finding my place in the world
When I started my current role a couple of months ago, there was one other agile coach and myself. We didn’t know anything about the organisation, and no one could tell us anything. We were left alone, told to work it out, and get to work. It’s an exciting and daunting position to be in.
As part of trying to find our way and our place, I found myself guiding a team through adopting an agile framework that I have no experience in, working with a level of the business with which I have no experience working. It has been challenging, it has pushed me out of my comfort zone, and I have not performed to the standard I typically expect of myself.
Recently our team has grown, and I have found myself grateful to be no longer required to fulfil this role. I have been given the gift of time. I am now concentrating on the work that I enjoy, and that brings me meaning. As part of this work, I am documenting the engagement of a professional coach and have created guidance on what coaching will look like in this context. It has given me great joy and a sense that I know what I’m doing and that I’m in the proper role after all.
I started in this role because I thought the organisation wanted and needed a coach, and so far, I have yet to be asked by anyone to use my coaching skills. We’re still far from exploiting my skills to their fullest, but hope is in sight. I have spent time this week educating those around me about coaching in its purest form. I am starting to shape how and when we’ll engage with different people as coaches and with the many other roles we agile coaches inhabit.
I have learned two things this week:
1. As with many organisations I have worked with before, I am as new to this organisation as it is to me.
2. Coaching is the slowing down part of slow down to speed up.