Jenni Jepsen

[00:00:15] I am going to talk about intent-based leadership today. So what I'd like to do is share the principles of intent-based leadership and the neuroscience behind it. So why does it work? And then some practices. So mechanisms that will help help you and your organization, or, um, maybe talk to other people in other organizations to shift from a culture of waiting for permission and waiting to intent and action. So I want to share a little bit about my journey, if you will. In 2006, I discovered Agile. And I was working with leaders in doing change leadership and communication and marketing, employer relations. I was really lucky, um, to work in organizations where I could do a lot of different things and and learn so much. And one of the things that I was heavily involved in was new product introductions. So when I discovered Agile, I thought, oh, here's the answer to everything and how fantastic is this way of working. The thing is, when I decided to make Agile my career, um, I really hit the wall, I, I would say, when I was talking to, especially, executive management about Agile. They were so focused on the processes of Agile, the methodologies, and not so much on the communication and the collaboration, which is the reason Agile actually works. So I thought, okay, I need to find the proof, I need to understand why Agile works. I need some scientific data to show it's the communication, it's the working together. This is why Agile works. So we need to put more focus on it. And I discovered a program on neuro leadership. So essentially, I took a six-month study on neuroscience with the focus on how our brains work, how we're wired, and the effect that it has on the workplace, so how we operate in the organization. And a side benefit of that is that, of course, our brains work the same at home. So there were, there were many improvements in my life after really understanding, hey, it's how my brain works. So, but that also was not enough. And in 2012, um, I read this book, Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet. And it changed my life again.
[00:02:49] So intent-based leadership was a practice that David wrote about. Uh, if you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. It is the story of how David and his crew on the submarine, the USS Santa Fe, turned things around. They were the worst rated ship in the US Navy, and after two years became the top rated. And how that happened. And basically what David did, he gave up control. He was trained for one submarine, and this was a different submarine that he was assigned to at the last minute. And so when he got on board, he was giving orders that he had no knowledge of. So he had to learn to say, I don't know, and ask even more curious questions, and really practice sort of his vulnerable self. And that became the foundation for intent-based leadership.
[00:03:40] And I will talk much more about intent-based leadership, of course. Um, but that attorney and and intent-based leadership has really brought the behaviors and the language, those mechanisms to help the the work that we're doing in agile organizations. So really nudge people into new behaviors, speaking in ways that sort of change our mindset.
[00:04:07] So these are the six principles of intent-based leadership. And I'm going to take them one at a time and go into much more detail. But essentially the six are to push authority to information, to tune control based on competency and clarity. that leaders make it safe for people. And that leaders fix the environment. And that we don't want to just be good, we want to be better. And then act your way to new thinking. So those are the six principles. And when I talk about leaders, it's leaders at every level in an organization. So you can have leaders in top management, you can have leaders in teams, so it's leaders at every level in the organization. All right. So empowerment versus feel empowered.
[00:04:57] I see a lot of KPIs, I don't really like KPIs. I always say that stands for kills performance instantly, not key performance indicator. I like OKRs, so objectives and key results, they're more concrete.
[00:05:10] In any case, I see a lot of KPIs in, in the organizations that, that we work with that say empowerment. And the whole idea that you as a manager or a leader, top leader in an organization, you're being checked up upon about how well you are empowering people. It's the opposite, right? I mean, if I'm the one that decides if I'm going to empower you, that's not empowered, right? You're not feeling empowered. So what we want to do instead is turn that whole hierarchy upside down and create organizations where people feel empowered, where they say, I intend to. Where they're not waiting to be told what to do or asking for permission.
[00:06:01] They're actually taking initiative, taking responsibility. So creating spaces where people feel empowered. And that's what this is all about. So pushing authority to information, the first principle. So think of probably not in your current organization, but other places you may have worked, the decision-making authority. Where does that lie in the organization? Is it with the teams? Is it with an individual in the team? Or when you want to make a decision, do you have to sort of go up the the hierarchy and have somebody at a higher level in the organization make the decision and then it goes back down to the teams? That's crazy, right?
