Managers must change or leave — We need Leaders, not Managers

Again and again, I am asked by successful managers what needs to be done to carry out a successful agile transformation in the organization. And the answer is always right there in the question. A digital transformation is a transformation.

In a transformation, so much has to change at all levels of the organization that managers often forget that they also have to change themselves and their behavior.
And these changes are naturally scary, often to senior management. Often the problem already lies in the “why”.

Why do we need to go through an agile transformation?

If you ask the question, why do we need the agile transformation you often get lots of weird answers.

If the answer is “We have to do this because the future is digital.”, or “Because our competition is also working agile, and we are only successful in recruiting if we work agile.”, they haven’t understood much about the topic.

So, the problem starts with the why, is reflected in the corporate culture, and ends up with pseudo agility and NO real agile transformation of the company. This is because an agile transformation involves a change in culture, a change in structure and process organization, a change in the way…