1. What are my strengths?
2. What are my fatal flaws?
3. What strengths work best for the company?
4. What strengths work best for you?

Consider Johari Window

Another great approach that is more general is the Johari Window technique. Again you are going to want to get input from others, but this time with an eye towards discovering who you are by sharing hidden perspectives.

Want a high performance team? Then have the whole team do this exercise together. And of course  Strategic Play® with Lego® SERIOUS PLAY® is a great way to explore a topic such as interpersonal perspectives.

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Stuart Brown literally wrote the book on it – Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and invigorates the Soul. It is the tale of a medical doctor who could not ignore the importance of play in the lives of people and the tragedies that result from a lack of play.

Consider the visual note below that captures features of the book that helped me better understand the science of play.   The characteristics of play are that it is voluntary, fun, and results in a flow state of mind.

Play is the foundation of Creativity and Innovation. Our ability to take risks and learn from mistakes are key to innovation. To do this we must be able to play in safety.

Play is innate to animals and humans. Brown shares the science around play being a driving force for learning. Animals (in particular, mammals) use play when young to develop cognitive and social skills. Humans are special in that they play through life. In part this allows us to continue to learn through life. Neoteny describes our trait of retaining youthful characteristics.

Perhaps the most important point is that Work and Play go hand in hand. Play is an enabler of work, not the opposite. The opposite of play is depression. ”All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” And by dull, we mean unable to support the creativity needed to accomplish challenging tasks. “When the going gets tough, the tough go play.” And I know that I use StrategicPlay® with Lego® to solve really big challenges.

If you thinking about building up your play muscles, the place to start is with your play history: think about what got you really excited when you were a kid. There are questions in book if you want to explore further.

It’s no wonder, I am such a big fan of games for learning and doing work.

Curious to learn more? You can start with the TED talk below or pick up the book.

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Jane McGonigal has written a fabulous book, “Reality is Broken: Why games make us better and how they can change the world.” In it she explores large-scale online games that are part of the commercial video game industry as well as ones about producing direct real-world benefits.

As is my usual want, I prepared the visual note below to capture the most important aspects of the book to me.

Jane defines a games as having four important characteristics: a goal, rules, a feedback system (so people know whether they are reaching their goals) and voluntary participation. I found the last characteristic very interesting. With Agile and Scrum in particular we promote self-organizing teams where people sign up for work rather than having it assigned. In fact, many facets of Agile make work more like play. The principle of voluntary participation also aligns with good management practices such as “treat everyone like a volunteer”.

I really like how play and being in a state of flow is differentiated from it’s opposite: depression. I just love the definition of play and flow as an “intense, optimistic engagement with the world around us.”

Jane paints a compelling picture of the capabilities and talents of video game players. She states that young adults will have had the 10,000 hours or practice needed to become experts at pro-social collaboration skills through playing video games. Gamers with this level of skill – a superpower – can collectively accomplish great things.

I used to think games were the cat’s meow, but now I see them as just one way to help people reach a state of flow through play (see: Three Ways to Use Play for Business Results). For me (at work), games are a means to an end. At home, one goal is having fun; another is bonding with the people I play with.

The most fun fact I found in the book was: “75% of executives play games at work”. Usually to take a break and relieve stress.

But the BEST of all was learning about and playing SuperBetter to up my game in dealing with some challenges in my personal life. If you are struggling with anything, perhaps you might like to play this game for the win.

If you haven’t already seen Jane’s TED talk – Gaming can make a better world – I highly recommend it.

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Identify your heroes to find out what really matters to you.

I was reading Focus (which is a great book and I’ll blog about sooner or later) and there was a bonus chapter about How to do Great Work that totally rocked my world. It was a simple question:

Who are your heroes?

At first I thought, I don’t have any heroes. But then my mind started wandering. My first hero surprised me. A lot.

But the really interesting part is why they are your hero.

I am sharing this exercise because it can help you discover who you really are and what is important for you. For me this short activity was profoundly insightful. YMMV.

#1 Conan the Barbarian

I imagine that at this point many readers are having a hard time relating to my hero or are perhaps even begin to wonder about me as a person. I was mystified myself until I thought about what attributes of Conan make him a hero for me:

Strength of mind, courage, and for doing what is right. Conan strictly adhered to the warrior code and would often get into all kinds of difficult situations for doing the right thing no matter what the cost. Conan spent much of his life as a wandering mercenary – I finally seems to have found a path as a consultant in the guise of an Agile Coach.

At a young age, Conan was taught what was best in life: “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of the women.” Metaphorically, I see this aligned with the Good To Great management practice of getting the right people on the bus.

#2 Mahatma Gandhi

He is my hero for selflessness, courage and wisdom. Gandhi believed in a cause and purpose greater than himself. So do I. My mission is to make a difference in the lives of the people and companies I work with.

“Be the change you want to see” is a famous statement from Gandhi and is central to how I think about myself and my work. Whether at home with my kids or working with clients, the better I am at modeling useful behaviours, the more effective I am in helping others.

