Leadership

How To Gain Agility by Giving Up Control

Giving Up Control to Gain Agility

This past year, I was asked to be a guest on the Women in Agile Podcast titled ‘Giving Up Control to Gain Agility’.

Podcast host Leslie Morse and I met at the Agile 2019conference in August, where we discussed my upcoming book ‘The Art & Science of Facilitation – How To Lead Effective Collaboration with Agile Teams’

What is the ‘Women if Agile’ Podcast?

The ‘Women if Agile’ Podcast series exists to amplify the voices of outstanding women in the Agile community by telling our stories, being thought leaders and having open conversations with our allies.

I encourage you to not only listen to my interview but to learn more about Women in Agile, subscribe and download the many wonderful conversations that have gone before me and continue to be told.

Facilitation Conversation and Then Some!

I was introduced on the Podcast with this intro:

“She shares stories of working in a huge corporation and a tiny startup and the learnings she’s had – including how to give up some control to let agility emerge naturally. Her passion for facilitation was her entry point into Agile, and the need for it is as strong as ever:

“To truly facilitate requires this unbiased, neutral perspective where you’re not taking sides… When the group gets stuck, you’re helping them get unstuck; you’re not solving something for them.”

The quote the Podcast host Leslie Morse used to describe the conversation is this:

Find your own voice. “It’s not that I didn’t have it, it’s that I would have these moments of insights or thoughts, and I didn’t always share it.”

My Personal Agile Origin Story

One of the many things I loved about doing this interview was the first question asked of me.

“What is your Agile origin story?”

It’s a story we all have but isn’t often told. Everyone who works in the Agile community has this defining moment as to when Agile entered their life and career. Most of us can also pinpoint a specific meeting, conference, book or Agile moment we knew where were hooked.

Can I just say it took me a whole year to wrap my head around Agile?

Have I sparked your curiosity?

Listen to my Agile origin story first, and then learn more about why giving up control is needed to gain agility!

Enjoy!

How Courage Can Create Safety

Research shows that the number one contributor to team effectiveness is psychological safety. According to research by individuals like Amy Edmondson and the Project Aristotle study by Google, this means that it is critical to create a space where team members feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other.

Let All Voices Be Heard!

Leaders (that’s you!) are able to use skills like facilitation and coaching to help create spaces where all voices can be heard and where people feel safe to take risks without fear of retribution. With leadership and guidance, it becomes the collective work of everyone on the team to create a safe space.

While psychological safety is something that we strive for in teams, it’s not something that every team currently has. So I am often asked about what can be done in circumstances where safety is missing. My response is to encourage leaders to take the first step.

What if our work as leaders is:

To be comfortable being uncomfortable?
To take risks in service of others?
To say what needs to be said, even if it feels scary?
To find our authentic voice in order to help others see what we see?

Name What You See Happening

One of the most powerful things you can do for a team is to name, in a morally neutral way, what you see happening. It might be to simply say, “I’m confused about what direction we are going.” Other examples might include,

“I notice that we have been talking about this same topic for three weeks and that we have been unable to come to a decision.”
“I’m not sure what you want me to do; I need help.”
“I have things that I would like to contribute, but I wonder if they would be valuable here.”

The Speech Act of Bystand

David Kantor calls this the speech act of “bystand.” It’s a vocal action taken in a conversation to bridge competing ideas or name what’s happening. It can be a powerful speech act for creating a shift in the conversation, but it is often underutilized or inactive in team communication.

Making a bystand is not about advocating for your solution, metaphorically poking someone in the eye, making a judgmental statement, personally attacking, or telling someone what’s “wrong” with their actions. It’s simply about naming what you see or what you are experiencing in a manner that holds no judgment.

When you model the speech act of observing without judgment as a leader, you help create a safe space for your team to join you in moving the conversation forward. Though it might feel uncomfortable at first, it is your demonstration of courage that can be an important first step in cultivating a team culture where diverse voices feel heard and acknowledged.

Here Are Some Reflection Questions To Help You Take Action To Create Safety:

Have you had the impulse to say something 3 or more times? I have a general rule about looking for patterns versus reacting in the moment. So notice what’s happening and look for a pattern.
What is your intention? Does saying something further your own agenda or is it in service to the teams’ agenda? Both may be valuable, but be clear for yourself about which it is.
What’s at risk if you speak up? Sometimes we create fear for ourselves by making up a worse outcome than what really might happen. Be honest with yourself about the answer to this.
What’s at risk if you remain silent? This is about looking at the bigger picture. What opportunity might you or this team be missing?

