Techniques

Path from Command & Control to Agile Leaders

There is no obvious trick to this. See change-management literature. e.g. http://change-management.com/

Powerful Questions to Engage Leadership

• What needs to change now?
• What needs to change in the future?
• What is the most urgent concern you have for the company?
• What are your top three priorities?
• What are we consistently doing that makes us better as a team?
• How do we adapt to change, internal and external?
• What do we have control of that if changed, can increase success?
• What should we stop doing now?
• Are we consistently demonstrating our values? And if so, how?

Discussion that Fosters Servant Leadership

• Help them understand the importance of role they play.  Agile teams thrive when their leaders are agile with them.
• Open a dialogue on Servant Leadership.  It is likely you are coaching someone who already has some of these important characteristics. This opens a safe common ground for your coaching conversation.
  • Values diverse opinions
  • Cultivates a culture of trust
  • Develops other leaders
  • Helps people with life issues
  • Encourages
  • Sells instead of tells
  • Thinks you, not me
  • Thinks long-term
  • Acts with humility

Techniques to Coach Leaders

• Aspire to become a Trusted Advisor with the leader. A Trusted Advisor manifests some of the following behaviors:
  • Is in it for the long term relationship, not short term gain
  • Puts client’s interests in front of their own
  • Genuinely interested in their clients and their business
  • Works really hard to understand the client’s underlying interests not just surface wants. As Steven Covey so succinctly puts it in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People –  “Seek first to understand and then to be understood”.
  • Is reliable – does what they say they will do.  “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you” (Friedrich Nietzsche)
  • Is credible (but doesn’t feel the need to try too hard!)
  • Gets up close and personal and connects emotionally
  • Is authentic, passionate and enthusiastic  “Flaming enthusiasm, backed by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.” (Dale Carnegie)

Games/Exercises to Demonstrate Agile Leadership

• Multitasking Name Game: writing names one letter at a time for multiple people, vs one person at a time: Multitasking Name Game | Crisp – Get agile with Crisp
• Ball-Point Game, with leader directing activities vs supporting the teams.
• Backlog with vision vs no vision
• Impediment Removal Escalation Board. (First identify impediments. Then find level that would need to solve them.)
• Delegation Board & Delegation Poker
• 60 Steps exercise to demonstrate self organization vs. Command and Control: AgileConnection | Sixty Steps in the Right Direction

Coaching Leaders to Coach

 

• “Leader as Coach: Strategies for Coaching and Developing Others” – Mary Dee Hicks

 

Teams Working with No One Who has Agile Experience

• Provide training, coaches, advisors, references, communities of practice, etc.

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