Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Sitting With Grief

It's hard to know the words to put down, when there are no words, really. I listened to the news of the tornado today in Moore, Oklahoma; a town of 27 square miles in the middle of a tornado that devastated 30. I cannot imagine.

Later I received news of a friend with terminal cancer, a father of two very young boys and a husband to an amazing woman, he's back in the hospital.

And I remember the bombings at the Boston Marathon last month, the violence in Syria, Hurricane Sandy, so many places, so much suffering.

I spent extra time with my kids tonight, spent luscious lingering moments with my wife. In some ways, that's the best I can do. It's easy to post on FaceBook, easy even to send money. The hard part is to see, truly see: we are all this fragile. Our lives, as easily as any of these, could be shattered in an instant.

Last week I said goodbye to the team I've led and coached for over two years through this crazy world we call agile. And I openly wept and one by one each one of them gave me a hug and thanked me; a very short chapter in the story of what is real.

So as we sit together in our grief, our hearts reaching out to those whose lives have been broken open, remember to also sit in appreciation and reach out to those you love. Tell them that. Show them that. It is all so fragile...

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

River Safety

A few weeks ago I was invited on a river trip out in California; it was an amazing time, especially having not been on whitewater for 13 years. I spent the weekend in an inflatable kayak; that's my boat flipped just downstream from a river feature called a hole. I myself, well, I was deep in the river having been pushed under by the river. As one of the more experienced kayakers told me afterward "you were down there for awhile."

The interesting thing is, I didn't really think twice about putting myself and boat into the situation that would almost certainly result in me swimming. Partly because as you can clearly see, the river is deep and wide there, and there's a long stretch of flat water to recover in. It was also my third time through; each time I took a progressively bigger line. And there are boats all over the place, each one has at least one professional guide in it, and all eyes are watching the person in the rapid. Both for the pleasure of watching a friend play in the river, though also to come to my aid if needed.

As the days progressed we took turns doing this: watching each other, making sure there was always a boat on safety at the bottom of each rapid, and also one waiting at the top to respond if needed. It's just a basic part of being on the river: keep each other as safe as possible.

Great agile teams are like this, too. The members look out for each other and for the business. Though this doesn't just happen; it requires conversations and agreements, just like on the river. And it takes trusting each others' competencies. In some cases there are artifacts, such as written team values and conflict protocols that are in place to support a team's evolution.

There are so many ways that agile, well life, really, is like a river. Entering wild running water is its own risk, reward, and story. What kind of safety do teams you work with have to progress and evolve?

Monday, April 22, 2013

Riding With Flat Tires

Wheels. They are an astounding invention. The modern bicycle is a stunning feat of innovation and engineering. Light. Strong. Capable. Efficient. And to a degree, complicated: it only really works with some baseline of mechanical integrity.



Around the world, people have figured out that bikes get them from point A to point B faster and more efficiently than walking. In addition to increased speed, the efficiencies of bicycles enable effort to be leveraged to carry more weight than a single person could. To do all these things, bicycles need regular attention by someone with at least basic mechanical skills.

And if you give a person a bike with flat tires these promises will not be fulfilled. In fact it might be just the opposite.

Agile practices are also an astounding discovery, ideally shifting the focus from tools and process to the people using the tools and engaging the process. Productively used, agile leverages the best of an organization's people and continuously develops them into better contributors and collaborators, which in turn creates more innovation and quality.

The key is "productively." Simply giving a team improved engineering practices or agile processes without a corresponding attention to the people and how they come together is a lot like giving someone trying to get between two points a bicycle. Especially if that bike needs a few basic things, like air in the tires, to make it rideable. And not giving them any knowledge or understanding about how to maintain the bike itself.

Organizations that adopt agile without sufficient knowledge is akin to that person. The bike will be given a try, though shown to be frustrating and inefficient in its mechanically deficient state, and tossed aside for walking.

All for lacking some simple knowledge, and a willingness to learn, how to just pump up the tires.

Over time, excellent agilists teach and lead just enough to have those they serve pick up new skills and awareness. They take the time and effort to show how and why to use the tools and process to deliver value. And eventually, those they work with are able to ride all on their own.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Vulnerability

Last week I finally watched Brené Brown's TED talk on vulnerability, which stopped me in my tracks. I've since made my way though much of her book Daring Greatly; both have affected me deeply. Agile, at its deepest root, is about relationship: Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools. And relationship, at its deepest root is about being vulnerable.

In my last post I talked about body armor enabling me to enter realms of riding otherwise prohibitively  dangerous. Cast in a different light, it's an expression of vulnerability, of facing what is true (that I could get very, very hurt) and then doing it anyway, not out of reckless abandon, though out of passion  and at its deepest root: love. I'll come right out and say it: being in gravity is an expression of love. Being an agilist is also an expression of love. Certainly not romantic love, actually absolutely NOT romantic love; it's about the love underneath the romance. The deep love that is only found through facing what is true, what is real.

