Personal Thoughts
Robert Galen
We've Moved
We've Moved
Walking Their Talk, Sustainability, Inspiration
Robert Galen
Sustainability

I saw this wonderfully courageous and informative post by Sabine Canditt the other day where she wrote about Sustainable Scrum. 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sustainable-scrum-responsible-choice-sabine-canditt-x0gef

After just completing a The Week program facilitated by the amazing Ann-Marie Kong, it touched my heart.

That said, I wanted to highlight one comment reaction/interaction between Sabine and Erich Bühler 

Erich said—

Thank you for bringing this approach into the world! Scrum does provide an iterative approach for teams to create value, but its scope is limited to the product level and struggles with dynamics across the whole organization for several reasons.
Without updating the underlying business and financial model at a strategic level, Scrum alone cannot transform organization-wide sustainability.

Sustainability
Short-takes, Inspiration
Robert Galen
Sandy’s Take
Sandy’s Take
Short-takes, Personal Thoughts
Robert Galen
The Human Aspects of Agile Coaching
The Human Aspects of Agile Coaching
Coaching, ACGW, Personal Thoughts
Robert Galen
Keys to Building your Coaching Relationships

I talk a lot about the first step in coaching any client (individual, system, team, etc.) is to build a relationship, gain empathy and understanding, and then gain an idea of where/how to help initially. So, do NOT start to coach until you’ve done some relationship-building. 

But what does a coaching relationship, or a professional relationship in general, look like? What are aspects of that? Here are a few things that come to my mind—

  • Making + taking the time.

  • Explaining what you do—what is Agile Coaching.

  • Building some empathy; walking in their shoes; understanding where they are coming from.

  • Meeting them where they are.

  • Listening; reflective listening; building metaphors together.

  • Connecting with their language, not yours.

Keys to Building your Coaching Relationships

Ask for help

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The Lost Art of Asking for Help

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The Lost Art of Asking for Help

I was attending a webinar the other day. As the speaker shared their ideas though, my mind began to wander…

For some reason, I began to think about the overall reluctance of folks to ask for help. As I reflected on it across my 30+ years of experience, it’s something that I’ve continuously observed. It seemed like individuals, teams, leaders, agile coaches, and nearly everyone (me included) has an aversion to asking for help.

And while there are clearly reasons for not asking for it, I wondered about any positive outcomes of asking for help.

  • First, and importantly, it helps you.

  • It also humanizes you.

  • It allows others to, as they help you, to grow themselves.

  • It creates a culture where others can ask for help based on your example.

  • It can increase psychological safety.

  • It avoids us pretending that we know everything or doing things we aren’t skilled to be doing.

  • It’s simply a more honest and open way to operate.

As I began to think about it more deeply, I came to the conclusion that the simple act of—

Saying—I don’t know.

Asking—Can you help me or I need your help.

It can change the entire cultural landscape of your team or organization. I think it’s that BIG of an idea.