We Can Lead Book

 These 600 pages volume were composed over several years of exploration and reflection to assure that this volume encompasses enough articles for everyone who are willing to scale their leadership skills. When we comprehend this book’s topics, we will set up ourselves to develop into a stronger leader. Please have a look

120+ copies sold

 

Thanks to all my readers, every day almost one copy of "We Can Lead" is able to sell. So far in 6 months of the existence of this book, ~120+ copies have been sold!! Gratitude to all my well-wisher colleagues for making this book famous. Whoever is reading this book, please compose a few words about this book on Amazon. Help me to help the True Agile Leaders to perform outstandingly in their career endeavors.

 Managing Emotional Health:

One of the essential parameters for team performance is ability to deal with emotional balance in the office environment.

What is emotion?

An emotion is a brief conscious experience that is identified by profound mental activity.

Emotions can generate thoughts that can make you physically feel something in your body, and emotions can make your body make you feel something in your mind by influencing the thoughts that you could have.

A feeling that results in physical and psychological changes that influence our behavior.

Feeling bad does not mean that things are bad, and feeling good does not mean that everything is wonderful. It is a translation of a feeling.

Negative emotions in the workplace can emerge because employees perceive that their opinions and ideas are not being picked up and acknowledged.

Emotions should not control your thinking, your thinking should control your emotions. Emotions are feelings, and feelings are not a definitive measurement of what is good, bad, right or wrong, because feelings are emotions, and emotions are not one of the individual senses, so they are not a mechanism that can be used to determine reality.

Emotions can motivate us to respond to situations. Our emotions may instruct us about our circumstances and the environment we are in, which supports us respond accordingly.

Emotions can convey significant messages to those around us. They may explain to others how we are feeling and what we require in a given situation.

If we look sad, for example, we are telling others that we require assistance.

If we are angry, we are signaling to others that they have crossed our boundaries.

Understanding another individual’s emotions involves much more than just listening to their uttered messages.

It involves being attentive to the non-verbal emotional messages being conveyed.

Think of a situation where you had to speak to someone who was distressed. Describe the situation.

What verbal messages (words) did the person convey?

Empathizing with employees – being able to establish yourself in their emotional ‘shoes’ – can be a significant step toward finding out.

A fundamental component of empathy is the ability to mirror others nonverbally. We can teach ourselves to become more empathetic by mirroring the body positions, posture, tone, volume, gestures, and facial expressions of others.

Because every individual has distinct needs and views, negative emotions in the workplace can never be averted totally.

Effective listening can aid managers in better problem-solve and generate solutions that come closer to meeting everyone’s needs.

When you acknowledge a worker’s perspective, it can deliver an effective signal that although you may or may not agree, and may or may not take action subsequently, you have heard the viewpoint and are taking it into consideration.

Practice acknowledging workers’ ideas and requests.

Workers may not be comfortable providing feedback unless called for it.

Even then, many may hesitate, suspecting that the call for feedback may not be fully genuine and that they may anger managers by speaking out. One approach to avoiding negative emotions in the workplace is to safeguard that workers feel that their feedback is valued and respected. Offering and accepting feedback can help establish effective relationships between managers and workers. This makes it effective for managers to actively elicit feedback whenever opportunities present themselves.

Make a point of touching base with each individual who works under your supervision. Ask them if there is anything you could do that could be helpful to them or improve the way they are able to do their job.

The way we feel about or react to individuals in the workplace is impacted by our explanations of their behavior.

When it comes to ourselves, we are much more likely to find external explanations for negative behavior and internal explanations for positive behavior.

We engage in listening to understand when we genuinely seek to figure out not just what individuals say, but also what they actually mean. When workers are distressed or dealing with mental health issues, it is not unusual for them to say things that do not really reflect what they truly mean.

Giving someone the safety and the space to express and then clarify or amend what they express can give you a much better chance of understanding their perspective.

Asking open-ended questions to solicit additional information and refraining from interrupting can promote communication better.

Communication and interaction in the workplace are complex and demanding, and it requires substantial energy to maintain a standard that reflects our goals. It can take place that in our minds we have the best intentions, but our behavior is not quite able to keep up.

When we interact with a distressed employee, it is natural to try to understand what is motivating their negative emotions and reactions. We can often be quite accurate when ascertaining the causes of and contributors to other people’s positive emotional states. One of the traps we may fall into, however, when dealing with negative emotions in the workplace, is making simplistic and judgmental interpretations.

