2017-10-05 14.37 Continuous ChitCha Episode 4 Page 7 of 9
Alan Shimel, Jayne Groll
Alan Shimel: Hi Everyone. This is Alan Shimel of DevOps.com.
Jayne Groll: And it’s Jayne Groll, CEO of the DevOps Institute.
Alan Shimel: And you’re listening to Continuous Chit Chat Episode 4. Jayne, it’s a thing.
Jayne Groll: Yeah. It’s a thing, Alan. Can’t believe it’s our fourth episode and today, we’re gonna talk about something, I think, that’s really emerged as something critical but also should be something that should be apparent and that’s leadership.
Alan Shimel: Leadership in general or just in DevOps case?
Jayne Groll: Well, specifically the need for really disruptive transformational leadership in DevOps. And we’re seeing a lot of that. IT’s definitely trending in a way that there’s a lot more intellectual property about transformational leadership. There’s definitely a lot more organizations trying to understand what leadership in DevOps is all about and how is DevOps’ leadership different than traditional leadership?
Alan Shimel: Yeah. And you know, Jayne, I was actually going a different tangent here and certainly, what the world needs now is a little bit of leadership. We’re recording this on a Thursday and just had a crazy week of –
Jayne Groll: Unspeakable violence.
Alan Shimel: In Las Vegas, and I look for someone to step up and there’s no one. But that’s leadership in general. But you’re right, specifically in DevOps, leadership, in a vacuum, without leadership, I’ve come to understand that you – or I’ve come to learn that you can’t have DevOps.
Jayne Groll: Yeah. And one of the things, when you look at the good out of bad and you look at some of the events of this week and they’ve been horrific. From hurricanes to mass shootings and all of that, we don’t wanna get too much on the downside, but you look at the individual roles that some people have played helping each other, really not being told what to do but just doing it, people that have helped other people through the hurricanes or through what happened in Law Vegas where the took on a leadership role without being asked to just because the circumstance called for it.
And that’s part of transformational leadership. Right? Is being able to not only inspire others but to help them really center around what needs to be done at the time it needs to be done just because it does need to done. Right? Everybody’s a leader.
Alan Shimel: Jayne, I think it comes back to nature abhors a vacuum. And in the absence of leadership or traditionally, people do emerge and take a leadership – because it’s human nature. I think it’s the way we’re wired. And yes, you’re right. We’ve seen it over and over again in events around the world but even within DevOps, let’s bring it back to DevOps, Jayne. You may have a title. Right? And that’s a great thing but you’ll also find within an organization is that people will take on a leadership mantle either because – well, they’re inclined to but they have the expertise. No one else will.
There’s various reasons to. Martin Logan who’s my cofounder on DevOps.com, he runs like a flat group no matter – I forgot the name of what they call this thing but basically, it’s a flat system and self-organizing groups. And what Martin tells me is that depending on the task at hand, today, you’re the leader because you have the expertise. Tomorrow, I may be the leader on a different task because I’m better suited to leading for that task. And they’re self organizing. Right?
And so leaders emerge and then go back and someone else leads depending on the task. And this is something, part of that DevOps cultural kind of mission, which is those who should lead lead. That being said though, I just wrote this on an email today to someone. One of the things that I clearly see emerge over the last two, three years, three or four years, is that in transformation or transformative organizations around DevOps, without some executive leadership, sponsorship, support, it is very, very hard to be successful with a DevOps transformation.
Jayne Groll: Yeah. I agree. These bottom up, top down. Right? And –
[Crosstalk]
Alan Shimel: Yep. Or middle out.
Jayne Groll: Or middle out. Right. And in DevOps, you need all of the above. You start to see, unfortunately, corporately in many corporations and you and I have been in the corporate world a long time, too often, we were groomed to wait for somebody to tell us what to do and in some cases, even how to do it and that was perceived as leadership. Right? The leader would tell us what tasks need to be done, when they’re do and in some cases, how to do it. And then you start to look at the transformational organizations, the ones that have really done something remarkable.
And they’ve done something remarkable because somebody, maybe not the senior executive came up with an idea. You look at Dojos and you look at Squads and you look at some of these new terms that are really trending in DevOps, not because a CEO said, “Hey. We’re going to create a dojo.” It’s because somebody on the team said, “Hey. We could do something with some immersive learning.”
So you’re right. But on the other hand, and so that’s kind of a bottom up middle out approach where those organizations groom their staff to be innovative and to bring those thoughts forward and to welcome those thoughts even though every thought may not necessarily come to reality, they’re invited to do that. If you try to do that but you don’t have the executive sponsorship, you will get a certain percentage further than where you are today but until the senior management, whoever the steering committee is, the CIO, the CEO, really starts to buy into the fact that there’s some real value here, bottom line value here, then the amount of resourcing that will be available will probably be pretty limited. So it is bottom up, middle out, top down, and all of the above, which essentially, translates to everybody’s a leader.
Alan Shimel: Yeah. It does. Jayne, when you were talking, I was thinking specifically about people that I know in the workforce, And there are some people who actually do very well in that highly structured and all time corporate environment where here are the tasks that you’re set with, here’s the way you’re going to do those tasks, here’s the time frame you’re gonna do those tasks in, and I’ll see you on Friday. Right?
But I – and I think organizations used to function well like that. Right? Sort of the ants in the ant colony kind of thing. But I think today’s successful organizations have set people free to innovate and that’s where the innovation comes from, where the individualism, exceptionalism, but also a ton of progress happens that way.
