Renting The Change vs Owning It — Why LeSS Transformations Get Reversed | Aimé Flemm

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches
Episode Title: Renting The Change vs Owning It — Why LeSS Transformations Get Reversed
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Aimé Flemm
Date: June 17, 2026

---

Overview

In this episode, Vasco Duarte welcomes back Aimé Flemm for the weekly “Biggest Challenge” and “Coaching Question of the Week” segment. The discussion centers around the theme of organizational change—specifically, the distinction between “renting” and “owning” transformative change in agile LeSS (Large Scale Scrum) adoptions. Aimé shares a current challenge: dealing with upper management's wavering support for a previously celebrated LeSS transformation, particularly in the context of mergers and organizational alignment pressure. The conversation explores root causes, including cultural nuances, and focuses on how to sustain and protect agile change efforts, especially when senior leaders were not fully bought in from the start.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Challenge Context: Organizational Alignment During Mergers

• [02:00] Aimé introduces the challenge:
  • Their company, now part of a bigger group, faces pressure to align processes with newly acquired companies.
  • Despite a successful LeSS transformation (“people are really happy and it's now working and people are performing”), new mergers threaten to undo these gains.
  • “They rented the change instead of owning it… I didn't spend enough time making sure that upper management was involved enough.” (Aimé, [02:00])

2. Renting vs Owning the Change

• [03:44] Vasco asks Aimé to explain the “renting the change” metaphor:
  • “The people who hired us, they own the change… But their bosses… only signed the change off. They were like, sure, go ahead, do your thing. We'll see you in half a year, how it's going.” (Aimé, [04:27])
  • When upper management isn’t deeply engaged, they're quick to reverse course under pressure—wanting to “go back to component teams.”

3. Root Cause Analysis: Why Do Changes Get Reversed?

• [06:14] Vasco delves into causes:

  • Middle/upper management seeks “a safe place to retreat to” when turbulence hits.
  • Cultural dimension:
    • The organization’s diversity (over 37 nationalities) clashed with the “very, very German” parent company’s command-and-control mindset.
    • “Most of us… are in these traditional organizations [that] are really command and control. LeSS is not command and control. It's the polar opposite.” (Aimé, [06:43])

• [08:14] Missing education and communication for upper management:

  • “They didn’t go to any trainings, didn’t have very thorough explanations of what we're doing… so they are a bit in the dark on what we're doing and they start fearing this unknown thing.” (Aimé, [08:14])
  • This fear triggers knee-jerk reactions: returning to familiar, more easily controlled structures.

4. The Turbulence of Change: Blame and Backtracking

• [09:02] Vasco likens change turbulence to a blame game:
  • “You don't want to say, ‘Oh yeah, we did this transition to LeSS… and now this is causing chaos…’” (Vasco, [09:56])
  • There is a reflex to blame the most recent visible change when things get tough.

5. How to Move Forward: Speaking the Language of Management

• [10:19] Shifting focus to managerial concerns:

  • “We didn't speak enough of their language, which often is metrics.” (Aimé, [10:19])
  • The absence of co-created metrics led to a disconnect about what success looks like.

• [11:19] Vasco encourages reframing the conversation:

  • “It's never too late to have that conversation.”
  • Decouple structure from success metrics—make sure alignment focuses on outcomes, not just process conformity.

6. Outcome-Driven Experiments: A Path Forward

• [12:05] Aimé reflects on shifting to outcome-oriented conversations:

  • “…not necessarily trying to prove that what we're doing here is the right thing… but more thinking of these outcome measures… as long as the merger is a success, it doesn't really matter how you're doing stuff.” (Aimé, [12:05])

• [12:34] Vasco summarizes the next experiment:

  • Start the conversation on what successful merger outcomes look like, and let structure/adaptations follow from that discussion.