One consequence of this is that I am very dedicated to not only learning useful tools (communication, facilitation, etc.) but more importantly mastering my inner game and developing myself as a human being. Like Stephen Covey says, victory begins at home.

#3 Captain James T. Kirk

 I’m 42 and I watched a lot of Star Trek when I was a kid.

The aspects of Captain Kirk that I admire are leadership, ingenuity, boldness and passion.

Leadership: Kirk pursued his objectives with a single-minded purpose. He was caring and supportive of his crew and yet could make difficult decisions in times of great need.

Ingenuity: Perhaps creativity captures what I mean. With laser-like focus on a goal, there were no holds barred in how it was achieved. I get goosebumps when I think of Kobayashi Maru – a demonstration of changing the rules of the game (literally) in order to win.

Passion: Kirk brought energy to any situation he was involved in. He lived life with a vim and vigor, one day at a time.

#4 Sarwan Sahota

I was startled and perhaps even alarmed to find my dad on my list of heroes since I am still working through the usual stuff that goes on in families (See Brene Brown’s Gifts of Imperfections).

When I started to think about what I admired in him, I realized I admire him for doing the right thing and having a strong code of ethics.

My dad was raised as a Sikh. The religion – designed to help people to survive via fighting prowess – says to always carry a weapon (Kirpan); never cut your hair so that long beard and hair demarcate you as a Sikh. I learned the attitude – to quote Rodney Dangerfield – “I don’t take shit from nobody.”

My dad has a strong sense of ethics that would often put him controversial situations with those less concerned. One simple example: I remember as a kid when we visited his office and would use the photocopier (when prepping to play one of a myriad of games) he would have us keep track of the number of copies and pay the cost into petty cash. I still think about this today – when I am at a client site and use a printer, I make sure to offset the cost.

Sacrifice. When if came to doing the right thing, my dad was prepared to make whatever sacrifices were needed. He put his job and career on the line to fight for what he thought was best for Ryerson University (where he worked) and his coworkers.

Deep Insight – what defines me

When I look at my heroes, I see they have a lot in common that define how I see myself and what I value. Heroes are what drive our behaviour.

Do the right thing regardless of personal cost.

This is what defines me. It is a chilling and profound insight.

The scary part is that it explains why I have cared more than others around me for doing what is best for the people, for the team, for the company. It explains why I have swum so hard against the current to the point of rupturing relations and employment. And my own personal cost has been high.

Finding Balance

I am fortunate that in the last year, I have found balance.  Flawless Consulting helped me learn to ask clients what problem they want solved and to focus only on that. So I am doing better than ever staying aligned with those around me.

I do not have a guardian angel like Conan and Kirk, so I remind myself to pause and reflect on my personal safety in potentially risky situations. I am doing a better job, but it’s hard not to be distracted by doing the right thing.

Who are your Heroes?

I encourage anyone interested in self-discovery to do this short exercise. And for those who are particularly courageous, to share them and link back here.

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The essential message is that we can create positive environments and emotions to create an upward spiral of openness, resilience, and better performance.

This is in line with my use of Agile as a way to transform the world of work. And of getting innovation and results through play.

The flow of the diagram below is: Positive emotions –> Expand’s Awareness –> Other thinking –> Mind Meld

Dr. Fredrickson argues that Positivity is a lifestyle change that can result in a upward spiral of positivity with all the associated benefits. Masking the negative does not help, we actually need to focus on the positive – at least three positive events for every negative event.

I really appreciated Barabara’s message, however, the one part I will differ on is that in many environments we need to create trust and safety to reduce the background noise of negativity. This needs to happen in tandem with positivity.

You can learn more through Barabara’s website or book.

Update: Full Video is available on Agile Alliance Website.

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This video is pretty long, but the best bits for me were in the first 12 minutes. Some great parts:

• Letter using Remember the Future for remembering why the student will have been wildly successful (3:43)
• You can give an “A” grade to anyone – to transform the relationship (4:25)
• “How Fascinating!” as a celebration of errors to maintain an available state (10:53)

Also, Benjamin Zander has a book with this title (haven’t read it yet).

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Stuart Brown shares an insightful quote:

The opposite of play is not work, it’s depression.

In the following TedX video, Stuart Brown explains the importance of play.

Key Take-Aways

• Lot’s of great science on the importance of play for learning and development.
• Play is hard-wired into our brains (stories of Polar Bear with Husky and Mother with infant)
• Use of play skills in children is critical for adult development of problem solving skills. In particular, play involving hands is key.

For more information, there is Stuart’s book Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul

Many thanks to Yves Hanoulle who first shared this with me.

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Let’s face it, if you are running Scrum well, then there will be all sorts of ugly problems that pop out of the woodwork: decaying technical infrastructure, technical debt, people struggling with new roles, people no longer able to hide behind the fog of waterfall, and conflicts between groups.

Scrum is designed to make impediments visible. Management’s role is to act on these and remove them to support the team. Usually, these problems have been around for a while.

