Mar 17 2024 38 mins
Bio
Fabiola is a pioneer and thought leader in Agile HR and Co-Founder of Just Leading Solutions, a global transformation consultancy for HR and Business Agility. As a seasoned Management Consultant and Executive Advisor, she works with key players around the globe and across the private, corporate, and social sectors. She helps them become more adaptive and innovative by maximizing the potential of their people function. Fabiola is a Switzerland native living in New York. She is an avid New York Rangers fan.
Interview Highlights
03:20 Business Agility
04:35 The Impact of Technology
07:45 How HR Fits into Business Agility
10:35 Making the Change
13:50 Sustainable Initiatives
16:25 Agile HR vs Agility in HR
18:35 Workforce Planning Sessions
30:15 The Agile HR Course
Links
· JLS Website: www.justleadingsolutions.com
· Training Overview: Agile HR Training
· Agile HR Explorer: Agile HR Explorer Training
· LinkedIn Fabiola Eyholzer
Books & Resources
· The Connected Company, Dave Gray
· Thinking in Systems, Donella Meadows
· The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth, Amy Edmondson
· The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups, Daniel Coyle
Episode Transcript
Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I’m Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener.
Ula Ojiaku
So I have with me here Fabiola Eyholzer, she is the Co-Founder and CEO of Just Leading Solutions, a New York based consultancy for Lean Agile People Operations. Fabiola, it's a massive honour and pleasure to have you on this show. Thank you for being my guest on the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast.
Fabiola Eyholzer
Thank you, Ula, the pleasure is all mine.
Ula Ojiaku
So how did you get into this, you know, Lean Agile space?
Fabiola Eyholzer
So it's actually quite an interesting story. It's now 13 years ago when I was running the Swiss market for a European HR consultancy, and we were looking for a new leadership model for our career starters. And I met some Agile coaches and they're like, oh, you have to do Scrum, and I'm like, well, did you hear me say that we are an HR consultancy, we're not a software developer. She's like, trust me, it's the right thing to do, so we did a test run. So we introduced Scrum, which is the predominant Agile practice with our career starters, and it was such an eye opener to see what actually happens when we work in this new way that I knew this is the future, and I decided there and then to quit my job and dedicate the next phase of my career to Agile HR.
Ula Ojiaku
Wow. And since then, what sorts of organisations or projects or initiatives have you worked on?
Fabiola Eyholzer
So we've worked on so many different initiatives and with so many different companies and I actually had to look it up, I was in over 21 countries with the topic of HR Agility, and in that time I worked with companies across all industries, across all sectors, from profit, to non-profit, to education. And something that is really interesting is that at the end of the day, it doesn't matter that much what your corporate culture is, what your social culture is, when it comes to the people function, we want to make sure how do we maximise the people function, how do we leverage what we are doing in HR in a way that is highly beneficial for our employees, and with that, highly beneficial for our organisations. And of course, right now we are in that situation that the world of work around us is changing massively, you know, it's just being turned upside down. And this is, on the one hand, really scary, on the other hand, it's a massive chance to really reinvent HR, and really do things differently.
Ula Ojiaku
Something that stands out to me is you're saying it's an opportunity to reinvent HR and we will get back to that, but before we do, what does business agility mean to you?
Fabiola Eyholzer
So for me, business agility is really ensuring that our companies are engaging and adaptive and innovative so that they can thrive in that fast paced and constantly changing, highly dynamic environment. And at the core, what it means is that organisations and institutions are shifting away from being well oiled machines to being thriving ecosystems, because adaptability means exploring change, enabling change and being able to be change ready and to manage change to flex their muscles, to explore opportunities very quickly, to act on opportunities and not be scared, not be afraid to pivot and to course correct. And that's what we are seeing right now, that companies have to shift away from a model that served us really well for 150 years to a new system that is always at the edge of chaos, but that's the only way to continue to thrive and be adaptive in that fast paced, highly dynamic environment.
