A Day of an Agile coach

I am an agile coach, How my day looks like? 

My primary task is to entail implementing the Agile process, principles, and practices across all levels and departments in an organization. 

As an Agile Coach, I must apply techniques that enhance collaboration, predictability, transparency and improve a culture of experimentation and innovation. 

In order to accomplish this, the Agile Coach must also incorporate the Agile principles and lead by example.

Wait, I have been an agile coach for the last 7 years, and there are a plenty of developments in my days during my years and type of engagement. Most of the days are more or less the same with variation, with engagement. 

The tasks are distributed and deliberately plan to accomplish the overall objective.

Always there is a time crunch!!

When I was a Team level Agile coach:

• When I was a team level coach, I had 3-4 teams to coach for Agile Transformation. My day used to spread with numerous activities like below.
• What I used to coach, I used to ensure, Agile mindset and agile ways of being embraced by the team members.
• What was the typical engagement cycle time? it was for 7-9 members scrum teams; it was 6-9 months engagement.

What did I use to do?

Since morning, I would be in discussion with all the 4-5 teams.

• I used to prepare a plan on which team to approach, on which day in a week and how long(1-2 hrs max).
• I used to coach on all aspects of Scrum, Lean, and Kanban practices.
• I used to engage in all their events ( In rotation to deal with all the team members)
• I used to take based on the need for numerous training for the team.
• I used to speak one to one with SM or PO or Leaders.
• I used to work with SM on Tools they were using to mentor them on tool usages and how to interpret the data for advancement.
• I used to facilitate initially many scrum events and ensure, I let them drive those after a particular month.
• I used to connect team members among these 4-5 teams where I was engaged for lesson learned sharing
• Most of my days I used to figure out about these teams( Coaching journal preparation for reflection), each individual, their behavior exchange, etc.
• I used to present team progress in numerous executive meetings and report about the hurdles and requests for aid.
• I used to connect with the business for the Business team members coaching. 
• I used to Assess the Scrum Maturity of the team and organization and coaching to higher levels of maturity.

More or less every day, this is the routine for several months for an Team coach. 

Challenges:

• Devoting time to all the teams.
• The numerous types of individuals and various levels of maturity to handle at the same time.
• Leaders expect the miracle to appear at the fastest timeline

When I was an enterprise coach my days looks a bit different. 

When I was a more on enterprise coach, I managed to have only 1-2 teams to coach.

How was the routine day looks like?

• Team coaching was like a usual mentioned above, around 20-30% of the time in a day based on the other engagement.
• The nature of the teams was unique, we used to pick up most of the teams where teams are dealing with high ambiguity and complication.
• 40-60% of the time, I used to look beyond team coaching in a day for diverse organizational agile transformation activities.

What are those?

• I used to engage for report preparation for Agile transformation for the business line/department, which I was answerable for. We used to prepare and present the Agile transformation progress report to senior executives. Define, publish and educate the organization on key metrics that show the progress of the transformation effort.
• I used to attend weekly stand-ups with business leaders for the business line where I was answerable for the business line agile transformation and communicate to the other team level coaches about the development and challenges.
• I used to work for Scaling agile if there are any needs. This calls for an abundance of time for conversation, collaboration for multiple teams. If such an obligation appears, most of the time of the days work there.
• I used to participate in several Training curriculum preparations. We used to prepare the game for the workshop. We used to strengthen the training agenda for 1 day or 2 days’ duration. With other coaches, we used to dry run that curriculum and execute those training.
• I used to engage for Community contribution example scrum master community and PO community. We used to design and examined with the community members what should be the theme and conversation topics.
• I used to arrange for a coaching clinic and coaching dojo for mid-managers. We used to reviewed and chalk out a plan for how the drive will be and what will be the outcome.
• I was a coaching community member, debate about the organizational impediments and what can be worked out to eliminate those. Each business line coaches used to serve each other by contributing to each other’s area.
• If there is a foreign visit, we used to prepare the agenda and present the topics and learn from each other. Every quarter there is a coach exchange from each alternative location to understand cultural exchange and learning.
• We used to spend some time for ourselves as a coach in the book club, coaching kata session.
• Organizational assets creation e.g checklist,template,models etc
• We used to prepare for Agile day in the organization; it takes several months of preparation to drive for the agile day.

We were invariably busy all the time!

More or less every day, these are the routine tasks for every year for an Enterprise Agile coach. Once I look at my Monday to Friday calendar, one of the other tasks from the above will reflect.

Challenges:

• Making time for all these organization initiatives.
• Managing ad-hoc request for help from strangers!
• Department level hurdles removal which appeals for structural modifications, silos ways of functioning, dealing with org resistance.
• Collaboration with numerous stakeholders and escalations.
• Our own motivation!

Blindspot to Brightspot

There are things about ourselves that we are not aware of. That’s why we call them blind spots.

When a person is driving, he or she has rear view and side mirrors to guide him or her. However, there will always be blind spots, or parts of the car by which the driver cannot see. We can never know what we look like without a mirror.