---

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “They rented the change instead of owning it… I didn't spend enough time making sure that upper management was involved enough.” —Aimé Flemm ([02:00])
• “The people who hired us, they own the change… but their bosses… only signed the change off. They were like, sure, go ahead, do your thing. We'll see you in half a year, how it's going.” —Aimé Flemm ([04:27])
• “Most of us… are in these traditional organizations [that] are really command and control. LeSS is not command and control. It's the polar opposite.” —Aimé Flemm ([06:43])
• “They didn’t go to any trainings, didn’t have very thorough explanations of what we're doing… so they are a bit in the dark on what we're doing and they start fearing this unknown thing.” —Aimé Flemm ([08:14])
• “Yeah, predictably wrong. Okay, my sarcasm got the better of me there.” —Vasco Duarte ([09:02])
• “…not necessarily trying to prove that what we're doing here is the right thing… but more thinking of these outcome measures… as long as the merger is a success, it doesn't really matter how you're doing stuff.” —Aimé Flemm ([12:05])
• “We can still have that conversation so that we also decouple the structure from the definition of success.” —Vasco Duarte ([11:31])

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:00] — Aimé frames the challenge: Change under threat from management due to merger-driven alignment pressure.
• [04:27] — "Renting the change" concept explained.
• [06:43] — Organizational culture and management mindset clash.
• [08:14] — Impact of lack of involvement, education for upper management.
• [09:56] — Blame culture after change.
• [10:19] — Need to speak management’s language (metrics).
• [11:19] — Re-initiating the success conversation.
• [12:05] — Defining outcomes over processes.
• [12:34] — Actionable experiment: focus the conversation on merger success outcomes.

---

Takeaways

• Sustainable Change Requires Deep Buy-In: Without direct involvement and understanding from upper management, agile transformations risk being reversed at the first sign of turbulence.
• Communication & Co-creation are Key: Regularly involving senior leadership in defining success and understanding progress (via metrics and conversation) helps anchor transformations.
• Cultural Awareness Matters: Misalignment between local (“happily agile”) cultures and corporate (“command and control”) cultures must be explicitly addressed.
• Outcome Focus Over Process: Conversations should center on desired outcomes rather than rigid adherence to structures or processes.

---

Conclusion

Aimé and Vasco’s conversation highlights a common pitfall in agile transformations: when leaders "rent" rather than "own" change initiatives, those gains can easily be undone. Their discussion offers concrete, actionable advice—most importantly, the need to (re-)engage upper management in outcome-focused dialogue and co-create the definition and measurement of success.

Action Step:
Start (or restart) conversations with leadership about what successful change should look like—using metrics and outcome measures as a “lingua franca” that aligns everyone, regardless of their preferred management style or process background.

---

For more in-depth agile stories and practical coaching conversations, subscribe to the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast or explore their membership community.

Transcript

[A]

Hey there, agile adventurer, just a quick question. What if, for the price of a fancy coffee or half a pizza, you could unlock over 700 hours of the best agile content on the planet? That's audio, video, E courses, books, presentations, all that you can think of. But you can also join live calls with world class practitioners and hang out in a flame warfree and AI slop clean slack with the sharpest minds in the game. Oh, and yes, you get direct access to me, Vasko, your Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. No, this is not a drill. It's the Scrum Master Toolbox membership. And it's your unfair advantage in the agile world. So if you want to know more, go check out scrummastertoolbox.org membership. That's scrummastertoolbox.org Membership. And check out all the goodies we have for you. Do it now. But if you're not doing it now, let's listen to the podcast. Hello everybody. Welcome to our Wednesday the biggest challenge question and of course the coaching question of the week. And we have with us this week, Eme Flem. Hey, Eme, welcome back. Yeah, so we, we're gonna do the coaching conversation right now. We're gonna explore a topic, whatever the topic might be, something that you care about, something that you're in the middle of right now. And, and then we'll just play the coaching conversation model here so that the people listening to us can see it happening or hear it happening as it were, and, and of course get inspired and perhaps start having more of those coaching conversations as well at their workplace. So what is the topic you have in mind this week, Amy?