Ula Ojiaku
And would you say, I've, this is the first time I'm hearing that phrase, edge of chaos, but I do agree, and would you say that in this day and age, because the nature of the work we do, compared to 150 years ago, or even some years ago, it's for the most part getting to be knowledge-based, especially in technology. Is that one of the considerations for the change we need in the way we organise and run our companies or groups or teams?
Fabiola Eyholzer
Yes, technology is definitely a massive game changer for us, but it's not just about changing the way we work or changing the way our processes work. And quite often when we talk about technology in the HR space, people think about, you know, putting our HR process onto new, fancier digital process, but that's not just what it's about. It's more about understanding how much is technology and everything else that goes hand in hand with that, how is it changing the way that we work, and it leaves us with that very fundamental question, what type of work is left for us humans? If everything around us is being automated, and you know when we think about automation, a lot of people think about assembly line work going away, you know, routine work going away. And that was true 20 years ago. But today, work is being automated in every single field imaginable. And it's not just routine work that is being automated, and that leaves us with that question, what type of work is left for us? The answer is, it's the type of work that requires our passion and our potential for collaboration, ideation, our social and emotional intelligence. And of course, we are solving problems we never had to solve before, so there is no script, and that means we need to organise our companies in a different way. We need to organise work in a different way so that we can manage that ongoing fast paced change and that we can continue to solve problems we haven't solved before. And that's why we need to shift away from being a well oiled machine that has everything already figured out and written into job descriptions and competency models and objectives and KPIs to a company that can create and respond to change very quickly.
Ula Ojiaku
So given your definition of what business agility means to you and the case you've made for change, in the sense that we're at the edge of chaos and the sorts of work we need to do right now because technology, almost everything can be and will be automated in one way or the other, so where does HR fit in into this, in the light of business agility?
Fabiola Eyholzer
I can give you a very straightforward, simple answer. The role of HR in business agility is that HR is the secret to business agility, because if we don't align our people approach, and if we don't align our HR practices to the new realities and new demands, we're not going to be successful. So if we don't engage in talent scouting and talent enablement and performance acceleration in a way that is aligned with the new way of working, we cannot achieve business agility.
Ula Ojiaku
And how ready would you say the HR function is for this sort of transformation?
Fabiola Eyholzer
So the companies that we work with, or that I have the pleasure of working with, they are ready, or at least they're not scared to try. So they're courageous enough to try. As an industry in human resources, I think we have a long way to go. On the one hand, we see that things are changing and we're trying super hard to change with the times, but quite often we don't have that fundamental understanding that the entire mindset, the entire DNA of the organisation is going to change, and unless we understand that new mindset, that new DNA, we will not be able to change or maximise the people function in a way that is most beneficial for Agile enterprise. So we have a long way to go.
Ula Ojiaku
How would you know if an organisation's HR function is ready? Are there some indicators that they're ready to go on this journey if they haven't started already?
Fabiola Eyholzer
One of the indicators is if they have more questions than answers, they're probably there. So, because the companies are just saying, oh, we've done this, we've done that, tick, tick, tick. They're probably not the ones with that growth mindset that Agile organisations need. Okay, so that's one indicator. The other indicator is that they're not satisfied with the status quo and at the same time they are willing to do something about it. So I sometimes say, we have a gut feeling that tells us there must be a better way out there to engage with people, to create a learning organisation, to inspire people. And if we listen to that gut feeling, then we need to be gutsy about it, to change it, to do something about it. And these are some of the things that we see in organisations that we work with, they are not afraid to challenge the status quo. They realise we need to change and we need to change now.
Ula Ojiaku
And okay, when they have identified, yes, we need to change, we need to change now, what's your typical direction or steer or guidance to these organisations and their leaders in terms of where to start? Would you say, let's take a big bang approach and overhaul everything? Or would it be small iterative steps towards the change? What's your typical approach? How would you advise them?