Our eyes are incapable of it, but other people can see us well. Even though we are unaware, the blind spot section harbors habits, preferences, dislikes, prejudices, and other things that are only obvious from a third-person perspective.

We all have such blind spots, and they are weaknesses we should fight.

Leonardo da Vinci said, “The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.”

Our blind spots are the inner-space from where we operate. Some claim it the “inner bias;” deep inside, we might refuse to accept what we don’t admire (but know) about ourselves.

Our blind spots exist at the junction of how we identify ourselves and how others identify us.

Most blind spots are based on assumptions.

I have been employing the below approach for a long time to identify my blind spots.

I asked the below questions.

• How often I share with other individuals? Self-disclosure about myself.
• How well others (seek to) know me.
• How strongly I know about myself.
• What assumptions am I making? that I’m not conscious I’m making, that gives me what I see?
• What are my assumptions while creating the decision?
• What is my emotional Blindspot’s? am I conscious of how I am dealing with my emotions?
• What are my biases esp confirmation biases, am I aware?
• How well I am taking feedback? Am I asking enough individuals to inform me about myself? am I entertaining those to instruct me more? 
• Am I welcoming all types of feedback about me?
• Am I stuck with an old way of thinking? what others are thinking about me?

To discover more about my blindspot, I keep asking all my colleagues.

• WHERE to know the fact–Feedback from others about me?
• WHO to obtain feedback from- Desire to identify those individuals.
• HOW to hear feedback from honest individuals.
• What do I work out with the observation - take action?

I ask my colleagues to give me more insight about myself related to 

• What do you value about our relationship?
• What do you think my top three qualities are?
• What would you say I’m passionate about?

Once they share the feedback, reflect on these answers, ask multiple individuals and compare and take action to improve.

What are you doing to move from Blindspot to Brighspot(Open/Knowledge)?

Learning from Grit Leaders!

Duckworth, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and a MacArthur “Genius” professor, devoted years studying what it takes to be successful. In her recent book, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,” she explains that talent alone isn’t enough; you also have to have grit — a mental toughness that helps you persevere even in the face of obstacles.

“grit”? It’s a conversational expression, but it’s also a concept that psychologists have found to be linked to the way that some people continue their effort over time, even when obstacles slow them down.

The qualities Duckworth studies are partly about staying on your path despite setbacks, and resisting distractions: adaptability is good, but if you change your interests so often that nothing gets finished, you’re not really advancing. As she observes, you may need to be flexible, but “you also have to be good at something.” That something needs to be a “long-term passion” to be rewarding; if you find it, your focus will keep you motivated.

She explains that finding with this formula:

TALENT x EFFORT = SKILL

SKILL x EFFORT = ACHIEVEMENT

You won’t succeed in life if you don’t remain on a path you’ve chosen, regardless of how difficult and challenging the road becomes. Most individuals identify it crucial to keep up the hard work and require quick rewards. Long-term goals require time, patience, sacrifices and effort and you need to have the endurance to stay on the path. 

We had a team storytelling session with the leadership team, the theme is to share their life as a movie. They are the hero of the narrative and they need to explain since from their childhood to date. Ups and downs of the journey.

The purpose is to connect with the leadership team members. Understand and establish a deeper relationship among themselves.

Grit is the stubborn refusal to quit. — Jonah Lehrer

In a process, we discovered few of the team members have extraordinarily grit characteristics and they are nurturing those characteristics and continue to promote themselves in the corporate leadership position.

What can we pick up from their adventure?

Some of the team members who have exhibited significant grit in their story. 

Many of the team members shared that they have come from a faraway village, studied extremely hard in a severe situation. They did not have an adequate support system, but still, they have obtained whatever they could gain with limitation, they came to the downtown, tried many approaches to get the finest job. and they continue to demonstrate the same thing as today. They have dreams and persistence for a better life.

If you want to be a leader in an organization, occasionally that means taking calculated risks. You want members on your team who have ideas, won’t back down from a challenge, seek out fresh growth opportunities and produce plans to make it a reality.

They have shared many stories where they have failed many attempts to get selected in the job or various assignments but they bounce back again with fresh vitality. They were not perfect at first attempts, they are not smart at the first attempt, they are not right at first attempt but they keep on trying.

They are the individuals who have tried a distinct avenue to surmount challenges, they have proposed ideas and take action to alter the circumstances. we need staff members who are problem solvers and who are continually seeking for ways that processes can be enhanced. But more than that, we want to find individuals who will act on those ideas. And continue until their success.

They are the team members who are stick to the tasks regardless of the challenges. Staying on task can be demanding and is one of the biggest challenges that some individuals encounter. We need employees who can concentrate on projects for long periods of time and remain engaged throughout the entire process until it’s completed.

Most of these team have experienced from many pains, fear, and grief when I asked a few of them, most of these team members have a tale to tell, how they have experienced tough gift from destiny. Their experiences are rich in events. But today they are standing proudly to share those memories which they are proud of. 

They are committed and optimistic. They realize something beneficial will happen and they will surmount the present condition. They invariably use positive words in their conversation. They look for a ray of hope in crises.

