Great teams are built around a business need and can articulate their purpose. They become highly productive through cross-functional collaboration and self-management. We work with teams to develop the mindset, skills, and habits to make issues visible proactively.
Our Elephant in the Room exercise is a powerful tool for fostering open communication and team collaboration. By using a physical representation of a sensitive or taboo topic, this activity encourages participants to confront uncomfortable issues head-on. This interactive approach promotes a safe and supportive environment where team members can express their concerns and work together to find solutions.
This exercise brings the metaphor of ‘the elephant in the room’ to life by means of a large, stuffed toy elephant. Participants write ‘undiscussable’ topics on cards and pin them anonymously onto the elephant. At regular intervals, the group brings them up and talks them through.
What to Use It For
To make a statement that no topic is ‘off limits’
To allow the group to bring up difficult topics for discussion
How It Works
Step 1. Introduce the elephant as early as possible in the session and invite participants to write any difficult or unmentionable topic on an index card and pin the card onto the elephant.
Step 2. At some convenient interval – the end of a day is a good time – review the cards with the client sponsor and agree how to address them with the group.
Step 3. Hold a group dialogue on these topics.
Timing
Group dialogue timing varies from 10 minutes periodically to larger 30-40 minute conversations.
Keep in Mind
It is important to deal with every issue that gets pinned on the elephant and to avoid censoring difficult topics. To do so defeats the purpose of the exercise.
The bigger the physical elephant, the better!
Contact us
Do you like The Elephant in the Room activity and wish you could facilitate fun and engaging sessions like this? If you said yes, it’s time to get in touch.
Find out more
Break out of the blah and make a move to extraordinary change and transformation events for your team. Find out how we bring fun and creativity to your facilitated events. We call it the Easy Way*. You’ll encounter less resistance and get more decisions made when you rely less on heavy change-management processes and more on collaboration.
*Human change is hard. Process-led change programmes make it harder. We think there’s an easier way. Find out how we brought fun and creativity into an insurance client’s transformation programme to help people learn skills for the modern workplace.
In this 2021 conversation for the Women in Agile podcast, Leslie Morse of Scrum.org spoke to Laura about the ways agilists can bring systems thinking and an overall systemic view into their work with people, teams and organizations.
Transcript
Embracing Systemic Thinking when Agile Coaching – Laura Re Turner | 2307
(first 30 minutes)
The Women in Agile podcast series amplifies voices of outstanding women in the Agile community. We’re dedicated to sharing the wisdom and inspiration our community has to offer by telling our stories, being thought leaders, and having open conversations with our allies. This series is brought to you in partnership from the Women in Agile organization and Scrum.org. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Women in Agile podcast.
I’m your host Leslie Morse and in today’s episode you’ll hear me speaking with Laura Re Turner. She is an accredited coach, trainer, and facilitator who works with leaders and teams to develop an agile mindset, behaviors, and the skills to thrive through change. Before becoming a coach, Laura delivered enterprise software projects as a project and program manager, technology consultant, and software developer.
She is the founder and managing director of Future Focus Coaching. In this episode you’ll hear Laura and I explore all things related to systemic coaching, the six lenses of systemic coaching, and how we as agilists can bring systems thinking and an overall systemic view into the ways that we work with people, teams, and organizations. Enjoy the episode.
Hello Laura. Hello Leslie. Thank you for joining me for an episode of the series today.
I really appreciate it. Oh it’s my pleasure entirely. I’m so happy to be here with you today and have this conversation.
Yeah, yeah you’re welcome. Before we ground our listeners and a little bit of your background, I just kind of want to unzip a little bit about the very end of our conversation that we had as we were preparing to record today. I asked you the question, what kind of aura or feeling do we want to bring in to our discussion? And you talked about like mountains and open spaces and fresh air.
What about that sort of metaphor and that environment do you think is important for setting the context for how we’re going to explore systemic coaching and this idea of becoming agile today? Oh what an interesting question. Well I’ve always had a real keen sense for the natural environment and a respect for nature and I met my husband in a mountaineering club, so we’re both keen on kayaking, hiking, climbing, cycling. For a time we even tried tennis, but it’s the mountains and the sea and the rivers that really turn us on.
And I suppose it’s this sense of, you know, wanting to tune into something that’s much greater than me, that I really care about, which also informs my coaching. And so I know we talked a little bit about my book and the scaffolding that I chose to frame the coaching approaches for my book and it’s a systemic approach. So I don’t think that was an accident because it’s very close to my values and beliefs and how I like to be in the world.
