Hi and welcome to the first Masterclass email for paid subscribers - thank you so much for signing up - it fills my heart with warmth. I do hope I can serve you well over the course of our time together.
Each of the masterclass lessons deals with one single topic. There are around 130 lessons in total - so plenty to go at. As this is a new model for delivering content, I may get things wrong, or it may be too intense, or not intense enough - please let me know. Simply reply to this email or email me at rob@cultivatedmanagement.com to let me know what you like or what you'd like done differently.
At the end of each of these newsletters will be a help section. In here you will find a link to the Personal Knowledge Management System (which I aim to update each week), discounts on courses and/or books as they are released and further guidance to support today's topic.
Painting a Picture of the future
Let's paint a picture - the first step in Releasing Agility. It is a concrete first step but a painted picture alone won't give the absolute clarity over what you are trying to achieve - we will cover identifying obstacles, building a plan and communicating the strategy in future emails.
Agility (or agile as the mainstream may term it) is always in service of something else. Companies want to go agile to achieve something: typically better business results and retention of staff (by providing a more engaging culture). We covered this in the last Masterclass newsletter.
As such, it's critically important to understand what you are releasing agility towards.
I've seen many teams (sometimes award-winning teams) helping companies move smoothly and quickly towards the shipping the wrong things. They get better at shipping failed products, or they deal with failure demand better (we'll cover failure demand in a future lesson). Or they enable teams to provide poor service more quickly. Or they don’t really understand their purpose at all, and you end up with a mishmash of approaches. Often nobody can explain why a company is going “agile” other than it sounds plausible.
Releasing Agility is about getting better business results and retaining good people by overcoming obstacles. It’s therefore essential to know which problems are worth solving.
The reason painting a picture is so important is because there are always more problems in a business than we could ever solve.
Instead of simply solving every problem we encounter, and humans like to solve easy or interesting problems, we must be certain we are solving the ones that are stopping us on our path.
So, we must paint a picture that the path leads to.
If all we do is solve every problem we encounter, we may be solving the wrong ones. Many problems in business need to be left alone - otherwise we would need huge amounts of staff to simply overcome them all. We could spend all day everyday solving problems (and dabbling with agile methods) and not improve business results.
As such, it's super important to know what we want and where we are going - and this is where the painted picture comes in.
Business results are NOT part of the painted picture – that comes soon with goals and OKRs. A painted picture is more about understanding our purpose and what kind of team, department or company we want to work in.
Consider a painted picture as a picture of the culture we are after.
I have included some real examples of painted pictures from my time as a VP of Engineering, a VP in HR and one from my own personal life. Yes, this approach works for our own lives too.
The painted picture is about working out our purpose. Why do we exist? Who do we want to become? Who are we trying to help?
It should be compelling, interesting and exciting. It will form the foundations of our goals, objectives, ways of working and it will give us clarity over which problems we focus on.
It is hard to create a painted picture. On the one hand you must have in the back of your mind the current reality as you know it, but you must also aim high and think big and not be too constrained with where you are now. Business is full of dichotomies.
When I run this exercise with every team I work with, it does not come easy to them but it's a foundational block that is important.
The Painted Picture
I call it a painted picture because a picture tells a thousand words, but I don't paint or draw a picture. I will include visuals with the painted picture, as visuals help, but the painted picture is typically written first, then supported with visuals.
A key aspect of corporate culture is that "what is written is considered the truth". So, we play to this by writing down what our future is.
I typically aim for a painted picture of 2 years away from now when working with clients. In my own personal life the painted picture is 10 years out. In business a lot can change in a short space of time, much of which we may not have control over. In my personal life, things do change, but I have a lot more control. For the purposes of this email we'll focus on the two-year time frame.
Two years works well because it's not too far out that it freaks people out. It's also far enough away that huge change feels possible.
A few things you need to know to build the painted picture:
Who your customers are
What products or services you are building
The overall company market goals and ambitions (of course, you may be creating this for the company)
Evidence of where you are now - but remember to try and park this to the back of your mind.
A few key principles when writing the painted picture
It can change - it's not set in stone - although it makes sense to try and get it mostly right at the start
It should be written in the present tense, as though you have already achieved it
It should be rich and compelling and interesting BUT it should not codify processes or results – save these for the next steps of building a strategy.
