. Left to start up my own consulting firm, and then was acquired by, at that time, Coopers and Lybrand, which became Price Waterhouse Cooper, to start up and manage their change management practice. So even though we weren’t utilizing the term agility, we were really thrust in the middle of defining what were the leadership characteristics that made a difference in being able to manage and effectively deal with change. And then later on, was recruited by the Center for Creative Leadership as part of their executive team and hence, much more focused on leadership, agility, etc. And that’s a Global Center for Creative Leadership as a global leadership development and research organization, usually identified as the number one, two, or three that does that. And then subsequently, left there in 2001 to start up agility consulting, because I thought that change management itself had changed quite a bit based on the marketplace then to use a term that the army came up with called VUCA, (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous), and I felt as though there wasn’t enough attention being focused on that research being focused on that, etc. So that’s what I did, 2001 I started agility consulting, and then subsequently focused on leadership, team, and organizational agility, not agile methodology, our focus is on behavior and behavioral change.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  05:25

You just reminded me, I don’t think I spoke with anybody on the podcast about like, traditional notion of change management and what it meant in 80s, and 90s, versus what do you think it means today? Because like you said, there is a difference, and we use that term loosely, change management, but in what ways has that evolved from your perspective?

Speaker: Nick Horney  05:46

No, that’s a great question. And I think it really has evolved, change management going back into the 70s and 80s really was thought of as okay, it was something that you did at a point in time. And in other words, you know, there was a modeling…

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  06:02

To bring in the consultants,

Speaker: Nick Horney  06:05

There were models out there that they really thought of change as being something that you did to an organization or a project, etc. And you applied the change tools, mostly behavioral change tools, and then kind of disrupted the way things were doing. And then you went back to, so it was the whole idea of, you know, taking an existing process, and you unfreeze that and you make process improvements, changes in it, people changes, etc. and then you rephrase that. I think the main difference now is that the change is never refrozen. We live in a dynamic VUCA world, where change is just happening all the time, not just with pandemics, but with digital disruption and change coming at us in all kinds of directions. So fundamentally, there is not a rephrasing of organization back into that former state.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  07:14

Would you also say that it’s like, change is everybody’s business? Like back in those days, it was like it had a specific themes that drove the change now, like, you know, everybody needs to understand and be part of that change, just because like you said, because of the VUCA environment that we’re in?

Speaker: Nick Horney  07:33

Absolutely, in fact, a couple of earlier books that I wrote, really was focused on integrating change management with project management. So, you know, I come from the era where you had those experts, as you said, they were experts in project management, and then experts in change management, and oftentimes, never the two would really effectively integrate, it was modularized, almost. So, you’re preaching to someone who very much believes in the whole integration of that everyone needs to really understand that change is ongoing, that it’s embedded in literally everything that we’re involved in. A project that gets initiated one month, you need to build change into that, because the next month, you may already be implementing a number of changes, and you need to be aware of the kinds of processes and what’s…

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  08:33

…going on. So what’s, you know, I look at the book behind you “VUCA Masters” and I think my initial was like, “Okay, what is this VUCA masters?” So could you maybe elaborate on the title of your book and what does that mean?

Speaker: Nick Horney  08:52

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. VUCA Masters is a term that I wanted to just use to kind of disrupt the, maybe the reading audience and ask that very same question, what are VUCA masters? And the way I’ve defined VUCA masters, first of all, accepting the fact that our world is so disruptive, that it really is going to be full of change and ongoing change. Now, certainly, into the near future, and beyond that, if anything, it’s going to be getting faster and faster and we’re going to have information in our hands at our fingertips that we already do now but even more so you know, on into the future. So if we accept the fact that change is all around us in the marketplace, and our own environment, that where we live, our own personal lives, etc., it is a way of, of living that we have to come to terms with. So I wanted to really emphasize that we could all go after becoming a VUCA master similar to if you think of an NB extended title is about developing leadership agility fitness.

