From Command to Collaboration, An Agile Leadership Team's Transformation Story | Zvonimir Durcevic

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches
Episode Title: From Command to Collaboration, An Agile Leadership Team's Transformation Story | Zvonimir Durcevic
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Tsvanimir Durcevic
Release Date: April 2, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte engages in an insightful conversation with Tsvanimir Durcevic, a seasoned Agile Coach and Certified Scrum Master. The discussion centers around Tsvanimir's transformative experience with a leadership team transitioning from a traditional command-and-control management style to a more collaborative and Agile approach.

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Background of the Transformation Process

Tsvanimir begins by setting the stage for the transformation story, highlighting the context within which the change was necessary.

[01:15] Tsvanimir Durcevic: "The leadership team was supporting a part of the organization that had already embraced Agile. However, they themselves were operating with a traditional management style, making decisions unilaterally without involving their teams in the change process."

The organization consisted of four major teams that needed to restructure their communication and collaboration mechanisms. Recognizing the gaps in their current approach, the leadership sought Tsvanimir's expertise to guide them towards a more inclusive and Agile-friendly management style.

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Identifying the Need for Change

Tsvanimir emphasizes the importance of moving away from traditional management where decisions are made solely by managers based on their expertise. Instead, the focus shifted towards involving team members in the decision-making process to foster ownership and collaboration.

[03:10] Tsvanimir Durcevic: "Sometimes what happens is that managers don't approach the people they manage to get their input. Involving people in the change is what really makes it possible."

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Implementing Edge Theory

To facilitate this transformation, Tsvanimir introduced the team to Edge Theory, a change management framework developed by Arnold Mendel, which he learned through his Organizational and Relationship Systems Coaching (ORSC) education.

[05:08] Tsvanimir Durcevic: "Edge Theory is about recognizing the boundaries between what is known and what is new. It's like a mountain with two sides, where crossing the edge symbolizes embracing new roles and behaviors."

Key Concepts of Edge Theory:

1. Primary Area (Known): Represents the current roles and behaviors that team members are comfortable with.
2. Secondary Area (Unknown): Symbolizes the new roles and behaviors that the team needs to adopt.
3. The Edge: The transition zone where team members push beyond their comfort zones to embrace change.

Tsvanimir utilized Edge Theory to help the leadership team identify and navigate their transition from a traditional to an Agile leadership style.

[05:02] Tsvanimir Durcevic: "We visualize the change as a mountain. To move from our current role to a new one, we have to cross the edge, which involves experimenting and learning in new ways."

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Facilitating the Transition

The transformation process involved several key steps, facilitated through coaching sessions:

1. Self-Reflection and Awareness:

   • Encouraging leaders to recognize behaviors that signify discomfort or resistance to change.
   • Identifying the need to shift from directive to collaborative leadership.

2. Creating a Safe Space for Dialogue:

   • Establishing protocols for constructive conflict to ensure all voices are heard.
   • Building trust within the team to foster open communication.

3. Defining a New Identity:

   • Developing a shared vision for the leadership team's new role as a support team.
   • Creating a "third identity" that embodies the collaborative and Agile principles they aimed to adopt.

[08:19] Tsvanimir Durcevic: "They had to create their own new identity, sometimes called a third identity. What is the new identity of their team, of their leadership? They call themselves support team."

4. Vision and Action Planning:
   • Articulating the team's vision and the concrete actions required to achieve it.
   • Aligning individual and collective goals towards the new leadership paradigm.

[08:51] Tsvanimir Durcevic: "We tried first to create alignment, understanding their vision and the concrete actions needed to reach this new leadership style."

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Challenges Faced During Transformation

Transitioning from a traditional to an Agile leadership style was not without its challenges. Tsvanimir highlights several obstacles the team encountered:

1. Resistance to Change:

   • Some leaders were hesitant to relinquish control and adopt a more facilitative role.
   • Overcoming ingrained habits and beliefs about management.

2. Interpersonal Conflicts:

   • Differing opinions and perspectives led to conflicts that needed to be managed constructively.
   • Implementing conflict protocols to ensure debates remained productive.