Jayne Groll: Yeah. I heard a great word recently called intrapreneurship. So we all know what entrepreneurship is, right? But intrapreneurship is where a large organization has pockets that act like start ups and they’re funded like a start up, they’re resourced like a start up and they’re encouraged to think like a start up. And so that also encourages that free way of thinking. Again, if you look at the organizations that have really done some interesting, interesting things and we could name them pretty quickly on our podcast, those are the ones that we’re unafraid to try something different. Like Martin, with his flat organization, a flat organization, and it’s not a small organization. A flat organization requires more leadership from everybody.
And it requires that we’re not born with managerial skills and there’s an assumption that the minute you get promoted or you get a new title, you suddenly, magically know how to be a leader. There’s good education and training and publications around that. You know DevOps Institute just introduced the DevOps Leader course and we did our pilot at Jenkins world. That was awesome.
I had 15 people who came from different roles, some were senior managers, some were middle managers, and really, were just excited, inquisitive about how do you lead DevOps. A DevOps Leader is not a traditionally leadership course. It’s really very specific about how do you lead DevOps.
Alan Shimel: Yes. But there are lessons to be learned generally in terms of leadership. One of the things I learned, Jayne, in past lives starting companies and stuff is that just because you’re a great single contributor doesn’t mean you’re a great leader. And so there’s a jump and some people make it, some people don’t. And that’s just the way it is. But when we look at DevOps and the DevOps Leader class is a perfect example, some may – initial blush as well. I’m just – I manage one team or today, I’m not even managing anyone other than myself.
[Crosstalk]
Jayne Groll: Developer. Right. Yeah.
Alan Shimel: Right. I’m just a single contributor. What do I need a leadership class for? Well, the DevOps Leader class is not made for the CIO necessarily. Right? Which is still, to be fair, one of the biggest questions we hear from executive managers is, “This all sounds great. How do we get it in my place?” Right? And there’s something to be said for that. But for DevOps Leader for anyone listening, this is a class for anyone who wants to understand what are the dynamics of facilitating change at your organization.
Right? You want to – you don’t have to have necessarily the title. It’s about being a doer. Right?
Jayne Groll: Yeah. It’s about being a doer and we know that if you start to look at the hierarchy in IT from the professional up to the CIO, that everyone leads something. Everybody leads something and then, one of the core concepts in DevOps Leader that I love is the GE acceptance formula of what is DevOps and it’s quality times acceptance. You could have a great quality solution, whether it’s a pipeline, whether it’s a tool chain, whether it’s practices and principles, and if you multiple that by the acceptance of that solution within the culture of the organization, if the acceptance is, “Here are the formulas result to 0.” Right?
So you can have the greatest quality or you could have the greatest acceptance but not a great quality solution. And if that’s zero, the results of the formula are still zero. So it really kicks off with understanding that there are multiple elements and culture – we know this, Alan, from everything that’s written and presented and case studies, the culture’s probably one of the most, if not the single most, critical element for DevOps.
Alan Shimel: So we know that, Jayne. One, again, a lesson I learned over the last three four year is a quick litmus test between someone who knows DevOps and someone who thinks they know DevOps are the people who say culture schmulture. Right?
Jayne Groll: [Laughs] Right. Yeah, yeah.
Alan Shimel: It’s all about the tools or what have you. And I used to argue about that with people but I don’t bother anymore. I’m older and wiser now. If you just think it’s about the tools, that’s great. I hope it works for you. But really, and it really is about culture. And – and when you’re a leader, by the way, I used – earlier in my career when I was a leader, I thought it was my job to tell people what tools they had to use. I’ve come to under – to learn that people tell you what is the best tool because they’re the experts on that. You can’t – it’s a rare person who is both the expert in what’s the right tool to use and also the same person who’s the expert in running a project, a company, a division, what have you.
But again, these are all parts of leadership kinda that you learned but it certainly is about culture. It’s certainly building a team. And I don't know your background in athletics and everything but I played sports my whole life and then coached for many, many years. That team building is such a skill set unto itself. Right? When you build a team, you’re building a team you’re going to war with. Right? And there’s such a – you know this.
Well, your son played basketball so you know it very well. When that team is – they’ll conquer worlds that they wouldn’t otherwise and that’s part of being a cultural leader as well. Right? Building that team.
Jayne Groll: Yeah. When you look at DevOps, it’s funny you mention the tools because there’s a section of the course that initially the reviews went, “What?”And it’s a section on categories of tools because you’re right, Alan, as a leader, I may not pick the tools. I may not tell somebody – I shouldn’t tell somebody what tools but I should understand what the general tool categories are and what the variances are there and what’s available in the market so that when a team comes and says, “Here’s what we want,” at least I know what they’re talking about. So we did introduce that as part of the course.
The other thing about culture, I think, that’s really interesting is that it’s not surgical. You hear the term organizational change management and it really has a great spirit behind it but sometimes, we reference it as if it’s surgical. Like we could surgically remove the old culture and then surgically attach a new culture and we mandate that tomorrow, we have a new culture. And a good leader understands that people – people accept change at different rates and that how they accept change and they have conflict will be a part of the equation and that it becomes institutionalized over time. That’s also an important part of leadership. It’s really interesting because agile really introduces the concept of servant leadership. Right?
And so servant leadership where you help individuals become self organized and you help the individual grow and evolve into a more modern, multi dimensional – and – and absolutely, they’re – in transformational leadership, we’re really looking at helping them understand the bigger vision of the organization. So we’re servant leaders because we help the individual. We’re transformational leaders because we want everybody kind of marching in this same direction according to the goals of the business. Very, very powerful combination.