So I like to use the metaphor of leadership agility fitness is tying into, you know, something that we all do, perhaps at least on an annual basis, we all should get an annual physical. And at that time the doctor has blood drawn, we get on the scales and see how heavy we are, we look at our eating habits, we look at our sleep patterns and our exercise, etc. And it’s all of those things combined, that’s going to make a difference in terms of how physically fit we are. And the doctor basically is serving as our Agile coach, if you will, being able to provide feedback on an annual basis and say, “okay, Nick, you need to eat less or more balanced meal, get some more sleep”, whatever it may be, but he helps put a plan together. So the argument that I make in the book is that in order to become a VUCA master, which is someone that is really skilled, and at the peak performance, in all areas of what I introduced in 2001, called the Agile Model, and I’ll describe that in just a minute, but being able to be at peak performance in all of those areas is a VUCA master, regardless of the change that they may have to deal with, whether it’s a personal change, and maybe something as simple as your daughter is getting married, or it may be something as dramatic as a pandemic, how are you being able to demonstrate VUCA mastery, or in other words, leadership agility fitness, to be able to deal with all of those. So if you’re really fit, if your leadership agility fitness is at the peak in all of those five areas of the Agile Model, then you are well on your way to becoming a VUCA master.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  12:02

So it’s really, and I like that analogy, because it reminded me of Simon Sinek Stock where he talked about like, leadership is not something that you just do, it’s something that you practice all the time. So it’s, you know, the analogy, they say, it’s like, you know, I can justify, no, I’m going to do maybe assessment with a coach, or I just want to have a conversation, I can get in shape in nine hours or two days, in what I’m doing. It’s something that you do all the time. And you just the litmus test is really, for leaders in organizations, how well am I dealing with the current environment? Like if I asked others, and I’m sure like, you know, with these types of assessments, there’s 360, what are other people telling me, how am I dealing with the with the environment and situations I’m in.  So I like it. So could you maybe talk about…

Speaker: Nick Horney  12:59

Miljan, I appreciate that, too. Because I think that is an important message, whether you are an Agile coach, or whether you are a leader of a business function, or a CEO, or whatever, it is important for you to be able to reflect and be able to have a way of reflecting on “what is your leadership and how is it being perceived by others, or your key stakeholders?”. And so with a 360, like we recommended in the book, being able to take at least at a minimum one time per year, once a year, being able to just like you would a physical fitness exam, be able to do your leadership agility fitness exam, so that in fact, you can identify based on the changing world and it’s changing so rapidly, what are those areas, what are those things that I really need to be focused in on over the next period of time?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  14:01

This might be a simple question, but or the simple question in terms of, you know, what asked, but it is. So how does leadership factor organizational success? If we’re looking at the research over the last 10 years, there’s a lot of research that points to leadership, but from your perspective, why focus on leadership? Why, you know, and success of the organization and might be due to many factors, but what are, you know, from your perspective and experience, why would you say, you know, why focus on leaders?

Speaker: Nick Horney  14:41

Yeah, I think focusing on leaders is critically important. Organizations, again, had been organized that way for many, many years. But the way to look at leadership is not just the CEO, not just the C suite, leadership is a capability that can be exhibited in everybody’s role. An independent individual contributor can demonstrate leadership, a project manager can demonstrate leadership. And the importance of leadership is not just, you know, standing up on a soapbox and being able to shout out orders and have everybody follow you, it is more and more about, yes, certainly having a vision, but how do you engage others? How do you engage stakeholders, and what is that vision of success for your organization, and understanding and anticipating the kind of changes that your organization is going to be dealing with? But really getting everybody involved in that process in some way some form so that, in fact everybody that is contributing to the organization really understands the vision and the direction. It’s not handed down, from a mountain on high that the leadership team comes down from the mountain with these tablets and says, “Okay, here’s our vision, and here’s our strategy, here’s the direction we’re going to go”. More and more is really required of really investing in for leaders, senior leaders to invest in all of their employees, and certainly all that are in certainly leadership roles, regardless of what those roles are called, so that, in fact, they can see the value in that. And that will have a tremendous amount on success. It’s not just the best technology that you’re going to have that’s in place. It’s not just having Scrum teams, it’s not just having any new methodology that may be there., it is a combination of people process and technology, that’s going to be the real winning solution.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  16:54

I’m also assuming that there’s a tight correlation between you know, how the readiness or fitness of leadership in organization to organizational success at all levels. So if you look at, you know, the general fitness of the organization, and leadership in organization, and tie that to the success of the organization, there’s tight correlation, and there’s probably even tighter correlation to the fitness of the executives and the board to the organization. And maybe to come back to change management, do you think, or that change is possible without having executives in the board that have the order score pretty high on that, you know, fitness or capability to leap? So essentially, could we have successful transformations and change in organizations, if leadership fitness either using your, you know, scale, I recently spoke with Sally Aletta, you know, doesn’t matter what assessment you use, you could just come up with your own. But in generally speaking, relatively speaking, do you think there is chance the organizations could be successful if their organizational executives don’t have that leadership agility, and ability to contextualize things and lead in VUCA world?

