Coaching Rotten Apples?

As an Agile coach, it is too part of our exercises to identify the bad apples from the team.

If we have to establish a high-performance agile team, we require to work out this exercise. It is not only reporting manager jobs, you as a coach desire to support the manager to surmount this crisis.

How can we help the bad apples so that other apples also do get rotten!

Else all the coaching efforts will go in vain!

We have to rapidly stop bleeding to recover the team!

As the traditional maxim goes, one bad apple can spoil the whole barrel

It merely takes one “rotten apple” to influence employee engagement across your whole business. If you place one bad apple with other few good apples, it has been discovered over a period of a timeline all apples will be started becoming bad! It is an absolutely genuine fact.

First, identify those bad apples, there is a diverse school of opinion suggesting, there is no bad apple, it is the only circumstance which creates those bad apples, once you alter the condition they will spiral into a Good apple.

As a coach, we need to understand all the circumstances which induce those. It is part of the assessment and we are liable to turn a team into a high-performance team. Also a part of change management activities.

a) Find the individuals who spend most of the time complaining about the system. Whenever they comment, it commences with a complaint. Looks for the evidence if he/she has done anything to alter the situation. Or just grievance!

A recent study organized by the University of Washington Business School examines just how much damage one bad apple can inflict. The study, published in Research in Organizational Behavior, reveals that in the presence of bad apples individuals aren’t as willing to handle problems that arise, don’t communicate with one another, and generally stop functioning as a team—not a great recipe for high performance and productivity.

Let us find if such bad apples are not passing from one team to others

b) Need to coach those Bad apples. Emphasize and try to understand what kind of challenges those individuals are dealing with. Talk to the reporting manager about the strength and weaknesses of those individuals. Need to observe them thoughtfully and ask managers to talk periodically about those individuals. Provide feedback for the progress.

c) Most of the time those individuals are street smart individuals. They know extremely well how to play the game in the system. Dialogue and agreement with such individuals have to be recorded and set the expectation very precisely. Measure the outcome based on their contribution. Need to involve reporting managers in any such arrangement and improvement plan. The goal has to be SMART and evaluate with the right feedback for such individuals.

d) Those individuals have not polished themselves to stay relevant with the modern technology trend. To come out of the inability they will try to distract the attention or discussion in some other way. A coach needs to talk to those individuals structurally. Need to convey what they can contribute in 6 months and a 1-year timeline to upgrade their knowledge gaps. Coach them and update their reporting managers.

e) Those individuals(Bad Apples) due to some reason have forgotten the passion, aspiration to establish something significant. As a result, they are not capable to match the expectations organizations are demanding from them. Some way the innovation speed has diminished a contribution has come down. They have to rekindle the fire within themselves to create something worth it. Need to understand their world and point out the modern way of thinking so that they can become self-driven to rehabilitate their world.

f) Communicate to their Manager, sometimes, the ecosystem push to those team members to move to this Bad apple state. Understand what action Mangers are performing for those team members. Observe the manager’s management style and look for opportunities if we can help those managers to modify some of their styles which is not aligning with Mentoring, supporting, coaching style of leadership.

g) Coach other good apples to help the bad apples in all the desirable ways. There could be a timeline for those bad apples to turn into Good apple. Organizations can assure that there is enough support system in place, by using these approaches a Bad apple can turn into a good apple. All the other team members require to serve those bad apples by coaching, mentoring, and training based on their capacity. The coach and Reporting manager can discuss and measure improvement and progress.

h) Most of the time, bad apples will not walk the talk. These are truly typical symptoms. They will talk loud and tall. But their contribution is absolutely minimal. It takes courage and wisdom to catch hold of such individuals. As a coach, we do not stand for any such confusion. Looks for improvement, contribution, and the impact they are making month on month. Regularly update their reporting manager regarding the action you are taking for those bad apples. How those individuals are performing in their day to day progress.

i) Look for the cues from the team members, who are not taking many activities, watch for the individuals who are having maximum excuses most of the time, Looks for the individuals who are not able to accomplish their activities most of the time and what reason, look for the individuals in the meeting says many different ideas but not able to contributes as the expected level, talk to the team members. These are clues where we can make out who are the bad apples. They are great manipulators so search for those clues and reach the bad apples to diminish the damage rapidly.

I am sure you are also coming across such individuals, Let us all find those and help the organization to be a better place to work for. One day those apples will turn into a good one.

When Fear kills our Creativity?

Creativity is an art of thinking, analyzing, and carrying out ideas in an exceptional manner.

In neuroscience, scientists have discovered substantial evidence that when individuals live in fear, most of their potential creative energy is usually diverted to dealing with this fear.

Dr. Will Schutz, a renowned psychologist, and pioneer of the human potential movement believed that fear is the biggest block to creativity.

Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love says that “Fear and creativity are conjoined twins. What holds people back from being creative is that in order to murder the fear, they end up killing off the creativity as well.”

An environment which is more encouraging, more optimistic flourish greatly with fresh ideas and solutions. People, where they can freely experiment, express an exchange, can contribute more new ideas.

Creating a better work ambient when we have leaders who protect individuals, who guide, multiply rapidly.

Let us call everything which could be tagged as a failure into an “Experiment”.