Judgmental interpretations are generally inaccurate, and practically always completely useless. Taking the time to develop a non-judgmental understanding of workers, their behaviors, and their reactions to situations are pivotal to dealing with them adequately.

Reflective (or active) listening can be an effective communication method that involves the following two elements:

1. Listening to and understanding what workers are saying, thinking, and feeling.

2. Reflecting and paraphrasing the feelings, thoughts, and opinions we hear back to the other person in our own words, to make sure we have understood their message correctly.

In order to more precisely understand employees’ messages, it helps managers to not only pay attention to what a worker is expressing but also to read non-verbal signals.

Reflective listening can be fundamental for effective communication and effective workplace relationships:

- It can help establish rapport and respect.

- It can encourage understanding between individuals.

- It can demonstrate recognition and acknowledgment, which may prompt others to continue communicating and share their experiences, problems, and feelings more candidly.

- It can provide reassurance that someone is willing to support and to view things from another perspective.

- It can help avoid conflicts and misunderstandings.

- It can help reduce defensiveness, resentments, and false assumptions that occur through misunderstanding.

When we observe a worker who is distressed (e.g., owing to personal problems, mental health difficulties, coworker conflicts, performance issues), we may encounter a diversity of emotions ourselves: fear, anger, frustration, guilt, pity, or helplessness.

It is absolutely reasonable to have these emotional reactions, but they can interfere with our ability to effectively respond to a distressed worker.

Our own emotions can have an influential impact on our attention, perception, thoughts, and behavior. Emotions can be the motivating force behind our actions and can determine whether we respond effectively (by providing assistance or support) or less effectively (by avoiding a situation).

All these whatever describe above we can try and mature ourselves as a team member to deal with an emotional state as a manager or as an employee at a workplace. It takes a lot of practice over a period of time to strengthen emotional dealing. 

Building Agile OKR for a Tribe, an Example

How can we gear up for the forthcoming period by using OKR?

OKR is Objective and Key Results.

OKRs have two vital parts: The objective we choose to accomplish and the key results, which are the way we measure achieving the objective.

OKRs is to fix a definite business issue team is facing.

OKRs should be translated from the strategy, drive the achievement of the vision, and be in alignment with the overall mission.

An objective is a concise statement summarizing an explicit qualitative goal designed to drive the organization forward in the desired direction.

Basically, it asks, “What do we want to do?”

A Key result is a quantitative description that measures the accomplishment of a given objective. They are not tasks, they represent results.

If the objective is to asks, “What do we want to do?” the key result is to asks, “How will we recognize if we’ve reached our objective?”

Objectives and key results are the yin and yang of goal setting. Two sides of a coin.

Objectives are the substance of inspiration and distant perspectives. Key results are more mundane and metric-driven.

The challenge, and ultimately value, of key results, is in compelling a team to quantify what may appear to be unsure or ambiguous words in the team objective.

We must balance with key results is creating them difficult enough to force an acceptable arrangement of intellectual sweat to accomplish, but not so challenging as to discourage the teams because they appear impossible

More frequent goal setting has a positive impact on financial results. Deloitte reports that companies that set quarterly goals were nearly four times more likely to be in the top quartile of performers.

Google divides its OKRs into two sections, committed goals, and stretch goals.

Committed objectives are tied to Google’s metrics: product releases, customers etc.

Stretch objectives reflect bigger-picture, higher-risk, more future-shifting ideas.

Through OKR, the team has to established alignment among all the various roles and align with other team's OKRs.

To apply OKR and start the Journey let us do a workshop to come up with Tribe Mission, Vision, and Strategy. OKRs are supposed to be a mix of bottom-up and top-down.

Build Tribe OKR. Each team within a Tribe can build and present their OKR. OKR workshop is the best activity to do inter-team collaborations and minimize dependencies. 

OKR for Tribe Lead:

Objectives: Ensure all the product release for all the customers are happen on time with quality and expected satisfaction

Key results:

Ensure > 90% end-users’ collaboration

Ensure >4 end-users’ satisfaction rating

Ensure >95% features acceptance in each release

Ensure 0 defects in each release

Ensure >4 team satisfaction

Ensure <5% attrition in Tribe

OKR for Scrum Team:

Objective: Deliver all the 4 releases planned for this year

Key Results:

Deliver 10 key major features in each release.