[B]

Cool. Yeah. So as my current employer, we have a really big challenge which is the looming threat of upper management wanting to do another big change. So I'll give you some context. The company that I work for is part of a larger company and this larger company is really buying similar other companies and they want to merge them eventually. And then you get this situation in which, well, we have spent the last year to really build this beautiful organization where we adopted less and the people are really happy and it's now working and people are performing. But because of these coming mergers, they are comparing the way of workings from these different organizations and they want to align these as well. And often or what we see happening. What I see happening is because they are under pressure and they rented the change instead of owning it. Which was one of our, which was one of my faults, I didn't spend enough time making sure that upper management was involved Enough. And as an outcome or as a consequence, they rented the change and now they're under pressure, which means they want to go back to component teams. How am I dealing, how am I going to deal with this situation? And what is the, what is the way forward? I'm really stuck here. Yeah.

[A]

And that, by the way, is something that we will face even if there's no acquisitions and mergers, because a new manager can come in. They bring their own thoughts and models. Time moves on, and certain pressures are now more important than they were in the past. A great example that is alive today as of May 2026, is AI adoption as an example. So these things can happen all the time. Before we go any further, I do want to dive into that phrase that you use that I think is so precious and so important to understand. And you said that they rented the change instead of buying the change. Tell us what you mean by that.

[B]

Yeah, so when we started, when we got hired for the job to do the change, we entered at a certain level, right? So you have the hierarchy of the organization and basically the middle management, the middle manager wanted to do the change. That means that you're not. But the highest, most important person in the room who in the end has the ultimate say of stuff. So the people who hired us, they own the change. They, they really wanted this. They, they thought this is the way forward and we need people to do this. But the, their bosses, they, they only signed the, the change off. They were like, sure, go ahead, do your thing. We'll see you in half a year, how it's going. But then, you know, you have these voices of the system, the loud but few. These voices reach higher management, they start complaining and then there's this, this panic reaction of oh my God, what's happening? And I saw this happening a few times. And then we get, I don't know, scrutinizes the right word. But we get all of a sudden higher management with pulling back this mandate which they initially gave us. But what's happening here, I'm worried what's going on. And then we found out, oh yeah, they are not owning the change because, well, we didn't spend enough time communicating with them what we are going to do, how we are going to do it, how things are progressing.

[A]

So can you, I mean, in your own thinking and the way you look at this right now, is that kind of the root cause, like is. Is the root cause that management wants to find a safe split, a safe place to retreat to so that they can tackle the turbulence that comes from mer multiple organizations.

[B]

Yeah, you know, I think the,

[A]

it's

[B]

a really, really nuanced topic and that's, that's what makes it so difficult. It's not that black and white. There are many, many aspects to this. A really strong aspect that I saw which might be interesting for some people is if you're we it's a really international organization. Right. I think I have 37 different nationality colleagues with different nationalities, 37 of them for over 100 people. And the mother company is really, really German, like actually really German. And this really influences the way of thinking of this higher management. So I think that's one aspect that really impacts because I think most of us now Germans are in these traditional organizations are really command and control. Less is not command and control. It's the polar opposite. And when the pressure starts to rise and it starts to hurt at some point because of these, for example, these voices going. Because some managers were talking to some higher management, were talking to employees, they heard these voices and then the tension, the pain starts rising. And now I lost my threat.

[A]

So you were talking about the cultural, the higher management, cultural impact on the organization that has already moved to using less.

[B]

Yes. And, and then this pain increases and, and you know, people fear what they don't know. And the higher management didn't go to any trainings, didn't have very thorough explanations of what we're doing. And so there they are a bit in the dark on what we're doing and they start fearing this unknown thing that's happening in their organization. And all they do know is this command and control which fits really well with more of these, of these component teams because they can have plannings charts, that's all they know at that point. Then that's like this knee jerk react reaction. We need to move back to this place because that was the safe spot and that made sense and that's the most important thing. It's predictable.