So thank you for asking about that. You’re welcome and I think you’re spot-on there because I think that it’s a great primer for everybody as they’re getting ready to listen to us talk today of, you know, we are part of a whole. Even as a single human being we are systemic in our own nature and the multifaceted aspects of us as even an individual and how we link together for others in relationship and organizational relationships and global relationships.
It’s a really interesting backdrop for everybody just to think about how they fit into the big picture as we get into this today. So thank you. Thank you.
Yeah. Let’s standard opening question for all of the guests. Yeah.
Right. Tell us kind of your Agile story. Oftentimes I hear from people that Agile found them versus they found Agile but I’m not sure exactly what your Agile path exactly was.
So tell us a little bit about that origin story. Yeah. Thank you for asking about that.
I mean I started as a software developer in the 1990s when looking back on it Scrum was just an idea in Jeff Sutherland’s mind and I had no idea what Scrum was at the time. In fact I think I started as a software developer the same year he presented the first paper on Scrum. But I worked as a software developer and a technology consultant, project manager, program manager for the last well for 20 years up to 2014.
And for a lot of that you know I wouldn’t say that I was I was doing Agile but but in hindsight I was being Agile. I just I just didn’t know it and Agile as a brand wasn’t a thing for quite a long time during my career in technology. But I remember one day realizing I had to go on a Scrum course because working as a contractor you know you have to keep up your own certifications and knowledge and skills.
I remember going on this course and you know being a project manager I think I wore a nice blazer and I tried to look professional for the thing. And someone on the course turned to me and said you know you look like them but you sound like us. Meaning the way you speak about how important collaboration is and people and openness is very Agile.
So I suppose that was the epiphany on my first Scrum course as a delegate. I realized that you know this was for me. At the time I couldn’t have foreseen that I would be changing career tracks and leaving my very well-paid and very stressful job as a program manager and going into training and coaching.
But it was one of those things Leslie where one day I realized it’s not the job it’s me. I don’t want to be doing this anymore. And my husband who I would hope knows me better than most people said to me I see you as a teacher or a trainer or coach or something like that.
I mean you’ve got to be kidding me. But anyway I listened to him and that started my journey as a trainer and a coach and what a great decision it was. That’s great and it’s the it’s interesting how you know those moments in our career was like oh the thing I’m doing and what I make up about it is is like this thing I’m doing I’ve suddenly realized it’s not aligned with actually my higher calling and mission in life.
And the the freedom that comes with that sort of realization but also the scariness of it and making those kind of changes. Is there anything about that shift that might be useful for you to share with us? Because I really as I think about our listeners right as they have those sort of awakening moments where it’s like ooh I need to make this change. Hearing how other people navigated those shifts is often fantastic advice and mentorship.
Wow what a good question. Well you say scary and I suppose making a big change like that is a little bit scary but there’s something that’s even stronger than the fear. It’s the the space and the freedom and the excitement of knowing exactly what you want to do.
And the fear is more excitement and opportunity than terror or panic I would say. So for anybody including coaches who I work with who start to experience that freedom and openness and and the lift the buoyancy of knowing that you’re doing the right thing for your work and life. It’s an incredible feeling and you don’t want to let go of it.
You just want to keep doing more and more and more of it. So this is where the woman I was working with this morning in coaching said to me this is the first time I’ve wanted to work until 11 o’clock at night. In fact I didn’t even realize it was 11 o’clock at night.
And she realized all of a sudden that you know she’s been struggling with some health issues but that actually the problem wasn’t always a physical problem it was the work. It was the work itself and now that she’s chosen to do different work she feels really buoyant. And that’s how I felt.
Less stress, well a different kind of stress I suppose but I really dug in when I moved into training. And I wasn’t great at it in the beginning. I just really dug in and I was lucky that I had support from colleagues and just kept kept bashing away at it until I got good at it.
That’s great. I love the use the word buoyant. That’s such a wonderful evocative word like how how how might we feel buoyant in our lives and in our work.
So thank you for offering that as sort of a thing to contemplate. I love also that your background is in the technical aspects of having been an engineer and a developer and there in the early days of Scrum because you’re gonna have a really unique perspective on how you have not only navigated your career through the emergence of Agile but also observed the role of women in the global Agile community as it’s grown and began to flourish. So what commentary can you offer us for that? Oh goodness yeah that’s really topical.