Deliver all the 10 features in each demos to collect feedback.

Complete quality target with 0 defects.

Ensure end-users’ satisfaction with greater than 4 from 1 to 5 scale, 4 being the highest

Product acceptance has increased >80%

Objective: Ensure maximizing team happiness and best learning experience for the whole year

Key Results:

100% collaboration in all the challenging assignment

Achieve >4 scores in team happiness index

Achieve >4 scores in best learning expansion

File at least 2-4 patents from the team

Write at least 2-4 technical papers in various journal

OKR for Scrum Master:

Objective: Ensure all the scrum team members are followed by the scrum practices to ensure smooth value delivery

Key Results:

100% coaching for all the scrum events

Ensure end-user satisfaction with greater than 4 from 1 to 5 scale, 5 being the highest

4-5 new ideas for improvements in retro meeting

100% end-user participation in product co-creation

OKR for Product Owner:

Objective: Deliver all 4 releases planned for this year with all the required features

Key Results:

Ensure end-user satisfaction with greater than 4 from 1 to 5 scale, 5 being the highest

Achieve 100% end-user participation in product co-creation

Ensure end-users acceptance grows >90%

Ensure Product features usages grows >90%

100% Support team to discover product features and customer personas

OKR for a People Manager:

Objective: Ensure all the required skills and capabilities are 100% available within the team

Key Results:

Ensure skills gaps are addressed within a minimal timeline

Ensure several learning events happen within a team for a month

Build learning backlog with many items collected from feedback and improvement items

Ensure technical capabilities are growing continuously, technical capability in a team is >3 in 1-5 scale

Ensure team and end user’s satisfactions are >4 in 1-5 scale.

Ensure <5 % attrition in Tribe

One of the biggest strengths of OKRs is their emphasis on a shorter cycle.

More frequent review cycles lead to rapid learning, increased opportunities to make progress, and even a feeling of winning at work

Monitor OKRs: We don’t set OKRs as a yearly target and review at the end of the year!!, but must monitor those during the each quarter. Let us Score our OKRs and communicate the results with the entire organization.

OKRs do not expire with the completion of the work. It needs ongoing review and refines dynamic changes happening.

Here are some retrospective questions for closing out an OKR cycle:

Did I take care of all of my objectives? If so, what helped me with my progress?

If not, what hindrances did I come across? What action I should take?

If I were to rewrite an objective accomplished so far, what would I revise?

What have I learned that might transform my approach to the next cycle’s OKRs?

Do you know enough about your colleagues?

 Let us study our colleague’s working personalities?

It is better as a Team member we understand our colleagues better.

Observe all the team members at your team and try to discover how each one’s dominating personality is.

We have to appreciate the way individuals have developed into it. Let us align with the style.

The Inspector: Serious, formal, and proper. This personality type places considerable emphasis on tradition and old-school values. Patience, hard work, honor, and social and cultural importance are all cultivated by the Inspector. They are reserved, calm, quiet, and noble. These traits result from the combination of Introversion, Sensing, Thinking, and Judging. They appreciate a systematic life. They like matters to be well-organized and pay a considerable deal of attention to detail. When things are in disarray, people with this personality type may identify themselves as incapable to relax until they have set everything straight and the work has been completed.

The Counselor: This personality type oozes creative imagination and magnificent ideas from every pore. They have a distinct, usually subtle, way of looking at the world that is not consistently realized. This personality type will never accept anything at the surface level or withhold to countenance a better way to approach problems. While they are introverted by nature, individuals with this personality type are capable to establish strong, meaningful connections with other individuals. They enjoy helping others, but they also need time and space to rejuvenate.

The Mastermind: They are are true introverts. This personality type tends to be relaxed, reserved, and comfortable in their own company. They are generally self-sufficient and choose to work alone than in a group. Socializing significantly drains the energy of this personality type, causing them to need to recharge. They are more attentive to big ideas and theories. When examining the world, they frequently question why things happen the way they do. Uncertainty is the enemy of the Mastermind. They shine at developing plans and strategies for every probability.

The Giver: They are eternal people-pleasers. They are extroverted, idealistic, charismatic, vocal, highly principled, and honest. This set of traits ensures that they can generally associate with others of varying backgrounds and personalities. They rely more on intuition and feelings, occupying more in their imagination than the real world. This can be troublesome, for the individual themselves and those around them. They have wonderful people skills and are often expressed as warm, affectionate, and supportive. Not only are individuals with this personality type great at encouraging other individuals, but they also derive personal satisfaction from serving others.