[00:06:46] I mean, who's better to make the decision than the people who are closest to the information? So the whole idea and safe about decentralizing decision-making comes from this, that we want to push authority to information. And I have been super lucky, just last week I was working with an organization, um, who was looking at how to do their outsourcing strategy in their 300-person area. And they had a cross-functional group of people figuring this out, and their first, yeah, the first release of this outsourcing strategy, if you will, focuses on having the teams make the decision about what and when to outsource.
[00:07:31] Now, I can tell you that I acted as facilitator, so I didn't push them in this direction. But I was really, really happy with my intent-based leadership hat on that the group decided, hey, the only way to make this work is to give the teams the authority to make the decision about what makes sense for them to outsource. So push authority to information. Now, being able to do this if you're a manager, may make you uncomfortable because you maybe lose a little feeling of being in control. And I can also relate to this, so when I was working as a project manager, I, I am a control freak. So, and I was really a control freak back then. Now I have a trigger that I know as soon as I feel the need to sort of pull it in and take control, that's my trigger that says, hello, no, no, no, no. Time to give up control. What can you do to give up control? It's taken years and years and years. So managers who are not used to giving up control, who have been making the decisions in organizations. Not because they're mean or not because they're trying to punish anyone, but just because that's how we've always done it in the organization.
[00:08:51] So, and if you're being, um, rewarded or it's your responsibility as a manager to make sure things happen, you become a little reluctant to give up that control. So what we can do is tune control based on competency and clarity. So what that is about is looking at what is the technical competence of our people? Do they have the skills they need to do their jobs? Can they make good decisions about what what they're doing, whether they're writing code or creating something else in the organization? So do they have the competence, the technical competence to make good decisions? And the second pillar, if you will, to be able to give control is clarity. Do people have the organizational clarity? Do they understand what it is we're trying to achieve? Do they know the strategy? Do they know how their everyday work ties back to that strategy? Are there plans at different levels in the organization, so having a long and thin master plan that has the maybe strategic themes and then the next level, maybe it's a portfolio level or a PI plan or a 90-day plan, and then the teams' own plans, can they tie that up? Do they have the clarity so that they're able to make decisions that are best for your customers or the organization, your stakeholders? So you need both technical competence and organizational clarity. In order to feel like, yes, oh, I can give control. So here are the pillars: give control based on technical competence and organizational clarity.
[00:10:39] So the thing is, what do we do first?
[00:10:43] So on this little graph, if you will, we have give control on the Y-axis, and then we have the technical competence and organizational clarity of the people.
[00:10:57] So what do we do first? Do we go up, do we give control to people, or do we make sure that they have the technical competence and organizational clarity to do this, to make decisions so that I can give up control?
[00:11:15] All right, so if you guessed up, you're right. So we don't know, right? So I I worked with a fabulous leader who constantly is looking to get better and better. And he is still, I think, a control freak like me. So he's like, oh, no, we need to test our people, we need to make sure, I need to make absolutely sure that they have the technical competence and they really know what it is we're supposed to be doing around clarity. And I said, yeah, you know what? You can do all you want to test people and try to make sure that they understand, but the only way you really know for sure is to give control. So trust people that they can do the job.
[00:12:03] So going up is the first step. Now, sometimes I'm working with leaders in organizations who, oh, that much control, that that's really, really risky. So maybe I don't want to give up that much control. So I have this little graph here. So instead of giving that much control at once, let's just try a little bit and see what happens and if nothing bad happens, then we can give a little more control. And then a little more. And then maybe there's a gap. So maybe there's a mistake that happens, and you can see that, ah, okay, there's a misunderstanding about what we were supposed to do here or a lack of skill for something. Then you can close that gap, so you can have a conversation, you can work with the person or the team or whatever to, to close that gap. And then you keep doing that. So that's the whole idea of being able to give control based on technical competence and organizational clarity. We don't know until we trust first. And then we see what happens. So it it's, it feels risky, I understand that it feels risky for some people to sort of jump in and do that. And one of the things around intent-based leadership is looking at different mechanisms to train your brain to be able to give up control. And I can tell you that training your brain in any circumstance also has benefits in the organization. So David always talks about, you know, giving up control when he's ordering a coffee or going to a restaurant or something like that to have the waiter order his food for him. So, and being able to let go of that control even for that sort of small situation that seems pretty fluffy on the surface, is a way to train your brain. I am still practicing giving up control, it's one of my things.
