Striving towards Excellence

-Karthik Gurumurthy

I just enjoyed reading the HBR article of "When your Team Bypasses you to get things done" by Jenny Fernandez. This is the gist of what was shared.

• They're confused about who's supposed to do what
• They're not sure what success looks like
• They just want to get things done fast and figure the chain of command is slowing them down

• First, get everyone singing from the same songbook. Use the "one message, one team" approach - make sure everyone knows the game plan and their part in it. Tools like RACI (that's fancy talk for who's Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed) can help clear up who should be doing what.
• Next, make it about the team, not individual rock stars. Set up goals that everyone works toward together - it's harder to go rogue when you're all in the same boat.
• Give props when people do things the right way. A simple "thanks for following the process" during a team meeting can work wonders. John even started a "team player of the month" thing to celebrate folks who played by the rules.

-Karthik Gurumurthy

• Mix it up – Build a diverse team and watch out for those unconscious biases, not just when hiring but in how you hand out work and opportunities.
• Create a safe space – If people are scared to speak up, that's a red flag. Everyone needs to feel like they can be themselves without getting shot down.
• Keep it simple – When you need something, just say it straight. If emails are turning into a mess, just pick up the phone!
• Be upfront – If plans change, tell people why. And hey, it's totally fine to admit when you need help – nobody expects you to have all the answers.
• Walk the talk – Your team can spot fake leadership from a mile away, so practice what you preach.
• And here's the thing about leading other leaders – they're going to mirror your style. It's like this ripple effect where your approach spreads through the whole team. They become an extension of your leadership, so make it count!

-Karthik Gurumurthy

The Agile product delivery model is based on one core mindset; "start with what you know and build upon it incrementally through open collaboration encouraging transparency, that enables scope for inspection and adaptation". Everything beyond this is a tool or framework. 

-Karthik Gurumurthy

This year has been an enriching and humbling journey as a trainer.

I had the privilege of facilitating certifications for 180 incredible professionals across:

SAFe Release Train Engineer (RTE)
SAFe DevOps
SAFe Scrum Master
SAFe Product Owner
Leading SAFe
SAFe for Teams

I also conducted Agile Mindset, Scrum Framework and Kanban sessions for over 400 professionals, helping them build strong foundations for agility.

Every session was a two-way learning experience. Preparing for and delivering these workshops deepened my knowledge of frameworks, while the perspectives, questions, and experiences shared by participants broadened my understanding of real-world challenges.

What’s most fulfilling is seeing the ripple effects of these sessions in our organization. These certifications and discussions not only helped individuals grow professionally but also inspired them to bring agility to their teams, drive collaboration, and deliver value more effectively.

This journey reminded me that true agility is about people—it’s about learning together, empowering each other, and creating lasting impact. I’m grateful for the trust placed in me and excited for what lies ahead in 2023!

-Karthik Gurumurthy

I am fortunate to work with young adults in helping them in Prep for SAT/ACT / MCAT tests.  I am also work with organizations in their Agile transformation efforts as an Enterprise Agile Coach. Even though the work involved is totally different, I see a parallel in both the roles.

Sometimes when the results are different from what's expected, we pause and find out what is the root cause of the issue?

Why don’t people perform? It is almost always for one of these reasons:

1. They don’t know what to do.

2. They don’t know how to do it.

3. They don’t want to do it.

4. They can’t do it.

Expectation without proper education equals frustration. Good leaders have the ability to assess abilities. An effective leader knows both what a person is capable of and what training and the education they need to succeed.

But training and development aren’t a panacea. If you’ve got the right person in the wrong role they won’t succeed.

Specifically, it is a matter of fit. The person fits the role. It isn’t an exact science, an either/or. However, when someone who is conscientious struggles performing even after they’ve receive the necessary training, it is likely a fit problem.

Are the right students in the right classrooms and even in the right seats? Are you assuming a student is a poor performer when in reality, her or she is just in the wrong classroom?

Willingness and ability aren’t the same thing. Understanding the nuances of people and performance are an important skill for leaders.

-Karthik Gurumurthy

Work in silence and leave in silence. Success didn't necessarily need to make any noise. Feeling successful is a mindset and not an external acknowledgment. High performers work for themselves and do not expect anything in return. They leave. They will be missed. Graceful entry, graceful exit.

-Karthik Gurumurthy

As a Product Owner your 5 min. before starting the daily stand-up:

Think about:

1. What role you want to play in the meeting?
2. What to avoid discussing in the meeting?
3. What’s the one thing you want the team to take away?
4. What do you want people to “feel” by the end of the meeting?

