Focus on People?



As a Coach, I often am asked to help improve an organization. But most of the time I am asked to focus on the delivery of work and how to improve that. As I work with teams to help them improve patterns and practice utilizing an agile mindset I find myself wondering if I help make improvements.

Often, I observe the teams don’t like to communicate and creating an environment of safety it feels a lot more fearful of speaking one’s mind and coming from a good place. I struggle with the way transformation is initiated and the true goals of why companies feel that Agile is the path forward.

I like to approach transformation utilizing Koter and think it’s important to define what Agile means for a company and how they define it. How do you measure agility? How do you know if you are heading in the right direction? What does an organization believe are the indicators for better working patterns?

If we start to invest in people and not just focus on output will that improve quality and speed to market? In my mind, I believe it will. Invest in people and create an environment of safety and creativity and empower your people to think. When talking it’s amazing the different reaction you get if you smile when you speak to people and get them invested in their own learning path. Why is this such a hard concept to foster? Is it due to years of managers managing work and not people? Is it tied to not having a flat organization and too much is tied to financial goals?

Do companies even see this as a benefit and or even care? How do you define value with out having to figure out the ROI and or financial goal tied to it? Is this just too abstract of a concept and not worth it? Could we focus on building schools of learning and not prisons of process?

As Coaches do we spend enough time working on changing social patterns and behavior or to much time teaching Agile and not people. Could we focus more on the teaching of Maxwell, Ziglar, and Sinek and open the mind of an organization around being leaders and building people or is there just not seen value in doing so.

What do you think about this thought process?

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