Staying Sane

During a LeSS and especially a LeSS Huge adoption, the organization needs to be changed. You are involved and probably have no ‘official’ authority to affect the needed changes. This is a good thing! It requires you to convince people to change because they believe it is the Right Thing to do. But influencing change in organizations is far from trivial and frequently, no matter how hard you have tried, it changes in the opposite direction. The question then becomes, how do you survive? Staying alive and sane in organizations requires:

• Patience and low expectations
  Most organizations change slowly. You’d better set your expectations low (not your goal!) and remind yourself that you will be working on this for years. But do celebrate small changes.
• Persistence
  Don’t expect your change suggestions to be adopted immediately but do expect to explain them a gazillion times (often to the same people).
• Courage
  Nothing will change without courage. Don’t be afraid to speak up to higher management or make proposals that are way out of your comfort zone.
• Sense of humor
  You’ve worked for a year to convince people to change something. They did… and they made it worse. What do you do? Take it seriously and don’t take it seriously. Laugh. It is the only way to survive.
• Open and humble
  You must courageously, persistently, and patiently propose change. Laugh it off when stupid decisions ruin your work. And all of this must be done in an open and humble way as otherwise there is no new learning for you. Maybe you are wrong and they were right?

Did we mention patience?