So, this is week 2 of the 9th cohort of the Agile Coaching Lab (ACL). We worked through so many activities, readings, techniques and podcasts each week that I just can’t reflect and report on them all - I tried… and failed…. - so I’m going to use these posts to share my wonderings about one or two things we covered in the week - here we go:
9th Cohort No More
One of the exciting things we did this week was to use “consent voting” to decide on a new name and I’m delighted to report that “Cohort 9” is now “urutau”. urutau is a Māori word for adapt which seemed very fitting given much of this cohorts members are on Māori country and agile coaching is all about adapting to your surroundings and environment.
Entering Systems and the Law of Raspberry Jam
Part of this weeks home work was to reflect on what happens when we enter a new organisation or team. Jakub asked us to listen to this conversation between Esther Derby and Viktor Cessan on their podcast The Law of Raspberry Jam.
Listen to the episode
“Entering systems” by The Law Of Raspberry Jam: https://thelawofjam.podbean.com/e/entering-systems-what-to-think-about/
What did you learn from this episode?
- I learnt that everyone struggles when entering new teams and orgs. That it is okay to have a set of templates/approaches and even super experienced people like Ester Derby do this.
- That i should be aware of your own personal impact on a new team - what is your own paradigm - and that just by being there you change the team.
- Be aware of the people and the history they have with the org and with the other people.
- Have a dominately systems view in the beginning - try to do this without judgement - try to dig into how the system works and what it is intended to do rather than jump to a conclusion or give in to rumours.
What tools and techniques could you use when you enter new systems?
- self reflection of your agenda.
- Ask other teams you’ve worked with how your presence impacted their team.
- Set expectations for yours personally - do you want to experiment with a new method? are you looking for power? What are you trying to make happen?
- Ask what are you paying attention to now?
- Explore mutual grounds prior to entering to get shared understanding and setting expectations.
- Work out what is the mutual ground for you and the org/team - is it ready to do what it thinks it wants.
- What do the people care about? what are they trying to achieve?
- Identify the orgs/teams capabilities - can they do what they want to do?
What impact do you make on the systems you are currently part of?
When I enter a new team, I have observed that I often disrupt parts of the leadership who want to command and control, but that at the same time i tend to gel with nd build team members trust and leadership autonomy.
I also make a conscious effort to move out of the way of obstacles, blockages or impediments rather than hitting them hard head on. I find that if I let the obstructions go and keep moving forward the system can find an incremental step forward and over time we deal with the obstructions or leave them behind.
Thanks for reading.