If you scare people you won't get started

Last week I presented at the Agile Australia conference and also attended some brilliant sessions with people like Mary Poppendick, Dave Snowden of Cognitive Edge, and Bjarte Bogsnes author of 'Implementing Beyond Budgeting'.

Bjarte's session, thinking and message was around helping organisations perform to their highest potential. My visualisation of his presentation is here as well as below.

Bjarte delivered some clear messages:

• measurement alone changes nothing
• businesses cut costs because they're not addressing culture and
• if you scare people, you won't get started!

I enjoyed his metaphors of traffic lights vs roundabouts. He asked 'Which is most efficient?,  'Who is in control?' and 'Where are values most important?'

He doesn't want you to get rid of budgets; rather we need to change our mindsets around cost, KPIs and processes. Traditional leadership and management isn't working and the environments we work in are too complex. 

There's a similiar style of presentation from Bjarte here from 2012 if you'd like to see more.