How are we feeling? Very good absolutely good. That's that's good to know yeah, so I hope more people can join in because I know it's the last session of the day and We've wrapped up the conference almost and lots of people are flying out So I do understand that some people may have to leave Halfway through but not because it's gonna be boring because it's gonna be Awesome, but you'll not want to leave right you might even miss your flights, right? Right Setting expectations I'm quite happy that we've made it through the three days and face-to-face conference This has been the first three-day conference. I've had since 2019 All right, and it's it's good to see that we we can still do this I come from Melbourne where the lockdown was the worst in the world the most strictest Kathy knows yeah, so and It's it's great to be free like this with no masks no mute buttons in front of us, right? That's the best bit. I can see you in 3d, right and you can see me in 3d and So on a happiness rating my happiness is From 0 to 10 10 being the happiest. I'm very close to 10 right now Right, and I want you to all think about what your happiness rating is if it's one Unhappy or the happiest is 10 or somewhere in the middle, right now Think of that number and what we will do is we'll do a cumulative graph in this room Based on the level of noise that you make when I get to your number I will count from one to ten ten steps towards happiness and all you need to do is You've rated yourself already you know that number as soon as I call out that number You start making some noise or start clapping and don't stop clapping till I get to 10 Right and what we will do is have a cumulative graph of the happiness rating in this room Based on the level of noise that we make right the other Motive of this exercise is to let other people know that we are having more fun here So if your happiness rating is one right now you may start clapping two three four five six Continue clapping seven eight nine Very good very good It's good to know that I'm mostly surrounded by happy people here today and I want to keep it that way right so and Towards the end it should be all of us should be 10. I'll try my best to get you to 10, right? So to celebrate this happiness. I want to share this cake story with you right, so a Few years ago when my daughter ember turn six we thought it's a good time for her to learn to bake and What better way to learn to bake than to bake a cake, right? So I get ember in the kitchen with all the ingredients of the cake on the kitchen bench And with we start looking at how we can bake this cake the first cake that she's ever baking in her life We I helped her measure all the correct quantities of the cake mix put it in the Pan she mixes it up. She's really excited about this first cake that she's ever gonna bake Puts it in the oven the oven's got a see-through glass window You know those typical ones where you can see the progress of the things that you've got inside She's peeking through every now and then and then after a while. She gets a Bit nervous and then a bit a bit upset saying look at that said what? The cake's going hollow instead of rising. It's going hollow and I look at the cake and sure enough. It's going like this Right and I ask her did you remember to put in the baking powder? And she goes yeah, maybe Maybe I didn't oh, yes, I did maybe I didn't I don't know and Then we look at the kitchen bench and the baking powder is still there as it was Right, and I said well the baking powder is what makes the cakes rise. It's not gonna rise See it's it's too late now She thinks for a while She's really upset really worried and she goes papa. I've got an idea Why don't we open the oven door quickly? Pull the cake out sprinkle the baking powder on it and then shove it back in and at that moment Reminded me of work Because that's exactly what I face and I guess you all face time and time again With somebody calling you saying our agile transformations gone wrong Right, and it's only when it goes wrong that you are asked to come in and sprinkle that agileness In the hollow cake Right, we all familiar with that right Right, and it is quite said that either these are leaders and executives of our industries That are asking for that magic baking powder All right, they're treating agile as an afterthought Agile is a game-changer when it comes to customer engagement. Agile is a game-changer when it comes to employee engagement Agile is a game-changer when it comes to innovation, but a lot of leaders are treating agile as a baking powder that's sprinkled on top at the end And it's very sad that that's that's the story of our industries today And then these are not small organizations. These are large organizations that are asking for that magic dust now Based on my many experience years of experience with working with agile Transformations across small and large enterprises all over the world These are some of the most common agile Barriers or barriers to agile transformations, right and you you will be all familiar with this So if you look at these ones here What I'd like you to do is There shouldn't be anything new here I'd like you to look at each one of these closely and before we do that, you know it's an agile session, so I'll get everyone to stand up please if you can and think about one of these as then think about the organizations that you come from or The ones that you've recently worked on that have been doing agile transformations and if they have started What slowed them down of this list and If they haven't started what's stopping them from starting right think about your last engagement So if you think cannot change the organizational culture was the number one barrier You may sit down now if you think lack of agile training or experience within the organization was your number one barrier You may sit down now if you think concerns around implementing agile outside of IT was the number one barrier You may sit down now Cannot change Pre-existing rigid traditional frameworks or methods if that's your number one barrier you may sit down now very good Lack of leadership support if that's your number one barrier