Thursday 5 May 2016

My favourite coaching tools: No Time To Improve Agile Retrospective Cartoon

This is a short and sweet one that always brings a little smile to my lips (and some or many team members) when I bring it up in front of the "we're too busy with important stuff" teams during agile retrospectives, or preceding an agile retrospective due to too much resistance because "we are too busy"!


No Time To Improve Retrospective Cartoon
From http://i2.wp.com/ecbiz168.inmotionhosting.com/~perfor21/performancemanagementcompanyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/tobusytoimprove.jpg
It seems no one is currently sure where the original is, or who created it. For more modern updates there have been plenty, just search Google!

Retrospectives Help Teams Look After Themselves And Have Longevity
No Time To Improve / Retrospect As We're Too Busy!


Once we all get past the uncomfortable "Gulp" moment after this cartoon is presented, the team discusses what things are keeping the team members too busy to think about or to reflect or to introduce improvements to the way(s) they are working.

I might even throw in the original Albert Einstein quote:
“If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”
And/or I might put this one in front of the team to reflect upon:
"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."
- Abraham Lincoln
Retrospectives Often Uncover Strategic Conflicts From The Top Most Leaf Perspective All The Way To The Root
No Time To Improve Because Strategies Are In Conflict (Usually, Deliver! Deliver! Deliver! Unintentionally Making That Axe Blunt, Blunter and Bluntest Of All!!)

If there are still some people needing deeper understanding of the situation they are in, I would introduce them to, and request them to, complete the Covey Time Management Usage Matrix (also known as self-study lightweight time and motion study). After this step is complete, especially including the lunch breaks, random web surfing, tea breaks, urgent phone calls and all the other really important things everyone does with intention or with serendipity at work as normal Business-as-Usual, then people are open to the message, and a humble inquiry!

Retrospectives Run Right Produce Practical Actions That Make Real Differences
Respect The People You Are Trying To Help - It Is Their Life!

Always respect the people you are introducing this too, and respect it is THEIR context and THEIR experience that matters, not yours, as external coach / observer / non-invested in the focussed business outcome! And remember why you are introducing this to them - something they are doing must be wasting energy in YOUR ?humble? opinion - not in theirs! Be careful and go very gently and respectfully!

Thankyou for reading! :-)

Tuesday 3 May 2016

My favourite coaching tools: The CIA Of Any Situation

Control Influence Accept was taught to me a few years back by one of the team leaders I was coaching in agile mindset and approach to team and delivery. I am not sure where it originated as a consequence and searches on Google have been non-satisfactory.

Assess Any Situation With The Simple CIA Control Influence or Accept
CIA For Control Influence Accept Any Situation


Essentially, as the C-I-A was explained to me, every situation that one finds oneself in (as I explain to coachees), one asks upto 3 questions in the order Control - Influence - Accept (CIA):

Question 1: Can I Control this situation?

If yes, then Control it (by using your management position or leadership)!
If no, then ask the next question,

Question 2: Can I Influence this situation?

If yes, then Influence it (by working with your network, expanding your network, orchestrating and asking your network for assistance in changing the situation)
If no, then ask the next question,

Question 3: Can I Accept this situation?

If yes, then Accept it (by opening your heart and open your mind and embracing it, so that your new personal reality becomes your new personality)
If no, then you have only 1 healthy choice - to leave the situation.

Failure to Accept the situation, and not leave this situation will cause you stress and all the negative consequences that stress brings. It will lead to negative behaviours and cynical comments leaking out, causing you to be mis-labelled further deepening the pygmalion effect and negative vicious reinforcement cycles. (see my post on labels being applied to people and more importantly how you can help the team "fix" the problem)

So you can use the CIA for personal coaching, and you can use it for team coaching quite effectively as well. I typically use it for helping teams understand if the potentially SMART-ifiable productivity improvement and/or happiness improvement actions they have proposed within the team's periodic Retrospectives are actually Achievable.

I did see several parallels in Stephen R Covey's excellent The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People where he discussed the 3 spheres that we live and work within as concentric circles. The Control Sphere is the smallest space, followed by the Influence Sphere, followed by the Accept Sphere. Basically we need to realise how little in life we do control, versus how much we think we control. An example he uses is the common illusion of control when driving in our carefully selected vehicle...and getting stuck in a traffic jam. We think because we can control our music selection, volume, air temperature and fan speed, we have control, but actually we have to accept that the dynamic system of the traffic on the roads is in control, we have very very little in reality.