Fabiola Eyholzer
So I'm going to give you the consultant answer, it depends. So it depends on the change readiness and change willingness of the company. We have a lot of companies where we have amazing success, when we took one part of the organisation, typically around 500 to 2500 people, where we changed the entire HR approach. We had some companies where we have had amazing success with a big bang where we really transformed the entire HR organisation, but it really depends on how ready are you to explore and also how willing are you, how much do you want to put in, how much energy and passion and resources are you willing to put into that transformation? But one thing that we always do is, we start with training and inspiring people, because we talk about a new world of work. And while this is easy to say, you know, people initially envisioned this is about virtual work, or working from home. Well that's a tiny part of what we're talking about when it comes to this new world of work, and because this new world of work is rooted in such a fundamentally different mindset, we first need to understand that mindset, and we need to speak the same language, because quite often we're using words that have a very different meaning in the Agile space versus the traditional corporate environment. And I can give you an example, for instance, if we talk about hiring for potential, you know, what are we looking for? In the traditional way of looking at potential, it’s, does someone have the potential to thrive in that particular role, and does someone have the potential to take the next step in a predefined career trajectory? But that's not what we're talking about when we talk about hiring for potential in the agile space. We are talking about hiring for potential to thrive in an uncertain, complex, ambiguous, volatile world. Does someone feel comfortable with uncertainty, not knowing what their job is going to look like 12 months from now? Does someone feel comfortable with flexing their muscles, with learning and unlearning new things? So it's a very different understanding of a simple work word ‘hiring for potential’. So that's what we're doing, is speaking that new language, understanding why and how this new world is so fundamentally different.
Ula Ojiaku
Well, that's very, very thought provoking and some of the things in my little experience that I would expect leaders of such organisations to say like, yes, well and good, you know, you inspire us, there's a case for change, but how can we make sure this isn't one of those multiple failed large change initiatives with engagement? How would we know we will make this sustainable?
Fabiola Eyholzer
So you will never have a guarantee, but what is a massive game changer, and what's crucial to the success of any transformation is your commitment, okay? So you have to stick with it, even, or especially, when the going gets tough. And since we are working in such a different way, it's super easy to fall back into old patterns of behaviour when there are problems that come up, when we need to reprioritise, when something unforeseen happens, it's super easy to fall back, and that's when you have to keep going. And I think that dedication is one of the key aspects. And also what's interesting about agility is when you learn about Agile and how it works, and what the values are, it resonates with us. Of course it does, because it was created for the human economy, so it taps into what we bring to the table. So it sounds super easy and straightforward, let's talk about empowering people, who doesn't want to feel empowered, but then it's, we have to figure out what does that mean for us in an organisation, what does empowerment mean? How do we share that empowerment? How do we allow the teams to explore, to learn, to stumble, to fail, to course correct? It's not always that easy to then actually follow through. And I always say the devil is in the detail when it comes to Agile. You know, it sounds super easy on the surface, but when you dig in deeper, it gets more challenging.
Ula Ojiaku
It's almost like learning to play a game of chess. Yes, you might know how the different pieces move on the board, but actually the getting into it, it's a lifelong pursuit to become a grandmaster, almost anyway. I really enjoyed going through your course, the Agile HR Explorer course that's on the Scaled Agile platform open to SBCs, but there was something that you mentioned in that course, Agile HR versus Agility in HR. Can you explain for the benefit of the audience, you know, what these two terms mean and how they differ?
Fabiola Eyholzer
Yes, so the word HR has two meanings. So when people talk about HR, they can either mean the HR department, your compensation specialist, your learning expert, your grading instructor. So all these HR professions, so the entire HR department and that. Or they can mean HR as a discipline, as a function, where we talk about talent acquisition and performance management and learning and development, workforce planning and so on. And because there is that duality to it, we also have a different approach to agility. And that's when you hear those words, Agile for HR, so meaning what can Agile do for the HR department or HR for Agile, meaning what does HR do for the Agile teams, for the Agile organisation, and the approach is slightly different. So when we bring Agile to the HR department, it's all about how do we work in a different way? How do we organise around value? How do we deliver value faster, in a better way? So it's implementing all these Agile practices, the natural practices and ceremonies and artifacts within the HR department. Whereas the other side is really, how do we align all our HR practices to this new way of working, and that's really where the magic happens. So if we shift from recruiting to talent scouting, if we shift from learning and development to talent enablement, if we shift from performance management to performance acceleration, that's when we help the organisation become and stay Agile, that's when we bring business, or enable business agility across the organisation.