The Craftsman: This personality type is generally defined by rationality and logic but is also able of spontaneity and enthusiasm. People with such personalities are results-oriented. When there is a problem, they choose to rapidly understand the underlying cause and resolve some type of solution. They are generally described as quiet, but with an easy-going attitude towards others.

The Provider: This personality type is thoroughly social, born of a need to interact with others. This desire to make others happy usually results in popularity for the provider. They generally tend to be the cheerleader or sports hero in high school and college. Later in life, they advance to revel in the limelight. They are primarily focused on organizing social events for their families, friends, and communities. They expect their kind and giving ways to be acknowledged and appreciated by others. They are sensitive to the needs and feelings of others and are good at responding and providing the care that individuals need. They want to be liked by others and are easily upset by unkindness or indifference.

The Idealist: This personality type prefers not to talk about themselves, especially upon first meeting a strange individual. They prefer spending time alone in quiet places. This personality type can become lost in their imagination and daydreams. This sometimes leads to the type of people drowning in the depth of their thoughts, fantasies, and ideas.

The Performer: They are an Extroverted, Observant, Feeling, and Perceiving personality, and are generally seen as Entertainers. Born to provide amusement and distraction to others and to monopolize the limelight, They love to hold court in a group. They are thoughtful explorers who enjoy learning – and sharing what they learn with others. They live for the company and typically have strong interpersonal skills. They are cheerfully and fun, and will never decline the opportunity to be the center of attention.

The Champion: This personality type is profoundly individualistic. Champions are not followers and care little for the status quo. Instead, they aim toward creating their structures, looks, actions, habits, and ideas. They do enjoy the company though – assuming it is the “right” company – enjoying strong intuition when it comes to themselves and others.

The Doer: They live for social interaction, drawing strength from feelings and emotions. They enjoy logical processes and reasoning, provided this does not stand in the way of freedom in thought and deed. Theory and abstracts will not retain the attention or interest of a Doer for long.

The Supervisor: They set a great deal of emphasis on traditional values. These include organization, honesty, dedication, and dignity. This personality type believes thoroughly in doing what they believe is right and socially acceptable. People with this personality type enjoy spending time with other individuals. They have strong verbal skills and interacting with others helps them feel energized.

The Commander: Their Primary concern is to focus on and managing external circumstances with logic and discipline. Once this has been achieved, intuition and reasoning take effect. This personality type will always relish the opportunity to take charge. They live in a world of possibilities, often viewing challenges and obstacles as great opportunities to push themselves. They have a natural gift for leadership and never shirk from making decisions. Options and ideas will be quickly yet carefully examined.

The Thinker: They are highly respected for brilliant theories and unrelenting logic. This makes sense, as this personality type is arguably the most logical of all. People of this personality type lack interest in practical, day-to-day activities and maintenance.

The Nurturer: This personality type is constantly ready to give back, and any generosity received will be returned threefold. The people and things an ISFJ believes in will be upheld, and supported with enthusiasm and unselfishness. This makes this among the warmest and kind-hearted personality types. Harmony and cooperation are important to them, and this type is likely to be sensitive to the feelings of others.

The Visionary: This personality type relishes the opportunity to discuss theories and facts in extensive detail, needing little encouragement to set the world to rights.

The Composer: They are fun to be around and very spontaneous. This makes them the appropriate companion to tag along with an activity, planned, or unplanned. They look to live life to the fullest and embrace the present. This ensures they are always keen to encounter a new experience or make a discovery.

Once you figure out your team members better, it would be easy to get along with them.

Agile Thought Webnairs: 23rd October 2020

 

AgileThought Virtual Community: Agile Heard Around the World | AgileThought

My session with BBA and BCA student

 Today I had a session with 70 students from BBA and BCA stream. my topic was Product Development Strategy. It was an interesting session spending time with students and answering their curious questions. 

Uploaded the presentation here

Product Development Strategy

Comments from a participants:

Farmer Family Performance appraisal in a Village!

Once upon a time there was a farmer, his name was Panduraja!

He has 5 children, Jhooti, Bheema, Arjoona, Nakooola, Shooyaya!

Some of them are educated, some are only matriculation pass!