I am planning on adding another 2 posts to extend the conversation and observations I've had about this CIA over the past 5+ years, so keep an eye out for the followups!

Thankyou for reading! I bumped into a previous team member after 6 years, and he is still using this fantastic tool with his own teams ever since!

Monday 18 April 2016

My favourite coaching tools: Zimbardo's Free Personal Time Perspective Assessment

Caveats:
A reminder that all my favourite coaching tools - free, online, or other - need to be applied with the sensible cautionary advice from statistician George EP Box: "all models are wrong but some are useful". Remember also that this is about "them" and their perception - not you! I make sure to tell individual coachees, teams and team leaders these things before giving them homework or some brief presentation on Zimbardo's Time Perspective theory.

I was fortunate in 2014 to attend a Professor Philip Zimbardo talk where he introduced (me) to several topics including the The Time Paradox: Using the New Psychology of Time to Your Advantage (UK) (or US). With the Time Paradox, Zimbardo's research and theory focuses on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) sufferers and how the new theory of time helps them "catch up" with their new current reality. Another great book about PTSD and help for sufferers is from Peter LevineWaking the Tiger: Healing Trauma - The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences (UK) (or US) - which explains somatic experiencing and was my first introduction to the 3 instincts humans face when stressed - the familiar "fight", "flight" AND the 3rd one "freeze". The research in this space is amazing and continuously evolving to help us understand us and to help those who suffer.

I recommend both books to anyone in any situation - not least because sooner or later you will experience 1 or more of the top 10 stressful events in life and having any knowledge to help you deal with them is invaluable. And also because modern life is so full these days of multiple minor stressors and we've learned that all the minors add up substantially even without a top 10 stressor.

And upon receiving some feedback on this tool, I believe both books are mandatory reading for any coach deploying this free test.

Prof Zimbardo is a wonderful speaker - if you get the opportunity to watch/listen/learn - take it! Stories from his (in)famous 1971 Stanford Prison Study (anyone who studies psychology or those who want to try understand how war atrocities are committed by normal people reads about the Stanford Prison Experiment) and his own early childhood facing near certain death in a hospital ward surrounded by other dying children (amongst other very memorable anecdotes) are incredible.

Here's a much condensed Ted version of his new theory of time talk.

I believe the theory can be applied to anyone no matter what their current psychological disposition is. I mean - who wants to live a half-step behind, or a half-step ahead of current reality? Who wants to be sure they are actually "living in the moment"? I reckon everyone, upon reflection, sees the benefit of being present, preferably present in the moment.

In my coaching practice - I meet a lot of people who want to know. They have deep questions about some past event or current lifestyle "choices" they seem to fall into habitually. They want to know if they are practicing enough mindfulness meditation. They want to know if they are truly self-aware. How does anyone but the Buddha know? Anyway, my clients - like most people - want to know if they're okay! (yes they are, and not because I suggested that they completed an online test!)

Step 1:
Go to http://www.thetimeparadox.com/surveys/ - print the graph manually and keep for later. Or better still, you can save it on computer, my Macbook has a great and good-enough editing tool in the form of Preview!)



Step 2:
Do both free online tests!
Step 3:
Manually plot the assessments on the survey graph paper or pdf

Step 4:
Discuss the gap between the "Ideal Time Perspective" and the coachee's results.
This is critical to get right - it is the coachee's understanding and interpretation of the gap that matters, and it is the coach's role to suggest options to improve ONLY if required.

With more self-awareness of their time perspective, the coachee opens up possibilities to understand more about their historical events that affect their perspective on their workplace as well as how their vision of the future pulls them to a good place or not based on their behaviours. From there it is possible to figure out the steps to take to change as required.

For the coachee, this view can be used as input to their coaching plan, to set some goals to acquire new skills and new behaviours (eg too much Present Hedonism might be an indicator of too much "good time, live for the moment" attitude and not enough time invested in the future thinking or planning and from there creating).

Step 5:
Several people find watching The River of Time video - inspired by the time theory - calming, reassuring and helps them to slow down enough to catchup with current reality.

I recommend also to complete Johnson's free online personality test as well as the free online Belbin test.

Additional Resources:
  • Philip Zimbardo - The Secret Powers of Time is a 44 minute youtube video that has about half of the content I originally learned during the talk I attended.
  • RSA Animate: The Secret Powers of Time is a 10 min youtube video that has less content again, is focused on the theory, and the infographic drawn real-time is wonderful!

A smarter SMART for even better collaborative Objectives (including OKRs)

My favourite coaching tools: SMART Acronym Another Update