Ula Ojiaku
And there's something you said about workforce planning, you know, so in terms of the function, if I may just go slightly off tangent, it's a question that's been on my mind in the sense that, is there a way that one could approach workforce planning that would undermine the agility of the organisation? So I'm going to give a hypothetical example. So there are some organisations who might be saying, do you know what, in this economy, we need to balance out our talent mix, and we want new, fresh talent who, maybe fresh graduates who are, they will cost cheaper, they probably are up to date with new technologies versus, you know, existing talent who might be more expensive. So is there a way that one might approach workforce planning that could be detrimental, because there are pros and cons to every approach potentially, but in your experience, in the multiple organisations you've supported and continue to support, could there be things we could watch out for that might undermine our agility in that space?
Fabiola Eyholzer
Yes, so the way that we look at it is when we look at talent and what talent brings to the table, we don't look at it from, is this talent expensive or cheap? It's about how much value does this talent add to the organisation? Okay, so it's a value based way of looking at it, rather than a cost based, right. So that's the first part. The other part is that we, what we want to do with adaptive workforce planning is that we can explore opportunities very quickly, so it has to be a way where it's easy for us to say, hey, we have new initiatives come up that require new skills that we are very proactive about it, that, let's say we need more AI experience or Blockchain experience or whatever it is in the future, if we know that today that there is a high chance that we need it, let's look at the organisation. Do we already have people who have experience or skills in that particular field? Can they train others? Do we have to start building, putting up a training program ourselves? Do we have to get external talent in that can give us a leg up? Can we work with exploratory assignments to get people that experience? So there's so many things that we can do, and the focus with anything that we do in agility is always about now and the future, whereas in the traditional workforce planning, it's more about the past and today. And if you think about it, workforce planners, they don't have a full overview of what are the initiatives the teams are going to be working on six months from now, but we think it's going to be 12 months from now. And that's what we do with the active workforce planning in the Agile space. We have that forward looking approach. We look at our talent pool and say, what's the strength of our talent pool, not just compared to the initiatives that we're doing today, but to the initiatives that we think are coming up. And the beauty about this is, and here you see that we're really applying systems thinking, is that this is then opening up growth opportunities for our employees, because if we want to be an Agile organisation, we need to be a learning organisation first.
Ula Ojiaku
I do like what you're saying about the adaptive workforce planning and it does align with that, you know, responding to change over just sticking to a plan. How often would you recommend or how often in your view would it be practical to be having these sorts of workforce planning sessions?
Fabiola Eyholzer
We do it once a quarter with our clients, because that allows you to then also collaborate, because this is about talent management, you know, where do we see things that people need to learn, what they want to focus on, do we need to open up exploratory assignments, do we need to assign people to different teams, all of these things we need to know before we go into our quarterly planning. So if we talk in SAFe terminologies, you want that to happen before your PI planning so that you can make sure that those people topics are part of the backlog. So we work with capacity allocation, all of that, to make sure that we have people topics on that, so that's why we do it once a quarter.
Ula Ojiaku
Okay. And I would assume, you know, once a quarter, those people topics, because there's also the respect for the individual or the people involved, there would be some factoring in that there will be conversations with the individuals to say, hey, this is what we think is going to happen, what's your opinion? Do you want to go instead of just shifting them into positions and maybe them learning on the day of the PI Planning your team has changed.
Fabiola Eyholzer
Yes, and, you know, in the Agile space, we talk a good game about empowerment and we know how it works when it comes to work, but of course, empowerment also means empowering people when it comes to their learning and growth journey. So, hey, the people manager, people developer and HR are there to open up opportunities for them, but at the end of the day, they have to be on that journey by themselves, they have to make those steps, they have to go through that door, they have to go out and learn and explore and bring themselves into play. So it's, what's empowerment when it comes to their own growth and learning.
