In the interview with Dr. Klaus Wagenhals and Dr. Frank Kühn from metisleadership.

But against the backdrop of many failed change processes, how can a fruitful connection be achieved? In an interview with Dr. Klaus Wagenhals and Dr. Frank Kühn from metisleadership.

Digitalization, agilization, New Work, skilled labor shortages, and global crises are presenting companies with enormous challenges that often cannot be addressed using traditional change models. What is needed here are different mindsets, a rethink, and faster, more flexible action. How this could work was explored on March 15, 2024, at the metis ChangeCamp in an exchange of experiences among change experts. In addition to familiar, recurring questions, new approaches were also discussed, providing inspiring ideas for one’s own change practice. Two renowned top experts invited participants to this exciting event in Mannheim:

Dr. Klaus Wagenhals, founder of the metisleadership network, is an experienced industrial sociologist, work psychologist, and PhD economist. Since 1999, he has been passionately dedicated to reshaping organizations, particularly with regard to agile ways of working and New Work. He has always focused on the continuous improvement of leadership and project management. He works as a speaker, author, and volunteers with GPM and the Initiative for Future-Oriented Leadership.

Dr. Frank Kühn, work researcher, conversation partner, and independent consultant, brings over 30 years of cross-industry experience in organizational and change projects. He spent many years as a manager and project manager in research and industry. His diverse expertise flows into collaborations, including with metisleadership.

The Metis ChangeCamp gave participants the opportunity to benefit from the extensive insights of these two specialists and explore new paths for a dynamic business future. Today, we speak with them about how companies can best master the technological, economic, and social upheavals they currently face.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: How do you assess the current challenges in the areas of digitalization, agilization, and New Work, particularly with regard to the transformation of leadership and project management?

Frank Kühn: The term "challenge" is certainly appropriate. I would like to give three examples from our experience. Let's start with Challenge Number One: We are experiencing a great deal of uncertainty, contradictions, and interest-driven distortions in the understanding of the new terms. In this respect, at the beginning of our relationship with our customers, we often advocate creating a shared understanding of the terms within the companies: What do we associate with digitalization and what not? Digitalization is often associated with pure technical applications. Agilization is about being faster and more efficient, often less about the associated changes at the leadership and cultural levels. And New Work is associated with a "hip" office environment designed to attract young people to the company. However, it is about a much deeper understanding of what people in our society associate with meaningful and effective work.

We would therefore warn against following a manufacturer or system provider if they claim to know exactly what everything means – which, of course, corresponds to their interest. Equally, we would warn providers, manufacturers, and users not to accept only what the boss presents to them as "corporate reality". We believe that there needs to be a joint clarification process, transcending hierarchical and specialist boundaries, with a shared orientation that should never be technology-triggered, but always thought from the customer's added value and the company's purpose.

This makes it clear that our approach has consequences not only for leadership but also for project management. Because it is much more about questions than ready-made concepts and much more about involving all relevant stakeholders rather than just the "smart players". This is a major challenge for many traditional organizations and, of course, for providers.

Klaus Wagenhals: In Challenge Number Two, the focus is on the fact that companies and their leaders are shifting their attention: We are seeing how they are being drawn into the discourse on digitalization and now, in particular, on AI, instead of consistently focusing on where, why, and what should be changed and what support or enhancement digitalization can provide.

In this context, it often remains unclear what leadership actually means. In these VUCA times, leadership's role is to provide orientation toward the company's future vision, to ensure that employees work well together in this sense, to help them experience the meaning and effectiveness of their work, to promote good collaboration through jointly developed values, and to support employees in taking responsibility. This of course also has implications for how collaboration is structured in digitalization and agilization projects and for leadership within them. Unfortunately, this is often only recognized when there are friction points in collaboration. Another key term here should be the concept of "decentralized leadership": leadership distributed among various employees and their adoption of new roles. This is one of the hallmarks, for example, of New Work. Another is greater self-organization within teams or in circles, as it is referred to in certain organizational designs.