[10:19] Tsvanimir Durcevic: "We created a conflict protocol to ensure that disagreements were handled constructively, allowing everyone to voice their opinions without fear."

3. Consistency in Messaging:
   • Ensuring that all leaders communicated the new vision cohesively to their respective teams.
   • Aligning individual conversations with the collective vision to avoid mixed messages.

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Outcomes and Lessons Learned

The transformation journey yielded significant positive outcomes for the leadership team and the organization as a whole:

1. Enhanced Collaboration:
   • Leaders became more collaborative, involving team members in decision-making processes.
   • A shift from command-and-control to a servant leadership model.

[11:44] Tsvanimir Durcevic: "The leadership team started to talk from the experience as a unified support team, creating a new identity for their system."

2. Increased Trust and Engagement:

   • Building trust within the team led to higher engagement and ownership among team members.
   • Empowered leaders fostered a more motivated and proactive workforce.

3. Sustainable Change:

   • The use of Edge Theory provided a sustainable framework for continuous improvement and adaptation.
   • Leaders were equipped with the tools to maintain and further develop the Agile transformation.

[11:44] Tsvanimir Durcevic: "They started to talk from their new identity, which significantly improved their interactions both within the team and with other parts of the organization."

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Conclusion

Tsvanimir Durcevic's story exemplifies the profound impact that thoughtful leadership transformation can have on an organization's Agile journey. By moving from a traditional command-based approach to a collaborative and supportive leadership style, the team not only enhanced their own dynamics but also set a foundation for sustained Agile success within the organization.

[11:55] Oscar: "Teams create that third identity. It was a great story. Thank you for sharing that, Tsvane."

This episode underscores the importance of self-reflection, structured change management frameworks like Edge Theory, and the critical role of leadership in fostering an Agile culture. Leaders looking to drive meaningful change within their organizations can draw valuable lessons from Tsvanimir's experiences.

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Notable Quotes:

• Tsvanimir Durcevic [05:02]: "We visualize the change as a mountain. To move from our current role to a new one, we have to cross the edge, which involves experimenting and learning in new ways."

• Tsvanimir Durcevic [08:19]: "They had to create their own new identity, sometimes called a third identity. What is the new identity of their team, of their leadership? They call themselves support team."

• Tsvanimir Durcevic [10:19]: "We created a conflict protocol to ensure that disagreements were handled constructively, allowing everyone to voice their opinions without fear."

• Tsvanimir Durcevic [11:44]: "They started to talk from their new identity, which significantly improved their interactions both within the team and with other parts of the organization."

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This detailed summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and conclusions from the episode, providing a comprehensive overview for listeners and those interested in Agile leadership transformations.

Transcript

[Oscar]

Have you ever wondered what it really takes to make Agile work well? At the Global Agile Summit, we're bringing you real life first person stories of Agile succeeding out there in the real world that will inspire you to take action. Whether you're a leader, a product innovator, a developer, you'll hear practical insights from those who've done it. They'll be telling their own stories from the stage. I'll tell you more about this at the end of this episode. So stay back and listen to the full detailed description of what we have in store for you at the Global Agile Summit. But if you can't wait, you can go right now to globalagilesummit.com and check out our full schedule for now onto the episode. But I'll see you at the end of this episode with more details on the Global Agile Summit. Talk to you soon. Hello everybody. Welcome to our Wednesday the Leading Change episode. This week with Tsvanimir Dursevich, AKA Tsvane. Hey Tsvane, welcome back.

[Tsvanimir Dursevich]

Hi Oscar, Good to be here.

[Oscar]

It's great to have you here. For those of you who haven't listened to yesterday's episode, do check it out. It's an amazing story about how complexity in an organization can really drive a team into isolation and therefore conflict. So check it out. And today we're going to talk about change. So tvane, let's dive into one of those stories, the story of a change process you were involved with and walk us through the whole steps, right, like from beginning to end, how did that change unfold? And as you go through that highlight for us, the tools, the tips, the tricks and the techniques you learned back then that you still apply today.

