"In order to change the rules, you've got to change the mindset."

We're excited to share the video recording of Pete Behrens' talk at the World Agility Forum. As part of the "Scaling Agile Across Companies" stream, Pete highlights a crucial aspect: "In order to change the rules, you've got to change the mindset."

Every organization's culture relies on a collection of mindsets, inherited from its history and the dominant beliefs.

Practices, Frameworks and Scaling: A Deadly Combination ?

Practices and frameworks are like recipes—good starting points, but they won’t lead to delivering three-star Michelin cuisine on their own.

These "recipes" are widely influenced by the organization’s culture, like the different spices you could add to achieve very different flavors.

For instance, OKRs* implemented in a company believing that success relies on achieving 100% of objectives might lead to a slow pace and lack of innovation. In contrast, at Google, the culture encourages taking risks and stretching limits, leading to different outcomes from the same framework.

Scaling practices and frameworks without understanding the different teams' or companies' mindset will likely end-up with a lot of misunderstanding and poor results.

The Importance of Culture Fit

Pete emphasizes that we often start by scaling processes and practices, which is the easiest part. He recommends starting by changing the mindset since it will influence all the processes.

At the Lean Agile Procurement (LAP) Alliance, we promote an approach that fosters genuine conversations to address cultural fit between companies, as we believe they are key to overcoming the biggest challenges.

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*OKRs Objectives and Key Results is a popular framework to set aligned objectives at all the organization levels