Walking Their Talk, Sustainability, Inspiration
Robert Galen
Sustainability

I saw this wonderfully courageous and informative post by Sabine Canditt the other day where she wrote about Sustainable Scrum. 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sustainable-scrum-responsible-choice-sabine-canditt-x0gef

After just completing a The Week program facilitated by the amazing Ann-Marie Kong, it touched my heart.

That said, I wanted to highlight one comment reaction/interaction between Sabine and Erich Bühler 

Erich said—

Thank you for bringing this approach into the world! Scrum does provide an iterative approach for teams to create value, but its scope is limited to the product level and struggles with dynamics across the whole organization for several reasons.
Without updating the underlying business and financial model at a strategic level, Scrum alone cannot transform organization-wide sustainability.

Sustainability
Short-takes, Inspiration
Robert Galen
Sandy’s Take
Sandy’s Take
Short-takes, Personal Thoughts
Robert Galen
The Human Aspects of Agile Coaching
The Human Aspects of Agile Coaching
Coaching, ACGW, Personal Thoughts
Robert Galen
Keys to Building your Coaching Relationships

I talk a lot about the first step in coaching any client (individual, system, team, etc.) is to build a relationship, gain empathy and understanding, and then gain an idea of where/how to help initially. So, do NOT start to coach until you’ve done some relationship-building. 

But what does a coaching relationship, or a professional relationship in general, look like? What are aspects of that? Here are a few things that come to my mind—

  • Making + taking the time.

  • Explaining what you do—what is Agile Coaching.

  • Building some empathy; walking in their shoes; understanding where they are coming from.

  • Meeting them where they are.

  • Listening; reflective listening; building metaphors together.

  • Connecting with their language, not yours.

Keys to Building your Coaching Relationships
Personal Thoughts, Short-takes
Robert Galen
Privilege Awareness

I recently replied to a LinkedIn post by David Pereira. It was a wonderful post, and I applaud David’s boldness and courage in sharing it. 

Here’s a post comment from Stefan Wolpers—

While I agree fully with your personal stance regarding professionalism, David Pereira, some people will shy away, given the current economic climate. Some of the previously aggravated people may seek an opportunity to settle scores.

And here’s my comment—

I love the clarity (No BS) here. Clarity for David and clarity for those who want to work with and who don't want to work with him.
That said, David has the unique privilege that allows him to adopt this clarity. Many don't.

This post is not about David per se. Instead, he inspired me to write it.

Privilege Awareness

Guest Post

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Reflections for Agile Coaches

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Savita Pahuja is an agile coach who is a principal in CoachingSaga. I’ve met her in user groups for some years, and her balance, thoughtfulness, and experience have always impressed me. 

She recently wrote two articles about reflective practice and self-reflection for Agile Coaches that I want to bring to your attention—

From an Agile Coaching Growth Wheel perspective, reflection is one of the foundational elements of Self-Mastery.

I’d encourage you to read both of them and to follow Savita’s future posts.

Stay agile, my friends,

Bob.

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Change & Resilience

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Change & Resilience

This post is an Eric Hannan, two-fer. Two thought-provoking LinkedIn posts by my friend and colleague, Eric Hannan that I thought I would share.

Change

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/eric-hannan-0820516b_change-changemanagement-coaching-activity-6916471769499353088-jGq0?utm_source=linkedin_share&utm_medium=member_desktop_web

Change seems to only happen at two points:

  1. Someone is ecstatic about the change

  2. They feel the pain of the current situation and see the need for a change


This is probably overly simplistic as there may have been extraneous variables related to the pain that caused person number one to seek change, but this isn't a peer-reviewed journal entry this is just some musings of my mind.

I've been thinking about change recently because I was working on a new process for our organization and upon reflection, I realized I am square in the middle of one and two.

Each changing point requires different actions to accomplish the change. Point One may require more curation in my opinion, as the stress that comes with the change may thwart full adoption unless people embrace not just the enthusiasm for the change but also the value of the change. The perceived value of the change must be greater than the stress of the change otherwise people will abandon the change when things get rocky. Thus, consistent curation of enthusiasm and value (they why) must be done.

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White Privilege and Authenticity in the Coaching Relationship

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White Privilege and Authenticity in the Coaching Relationship

I was recently asked about how privilege shows up in the coaching relationship. Although the topic of privilege has been discussed in various capacities, I have not yet seen or read enough people tackling the issue of White Privilege. Let me one up that, I have not yet seen WHITE PEOPLE tackle this issue.

As a white, cisgender female, who provides coaching, I have a lot of privilege. The number one area that I have the most privilege in is my Whiteness.

With that said, I thought it would be helpful to provide some of my thoughts and suggestions on how to address it in both the role of being Coached as well as Coaching others.

Let’s look at it from Three main areas – self-awareness, ask/address, and learn & growth.

Assuming Positive Intent

Assuming Positive Intent

Guest Post by Kim Andrikaitis, Vaco

Kim wrote this blog for the Vaco Agile blog and I asked her if I could x-post it on the Moose. She was kind enough to say yes.

This post just resonated with me. I was thinking about it for more than a week after I originally read it. I hope it has the same impact on you…

Post

"The team just doesn't have a sense of urgency."

Have you ever uttered those words? Or felt the frustration from this preconceived notion? Have you ever wondered why your teams aren't performing to your expectations? You question whether they just lack passion or simply don’t care? Or maybe they just aren't into their jobs? Are team members just phoning it in?

Did it ever occur to you that?