[00:14:08] And I have this nudge that I have for myself. And basically I'm practicing not telling my husband where to park. So it's a way for me to practice giving up control. So when we're driving somewhere and he's going to park the car, I keep my mouth shut. Instead of saying, hey, there's a spot over there and why do you want to park here? Can't we park closer or why are we, why are you waiting for a spot that's closer when we have two legs we can walk? So now I keep my mouth shut. I can tell you that I still have an urge to tell him where to park. So I I keep practicing this. But giving up control, looking at ways that you can train your brain, you can, um, create that space that makes it easier for you to trust first. All right.
[00:14:57] So that kind of up and over, up, over, that is creating the this optimal work environment. Where as a leader, you can give control and you can also see where the gaps are and be in a spot where you can help people fill those gaps before they become too big. If you give too much control to people who don't have the technical competence or organizational clarity, you just have chaos. You have, you know, people running around not knowing what to do or why they're doing it. What we see more often is the other side here. So not giving control to people who do have the technical competence and the organizational clarity. And they're just frustrated, right? You know, managers are telling them what to do. And they're not able to operate at their full potential, have autonomous decision-making, and that's very demotivating.
[00:15:55] So creating a space where people are able to be able to make decisions to also build their competency and build their organizational clarity actually helps our brain.
[00:16:07] Dopamine, uh, one of the neurotransmitters that's related to pleasure or reward in the brain is released. In the conditions where we feel like we can have influence, where we can make decisions, and where we feel like we're getting better and also have a purpose. So the organizational clarity provides that.
[00:16:30] This whole idea of I intend to. It is instead of asking for permission, or waiting to be told what to do, even worse, right? Waiting to be told what to do. Instead, we say, I intend to. And when we say I intend to, it becomes this magic communication point. Because we haven't actually done anything yet. We're just saying, hey, I intend to, whatever it is. I intend to do this. I intend to run this experiment with our team. And then what it does is open up for others to ask questions, because you're not asking for permission, you're just saying I intend to. So you're thinking out loud, there's a transparency that's also created. And it gives leaders or managers in an organization the queue, if you will, to ask questions about that. So not tell people, oh, no, you're not going to do that, but ask some curious questions. Okay, what makes you say that? What is it exactly that you're planning to do? Have you thought about this? What are other people saying? You know, all of those questions that, that you want to know.
[00:17:41] But you're doing it in a curious way rather than in a sort of telling people what to do kind of way. So I intend to is what I call the magic communication point.
[00:17:53] Um, great for transparency and also great to enable questions and communication. I intend to. So I hope everybody will be running around saying I intend to after this.
[00:18:06] All right. Leaders also make it safe. So creating a psychologically safe environment is really important in this process. Because, you know what, we're going to make mistakes, right? Those gaps there, the competence and clarity gaps, and by the way, when we do surveys in organizations around where the gaps most often occur, they're around clarity. So it's not about people's technical competences or skills to do the job.
[00:18:31] It's it's about the understanding of what it is we're supposed to do and why. So, whose fault is that? Not that we're placing any blame. It's the entire organization, right? So it's not the person who made the mistake, it's the whole system around so that we want to provide that clarity. So we want to make it safe for people to fail, the whole fail fast in agile ways of working.
[00:18:59] uh, ties into this. But we don't want to make stupid mistakes, right? We want to make intelligent failures. That's what we're talking about when we fail fast. So leaders need to make it safe. And the way that we can do that, some mechanisms to do that, is to say, I don't know. Instead of pretending like you do know or you should know because that's your job as a manager or the whatever executive in the organization or the team lead or the Scrum master or whatever your role is. You don't have to know everything. It's okay to say, I don't know. That vulnerability makes others feel safer.
