Use These 3 Tips Next Time You're Coaching Up In Your Organization

We asked and our community answered!  You asked for more tips on working with your leaders in an Agile or Scrum adoption. Read on for our top 3 tips to coach “up” in your organization or just have a more meaningful conversation with your leaders.

1.       Respectfully ask Why: the number of people filling our classes who are unable to answer us when we ask “what is the reason or goal for your company changing the way it does work to Agile or Scrum?”.  If the people doing the work do not know the answer to what the goal is it’s unlikely that this goal will be met. Going Agile isn’t a Goal. Scrumming isn’t a Goal. Goals can be measured. Respect is key here. A common mistake is asking “Why”? and it sounding like a challenge to someone’s authority. Phrase the question honestly. If you are confused or the teams of people are confused, say that:

·       “We’re confused as to what the goal is. We want to meet goals and objectives, we want to do a good job, we just don’t understand what problem we are being asked to solve”.

·       “What does Success look like”?

·       “How will we measure this goal”?

·       “How will we know when we’re Done”? 

2.        Don’t use the “A” word or the “S” word:  it’s a common mistake for people newer to Scrum and Agile to talk about those as if they are separate things as opposed to what they are – different ways to approach work. In projects, did you say project management every other word or sentence?  Did you utter waterfall constantly?  No. It’s just the way you did work. When you talk about Agile and Scrum as if they something else, that’s where those ideas stay – as something else. The language can also confuse people if they don’t understand it. Or worse. It can put a leader on the defensive if you say something silly like “that’s not Agile” or “that’s not Scrum”. Who cares!  They are different ways to do work. Try phrases like:

·       “You have asked us to change the way that we’re doing work but I’m hearing you also ask us to do the same work the old way.  Can clarify what the expectation is please?”

·       “We’re not meeting goals and objectives so it may be helpful to take a look at our approach to the work – can you help us with that”?

3.       Be Brief, Be Clear, Be Gone:  another mistake for people newer to Agile and Scrum who are enthusiastic about this change, is that they verbally throw up entirely too much information and vocabulary on their leaders in their excitement. Depending on the level of leadership being addressed, it’s not that they don’t care or are uninterested necessarily, it’s that there is a lot on their mind. They may have the best of intentions but little time and a limited attention span. We’ve experienced many leaders rolling their eyes, sighing and looking at their watch who then reply “what are the top 3 things you need from me right now?”.  So try this:

·       Come prepared with the top 1, 2 or no more than 3 things that are most pressing that require that leader’s attention

·       Craft that message as succinctly as possible with facts, no unnecessary “A” or “S” words

·       When you’re done be gone. The leader can always ask for more information if they need it or want it or follow up with you if necessary.

With any advice, tips, tricks, etc. they are only effective if you use them and most importantly continue to use them. Practice is what will bring about more permanent changes to the way you and your organization approach work.

To learn more, check out our course schedule and join us for a training!

CliftonStrengths: What are domains?

If you’ve taken the CliftonStrengths assessment you may have noticed a colored categorization of your talents.  These categories are known as domains.  Domains are a research-based way to show your default way of leading other people.  There are, at the simplest level, four different ways that people lead.  They are executing, relationship building, influencing, and strategic thinking. 

Those folks whose report says they lead with the Executing domain means that they really know how to make things happen.  They will work tirelessly to get the job done.  They can turn ideas into reality.  If this is you, it likely means you will have several Executing themes like Achiever, Arranger, Belief, Consistency, Deliberative, Discipline, Focus, Responsibility, or Restorative in your top ten.  

Those folks with Relationship Building as their leading domain tend to provide the glue that holds teams together.  They have a unique ability to help groups become greater than the individuals in the group.   Leading with Relationship Building means that you have themes like Adaptability, Connectedness, Developer, Empathy, Harmony, Includer, Individualization, Positivity, or Relator. 

Folks like me, that lead with the Influencing domain, have themes like Activator, Command, Communication, Competition, Maximizer, Self-Assurance, Significance, or Woo.  We are especially talented in helping reach a broader audience.  We can sell ideas and influence outside the organization.  If you need someone to take charge and make sure any group is heard, look no further than someone that leads with Influencing.  