They had multiple acres of farming land. They have a large house with ponds and many domestic animals to looks after. Initially, they had a struggling life but over a period of time, they stabilized themselves.

But the Farmer Panduraja was in worry! Every year they discussed how they should share their profit. They have their own family but they reside together on the same premises. Most of the initial year they had a quarrel and tussle with the money distribution.

They had an expert professional friend who also happens to be their distant relatives and well-wisher. His name was Kris, who is a Ph.D. in Agriculture and professor HOD in a nearby college.

Every year this is a nightmare challenge for Panduraja,

How can he distribute the profit among his children so that they stay motivated and energized.

They should not break up their property and leave the premises where they reside together.

Panduraja often chats with Kris. Kris recommended using the Bell curve system to distribute wealth and profit.

Kris read that somewhere, and they tried for a few years. But it did not work out as it created a quarrel and division among his children.

All his children are working for a common goal. Their proficiency is different, and core competencies are diversified.

Nakooola was remarkably talented at selling the crops, milk, eggs, and poultry meat.

Jhooti was excellent at cultivating lands and growing crops.

Bheema takes care of distributing the cattle, goats to the city, and buying and selling those.

Shooyaya was taking care of the farming, fishing, and exporting fishery commodities.

Jhooti also was taking care of the account part with his father and track the balance sheet.

Everyone is contributing to some of the other aspects and occasionally when crops fail but other services take care of their profits.

All the five brothers do daily standup and monthly progress with the Panduraja.

They reskill themselves as the market changes, need changes. Ther wife also takes care of the textile and other handlooms, handmade items e.g. pottery, etc.

The million-dollar question is how do Panduraja distribute the prosperity which will cause everyone happy?

Kris comes out with One team approach where there will not be any bell but team outcome with impact-driven measurement. They have to increase the outcome and strengthen the bottom line. Based on the numerous feedback mechanisms from various stakeholders, the final amount will differ. Their fundamental wealth distribution calculation is more or less fixed, the % variation of wealth distribution is not substantial. There will be a special monitory award for exceptional performance.

e.g. once there was a bumper production of Mango and Nakoola could export mangoes abroad with his contact at a special price. That attempt has fetched significant profit, and he got special monetary gain. Due to crop failure one year, everyone takes the loss amount, but due to the fish & poultry market, they could all get the benefit of this.

They watch out on a periodic basis and manifest on what they should promptly do to minimize the damage and maximize the profit.

So with the Kris guide, Panduraj could able to balance the equal distribution of wealth looking at the performance award one was doing better to expand the business outcome. Special recognition of monitory distribution happens when such spike benefits happen when the performance was done by going beyond the defined boundary.

This ownership model was working fine with the farmer family.

Now, Panduraja extended such a model with other families of the village. It motivates all the family members to put in their finest effort as they are merely gaining the profit. If they suffer a loss, it is absorbed by the other gains avenues. Now it has been one decade they are following this model.....

This Self-driven, Self-organized, shared purpose, outcome & impact, Value generation, one team-driven mindset enabling them to maximize the profit margin. Shareholders are also happy as they get their due service.

Do you think there is no conflict, no dispute, it is always there, but they are resolving all these to stay relevant in the market.

After Panduraja died, they keep Kris & their mother as their final authority to take the final call for any decision making. It was a democratic approach, but decision-making was taken by the Kris and their mother based on the data.

High Performance Team Skills?

What are the key skills we should watch for when we coach for a team?


From a lot of research, it has been inferred that a team to arrive at a high-performance state, exhibits many remarkable skills among team members.

When we coach a team, we can fine-tune those skills. We can watch for the present state of these skills and we can highlight to the team members to enhance those on many distinct occasions.

These skills will facilitate the team to function better. There is an intrinsic drive to upgrade these skills, as these skills will make those individuals stronger individuals in a process.

The team will traverse through many challenging assignments, but these skills will polish through better teamwork.

The team members can measure themselves at definite intervals how well they are performing against most of these skills.

They can determine actions to advance these skills.

Though it is not so easy to radically transform these skills in a short span of time but with devoted effort, we should seek to enhance these.

Xebia Meetup

 

Are your teams driven by Theory X leaders/managers?

This is the lastest story one of my coaches' companions was sharing in a conversation. She was experiencing this situation in her context. And discussing what can be done?

Douglas McGregor, a management professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the 1950s and 1960s.