Ula Ojiaku
Thanks for that Fabiola. Would you say that when you do this adaptive workforce planning, does it make sense for one area or team or division or department to be compared with another? And I'll tie it back, I'll just give you some context, because I've heard of organisations, you know, doing it based on, oh, we want to make sure our cost base is, you know, our overheads, we're cutting it, I know everyone is doing a good job but we want to cut it, can we start measuring this department with that department in terms of workforce planning. I do resonate with that value base, instead of looking at how much they cost, what’s the value these people, these talents are bringing? What's your view on, in the process of doing this, comparing one unit or department with another in their workforce planning approach?
Fabiola Eyholzer
So there are two aspects to it. One is, what data do we measure? And the second part is what do we do with the data? So for instance, when it comes to adaptive workforce planning, for instance, one of the important KPIs that we have is looking at the talent pool strength. So how strong is the talent pool compared to what we're working on right now? What we're going to work on in the next one or two quarters and three to four quarters out. But we're measuring that just so that we have a data point to get us talking. So this is not about comparing my team to your team and my team is better than your team, that's not what this is about. It's more about having a data point that allows us to have a conversation, that allows us to see, are we moving into the right direction? So, and I think that's important to all the KPIs. Why are we measuring them? And what are we doing with the data? And also the question, are we measuring the right things? And something that we often see is that people don't differentiate between leading and lagging indicators. So, for instance, a simple example in HR, we often look at retention rates, which is a great measure to have. But here's the thing, a retention rate is a lagging indicator, a lot of stuff has already happened, you know, and people did that quiet quitting probably long before they actually handed in their notice. So while we want to have that data point, there are other data points that are probably going to be better for us to be proactive, to do things about it. So always think about why are we measuring something? Are we measuring the right things? Are we measuring the things that are easy to measure? And for instance, cost is a data point that is easy to measure, but it doesn't say anything about the value. If someone used a hundred percent of their budget, well, did they do well? We don't know. Maybe they could have done the same thing with 70% of the budget, or maybe they should have gone to 120 and created something amazing for the future. So, really think about why are we measuring things and what are we doing with the data?
Ula Ojiaku
It just reminds me of a conversation I had and I said, what if we don't look at the cost and what if we also asked, are they meeting the targets that you set for them, the objectives that you set for them, and could they be setting up your organisation to make, you know, quantum leaps of progress by the work they're doing right now. So, and some of these things we can't see into the future, it's only retrospective, and that's where the leading indicators you talked about, although you talked about it differently from, you know, measuring attrition and people leaving and retention and all that, but there are ways of knowing in advance whether our guess is most likely to be correct, and sometimes measuring money or the cost isn't always the best metric, so I really like what you said about that. Thank you.
Fabiola Eyholzer
And also when you think about it, so many organisations, they want to be innovative and adaptive. At the same time, they focus so much on efficiency and, you know, following a script, following a plan, you know, hitting certain numbers that are set in stone, that they actually lose agility and adaptability and innovation, but they don't see the connection between the two, they don't see the connection between their leadership approach and their HR and finance and legal processes and how that is impacting one way or another how innovative they are, how creative they are.
Ula Ojiaku
I do recognise we're kind of teetering whenever we talk about the cost, we're teetering between, you know, finance, but they are all intertwined, like you just pointed out, it's all intertwined and it's a delicate ecosystem where you're always going to have to be doing something to stay in balance. What you did yesterday might not necessarily work today, so it's all about sensing and responding and I do appreciate what you've said so far. So what led to your developing the Agile HR course, which is now on the Scaled Agile platform?
Fabiola Eyholzer
Yes, I co-created or co-founded JLS, I think, nine years ago, and we very early on realised that we need to have a training to sort of do that level setting, get people that foundation, foundational knowledge to succeed in their transformation efforts. And that's when we created a series of different courses, and one of them is the Explore course that you mentioned. It's a one day course, it's great for anyone who's new or fairly new to Agile, Agile HR, you know, someone who wants to know more about it, and this is really an important first step to a longer learning and growth journey. But if you're new to Agile and you're in HR, this is definitely a great training. It's a one day training that gives you, starts out with the new world of work, you know, why is it so different? Why do we have so much pressure on performance management and career models and so on and so forth? Then what is Agile? And we explain Agile, not using technology based examples, but HR examples, you know, what does good design mean in the HR space? So we really explain the Agile manifesto and Agile values and principles from a HR perspective, and then we bring these worlds together and we talk about what is Agile HR and how do we apply that to different HR practices? So it's going to give you a well-rounded introduction to the field of HR Agility.