[A]

Yeah, predictably wrong. Okay, my sarcasm got the better of me there. Okay, so what I'm hearing though is in this transition that happened both from whatever they were to less, plus now the buying and merger of different companies, it is quite normal to have a feeling of turbulence. Like things are changing fast. Oh, I didn't know about this. This is not good. I should have known. Oh, now I feel bad. I need to blame someone. Who should I blame? Oh, it's the change, right? And then there's this. I need to report to my manager and my manager is going to ask, okay, how's the merger going. Right. What are the obstacles? And you don't want to say, oh yeah, we did this transition to less like 6 months ago and now this is causing all kinds of chaos with the other companies which are not using less.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And so I can totally understand why the turbulence is. What I'm thinking is what could we do to help these people who are there in that middle to understand how the change that has already happened can actually help them succeed. So I was thinking, what does success look for these managers?

[B]

Yeah, I'm thinking you're hitting the nail on the head there because while reflecting on what you're saying, it's actually really clear. As clear as daylight. Because I think what we did wrong is we didn't speak enough of their language, which often is metrics. I think there was so much to gain by creating these metrics because that's really easy way to measure success, right? At least easy. It's not easy. Depends on which metrics you choose. But by defining good metrics together, preferably in co creation, it helps first of all find this common ground of hey, what does success for us together look like of this change? And then it's really measurable and you could start reporting on that.

[A]

I see where you're going and I see you and raise you the idea that it's never too late to have that conversation. So now we are here and we're moving towards the merger step.

[B]

Right.

[A]

We can still have that conversation so that we also decouple the structure from the definition of success. Because if we couple these, then the only way to succeed is to change the structure. But we want the structure to be fluid, to adapt to what we realize is possible once we define success. So what do you think about that as an experiment to have that conversation? Hey, what would a successful merger look like? How do we measure it? And let's focus on that, not on the details of that, because we will need to discover the details anyway.

[B]

I really like that idea, actually. Not necessarily trying to prove that what we're doing here is the right thing, because look at all these metrics, but more thinking of these outcome measures, like, hey, as long as the merger is a success, it doesn't really matter how you're doing stuff, as long as the outcome is the mergers were successful. I think that's beautiful.

[A]

All right, we got our experiment and it starts with the conversation as it so often happens in our work.

[B]

Yeah, I think so.

[A]

Eve, thank you for sharing. That was an excellent topic to explore together.

[B]

Awesome.

[A]

Alright, I hope you liked this episode, but before you hit next episode, here's the deal. This podcast is powered by people like you, the members who wanted more than just inspiration. They wanted real tools and real connection to people who are practicing Agile. Every day we're talking access to over 700 hours of agile gold, CTO level strategy talks, Summit keynotes, live workshops, E courses, Deep Dive interviews, books, and if you're into no Estimates, we got the pioneers of no Estimates in those Deep Dive interviews as well. Agile Business Intelligence, creating product visions, coaching your product owner courses, you name it. You'll get invites to monthly live Q&As with agile pioneers and practitioners, plus a private Slack community which is free of all of that AI slop you see everywhere. And of course without the flame wars. It's a community of practitioners that want to learn and thrive together. It's the best place to connect with community and learn together. So if this podcast has helped you before, imagine what you will get from this podcast membership. So head on over to scrummastertoolbox.org membership and join the community that's shaping the future of Agile. We have so much for you, so check out all the [e-mail] membership because listening is great, it's important. But doing it together, that's next level. I'll see you in the community.

[B]

Slack.

[A]

We really hope you liked our show, and if you did, why not rate this podcast on Stitcher or itunes? Share this podcast and let other Scrum masters know about this valuable resource for their work. Remember that share sharing is caring.