The emotion you send them with determine the amount of energy your team is willing to spend.

Choose carefully.

-Karthik Gurumurthy

"When someone asks us, "What makes you happy"? We always tends to think of something that is not right now with us. If we change this perspective to focus on something we have, life becomes beautiful."

-Karthik Gurumurthy

Let me tell you about Sarah, a project manager I met who had that thousand-yard stare you only get after too many late nights and impossible deadlines. "Well," she sighed, dropping into her chair, "this is project number 101. Just rinse and repeat." Her voice had that mix of exhaustion and cynicism that comes from seeing too many "urgent" initiatives come and go.

You see, transformation in business is like being on a never-ending treadmill - the pace might change, but it never really stops. And just like any marathon runner, your team can hit that wall where everything feels impossible and their energy tanks to zero.

But here's the thing - there are ways to keep your team from burning out. Think of it like maintaining a race car. You wouldn't run it at full throttle without pit stops, right?

Here's what I've learned works:

First, imagine your team's workload like a juggler trying to keep too many balls in the air. Sometimes you need to step in and say, "Hey, maybe we don't need to juggle all these at once."

Then there's the ping-pong effect - you know, when work bounces back and forth between teams like an endless game? That's usually a sign you need to simplify your processes.

Don't forget about your star players - the ones who always deliver. A simple "Hey, that presentation you did? Knocked it out of the park!" can work wonders. Sometimes a high-five is all it takes to keep someone's spirits up.

And speaking of star players - make sure you're not always calling on the same person to be your superhero. Even Superman needs a break sometimes. Train up some sidekicks who can share the load.

The funny thing is, just when you think you've got everything running smoothly, something new comes along - maybe it's a shiny new product launch, or perhaps two departments are merging. But that's actually good news! It means your business is alive and kicking, always evolving.

Think of it like gardening - you're never really "done." There's always something new growing, something that needs pruning, or something that needs a little extra care. And that's exactly how it should be!

-Karthik Gurumurthy

Meet Priya, a seasoned manager who learned some of the hardest lessons about leading teams through difficult transitions. She remembered a particularly challenging situation with David, a long-time employee whose performance had gradually fallen behind the company's evolving needs.

"It's never just about the numbers," Priya would often say, reflecting on her experiences. She understood that behind every performance issue was a human story. Sometimes the problem wasn't the person at all - it could be a poorly designed role, a skills mismatch, or unclear expectations. Like a detective, she learned to look beyond the obvious, asking herself: "Is this truly a performance issue, or have we set someone up to fail?"

Priya had seen too many managers fall into what she called the "avoidance trap" - postponing difficult conversations until it was too late. She remembered one colleague confessing, "I wish I'd faced these issues quicker. Everyone would have been better off."

The most challenging cases, she found, weren't the obvious performance failures but the "good but not good enough" situations. These were loyal employees who had performed adequately for years but couldn't keep pace with the organization's growing ambitions.

When it came to terminations, Priya developed a compassionate yet professional approach. She never demonized employees or let her personal discomfort cloud her judgment. "Treating people with dignity," she would say, "isn't just about what you do, but how you do it."

Her most important lesson? The best way to handle performance issues was to prevent them through careful hiring. "Nothing you do will be more important than finding the right people," became her mantra. She learned that the right person wasn't just someone talented, but someone who aligned with the team's purpose, values, and ways of working.

This story taught her that effective leadership requires both strength and compassion - the wisdom to make tough decisions while preserving human dignity throughout the process.

-Karthik Gurumurthy

Based on my experiences,  I plan to discuss more on  managing  and leadership topics such as Core competencies: technical, operational, and political skills, Building trust as a foundation, creating engaging roles and responsibilities, building psychological safety, Managing conflicts constructively etc. more with examples and stories this month. I am using this opportunity to reflect on my experiences and learnings and I hope you would find it helpful and useful.

-Karthik Gurumurthy

You know what's funny? I've stopped being surprised when customers do a complete 180. Working with business teams, I've seen how yesterday's "absolutely must have" features can end up in the trash when a new wave of changes hits.

Yeah, it's rough on the teams who've been working their tails off, only to suddenly switch gears to the next "urgent" thing. But here's the deal - customers are like that. Their needs are always changing, and it feels like they're moving at light speed, throwing a million requests your way.

Sometimes it feels weird to keep grinding away at what seems like a great solution. Or even crazier - scrapping everything you've worked on and starting fresh because there might be something better out there. Sounds wild, right?