Speaker: Nick Horney  18:47

Yeah, that’s a great question. And I think that what you’ll find is that these executives, they are not embracing, you know, the whole concept of agility. And now again, I’m not emphasizing Agile methodology, but I’m talking about being able to adapt and thrive in a constantly changing VUCA world, that leaders, and I’m talking primarily about CEOs and those at the C suite, and even now lower than that, they’re not going to be around, the board will not allow that to happen. The board again, if you have the right board, they’re going to be holding the CEO accountable. And clearly, you could see and I could see in, in my work that that we do with clients, could see those clients that that really were most successful with the pandemic and dealing with the pandemic. We’re able to apply again, the Agile Model, like you said, Miljan, there could be a variety of models. It could be a variety of assessments, but they should be research based. I believe very much in research base, not just grabbing some nice questions that “ oh this sounds like this might be good etc.”. And we’ve done over 20 years’ worth of research around the five major elements of what really defines leadership agility, and that’s included in the Agile Model. But if, for example, one element of the Agile Model is around anticipating change. And anticipating change is really all about really understanding the kinds of patterns, the trends, etc., not even necessarily in your own industry sector, but it’s looking around and being aware of what’s happening in the world around you.

So that, in fact, you can get ahead of that, exactly. The leaders and the boards that are holding leaders accountable, are the ones that  are not going to let a leader, are not going to let a CEO, continue to get surprised by the marketplace, by a competitor, by a supplier, by any of those things, because they’re going to be behind the game, behind the eight ball, if you will, of always trying to play catch up. The good leaders, really with a combination of these kinds of competencies that are defined in the Agile Model, you know, first and foremost, they do anticipate change, they understand the kinds of disruptions that are coming at them, and they are engaging the workforce. So generating confidence, they’re engaging the workforce, so that in fact, they’re not the only ones to anticipate change. it’s all employees, all employees that talk to suppliers, and key stakeholders and other employees and identify other things that are happening with their competitors, to be able to build that kind of confidence and that commitment to the kinds of changes that are demanded. And it may be just roughing things, the way things have always been well, “we’ve done it that way for the past five years”, well guess what? The next couple of years, in fact, the next one year is not going to enable that to be successful. So that’s the importance of applying a framework and an approach like the Agile Model that does take into account a really solid research base, and allows leaders whether you be with a UA, [unclear word 22:20] a project manager or leading an Agile transformation, for example, you need to be keenly aware of the disruption and the changes that are going on in your organization outside of the organization, so that in fact, you can help identify the kinds of changes, the kinds of disruptions that may derail that particular transformation initiative that you’ve got going on.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  22:43

So let’s maybe, yeah, so sorry to interrupt, but let’s maybe go through the Agile Model. So like the first one, you mentioned, the first two, like anticipating change and generating confidence. But let’s come back to anticipating change. And I really liked the like you have the three almost subcategories underneath. So under anticipate change, you have visioning, sensing and monitoring. And what you described as we were talking about, let’s think about anticipating change, and really the big one that stands out for me is the sensing and sense making, right? Like in Agile, we talk about a lot of time using Canadian framework to sense what type of environment you’re in and contextualize your approach based on that. You know, you mentioned psychology earlier and like understanding like sensing what type of people you’re working with, how much ego there is in the room as a leader, and how do I need to change my approach, if I’m working bunch other guys are full of ego and you know, clashing against their ego is probably not going to be good leadership strategy in that instance, or some instances. So like that sense making is so crucial in so many levels. Visioning, obviously as a leader, inspiring that vision and creating that. And obviously, the whole idea of inspect and adapt in Agile or empirical approaches the monitoring piece. So could you elaborate on those three, from your perspective? How do you see visioning, sensing and monitoring under the anticipate change?