Your Turn!

Where do you need to be courageous today? Someone has to go first.

If not you, then who?

Marsha

Can Improv Help You Grow Servant Leaders?

Guest blog by Jardena London

Servant Leadership Is Nothing New

Servant Leadership is all the rage nowadays. But it’s been around for almost 50 years. Robert Greenleaf coined the phrase in 1970.

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions.”

Can you be a servant leader if you’re not a leader?

Does servant leadership go against what we’ve been taught our entire lives?

What can we do to change these thinking patterns that are so ingrained in many of us?

The Definition of a Servant Leader

Let’s expand the definition of “Servant Leader” to any team member. The idea is that every team member serves the good of the team. This can be a big change in organizations who believe that making each individual stronger adds up to a strong organization. An Agile organization focuses on making each team stronger in order to execute on large ideas. We see this in organizations that have dropped individual performance reviews, favoring team assessments in their place.

Servant Leadership ties directly to the Improv concept of “making your partner look good” and “don’t try to be clever or unique.” In Improv, your goal is not to be the brightest star on the stage, it’s to make the group shine. Sometimes in Improv, your role is to blend into the background or provide a meaningless filler. A player in my Improv class astutely noted that “this goes against what we’ve been taught our entire lives! We’re taught to be different, stand out, be known.” Yup, it’s different. And there’s room for both.

Here Are Some Great Improv Techniques That Will Help Your Team Become a Group of Servant Leaders.

One-word story: Sit in a circle. The facilitator gives the title of the story and starts with a word. Each participant adds a single word onto the story. Instruct the team to go with the flow and say what needs to be said instead of trying to thwart the story. The team will learn that sometimes you get an opportunity for a juicy word like “dragon” and sometimes you just have to say “to” or “the.” Those boring little words serve the story and serve the team. You’ll also see that after you say a word, the story might not unfold as you envisioned it. The team learns to let go of trying to plan.
Cocktail party: This exercise hearkens back to old Laugh-In skits where someone cracked a joke while the rest of the players paused. This is a stage-like activity that works best if you have more than 6 people, and a group that has played around with a bit of Improv. Create 6 pairs, at a cocktail party. Each pair gets a simple topic. The facilitator directs each pair when to speak. The pair speaks about nonsense, there’s no need to try and be clever. The real work is in keeping focus on the pair that is speaking without looking at them and without creating a distraction.
Team “Building”. Get a group 5 people, everyone else is the audience. Prep a list of things they can “build” such as ‘a table’, ‘a grandfather clock’, ‘a bulldozer’ or ‘a frog’. I recommend you don’t try to build ‘people’, but animals work. One at a time, each player positions their body as part of the thing they are building. Once positioned, a player doesn’t change, the next player must build on what is there. You’ll find that sometimes symmetry is needed, and you have to do the other side of what someone else has done. For example, if you’re building a table and 3 of the players have made table legs, well you’ve got to be a table leg. This is another way to get the team completing each other instead of pulling in different directions. It also gets people used to building on each other’s ideas and supporting the ideas of their teammates.

Are You Building Servant Leaders?

What have you done to build servant leaders? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section!

“He who is the greatest among you shall be your servant.”

Martin Luther King

Jardena London is an agile transformation consultant and is all about bringing fun and humor into how we lead and work. One way she does this is through creative and humorous cartoons! You can follow her cartoons (and blog) at https://www.rosettatg.com/blogtoon/

Listening is a Choice and a Competency

I used to believe that I listened really well. That was until I found myself sitting in my professional coach training class doing an exercise on listening.

After that 15 min exercise, I was humbled by how I was hearing what was being said but not actually listening.

Instead, I was thinking about how I could relate to what was being said, or what I wanted to say next, or just waiting for the person to take a breath long enough for me to jump in with an experience I wanted to share.

Be Fully Present When Listening

There was a lot going on in my head but none of it was “fully present listening” – turning down the volume on my internal chatter and placing my focus fully on the other person.

One of the most powerful ways we can show up as leaders is to be fully present and listen to others.

To seek understanding.

To listen for what’s not being said.

Sometimes the very act of listening to someone is all they need in the moment. They don’t need you to fix, solve, or do anything – just listen.

The greatest part about listening is that it’s a practice!

You get better at it the more you do it.

Practice Listening!