[00:19:37] So sometimes there's a little hump to get over, right? Because if you're used to having a manager who knows everything and then suddenly they're saying, I don't know, you're like, what the heck is going on? You know, do does he need to go to the doctor? What's happening? So sometimes when you change a habit, you're changing the entire system, so it takes people a little while to get used to. And my advice always is to talk about it, to explain, hey, you know, I'm practicing saying I don't know. We have the solutions together. I want you guys to figure this out. I don't want to tell you what to do, because, you know what, you'll probably have better ideas than me. So making it safe for people to share that.
[00:19:33] makes others feel safer. So, sometimes there's a little hump to get over, right? Because if you're used to having a a manager who knows everything, and then suddenly they're saying I don't know, you're like, what the heck is going on? You know, does he need to go to the doctor? What's happening? So, sometimes when you change a habit, you're you're changing the entire system, so it takes people a little while to get used to. And my advice always is to talk about it to explain, hey, you know, I'm practicing saying, I don't know. We have the solutions together. I want you guys to figure this out. I don't want to tell you what to do, because, you know what? You'll probably have better ideas than me. So making it safe for people to share that. And from the neuroscientific perspective, this stress performance curve could be useful. So what happens in our brains when we don't feel safe, we go into a more stress state, distress, so the bad stress. And this curve on the Y-axis, we have prefrontal cortex function, so the PFC that is this area of the brain, it's the newest part of the brain from an evolutionary perspective. It's where our, um, emotion control, goal-oriented behavior, creativity, innovation, all of that is happening in the prefrontal cortex. And that's that's what we want, right, in an organization, we need that high-level thinking capacity in order to come up with great solutions, great products for our customers. So whatever we can do to help people be in that optimal performance space around their prefrontal cortex, so being open and curious and interested at the top of that access. Rather than at the bottom where we're maybe tired or lazy, or we don't care so much. That's not what we want in the organization. So we want that little red star at the top of the curve, that's high performance. What we know from the research is that most people, at least working in Western organizations, that's where the research has been done, are on the other side of that curve, they're feeling stressed. And when we feel that stress, we don't have optimal performance. So on the X-axis, that's the amount of stress that we are experiencing, and dopamine is DA and NE is nor epinephrin, so in case you're doing neuroscience trivia, um, two neurotransmitters that are important for performance. And I've already talked about dopamine, that's the pleasure reward neurotransmitter. So, when we're on the sort of the wrong side of the curve where we're down into that feeling of stress, we're not feeling safe. We're protecting ourselves, our limbic system, the the deep part of the brain where fight, flight, and freeze, where all our emotions are, all our old habits is activated, we're trying to survive the situation. So what we need to do when people are in that stress state is make it safe, and we can make it safe by supporting and encouraging people to get back up to the top high performance. So if we're running around all stressed and we're like, well, why can't you get that stuff done? You know, we promised, we're missing the deadline and I can't believe it's not happening, we're pushing people farther down into that stressed state instead of supporting and encouraging them to get up to high performance. So creating that sense of safety by supporting and encouraging people actually opens up our brain so that we can come to better solutions. And just quickly on the other side of that curve, we don't see that so often. But every now and then we get maybe a scrum team that is a little too comfortable with with the how they're doing their work and they could actually maybe take a few more items into the sprint. So a little challenge, a push is also okay. to get to high performance. Or teenagers who don't want to do their homework, you may need to give a gentle push to get to high performance. But like I said, we don't see that so much. And in terms of safety, we really want to support and encourage people. So, this I really like, because when we're implementing intent-based leadership in organizations, or we're working with companies looking to become more agile in how they're working, it's really, you know, it's about the people. And a lot of times they're talking about, how do we create this safe culture where people are willing to speak up? And I love this diagram, it comes from Amy Edmondson, um, and if you haven't read the Fearless Organization by Amy C. Edmondson, I can highly recommend that, and this is where this comes from. So the whole idea of when we speak up, when we say something, maybe we don't understand