In his 1960 book, The Human Side of Enterprise, McGregor proposed two theories by which managers recognize and address employee motivation. He attributed to these opposing motivational methods as Theory X and Theory Y management. 

Each considers that the manager’s role is to coordinate resources, consisting of individuals, to best benefit the enterprise. However, beyond this commonality, the attitudes and assumptions they embrace are altogether distinctive.

According to McGregor, Theory X management considers the following:

Work is naturally distasteful to most individuals, and they will seek to avert responsibility whenever feasible.

Most individuals are not enthusiastic, have little ambition for responsibility, and choose to be directed.

Most individuals have a limited aptitude for creativity in dealing with organizational problems.

Motivation occurs entirely at the physiological and security levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Most individuals are self-centered. As a result, they must be strictly controlled and often coerced to achieve organizational objectives.

Most individuals resist change.

Most individuals are gullible and unintelligent.

Most individuals gravitate toward prejudice and racism because of their attachment to ancient and conventional assumptions about individuals in general.

Most Individuals can still be heard saying things like “there will always be chiefs and Indians,” even though that kind of dialogue is becoming less familiar.

Essentially, Theory X assumes that the fundamental origin of employee motivation is financial, with security as a powerful second.

Under Theory X Manager, one can take a hard or soft approach to obtain results.

Theory X managers tend to be autocratic and controlling and feel it is up to them to ride people and drive them to perform their work (boss as a “Commander”). Once you acquire a powerful position it is much easy to exercise the power! 

You might have noticed such X management style, powerful organizations may discover that following it is inevitable owing to the volume of individuals that they operate and the rigid deadlines that they have to meet.

Have you come across such occasions? as a Coach what you have been investigating?

Theory X Leaders’ approach culminates in aggression, deliberately low productivity, and intense employee attrition. 

X Leaders believe Team members are rare to find reward or gratification in their work, so a “carrot and stick “ technique will contribute to be more fruitful in persuading them.

McGregor’s name for this kind of management is “management by control.”

Theory X management hinders the fulfillment of higher-level needs of Maslow’s Hierarchy chart because it doesn’t acknowledge that those needs are significant in the workplace. 

As a result, the particular way that employees can seek to find higher-level needs at work is to seek further compensation, so, predictably, they focus on financial benefits. 

While money may not be the most efficient way to self-fulfillment, it may be the only way feasible. 

The Theory X-oriented principal reduces the channels for innovations in work strategies and weakens the amount of group experience established.

Theory X Manager will design rigid organizational arrangements and controls based on established authority. He will employ careful control, give specific instructions, demand complete conformity, and will use threats of firings or economic sabotage to provoke the work done.

In a study reported in the Social Behavior And Psychology journal, researchers found employees’ motivation starts with encouragement from managers. If employees are led by Theory X managers in the work then team members will not be capable to engage properly!

What are some of the coaching aspects we can explore?

a) Let us talk with the leader X about the Situation Leadership style, as everything is situationally specific, those traits can be explained and practice. 

b) Let us explain the Complex system and traits of complexity and why Leaders have to behave differently in a complex system.

c) Let us talk about the Agile Cultural context and model. How people's aspects have been considered. 

d) Let us explain Extrinsic motivation factors and how leaders can explain those?

Let us talk about the outcome and Impact not only meeting the deadline.

All these have to be practiced and see what new outcome appears in Team.

Strengthening Self-Organizing Cross-Functional Scrum Team

A cross-functional team is a group of individuals with diverse functional expertise working toward a shared objective.

According to the Scrum Guide, a cross-functional team is a team that is organized around a product, a defined portion of a product, a service, or a customer value stream, and must include all competencies needed to accomplish their work without depending on others that are not part of the team.

What are the challenges of establishing such a self-organized cross-functional scrum team?

a) Silos mentality( BA, dev, test, Support )

b) Communication issue( BA, dev, test, Support )

c) Competency issue( BA, dev, test, Support )

d) Alignment issues( BA, dev, test, Support )

e) Conflicts are very high ( BA, dev, test, Support )

f) Ownership and commitment challenges( BA, dev, test, Support )

g) Mindset issue ( BA, dev, test, Support )

h) Collaboration issues ( BA, dev, test, Support )

i) Blame each other

j) Trust deficit, etc

How do we minimize these? Any structural approach we have to consider?