A way to think about this would be if the market shifts and the product or service needs to pivot or change, the painted picture would still be valid
It should be ambitious and exciting but not so unrealistic that people are afraid of it
It should be short(ish)
So, you're writing down what you want the world to look like in two years’ time. You are explaining, in the present tense, a world that is better than where you are now without being too limited by current constraints.
You are building it based on the customers your company serves and the products/services you provide. It should be exciting. It should be compelling. And it should be a future that helps to keep the business alive - as in, don't write a painted picture for a different company or one that is an awesome place to work but value is not being shipped.
How to craft it
Write it first - and then edit.
Co-create this with other leaders/people if you wish. Don't include too many people as everyone has an opinion.
Outline your purpose, customers and future intentions.
I would always leave out ways to measure this purpose for now – they can come later.
Write it like you speak - it needs to feel personal not corporate and formal
Write it, leave it alone, edit it and then leave it alone again. Good writing requires space between drafts.
Once you have written it, read it out aloud.
Does it sound good?
Does it sound personal?
Does it sound exciting to be working in this way?
Does it flow?
Once you're getting close to the final version put yourself into the shoes of those you work with, or are under your supervision, and ask questions of it.
"What does this mean to me?"
"This sounds unachievable, how will we do this?"
"Is this exciting enough?"
And try and weave in any elements you may be missing to the painted picture or prepare your responses to the questions.
This is a scary activity to perform as you're thinking big and pitching an idea for what the company/team will be like in the future. You need to be sure that if you reach this future the business will be better and it will still be making money - and of course, it will be a great place to work. As in, it should not be at odds to what the company is trying to achieve.
It's also scary because, as we'll cover in the next few emails, you are not already there. You are writing a story about the future – and you may be wrong.
We will ask the inevitable question: "If this bright painted picture is so compelling and interesting, why are we not already there yet?" in the next set of masterclass emails. This is where we identify the many problems that will help you release agility as well as uncover some measures of success.
Somebody will challenge you on this point – it typically comes in some variation of these statements “We’re miles away from this future – it’s not achievable” or “That’s not how we work around here”. And maybe they are right but if you’re trying to paint a bright future for two years out – you’re going to have to aim high. Small increments on what you currently have may be a good move but many of us want more than an increment.
I would suggest you have a go at writing the painted picture but let’s go through a few more masterclass emails about strategy, problems and goals before you start communicating it out – that way you will understand how all of the pieces come together as part of the same goal: to provide clarity for our teams.
As you move through the rest of the lessons and are moving towards your painted picture, you may need to revise your painted picture. You may even need to write a new one. I've had to do that several times, where my two-year plan was well out – the team achieved it in 6 months. It’s amazing what people can do with clarity over who they are trying to become and what they’re trying to do.
The reason this works, and why you may need to rewrite it, is the painted picture acts to galvanise people to a brighter future.
You may already be awesome and living the dream, but there is always room for growth. The painted picture acts as a True North, a galvanising vision of who we are and what we're trying to do.
Every time I run this, and we land on a painted picture, the organisation is buzzing.
For many people it is often the first clarifying guidance they have seen in a long time. It sits above goals and objectives so it's more compelling. It gives people clarity over where to focus their energy and attention. And more importantly, it gives people hope. Hope of a better way of working. Some future that they will play a part in bringing to life. And that’s energising.
It's that destination on the horizon, something to move towards, our purpose, something to aim at and something to release agility towards.
It means that when we're faced with obstacles or blockers or problems or opportunities, we can hold in our mind our destination and decide our next move. It gives us a direction to get people out of the car to help us pull towards (moving people into motion video explains this idea).
Without a painted picture of what our world of work looks like, we'll fall back to PowerPoints, goals (which may be wrong) or easy problems that look like they'll make a difference. In my work I see plenty of well-intentioned talented people overcoming the wrong problems. And in doing so, they often create the problems of tomorrow.
Communicating it
Once you have a painted picture you must socialise it and communicate it with clarity. We have lessons on this in the future but here are some ideas. As I mentioned - probably worth holding off on this until we’ve covered steps 1 and 2 of the Releasing Agility model (painted picture, goals, obstacles, plans and strategy) so you can see how they come together. But, here’s a broad approach I take.
Everyone likes to be communicated with differently, so you will need different mediums and channels.
Start with an all-hands meeting (everyone in your structure) and explain the painted picture and why you created it.
Ensure all levels of management below you understand the painted picture and are in support of it (co-creating it with them helps).
Ensure all levels of management are communicating it to their direct reports in their team meetings.