something or maybe we don't agree with the strategy or maybe we know something that could be valuable for the organization. When we speak up, our organization benefits, our customers benefit, eventually. But when does that benefit occur? It doesn't happen until later, right? So if you're sitting in a meeting and then you speak up, maybe disagreeing with someone else who has higher power in the organization, right? It's kind of scary. So because we don't know for sure, that benefit isn't going to happen until later. And the certainty of that benefit happening is also really low. We we don't know, we think it could be true, but we won't know for sure until we actually do something and then find out afterwards, so it will emerge. So the whole idea of staying silent from sort of a safety perspective is much more common. Because if we don't feel safe to speak up, we're going to stay silent. And staying silent becomes reinforced. Because who who benefits if I'm sitting in a meeting and somebody's saying something, I'm like, oh, I think they're wrong, but I don't know for sure and oh, we won't find out and he's been around longer than me and she knows this and all of that. I'm going to shut up. I'm not going to say anything. And I benefit in that moment, I'm protected in that moment, and it happens right there in the meeting. And the certainty of the benefit is high because I control it. So creating a space where people feel safe, where they can speak up and give their perspectives, helps organizations get to better solutions. The more perspectives that we have on things, the more creative the solution, so there's research on this as well. So we need to make it safe for people to speak up.
[00:26:35] And creating learning organizations depend on both psychologically safe environments, so making it safe, but also having high standards, right? So the whole idea of the competence and clarity, we want to have high standards in order to get to that top right quadrant, where we have learning and high performance. So how do we do that? How do we create these standards? So having a strategy, having an understanding of sort of what the context is of where I'm working, what the goals are, and Samuel, I know you talked about having 23 objectives in one organization, that is not what I'm talking about here. They need to be realistic, um, context that you can operate within. So that we understand this is the level of execution, of quality, of performance that we're looking for in our organizations. And of course, who's best to set those standards? The teams, the teams. So involve and engage people in the organization in order to set those high-performance standards. So working agreements and teams are a great way to do that, and you're working in a program or in a larger organization. Having a cross sort of role group of people who look at, okay, how do we work in our organization? So that we can have this combination of both setting high-performance standards and have psychologically safe environments and that's how we get to learning in the organizations. So, yeah. Okay.
[00:28:11] So, fixing the environment, not the people. That's the next intent-based leadership principle. You can't change anyone. It's it's not possible. I've tried. It doesn't work. So, you can change yourself, but you can't change other people. What you can do is influence the environment or fix the environment to nudge people into the behavior that you're looking for. So things like, now we're online, almost everybody, but uh, before, we weren't online as much as we are now. We would go into organizations transforming to agile ways of working or transitioning into more agile ways of working. And they would spend a lot of money on training and having coaches and all kinds of things. but what they kind of forgot about was, do we have whiteboards? Do we have an online prioritization tool? Do we have all the things that we need to meet together? Do we have that in the environment? So, is there the art police who won't let you take down a painting or something that's in a meeting room or you can't change the the setup of a room because that's the way it's supposed to be and the facilities management people say that's the way it's going to stay. That that doesn't work, right? We need to fix the environment in order to nudge people into the new behaviors that we want. And the environment can be physical, so that's what I just talked about, the tools or the room set up or whatever it is, but also around the language. So, changing the language is also fixing the environment. So instead of talking about they or them, we talk about we and us. Instead of talking about the business and IT, we talk about our organization together who's working together to get this stuff done. When people say I can't or we can't, to add the word yet, I can't yet, we can't yet, it works. Changing the language, so no more FTEs and resources. Instead, we have people, we work with people. We have people on our projects or working on our product teams, we don't have FTEs and resources. So all of those things trigger the brain to think about this togetherness in an organization and that also increases the motivation of people, we feel valued. for what we do, we feel we have influence and autonomy.