Let’s move on to Challenge Number Three: We see the agilization of projects and organizations as a much more comprehensive change concept than is often reflected in the literature: it’s not just about different methods and new roles like the Scrum Master, but about different ways of thinking – “systemic”, “slow versus fast thinking”, and so on. It’s about different attitudes and beliefs, for example, the concept of humanity. It’s about a wide range of proposals for redesigning organizations, for example, moving away from the classic hierarchy. Towards circles on an “equal footing”. Or moving away from micromanagement and over-planning towards self-organization “on the spot”.

If we look at the role sets of the Scrum Master, the Product Owner, and the agile team, we see a redefinition and redistribution of roles, with a new distribution of responsibility that must be coordinated within the team in the interest of the common goal. Experience shows that this can be done very stress-free, simply because the new clarity is beneficial. This allows decisions to be made much faster than before. Of course, the prerequisite is that everyone has the competencies, authority, and time they need to make decisions, and that everyone takes responsibility for exactly what they are competent in. It is often assumed that this is self-evident – but in our experience, it is not. In classic organizations, it often takes a lot of effort to make this work, because both leaders and those being led are used to having topics, approaches, etc. dictated to them. Even though we know all this and there is plenty of “evidence” to support it, we often just continue as before and then wonder why people become demotivated and their commitment and energy dwindle.

So there is still a lot we can learn if we take the trouble to delve deeper into the new concepts and discover their potential for rethinking and acting differently. And of course, since not everyone can – or should – replicate the “ideal image”, in recent years we have seen many mixed forms, including so-called hybrid approaches.

Frank Kühn: We believe that the basic structure of "project" is already a good idea that remains future-proof because it brings together different people with diverse experiences, skills, and personalities to create a product, development, or new organizational concept with a shared goal. This can serve the interests of higher customer satisfaction, greater work effectiveness and motivation, or more efficient processes with better collaboration. Unfortunately, these possibilities have been damaged and blocked over the last 50 years—not least by hierarchical structures and the old mindset regarding leadership, organization, and human interaction. In this respect, we see agilization as a genuine "act of liberation," which now also needs to be defended. Take learning, for example: everyone would assume that this should be a matter of course today and that time, space, and resources would be available for it everywhere. Yet this is far from the case: retrospectives are part of the concept of agile project management, yet after just 10 years they are already being undermined by the argument of "not enough time," by a lack of willingness to reflect on experiences and draw insights from them to apply to the next projects or changes. Through this short-sighted obsession with efficiency, the much higher costs in the future are all too easily overlooked.

Now, on to Challenge Number Four: this is connected to Challenge 2. Whether digital workflows, holacracy, or Scrum—there is a risk that leadership is delegated to and mechanized by methods and tools. However, when we ask employees about their enjoyment of their work and the changes involved, they repeatedly tell us that this has to do with the trust placed in them by their leaders. With spaces for exchange and learning. With orientation and reliability in a challenging environment. With trying things out and seeing the impact of their work. With the ability to apply and further develop their skills.

We therefore strongly advise against learning new leadership behavior from seminars or recipe books. Instead, it should be learned through practical experimentation, feedback from employees, and grappling with one’s own questions and uncertainties—either with a coach or within the leadership team. To this end, it helps to engage with systemic thinking, one’s own individual construction of reality, one’s view of humanity, interaction processes within the team and organization, and one’s own leadership experience. Recognizing these patterns is essential for understanding and further development, as well as for more effective action.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: What experiences have you had with applying agile methods and practices to successfully transform organizations and prepare them, for example, for upcoming competitive business situations?

Klaus Wagenhals: We don’t apply textbook methods as a matter of principle. Instead, we let ourselves be guided by our impressions and by what our customers tell us in response to our questions. Sometimes we even start with a small chart to bring the entire system into the room and get clues as to where the organization stands. On occasion, we also ask the organization to assess its own level of maturity so that we can jointly identify clues as to how it “ticks,” what stories and jokes are told, what values and principles apply, and how people interact with one another.

In my most recent case, everything began with the customer – a small medium-sized enterprise – reporting that teams had already started discussing values and their significance for the company’s goals and interactions, and that team leaders (the second management level below authorized officers and executive management) were now considering leading this discussion. This prompted me to come up with an exercise, which in turn led to an order for a small workshop series culminating in a “worldCafé” for all employees.

