I've been interviewing a number of candidates for a role in my team of Agile Coaches these past few months. One of the topics we like to discuss with candidates is that of "serious resistance".
I've reflected on the topic a great deal over the years, as well as read several books and articles, discussed here and there at various conferences, trainings and war story sharings. It is not an easy topic, and its clear that many "new process/practice" people run into it constantly.
Through all this, 2 approaches dominate:
1. Back off, and attempt to influence via the resisters influencers
2. Fire/promote
AKA:
1. Do nothing
2. Do something radical (AKA change your organisation, or change your organisation)
Both sound lose-lose to me.
Today I had a slightly different thought - what if the pressure/focus was turned instead to the resister's line manager? What if the line management was forced to accept the accountability that comes with the management position and actually conduct coaching/mentoring 1-1 sessions with the resister? What if the line manager's job was on the line instead? That seems to me to have far bigger and quicker impact potential...possibly at the actual root cause of the problem!
:O
Thankyou for reading!