[Tsvanimir Dursevich]

Thank you. Thank you, Vaska. I think that the change is such important topic for me. Change is everywhere. Some of the change happens to us individuals. A lot of change happens to us for the teams, for the organizations. And the story that I will tell is about the leadership team. So leadership team in this case was supporting one part of the organization that went Agile. They had some experience with Agile, the teams had some experience with Agile, but they restructured and tried to find the way how to work together. So there were, they were, I think it was, yeah, there were like four bigger teams and they, they wanted to, to build structures to support these teams kind of how will the team members within these teams exchange information? So they were, they were trying to kind of create more structures than they were currently, currently in this setup and they said they would need support for this. And this is where I came in and what. What became obvious is that they wanted to go from kind of traditional management style, which means kind of, you know, making decisions for other people and kind of structuring their work with the knowledge and expertise that they have. And the management. Well, when we talk about the management, there are really a lot of good people with lot of expertise, a lot of good intentions. Sometimes what happens is that they don't kind of. They don't approach the people, that they manage to get their input, to get their expertise in the process of change. And this is this, you know, kind of involving people in the change, what really makes change possible. And this is where this leadership team wanted to change a bit, to change from this style of leading change through their expertise to style of leadership where they will involve people in the change, where they will give them the space to make their own decisions and see how it will work, to basically experiment and learn. So what I use in my work is one change theory called edge theory.

[Oscar]

Can you repeat that?

[Tsvanimir Dursevich]

What was the theory? Edge theory. Exactly.

[Oscar]

Like Edge Edge theory?

[Tsvanimir Dursevich]

Yeah, exactly. The edge theory, it's based on the work from Arnold Mendel. And I learned this theory through my ORSC education. So it's like organizational and relationship systems coaching. And what this theory is telling about is that in every change, we have just imagine a triangle or a mountain, a picture of a mountain. And you have basically two sides of the mountain and the edge or the top of the triangle or the top of the mountain. So if you take the left side, like a primary, this is the area, what is known to us, this is the area that we can identify with. This is the area of, let's say, my current role. Let's say I'm a SCRUM master, okay, currently. And I see that the organization will need more project management from me. So this will be this unknown side, this secondary, the side that I am not currently identified with. This is the role that I need to learn. This is the role that I need to identify with. So what I need to do is need. I need to go over the top, over the edge and try to transform from one role to the other role. So this theory is basically helping me to first notice this edge behaviors. Like, you know, these behaviors when the people are getting a bit, I don't know, nervous fidgeting a bit, kind of, you know, changing the. Changing the topic of the conversation because they're getting, you know, like a bit of nervous insecure. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And this is what. What we. What I was working with the team to kind of see what is on the other side? So what would be this new style of leadership? Okay, what would they need to offer their teams in this new style of leadership? What would be their behavior there? So it just kind of, you know, go there for a while, try a bit. How does it feel there? Do things that people do on the other side and then you can go back. So we did this in several coaching, basically coaching half days, sessions. And what they could do is they defined the ways that, how they want to be with each other in the team and how do they want to be with other parts of their new setup, that they were kind of restructuring or that they were responsible for restructuring.

[Oscar]

Basically you were helping them reflect and at the same time kind of define this new style of leadership. So I imagine that when they started at the beginning of this process, they weren't sure yet of what would be the level, like the changes or all of the aspects that they would need to take into account. And then through reflection and I imagine also some mentoring and training, you help them to realize what might be other aspects that they would need to decide whether they wanted to take on or not.

[Tsvanimir Dursevich]

Right, exactly. So they had to create their own new identity, sometimes called like a third identity. What is the new identity of their team, of their leadership? They call themselves support team. And what we did is we tried first to create kind of disagreements for them, disagreements with me, and then to see, okay, what is, for example, what is the vision, what is the dream, what do they want really to create on the level of okay, what we are dreaming of about okay, and what is the concrete actions that we need to do to reach this level. Okay. To reach this new leadership style. Some of them, they were in the management role, some of them, they were in the expert role. So they needed some time to understand each other and to create the common understanding of where do they want to go? Because sometimes they talk with other people not together, but they need to bring this vision to other people. Also in their individual conversations with other.

[Oscar]

People, they needed to bring that process that they were experiencing also to others because they were also helping others to see the other side of the edge.