Speaker: Nick Horney  24:20

Yeah, again, I think it goes back to what are the five major, you know, the large areas that compose the Agile Model, and so each one of those is broken down into those sub categories. What we’re trying to do is to describe behaviors of leaders. And in this case, the sensing and monitoring and division, etc.,  are critically important and they can be measured. And that’s part of why the emphasis on leadership agility fitness, and being able to identify how well you do as a leader at sensing, how well do you do as a leader at monitoring. It’s not good enough. to just have a vision, it’s not good enough just to do sensing without some monitoring. So okay, I’m good at sensing that means that I’m looking out over the horizon or around the corner and I’m sensing by trend analysis and other techniques and scenario planning that there are some changes that are likely, that they might occur. But to what degree have you built in a process so that you and your team, your organization is monitoring that? To what degree are you actually looking at that over a period of time to know whether that’s accelerating, whether it’s slowing down, whether it’s something you shouldn’t need to be looking at any longer? But it’s mostly about the human behavior aspect of it so that in fact, leaders can get feedback on a detailed level report and a 360 like this, that we’ll come back to later, there are five questions around each of those three of visioning, sensing and monitoring. So that in fact, the report that you receive is an output that reflects how well are you doing that from the perspective of all your stakeholders, direct reports, your boss, you, etc.? And to what degree are there major differences in those, and that’s where the work really needs to be done in terms of closing those gaps.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  26:26

And that’s really interesting, too, because, you know, when I think about it, then you also have to have leaders that one, increase their awareness, right? Like, you know, going through and asking those questions and willingness to get peer feedback is, in a way, you know, exposing yourself and you being vulnerable. And, you know, a lot of times people don’t want to do that. So what are some of the things you know, maybe when it comes to specifically, assessments and leadership that’s tied to it? Is there any, do you have any observations or data on, you know, how people respond to these based on their leadership levels, because I’m assuming some people are more open to it. And I go back, and I remember the times when I wanted feedback, I would ask for feedback and I would get all pissed off, like you don’t know what you’re talking about, this is not me, right? And not looking at the feedback is just somebody else’s perspective, rather than, you know, almost judging us.

Speaker: Nick Horney  27:34

Let me use the physical fitness as a metaphor of that. So let’s say it’s time for your annual physical, and you have been really working out this past year, you’ve been going to the gym, you’ve been running a lot, you’ve been pumping a lot of weight, you stand in front of the mirror, and you flex those muscles, and “man, oh, man, am I in great physical shape”. But you’ve not been paying attention to how much sleep you’re getting, you haven’t been paying much attention to the kind of food that you’ve been in taking, etc. So now you sit down, and you sit in front of a doctor and you go, you’re expecting to get this great feedback report. “Wow, super, look at me, let me let me flex for you doc”. And the doctor says, “well, that’s really good.

But they’re these other stakeholders, if you will, there’s these other elements of being physically fit, that you’re forgetting about. It’s good quality of sleep, but you’ve got to be paying attention to aerobic fitness as well, you’ve been ignoring, maybe running and your heart is not doing what it should be doing, or you’re reading to higher cholesterol diet”. The same is true, I think in terms of 360s. If you’re only in the majority of cases, we have kind of grown up many leaders in the past have kind of gotten to the point by only getting feedback from their boss and so they’re technically competent, and then they’ve gotten promoted. But they haven’t gotten feedback from their peers, and they haven’t gotten feedback from their direct reports, and maybe they haven’t gotten feedback from their suppliers, until it’s an incomplete assessment of that person’s leadership fitness, leadership agility fitness. So I think that’s the best way of describing it. You just like when you when you go through a 360 it can be intimidating. You’re a bit fearful of what others might be saying, but isn’t it better to know?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  29:38

Exactly. Well, you would think that’s what I’m saying like, but some people might be like, “I’m too busy”. Or, you know, in a sense, what I’m getting at is mindset is a big part of this whole thing and the approach of leadership desire to get better. If you truly have the desire to get better, you probably would consider something like this but I work with a lot of leaders and, you know, I asked them to do stuff like this, and they just don’t have the time or they don’t have, they don’t want to expose themselves. And there’s a lot of resistance that I get. And for the ones that I would generally consider just subjectively more mature in their leadership styles more adaptive to the situation, they usually the ones that are more open to it. But let’s maybe we can come back to this, I want to keep going through the Agile Model. So we talked about anticipating changes being the first one, generating confidence is the second one. So in what ways can leaders generate confidence?