The number of times I do a course on you know Agile Project Management or one of one of the various flavors of Agile development and somebody says to me why were there no women at the meeting in Utah in 2001? And you know I have a group this week where we met Monday, Tuesday and then again tomorrow, Thursday and it’s all women and they’re not from IT. They want to learn Agile project management and they are in health care and they said to me where are all the women? You know where are all the women? And the best answer I could come up with was technology has been male-dominated for a long time and in 2001 that was probably pretty representative of the number of women in technology. I mean there there were some there was me you know and there’s there are some really well-known women who’ve made big contributions to our field like Mary Poppendieck who’s just amazing if I could have one mentor in life it would be her.
But I really want to know what to do about that Leslie. I’m going to be volunteering soon for a charity here in the UK called Ignite Hubs which is about getting girls and non-white boys and girls into technology jobs by teaching them how to code and it’s a project that was started by a woman who just does it using any space that she can get after school teaching all kinds of kids how to code and that’s the best what I’ve figured out so far to help rebalance this and yeah more and more we need to have diversity in technology because we’re going to have people writing the algorithms and the AIs of the future that automate loads and loads of stuff for us so we need to have different people writing code so that’s that’s the the best solution I’ve managed to come up with so far. Yeah I love that and I think it’s it’s such a great opportunity and I’ll seize it to really remind people of the mission and why Women in Agile is here right to create a sense of global community to know that those of us that are you know women or right I guess I’ll call it non-male to some extent right because it’s not we don’t want it to just be about women but it’s how do we bring about that greater diversity and for those of us that are already part of this community we’re not alone and how do we make these connections because right I guarantee there’s a listener here that’s gonna hear what you just said Laura and be like ooh I can go do something like that too because there’s that balance of how we as Women in Agile serve each other while we are here in this moment and what we do to come together as a global community to pay it forward so that the generations after us have the privilege of having barriers torn down and greater opportunity and everything so I love that you have that giving back angle to your thoughts there thank you.
Thank you I learned it from Lyssa Adkins who probably gets a hundred requests a week to speak at things and you know must must be a great problem to have but if she’s certainly you know earned earned that that place as you know a spokesperson through her hard work but when I reached out to her for an interview for my book she came back and said yes because I want to pay it forward because I want to support great women and boy was that humbling and a very interesting conversation so interesting that when I had it transcribed it ended up in the book almost word-for-word so yeah I’m grateful to her because she said this to me she said I really want to support great women and help bring them with me so well I have the chills actually thinking about it. I do too and it’s it is it is the why we are here it is why this podcast series exists and in really your reference to Lisa there that was that is what path or paved the pathway for us connecting for this conversation and so you get you’ve given me a perfect segue so you’ve got this new book
Becoming Agile – what was your inspiration for writing it and how did you bring it to the world? Oh man how much time do you have you know writing a book and getting it published is not an agile process yeah yeah it was a few years ago I was doing some CPD I joined a workshop and CPD is sorry continuing professional development thank you thank you and I was in a workshop with some some great coaches at Julia Vaughan Smith and Jenny Rogers who put on a workshop about understanding trauma and how to detect and work with it as much as we can as coaches with our clients and what an interesting workshop that was but this wasn’t an agile community event in fact it was was people who knew nothing about the word or what it meant and so I just happened to be talking to one of the the workshop delegates over a coffee and she said you do what and your dissertation for your master’s degree was on what Wow she said I work for Open University Press and I’d like to talk to you about writing a book for us and Leslie it was like the the time and place wasn’t what you would expect you know in terms of an opportunity to come up you know to write a book about becoming agile but there it was and so of course I nodded and said yes yes yes yes let’s speak about it that was over two years ago and so the book is published by Open University Press which is really exciting because the I’m coaching psychology book series has some incredible authors and just to be alongside some of these people like Carol Pemberton and Julia von Smith who’s also an Open University Press author is is also incredibly humbling I’d like to think that I had some things to say because they were very happy with the manuscript that I submitted the first time without asking for any changes actually which is incredible in itself and so the book brings together professional coaching approaches with some of the well-known approaches that we know from the agile world in order to create a comprehensive picture of how to work with leaders and teams and stakeholders to really create sustainable change in organizations and when I say sustainable I mean long-lasting where we really are are working with people at different levels as opposed to just consulting with them yeah and so I felt that was really important because we’ve been seeing people trying hard to apply scaling frameworks and put in new quote-unquote best practices which of course are best practice for one organization but not for all of them and so I just thought there was a better way to attack this yeah and I’m quite proud of the book quite proud of the result. And you should be.