They continue to demonstrate all these characteristics and I am honored to be working with them and learning from them.

Leaders, Do not tell us, Show us what to Change.

Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand - Chinese Proverb.

Why some of the transformation initiatives are not successful?

What I have been seen, the transformation roadmap steps have been developed somewhere in a close room in the headquarters with some great minds.

Now the same assumptions and directions have come to us with an instruction to enforce the same, What to do and how to go on?

We (The Agile coaches) have been asked to follow the order, and we have received the order to numerous departments and telling them to follow the order of transformation!

Workers with the (Business units) department are perplexed as some of the activities are not aligning with their ways of working or vision. We are also discovering the challenges! the close room designed plan is not matching in a specific context. Due to the cultural and Ego clash, individuals are not eager to acknowledge the mistake!

Leaders are pressuring why things are not progressing? by this time miracle should have taken place! Who to blame?

So they started searching for the scapegoats, someday, we got the scapegoat, some time execution process to be blamed for the transformation failure.

Few of the root cause we noticed, but headquarters are not granting us to deviate the path as they might have lost the power.

People tend to resists changes if those changes are thrust upon them.

Telling is like thrusting changes on them.

When we tell, the signals pass, this is the better way of doing, your current ways of working is incorrect. This provokes resistance in the mind as it hurts the self-esteem of the people who are working at the grass-root level.

The magnitude of resistance is expected to be inversely proportioned to our level of self-esteem.

It depends on how the team members at grass root level feel about themselves with the unique changes.

They essentially act in reaction, reactive thinking is most of the time due to low self-esteem.

The creative thinker does not resist changes.

So the telling approach will have tremendous resistance which leads to a lot of waste of time and energy.

So what do we do? A different approach. 

what is that?

How can we alter the telling to show? How can we change telling to involving?

Let us use lean thinking, where people who are with the system, they realize what changes we require. People in the team possess vast knowledge, wisdom, creativity, and energy. Best leaders access the wealth of experience and empower their people through the effective use of the questions.

Based on our experience what is functioning in the approach which are:

• When we tell people what to and how to do it, there is an inclination to resist.
• When ideas come from the people they will support it
• When we tell, it is giving the message that they are doing something which is wrong and they become more defensive.
• When we ask the team to provide input they get encouraged and they become more creative and they get in buy-in

For any such transformation change initiative, we first call for the workshop with all the team members. we do 1-2 days workshop to discover the problem and later we do a solution workshop.

Where we all together come out to figure out what best works for us.

We start the experiment and determine what is best applicable to our environment.

As an expert, we become mentors and facilitate the session.

Where ever require we do training, coaching and mentor the team member?

It works best as a team co-create the solutions.

I am sure you might have also experienced similar types of approach and with the design thinking approach, this has become much easier to implement and get the buy-in from the people easily.

Leaders, This is how you can aid your teams at this crisis time?

The true test of leadership does not take place when everything is smooth sailing. Rather, leadership is generally tested during a crisis. The way a leader behaves and functions during a crisis will establish their credentials as a reliable leader or a mediocre one.

Our inclination to panic in the face of uncertainty or the unpredictable is heightened when we face a crisis. 

Because of this, we might not be effective to communicate with others accordingly, and this can cause more panic and newer problems.

In the time of crises, our productivity goes down and creativity nosedives to bottom grade. 

There is no time for Leaders, who are frantic and disorganized. Without self-control, it is easy for Leaders to fall into the grip of panic and be at the mercy of their feelings. 

Leaders have to demonstrate strength and courage at crises so that he/she can stimulate others.

What leaders can do at this crisis time?

• Demonstrate Candor and confession.Be honest, listen to others, be open 
• Rapidly develop a remarkably accurate knowledge of the issues. This understanding further strengthens their capacity to explore the problem realistically.
• Leaders will be calm at crises time, they will demonstrate courage.
• Leaders act instantaneously, but they remain focused on the vision.
• During a crisis, everybody looks to a leader for the next step or for inspiration. 
• Leaders must continually revisit whether the strategies they have articulated are still relevant and adequate. If not come up with a new strategy to fit the situation.
• Influence and motivate others to maneuver the complex, interrelated strategies.
• Acknowledge the intensity of the crisis and concentrate on the next best arrangement.
• Build relationships and rely upon peers to share the burden together. Collaborate with many teams and ensure bonding.
• Leaders must facilitate a shared vision for what is needed throughout and watching the crisis.
• Emotions running high, with stress and fear being at the forefront. It is vital for a leader to hold control and check the panic from expanding.
• Optimism and positivism is the sign at this crises moment
• In the time of crises, leaders connect more with the employee, to identify what’s going on and how they can support.
• Leaders help with EQ development during crises. Better EQ helps us regulate our panic and reactions. EQ helps us understand others and support them to calm their panic.
• Leaders manage the relationship better in a crisis condition. During crisis time connect with the individuals to engage them, guide them, will encourage the team members.
• Leaders ensure negativity does not multiply during a crisis situation.
• Empathize more with the team members at the crises time. 
• Leaders admit the mistake and upgrade themselves, In the crisis time, leaders will create many resolutions but there will be a breakdown which they will accept and revise. 

