What are you for?

Most of us know what we are against.

What frustrates us.  What makes us feel wronged.  What upsets us.  What is making things difficult for us.

That’s easy to know.

I think the better question is do you know what you are for?

Sometimes Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches point at everything that is wrong, bad, anti-agile.  It is very clear what they are against.  But they don’t make it clear what they are for.  This can have the opposite desired effect when your goal is to influence agility.

I fell into this trap early in my agile journey.  I pointed out everything team members and management were doing that was not contributing to agility.  I declared what needed to be vanquished from the team or the organization in order to be more agile.

• We must stop using velocity to measure team performance and compare teams.
• We must get rid of this bureaucratic project funding and approval process.
• We must stop measuring teams on their ability to estimate projects.
• We must stop individual performance reviews that evaluate people on filling a rigidly-defined functional role.
• We must stop doing documentation for the sole purpose of checking off a box on the project phase gate checklist.
• We must stop having the “expert” on the team always do that specific type of work because she will do it faster.
• We must stop throwing other work at the team in the middle of a Sprint because it’s urgent… just this once.
• We must stop the organizational roll-up project status reporting process.

Yes, all of these things were true.

And this was easy to do.  I thought it made me a good agilist, an effective change agent.

I could say that I did MY job, but THEY just wouldn’t listen.  

Let me share a simple thing that opened up my world…

People are more open to listening and taking risks when you aren’t just telling them what they are doing wrong. 

This is how you influence agility.

To complicate things further, we sometimes mistake actions for values.  We assume that a person must not have the same values if they are taking certain actions.  This is not necessarily true.  Yet we tell ourselves a story, and we create an us versus them dynamic.

Don’t get me wrong.  There are times when we see environments so toxic and actions so detrimental that we do have to directly point them out.  We must have the courage to protect the team in order to give them a fighting chance at progress.  As Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches, this is part of our job too.

However, I ask you to consider if there are other tools in your toolbox that you haven’t fully utilized?

Are you willing to shift the focus to bring more light, energy, creativity, and passion to what you are for?

It is often harder to focus on what we are for.

Because then we have to do the work.  We have to define what we are for and why we are for it.

And then comes the scary part.  We have to figure out how to achieve it. 

As I’ve said before, there is no silver bullet nor a guarantee of success when it comes to doing complex things in an unpredictable world.  We try our best, take simple steps, learn as we go, improve our game relentlessly, and keep in line with our vision.  (Check out these 5 simple steps for taking action).

To focus on what we are for to influence agility, consider asking questions like these.

• How do we know what is valuable to our customers and to our company?
• How can we measure this value?
• What would help us give our business more flexibility in making investment decisions?
• How can we create a more collaborative, effective relationship with [insert team or individual]?
• What can we do to improve the quality of our product this week?
• What skills do we need to meet the changing demands in our market?
• What is one thing we can do this week to start building those skills?
• What’s important to you?
• How can I help you achieve that?
• What’s the worst that could happen if we try [insert wild and crazy idea]?
• What’s the best that could happen if we try [insert wild and crazy idea]?

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If you enjoyed this blog post and are seeking just enough structure to help you increase your impact and influence as a leader, check out the Scrum Master: Grow Program.  Learn more about this affordable lightweight program.