Thank you. Yeah yeah the you’ve you’re bringing forward a lot of ideas that I want us to figure out how to unpack and before we get into that the I just want to give a couple definitions I think most people and most of our listeners especially because of the coaching agile teams mini-series we did over 12 episodes with Lisa Adkins earlier this year really talk a lot about professional coaching and how professional coaching influences the agile industry as a whole and kind of that stance of agile coach. So I don’t want to necessarily define professional coaching but I do want to define sort of systemic coaching and how that is sort of part of professional coaching and what that what that really means so we can ground people in a little bit of the foundation.
Yeah sure. Writing a book is interesting because you’re writing everything down in in a permanent way and it forces you to go back and reconfirm everything you thought you knew so that was a moment during the writing of the book where I said to myself do I really know what systems thinking is and there are a lot of branches of system systems thinking so it doesn’t really mean one thing in terms of coaching for me systemic coaching really refers to working with holes and using approaches from systems thinking in order to examine situations that are messy that need to be addressed by groups in order to do the work that that needs to be done to create change. Yeah.
So I really embraced systemic team coaching which was created by a top leadership coach here in the UK named Peter Hawkins together with the Academy of Executive Coaching and it’s a relational approach that really asks coaches to think about all the stakeholders in a system which is usually an organization but there are also stakeholders like customers and other people impacted by businesses that are often ignored and but I I just I like the way he asks coaches to to consider people on an individual level and interpersonal level team relationships and team tasks whether the team purpose is clearly articulated the systemic context in terms of the macro environment you know for example the political economic social environmental and legal aspects of the macro environment but also other stakeholders in an organization that sit around the team and can help a team be successful or not in producing great products and services. So I really took that approach and embraced it because for me it was easy to understand and if it’s easy to understand then it’s easy to use with my clients and I use that really as scaffolding for two-thirds of my book really is a gentle reminder of of where to put our attention as coaches. Yeah I think there’s something sorry go ahead.
I would say there’s something so relevant about this because listening to you talk it’s like you’re describing all of the complexity of the dynamics that we as agilists have to live in every single day. So if we’re truly going to be applying professional coaching in the agile context looking to systemic ways of working and thinking would seem sort of like common sense in some ways but I think it’s also it’s a big leap to be prepared and be capable of doing this kind of work. So is it is the way you broke this down into six different lenses around systemic team coaching is that part of what helps people really get their their mind around what it means to coach and think and operate in these ways? Well I think there are lots of tools that come from systems thinking that are relevant.
I think there are ways of being and recognizing your influence on the people you’re working with just by being there. There are lots of different ways of looking at this but you know today I think we’re talking about the six lenses of systemic team coaching which is one model in the entire approach. If we had more time I prepared slides for your listeners.
I think you know I could do a seminar in fact get in touch with me I’m absolutely joking. You know I want to be sure that you know that I’ve articulated something as well that your listeners are going to find useful and so you know ask me another question where do you think they’d like me to go with this? Yeah well I think there’s so many ways. I just you know in prep for us today ideas and models that are around something like six lenses like okay I can take this really big body of work and start to orient myself to it through these different dimensions or use the words lenses.
I think it’s a great way of introducing people to a new topic and shifting our ways of thinking and so we can start getting curious in different ways. So I think spending some time there I think would be really great and then maybe like wow how do I actually learn about this more can be where we go next. So you’ve got six of them individual, interpersonal, team dynamics, team tasks, purpose, and objectives, stakeholder interfaces, and then just the wider systemic context.
How did you derive these six? Why are they important and maybe like what are two of the areas that people might look to first if they really want to start orienting themselves to it? Yeah the six lenses were defined by Peter Hawkins with the Academy of Executive Coaching so I don’t take any credit for that but when I was learning systemic team coaching what helped to bring it to life for me was a short case study that was an example that helped to bring it to life and I was reading this and I was also thinking about Gene Kim’s book you know that brings to life DevOps and I thought oh you know I need to write a case study that brings this to life in an agile context because so many professional coaches ask me what is agile all about and the agile coaches ask me about my experience as a professional coach and how that you know helps to to make agile teams more successful. So I started to frame everything that I thought was relevant in an agile coaching really good agile coaching in terms of these six lenses and thought back to a client engagement where I was observing and working with people in the organization and and viewing the the people and their relationships in different ways in order to help them move forward. So what I did really was I thought about some of the most important coaching approaches that I use with people one-to-one so in terms of the individual lens there’s things like helping leaders with critical thinking skills and resilience which is super important for people working in fast-changing uncertain environments which are the ones where you would use an agile framework.