Although that was the one that you figured was the one you may sit down now interesting yeah and The last one I've got is inconsistency in the ways that agile practices are used across teams and when scaling if that's your number one Barrier you may sit down now Very good. I'm glad that no one's standing because if someone was standing that means you have no barriers And I would have liked to work with you But in in in this case here It's it's it's good that what we found in this room is very Conducive to the recent surveys that have been done globally by some of these surveys like the version one one the state of agile one That's very popular. Everyone would have seen it here, right? So the ones that they they found where the number one barriers for agile was Inconsistency in the practices which we found was the case here Agile culture at odds right and the last one was resistance to change Which are fine interesting because resistance to change Is is very common not just in agile transformation in any? Organization everywhere even as an outside of work for us, right? So what makes changes challenging? Here's a survey that was done by IBM a few years ago that looked at different ways of implementing change over globally over with 1500 practitioners and they found that culture and mindset Where the two things that most people found most challenging when implementing any change? Culture and mindset now more importantly What makes changes successful? Right, and there's no surprises here top management support executive support For any change to stick you've got to have I've been looking at some of the like transformation Programs that are looking for people and now they're saying CEO led transformation program Right, and and there's a reason for that because that means that transformation is taken seriously in that organization right and Or what about those ones that are not led by CEO are they just fun games? So they're just like things on the side So that's that's an interesting thought, but the other thing that I I find really interesting here is Training is last on this list Right and That reminds me of another story that I want to share with you a few years ago back when I was living in New Zealand I was invited to help with one of the one of the largest insurance companies in New Zealand to to roll out scrum In the organization. This was quite a long time ago now, but the story is really still relevant and valid So on my first day in the organization as you you do you get introduced to all of the people that he is John he's a developer. He's a certified scrum master He's Mary Mary's a test lead. She's a certified scrum master He is Andrew lead architect. He's a certified scrum master And what I eventually notice is every single person on that floor the entire IT floor Had certified scrum master badges or certificates displayed on their desk every single one of them and I felt so overwhelmed because New Zealand's a small country and To have hundred and fifties certified scrum masters together together in one place. I had never seen that before But and I was thinking I'm a certified scrum master as well. Why have they got me here if they've got hundred and fifty of them So and then I later figured out that they had tried to roll out scrum or agile six months prior to me joining and Had failed miserably and their tactic at that time was Get everyone trained up in agile and start doing agile And then someone told them and that obviously had gone wrong badly and then someone told them Fix your culture fix your mindset Okay, so how do you fix your culture your mindset in an organization? Do you get in a agile coach or external consultant to fix your culture in mindset? No, you don't fix culture like that, right? So you can't fix culture like that because Culture is something that evolves over time and the people that have the most influence in shaping or molding that culture other Leaders of the organization There was a nice article in the Howard Business Review a while ago that talks about this saying you can't fix culture like this But the leaders and everyone in the organization have to focus on their day-to-day actions and day-to-day behaviors and then you can mold the culture by influencing and Setting boundaries like setting good good boundaries Accepting or discouraging bad behaviors and encouraging good behaviors The leaders of an organization have a huge influence in all this right this culture of an organization is shaped by the worst behaviors then the leaders are willing to tolerate and The culture of an organization is shaped by the best behaviors that the leaders are willing to amplify Both of these are equally important But I in the industry we seeing that the the former happens the letter doesn't happen as much Leaders are not amplifying good behavior enough so what our Talk about next is all of us are familiar with any organization that's Embracing new ways of working or agile ways of working or transforming to new new world. They have these kind of posters On their walls right everywhere. They these are common values, right? You've all seen them What I want you to ask wanted to get your views on is if you were to look at these five values And these are common agile values Trust courage respect openness empathy If you were to pick one or many That needed more focus When working in remote or hybrid situations like we do now these days Are there any that need more focus? Or are they all equally important? Would you pick any out here that need more focus and and this is again our opportunity to let other people know We may having more fun in this room than other rooms When I call out that value trust like you go. Yay, right? If you agree, that's the one that needs more focus each one of those like you go Yay for the one that I call out. So if you think trust needs more focus trust Okay, courage Respect openness Empathy very good very good. So openness and empathy. Yeah, that's interesting What we are finding is that while courage and openness is important Leaders that embrace trust respect and empathy in their workforce culture are Helping their employees Be the best versions of themselves in