Did you ever give a very clean concise explanation to someone who was as asking very general question? You did this with the best of intentions so that you could share your knowledge and hope that the answer to the question was helpful. It probably was, but what you realized then, the only definition of the topic that the person will use at all times was the one you just gave them – without discovering for themselves what the many areas that topic may hold.
It’s not always about what to say, but mainly what not to say
As servant leaders in agile teams, regardless of our the project methodology as waterfall vs agile, we need to identify where there is that fine line between giving finite information vs opening up the level of discovery on that topic by giving just enough to get interests elevated so that your team or individual members will continue to learn about that topic. No doubt, there are many modes of discovery for people in agile team roles. It’s human nature to stop learning when we think that we know all there is to know. Sometimes we feel as though, whatever our leaders or agile business coaches tell us, is all there is to know. This is where there are fine lines that servant leaders might cross. If you appear to be the only source of information in the eyes of your agile working team, you will always be that source and you will not be doing your team members any service. This will prevent your team from becoming self-organized.
Leaving the mindset of absolute control and absolute direction
It is important to realize that there are ways to keep someone on the path to staying innovative and productive. Mainly as servant leaders you need to keep your answers short but provide enough indication that there are multiple relevant sources of information. Certainly this comes with time, you need to somehow be a subject matter expert, or at least have access to some. But the main idea is how to keep the communication clear and give just enough to fuel the need to know more and more, and on a regular basis. The other side to this is to make sure there is no judgement when failure is imminent. We need to see failure as one of the ways we learn. The important part about seeing where the current path is leading to, is not to give too much information where you become the point of reference to each step. It’s easy to follow steps and that is where you may stagnate the innovative mind to just want to follow instead of taking the initiative.
Inspiring has a greater impact than informing
Whether providing agile consulting as agile servant leaders or as agile business coaches, there is greater benefit to being increasingly aware of what some of the side effects of our leadership and communication style may be. It’s fun to give information and know that it’s appreciated. However, if responding usually in the form of a question (i.e. what do you think would resolve this issue? or what issues do you notice come up frequently and why?), you may get your team to think self-sufficiently and get thinking on how to progress with much more impacting results. This will promote the need to attend more agile courses, or better yet create a system of agile games that enables issue resolution. Do not limit the amount of information you can provide, but give just enough and think along lines of quality, not quantity of the information. See it as planting a seed. The growing of the plant grows best on its own while giving it right amounts of soil, sun and water at different times. This is the best way to ensure its growth. It will grow without the expectation that you will need to pull on the stem to expect quicker and faster growth.
[Image courtesy of ratch0013 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net]
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