Why, to tagged them as a Failure, tagged those individuals as Idiots!

Our brain always designs to escape uncertainty and ambiguity. Brains want to be in a relaxed place. But the outstanding innovation takes place when we embrace the unknown. The people surrounding us require to support us to embrace this uncomfortableness, then fear from the brain will diminish and fresh ideas will come out.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” - Albert Einstein.

Our surrounding people when they criticize, when we fail, our fear increases. Next moment we will be cautious more not to try something fresh. Not to share publicly. Criticism goes inside at a deeper level and comes back very hard whenever we are investigating something fresh and original. The brain loves to embrace negativity. How can we stop criticizing and look for opportunities in misfortune?

Franklin D. Roosevelt reminds us:

“Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” - Joseph Chilton Pierce

We recognize that how people being tagged us quickly when we make anything silly. It takes great courage to stand tall when something is ruined. It demands good team support and organizational support to proceed when an organization gets into the fault-finding approach, blame game mode, we surrender our best creative capabilities.

“Fail, fail again, fail better.” Those are the words of Samuel Beckett, the Nobel Prize winner for Literature when asked what was the secret to being creative.

Leaders need to safeguard employee emotional safety when something does not work well. Team members also require to collaborate to assure each other emotionally.

Creativity is a multifaceted construct, in which different moods influence distinct components of creative thoughts (Kaufmann, 2003)

How well our ambient inspire us to perform better ways of dealing with something? Imagine, all your surrounding team members are full of toxic thought, backbiting, what will be the quality of product innovation! we all desire to work on this to establish a healthy team culture of innovation, when we regularly do fun and ensure we do not hurt anyone emotionally we are moving in the appropriate direction.

The writer Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, “We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”

Let us build up our creative element by getting rid of those fears from all possible ways, let us aid each other to develop into creative.

As a coach are you striving for all these by eliminating fear from the system. Coach the leader to assure that they constitute a fear-free ambient for better creativity.

In my book, The Scrum Master Guidebook, I have one chapter on creativity development.

Coaching to promote customer centricity at the team level?

A number of years ago, Deloitte and Touche organized a critical study on the financial merits of being customer-centric. The study found that customer-centric companies were

60% more profitable

2X as likely to exceed return-on-shareholder equity and

Twice as likely to exceed goals for pre-tax returns on assets, sales growth, and market share compared to their less custom-centric counterparts.

86% of customers are willing to pay more for better customer experience. (CEI Survey)

The team should be capable to deliver end to end customer value.

Look for any opportunity to knock out any silos as a coach you discover at the team level.

Team members will explain or indicate incompetence to resolve some of these silos. Take help from the leadership team to get rid of systematic issues to eliminate silos which can weaken customer-centricity and preventing better customer satisfaction.

“Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You’d be amazed at how many companies don’t listen to their customers.”

– Ross Perot, American Business Magnate

Every team members require to understand, compose, and visualize the customer journey map. They require to be trained and communicate about the end to end customer pain point discovery. Look for an opportunity if there anything which is not customer-centered. No half-baked food for end users. Everything should be an end to end consumable perspective.

Look for the process and practices which do not facilitate the fastest customer satisfaction. Looks for technologies and platforms, how effectively those are utilized for full customer satisfaction. Use technology to bridge the gap if there are any, in customer end to end journey map.

“Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.” – Simon Sinek

At the team level and organization level, the universal ground rule for customer service was drafted and regularly upgraded the same.

Look for competency at the team level if there are sufficient skill and proficiency available at the team level to comply with the end to end customer demand fulfillment point of view.

Anticipate customer’s needs well forwards so that team can be ready with the contribution.

“The most valuable resource you can give customers is your time. Listen to them to uncover their real needs. Only then can you find a way to solve their problems or meet their expectations. Treat the cause, not just the symptoms.” – Ginger Conlon

Team members should be passionate about the customer-first approach. If there are any inconsistencies, talk about those in a retrospective meeting. Collect the feedback from customers and work on those. A customer-focused approach may use A/B testing to understand what ads resonate most with customers.

Train team members on customer relationships build skill, esp empathy, listening skills with perfect communication skills.

Establish a co-creation and collaboration platform with customers. The end offers will be with the appropriate alignment when we join hands together with the customer.

Have a monitor and analysis system about the customer movement for your offerings and solutions. Use the data analytics to measure how well the customer is hooked for your product and solution.

“If we consistently exceed the expectations of employees, they will consistently exceed the expectations of our customers.” – Shep Hyken

Build a customer experience strategy. Your team members should continuously work on that strategy to make it polished and enhanced.

Reward your team members on better customer service. Make it a culture in your team.

Always accessible to the customer so that you can understand their pain and their world better. You various survey to retrieve their concern and needs. The frequent in-person meet will help to know and connect with them better.

Ensure all the customer touchpoint tools are in place and easy to use. End users should be able to connect at lightning speed, and you need a resilient system to fix any concern.

Frequently collect NPS score and study what is missing

Create innovative thinking to deal with customer issues or any pain point. Reward team members on unique ideas suggested in this regard.

“Loyal customers, they don’t just come back, they don’t simply recommend you, they insist that their friends do business with you.” – Chip Bell