Speaker: Nick Horney  30:38

Probably the best way of generating confidence, being able to, you know, certainly ask questions, ask opinions, if you will, you know, on the workforce in terms of how work gets done. I mean, it’s not all that difficult. And it’s a way of being able to, I mean, there have been plenty of plenty of research done, and many of those listening have, you know, certainly understand the value of employee engagement. Generating confidence is just that, it is looking at the kinds of approaches, like understanding what employee engagement is all about, asking questions of employees about the implementation of a key initiative, what are the things that we need to look out for, and getting them involved very early on with important key initiatives that are going to impact their lives. So more than anything, it’s just that. I was working with a senior level exec, who had gotten promoted based on his technical skills, and very sharp, very bright, very intelligent and 99% of the time he had the right answer. Part of the problem was, as an executive coach, that was part of the problem is that he had the right answer, as opposed to engaging and involving, and developing his team, future leaders of the organization, and getting their ideas and their thoughts and actually enabling them and recognizing them and going with an initiative that they may be wanting to go after.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  32:27

Yeah, that’s really, I mean, you know, and under that category, you have ability to connect, align and engage. And those definitely ring true and because that confidence is also about relationship building, that confidence is internal confidence, right. So the more that you see that you enable others and confidence in others, the more that you’re confident as a leader. So it goes both ways, you know, helping others instill confidence, but it’s also instilling confidence in yourself. The third one is initiating action. Could you maybe talk about that and why that is important as part of the model?

Speaker: Nick Horney  33:07

Yeah, initiating action is what we often find when we do our organizational agility surveys, and also our leadership agility surveys is that we’ll find that decision making is a crucial stumbling block for many. Oftentimes, you know, a client organization thinks that it is proactive and initiates action, but often what we may find out is that there are multiple levels of approval, you know, that have to be made for a particular decision. Or even I’ve worked with project teams that have come together from cross functional, you know, organizational groups, and maybe some from marketing, some from IT, some from engineering, etc., and within each of those organizational functional groups, their decision making approach is different. Maybe it has to go to their boss for approval, maybe it’s a consensus decision in another department, etc. but when it comes together as a project team, they’ve not agreed on what is the decision authority, what’s the decision rules for this particular project.

And that’s something that’s pretty important. So,  it really has as much to do with, if you’ve gone through the other two elements of the Agile Model, you’ve anticipated change, understand the vision you you’ve gotten people more committed and confident and engaged, etc., they know the direction that you want to be going in. Then initiating action is also about pushing that decision making authority to that lowest possible level and as a leader, basically getting out of the way and becoming a good coach and a good mentor as opposed to a block in the way decisions are reached. There’ll be some that are critical and strategic decisions, obviously, you’re going to be able to bump them up but the vast majority of decisions can be reached at lower levels, increasing the speed at which decisions can be reached. And then you can deal with adjustments and adapting to changing marketplace concerns.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  35:21

Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, when we talk about at least Scrum and Agile, a lot of it has to do with changing the decision rights, who makes decisions? decentralizing a lot? So what about the fourth one that’s part of your model is liberate thinking, so how do leaders liberate thinking in their organizations?

Speaker: Nick Horney  35:42

Yeah, liberate thinking, it’s not liberal thinking. So politics here, liberate thinking, really is a leader is part of a crucial leadership role, is to create the kind of environment that encourages some risk taking. And so liberating thinking is just that, just because we’ve done something a certain way for the past year, the past three years, five years, whatever it may be, then ask questions. There’s nothing better than to bring a new a new employee into a team meeting, etc. and then that that person is asking the question, “well, why do you do it that way? Why do you do it that way? They keep asking the question why, you know, it’s kind of like, five why’s and, you know, keep getting behind that. So liberate thinking really is a key accountability of a leader, to be able to keep the organization fresh and innovative, etc. And a way of being able to create the environment. The code…

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  36:49

Was going to say, yeah.

