I have seen this pattern in multiple companies. The decision is made to improve the agile process, hire agile coaches, increase the throughput of the teams.
If the desire to improve and change is not positioned at the right level of authority in the organization, this is an exercise in futility. There can be some gains at the team level, but without an aligned concerted effort along with a process to escalate impediments, the needle will not move forward for the organization as a whole.
Transparency and alignment of vision is the most important thing to establish at the team level. I have however encountered layers in organizations where information can stagnate and is only shared with lower levels in the organization on a need to know basis.
This is interesting, because we know that sharing vision and driving decisions to the lowest possible level in the organization speeds everything up. However there is often the layer of "people who know things" that have a vested interest in maintaining the position of power and authority.
I recently heard world-renowned business educator and coach, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith speak about how to motivate someone who has no interest to change. In the interview Dr. Goldsmith says he "learned from Peter Drucker that every decision in the world is made by the person who has the power to make the decision, make peace with that."
This is extremely relevant if we consider that in the above description, the layer of "people who know things" also have the power to make the decisions, it becomes very clear why hyper-performing teams are so rare.