remote or hybrid cultures right and that's what is Underpinning the remote ways of culture or remote ways of working values trust respect and empathy Right now all of this looks good on paper. It's not there's no right and wrong answers by the way They're all equally important But these three need more focus and my my session today is to highlight that the the importance of these three things Right. So what I'm talking about is trust first, right? Trust is fundamental to productivity engagement innovation and agility and What is really important to note that the converse is also correct where lack of trust Will hinder all of those things So all of this looks good on on a poster, right? We see these in posters everywhere. How do we make it? Relevant on the ground. What do we do? We talk about trust we I did a couple of days ago We just did a session here where we had a self-assessment and empathy was the most common trait in the people in the room Right, everyone was saying. Oh, I'm empathetic What does it mean? Let me let me share some examples and stories with you, right? And and I felt like I was I'm also empathetic person But really do I know? How do you know right? So let me share a story with you a couple husband and wife are having a coffee and Her phone rings Right, so she goes Hello Yes Hi, how are you? Oh? Yeah, no, I'm just having coffee with my hubby. Yeah. Oh Dear when did that happen? Oh, no That's not good. Oh Dear no, that's really bad. Okay. I'll talk to her. Yeah. No, that's really horrible. Okay, then I'll talk to her see ya Bye and She hangs up the husband who's having this coffee with her Is as curious and as concerned about what has just happened and Asked the wife What was that? What happened? What did she say? To which the wife says oh nothing, honey, nothing that should bother us right now and Continues to have the coffee Now, let me bring this back to a work scenario where a customer raises a defect the product owner Shows up on the floor with the scrum master and discusses the Importance of getting this defect fixed and they both agree that this defect is not important enough to disrupt the current sprint and It can be put into the backlog for a future sprint for consideration in a future sprint Right the product owner not wanting to make it a big deal Logs it in his private notepad so that he can bring it up in the planning sessions later One of the developers overheard some of this conversation and approaches the scrum master saying oh What was all that about did the product owner just raise another defect and The scrum master goes oh don't worry about that. There's more things that we can focus on right now Don't you don't have to worry about that defect. We'll talk about later So in both of these scenarios the coffee scenario and the defect scenario We are seeing that there is a lot of control over information In the coffee scenario the wife's The husband's thinking she doesn't trust me enough to even tell me what her best friends just told her I'm never ever gonna come back to have a coffee with her again while the wife's thinking This is our coffee time There is nothing more important for us then to enjoy this time together with my hubby and to enjoy this coffee time with My hubby right now everything else can wait. I'll tell me tell him later as to what happened Let me enjoy my coffee with my hubby right now and then in the defect scenario the developers thinking This scrum master scrap. He doesn't even want to share what the product owners just told him. How can he? He trust us with my work There's so much of great feeding of information here Well, the scrum master on the other side is thinking The sole reason for exists my existence in this team is to protect them From external noises. I need to make sure that they don't get distracted And they don't get distracted by external forces or noises and focus on the most important things right now I need to protect my team. That's my sole reason for existence all of them have got good intentions, but there is a perceived lack of trust and What we're finding the teams thrive when they're trust based not control-based and The strongest pillar for agile teams Is based on trust now we are finding that with complete transparency, right? We are finding that you said openness we need that more than ever before In the remote ways of working and the the hybrid ways of working It's with the pipe absence of non-verbal cues. It's becoming even more challenging to have the transparency to have the trust I Remember back in 2020 March when the world changed for all of us and all organizations were disrupted to go remote One organization that I was coaching in at the time I remember all the leaders getting into a room like this and they had a big conference meeting or meetings discussing How can we make sure that our people when they're working at home are not slacking off? How can we make sure that they're working the full hours at home? And they started brainstorming and then one project manager had this brilliant idea It will sound familiar when I share this with you Said from tomorrow morning I'm gonna call every member of my team between 9 and 9 30 in the morning and then again from 4 30 to 5 in The morning so that I know that they are working the full day at home. It's funny, but it's true There are still people who are thinking like that and their leaders and executives of organizations they think like that And if we all know them there's at least one or two in our circles or more maybe right so what I Want to highlight here is that the leaders are fairly failing to recognize that it's all about the outcomes Not about the hours Right and what leaders need to do is make sure that we are looking at setting Specific or clarity of the outcome that's required by each of our team members and then Specifying how those outcomes will be measured Leaders need to demonstrate trust and empathy to empower their teams To do the work the way that they like to do it with the flexibility that they are looking for and most openly Encourage open and clear communication to provide extensible feedback on those outcomes not on the hours Right and most