Speaker: Nick Horney  36:51

says, says, “wait, we need to be keeping things fresh here”. I need you on my team and you’re, you’re talking to others outside of our organization, you’re seeing what others are doing. You’re seeing what others are doing outside the industry, you’re going to some conferences, etc. Bring that back and ask them question, at least in terms of why we do it our way, our particular way and maybe there’s some new ways to do things.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  37:19

Yeah. It’s almost like, you know, liberating thinking and it’s really like, how is a leader in like, creating an environment where people can self-organize where they can be, you know, they can have more autonomy to do things? And like you said, bring stuff like that and not, you know, just question what am I going to say, as a leader. So it’s really about, in my opinion, about enablement of that thinking, and action, I guess, too, so.

Speaker: Nick Horney  37:54

And remember, a VUCA Master is one that is at the peak of all five of these that we’re discussing right now. So they’re really strong in anticipating change and generating confidence. So it’s not as if you can really demonstrate VUCA mastery or leadership agility fitness, if you’re only good, if you’re only strong in liberating thinking. You may be liberating thinking of a workforce that really doesn’t have a clue as to what the vision is, and any sense of what may be happening, you know, in the marketplace in terms of disruption, they don’t feel confident in terms of, you know, being engaged in the decision making. And now you’re saying, well, “bring in some new ideas to me,” well, they may you know, say build a car when you’re in the industry that’s building only airplanes, so doesn’t do so good.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  38:47

Yeah. And then the last one here is evaluated results. So we have anticipated change, generate confidence, initiate action, liberate thinking, and then the last one, evaluate results. So, could you maybe give us some examples of how leaders can evaluate results?

Speaker: Nick Horney  39:08

The best way for a leader to evaluate results is to ask questions and it’s important the kinds of questions that you’ve asked. If you’re truly trying to transform an organization to be demonstrate more agility, etc., then you build in some of the processes and around that. One organization that we’re working with, actually create a little three by five card that every meeting, they were organized the meeting, whether it’s a departmental meeting, whether it’s a change meeting, whatever project team meeting, whatever it may be, around those five major core elements of the Agile Model of what have we done since we last met to anticipate change? What have we done to generate confidence, initiate action, liberate thinking, evaluate results? And the leader, a project team leader needs to be asking those questions. So you’re sitting alone, let’s say you’re part of my departmental team, then I say “hey, tell me about, we’re going to focus in on liberate thinking, particularly today, and what new and innovative are you bringing to the table now to share with others?”, and you kind of scratch your head and go “I didn’t think you’re really serious about that”.  “Yes, I’m serious about that. So be aware that next time, next meeting, next week, I’m going to be asking the same kinds of questions”.

It is getting that repetitive questions that are important, not necessarily having all the answers for that, well, what is it that we’re doing to anticipate change? What is it we’re doing to generate confidence, initiate action, liberate thinking, evaluate results? Helps bring about that kind of change and transformation, and it’s done it and it’s done within that area of evaluating results, because now it’s not just the metrics and the measures. Yeah, that’s stuff that we do now. And there are a number of tools and techniques that are involved in that. But this is as much about being able to ask those questions, and also give immediate feedback. You know, in terms of a real clarity of dialogue of what the expectations are in agreement between you, all that.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  41:19

Great, that is really interesting, and I’m just thinking in the sense of like, you know, things that I’ve done with the organizations, individuals, you know, in this capacity, and, you know, there’s always stories around, you know, whatever model you have, or when you take people through a certain model. So do you have, or any stories that you could share maybe of how maybe some of your clients have used this model and the assessment or the fitness check, to kind of, you know, how they have used it, and maybe any stories that came and the results that came out of that?

Speaker: Nick Horney  42:07

Lots and lots of stories, in that individual example, that gave a high tech organization of fortune 50 company, where I was working with, well, I was working with a senior most leader in the technology side of the organization. And really, I served as his executive coach so that we did a 360 and he got feedback in terms of that, and as part of that, he really needed to work on listening more. So he was generating confidence and asking more questions, to enable his team to develop, he was losing good people, they were leaving the organization, they wanting to move to different departments. He was the one that 99% of the time, had the right answer. But his role, real role, his key role was developing future leaders for that organization. Another is and I’ll share the name because the name is even changed, we worked over five years with Turner Broadcasting. And Turner Broadcasting was later on acquired by At&t, and is now known as Warner media. But over a five year period of time, they knew that they needed to adjust and adapt to the marketplace and become more digital. So always the digital aspect of becoming more agile was important to them. And they also agreed that their leaders needed to demonstrate agility as well in order to support this whole transformation that was going on.

