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

Gratitude Rituals

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Practicing Gratitude

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Do you have a gratitude ritual that you’ve developed in your professional and personal lives? 

If not, then I’d encourage you to consider one. And if you do, then please consider commenting on this post and sharing what you’re doing.

I’ve been trying to couple my gratitude focus to my morning journaling. Sometimes I’ll write down my thoughts in my journal. Other times, I’ll just let some of the prompts in my journal inspire my thinking and reflection. But my ritual surrounds my mindfulness, reflection, and daily journaling activities.

Journal Prompts

I thought I’d share some of my gratitude-centric journaling prompts—

What was the best part of your day yesterday?

What are you looking forward to today?

What is the one thing you can do to make tomorrow even better?

What are three things you are grateful for right now? How do they bring joy to your life?

Who are three people you are grateful for right now? How do they bring joy to your life?

What is one ritual you currently use to practice gratitude?

What is one ritual that you will add to your practice?

Wrapping Up

There’s nothing magical about being grateful. It won’t solve the climate crisis or improve D&I across corporate America. But I’ve found that centering on being grateful on a day-to-day basis has made me a better agile coach and an even better person.

PS: I want to thank Saralyn Hodgkin and her Practice Your Leadership newsletter for inspiring me to write this.

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

Additional articles with more ideas for gratitude rituals…