There are many more which Leaders can demonstrate to the team members. In today's world, all of us are leaders and playing a leadership role at home and office at a different level.

Let us demonstrate the crisis leadership skill at this time. True-time to learn and show.

Please keep at if I have missed anything, my team members are asking how to demonstrate leadership at this crises time.

How to Pass communication for Change?

An elderly man lived with his four sons in a village.

The elderly man was disturbed.

The three sons were hard workers. But, they quarreled all the time.

He had tried telling them many times to avoid quarreling. But his sons would not listen to him.

The elderly man struggled a lot to unify them, but he failed.

He was pondering about what will happen to them after his death. All other individuals in the village were taking advantage of their quarreling. Though the villagers appreciated their hard work and efforts, they made fun of them in their fights.

The elderly man was constantly seeking this problem and solutions with many outstanding individuals in the village and figuring out how he should modify the mindset of these children. Nothing was working, all the techniques were failing.

One day, one monk offered him a recommendation that his communication style has to alter. The message was not traveling to a legitimate manner and he presented a structure to communicate with his children.

The elderly man planned to apply the techniques and miracle to arise.

Months passed by and the elderly man fell sick. He ordered his sons to remain united, but they didn’t listen to him.

One day, he called his four sons. He told all his sons that let us do an experiment. The sons were wondering what experiment they are going to do now. As their father kept trying many other experiments.

And again they started to quarrel among themselves as to who came first.

He gave them a small bundle of sticks and asked them to break the bundle into two. The bundle was made of four sticks. “It’s child’s play,” said the eldest son. He took the bundle and tried to break it. He was surprised that the sticks in the bundle remained intact. He used more force. He tried again and again. He started panting for breath. The bundle would not break. He gave up.

Then his brothers tried to break the bundle of four sticks without success.

Their father smiled and asked them to untie the bundle.

He asked each brother to take one stick and try to break it.

Each of the sons took a stick in hand. In no time, the sticks were bent and broken.

“A single stick is easily broken. If four sticks come together it is impossible to break them, But you keep quarreling, you will be broken by anyone” said the elderly man, giving his sons a meaningful look.

This time the lesson went home. The brothers stopped fighting each other. They would work together as a team and succeed in doing whatever work was given to them.

The four boys had discovered that unity is strength.

They have realized with the example as it was experiential and now they could able to change their mindset. 

The villagers also changed of their behavior based on the changed mindset of the sons.

The same structure should apply for the communication process to take any change initiatives.

If we have to pass the critical message it has to start with these techniques. As we know this story from this childhood, it is easy to follow these structures when we articulate critical messages and communicate.

Facilitator, watch out!! for all these event killers.

As a facilitator when we are facilitating critical debate, the demand to watch out below biases is high which prevails in any session.

In Complex product development, there are many events facilitator need to call to come out with a better outcome.

We have diversified team members joining from a diverse background.

We as a facilitator need to watch full and call out in the facilitating session about these biases when they take place.

Below Biases has to recognize in detail and as a facilitator, we require to study again and again and seek such occurrences in the workshop. We require to actively eliminate such bias from the meeting for a better outcome.

Scrum Master and Agile coaches facilitate many events, they desire to master the art of facilitation for whom they get paid for.

In our recent meeting of the waste identification process, we have come out with these biases is a mindset issue that needs to focus on. So particular consideration has to apply to such bias. It took 5-6 months to educate scrum masters and agile coaches to deliberate about such issues. More significant is the program, more events and better chances that we are blowing more meeting time with such biases.

let us have a look all these workshop killer mindset!

Hindsight Bias refers to the tendency people have to consider events as more predictable than they really are. Before an event takes place, while you might be able to offer a guess as to the outcome, there is really no way to actually know what’s going to happen. This is why it is often referred to as the “I knew it all along” phenomenon.

“If you feel like you knew it all along, it means you won’t stop to examine why something really happened,” “It’s often hard to convince seasoned decision-makers that they might fall prey to hindsight bias.”

Confirmation bias: A type of cognitive bias that involves favoring information that supports your already existing beliefs or biases. Confirmation biases impact how we collect information, but they also influence how we interpret and recall information. For example, people who support or oppose a specific issue will not only seek information to reinforce it, they will also interpret news stories in a way that upholds their existing ideas. They will also remember details in a way that reinforces these attitudes.

Outcome bias is a cognitive bias that enables us to judge our decision making based on the results of the process rather than the quality of the process itself. It’s crucial for us to be truly critical in the way we evaluate our actions. Instead of concentrating on outcomes, we need to focus on the process as a whole. Outcome bias is a problem because it leads us to repeat poor decision making based on outcomes rather than on the process used to gain the outcome. 

The planning fallacy is one of the most ubiquitous and frequently demonstrated cognitive biases that people have. If you’ve ever underestimated how much time you would require to complete a project you’re working on or finish packing before going on a trip, then you have been subject to the planning fallacy. This prevalent misconception refers to one’s tendency to underestimate the time, cost, and risk it will take them to do something, even if they already have the past knowledge of exactly what the task entails. It represents overly optimistic plans that are unreasonably close to the best-case scenario.