[00:31:03] We relate, we have, you know, this feeling of caring for people that we're together with. It feels more fair. So all of those things are motivators. And you can do that by fixing the environment, you just nudge people into the behaviors that we want to have happen by by looking at what's getting in the way. One of the things we use a lot are impediment removal boards, we call it impediment busting. So creating a a Kanban, basically, uh, you know, this is the impediment or blocker that we need to fix. and put the date that it comes in, what it is, and then it goes into work in progress, and then the the management team is usually the ones if it's at that level, if the team can't solve the impediment themselves.
[00:31:49] then the management team is looking at that impediment and then moving it into done when it's done, and it's the person who put it in that decides when it's done. So that's a a very concrete mechanism or tool that you can use to change the environment, so fix the environment, not the people.
[00:32:11] The next principle is don't be good, get better. So, good is not good enough. We want to get better. That's the whole idea, right, of the whole continuous improvement, I'm not sure that we improve continuously, I think we improve incrementally. It's hard to be thinking about being better every second of every day. In any case, the focus here is about not being satisfied with what we have right now and thinking about is there a way to be even better than we are now. And that could be personally, um, it could be in the teams, it could be with the products, it could be with organizations, it could be with getting better customers. So, whatever it is, and it's usually all of those things in some combination, we want to focus on not just being good, but getting better. So what can we do to to do that? How can we how can we shift that focus? and look at, yeah, feedback or other things that it will help us to improve, right? So when we get feedback, so on our products, let's just say, if you're working, um, in an agile way, we do our demo at the end of the sprint, and show the product or the feature or whatever it is we've been working on to our stakeholders, maybe our customers directly, if we're lucky, and then we get feedback. And I show this continuum here, it's called the Toward Away continuum. So on one side you have this, I need to protect myself, I need to move away from the danger kind of attitude. And the other, bring it on, I am open and curious and it's the the reward attitude. If we're getting feedback, for instance, on a product and or a feature or whatever it is, and people don't like it, it's really hard to stay open and nudge yourself toward that reward space, because our our normal defense mechanism is to say,
[00:34:13] Hey, don't you know this and this and this got in the way and what do you know? You don't know anything about this, we're the ones developing it or whatever, whatever. And that's that attitude of moving away from danger. Instead of asking questions, okay, well, what makes you say that? What what is it that you like? What would you like to see different? And asking those curious questions. So the feedback part is just one example. There are a lot on this continuum around getting better. And what we want to do is nudge people toward the space where they feel more open, more interested, more curious. Where they say, I intend to, where they see change as a challenge, where they're focused on improving, rather than on proving. If you're focused on proving, you're on that move away from danger space. And I um, I work as a consultant, I think, yeah, we talked about that already or I I did. And sometimes I just feel like I spend so much time needing to sort of prove that I'm good enough for an organization to hire me that it drives me crazy. Because I don't want to be in that space, I want to be in the get even better space, I want to be in the improving space. Anyway, so.
[00:35:36] The focus on improving opens up the connections in the brain and uh, dopamine is released so the the reward neurotransmitter that help us get to high performance, that help the prefrontal cortex work in an optimal way. So whatever we can do to nudge people toward that place of openness, where they feel reward. So everything sort of comes together here around the decision-making, around safety, around getting better, around fixing the environment. All of the mechanisms actually from intent-based leadership are a way to nudge us toward this reward side in our brain. And we're on this continuum all the time. So, you know, if we're tired, if we had a bad day, or maybe there was traffic, or maybe zoom or whatever online tools didn't work or internet connections were bad, you get tired and you you feel more protective and it's harder for your prefrontal cortex to operate optimally, if you're tired, if you're hungry, if you know, thirsty, stressed. All of those things are hard on the prefrontal cortex, it's really, really takes a lot of cognitive control. to be open in those situations. So understand that as well about how your brain works. And the best thing to do if you're feeling like, oh, now I'm protecting myself or I'm proving myself, go for a walk, have a nice lunch, take a nap, whatever it is that you can do to bring the energy levels back up to your prefrontal cortex. So that's also about getting better, right? Um, maybe it's also a little bit about making the environment safe for people. Is that that you can help nudge people toward this, um, reward side? Just in the way that you interact with them, the way that you support and encourage people. And the way that you ask curious questions and by saying, what do you intend to do if they're not already saying, I intend to. All right.