Managing stress and really important I thought was including the idea of not knowing the acceptance of not having all the answers and sometimes not knowing and not being sure and so I I kind of filled up that lens from an agile perspective with these approaches which I thought were all relevant when working with people one-to-one and when thinking about the second lens the interpersonal lens I mean I thought about it in terms of the relationships the interpersonal relationships and things like the impact on team members when project managers and other leaders have a facilitative style or servant leadership as opposed to command and control and very directive. Also I towards the end of my writing of the book I realized that remote working was going to need to be addressed because this was during the pandemic and so I addressed that a little bit and there’s a terrific interview with Judy Reese and a case study about her and her work in the book and also a little bit about face-to-face communication and I I did a lot of research and reading while I was doing my MSc and coaching a few years ago. An MSC? Yeah a master’s degree.
Okay just yeah global listeners want to make sure we’re catching all the acronyms so thank you for letting me get you there. Yeah no worries in coaching which I did it at Henley Business School here in the United Kingdom and while I was doing my research there for my dissertation I did a kind of a mini literature review on face-to-face communication because I wanted to understand what the psychology literature said about whether or not face-to-face communication is really important so I also addressed that in the book. And then you know Lens 3 really some of the kind of classic agile tools there about how to identify purpose and create focus and commitment and I’m thinking about the scrum values now.
Yeah team dynamic yeah team dynamics can be such a tricky place for us when we look to working with agile teams in this act of coaching. So you were thinking you said you mentioned scrum values and some other things like can how do you even just define what the boundaries of what team dynamics is because it can almost be a bottomless pit in my mind. Well I think I’d want to understand the context a little bit more to to answer that that question.
But to me there’s a quality of the type of communication that they’re able to have. Are they listening in order to confirm or disconfirm what they already know? This is what Otto Scharmer calls downloading in theory you which it’s something I’m using these days in my coaching. Or are they listening in order to generate new ideas and create dialogue? And to me you know that’s something that I look for all the time in groups is what’s the quality of their attention to each other, the quality of listening, how they communicate and show respect and are they able to create dialogue and build new ideas? Or is it just like tennis you know I think about just lobbing a ball back and forth and seeing how hard you can hit it.
Laura Re Turner explores the crucial role of coaching in facilitating behavioral change and achieving organisational agility.
By empowering individuals and teams to adopt agile behaviors, organizations can reap the rewards of increased flexibility, responsiveness, and innovation.
In Becoming Agile: Coaching Behavioural Change for Business Results, Laura Re Turner delves into the first lens of systemic team coaching, which focuses on the individual mindset. She emphasises the importance of understanding and addressing the individual’s beliefs, attitudes, and values as they relate to agility.
Self-awareness
Coach self-awareness is the foundation of our ability to foster an agile mindset in others. Individuals need to recognise their own assumptions, biases, and limiting beliefs that may hinder their ability to embrace agility. She encourages coaches to work through reflective exercises and self-assessment tools to uncover these underlying factors, then use their reflective skills to support their clients’ development.
Psychological safety
She also explores the concept of psychological safety, which Turner defines as ‘a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.’ She explains that psychological safety is essential for fostering an agile environment where individuals feel comfortable expressing ideas, asking questions, and admitting mistakes without fear of judgment or repercussions.
Principles for effective coaching
Turner outlines four key principles for effective coaching:
Focus on the coachee’s needs and priorities. Coaching is not about imposing the coach’s agenda onto the coachee. Instead, it’s about understanding the coachee’s specific challenges and aspirations, and tailoring the coaching approach accordingly.
Help the coachee develop self-awareness. Agile behaviors stem from a deep understanding of oneself, one’s strengths, weaknesses, and motivations. Coaching can help coachees uncover their core values, identify their emotional triggers, and recognize their habitual patterns.
Promote active experimentation. Agility thrives in an environment of continuous learning and improvement. Coaching can encourage coachees to step outside their comfort zones, experiment with new approaches, and embrace feedback as a source of growth.