The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, communicating with other individuals, unknowingly assumes that the others have the background to understand. This bias is also called by some authors the curse of expertise. The curse of knowledge is real and can happen to us all. Fortunately, your team can avoid this dangerous mistake with a little awareness and a lot of focus on your team members.

Once we successfully correct ourselves and enable others to do the same, our effectiveness from the meeting will be meaningful

How to Construct Department Culture?

A Google search for “company culture” turns up over 290,000,000 hits in a fraction of a second, picking up headlines from Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and other business publications.

Why does culture gain so high demand? Because it’s extremely relevant, usually misinterpreted, and influences employee engagement—all of which finally alter financial achievement. 

What are the parts of the Department culture? what is the DNA of the culture that should consist of?

Culture is based on shared attitudes, beliefs, customs, and written and unwritten rules that have been developed over time and are considered valid (The Business Dictionary).

Culture also includes the organization’s vision, values, norms, systems, symbols, language, assumptions, beliefs, and habits (Needle, 2004).

The vital few parts of the culture of the DNA are Purpose, Vision, Mission, and Values.

How to establish Department Purpose:

Let us seek a few questions and fill the message.

Why does our Department exist?

What significant role does our Department play for society?

What do we add that is special or unique relative to the other players in the industry?

Who are we relevant to and what do they expect of us?

What would these individuals lose or miss out on if we didn’t exist?

How can we illustrate this complex combination without setting unrealistic expectations?

How to establish Department Vision:

Let us seek a few questions and fill the message.

• What problem does our Department pursue to solve?
• Why do we believe this problem requires to be focused on?
• Does this problem matter to other individuals?
• Do we truly believe we have the answer to that problem? 
• Are there changes we believe our Department can create?
• What are the greatest strengths of our Department?
• What is our dream for this Department?

How to establish Department Mission:

Let us seek a few questions and fill the message.

• Customers. Who are our customers? How do we assist them?
• Products or services. What are the main products or services that we offer? Their uniqueness?
• Markets. In which geographical markets do we operate?
• Technology. What is the firm’s basic technology?
• Consideration for endurance. Is the department devoted to growth and financial soundness?
• Philosophy. What are the primary beliefs, values, and ideologies that guide a Department?
• Self-concept. What are the Department’s strengths, capabilities or competitive positions?
• Consideration for community appearance. Is the Department socially responsible and environmentally beneficial?

Department Value:

Let us seek a few questions and fill the message.

At the center of the Department, cultures are generally shared values.

• Does meeting a project deadline take preference over delivering outstanding performance?
• Is a 10-hour company workday more meaningful to us than happy team members?
• In what cases will we say ‘no’ to a customer or turn down a prospect?
• In what situations is it okay to sacrifice family time for duty?
• What is one high standard we wouldn’t sacrifice for anything?
• What draws us to this organization?
• What drives our workplace culture unique?
• What do we do better than anybody else?
• What should we do better than anybody else?

All these questions will enable us to design our department culture. It is time-consuming to alter department culture, but it is possible. A company that doesn’t understand its own culture is like a individual without an identity. To encourage change and positive growth, the first step is to analyze the existing culture and start a well-planned change management process.

Reinforcement: A powerful tool for every Leader.

The term reinforce means to strengthen.

Reinforcement is one of the dominant tools for coaches to apply.

All the coaches can apply this tool to handle the mindset change or behavior changes to team members. 

How do we implement this?

Anything stimulus which strengthens or increases the probability of a definitive response.

Reinforcement is anything that, when it adheres to a behavior, tends to strengthen (or weaken) that behavior.

For this to use, we have to observe carefully which behavior we can transform by raising something and dropping something. You may be incorrect also as we as an individuals, we are not consistent to demonstrate our same behavior.

Look for a behavior pattern. If you choose to identify a behavior that you are looking for, stimulate so that a person repeats the behavior so that you can be certain that behavior you prefer to alter.

My son always chooses to play a video game on any device. He is extremely addictive and not ready to get rid of this addiction. When he got the device, he looks for the opportunity to grab the device to play the game. Once nobody is around, he will repeat this behavior further. If you ask if he has played, he will say no, “I do not want to play!”. But in his mind, he invariably chooses to play. We choose to alter this behavior. If we let him alone he will constantly play, so we never let him alone, One of the other people always be with him. Loneliness is the stimulus for him, which we choose to cut, to weaken this behavior. He is so addictive once he identifies the stimuli he exhibits the behavior.

Most of the time reward him when he does not play a video game because. With this reinforcement, we choose to increase the probability that the same response will be repeated.

There are two types of reinforcement, known as positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement; positive is whereby a reward is offered on the expression of the wanted behavior and negative is taking away an undesirable element in the person-environment whenever the desired behavior is achieved.