So over a five year period of time, we basically taught them about the Agile Model. We also certified internal coaches to utilize and apply the leadership agility profile 360s. So all of these there were 40 in each group that went through this training, over a five year period of time, these were their high potentials, they were going through this mostly were senior directors and VPs and above that, that attended this particular program. But they got the individual assessment, they were providing feedback about that, that information was utilized during the training itself. And then six months later, we implemented the organizational agility profile, which in essence, you know, captured the agility of their business unit. So that in fact, now you have a leader that knows that the language, the terminology of anticipating change and generating confidence and initiating action and why that was valuable for his or her leadership, and also saw the value in that in terms of what does that mean for their business unit now? The context is changed, now it’s about the business unit, how well did the business unit anticipate change and generate confidence and initiate action, etc., and utilize that to bring about the transformation that Turner Broadcasting made? That’s a larger scale, you know, type of implementation effort, that’s a good example.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  45:28

Yeah. Thank you for sharing those. Another thing that kind of stood out for me in the book is the focus on HR agility, process and audit. But also, you know,  could you maybe elaborate on that part and where does HR fit into this, and why is it important for HR, probably finance, you know, could be thrown into the mix, too, and other parts, usually, they’re the last ones to embrace the change.

Speaker: Nick Horney  46:02

Yeah, oftentimes, you’ll find, or at least I’ve found, over the years, and I’ve been in this consulting world now for maybe 40 years, something like that. Focused on agility, obviously, with agility consulting for the past 20 years. HR typically, is the organization that has the budget as the focus on leadership, leadership development, team development, they are the process owner, if you will, for many of the enterprise wide implementation efforts. Now granted, there’ll be pockets of activity around in different departments. But when you look at where the budget tip of it’s going to be, it’s going to be held by the Chief Human Resources Officer, the Chief CHRO, or the chief learning officer, or some combination of those two.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  47:03

We’re talking about the development budget, not the company, like other budgets that are held by the or within the finance, but this is we’re talking about budget, that the HR gets. 

Speaker: Nick Horney  47:19

The budget that HR gets to be able to help come up with the programs, the processes, etc., to enable the organization and maybe a change, big change Transformation Initiative, they typically are going to be the ones because it involves people and the allocation of training dollars to them. So most large organizations, I would say medium and large organizations typically would have the CHRO be the one who is primarily accountable for that, and that’s where the budget would reside. So they’re critical partners, I think in any implementation effort. And oftentimes, it’s important if an effort is begun somewhere else, I think it’s important to try to early on, loop in and link in the CHRO, the chief learning officers so that they feel like they’re engaged, they’re involved. They contribute to the overall success, you know,…

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  48:25

Do you think there is a place for roles like that in the modern agile office space? Because the way that, and there’s couple of examples, and I’ve talked to Veena that wrote the agile HR book, and she’s saying, like, the learning is happening at a much faster pace, where like, the role of HR traditional departments similar to change management needs to evolve, where they enable learning and the learning is contextualized, and decentralized to the teams, because they know best what they need to learn, rather than being more of a centralized effort they used to be in the past. Do you have any thoughts on that as far as like, you know, completely, we are not talking about improving HR, we’re completely rethinking what HR stands for, and how it supports the organization?

Speaker: Nick Horney  49:21

Yeah, I think if you go talk to the HR organizations and their professional associations, they would have a different point of view. They would believe that they need to partner you know, with all of the other functional groups that are out there, and to truly understand what the needs are. And, you know, it is critically important to get the dollars to those organizational units and better understand, you know, their needs. Any good CHRO chief learning officer is going to be doing that, they’re going to be identifying, you know, what, what are those needs, what’s going to make a difference, etc., I’m guessing I’m not going to see that, I need to probably pick up the book and take a look. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  50:19

It’s interesting, there’s a lot of, you know, there’s a lot of change, there’s a company here in Boston, Vistaprint, that’s a good example. And there are plenty of others, where, you know, we’re moving away from the functions and more of, you know, product based teams, and the way that teams learn, for instance, Fidelity Investments gives their people one day a week, well, most people get this, you know, for professional development, and you can, you know, joke around, or somebody says, “we can watch, you know, cat videos if we want”. But it’s more about giving people opportunity to learn whatever they think, you know, with their team that they identify as the skill gaps and developing those rather than having essentially, probably you know, you can always take things into extreme, there’s probably need for some type of balance between some centralized and some decentralized learning opportunities.