Create a safe and supportive environment. Trust and psychological safety are essential for effective coaching. Coaches should foster a sense of mutual respect, openness, and confidentiality, allowing coachees to feel comfortable exploring their vulnerabilities and learning from their mistakes.
Some practical strategies for coaches to promote psychological safety including establishing clear expectations, encouraging open communication, and valuing diversity of thought. It’s important for coaches and leaders to model these behaviors themselves to set a positive example for the team.
By focusing on the individual mindset, coaches can lay the groundwork for a team that is adaptable, collaborative, and resilient in the face of change.
Becoming agile: coaching behavioural change for business results
Emotional intelligence
In addition to self-awareness and psychological safety, Turner discusses the role of emotional intelligence in developing an agile mindset. Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to understand, manage, and express emotions effectively. Turner explains that emotionally intelligent individuals are better equipped to handle the challenges and uncertainties inherent in agile environments.
She encourages coaches to help individuals develop their emotional intelligence through training, coaching, and feedback. By focusing on the individual mindset, coaches can lay the groundwork for a team that is adaptable, collaborative, and resilient in the face of change.
It was a pleasure to present a session today at the ICF Romania’s annual conference. Thank you to the terrific coaches who asked some great questions. I promised to publish my answers here, in addition to the discussion we had during the conference.
I prefer a wider definition of Agile development. I prefer ‘business agility’ because we know that a team gets only so far with Agile development before stakeholders in the organisation become blockers. At least this is often the team’s perception. Maybe business stakeholders’ mindset hasn’t changed. Maybe they aren’t familiar with the new approaches, or bought into the new frameworks and tools.
Knowledge is capital. Peter Drucker, the management guru, called the new skills “knowledge work” which differentiates a company in the marketplace. A business needs the skills and learning capacity to adapt to change from both internal and external sources.
So agility is needed, not just Agile. This is why I use the Six Lenses of Systemic Team Coaching, created by Peter Hawkins with the Academy of Executive Coaching.
Q&A
Is it a structured program that needs to start from 1-6 or you can work on different levels based on the need? You’ll agree the aims and structure of the coaching engagement based on pain points (a tactical focus) or as part of a transformation programme. The Six Lenses is, to me, an observation tool that I use to ensure that coaching interventions are created from different perspectives. So it’s a model for seeing, not for contracting or commissioning.
If you are in a team coaching setting (for a specific team related aspect) do you bring your observations about lenses 4, 5 and 6 into the team discussion? if yes, how? I ask how other stakeholders – naming one or two specifically – might view the situation. Any tools in your toolkit for helping someone see the situation from another’s perspective are relevant. And you don’t need to be working with the team to help people see from other perspectives, but this obviously comes up with teams all the time. “It’s not us, it’s them” is the kind of thing I hear. The agile team doesn’t understand the business perspective, and business stakeholders don’t often understand agile team practices. I’m generalising, but it comes up often.
How do you get the client from the one to one coaching, which you said that it’s generally the way of start working with them, to the team coaching…. and also how do you generally structure your interventions? (talking now about the hybrid way of working and interacting) I don’t guide the client (the organisation) through each of the Lenses, I spent time working with and observing the client and putting together a picture for myself of where communication seems to be stalled, or people working at cross-purposes. Working with technology organisations, as we so often are asked to do when we’re working as an Agile Coach, we’re working with people who like data. I tend to agree that data is important – and there’s plenty of it on the team’s Kanban board as feedback which is quite tangible and relates to ‘time to market’, the all-important measure of how quickly we can get new products and services delivered. So it’s important to be able to engage as a coach but speak the language of Agile frameworks. Having that evidence (data / feedback) helps you to make the case to look at different interventions – in the other Lenses.
How we can we identify on what level we should work with the team? All of them are important.
This [Scenario Thinking] seems an approach of mitigating risks. Can we also think of trends or other opportunities in this phase? Yes it’s a way of identifying risks of change from the external business environment. By starting with a point in the future, in my example two years out, and working back to the present, we generate options for how to spot risks becoming issues. To turn the PESTLE analysis in Scenario Thinking into a way to identify opportunities, add a SWOT analysis as the second step of your facilitated process. Use your facilitation skills here.