importantly avoid checking in Frequent checking in's right say just to check progress and that can become become annoying and It shows lack of trust and then you get employees that leave or become disengaged And we are seeing a lot of that happening in the industry today talking about checking in and checking ups We can avoid checking in's by using asynchronous tools or Best management practices right so it's not that we don't do any of it But we've got tools that can provide even better updates Real-time updates if you use those tools properly right now talking about checking in checking up reminds me of another story a couple of not couple of months late last year I was going to a bit of a rough patch, right and I was There was a lot of things on at work and there was a lot of things happening for me at at home as well Right, and I was drowning. I was like barely surviving And as we do I started prioritizing my things Pushing out things that could have waited to the backlog back back of the backlog I pushed out some of the emails that could have waited to be replied to later So that I just could keep my head above the water Now while I'm down for the count one day eight-tethy in the evening I remember I'm like really struggling and I get this text message from somebody Eight-tethy in the evening. I'm just like out of it and I see this text message Hey, just checking if you're okay unusual for you not to respond Call out if you need help Just these words made me feel better already I'm thinking there's somebody out there in the world who cares about me. I Met her to somebody These words just magically made me just get more energy Till I read the second half of this message Which said I really need your help if you could respond to my email as soon as possible. Thanks with a smiley Now I'm thinking there is a distinct lack of authenticity in this message Because I've started feeling even worse than I was feeling before reading this message And if they were really checking in on me and not checking up on me They could have just sent me a simple message saying I really need your help if you could respond to my email as soon as possible Please and not fabricate it. I Would have been more inclined to help them even though it was at 8 30 in the evening and what I'm seeing in the industry these days after the pandemic is We are trying too hard and I fall into that trap as well to to come across as polite come across as caring and As a result what a lot of leaders are struggling with is coming across as not being authentic right and That's this how only happens when you mix up the two the checking in versus the checking up Right if you're really checking in on people really really care about them Send a message that's as simple as this just checking up on you with no strings attached and no expectations in return That's when you connect genuinely Right don't mix the two. I fall into that trap all the time trying to be too polite and it as a result We're coming across as not authentic Don't mix the two Okay, this is a heavy topic. Isn't it for I've last session of the The the last one. Yeah, no good. Okay, let's let's have fun fun now, right? So Who knows this guy? We say involved the fastest person on earth, right now We all know this guy this photo was taken when he won the third gold medal at the London Olympics Right, so we changing pace now 2032 is when the Olympic Games are coming to Australia. I'm really excited Yet he and I are even more excited about the Commonwealth Games, which is in 2026 in Melbourne where we believe Right now when we have these kind of games Do you know what is the most popular of the sporting events in those games? Which is the most anticipated event apart from the closing ceremony of the opening ceremony? track events which one in particular Hundred meters because you find the fastest person on earth, right and these days those hundred meter races Less than ten seconds. It's over then what Then there is gymnastics and beach volleyball to keep me excited Then what and Then I look forward to also look forward to the four by a hundred meter relay races Right anyone keen on those relay races. Yes, very good. So we'll have fun here now So the relay races you have the four of the fastest Printers from every country on the track at the same time Right, and it's a team sport Has anyone here had the luxury of watching a relay race live on track? Okay, not many What about on TV? Everyone right now I have on TV. I haven't seen it live, but I'll see it at the Commonwealth Games. I'll make sure so Here's the thing When you are watching a relay race on TV Have you noticed that the TV is only showing the guy or the runner on the starting block with the baton? Right, there are other runners on the hundred meter mark There's another runner on the 200 meter mark fine 300 meter runner. There's they're waiting Have you ever seen the camera of focusing on the 300 meter runner? Because it will be 30 seconds by the time the the baton gets to them doing the race What are they doing while they're waiting? They might be signing autographs Right, but I've never seen the camera focus on them Have you? No because who cares The camera always focus on The people with the baton because the team that gets the baton over the line wins the race Simple right so let's have that race here if you were to race here and If imagine this is a track we go this way Lane one We've got USA Lane two we've got Jamaica Lane three got Canada Lane four Got Japan Lane five we've got to have India Suddenly India's good good at running Lane six We've got ABC consulting because ABC consulting claims that they can have four Sprinters on the track that can run hundred meters in sub 10 seconds and they are allowed to take part in this race so along with all the races ABC consulting is on track six and this is how ABC consulting is going to conduct this race So the first thing that happens is They'll introduce a track manager on the track Right, so ABC consulting stretch manager is going to go to the hundred meter guy. You know what? Hundred meters by the time. Oh, sir ten seconds by the time the baton gets to you. It's gonna be Easy high jump