There are four factors that frequently cause problems with agile adoption: (1) Non-system thinking, (2) Not holding peers accountable for poor performance, (3) Not accepting individual responsibility, and (4) Not making the decisions that need to be made for fear of rocking the boat. Each of these is briefly described below.

1. Non-system thinking
In the 1990s Peter Senge published “The Fifth Discipline”. Senge broke from the prevailing Taylor theories which existed under the assumption that optimizing locally would lead to a global optimum. Instead, Senge postulated that businesses and value chains are complex systems and to maximize their effectiveness, the system must be considered as a whole rather than the sum of its individual parts.

Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt introduced the Theory of Constraints in his groundbreaking novel, ”The Goalâ”.  He proposed that there is always one key constraint that limits the performance of a system relative to its goal; improving the performance of the system is dependent on identifying that key constraint and managing it correctly according to the five focusing steps. Attempting to improve the performance of any single step in the process that is not the bottleneck will usually lead to an increase in inventory, increase in operating expense, reduction in throughput, and reduction in the systems ability to respond to changes.

Unfortunately, most middle and senior managers today still maintain the “silo” thinking that was a natural offshoot of Taylorism. They continue to evaluate business functions (and divisions) in isolation and disregard understanding the linkages and interactions between the elements that make up the whole system. They fail to recognize that human-activity systems are open systems affected by the environment in which they exist. Sometimes, they even forget that in complex systems small catalytic events can cause large changes in the system.

The result is usually a desire by managers to optimize their own functions at the expense of the whole. This simply results in an inventory buildup and reduces the ability of the system to respond to changes. To make matters worse, some managers try to make perfect decisions as opposed to decisions that are good enough. Their inaction (while they wait until they have enough information to be sure about their decision) is usually interpreted as fear to make a tough call in the face of imperfect information.

2. Not holding peers accountable for poor performance
Patrick Lencioni in his book “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” discusses how team dysfunctions feed off each other and ultimately lead to poor performance.

• Dysfunction 1 – Lack of Trust:
  Teams that lack trust waste inordinate amounts of time and energy managing their behaviors and interactions within the group. They are usually reluctant to take risks in asking for or offering assistance to others.
  The fear of being vulnerable with team members prevents building trust within the team. Showing weakness is perceived as making yourself vulnerable in a dog-eat-dog world. Hiding information, failing to acknowledge mistakes, weaknesses, and needs for help ultimately leads to lower productivity.
• Dysfunction 2 – Fear of Conflict:
  When team members do not trust one another they are reluctant to freely voice their opinions. Initial disagreements can only be resolved by rigorously examining each view point. Teams that avoid conflict never really make clear decisions that people commit to — they lose the benefit from the free exchange of everyone’s ideas. Instead, team members spend time “off-line” demonizing others and not addressing the real underlying conflicts.
• Dysfunction 3 – Lack of Commitment:
  When team members avoid conflict by failing to state their views, they usually have minimal buy-in into the decision being made — the decision being made may be something they do not agree with.
• Dysfunction 4 – Avoidance of Accountability:
  People without commitment to a decision usually exhibit no sense of “ownership”. They don’t hold themselves responsible and are unwilling to call other team members on their performance or behaviors that might hurt the team.
• Dysfunction 5 – Inattention to Results
  If teammates are not held accountable for their contributions they will turn their attention to their own needs and to the advancement of themselves or their departments, away from the collective goals.

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