Monday 20 June 2016

Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment Materials Now Online

A while back I blogged about Professor Philip Zimbardo and his research and great work around post traumatic stress disorder. In his work in this area, Zimbardo has come up with a new theory of time - the Time Paradox (UK) (or US) - as well as a Personal Time Perspective Inventory which has been quite helpful to my coachees to get a better sense of "what may be".

Zimbardo
Zimbardo speaking in Warsaw 2009

Just recently I discovered that Prof Zimbardo has made materials from the infamous "Stanford Prison Experiment" available online. Despite having first learned about the "prisoners and wardens" experiment during a university psychology module years ago, and learned about many other psychological experiments since then, the write-up and photos are still quite a shocking account of what happened during those 6 days (out of the planned 2 weeks) before the experiment was terminated early due to how quickly things got out of hand.

It's well worth the read-through, as well as watching the movie clips. It really is amazing what a system can do, and does do, to ordinary people. And as for uniforms and other physical associations. Wow.

And just when it might become grim and depressing, Zimbardo offers us all hope and salvation from the very human condition of life - his Ted Talk on Psychology of Evil. We need to celebrate heroism - the rise of the ordinary normal person who takes heroic action in the space where others are frozen.

"But I just did what any other person would have done under those circumstances"

Maybe, maybe not.

Anyway, Zimbardo for me, is a truly an amazing mind and life story with amazing benefits for humanity! For a little self-help/coaching for yourself and more detail, see my earlier Zimbardo time perspective assessment post!

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! :-)

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

My favourite coaching tools: SMART Acronym Another Update