Ula Ojiaku
And is this available on the JLS website?
Fabiola Eyholzer
Yes, so all our trainings are available on our website and also our partner companies offer Agile HR training, you can go to an open enrolment class or you can bring it to your own organisation to train either an entire department or a team. And it's especially valuable when you start out on a new initiative, you know, it doesn't matter whether your company is already Agile or planning to become more Agile, if you're tasked with reinventing performance management or, you know, doing a new initiative, a new project, this is always a good way to get into it and say, okay, how can we make Agile work for us before we then help the organisation be more Agile?
Ula Ojiaku
We'll definitely have the link to your website in the show notes with your episode. So what I'm hearing is it's available, there are some partners as well that offer this training, which you and your team have curated. But if someone says, no, I want you, Fabiola, to come to do this for us, is that possible as well?
Fabiola Eyholzer
Absolutely. You can go to our website and contact me or you can hunt me down on LinkedIn, I'm the only one with my name, so you should be able to find me and just send me a message and we can definitely collaborate.
Ula Ojiaku
Okay. Well, what excites you about what you do currently?
Fabiola Eyholzer
Oh, I tell people I have the best job in the world because I get to work with amazing people, amazing companies, you know, people and companies who are not afraid to push the status quo, you know, who are courageous to do things differently and who are not afraid to push boundaries, because we're getting into uncharted territory. When you think about human resources, the term HR was first used in 1893 by J. R. Commons. So HR is this year, 120 years old, and of course we've evolved, you know, we changed from personnel management to modern HR and everything, but we're at the cusp of a new era that is going to be fundamentally different from anything else that we've done in the past. And if you think about it, it's never been this exciting to be in HR. We get to reinvent and shape the future of HR, or the people function, whether you call it talent and culture, or employee success or people and culture, whatever term you're using, we are reinventing it, and I'm in the middle of it, so I get to help organisations do this.
Ula Ojiaku
That's exciting. I can sense the passion and the enthusiasm there. Would you be writing a book on this topic anytime soon?
Fabiola Eyholzer
Maybe one day.
Ula Ojiaku
Maybe, okay. Whilst we will be eagerly waiting for your book, what books would you recommend to people who might be wondering, okay, what else could I read to, to get abreast on this, or generally any books that you would recommend that have made an impact or impression on you?
Fabiola Eyholzer
So one book that had a really big impact on me was The Connected Company. So it talks about the company being more like a city, rather than an engine, and even though it doesn't talk about agility, it doesn't talk about human resources, there is so much food for thought in there, you just have to put that thought in to make that translation into HR, but I thought that was a fantastic book. Then obviously Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows. I'm a systems thinker myself, so that definitely resonated a lot. And of course there are other books like The Culture Code, Fearless Organization, books like that, that can, you know, really give you a lot of food for thought.
Ula Ojiaku
Thank you very much. These would be in the show notes. And would there be any ask before we round up that you would have for the audience?
Fabiola Eyholzer
So don't be afraid to push boundaries and to challenge the status quo. As I said earlier, every time you have that gut feeling there is a better way out there, well, chance is that there actually is. So don't be afraid to push boundaries. Don't be afraid to try. And I know everyone sometimes feels that they're in that hamster wheel, that they have so many things to do already that they can't take on something else, but I tell you from personal experience and from my experience working in that field for, for 10 years, it is a game changer. And if you're willing to put in the work, the results are going to be amazing. Yes, actually it's hard work, but it really delivers what it promises. Don't be scared, be courageous, do it.
Ula Ojiaku
Thank you very much Fabiola for those words of wisdom. It's been a pleasure. I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and I hope, you know, we would have some follow up sometime in future. Many thanks Fabiola.
Fabiola Eyholzer
Anytime. Thank you so much. Pleasure was all mine.
Ula Ojiaku
That’s all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I’d also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at [email protected] Take care and God bless!