Look, those check-ins with customers aren't going anywhere. So here's how to stay sane and actually get stuff done:

First off - yeah, the customer's usually right. But (and this is a big but) - if something feels off, speak up! Maybe you're seeing wasted opportunities, or they're stuck overthinking, or moving way too fast. Lots of mixed signals there, but hey - keep your brain switched on.

Show them you're making progress, even if it's baby steps. Keep those demos coming - it's like leaving breadcrumbs to show you're headed in the right direction. Think ahead too - like a chess player. How's your customer gonna react? Always have a backup plan in your pocket.

As Warren Buffett put it (in a pretty intense way): "Focus on your customer and lead your people as though their lives depend on your success."

My big lightbulb moment? It came after falling flat on my face a few times. Every major change project hits some speed bumps - it's part of the deal. That's when it clicked: it's all about your customers. Trying to plan some big transformation without them at the table? That's like cooking dinner for someone without asking what they like to eat!

Sure, it seems obvious - show them what you're building, get their thoughts. But you'd be amazed how often people skip this and get caught up in massive upfront planning without thinking about taking it step by step. So here's your superpower: stick close to your customers and what they need. That's really all there is to it.

-Karthik Gurumurthy

I love my role as an agile coach. An Agile coach serves as an objective observer and facilitator of organizational improvement. Our mandate is to conduct thorough assessments of team practices, provide data-driven observations, and identify improvement opportunities through reasoned analysis.

We present alternative perspectives and methodologies to expand teams' consideration of possible solutions. However, the implementation of changes remains at the discretion of the team. While we cannot mandate behavioral changes, it is our responsibility to emphasize a fundamental truth: maintaining current practices while expecting different outcomes is fundamentally counterproductive.

The relationship between behavior and results is immutable. Without meaningful changes in approach and execution, teams should anticipate continued disappointment in their pursuit of improved outcomes.

In essence, sustainable improvement requires both the recognition of necessary changes and the willingness to implement them

-Karthik Gurumurthy

You know what blew my mind? Being a mentor! I thought it'd be just another work thing, but man, was I wrong. Sure, I've seen my share of projects go down in flames, but what really sticks with me is helping people get back on their feet when they've hit rock bottom. It's wild - one day you're just giving advice, and before you know it, you're their go-to person for pretty much everything!

So what makes a real mentor? They're like that friend who knows all your embarrassing stories but still thinks you're awesome. They see past your "Instagram-perfect" self to the real you - messy parts and all!

Sometimes they're your personal cheerleader, giving you that little nudge (or maybe a good kick in the pants!) when you need it. Other times, they're like your life GPS, helping you figure out where you're headed when you're totally lost.

The cool thing about a great mentor is they let you be your weird, wonderful self. They're not trying to turn you into some perfect robot - they just want to help you be a better version of you. When you're stuck in your comfort zone (you know, that cozy rut we all fall into), they're the ones poking you with a stick saying, "Hey, there's cooler stuff out there!"

And get this - they're not just thinking about your current job. They're playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers, helping you see where you could be in five years. When everything's falling apart and you're ready to throw in the towel, they're the voice of reason saying, "You've got this!"

Looking back, if I could tell my younger self one thing, it wouldn't be "chase the money" or "get that fancy title." It'd be "find someone who actually gives a damn about your growth." That's the real gold right there!

-Karthik Gurumurthy

Change is not a one time thing. It’s a repetitive process because the first implementation will almost always not be 100% perfect. You need a few iterations with minor tweaks here and there and that’s where agile comes in. Short implementation cycles coupled with feedback loops allow organizations or teams or projects to find what works best for them. There is no one cookbook recipe type solution for agile transformation- This is where the mindset change & behavioral change (to constantly push forward and be better , leaner , faster etc) come into play. Most companies take many years before they are truly agile while the rest send a few people for scrum master & agile coach certifications that can be gotten over a weekend and then declare they’re agile. The second group is always the one that’s complaining that agile doesn’t work because they haven’t even tried being Agile. it’s a long game - no quick wins.

-Karthik Gurumurthy

" Every problem is a people problem. Someone made it, Someone is upset of it, Someone is enjoying it, Someone is  not acting on it and it is someone in someway. Understanding people is an essential skill to run life. If we give importance  to improve our ability to understand people without getting influenced by the situation, we will see the growth. Leadership is all about understanding people and making their life better."

