The Shawshank Principle of Agile
Way back in 2011, I was a budding Project Manager that recently acquired my PMP and was full of energy and was going to change the world through managing projects. It was in 2011, I joined one of the big banks here in Canada as an IT Project Manager. Within a month of me being there, I was told to take Agile training and lead next fiscal year’s enhancement project, Agile. That started my Agile journey, and I’m happy to say that I’ve never looked back.
Many of us that have made the leap into Agile, might have a slightly similar story, <leader> tells <subordinate> to take on this “Agile” thing and let’s try to make it work. Where things might differ, might be where you are on the Shawshank Principle. Personally, I would like to say that I’m Andy.
What is the Shawshank Principle, you might ask? After a brief Google search, I realized that I am not the only person to make some connections to the movie, Shawshank Redemption. Martin & Elizabeth’s post: The Shawshank Principle comes to some similar thoughts.
Below are some of the characters from the movie Shawshank Redemption. I am going to refer to them as characters of a culture.
Andy Dufresne is the main character in this culture. He is new to the organization and full of fresh ideas. He might even introduce ideas that might help the organization. Agile in many large enterprises can be seen as Andy to a company’s culture. Andy also faces the crushing pressure of the organization and despite efforts to be controlled, he perseveres and introduces small changes that are positively received by the workers (prisoners).
Ellis Boyd ‘Red’ Redding is our team member that has been working for an enterprise organization most of his adult life. This character knows a lot about the company and its inner workings. He can get things done, just by relationships built over the years. He has one fault though, “These prison walls are funny. First you hate ’em, then you get used to ’em. Enough time passes, gets so you depend on them. That’s institutionalized.” Being institutionalized means that you have grown accustomed to the culture and accepted it for what it’s worth.
Brooks Hatlen the character that has been in the company so long that he unwittingly defends the culture and has no idea how to work without it. When Brooks is released and is exposed to different ways of thinking, he cannot live without the processes and rules of order that make him comfortable, it ultimately killed him. People like this, might run from change to find an area they feel comfortable. That could be a different company even!
Then we have Tommy. Tommy recently joined the culture and has learned some of the new changes. He embraces them and in fact tries to advocate it. Unfortunately, through naivety he tries to do the right thing but is killed by the culture.
Warden Norton is also institutionalized, but he is using the culture to his advantage. He has built himself up in reputation and stature. He takes pleasure with controlling the processes and will strive at nothing to maintain the status quo. In fact this culture is so afraid of change, that it does what it can to prevent new things from coming in and changing what feels comfortable
Finally we have Captain Hadley. This cultural figure potentially sees opportunity of change, but is also too ingrained to change. Captain Hadley was often the enforcer of the Warden culture and is directly putting harm into change’s way.
Now if you read into these characters, you might notice some similarities to people in large organizations. I didn’t want to attach names or roles to them because: a) I didn’t want to offend anyone or their role; b) these characters could in fact appear in multiple levels of an institutionalized organization. What I do want to highlight is the effect that these characters can have on a culture. Any change brought into a system will have an impact to an organization. It is up to us to determine how we react to that change.
As an agent of change, I would love to hear that there are more Andy’s coming into organizations. With more Andy’s out there, cultures that are too rooted in old ways of thinking will be forced to evolve or cease to exist. As Harrison Owen, the founder of Open Space Technology stated in the 2013 TedX, “Chaos is no longer the enemy of whatever is… Chaos ends up being the necessary precondition for the new order.” He goes on to say, “All systems, including all human systems are fundamentally self-organizing. If that’s true, just remember that organizing a self-organizing system is not only an oxymoron, it’s stupid!” That rings true to me, in order to achieve a new stasis of the norm, we need the chaos of change to influence it. Andy is that cultural persona.
Your thoughts?
Stuart is an Agile Coach, ICAgile Authorized Instructor, Educator, Conference Speaker based out of the Greater Toronto Area in Canada. Constantly looking to build his Alphabet Soup of certifications. An active member of the Agile Community and Founder of the Halton Agile/Lean Network Meetup Group.
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