Finally, folks that lead with Strategic Thinking have themes like Analytical, Context, Futuristic, Ideation, Input, Intellection, Learner, or strategic.  These people are the ones that keep teams focused on what they could be.  They absorb and analyze information to make better decisions.  They will help you stretch the teams thinking for the future.   

You might be thinking, yeah, that’s nice, but if I know the individual themes, why are domains helpful to know?  They are helpful because you don’t need to memorize the full 34 of each person to understand how your themes compare and contrast to other people, you can use the domains to simplify our conversations.   

Be careful though, don’t fall into the trap that you need representation from each.  Gallup has done research and has determined that the best teams simply need to be aware of the domains/themes of others and act accordingly.  Having a so-called balanced team does not necessarily yield a higher performing team.   

I hope you found this helpful, and if you want a guide through this process, you can seek out a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach to help you. To find out about our Gallup Certified Strengths Coach and our services, please visit www.collaborativeleadershipteam.com or email info@coleadteam.com. 

Collaborative Leadership Team first in Minnesota to offer Advanced-Certified Scrum Product Owner℠ (A-CSPO℠)

For Immediate Release Headline: Collaborative Leadership Team first in Minnesota to offer Advanced-Certified Scrum Product Owner℠ (A-CSPO℠)

Dateline – Minneapolis, MN September 13, 2020

Agile and Scrum are management frameworks that some of the most successful companies on the planet use. By incorporating the values and principles of Agile into business decisions it will allow organizations to quickly learn and adapt to capitalize on opportunities. Collaborative Leadership Team guides business agility and is the first Path to CSP Educator certified to provide the Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner℠ (A-CSPO℠) in Minnesota.

“It’s easy to claim that you have skills as a Product Owner” said Angela Johnson, CEO of CoLeadTeam. “The A-CSPO℠​ validates candidates’ work experience. Employers can more easily determine who has the skills to assist them in their Scrum journey knowing that the Scrum Alliance and an approved Path to CSP Educator like Collaborative Leadership Team vetted a candidate.”The A-CSPO℠ program provides a Product Owner with a deeper set of skills for their service to any Organization and will distinguish them in the marketplace.

Beyond foundational Product Ownership, this program focuses on the necessary Stakeholder and Product Management skills that an effective Product Owner needs to deliver business value.

COO Teri Bylander-Pinke shared, “CLT continues to be the first Agile and Scrum consultancy bringing advanced training and coaching to the upper Midwest. As a result, companies we transform are positioned to deliver more value for their clients and improve their agility.”

The inaugural A-CSPO℠ program in the Midwest will be held virtually October 12 & 13, 2020.

To learn more about this program, please visit: https://www.collaborativeleadershipteam.com/About Collaborative Leadership Team.

To find our next A-CSPO program, head to www.collaborativeleadershipteam.com/upcoming-courses

Collaborative Leadership Team (CoLeadTeam) guides business agility by using a unique combination of Coaching, Customized Training and Assessments. Our core values are focused on optimizing Leaders and Teams, improving their ability to deliver valuable, working product. We have experience with clients in many industries: software, hardware, services, manufacturing and more. For more information please visit our website or send an email to teri@coleadteam.com

Contact Collaborative Leadership Team:

Teri Bylander-Pinke

Chief Operations Officer

Collaborative Leadership Team

Teri@CoLeadTeam.com

www.collaborativeleadershipteam.com

I Know My Strengths…Now What?

Maybe you just completed your assessment, or maybe you took your assessment a while ago and haven’t not looked at it since. If this describes you and you want to learn more about what you can do with your results, this blog is for you.   

First things first, if you don’t already have them, you should pull up and review your reports.  If you don’t have them handy, they are available by logging in to gallup.com.  Read your reports thoroughly, highlighting words or phrases that speak to you.  These are the best introductory materials to learn about your top talent themes.  If you read these reports and go, “that is absolutely me”, you can skip this next step.  For me, when I did this, I identified with 9 of my top 10.  It took some digging to identify with that last one.   