Look at any team and we will see a mixture of behaviors and personalities. Sometimes the individuals in a team can be complete opposites of each other and there will be conflicts; Other times there will be synergy in the team.

The ‘process’ part of the team will be very dependent on the behavior preferences that team members display.

The management psychologist Dr. Meredith Belbin was one of the first people formally to identify the different roles that people play in teams.

He recognized that in teams there are individuals who take action-oriented roles.

Some team members are more people-focused and others more cerebral.

Effective teams are made up of different types of people and they consist of different types of roles.


The mix of role types that play in a team determines their effectiveness.

These roles are

Shaper, Coordinator, Plant, Resource Investigator, Monitor Evaluator, Specialist, teamworker, Implementer, Completer Finisher

Although there are nine team roles, this doesn’t mean that a team needs nine individuals in it to be effective. Individuals will tend to have more than one preferred team role, so will generally occupy more than one role in the team.

When we look for a cross-functional self-organized high-performance scrum team, which evolves after a long cycle of the experiential exploration, we require to look at these 3 factors how effectively it has been matured.

When we recruit team members, if we can balance with these 3 factors, it would be advantageous for them to grow into a high-performance team, as the team will be apt to resolve any challenges they come across.

When I encounter the best scrum teams, I could certainly locate the traces of all these roles in a team.

I could able to trace who is Plant? who is matching the role of coordinator? etc. I start improving if these roles are missing.

When we start coaching, we also nurture these roles, based on what are the gaps, and what can be done to minimize those gaps.

This is a very good structure provided to structurally do team coaching and look for an opportunity.

All the challenges listed initially will slowly resolve when we have all these 9 roles developed and depicted with the scrum team.

We mostly look for a Scrum Master who is having a mixture of all these roles

[ A ‘teamworker’ is generally co-operative, easy to get along with, perceptive, and diplomatic. They are good listeners and are able to smooth over areas of friction within the team. They help keep the team together, particularly during times of stress or pressure.

A ‘shaper’ likes to challenge and drive things forward, enjoying the pressure and the reward of overcoming obstacles. They are able to identify patterns in discussions and in work undertaken and use this to push for change.

A ‘resource investigator’ is likely to be enthusiastic and charismatic, communicating well with others. They are able to explore opportunities, develop contacts, and instigate relationships.

The ‘implementer’ is reliable and well-disciplined, often conservative, and efficient at getting the job done. The implementer is able to reliably turn ideas into practical actions, and strategies into defined and manageable tasks.

People who fulfill the co-ordinator role are generally confident and responsible. They functionwell as a chairperson, helping to clarify goals and establish priorities. They encourage others to make decisions by delegating appropriately. ]

Free Kindle Book : We Can Lead , Festival Offer

 

To all my readers,

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Measuring the High-Performance team?

How do we start measuring the team performance “as-is” state before commencing the team coaching journey?

We require to start from somewhere which points out to us, what are numerous considerations which should start concentrating on during coaching to strengthening.

We may look into the below aspects highlighted here to strengthen. Do you recognize those?

Team members are passionate and unguarded in their discussion of issues? On a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves.

Team members call out one another’s deficiencies or unproductive behaviors? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves

Team members know what their peers are working on and how they contribute to the collective good of the team.? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves

Team members quickly and genuinely apologize to one another when they say or do something inappropriate or possibly damaging to the team.? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves.

Team members willingly make sacrifices (in their departments or areas of expertise for the good of the team? On a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves.

Do team members openly admit their weaknesses and mistakes? On a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves.

Team meetings are compelling, not boring? On a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves.

Team members leave meetings confident that their peers are completely committed to the decisions that were agreed on, even if they were in initial disagreement? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves

During team meetings, the most important—and difficult—issues are put on the table to be resolved? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves

Team members are deeply concerned about the prospect of letting down their peers? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves

Team members know about one another’s personal lives and are comfortable discussing them? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves

Do team members end discussions with clear and specific resolutions and action plans? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves

Do team members challenge one another about their plans and approaches? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves.

Team members are slow to seek credit for their own contributions, but quick to point out those of others? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves

Team members are taking a stand whenever it is required? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves.

Team members are able to speak up when it is essential? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves.

Team members are able to say NO when it is essential? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves.

Team members do not hide any information and express what is relevant? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves.

Team members express if they do not like anything ? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves.