Ensure all levels of management are communicating it in their 1:2:1s.
Socialise it on the internal chat channels.
Host it somewhere on the internal systems, print it out, keep talking about it.
Run monthly sessions in the first 6 months to keep talking about it and giving updates on the plans and strategies - and progress. It is your initiative to own if you’re a manager.
And remember, this is just the first step - so you should also communicate that we're not there yet - and it's now on us all to work out how to get there. That's for future emails.
The painted picture is a statement about who we are and what our way of working is. It isn’t a plan, nor goals, nor action. It is a vision of something better than where we are. That’s why it’s important to hold in your mind where you are, but let it go and plan something brighter. As you will see in the first example below, the painted picture I created was “miles” away from our current reality, but it gave us a galvanising picture of who we were and how things could be better.
Miles Away
I recently ran this with a VP leadership team, and they struggled. They wanted to put in goals, outcomes, measures, budgets and processes - all things I would put in strategies and goals, not a painted picture. We want to get above this to our purpose.
I suggested they save that for the strategy and step back a little.
What were they trying to do? What sort of company did they want?
I asked them to describe the kind of company they would love to work in, one that was brilliant for their career but also amazing for their customers.
After a few hours of discussion, they settled on a painted picture. It was “miles” away from where they are now, but it gave them a picture to head towards. My next session with them is about understanding why they’re not already there yet – and we can actually add some tangible steps to create a strategy.
Depending on your role in the business you may find you have a variation of the painted picture handed down to you. It could be a grand company vision that comes your way. Great. Take it and modify it to make sense to your team, industry and sub-culture. For example, a painted picture for HR should be different to Engineering, which in turn should be different to marketing. But you all serve the same paying customer at some point – and surely, every team or department wants to create a brilliant place to work?
There are some examples below – have a go at writing one for your team, department or company and see how you get on. It’s not easy but as we work through the next few emails you’ll see how a galvanising painted picture helps in bringing a strategy to life.
For the purposes of future Masterclass emails, we will focus on using the VP of Engineering example below.
So, when we move on to measures and strategy and goals and studying demand etc, we will use this example. Many of you who have signed up for these emails work in the Tech space – so it seems like a decent example to keep referring to. Of course, the lessons will be about general principles and approaches suitable for all industries.
A sample painted picture from VP Engineering
Current Reality - releasing software every 14 months, small team but about to grow substancially, some new investment, poor performing platforms and service, not the right skillset in the team, sketchy behaviours in team, no real career management, losing customers due to lack of stability, new leaders in place.
Painted Picture - Our purpose is to provide brilliant software on a stable platform that enables our customers to get their business done. And we do this like the professionals we are - with care; with quality; with speed; with code that works; and with integrity and honesty; all while having fun doing it.
We have no problem attracting talented people to our business as we have the best of the best, we have an environment that supports learning and co-operation, and we are shipping software that meets its goals.
We ship new software every week. We know software can fail so we have resilience, fail over and fast fix processes. We don't take the shortcut, nor the hack, and we are proud of the software we produce. We optimise for flow not capacity and this shows in our ability to go from idea to working software quickly and the fact our team are not working extra hours with regularity.
Our customers are happy, our product meets its purpose, and we work closely with front line support to deal with issues quickly.
We can always be better, and we improve anything that isn't working to meet our high standards. We take time out to do hack-a-thons and personal learning, we line manage with care and pay attention to employee’s career goals, and we have clear succession planning in place.
We contribute to society through our corporate responsibility aims but we also provide code clubs to the community, run internships for aspiring technologists and do our part for open-source technology. We have equality and diversity baked into our recruitment and respect everyone for who they are. We don’t let people bring down the team.
We have fun, lots of it. We have clubs, social events and communities to support people's interests and hobbies. We speak at conferences; we share what we know and we're always looking for ways to lead our industry.
We're not afraid to fail and we see failures as a way to make the business better. We get stuff done right first time where we can (and we learn if we fail), and we really are a world class engineering team that we’re all proud to be part of.
Outcome - in just two years we went from releasing software every 14 months and a poor working culture, to releasing software every day (better than our original weekly vision in the painted picture).
We had a 99% stable platform, flowed work through quickly and built modern DevOps principles long before this term became trendy. We won best companies awards four years in a row. We also won “start-up to watch” awards and eventually the business was sold.