In this context, “agile” meant resonating with the customer and recognizing which questions were truly relevant and having a suitable approach ready that could add value. For us, “agile” also means not bombarding the customer with every possible question about their change process in order to draw up a large offer for 50 consulting days. Instead, we start with a workshop, strengthen that first good feeling of collaboration, and build trust so that we can continue working together. In this case, “agile” later meant incorporating iterative loops into the roadmap to keep advancing to the next development level and starting additional steps in parallel. This included, for example, developing a new understanding of leadership – tailored to the company’s New Work concept – and clarifying the various future roles at team leader, authorized officer, and executive management level. This clarification of roles was also part of the internal change process and was quickly integrated into the existing teams.

So we don’t place much value on immediately reorganizing structures and processes – that’s more classic, business-driven consultant thinking. Becoming agile, rather, starts with setting up new and different projects, new and different approaches, and new roles. Of course, we do reflect on existing structures and processes and where they reach their limits, both today and in the future. Often, it’s enough if, in a project or department, everyone stands together in front of a board and clearly identifies which tasks need to be done, who will do them by when, and where bottlenecks typically occur – the so-called “stand-up.” This is when you realize that employees often already know what needs to be done and what the action items are, but no one dared to speak up openly. You also notice that the team leader present is relieved to see the emerging transparency. What they then need to learn in this context is not to look for someone to blame or to push their own opinion, but to work toward a shared solution to the problem. Often, we find that it’s a new experience for employees to take on tasks from the board independently, based on their skills, and to be encouraged to do so – to say, “I’ll take care of it – you’ll have the results by Friday.”

And the team realizes that by viewing tasks collectively, it’s easier than before to recognize connections and interdependencies, to practice systemic thinking, to jointly assess consequences, and to think in realistic timeframes.

Speaking of time: Often, the lack of time is cited with the phrase “We don’t have time” as a way to reject or postpone tasks. Now, with public estimation of time requirements and shared orientation, this takes on a different turn: “Which tasks should we assign where to make progress possible?” Responsibility and, as a result, leadership are taken on by everyone, not just the project manager or middle manager who’s suddenly been tasked with an additional change project.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: How can companies initiate a collaborative change process and ensure that all involved stakeholders are actively engaged?

Frank Kühn: Companies shouldn’t rely on standard change concepts, recipes, or quick answers, but should ask themselves: Where do I get signals that we need to adapt or even radically change? Do I trust those who received or passed on the signals – for example, from customers? What’s it about? Why now? Where do we want and need to go? What should be different afterward? And where do we start? We’ve developed a helpful question framework for this. It’s available for download on our website.

We have had very positive experiences working together with the people directly involved to determine where we want to go, what the path should look like, and what intermediate results or learning steps are needed to achieve success. Our toolkit includes both proven models and approaches such as the Business Model Canvas or Moreno’s role model, as well as relatively new ones; Delegation Poker is a good example here. Working together means not just internal and external stakeholders, but also collaboration across company functions and existing hierarchy levels, as well as respectful communication between the ideas of younger employees and the experience of older ones. This is a challenge, especially when reports indicate that 30 percent of young people leave companies disappointed within the first few months. The age of digitalization, New Work, AI, and social media has already been described as the first in human history where younger generations can no longer learn from older ones to the same extent. Change and diversity in society and companies therefore go hand in hand.

Let’s focus on the company. We start working with the people there as quickly as possible. In doing so, we view every situation we begin with or are involved in as a reflection of the organization, which leads to rapid initial insights together with those involved. We discuss expectations of the new and agree on the way forward. It doesn’t have to work perfectly right away, but the attitude and genuine effort must be clear. Employees know that managers are only human too; they recognize fair effort, and they also know that the new world won’t be realized in a day. This can be discussed, and feedback can be given on equal terms: What should we do more, less, differently, or continue in the same way?

When working this way, there is much less fear of “failure”—a term more from the “old world.” We see this rather as learning experiences and course corrections that are part of work in general, and especially part of change, and should be evaluated positively. We are convinced that this is one of the key points where new, agile change concepts must differ from classic approaches in order to be successful in the future.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: To what extent do individual perspectives and attitudes of staff play a role in the successful implementation of new ways of working and organizational structures?