If you're like me, you read the reports and weren’t sure that it fit you, or you wanted to explore it a bit more. You can use resources on gallup.com to learn more.  After you log in, you can navigate to the CliftonStrengths section.  Once here you can review all the resources available to you.  There is everything from modules to videos where you can learn more.  Once I learned more about “Focus” I realized that I can still feel a bit scattered and have “Focus” as a talent.  If you don’t know me, I am an incredibly goal oriented person.  If you set a goal, I will do everything in my power to achieve it.  Apparently, people talented in “Focus” can be focused on the bigger goal, and don’t have to always be able to focus in their day to day.  Who knew?  Not me…until I learned a bit more and figured out why it was on my list.    

Once you feel like you understand and can describe your talent themes, now you can make them your own.  Think about situations when you have used each theme.  Which ones come naturally to you?  Are there any that you see yourself go to over and over again?  This a fun step and a great time for reflection on successful times in your life.   

Now that you have made the connection between the themes, how they impact you, and how you have used them in the past, try thinking about future situations or goals you have coming up in your life and start to intentionally plan on using them to get the best results for yourself.  I know I have a new client engagement coming up and I fully plan to put my “Learner” to good use to quickly get a baseline and understand the department I am going to work with.   

I hope you found this helpful, and if you want a guide through this process, you can seek out a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach to help you. To find out about our Gallup Certified Strengths Coach and our services, please visit www.collaborativeleadershipteam.com or email info@coleadteam.com. 

Are You a Credible Agile Leader? Not if you are saying “Agile Transformation” and not changing.

Let’s take a look at dictionary.com’s definition of transform:  change in form, appearance, structure. In our previous posts we covered the misuse and abuse of the word “Agile”. In this final post in this series, we will explore how leaders lose even more credibility by not only misusing the words Agile or Scrum but Transformation also.

Agile approaches such as Scrum require structural change and behavioral change. We hear from countless students that their leaders have declared undergoing an “Agile Transformation”. When we ask about restructuring into cross-functional feature teams the answer is consistently “no, we’re still in our component teams of analysis, design, programming, testing, database, etc.”.

Have you heard the old definition of insanity? It’s doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. You are not a credible Agile Leader if you declare that you are in a Scrum Transformation or Agile Transformation and the only thing that has actually changed is that you are now misusing additional words. Saying Agile won’t make you deliver faster. Saying Scrum doesn’t enable responsiveness to changing priorities. Structural change is required to eliminate hand-offs, wait states and waste.

The reality of any “Agile” approach is requiring not only structural change but behavioral change. Principle 11 in the Agile Manifesto doesn’t declare that individuals perform only 1 activity. Quite the opposite. It notes that the best architectures, requirements and designs emerge from self-organizing teams:  agilemanifesto.org

That means that people are expected to work together. If people serving the organization refuse to learn any new skills and only want to perform a singular activity that matches their old job title, what have you done as their leader to set expectations? If there has been no training and no expectation setting, is it any wonder that people are behaving in the old way?  And if the structure supports their old way of behaving, the only thing people are hearing is the word “agile” and not really doing anything differently.

If you now understand why your credibility as an “Agile Leader” is pretty low and you’re wondering how to fix it, we’ve provided tips for each dysfunction in previous posts. For your convenience those are recapped here along with 2 new tips for addressing your misuse of the word “transformation”: 

·       Tell people why the organization is making structural changes

·       Set expectations with people about what behavioral changes are required

·       Dedicate teams of people 100% to respective work

·       Order or rank the work (it all can’t be “priority”)

·       Define clear, measurable, goals and objectives

·       Define the overall framework or approach to doing work at the organization but…

·       Let the people closest to the work own their own process for managing that specific work

Notice that the recapped tips do not require you to use the words “Agile” or “Scrum”. Leveraging these tips will help you be a better leader for the organization and because they are aligned with Agile and Scrum they will also increase your credibility as an Agile Leader.

For education or coaching on being a credible Agile Leader, contact us at: info@coleadteam.com