and so the work begins

the same patterns in a nicer context

This week I’ve been coaching a scrum team who have accidentally created a waterfall process. Keeping the balance of investigating how the team got to this position while supporting them out of it without anyone feeling bad about their part is immensely enjoyable. Everyone understands the compromising decisions that were made by themselves and each other. No one wants to place blame on anyone else. And yet, I still find a large amount of small p politics in play. No one wants to talk openly with the group about the behaviours and the decisions that led to this place. In previous organisations I’ve worked in, this would most likely have been because everyone was protecting their own position. In this organisation, it appears to be because no one wants to hurt anyone else. Who knew people at a university would want to behave better than people at a bank?

As a coach, I’m building up relationships with all the different people involved. I’m supporting them to change the way they’re working, and listening to what they need from the other parts of the team. I get to hear the team members’ difficulties with each other, talk to each individual about how we can resolve those difficulties, and support them to perform their roles in a way that negates a difficulty felt by another. All this without breaking confidentiality.

To know how each of the team feels about each other in a way they probably don’t know of each other yet.

To build a loving opinion of each person in the team, while having access to many different lenses upon them.

So, how will I avoid slipping into the political system underpinning this world? How am I going to promote a more loving, compassionate, and useful way of thinking about and talking with each other?

Obviously by example has to be the first and most significant answer. I’ve been saying good morning in the group channel every day since I started, and this week other people were in there saying good morning before I arrived, and conversations about their lives started blossoming. It will be of no surprise that it is the women leading this behavioural change. That’s not to say the men don’t join in and take their part in the conversation. Demonstrating the change you want to be is the only universal truth I know.

The next step is to be mindful that I am not part of the system. I am trying to work myself out of their lives as quickly as possible. There when they need and don’t want me; gone when they want and don’t need me. I wonder what it is about us transformational coaches that make us want to go into battle after battle, and never stick around to enjoy the peace? Some deep childhood trauma, no doubt.

My love for the aesthetic of threes forces me to explore the next step when one is not immediately obvious to me. I think an education piece is step three. Remind people of the values and principles that we aim to adhere to in our quest for agility. Explain repeatedly what the purpose of the scrum elements are when coaching. Detail out the responsibilities everyone has in order to fulfil those elements to completion. Praise when the desired behaviours are exhibited even slightly, and find ways to encourage them when they are not.

I’m reminded of how much I love bringing a team together; and that I am a little bit good at it. Finding a group of people who have been brought together by the need for employment and having a set of complementary skills and helping them form bonds and find a way of enjoying working together enough to build amazing things; purely joyful.