We implemented both to adjust my son’s behavior. Positive reinforcement weakens a response by presenting something unpleasant after the response, whereas negative reinforcement weakens a response by reducing or removing something pleasant. When my kid plays the video game after saying not to play, then we lock the devices from him for a couple of days. This is negative reinforcement. 

Punishment refers to adding something aversive in order to decrease a behavior. Sometimes we have to scold my kid when he plays for beyond stipulated time or play by stealing. Punishment is different from negative reinforcement

Reinforcement occurs only if there is an observable strengthening in behavior. Punishment, when applied immediately adhering to the negative behavior, can be effective but results in extinction when it is not applied regularly. Punishment can again invoke other negative responses such as anger and resentment. Which happens most of the time with my kid!

Timing is central in the utilization of reinforcement, and poorly timed rewards or punishments can inadvertently strengthen unwanted behavior patterns. A schedule of reinforcement is essentially a rule specifying which examples of behavior will be reinforced. 

In continuous reinforcement, the desired behavior is reinforced every particular time it occurs. This schedule is best used during the initial stages of learning to construct a solid association between the behavior and response.

Once the response if firmly built, a continuous reinforcement schedule is normally switched to a partial reinforcement schedule.

There are four schedules of partial reinforcement:

Fixed Ratio In a fixed ratio schedule, positive reinforcement is applied on every nth iteration of the desired behavior.

Variable Ratio In a variable ratio schedule, positive reinforcement can be applied in an unpredictable ratio, given an average n.

Fixed Interval Rewards are time-based in a fixed interval schedule. A reward is given after a consistently set period that the person worked or produced the target behavior.

Variable Interval: A variable interval schedule occurs when you provide reinforcement at irregular periods, and the person has no idea about the schedule.

In Applied Behavior Analysis, the Premack principle is frequently known as “grandma’s rule,” which describes that making the opportunity to engage in high-frequency behavior contingent upon the occurrence of low-frequency behavior will function as a reinforce for the low-frequency behavior.

For example, to encourage a child who prefers chocolate candy to eat vegetables (low-frequency behavior), the behaviorist would want to make access to eating chocolate candy (high-frequency behavior) contingent upon consuming the vegetables (low-frequency behavior). In this example, the statement would be, “first eat all of your vegetables; then you can have one chocolate candy.”Leaders can apply the Premack principle organizationally.

Emotional Intelligence Test for Leaders

As a part of the leadership curriculum program exercise, we have given this assignment to all the leaders, and it is an individual exercise where leaders need to pick up on their own. They do not have to share this with others.

This assessment is developed by based on information in Goleman, D. Working with Emotional Intelligence (New York: Bantam Books, 1998); MOSAIC competencies for professional and administrative occupations (U.S. Office of Personnel Management); Rosier, R. H. (ed.), The Competency Model Handbook, Volumes One and Two (Boston: Linkage, 1994; 1995).

We have given this assessment file to all the leaders and suggest them to fill and retrospect. We also have undergone this assessment for ourselves and continue using our own improvement.

We have challenged them based on the rate they have obtained what action they would want to take to enhance the area. We want them to make plan, start practicing its steps and change how they act.

We have challenged them as a leader all these areas essential and demand to work out to improve the current state.

We have requested them to do this exercise regularly and investigate if this score has any impact based on the action they are taking on a periodic basis. Leaders who are dealing with large size team, the more vigorous action, those leaders need to be to focus on if their scores are low.

We expected them to enhance their rate in months to come by. 

We also demanded all these leaders to endorse these factors on their leadership role and cultivated.

Once they advanced we expect them to support others again to improve these areas.

Those with higher scores in each category, and overall, demonstrate more of the characteristics associated with high emotional intelligence.

Some things we can keep in mind as we focus on developing your EQ:

• Maintain a diary to record our behavior and progress.

• Solicit support from friends, colleagues, and coaches.

• Work on dealing with our temper and our moods; stay composed, positive, and judicious when dealing with challenging conditions.

• Remain faithful to our comments and responsibilities.

• Establish relationships and a wide network.

• Practice active listening and pay attention to those around us.

The assessment consists of below areas.

We need to answer Yes - 1 and No - 0 for each questions

Self-awareness: ___________ out of 8

Managing emotions and self-regulation: ___________ out of 9

Self-motivation: ___________ out of 9

Empathy for others: ___________ out of 9

Social skills: ___________ out of 15

Overall total: ___________ out of 50

Self-Awareness: - KNOWING WHAT WE ARE FEELING IN THE MOMENT AND USING THOSE PREFERENCES TO GUIDE OUR DECISION MAKING

1. I am aware of how I feel and why. ( Yes/No)
2. I understand how my feelings affect my behavior and my performance. ( Yes/No)
3. I have a good idea of my personal strengths and weaknesses.( Yes/No)
4. I analyze things that happen to me and reflect on what happened.( Yes/No)
5. I am open to feedback from others.( Yes/No)
6. I look for opportunities to learn more about myself.( Yes/No)
7. I put my mistakes in perspective.( Yes/No)
8. I maintain a sense of humor and can laugh about my mistakes.( Yes/No)