Speaker: Nick Horney  51:17

But, yeah, I think the clients that we, you know, certainly have worked with our CHRO, Chief Learning officers, etc., the ones that are certainly better. Their ears are to the ground, and they have partners that are in operations, etc., they’re not, and they should not be, and they shouldn’t be in that role. If they are living in a world that says, “well, we are the, we know everything that we learn, and we are the keepers of the money, etc. It’s just how the majority of organizations are organized today. I don’t see things dissolving overnight, I don’t see things happening in a way and I know a lot of people would like them to be more autonomous, you know, kind of units, etc. But it’s going to take quite a while to be able to do that. I believe there’s a bit yet to go there. And, maybe get some more of these examples, you know, as you said, the fidelity of being able to have one day, one day a week, you know, they’ve been other organizations push for it but not being able to do that, but do it in a way that is, you know, it’s not just going out and building the best kite and go flying a kite or something. But also, is there going to be some benefit to the organization? And you can enrich yourself by also enriching the organization as well. So, how do we get the two? 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  53:01

Yeah, exactly. And I think it goes back to that liberate thinking. It’s crazy how time has flown by, it’s almost an hour that we’ve been talking. What would be your closing thoughts or a message that you would like to leave us with?

Speaker: Nick Horney  53:21

Sure. I think, to make this uncomplicated is important. And I think it’s important to think of, again, the Agile Model, yes, there are a number of models and frameworks out there. But again, this is research that we’ve done over 20 years. And just think about the practical application of this, and also the language that can be repeated the Turner example that I gave you, and there are many others. We’re having a common language for leaders and employees to kind of get on board with this. It does say anticipate change is critically important. It doesn’t necessarily define exactly how you’re going to be anticipating change. But there are some techniques or approaches to doing that. It’s really coming to grips with “how do I as a leader, understand where I am within this VUCA marketplace in this disruptive marketplace?”. Where do I stand with anticipating change and generating confidence, initiating action, liberating thinking, and evaluate results? It happens to spell AGILE, so everybody remember that.

And with that in mind, be able to think of it in terms of their own physical fitness, you get a physical fitness test, and you listen to the doctor and hopefully you’re doing something because of that. Hopefully, everyone sees that, “okay, now, I need I need my own development as a leader. Let me get that leadership agility fitness exam, if you will, and be able to understand what are the areas that I really need to focus in on etc.”. And that may change a year from now. And so you may be in a different job, a different company, a different role. The Marketplace may be changed, we may have a different pandemic. So how do you do that and keep it alive and breathe refreshness into that so that it doesn’t become an add on to what you’re doing as a leader. And you had mentioned the line that, well, I don’t have enough time to complete a 360. Well, you don’t have enough time not to do that. It should be and get to that point of being just as important as doing your annual physical exam, to do your annual leadership agility fitness exam, so that you can constantly be growing and building on that.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  55:51

And I’m assuming it couldn’t be like couple of thoughts, maybe just in closing, that it doesn’t have to be annual, like I think, you know, it can probably be, you know, quarterly or more frequently, so you can. And then the other piece is like get a coach, get a friend get somebody like usually, like I was never a gym person as far as like when it comes to like physical fitness, but I could always if I had a friend going or if it was playing like some type of sport, it was another way to get in shape and be fit, you know. So you know, for those that are listening, think about creatively, what you can do to in a way evaluate and then also actually do something about whatever the results are showing to improve and sometimes the biggest impediment is ourselves and trying to find somebody to help us coach, friend, whatever it is, can help

Speaker: Nick Horney  56:50

Two just last comment. Obviously, VUCA masters, the book, is available through amazon.com. And then the other is this year, or at least the New Year 2022. We are launching VUCA masters Academy so that if there are those that might be interested in exploring just what the heck is VUCA masters Academy, I’d be more than happy to chat with you about that and let you know what what’s involved in that.