Simon Powers wrote an article entitled—The 9 most important skills for an Enterprise Coach. I’m still digesting the article and evaluating whether I agree with his nine skills. Not that they’re not relevant. But are they really in the top-nine of the skills required of an enterprise-level agile coach? To be honest, I’m struggling with some of them, which may result in a future post ;-)

But one of them really grabbed my attention, shook me, and caused me to think. Here it is—

5. See through your own privilege
The more privilege one has, the harder it can be to see it. For example, if you are a leader who cannot believe that when people say they don’t feel safe to speak up in an organization they are not telling the truth because the organization is clearly a safe space to share, then you are suffering from privilege blindness.
As Enterprise Coaches we have a huge privilege, power, and responsibility. Be aware of this.
Assuming others are like us and face the same struggles, we do, is ultimately limiting and creates resentment and failure. Work on embracing your privilege and helping others who do not have it.

I must admit that before reading this article I never considered myself to have or be professionally privileged. Particularly as a practicing agile coach.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that—

I have the privilege to have gained long-term and real-world agile experience;
I have the privilege of being a thought-leader in the agile space;
I have the privilege of co-hosting the Meta-cast with my friend Josh Anderson;
I have the privilege of people listening to me and trusting me;
I have the privilege of being able to teach the CAL class for the Scrum Alliance;
I have the privilege of being a CEC with the Alliance;
I have the privilege of working with a great group of colleagues at Zenergy Technologies;
I have the privilege to have written several agile books AND for people to have actually read them.

And the list goes on…

Wrapping Up

While I’ve come to know that I have white privilege, it never dawned on me that I had the professional privilege in the agile coaching space. The key realizations for me were—

To recognize and embrace that privilege. That’s my first step;
but then the most important step is to help others who do not have the privileges that I was taking for granted or unaware of.

While I’ve been actively giving back to others in my agile community, this article reinforced my awareness of my privilege and my ongoing responsibility to help others. If, in reading this, you believe I can extend a hand and help you in your journey, please reach out.

Thank you, Simon, for touching me so deeply.

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.