here, which will only take you seconds You'll be back in time to take the baton to Utah who will be running from 200 to 300 meter mark You know 20 seconds by the time you get the baton. There's a long jump happening here Can you just quickly do the run long jump back in time to finish past the baton to the 300 meter runner? Yeah, and 300 meter runner 30 seconds by the time the baton gets to you right the one in the corner You can be signing autographs or whatever but instead what I'll do is I'll get you to run that Just beside here on track two right and You'll be back in less than 10 seconds to finish the race for us and that way we are all fully utilized Right and the race starts Right the baton gets to the hundred meter guy. He's huffing and puffing his back way back from The the high jump is just done goes to Utah for the for the passing the baton Who's just finishing off the long jump there? Comes back takes the baton in time but instead of running that way She runs that way because she's got no context of this race Right and then everyone says oh no the other way the other way Then she chucks a ui and goes the other way to find the 300 meter runner Who is still waiting for the hundred meters to start next door? No where to be seen on this track Right and while the all the other runners are finishing the race and it is not just consulting organizations a Lot of organizations are conducting races like this because the leaders are Focusing on keeping the runners running Rather than getting the baton moving and it's really said to see those organizations conducting races like that Sounds familiar. Yes. Yeah So What I Also want to talk about is as leaders We I fall into that trap all the time I feel important I feel more in demand when I take in more work and every project every new thing that's coming to my portfolio I Feel like oh, yeah, I'm in demand I feel important and I never say no to things because it makes me look important and As leaders we want to show off how many things that we have in our control and our belt Right and what we need to do is Change that thinking and it has to start from the top where stop the organizations that are measuring people on how busy They are rather and instead may measure people on how many what they're producing the outcomes that are present producing Right if you do that then it this becomes easier and Then the other way that we can do change that thinking is treat work in progress as a liability Rather than as an asset Right now that change of thinking will start Helping us, but it's easier said than done as leaders will when we look at our project teams a scrum teams and we minimize their work in progress on walls and we Can highlight it for them and make them do more or less things in the work in progress things That's easy lift it up to the leadership level and I can tell you that is a great challenge so The trick is to start finishing and stop starting and Slow down to go faster Right now talking about slow down to go faster. There are three good Things that exist in any good agile environment three elements right Anyone wants to guess what those three are not not the values three three elements like yeah, yeah Anyone else what I'm looking for Close Yes transparency Inspection and adaption right Those things exist in every good agile environment Right because only if you have transparency you will have Ability to inspect because if you can't look under the hood you won't know what's wrong and only when you know What's wrong?  What's different? How do you operate differently? What's the answer? We sprint faster They're shorter sprints Or we have sticky notes. Oh, he's Jira. No See only thing that a good agile team will be regularly asking themselves is How can we get better? There's nothing else important more important than asking this question all the time And as leaders we need to allow our teams to stop and take stock To enable them to continuous improve continuously improve so that they can return better return on investment for our customers Right making things more efficient and making things in in in the ways of working better right along with the product now When we look at Talking to leaders and I'm sure you would have all experienced this Say do you do retrospectives and things like that? We do continuous improve. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we do we do We do PR hours every end of project. We do a post-mortem Who does it here post-mortems? Yeah, most nods. No. Yes and That's that's the answer for continuous improvement, but post-mortems the persons already died The projects finished It's too late. Oh, no, no, no. We apply the learnings to the next project. I Haven't seen many projects where all the learnings of one project have been applied to the next project. Have you yet to see one? yet to see one right and then eventually you tell them, oh, you know like It's better to go and get medical checkups when the person's still alive. It's more useful Same with projects. Well, and then eventually they agree. They say, oh, yeah. Yeah, we'll do projects Oh retrospectives, but they're really upset about it because it's not productive time. We are not cutting code and Everyone's toppings work to do retrospectives and it's considered a waste of time and sometimes what I find is what I call Check-in-the-box retrospectives. That's what happens and you'll know when I talk about it. I'll share this with you Check-in-the-box retrospective What's going well? There's always a sticky called good communication and there's another sticky good teamwork Right and then what's not going so well and this is a classic There's always a sticky around our destiny test coverage needs to improve Right and if you this see these themes that they are repeating Fluffy kind of things every every retrospective, you know, it's a check-in-the-box retrospective. So call it out Yeah, so what What I want to ask you next is Every organization is striving towards becoming a learning organization and we all like to do innovation Experiments pilots first of a kind this and that right so and we have innovation hubs these days and Innovation hubs are where experiments happen