On my bike, what is true and what is real is every breath, every turn of the pedals, every jump, every high-speed turn, and every miscalculation. The ground is always harder than me. And always unforgiving. And I ride anyway, because quite simply, I love it too much to stay home.

I've stopped worrying now, about what the people I work with think; I trust them to call me out if I'm full of shit. And once that worry is out of the way, I can hold an entirely new realm of space for them, and enter an entirely new realm of agile practice.

It is my own expression of daring greatly. And soon, the snow will finally be gone from our trails, and the earth will have settled from the winter's frost releasing, and once again we'll put tires in the dirt, and ride, and that too will be it's own great daring.

If you've not seen it, here's Brené's talk; how are you daring greatly? If you're not, what is holding you back?:

Friday, March 29, 2013

Team Armor (or Armour, if that's your thing)

POC's VPD 2.0 Jacket: bike-specific armor that
 exceeds EU motorcycle standards

I'm a fan of protection; I've always worn a helmet when riding bikes or snowboards. On the latter I also wear back armor and wrist guards. I recently acquired a full-face biking helmet, always wear full-finger gloves, and will be purchasing pieces of bike-specific body armor for the coming season. All have saved me substantial injury on many occasions. And even with all of this I've still managed to get pretty banged up from time to time.

I used to think of body armor as a defensive thing; a manifestation of fear. Something to be donned against being afraid of getting hurt. However my approach to protection has shifted in the last couple years as my riding has progressed. I now find myself drawn to new realms of riding; progression always brings higher levels of risk.

What I've found though, is that the risk can be at least partially addressed with the right equipment; it is not that I fear injury as much as I desire to stay unhurt. And this is a subtle, though important distinction.

If I ride and operate out of fear, I hold myself back. To be clear I'm not suggesting ignoring my fear  in the moment, though I'm talking more generally as an approach to my riding as a whole.

Troy Lee's Carbon D3: a favorite lid among
the world's biggest hitting, fastest riding pros

Proactively seeking to protect my body on the other hand, is an opening, a way to evaluate risk and decide from a place of possibility rather than the limitations of fear.

How does this all apply to teams? To truly progress, teams need an analogue to body armor. They need structure to protect them when they go sideways and crash. Structures such as: working agreements, conflict protocols, and explicit shared vision and values.

And these structures are not static; crafting them and then never coming back to them is akin to buying armor and then never putting it on to ride. Kept alive these structures will serve the team as they strive to deliver the highest value to their organization, particularly when they are in conflict.

When a team armored by structures that they've created and committed to crashes, in effect that team is much more likely to be able to get up and ride away rather than be broken.

What kind of armor do the teams you work with   or on create? How has it affected their growth and process?

Monday, March 11, 2013

Balance

In Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart Mary Beth O'Neill writes about the need for an effective coach to maintain a grounded presence. Of course, this isn't a static state; we are all constantly interacting with the surrounding environment:

"The goal is to decrease the amount of time we are reactive and to recover equilibrium more quickly."

If there is a single prerequisite for gravity sports, it is a sense of balance. One needs to stay upright in what is essentially a controlled fall down a slope. To do so, the muscular and neural loops that detect and correct imbalance must be tuned and honed, and we also must be willing to commit.

And the reality is, even the best athletes lose their balance. Constantly. It just looks a bit different than we might expect, because they also know how to correct in a fraction of a second.

Speaking for myself, there is magic to be found in defying gravity in this way. As I am in a state of being pulled down the slope, yet staying upright, living in that paradox there is something that happens. And it feels amazing.

As practitioners, the truth for us is that it's less about not losing our balance. It's about understanding that we and those we work with will be constantly pushed and pulled by a chaotic stream of inputs; we are already in falling across the slope of business realities. Our job is to do all we can to move with those forces and stay upright, and seek that paradox, for there is magic there. And as we practice that, the loops that detect imbalance tighten and improve; it requires less effort over time.

It's also a good idea to carry a first aid kit and know how to use it...part of learning to balance is, at times, failing. Wearing a helmet's a good idea, too (see my Team Armor post) :)

As a practitioner, how do you balance? How do you know when you're slipping, and what helps you re-center?

Thursday, February 21, 2013

The Joy Of Air

I'm working on a couple posts though want to really dial them in before I put them up. In the meantime, I just found this short film narrated by Jackson Goldstone, who at 8 is already expressing a level of riding bikes far beyond his years.

And I will say this: there is a distinct pull at the lip of a jump, a yearning to fly skyward. It is something I've only begun to heed myself, though I can report back that taking to the air is sublime; a sensation beyond words. This film attempts to give voice to it.

Agile is that lip. And it calls us to fly, to strip out all the bullshit and crap that impedes us and our organizations, to discard the stories we've woven and retold about how things are and what is true. It is shedding comforts, and a sense of safety, and committing to a new way of being that relentlessly pursues delivery of value and respect for people.

And it serves us to be mindful of the landing as we progress; "what comes up must come down."

As an agilist, what calls you to fly?