Managing Emotions and Self-Regulation: - HANDLING OUR EMOTIONS SO THAT THEY FACILITATE RATHER THAN INTERFERE WITH THE TASK AT HAND, BEING CONSCIOUS

1. I can stay calm in times of crisis.( Yes/No)
2. I think clearly and stay focused when under pressure.( Yes/No)
3. I show integrity in all my actions.( Yes/No)
4. People can depend on my word.( Yes/No)
5. I readily admit my mistakes.( Yes/No)
6. I confront the unethical actions of others.( Yes/No)
7. I stand for what I believe in.( Yes/No)
8. I handle change well and stay the course.( Yes/No)
9. I can be flexible when facing obstacles.( Yes/No)

Self-Motivation:- USING OUR DEEPEST PREFERENCES TO MOVE AND GUIDE US TOWARDS OUR GOALS, TO HELP US TO TAKE INITIATIVE AND STRIVE TO IMPROVE

1. I set challenging goals.( Yes/No)
2. I take reasonable and measured risks to achieve my goals.( Yes/No)
3. I am results oriented.( Yes/No)
4. I look for information on how to achieve my goals and improve my performance. ( Yes/No)
5. I go above and beyond what is simply required of me.( Yes/No)
6. I am always looking for opportunities to do new things.( Yes/No)
7. I maintain a positive attitude even when I face obstacles and setbacks.( Yes/No)
8. I focus on success rather than failure.( Yes/No)
9. I don’t take failure personally or blame myself too much.( Yes/No)

Empathy for Others: - SENSING WHAT PEOPLE ARE FEELING, BEING ABLE TO TAKING THEIR PERSPECTIVE AND CULTIVATING RAPPORT AND ATTUNEMENT WITH BROAD DIVERSITY OF PEOPLE

1. I pay attention to how others feel and react.( Yes/No)
2. I can see someone else’s point of view, even when I don’t agree with them.( Yes/No)
3. I am sensitive to other people.( Yes/No)
4. I offer feedback and try to help others achieve their goals.( Yes/No)
5. I recognize and reward others for their accomplishments.( Yes/No)
6. I am available to coach and mentor people.( Yes/No)
7. I respect people from varied backgrounds.( Yes/No)
8. I relate well to people who are different from me.( Yes/No)
9. I challenge intolerance, bias, and discrimination in others.( Yes/No)

Social Skills: - ACCURATELY READING SOCIAL SITUATIONS AND NETWORK, INTERACTING SMOOTHLY, USING THESE SKILLS TO PERSUADE AND LEAD

1. I am skilled at persuading others.( Yes/No)
2. I can communicate clearly and effectively( Yes/No)
3. I am a good listener.( Yes/No)
4. I can accept bad as well as good news.( Yes/No)
5. I can share my vision with others and inspire them to follow my lead.( Yes/No)
6. I lead by example.( Yes/No)
7. I challenge the status quo when necessary.( Yes/No)
8. I can handle difficult people tactfully.( Yes/No)
9. I encourage open and professional discussions when there are disagreements.( Yes/No)
10. I look for win-win solutions.( Yes/No)
11. I build and maintain relationships with others.( Yes/No)
12. I help maintain a positive climate at work.( Yes/No)
13. I model team qualities such as respect, helpfulness, and cooperation.( Yes/No)
14. I encourage participation from everyone when I work in teams.( Yes/No)
15. I understand political forces that operate in organizations.( Yes/No)

To the degree that our emotions get in the way of or enhance our ability to think and plan, to pursue training for a distant goal, to solve problems and the like, they define the limits of our capacity to use our innate mental abilities and to determine how we do in life.

And to the degree to which we are motivated by feelings of enthusiasm and pleasure in what we do or even by an optimal degree of anxiety - they propel is to accomplishment.

It is in this sense that emotional intelligence is a master aptitude, a capacity that profoundly affects all other abilities, either facilitating or interfering with them. - Daniel Goleman

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Happy Message to distribute with you! My dear readers, based on your appeal and popular demands for The Scrum Master Guidebook, the publisher is offering a 25% discount on The Scrum Master Guidebook for the month of March. It will be applicable solely for the initial 10 coupons. The discount coupon code is "GUIDEBOOKSM". Please apply this coupon code and valid when purchased solely from the Notion Press Website. Please accept this benefit before it finished.

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Product Owners are you pursuing Covey’s habit no 2?

Why should I? PO was speaking 

I answered, let us chat about this habit if you discover it advantageous you may start to apply this for your own aid.

Coach, please spell out this Covey's Habit 2 to me, I have read it but how to employ the same in my Digital transformation program?

What is Habit Two?

Begin with the end in mind

Let’s illustrate it

This habit is all about identifying your purpose and what you’re seeking to accomplish.

What does it mean?

Beginning with the end in mind is all about asking yourself questions to verify your objectives and the reasons behind choosing to obtain them.

What is the purpose of what I’m seeking to accomplish?

What outcomes do I choose?

Why are these outcomes important/valuable?

Why it is essential for the PO:

It’s based on the principle that things are created twice. The first creation is in your mind, and the second is in physical reality.