Consider the Matrix

What does the film The Matrix have to tell us about this situation?

Neo is Seeking

Neo is not satisfied with the status quo. He knows that something is wrong but is not sure what it is.

Morpheus is the Guide

Morpheus acts as a guide. He tells Neo that everything is not as it seems. Neo must decide if how badly he wants to know the truth.

Neo must choose

Morpheus gives Neo a choice:

• Red Pill: Learn the truth about and discover how deep the rabbit hole goes.
• Blue Pill: Remain in his current reality and wake up the next morning believing whatever he wishes.

What does have to do with Agile?

• The Matrix = Organizational Reality
• Neo = Transition Sponsor
• Morpheus = Agile Coach

When a client swallows the red pill, they choose to confront the red flags and problems. Just like the recommendation from one of my favourite management books - Good to Great. In this situation, it is possible to do what Michael Spayd call Strategic Agile. This is represents the fundamental shift in behaviours and values called for by Agile. It leads to a learning organization that is on the road to joy in work and high performance.

When a client swallows the blue pill, the we are in a Tactical Agile situation. In this case, it might be possible to find some local wins with morale, teamwork and productivity. It might also lead to organizational backlash that reverts Agile. Sadly, what frequently happens is that  the Agile champions and advocates who want to create a better company leave to find a place with a future.

My Stories

In every transition, I have seen red pill, blue pill situations. Some of them are minor decisions. Some are major like investment in repaying technical debt and investing in improving productivity.

At one company, the top 10 contributing staff built a value stream showing that a “5 day project” actually took 9 months to complete and the $5k revenue was offset by $25k of costs. More than half of the executives (CEO, CTO, VP Sales, VP Engineering, CFO) discounted the data. It was a blue pill moment.

At another company, we talked about the science of motivation, and they took the red pill. The yearly bonus went bye-bye. On the other hand they later took the blue pill on technical debt. Can’t win ‘em all.

One of the biggest problems I have seen is that the sponsor of the Agile transition is often the author of the problems. For example, the VP Engineering who was on watch when technical debt was piling up – it’s hard for him to get excited about sharing this problem with superiors and asking for patience while he fixes it.

If you are a coach, it’s your job to know where the boundaries are and help clients cross them when they are willing.

Your turn!

Next time you are working with someone, think about their reality and how they see the situation. Then find ways to share yours. At the end of the day, it is their choice.

The Video

Take a few minutes to watch this video clip from the movie. It’s fun and will help your brain remember this post.

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Status Games is a modeling technique that comes from Improv theatre. They are all about power and dominance. When we communicate we can raise or lower the status of others by implying something positive or negative.

Here is a quick example.

Statement: “I just finished my part.”

Status lowering response: “Well, I’m glad we are all finally done.” (Implication is that the person was last and they were holding things up)

Status raising response: ‘Great, we can only succeed as a team.” (Implication is that everyone is important).

I need to learn more about this. Here is one reference for more details.

Solution Focus

The principle of solution focus is that it is often more valuable to focus on the solution than on the problem. This principle is counter intuitive and is contradictory to other approaches such as root cause analysis and Diagram of effects. I think about the latter tools as useful for analysis, while solution focus is useful for generating solutions.

Solution focus is deceptively simple:

1. Image that you are in the future and have already solved your problem.
2. Think about how it was that you got there.

This perspective is useful in unlocking the series of steps that need to be accomplished to achieve the goal.

Solution Focus is very similar to the approach used in the InnovationGame® Remember the Future for defining what a product should do.

As I was reading more, I discovered that this comes from solution focussed brief therapy. Reminds me of my NLP tools and training. I am wondering how to share them.

Transactional Analysis

The work of Virginia Satir on family dynamics can be used to understand how we communicate with others. With this model we choose one of three roles when communicating: Parent, Adult, or Child. The example illustrated in pink is that if we communicate as parent to child then we will elicit a child to parent response.

The idea here is that by changing our response, we can change the dynamic of the conversation to get the result that we want. I think I need to learn more and play with this to get a better sense of this technique. Maybe I will just observe life and take notes from this perspective.

Please see WikiPedia for more on Transactional Analysis.

Slides and further reading

You can see slides and further reading/links on Pierluigi’s blog.

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What I have in today’s post is a series of mind-maps that cherry-pick the best bits. I include a lot of quotations from the book together with page numbers, so these may be used as a reading guide. (I’ll let you in on a secret: it’s actually for me to be able to look up the good bits quickly).

Consider your attitude as a Coach or Consultant

Client Relationship is Built on Trust

Understand You Client

Change is Harder than you Think

Coach the System and Beware the Fate of Consultants

Reality Check to Avoid Problems

Give away your Best Ideas and How to Price your Services

Hidden Agenda Game

Ironically, the one item that didn’t fit with any of the others is the Hidden Agenda Game (p.116). It is a simulation that helps people start seeing other people’s behaviours and intentions.

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