and it's okay to fail and all that Right. How many people here have been part of those kind of things? Yes Not many though. Okay, but have you had a Project that was like a pilot or test POC or whatever at least you've got that, right? Yeah, okay. Think about this. You don't have to answer it Think about what happened when that experiment was hugely successful Where the people in the team rewarded? Don't have to answer it. Just think about it Where they rewarded and What if that experiment failed if that experiment failed Where they're still rewarded or where they're punished and the last thing I want to Consider in this topic is after I failed experiment Where the members of that team still as motivated to be part of another experiment or whether encouraged to be part of another experiment or not Because the answers to these questions Say a lot about how safe The people are feeling to try out new things without the fear of failure in your organization And if you want to take out just one message out of this talk here today make it this one as leaders we want to make sure that we are Creating an environment where it's not just these small wins that are celebrated But failures are celebrated as well Right, and I'm not seeing a lot of organizations that are celebrating failures Right, it's equally important to learn from our failures and amplify that and share the learnings in the group Not just the ones that we have won Because there are more learnings in the failures. We all know that but how do you do that? Firstly trust respect and empathy if you are Underpinning that in your values of your organization. This becomes really easy I used to work in an organization where we used to have a Failure's wall and every time anybody had a failure They would write a sticky put it up with the wall and replenish that wall with stickies every week because every Friday We would get there on that wall and talk about the learnings of every failure and Upload the people that had put stickies in there Because there was rust trust respect and empathy and that was a true learning culture Now if you look at Psychological safety again big words, right? How does it what does it make any how does it make any difference? So if people are not feeling safe to call out their own failures, you don't have that psychological safety Right, so don't just use those words if leaders are saying all we creating psychological safety ask There's three questions to those leaders the ones that are just asked you ask them these questions If it's a yes, yes, and yes, yes, you've got the psychological safety then right so Next bit each one of us have got some good qualities and perhaps not so good qualities, right? Now what I want you to do is look at these 14 Weaknesses common weaknesses that all human beings have most most common ones here and all of these 14 just pick three That you that resonates most with you Reach of these 14 which of the three are the the most relevant for you Right and don't worry. We won't share your weaknesses with anybody else It's just for your own good this exercise and don't worry the next bit. It's more interesting, right? So don't get too depressed with three of these right everyone ready with their three biggest weaknesses of this list right If you're ready go yay Some most people are not ready Okay, so I'll share my biggest weaknesses I'm number three. I'm stubborn. I'm shy number six and I'm indecisive number 13 That's what my wife tells me anyway So now look at the traits on the right-hand side of your three biggest weaknesses Right now just because I'm stubborn. I'm dedicated just because I'm shy. I'm reflective just because I'm indecisive I'm patient hidden in each of our strengths is Sorry hidden in each of our weaknesses is a strength Now this is a great team building exercise when you are building new teams Because as leaders what we normally do is we share each other's strengths Right, and it's easy to talk about strengths or what's your superpower? What do you bring into this team? We hardly talk about oh, what's your weakness on the first day we meet because It's one we feel wonderful Right to share our weaknesses with other people that are strangers and we have just met It's it takes a lot of courage right now If you are looking at doing these leaders what we need to realize is that it's Important to share the strengths But if it's even more important to share our weaknesses with each other and that's when you have a well oil humming machine Only when you know each other strengths as well as the weaknesses and when you're putting teams together It's important to know that yes You've got to have a broad horizon of strengths But at the same time for this kind of exercise to work You've got to have everyone with a huge overlap on the shared values In this case the values of trust respect and empathy for this kind of thing to work If you don't have that overlap of values in the team You can forget about it Now This is my last bit for the session and probably for the conference Each human being has an invisible Post-it note on our foreheads and it says mm fi each and every human being Can anyone guess what mm fi stands for? anyone any guesses Make me close Make me feel important Right, and we should never ever forget this message when we are dealing with people right because as leaders the words that we use impact the attitude of others around us and how we make them feel and This reminds me of one last story. Can I share one last story before we end the conference? Yes We have one more story. Okay, so a while ago when I moved to Melbourne. I was invited to help with a organization that was Running a project that was running a very waterfall manner and they said oh now We know we want to run this in agile now because it's only agile because the time Fixed and the scope is fixed and it's only agile that will help deliver this project And I was the lucky one to be chosen to to help them move to agile, right? So first day on my on the floor again, I'm looking at the Where everyone is and everything and I noticed that after a few days, there's no leadership presence on the floor There's only doers like there's no executive managers project managers Delivery leads no one like that So a week later. I called the EGM of the department said, you know what? It would be nice for you to get involved in some of the things that we do this with this agile team here Why don't you come around one day and and tell them why we're doing this project and give them a motivation talk Whatever right so and he agrees Said next Tuesday. I'll be in this building. So I'll come around and talk to the team And I'm so excited finally. We've got some engagement with leadership here, right?  