-Karthik Gurumurthy

It wouldn't be simple to figure out how to manage the system if it was the only system. In addition to the survival system, humans have a built-in seeking system. Abraham Maslow introduce a hierarchy of human needs in 1943 in his work of theory of human motivation. At the base of the pyramid of needs, Maslow listed physiological needs that encompass food, shelter, sleep, or anything else that we might need for our bodies to function correctly. These needs are followed by safety needs. Safety includes both emotional and physical aspects. Safety is a domain of the survival system. Since it's so close to the base, it's critical to our well-being. We wouldn't be able to progress through the pyramid without making sure we're safe first. As we move through the Maslow's hierarchy, we visit the layer of love and belonging, esteem, and finally reach self-actualization, which tops the list. We satisfy self-actualization by figuring out our purpose. The purpose looks different for different people. Fortunately or unfortunately, we're not born with a manual. So we have to figure out what we're meant to do through discovery and exploration. For this exact reason, we have a built-in seeking system to help us look for change, which equals discovery. It's a paradox of human condition. We are wired to interpret changes and threat and also seek it out. Jaak Panksepp led the research in the domain of affective neuroscience. He discovered seven primary emotional systems, which include the seeking in a survival system. When the seeking system is activated and we follow up on the urge, our brain releases dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is linked to pleasure. The more we explore, the more pleasure we feel. This explains why learning and experimentation make us feel motivated and zestful. The seeking system was a stark contrast of the survival system. Both systems play two very distinct roles. Their relationship is what makes our relationship with change so complicated.

This is basically a biological decoder for all incoming environmental signals. Humans have survived for thousands of years on this planet. We're an incredibly resilient species in our brain has evolved to increase our odds of survival. There are three elements that comprise our survival system.

• The first one is the amygdala. It is a small region of the brain responsible for processing threats, fear, and anxiety. It has helped us survive, learn, and adapt through the millennia. The amygdala activates a fight or flight response before we have conscious awareness of a threat. It makes sense. The medulla shortcuts our intellectual processing, interpret stimuli and triggers If physiological response. It sends a signal to deploy a chemical cocktail spiked with a hormones, cortisol and adrenaline, which makes us physically stronger and faster. Those milliseconds of additional speed are critical, especially if there's a tiger running towards us. The amygdala is also responsible for processing anxiety. Anxiety is different from fear. Anxiety is a form of dread about a potential fret. It's not activated by the presence of physical danger, but rather by our thoughts. Thoughts are as real to our brain as the actual physical threat. That's why thoughts of an upcoming change trigger anxiety in so many of us.
• The second element of our survival system is the process of assigning meaning. Our brain likes to assign meaning to things if the mean is not immediately apparent. After all, we need to understand if a particular event has the potential to cause us harm. We know what the tiger staring at us means, but we don't always know what pending change will mean to us. In that case, the neurological design of our brain triggers the process of filling in the blanks for the missing information about the meaning of a particular change. That type of information that gets filled is largely dependent on the frame of mind, previous experiences in our psychological health across all spheres of life. But that's not all.
• The third element of a survival system is the negativity bias. In a nutshell, negativity bias is our predisposition to focus on and lean towards negative thoughts. Because the meaning of situation can determine whether we live or die, negativity bias ways our thoughts toward the negative. If we're filling in the blanks, we typically do it with negative or worrisome thoughts. We assume the worst case scenario.

Remember, our goal here is to survive. In my experience working with organizations, one thing is clear. Organizations today are over-saturated with changes. In even the smallest ones activate the survival system and employees. Why? Because the meaning of changes is not transparent and also because employees have lives. So changes at work create the compound negative effect. The first question employees typically ask is, what does this mean for me? With no explanation, they assume the worst. Something like my job will be eliminated or I will be forced out. The meaning of work-related change will deteriorate even faster if a person is going through hard times in other areas of life. Such circumstances outside of work intensify anxiety and create overwhelm for the individual. Even though our survival system is designed to help us stay alive, too many changes can create paralysis, which may even lead to depression. As leaders, we should not fold ourselves in others for being fearful or overwhelmed by change. We should recognize change over saturation as a constant and help ourselves and others disempower fear and anxiety. We do this by communicating the meaning of any change in the clear, detail and transparent way. So our survival system has time to reset.

-Karthik Gurumurthy

Possibly the best definition of Accountability I have come across anywhere.

“I think that without owning something, over an extended period of time, like a few years, where one has a chance to take responsibility for one’s recommendations, where one has to see all recommendations through all action stages and accumulate scar tissues for the mistakes and pick oneself off the ground, dust oneself off, one just learns a fraction of what one can. Coming in and making recommendations and not owning the results, not owning the implementation, I think is a fraction of the value and a fraction of the opportunity of learning to get better.”

- Steve Jobs, addressing the students of MIT Sloan School of Management in the spring of 1992.