[Tsvanimir Dursevich]

Right? Exactly, exactly.

[Oscar]

That is a very self reflective process. Like you are actually through the process you were helping them go through, you were also trying to give them the ability to self reflect and themselves find that new identity.

[Tsvanimir Dursevich]

Right, exactly, exactly. We had. So the time that I spent with them was, was, was really focused, not only, but was really focused on creating the space for the, for them to, to have a meaningful conversation and it was not always easy. Okay, so it was basically I was responsible for creating the space where they will feel safe to also go into the conflict. We created also, for example, a conflict protocol. What does it mean to have constructive conflicts? They had different opinions about some things and they needed to talk about it. So one important area of work is allowing everybody to talk so to hear all voices in the system. And what they realized is that they were not talking about from their own experience. They started to talk from the experience or talking about the experience as this team, through this third identity, they created a new identity for their team, for their system.

[Oscar]

Yeah, teams create that third identity. And it's really a powerful framework for us to have in mind as of course we work with teams. That was a great story. Thank you for sharing that. Swane.

[Tsvanimir Dursevich]

Thank you. Esther.

[Oscar]

Hey friend. Thank you for staying here. Is all you need to know about the Global Agile Summit. If you've ever suffered or know people who are suffering from agile fatigue, this event is for you. Agile fatigue is that feeling that settles in when we can't really see a light at the end of the tunnel. We get discouraged. Especially when conversations revolve around the same old frameworks, the same old buzzwords and theories. We don't feel that energy anymore. Well, the Global Agile Summit is a different kind of event. We're bringing you real life first person stories of Agile succeeding out there in the real world that will inspire you to take action and transform the way you work. The Global Agile Summit will happen In Tallinn, Estonia, May 18th. That's the workshop day. Then 19th and 20th, the conference day. And Tallinn, Estonia is one of the most innovative tech hubs in Europe. The Global Agile Summit is hosted together with Latitude 59, which is kind of a citywide celebration of software startups and groundbreaking ideas. And we'll have a shared ticket for you to attend those events as well. So who will be speaking? Well, we've got an incredible lineup of thought leaders in software and agile. For example, Clinton Keith, the person who wrote, literally wrote the book on game development with Skill Grum and is busy bringing Agile to the world of game development. You must check his session. The very famous and well known Jurgen Apello, author of Management 3.0, will be talking and exploring about AI's impact on leadership. We also have Goiko Adsic, who's taking an unconventional look at product growth with his Lizard Optimization keynote. Other speakers include, for example, Sig Sven Dietz, who's challenging everything we know about software development by ditching, literally ditching contracts and estimates. Can you imagine his teams deliver software before their competitors are even done with a contract negotiation? How agile is that? But there's more. We'll cover engineering practices in our developer team track with talks on for example AI assisted test driven development, developing products in minutes with a different approach to how we develop, configure, deploy platforms, and much more. We also have a product track where we cover cutting edge ideas around product discovery, delighting customers with product delight frameworks. We'll, we'll have a talk about that. And we also have an Agile business track where we will talk about, for example Open strategy, a very agile approach to managing organizations and delivering software faster to clients faster than you can even write a contract. Literally. I mean, I already told you about Svendeet's story is amazing. It definitely is a must see. I'm sure you'll be inspired and get a lot of ideas for your own software projects and software delivery. Now whether you're a business leader, a product innovator or a developer, you'll definitely find value in our three focused tracks. That's Agile Business for those working with businesses and organizations. Agile Product for product managers, product product owners and innovators. An agile developer for the builders making Agile work in practice. The coders, the testers, the designers, the producers, the scrum masters, you name it. If you join, you will meet over 200 agile professionals from all over the world. People who just like you, want to grow, want to share and want to learn by challenging the ideas that don't work anymore. At the Global Agile Summit, you'll get new connections, fresh ideas and the energy to take your own Agile to the next level. And who knows, maybe even find your next career opportunity. So don't miss out. Check out the full program and grab your ticket [e-mail] I'm really looking forward to seeing you all in Tallinn, Estonia in May. I'll see you there.