Chapter 1 of Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond is an overview of the book including thoughts on how to read it. I like Bob’s approach of identifying four personas that will find the book helpful. Three reflect different levels of coaching experience and the fourth is clients. He uses different personas to suggest parts of the book that will provide the most value. Jeremy Willets and I are reflecting on how this book communicates a path through the material as we hammer away completing our upcoming tome on Work Entry.
Three thoughts that struck me as I read this chapter were:
The first and most important is that to be a coach, “you need to be open to rethinking how YOU work.” A coach needs to be coachable, be able to take input, and continuously learn. Do I sound like a broken record? I am not sure how many times I have read something like this or typed this line, but I still, find people that present themselves as agile coaches who are not learning. Learning is part of the Code of Ethical Behavior that governs coaching. If you are not actively learning, how can you expect to be able to help others rethink their way of working? The old adage comes to mind; “if all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail”.
The second big idea in this chapter is Bob’s ideas on creating role clarity (see Figure 1). One of the four personas Bob discusses using this book is the clients of coaches. Bob states, “Coaching is confusing to coaches — it is also confusing to clients.” I have taken the role of an agile coach in many organizations, some of those gigs I have sold myself and some others have sold. The night before taking up the coaching role I often have a nightmare that I get to the client’s site only to find that the agile coach role is there to administer their agile tool. It’s like the nightmare that you appear on the first day of class in your underwear. Agile and agile coaching are both people sports, defining and setting expectations are HUGE steps toward a successful engagement. Spelling out role clarity will help coaches and clients agree on which coaching stances (stances include training, mentoring, suggesting, and asking questions to name a few) will be used and when. Many coaches get stuck in the professional coaching stance often seen as focused on asking powerful questions. Clients discover their own answers. A coach or a client that does not understand or has not agreed on the scope of the role misses chances to use other approaches; they don’t roll with the context. The focus on role clarity suggests three things. First, coaches can’t use only one approach or be unidimensional. Allan Kelly, Woody Zuill, and I discussed why we identify more as agile guides than as agile coaches on SPaMCAST 612. Calling ourselves guides changes in perspectives of the role and affords a greater latitude to use different stances to help people improve. Second, I recommend having and maintaining a written coaching agreement. My to-do this coming week is to reflect on the ideas of role clarity and incorporate that thinking into the agreement. Finally, like many other books in the re-read series, every week I am going to have homework.
The final big idea is a discussion of internal versus external coaches. As an external coach, it is easy to forget that internal coaches have a different perspective and that their role in creating change is tougher. One role of an agile coach is to speak truth to power. Telling an emperor or empress that they have no clothes is dangerous. Internal coaches often have a harder time with this role. One slip and you could lose vesting in your 401k or healthcare. Whether it is more skin in the game or less privilege, being an internal coach is different than being an external coach. Despite the differences, there are a strong set of common attributes. For example, all coaches have to be curious and powerful listeners (just a few of the attributes). To that list, I would add empathy for those they are coaching AND fellow coaches internal or external. One of the lines used during the pandemic that continues to stick with me is that “we are all in this together.”
Next week Part 1, Chapter 2 The Mindset of a Badass Agile Coach. Bob, I am glad you did not bend to pressure to change the name because it is fun saying badass in public!
Buy a copy of Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond (Amazon Associate Link) and start reading. T
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