Casual Friday

It’s Friday, and my current client observes ‘Casual Fridays’ for a relaxed dress code (normally Business dress code).  It’s amazing to me to see the lack of productivity on Fridays due to everyone wearing jeans instead of shirt/tie or skirts/dresses.  The drop off in efficiency is just horrible.  And yes, I’m being extremely sarcastic.  What I do see is the same (or possibly more) work accomplished, the same level of professionalism, and the same level of drive to do something good for the company.  If the drive to make the company successful is not there with jeans on, it won’t be there any more with a shirt and a tie in place.

So, what does this have to do with agile, since this is an agile blog spot?  A Lot.  To me, dress codes, KPI ratings, manager performance reviews, and all the other trappings of the corporate lifestyle are one of the major factors inhibiting the agile movement really delivering on its promises across the spectrum.  Let’s take one of the agile principles and see what effect these artificial corporate practices have on agility.
“Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done”.

Dress codes are a holdover from a bygone era where how you dressed reflected how high up the ladder you were, and you had to dress appropriately to climb the next rung.  Many of the old school corporate executives still struggle with trusting the employees to ‘get the job done’, and they mask that lack of trust with an enforced dress code.  “If they are dressing appropriately, then I can assume they are acting appropriately”.  If only it were that easy.  This is something that, as an agile coach, I struggle with daily.  Yes, trust must be earned, but it must also be available.

My wife interviewed with a company back in the 1990’s and during the interview she asked about the dress code.  They responded “we prefer you come to work dressed”.  That was it.  That company was far more focused on hiring the right people and trusting them to do the job than worrying about the dress code.  I do understand that there needs to be some sort of standard upheld, and some companies do actually have customers coming in house that require some sort of dress code, but the point being that the emphasis is far too often on gaining the appearance of trust, rather than establishing an environment that fosters trust and commitment. 

People are not motivated by dress codes, performance reviews, or all of the other artificial trappings we put on it.  They are motivated by the intangibles, by the opportunity to do something difficult and having the environment where they can succeed.  In his book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”, Daniel H. Pink talks about experiments that have proved that pay, status, and other simple rewards are not what drives us.  The opportunity to challenge ourselves, the chance to stretch out and try something that we have not done yet, the ability to achieve something really cool, that’s what truly motivates us.  Once corporations understand this and focus more on providing these environments, the better off they will be.  There are a few companies you may have heard of that learned that early on, with names like Google, Apple and Amazon.

BTW, that company my wife interviewed for?  She got the position, and it was one of her favorite jobs of all time because their corporate culture was accurately captured in their simple response on the dress code.