Chapter 11, Agile Coach Failure, Recovery, and Success Modes, begins Part 3 of Coaching Agile Teams. Part 3 is titled “ Getting More for Yourself.” I view the three chapters in this section as the author’s advice to anyone playing the coaching role of the need to embrace failure and continuously learn. Chapter 11 hits the topic of failure head-on, sharing both failure and success modes. Anyone that has been in the business of agile coaching (coach, Scrum Master, manager, or others) for more than a few years and has pushed the boundaries of culture will have failures on their CV. Coaching is hard, training and continuous learning are important but not enough. A coach without experience is a trainee. A wide range of experience, which opens the door to successes and failures, is a learning opportunity that classes and webinars can’t deliver.

One of the hardest topics addressed in this chapter is coaching failures caused by the coach’s own behavior and ego. Most of the coaches I know are strong people; they have a clear vision of what works and what doesn’t. For some coaches, that strength of personality becomes a cult of personality. Their ideas become more important than the team’s ideas. A few years ago I paired with a coach whose implementation of “take it to the team” was to premise everything that said with “here is what I think.” The whole premise of coaching had become about them, every interaction was a laboratory to test their ideas, not to empower the team to tackle their own issues. For a while, the team thrived, but over time they became disillusioned as they recognized that it was all about the coach and not about them. Despite many conversations, it took the team voting the coach off the island for the coach to recognize they had created a problem.

Continuous partial attention, or the need to pay attention to everything, is a chronic problem for coaches of all stripes. Coaches are often asked to support many teams at once creating scenarios where they jump from one meeting to another without a break every day. Spending enough time to hear a few snippets of conversation then off to the next meeting. I caught myself channel surfing between Zoom and Teams meetings more than once over the past few years. I felt like I was spying. My behavior did not build trust.  The author suggests practicing mindfulness. The practice of mindfulness is not something you can learn in an afternoon, but there are things that can have an immediate impact. Start with being present. In video meetings, turn your camera on. In all meetings turn your phone, Slack, and other texting tools off then actually pay attention to what is happening. Doing email on another screen is not paying attention. As an experiment in a long meeting, count the number of times people get caught off guard when called on or admit they are not paying attention. The experiment’s goal is not to shame the group but for you to reflect on how you can be more present and coach the group to be more present. If you don’t have to pay attention in a meeting, you do not need to be there. Continuous partial attention is not jumping between meetings; it is a reflection of multitasking and having too much work in process. As a coach, one of your most powerful tools is your behavior.  Lead by example.

Trust is an important component of generating coaching success. Involvement with a team, any team, or an individual, without trust will leave you with very few options to influence those around you.

Logistics note Next week we tackle both Chapters 12 and 13 which means we have two more weeks of this re-read before jumping into Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond (Amazon Associate Link – buy your copy soon and start reading). Buy a copy now and start reading. 

Remember to buy a copy of  Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins (SPaMCAST Amazon affiliate line https://amzn.to/38G0ZD3) and read along!

Previous Installments

Week 1: Logistics and Introduction – https://bit.ly/3A1aNTe 

Week 2: Will I Be A Good Coach – https://bit.ly/3nzDAHg 

Week 3: Expect High Performance – https://bit.ly/3Rl4fFf 

Week 4: Master Yourself – https://bit.ly/3zL8t2n 

Week 5: Let Your Style Change – https://bit.ly/3Q8zHWa 

Week 6: Coach as Coach-Mentor – https://bit.ly/3QLcSIi 

Week 7: Coach as Facilitator – https://bit.ly/3AaP5KY 

Week 8: Coach As Teacher – https://bit.ly/3AURGdL 

Week 9: Coach As Problem Solver – https://bit.ly/3C06Gr7 

Week 10: Coach As Conflict Navigator – https://bit.ly/3R6tmuc 

Week 11: Coach As Collaboration Conductor – https://bit.ly/3fXoHOs