After asking us to contribute to a word cloud to understand what we think of when we think of the word ‘ethics’ (I said ‘respect for the client’ and ‘honesty’), Shane showed the list of 18 points in the proposed Code of Ethics. He said it made more sense for the Agile Aliance to own it than for ICAgile because ICAgile is a standards organisation for training courses and contributes to professional skills development through its Learning Outcomes. (My company Future Focus Coaching is an ICAgile Member Organisation.)
While there are almost half a dozen professional training organisations globally, Shane used as a benchmark the Code of Ethics of the International Coach Federation (ICF). I’m a member of APECS, the Association for Professional Executive Coaching and Supervision, which has its own Ethical Guidelines.
Shane asked small groups to discuss the idea of a code of ethics in breakout rooms. Some points we raised in our room were:
We are being most ethical when we are being true coaches, and not teaching (telling).
We don’t always have a choice of how we help the sponsor roll out their agile framework. We arrive, and the sponsor tells us what has been decided, regardless of what the teams want or need.
In the plenary session, people from other breakout rooms said the points they raised were:
Some people perceive the role Agile Coach as another term for a Scrum Master. They’re different, and a coach should adhere to a different professional standard.
One should always have been a Scrum Master before becoming an Agile Coach, so that they understand the ins and outs of how Agile teams work. Someone else added: what about Product Owners?
Agile Coaches have many roles, as a true coach but also an evangelist, and partnering with management. It’s a difficult position to be in. People aren’t always aware of what role they’re in at a given time.
Some external coaches say ‘if you implement x framework, you’re agile’. People are trying to sell their preferred Agile process instead of working to the client’s agenda.
But the over-arching reason I think we need an ethical code for Agile Coaches is this. More people who identify as Agile Coaches have increased their professional coaching skills significantly during the last five years at least. When I spoke to Isaac Garcia, an organiser of Coaching Agile Journeys, in January, he said their members have matured in their use of coaching practices during the last six or so years. And they are increasingly looking for ways to learn at a more mature level, from CAJ. (Isaac said CAJ was started by Lyssa Adkins after her book Coaching Agile Teams was released 20 years ago as a learning group for people to practice what they’d learned.)
Some of the coaching approaches and themes I’ve seen arise in this space in recent years:
psychological safety
Open Space
Liberating Structures
Use of NLP
Somatic coaching
Solution focused coaching
High-quality facilitation
So if Agile Coaches are using more professional coaching skills among the four competencies then professional coaching standards and continuing professional development should apply.
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Answers to your questions from the webinar, my notes, and of course the webinar recording here.
Agile Coaching isn’t just for teams! Leaders have just as much, if not more, influence on creating a culture to beat the competition and stay relevant in today’s fast-paced market.
Agile Leadership coaching helps you build resilience, think strategically, motivate your teams, and plan for the future.
This webinar is for leaders of development organisations, directors, product managers, senior project and programme managers, and HR business partners.
Notes
I promised to send my notes on each the areas that come up for leaders that work in complex and uncertain environments — leaders who want to be agile. Here are descriptions of each of the areas for leadership coaching that I mentioned.
Adaptability
Being able to adjust to new conditions
Resilience
The capacity to remain flexible in thoughts, behaviours and emotions when under stress. For more on resilience coaching, have a look at the work of Carole Pemberton.
Servant leadership
A leadership philosophy and set of practices, defined by Robert Greenleaf, to build better organisations. A servant leader ensures that other people’s highest-priority needs are being served. He said the test of servant leadership is Do those served grow as people? Do they become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous? I discuss servant leadership in my book Becoming Agile.
Sense and respond
Sense – acute and accurate awareness of what’s going on in the world and in business, in broad terms. Awareness of the facts. Respond – to make a small adjustment in how we lead or work with others, to move closer to what we want. Working incrementally toward goals or objectives.
Critical thinking
Solving problems through rational processes and evidence-based knowledge.
Cross-silo leadership
Leading with the whole organisation in mind. Helping teams see their work though the eyes of customers, business partners, or suppliers. Read my book Becoming Agile for more about what this means for individual leaders and their teams.
Growth mindset
The belief that we were not born with all of the skills needed for life and work. We can learn and improve through our own effort. For more on this, see the work of Carol Dweck.
Q&A
How do you explain the Agile concept when you coach and in what session do you introduce it to the coachee?
I try to hold back from explaining or ‘telling’ in my work, as much as possible. Some of agile coaching is teaching agile frameworks and techniques, so I only explain concepts if appropriate. As a leadership coach, my first job is to find out what the client wants from the coaching session and work from that point.