He agrees, right? So and I wrote this motivation talk word-to-word after he did it And I want to read it out to you Imagine the teams just met him for the first time and he's going like this. It's the EGM Starts the November date is fixed There is no room for negotiation with this date The scope is fixed and socialized with the business I Empower you all to do whatever is necessary to deliver the agreed scope by this date You are empowered to make all decisions with regards to how you want to implement this new product If for any reason you are not able to deliver your pieces or if I find that you are delaying your pieces by waiting for answers I Will crucify you these were the exact words of the EGM empowering the team And I'm standing beside him and I lost all feelings in my legs and crumbling down What is it like? We need to remember that as leaders we need to realize that it's not just our actions and behaviors, but also our words That Create the culture and help mold that culture around us, right? It's the words that we use that impact the attitude of others around us Right, and we've got a choice of words Remember notice how there's some words that just drag energy down like that one And there's some other words that just project the energy upwards in the room right and as leaders what I Would request everyone to do is consider the choice of words because our words Impact like it's we've got to Make sure that we project out that good energy out to the world By choice of words we project out good energy to our organization and Then also project out that good energy to our the teams and individuals in those teams in those organizations Right, so as leaders use our words to project out that good energy I hear some some words like execute terminate headcount all in the same sentence and It seems like it's the scene from the Terminator movie where Arnold's gonna be back and someone's gonna get hurt real bad so look out for those because Sometimes we forget about how others are perceiving those words We forget about what is it coming across as because our words really really impact how other people feel When they're listening to this so and I was we've got this Newspaper in Melbourne, which is called the age and There's also a Just like cricket here in Melbourne. It's the Australian football league AFL for us right where it's it's a religion and the headlines are always brutal win Slaughtered Right, it's like in this sporting area in this sporting space It's become like that as well where it's all about brutality and slaughter and all that rather than a good win or convincing win or Showing some sportsmen, right? So let's start from from the organizations and avoid those kind of language Right. Anyway, I think I've done enough for the language thing back to the cake So we all know it's all about the cake, right? So as leaders Project managers or in people with influence or remind the people who are with influence around us that it is not just our actions Our behaviors our ways of working, but our words as well That impact everything and agile has to be pervasive Into everything like that, right? So it starts from the beginning not sprinkled on top Right. I just want to summarize The seven things that we talked about in this session here today the first one was Can't create culture overnight the leaders have the most influence in shaping and molding that culture Leaders who create trust trust respect and empathy in their workforce Are the ones that are Enabling their workforce to be the best they can be It's about outcomes not the hours focus on the bit on not the runners Right the last one out. Sorry the next one is checking in not checking up with authenticity That's when you really connect Stop starting and start finishing Treat work in progress as a liability rather than as an asset, please Number six is slow down to go faster continuous improvement right slow down to for that and The last one is using the power of words to project out that good energy MFY make me feel important for all of us, right? Thank you Right on the bell Really want to thank you each and everyone for your patience and and staying awake for for the entire session because this is the Last of the conference and I hope you enjoyed it and We'll keep in touch. Please connect with me on LinkedIn or wherever and We'll be happy to talk about anything that we talked about and thank you to every one of your Smiley faces because it helps That's good. Thank you


Now, I know you might have felt the tug before in your life. You felt that something is not right. Maybe it's been on a date. Maybe it's been with an interaction with a health care practitioner. Maybe it's just been the general feeling you've had most of your life. And now decades later, you're just getting around to the point where it is a scream and no longer a whisper. In this video, I thought I would talk about something very important that I see as a general kind of existential crisis that comes up a lot. And I think addressing it is very, very important in the healing journey. Hey, I'm Dr. Alex Hine, Chinese Medicine Doctor, acupuncturist and author of the health book Master of the Day, which you can check out on Amazon. I've included two links right below this video. The first is a free download, which is four daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. And the second is if you want to become a patient of mine, either locally or online via telemedicine, you can check out the link below to my clinic and my contact information. Our modern life and our society is very weird because we often build a life that becomes a prison for the spirit. You know, one of the things that makes me think about this quite a lot is Brownie Ware, the hospice nurse who wrote that book, The Regrets of the Dying, where she talked about the number one regret being I wish I had lived a life true to myself and not what others expected of me. Some of this is complicated because we do have familiar responsibilities.  