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In my 25-year technical training and coaching practice, there’s one factor that causes most of the pain, slowdowns, and failures we encounter.
it’s not what you think. It’s not about people being lazy. It’s not about bureaucracy. It’s not bad communications or lack of resources. All those problems are workaround-able. The problem you have that’s much harder to address Is people’s need for certainty and safety.
Our need for certainty and safety runs deep. We’re programmed to not do things that endanger our existence or well-being. Even an infant who is initially be very eager to try new things and explore will become hesitant after learning a painful lesson. But as adults, our psychology sometimes gets the better of us and we become too hesitant. We learn that safety is important – that stability is a good thing. And if a little bit of protection and safety is good, then even more must be better.
At this point, we’ve imprinted a need for certainty and safety so strong – that it works against us.
For some, it’s become an addiction. There are those who tremble and sweat and freak out if they must do something new, uncertain, or unsafe.
All of us experience it to some degree. Of course, part of the problem is that most threats we experience in our daily work or creative life are not existential threats. The same extreme reaction is not warranted. But still, we meet people every day who want to do things “the way they’ve always done them “or do things the long way, or spend more time preparing, studying, or contemplating than necessary. In the extreme, this prevents people from ever doing any real work.
Moving in the face of uncertainty creates absolute state change. We simply don’t want to put the important stuff out there where others can criticize it, de-stabilize it, or perhaps even see it.
If you think of it that way, you can teach people agile all day long. You can give them processes. You can post internet memes. You can pat them on the shoulder. But if they’re not ready to move, they won’t move. They’ll still do a lot of work which creates the illusion that things are happening, when in fact, they’re standing still. And sometimes even reversing course. As an Agile leader, your biggest job has nothing to do with your technical knowledge, but your ability to persuade. To see into people, understand where they’re coming from, and coach them to different behaviours, different outcomes. This is what most agile training process and conversation fails to get
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