[00:37:40] The last principle here is act your way to new thinking. And this is not think your way to new acting. So all of the change plans that I have seen in my career, and I'm sure you have too. Oh, all of the cascading down from the executive management team about how we should do this change in an organization and and telling people what to do. And we've thought about it and we've analyzed it and now we're going to change. That is not how change works. So the only way to make a change that sticks is to act your way to new thinking, you need to do something in order to change how you think about it. So when I first, when I was first introduced to Agile, um, a really talented agile coach came into the organization I was working with, and she facilitated a master planning session. So a high-level long and thin plan looking at the items that we were going to do in the next, I think it was year, actually, not in a detailed way. So just to give us the sense of control about where we were moving and and then breaking it down in into quarters. This was before safe, by the way, in any case. Uh, the first time it was just awful. I hated it, it was Post-its everywhere and papers everywhere and it was messy and all these people were in the room. And I love doing my planning by going around talking to people and then going back into my nice little office where I could close the door and then type up the plan. The problem with that is, I had my nice little plan and I was the only one that knew what was in it and I was running around checking up on people. In a sweet way, most of the time. But people didn't own it. So after this experience in Agile planning, even though I hated all the Post-its and papers everywhere, at the end of the time, people were like, oh, I'm going to work, I'm I'm going to work on that one and I'm going to work on that one. I was like, whoa, what's going on here? What what's happening? I'm not telling them what they need to work on, they're like grabbing it. And that was my first clue that this was gonna work. Because suddenly I was feeling really happy, relieved, that people were taking ownership. And the next time then we did this planning, I felt better about it because I had experienced the benefit the first time. And so the next time, my thought process wasn't so much, oh, this is messy and I hate this. It was, this is messy and I know this is what it takes to make it work. And now I cannot imagine doing planning any other way than to involve and engage people in the process, the doers are the planners, and we have the competence and the clarity in in the way that we work. So that's an example of acting your way to new thinking. You can do this with anything. Something a change in the organization, using experiments, I love that, you know, different hacks and nudges, things to help people practice new behaviors. So that you can act your way to new thinking. You can test yourself, if you want to see if there's something that you hate, you can create an experiment for yourself to change that and it's possible to change your thinking. So what happens in the brain is that you've got different connections and you rewire. So that suddenly this is the only way that you can imagine doing things. So I intend to is what you say in your organization, you never wait for someone to tell you what to do or ask for permission, because you have the competence and clarity and people trust you to do the job. So acting your way to new thinking is the last of the principles. And when you do that, you get this mindset shift, right? So having a willingness to try new things or experiment, um, focusing on the progress that you're making over time. You know, you're changing not only how you think, but you're changing the organization, you're changing the system. And then having that desire to learn from others, so that's part of this process. In creating a mindset shift, using the practices, the mechanisms, the tools of intent-based leadership, especially combined, I think, with agile ways of working, it's a really great combination. So that's how we get to mindset shift. All right.
[00:42:30] So I want to wrap it up here, uh, again with these six principles of intent-based leadership, push authority to information, tune the control based on competence and clarity, make it safe, fix the environment, not the people, don't be good, get better, and act your way to new thinking. And when we do this, we shift the culture. From this place of, you know, asking for permission and or waiting to take actions to intent, right? And taking action. And when we give control and increase competence and clarity, we change how our brains are wired. People feel happier, they feel more motivated, they feel valued and supported, they take responsibility and initiative, and they make great solutions. And that is what we want in the organization. So that was intent-based leadership, and then I just have one other little thing that I'm very happy to to just mention. First of all, thank you all for being here tonight. I I really, really appreciate it. And if you want to read more, next week, yay, um, our new book, um, that I've written together with my partner, that's him over there. Uh, I've got a galley copy here, so I'm super excited. Um, bringing in Agile and neuroscience and intent-based leadership and a lot of other pragmatic practices. So thank you so much.

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