Obviously, that's not feasible. And sometimes there are cultural beliefs. This is how women should act in a relationship. This is how men should act in a marriage or in general. This is how you should treat your career. This is why you should use a career you don't like, but it supports your family or you should choose a career you don't like. But that adds prestige to our family. There are all these contractual obligations that we have as a combination of culture and upbringing and even our own beliefs about what we think is proper. But a very few of those things are really listening to what we feel really called to do. Now, my upbringing was really no different. You know, my dad as an immigrant from Haiti said, what if you made $70,000 at a finance job, right? Wouldn't that be awesome? And then my mom was from a more established wealthier family who said, you know, you should go after what you want and what you dream about. So even these two messages are almost like mixed marketing messages, right? They're suggesting two very different approaches to life. One is outwardly focused security. One is internally focused excitement. Now, this dichotomy represents a lot of what we humans struggle with in our lives. Now, this video obviously falls in the bucket of psychomotional, psychological, psychospiritual healing, whatever term you like to use, but it involves how you feel internally when no one else is around. Now, I know for me personally, when I did work, i.e. medicine, that was not only personally interesting and fulfilling, but meaningful because I saw it contributing to other people's lives and I saw it helping other people. That was a profound upgrade in the way that I felt on a daily basis. It made a profound change in the way that I felt even on the days when I'm tired, even on the days where I don't want to do what I'm doing, just the feeling that there are people, my patients that need me, that need me at my best, that need me to keep studying every day, that need me to physically come in and see them. That by itself has been such, you know, kind of like a strong safety line that internally holds things together because any of us have days where we don't want to do things, any of us have days where things are exciting and then the next day they're incredibly boring, but often it's meaning and satisfaction that transcends our own personal will that is incredibly important. I shared it here before, I think, but I shared the story of, it might have actually been Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop Lab story, a show on Netflix, and they had a bunch of their employees go down to Jamaica where they did magic mushrooms as part of one of their Goop specials or their episodes. The woman and the therapists down there that were assisting in this psychedelic therapy session had said that, you know, the shamans down here and the people down here use this magic mushrooms, the psychedelic psilocybin, when they're chronically ill and they can't find a solution to their illness, they use it for their healing. But the funny thing is you foreigners, you Westerners, Americans, come down here when you don't have any physical illness, but you say you feel disconnected or you don't feel connected to anything or like this life has no purpose. And she said that, well maybe that's actually your illness and that's your pathology. And I think a lot of us can relate to this. All the material needs having been met, all the contractual obligations with our family and our career having been met, but internally we feel empty and that's a problem. So besides this being just a typical rant, the point is that often working with my patients, a very difficult thing I see across the board is encouraging you to build a life and career that is true to you, true to you, meaning true to what you want to do, not what you feel obligated to do because you have a family, true to what excites you, even if it doesn't make the most money at the moment, true to what you feel intrinsically called towards, something that's deeply meaningful even if it doesn't work out. Now it doesn't mean you quit your job and you give up on your three kids and your family. What it means is just lean into it. Maybe it's an hour, one afternoon or one evening a week after work when the kids are in bed or before watching a Netflix show. Lean in for one hour and begin experimenting with that thing.  Sometimes the light shines through. The light is your real true self of what you really want to do. So you begin exploring for an hour a night and that crack just opens up a little bit. The light, you know, the light cracks through just a tiny bit. You get one little light ray coming through and then over time, over months, maybe that opens up even more and then over a couple of years, maybe that whole doorway has been cleansed and you feel completely differently internally. And maybe guess what? You get even the same results you got externally, financially, and you can meet all your obligations as a parent or a father. So I find that addressing this is so difficult and so important to the healing of the person. You have to build a life and career true to you, true to your actual desires of who you want to be and what you want to become. It's not easy. It's a Joseph Campbell Heroes journey, but it's one of the most worthwhile things you can ever do. All right. That is it for my impassioned psychospiritual rant for today. But again, before you go, a link below is if you'd like to become a patient of my locally or online via telemedicine is a link to my clinic. And there's also a free download for daily rituals that can help you add years to your life potentially with Chinese medicine. All right, guys. That's all I have before you go. I have two other videos related right here.