I have been considering the relationship between privilege and fatalism. Boiling down the impact of privilege into a few words, we find advantage and the potential for power. Whether it is the ability to make decisions about the work you will do, the power to direct others to do work, or even just to be heard, privilege is power. That power can generate fatalism in those without the power privilege delivers. As an agile coach, the concepts of privilege and fatalism often collide. Early in my career, a mentor passed on a piece of advice. If you have a great idea, have a consultant tell it to my boss (my mentor’s boss). They will accept it from them, not from you or me. The consultants had privilege. The message was clear, we did not and wouldn’t be listened to. This is an example of a collision of fatalism and privilege. This was of course despite our corporate mottos “we only hire the best and brightest” and “our employees are our greatest assets” which were emblazoned on posters in the lunch room. Looking back it is hard to understand how that amount of cognitive dissonance was tolerable.  I am now on the other side of that coin. Where power differentials exist and are used as a tool to gather power then privilege and fatalism run wild.

In environments where privilege is actively used to control the flow of work and ideas, someone will have to assume a fatalistic position. Those without power have few options.  Their options boil down to grinning and bearing it, or finding a new job. Accepting a belief that you have little control over how you will work (and what you will do) depresses engagement. The ability to change jobs is not always an option. In the example mentioned above, I spent seven years looking for another job. The arrangement was soul-sucking; however, there were few options.

Fatalism surpresses engagement and innovation. As agilists, we believe in continuous process improvement. Consider the outcomes of retrospectives or operations reviews in which the people involved don’t believe they have the authority to address problems that beset them. The retrospective feedback loop will have little to no value. Teams will go through more motions to avoid punishment or they will abandon the process. 

I don’t believe there is a magic wand that will make the positive and negative impacts of privilege go away. I have come to the conclusion that much of this is basic human nature. As a coach, Scrum Master, or any other leader your mission is to dampen the effect of privilege that reduces engagement and innovation. This means using our privilege to push back on privilege in order to build a bubble of engagement and innovation.