Team members respect each other opinions? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves.

team members are always contributed to their shared goal? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves.

Team members are measuring team performance and course correct? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves.

Team members are able to finish their own assignments? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves

Team members are able to fix the issues if any surprise unplanned issues come up? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves

Team members have established a set of ground rules and guidelines for team performance and behaviors? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves

Team members express disagreements constructively? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves

Team members follow through on decisions and action items? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves

The team leader has a process for sharing information with all team members? on a 1-5 scale, 5 being the highest, How do we want to rate ourselves

25% Discount

 

The Spectrum of Coaching

How do we ensure as a coach, we encourage the team members from Skills development to Individual Transformation?

As an Agile coach when we commence with Agile Training, the journey just commenced. We as a coach desire to support the coachee for a complete transformation. Agile coaching is less focused on the acquisition of skills (inputs) and better focused on promoting the coachee’s grade of Deliverables(outputs and outcomes) in their prevailing role. The focus is more on long-term achievement improvement. As a coach, we desire to ensure coachees promote full-stack personality advancement to obtain long-term benefits.

Like a strategist, a coach needs to consider what can do with each individual so that from skill development, they have transformed themselves into a new performance state. Part of this could be growing awareness for change, inspire, and motivate them to reform, experiment with diverse opportunities, and take action to reform, sustain those changes, secure ongoing discovery exploration progresses.


What do you think?

Building a High-performance team?

The logical levels model, also recognized as Dilts logical levels, was established by Robert Dilts and Todd Epstein, who were, in turn, influenced by the creation of Gregory Bateson and Bertrand Russell.

The logical levels model is built up of the following six stages: Environment, Behavior, Capability, Beliefs and values, Identity, Spirituality, or connectedness.

We can employ for self-transformation, we can employ the same for the team Transformation.

A leader of the team or a coach can study through these logical layers and influence the team for transformation Journey.

Some of the questions team can propose to commence the journey...
How do we distinguish ourselves?
How do we consider ourselves mainly in terms of what we accomplish? Or the experiences we have?
Or What’s vital to us and what we believe? How do we want to be known as?
Or Who we are as a team? What do people tell about us?
Or how do we describe ourselves in terms of our purpose, or being part of something that’s bigger and further prominent than we are as a team?

The essential concept behind the Logical Levels is that each level has a direct relation to the lower level in the hierarchy.
A transformation on a lower level doesn’t naturally change the levels above. A change on a high level, however, invariably changes the lower levels.

This is exactly like a Pyramid of Layers. The base layer is Environment – this is where we are, and what’s around us – including other people. The vital questions here are “Where are We as a team? What is around us as a team? How does my environment affect my objective? What are my external opportunities or constraints? What kind of individuals do we like to have around us? Where do we get assistance from? Where are my sources? How does our working environment make us feel?

The next level up is Behavior. This is what we literally accomplish? What are our habits? How do we as a team act or react in a given condition? – all these happen in the context of the Environment

The next level is the Capability. This is what we recognize how to do, what we are competent to perform, the skills that we have. What are the skills and abilities that we presently possess that will support us to get the transformations we choose? Which skills we desire, but we have not yet mastered in order to perform the required reforms? So our Behavior is adopted from within our territory of skills – just because we have the expertise to perform something, doesn’t mean we will accomplish it.

The next level up is Values and Beliefs – Values being what’s fundamental to us as a team, and Beliefs being what we believe about ourselves, about other communities, and about how the world works, Why do we believe and value that? What beliefs might help us to get stronger results? Our values are what motivate us – if a goal is essential to us, we will set time and effort into carrying out it happen – and they are again the yardsticks that we adopt to vote if something is right or wrong.

Above that, we have the level of Identity. This is the level of who we are as a team, our sense of self as a team. What we stand for as a team? What is our vision of the team? How is what we are experiencing an interpretation of who we are? How would others represent us?

Finally – we have the level of Purpose or Spirit. This is what we are part of that is more powerful to us than to ourselves; what we feel hooked up to, and what someday we would give up your life for. This is an about team mission. For what reason, we are here? How would we like to be remembered when we are no more team? What greater good do we believe in?

So, if we are wishing to establish change take effect, make assured that the change is taking place at an adequately high level to establish it stick.

Reference: http://www.nlpu.com/Articles/LevelsSummary.htm#:~:text=Dilts,another%20system%2C%20and%20so%20on.

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