I caught up with some remaining engineers after the sale (to a large slow-moving corporate) - and their department (my old department) is still working in this same way - they are a shining light in the rest of the organisation - and other engineers are asking for a transfer to them. Other teams are trying to be like them.
A sample painted picture from VP HR
Current Reality - a HR team with limited scope to improve the company through their initiatives - pretty much dealing with operational requests only. Retention of good people in the business was poor and very little consistency in HR approach.
Painted Picture - Our purpose is to enable the business to achieve its business goals and retain our very best people. We do this with professionalism and integrity sticking within the constraints, compliance and legal systems that bind us. But we go above this, and we provide the kind of service that people don't typically associate with HR.
We deal with operational demands by studying what is causing them, turning off failures and flowing value requests through our HR process with speed, care and attention. We train and up skill managers and leaders to deal with requests they should be dealing with.
We don't just provide training courses for people to attend. We provide training that improves the behaviours and capabilities needed in the business. We are here for people no matter their emotional and mental state. We look after our people and are always providing the latest initiatives to deal with life and work - from meditation to counselling to mental health hotlines.
We have diversity baked in and publish our diversity and inclusion data with pride. We provide the right talent sourcing for managers to solve their problems, ensuring the process is a WOW process for both the candidate and the hiring manager. We process all payroll and benefits activities in time, accurately and with diligence. Mistakes help us get better.
We provide a vast array of social responsibility activities at a local and global scale. Our business exists in a local society, and we do lots to provide financing, practical volunteering and training to the local community.
We are here for our employees. We support managers with change programs through job recalibrations and hiring. We support managers with active daily performance management and train our managers on how to be effective in their roles. We deal with conflict, performance and legal cases with professionalism and dignity - ensuring everyone is heard and facts outweigh subjectivity and emotions.
It is a hard job, but we see the difference in the business. We are no longer merely operational support for HR queries - we are a trusted partner in accelerating business results and retaining good people. And we have fun doing it. We are humane and resourceful. We are here to protect the business and support managers in achieving business results whilst helping employees with their careers and personal growth. We really are here to nurture an organisation that enriches the lives of all who work in it.
A sample painted from my own life – certain things omitted.
I am so happy and grateful that I have a strong, trusting and caring relationship with my wife. I am present with my kids, and we get up and do activities together. I teach them how to live a good life by role modelling what good looks like. I am here to help them in their lives.
I feel good, dress well and live a simple life. I don’t buy things I don’t need and take care to own very little. I move daily and eat clean.
I am so happy and grateful that I make £X per year helping companies release agility and people lead a good (work) life through my Cultivated Media company. This is done through my videos, books, podcasts and other media. I also teach, speak from the stage and consult. I provide enough value that I secure enough money to keep doing this. I contribute back to society through my charity and volunteer work.
I am so happy and grateful that the boys have a bright future with enough savings to support them through education if they wish to.
I am so happy and grateful that I am honing my craft in media production and learning how to be better. I am becoming a craftsman at making videos, drawing, podcasting and writing, and even if I am not successful in the outcomes above, I am learning and enjoying the process. I am developing a skill that I enjoy.
Conclusion
A painted picture is not a simple thing to create but as we will cover - it is the galvanising picture of the future that underpins our ability to move smoothly and quickly and release business agility. It is essential if you’re going to create a strategy, which we’ll do in a couple of lessons time (I also have a poem about strategy…yep – a poem).
The painted picture can be used with your team for everything we’re going to cover in the masterclass but it also serves as a useful piece of communication when hiring. Who wouldn’t want to join a company or team with a bright painted picture of the future: something they can help to bring to life?
That concludes our first masterclass email.
Until next time
Rob..
Note: These masterclass emails run every two weeks giving you time to digest and try the lessons included. At some point this year I will also turn on group chat where we can discuss any questions or ideas raised.
Help and Resources
Moving into motion video explaining how to point at the painted picture and get people out of the car to join you.
The Trello Board used with clients - https://trello.com/b/Q3UZmWIW/cultivated-consulting
50% off the Cultivated Management Super Power Communication Workshop (please don't share widely!) - https://leanpub.com/c/communication-basics/c/ssIDaE6OTYb8
Personal Knowledge Management System in Nimbus Note (please don't share) - https://nimb.ws/nZMeDR
Business Agility Basics - https://cultivatedmanagement.com/business-agility-basics/
If anything doesn't work or you have a question you can find me here - rob@cultivatedmanagement.com