Today I got an interesting
compliment. A good friend of mine told me “if I could give any team you are
working with some advice it would be – just close your eyes, and do everything
Harry tells you to do no matter how crazy it seems. Because there is a plan to
the madness”. This friend of mine went through a coaching engagement with me,
and he discovered and is following a role in Leadership. Indeed, high praise
from someone who had to see lots of change within a very tight timeline. But
looking at myself, with a new team, in a new organization, with an environment
that is NOT interested in my best value proposition – I find that there are things
I can improve. After the whining and the pity party, I started to look at
myself. And I discovered that I was being lazy, disorganized and complacent.
There were great excuses for this – but that is exactly what they were. And I
realized I had to make a decision. The very thing I try to get organizations
and teams to discover about themselves. So it got me to thinking about the team
and the environment…
One of the things I had
noticed about the environment is that this was an environment, like many others,
that was trying to be “agile”. They learned all the words, some of the
mechanics – and without direction they “sprouted” a garden of all sorts of
different practices and tools. This led to a culture that is “change resistant”
– because even within each little group, any change made can be undone with the
help of the other teams. It’s impressive – like a self-correcting dysfunctional
system. I believe they got here due to the complete lack of management care,
protection and direction. But the one thing I could not get over was the
acceptance of the entire team to the “status quo”. They had issues, the
understood they were “dysfunctional” – but when I suggested any improvements,
the immediate reaction was protective – “We tried it, it failed and that is the
way it is”. When I insisted that we needed to change, the question changed
slightly “Why do you think YOU will make a difference?”. Having spent some time
there, and with all the emotions I described in the first paragraph, I was left
with a choice – capitulate, or do what I am designed to do – however
challenging it may seem
But first, I had to look at
my approach. Serving this team as a SM, and knowing that they expected me to be
a combination PM/Manager had me in the dumps. I did not want to do PM work
anymore, I was not interested in babysitting a team, and much less did I want
to be the brunt of blame that the team hinted was around the corner. And, all
this time, the coach in me was yelling to get out. But first, I had to overcome
myself. Really looking at myself enabled me to make the choice that needed to
be made. If I wanted to help this team, I was going to have to eat it and
perform my best PM/Manager combo. And I would have to “gently” and “covertly”
coach on the side. For no compensation or recognition whatsoever. This is
exactly my favorite thing – to solve the unsolvable!
The thing that was standing
in my way was helping the team to see and become aware that they needed to
change – because there were challenges that they were not able to fix. This
means that the defensive layer somehow had to be overcome. In addition to this,
it would require a lot of patience, and my full, undivided attention in order
to get some basic disciplines in place. Things were looking bleak for the most
part, but little by little, with some minimal protection and with trying my
best to help out, the trust that was needed between me an the team started to
bloom. And just very recently, I had the ability to put together a smaller team
on a week long cadence on a mini scrum framework. This opened up the smaller
group to listen – another critical component. And even more recently I received
the thing I needed the most – a request to help out in implementing change.
So true...
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