What’s one situation or relationship where an improved practice of listening could have a big impact on the outcome?
What’s a challenge that you want to give yourself today around listening?
Write down just a few notes about how you’re feeling about the situation and how you want to challenge yourself today.

Listening and Reflection

At the end of today, come back to your notes and answer these questions:

What did you do differently?
What, if anything, did you notice about the impact it had on the other person?
What, if anything, was different about the outcome of this situation?

Enjoy Building the Competency of Listening!

Marsha

What Will You Focus On In 2018?

I LOVE January! A new year and a new start.

There is something so invigorating about a clean slate. White space. A chance to reflect on what I’ve learned.

What do I want to try again?
What do I want to keep?
What do I want to discard?
What will I refine?
Where do I want to create something new?

It’s like a big release retrospective! It’s also the time of year where we make lists, set goals and define intentions.

Leaders Need To Focus

In our work with leaders, we help them focus. We help them define foci (pronounced fo-sigh) statements.

Foci statements are positive, inspiring and bold. They are so BOLD that they may even be hard to write down at first because they will not feel real or possible.

It will be a statement that would make the greatest difference for you if it were true this time next year. This statement should say something about who you are being.

Some examples would be:

I am a courageous and authentic leader.
I am a published author.
I am an authentic team member.

Want To Give It a Try?

1. What’s something that would make the greatest difference for you if it were true in January 2019?

Think about an area of your life where you want to make a change. It might be leadership, family, work relationships, your partner/spouse, your personal well-being. What’s the area that you want to place your attention this year because attention in this space would have the biggest impact and make the greatest difference for you?

2. What do you want to accomplish most?

Brainstorm a list. No judging! Just create a list of the big, bold things that you want to accomplish. They might be things like: Get a new job. Take more time off. Exercise more. Grow my business.

3. Now that you have your list, narrow it down.

First Step: What’s the one thing on this list that would make the greatest difference in your life?

Next Step: Who do you need to BE in order to accomplish this?

What Is Your Foci Statement?

Thinking about that one thing you want to accomplish, who would you need to BE in order to accomplish this? I’ve had the idea to write a book since 1994. I think about, I talk about it, I dream about it, I brainstorm titles for the book. But it’s 2018 and the book is still not written. Because, for me, my mindset, the way I think about writing, gets in my way of actually writing. What I want is the outcome of writing a book. That’s something that I will DO. But what’s missing is who I need to BE in order for a book to happen.

For me, my foci statement is “I am a voice for collaborative leadership.” One of the ways that I get in my own way when it comes to writing is I devalue what I have to say in comparison to what others might say. This statement is important to me because notice it says “a voice,” not “THE voice,” not “THE RIGHT voice,” not “THE ONLY voice,” but “A voice.” I do have something to say about this topic and I do have quite a bit of experience with it, because it is how I lead. So that one phrase “I am a voice for collaborative leadership” is my foci statement. I keep it posted where I can see it and I have to remind myself like 100 times every 15 minutes to stay focused on that.

You Know You’ve Landed The Right Foci Statement If It:

takes your breath away to say it today
feels far away
will be an edge, something just outside your comfort zone
inspires you and call you forward to the next level

Here Are Some Inspiring Foci Statements That Other Leaders Have Created:

I am courageously authentic, fiercely courageous
I am a force multiplier
I am a wildly successful entrepreneur
I am a teacher that inspires and energizes others
I am an inspiring and motivating leader

Ongoing Step: How Will You Know?

Once you have a foci statement that resonates, capture a few things that will help you to know what this looks like. These are measures, the yardstick by which you define this foci statement today. These should be concrete and measurable.

Some of my measures are:

I write one blog a month
I have completed a draft of a book by June 1, 2018
I write every weekday for at least 20 minutes
I publish one article by October 1, 2018

I can’t predict in Jan 2018 all the different kinds of opportunities that might emerge that fit under this heading of being a voice for collaborative leadership.

Here’s the thing about foci statements, they are like agile projects.

So I’ll check in on these measures every month and I’ll adapt them because they might shift or change.

Be willing to adapt your measures. Allow yourself to make changes without removing the measures completely.

Who knows if a book will be written, but I’m writing the book because I want to share what I see. Maybe, a book will happen or maybe I’ll find another way to share my voice. Either way, I’m creating space for moving forward on something. I am focused on what’s important and I will make space for the unknown!

What’s Your Focus for 2018?

Drop me a note and share!
(When you see me you have my permission to ask me about my book writing. There is nothing greater than public accountability!)

Cheers to 2018!
Marsha