How is ‘adaptability’ different from ‘sense and respond’?
Thanks for that great question. The phrase ‘sense and respond’ has to do with taking in a wide plane of information about current events and global trends in business and other arenas (political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental). By understanding systemic trends (sense), a leader can then work toward incremental change (respond).
To me, adaptability is a personal willingness to have the courage to throw away the plan when needed, and change to current conditions.
When you are coaching, how do you practice selflessness and how to understand it’s the moment your ego forces you to make the decision and how do you come to the state of ego-free coaching?
I mentioned that a great deal of information about your client and the coaching relationship comes from paying attention to your (coach’s) own feelings, instincts, thoughts, responses. Nevertheless, when coaching we always work with the client’s agenda, not ours.
What tips do you have for coaches on coaching leaders who don’t appear to have a growth mindset? Leaders who are stuck in their ways and are not seeing the reasons to change?
My question back to you is ‘how do you know’? It may seem at first as if someone doesn’t have a growth mindset, however I think what we’re noticing is a resistance to change. That can have many root causes. Tell your client what you’re noticing, and ask for their thoughts. Try giving feedback and asking a question to draw out their thoughts and feelings.
Some people really don’t have a growth mindset, and if your client determines that that’s the case or you’ve seen/heard evidence that convinces you of that, work with your client to understand the strength of their need to learn new skills. I’d ask the client to rate their need on a scale (say 1-5), and go from there.
A coach friend asked me to join her online meeting this week and give feedback for how to improve it. I sent her some thoughts after the meeting and you might find them useful too.
These were my comments to my friend, in no priority order. I hope you find them useful.
Setting working agreements (we used to say ‘ground rules’). Online meetings need to have working agreements made explicit at the start. It’s even more important with people who aren’t used to having meetings online. How to ‘raise your hand’ – using the Raise Hand button in Zoom, or your actual hand – when you want to speak is really important because we can’t talk over each other in online meetings. It becomes like nails on a chalkboard quickly. Also how to give feedback like ‘you’re on mute’ (hold up a handmade sign on a post-it) or ‘I agree’ (thumbs up).
Have ways to make people feel heard in the meeting right from the start. To get them interested and keep them interested so they don’t multitask. Create engagement right from the start by asking people to say their name and answer a silly question. Or the last person to speak nominates the next person to speak (forces everyone to stay on their toes and listen to every introduction).
If we’re ‘going around the room’ to hear from everyone, every speaker’s time should time-boxed to a pre-agreed time. ‘1 minute’ cards or hand-made post-its are important to give warning of ‘time up’. I picked this up from Paul Z Jackson who recently delivered an Advanced Facilitation course. They work just as well online as in-person. Thanks to Lisette Sutherland for a great recent example of that.
In the meeting invitation, let participants know what tools you’ll use in the meeting so participants can practice in advance. How many of your workshop participants (meeting invitees) know how to use all of the tools?
Purpose of online meeting should be made really clear so that people know why they’re joining, what they need from it, and if/how they can contribute.
Facilitator should use breakout rooms for larger groups – we just about got away with not having breakout rooms with 5 participants [in the meeting that my friend hosted]. Any larger and we should have had three breakout rooms with a clearly defined task for each group.
How will meeting notes and take-aways be captured and shared with everyone during and after the meeting.
This meeting was loosely structured because the group didn’t need to do any real work in the timeframe. That was understood from the meeting invitation. If the group had to reach a decision or find a way forward, what facilitation process would have been appropriate to help the group do the work, eg brainstorm, prioritise, vote, discuss pros and cons.
What online tools could be useful for facilitating the group to do the work of the meeting/workshop/course? A couple of my favourite tools are Lean Coffee Table, Trello, and Google Docs. I’m learning more about Mural. What if some group members don’t know how to use the tools? What contingency can we have in our back pocket to help the team move forward? Even better – let each small work group decide for themselves what they use. That will be quicker than asking them to re-learn how to work with the facilitator’s favourite tool.
Looking at some of my notes above – most of these ways of working are important for effective in-person meetings but are now super-important for online meetings.
Thanks
I’ve learned loads from others in recent weeks about remote facilitation, having interviewed Judy Rees a few weeks ago for my book on agile coaching. Thanks to all of the great online facilitators that have helped me add to my facilitation toolkit.
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