Klaus Wagenhals: As already explained above, we have what is known as a systemic view of organisations: they are dynamic, diverse, closely networked, have a certain self-reference, and are not really controllable in the conventional sense – neither centrally nor from the outside. If we start from this assumption, then the question posed contains a misunderstanding: on the one hand, individuals act in a way that is appropriate to the organisation – for example, if conflicts within the organisation are swept under the carpet, individuals will not change much about this – only when they communicate and take joint action will things improve. On the other hand, a great deal is personality-driven. The interplay of these interacting parties keeps the organisational system alive.

In this respect, answering the question posed involves several aspects:

- What image do people have of the organisation?
- What understanding do they have of vision, mission, strategy, their tasks, their roles, and their sphere of influence?
- How are they networked? What groupings exist?
- How do they view change, their roles, and their opportunities within it?
- What motivational factors do they see in themselves and in their colleagues, and how do they consequently experience their own and others’ actions?
- What behaviour can therefore be observed, and what interpretations do individuals make of it, for example in terms of behaviour as change promoters or sceptics?

It is therefore clear that individual perspectives and attitudes of the interaction partners are important alongside the systemic function of their respective roles. However, we still believe that there is a very mechanistic view of the so-called “human factor”: individuals are categorised according to their individual perspectives and attitudes into a schema of “opponents” and “supporters” of change. Based on the erroneous assumption that opponents could be sidelined or excluded from important decisions and that one only needs to deal with the “supporters”. The detrimental effects of this approach have been sufficiently demonstrated. Instead, systemic change approaches assume that critics or sceptics provide important insights into problems that have arisen in previous change processes, and that a closer look at these often proves very worthwhile.

Furthermore, there is a risk that if one focuses too much on the personalities with their idiosyncrasies, one quickly drifts – or deliberately diverts attention – towards psychologising problems with entirely different underlying causes. It is easy to shift a structural problem onto an individual who is supposedly “out to harm” the organisation, and in doing so, make no progress whatsoever. Instead, one ends up in a culture of blame, but not in one that fosters forward-looking work. This is not to say, of course, that dissenters should not ultimately be given the choice of whether to actively participate in the development of, for example, New Work or to leave the company. This should be done with clear words and at the same time with absolute appreciation, because how people treat each other in such situations is closely observed within the organisation. Toxic communication and fear are among the worst things that can happen to an organisation. This is why it also takes courage and the right tools to constructively address conflicts.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: How important is the continuous improvement of leadership skills and project management methods in the context of evolving work environments and requirements?

Frank Kühn: Absolutely. However, we also need to clarify what we mean by this. For example, assertiveness as a leadership skill? We only need to assert things that others see as meaningless. Regardless of the topic—whether it's vision statements, processes, or tools—it's really about credible and appreciative communication in meaningful initiatives. This is something we can practice immediately in change projects. Because change always begins right away. I can't promise collegial leadership and then start the change in an authoritarian manner.

This also makes it clear that other skills are now required than those we may already know: it's much more about tolerating contradictions, supporting and encouraging people to confidently take on their roles, contribute their skills, criticize paths, and suggest new ones. The foundation for this is psychological safety—the feeling of being well-supported within the team. This ties in with what has already been said about toxic behavior and fear. It also involves the ability to give and receive good, exemplary feedback, create spaces for reflection and learning, take responsibility, take action instead of just making appeals, investigate root causes rather than just treating symptoms, and resolve conflicts openly and appreciatively rather than sweeping them under the rug in a so-called "harmony sauce." Only then do we move toward truly new actions, new processes, and experimenting with new techniques.

In this context, as you may have noticed, it's less about project management methods and more about insights from the social sciences, neuroscience, and so on, which we apply in our support of change projects and incorporate into our approaches and exercises. We also explicitly encourage readers to explore new methods of learning, practicing, and adopting new ways of thinking and behaving beyond traditional and even agile project management. Whether it's modern reflection methods like retrospectives, sounding boards, or role feedback, learning journeys, or embodied communication—most importantly, it's about taking action at the next opportunity!

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: Those were very profound insights. Thank you for the pleasant conversation.