It’s about setting up things with a distinct intention of your target so that the walks you take are invariably in the appropriate orientation.

Habit 2 is based on imagination--the ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes.

PO sets the product Vision.

PO describes the customer definition, information and builds product backlog items with the help of the team

PO write EPIC, Features where PO use the Habit no 2 and consistently think how the end-users will be using the EPIC and Features.

PO should know end to end value realization steps.

Team members should ask Why are we building this product? why are we adding these Features? Who is going to use this product? How they are going to use this? If they use what benefit they will get?

If you don’t have an end goal in mind, how on earth are you continuing to get there? How can you probably know whether you’ve accomplished, failed or reached somewhere in between, if you don’t know what you’re focusing for? Knowing your end goal can offer you the sustained motivation you require to accomplish benefit.

We can measure any decision against whether the outcome will carry us closer or further away. The ending can help adjust our actions and efforts in the present. An ending is a certain destination, it’s tangible and concrete and we all know the benefits of having one.

When we think about customer-centricity as an end, we know that is an approach to doing business that focuses on providing a positive customer experience both at the point of sale and after the sale in order to drive profit and obtain competitive advantage. Helps you to build the trust and loyalty of your customers. What is the big purpose? The purpose of customer-centricity is to find out what customers like and don’t like, and to tailor products and services to better fulfill those needs and eliminate sources of irritation.

Say if we choose to set end in mind should be "Decrease the service request error rate by 65%”

This has to accomplish by in next 6 months, at the end of 6 months we can conveniently measure this outcome 

As a PO every moment we can use this 2nd habit to perform better at our work.

What are your discussion points?

A small story to share with you.... I hope perhaps you also might have noticed the same, what we have also noticed and called for a change.

It would take a lot of time to alter the discussion subject from small talk to deeper discussion.

Most of the time when we used to discuss ( One to one or One to Many with peers), we used to discuss about the people!! We used to feel good after that!! 

Slowly we recognized it is not much value add to our time to discuss about the people and their opinions.

Eleanor Roosevelt was an American politician, diplomat, and activist. She served as First Lady of the United States longer than any other presidential spouse, from 1933 to 1945 during her husband’s (Franklin D. Roosevelt) time in the White House. Among her many quotable notes, this is one which influenced us a lot:

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

Based on this remark, we decided to let us shift our discussion topics to original ideas and the prospect of establishing something unusual.

But because of the habit we unknowingly most of the time come back to the same theme of small talk about the people!

We created an agreement, whoever notice that we are back to criticism, we require to point out ourselves to bring back our topics to constructive discussion.

Some extent of people’s conversation is Ok and form the place light. but when we are expressing awfully much, someone has to raise an alert.

After that, our discussion points provoked us to look at a fresh idea. We had many quality discussions which leads us to grow into a better coach.

We discuss about coaching challenges and how can we deal with those better etc topics.

We have started guiding others for such an exchange. 

Dismissing small talk as trivial is easy, but we can’t forget that deep relationships wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for casual conversation. Small talk is the grease for social interaction, says Bernardo Carducci, director of the Shyness Research Institute at Indiana University Southeast. “Every great romance and each big business deal begins with small talk,” he explains. “The key to successful small talk is learning how to connect with others, not just communicate with them.” According to Carducci, exploring common ground in conversation-even about something as trivial as the weather or the long lineup-works toward forging bonds between humans.

A few years ago, Prof. Matthias Mehl — at the University of Arizona in Tucson — and team conducted a study.

That study asked whether we should strive to have deeper, more meaningful conversations with others to improve our own well-being.

At that point, their findings appeared to suggest not only that substantive conversations make us happier but also that indulging in too much small talk could damage our well-being.

“Higher well-being,” the authors wrote, “was associated with having less small talk, and more substantive conversation.” They add that the participants who reported being the happiest spent little time on superficial chit-chats, preferring to engage in more meaningful exchanges.

All these points allow us to stay relevant in our discussion and coach others also to practice all these discussion topics. All our "Chai pe charcha" topics are more constructive now. Lots of ideas comes from such discussion, Give it a try!!

When does Transformation Strategy fail?

While developing the Agile Transformation Strategy, we require to take care below aspects.

I realize most of the individuals will respond there is nothing like Agile Transformation, it is all about serving the business to perform stronger and better.

Call it anything, Agile Transformation or Business Transformation, we require to avoid these mindset aspects.

It might have worked earlier with such a strategy, but not now.

I am positive, most of us come across the below incident.

Senior Executive or Senior Managers know everything: I have observed while preparing a transformation strategy, only top-level managers are invited in the privilege room. The explanation they made, they are with the system for long; they know the business; they know the end-users; they know the culture so they are the finest individuals to do the Transformation strategy. This is not a fully true thought process. From Lean concepts, we know people who are with the ground and working closely with the system their input matters a lot. Without involving the agent from the whole ecosystem, transformation strategy may fail. We can always change these ways of working(mindset). Have you come across such instances?

Transformation Strategy is an internal affair: "We are cleaning out the house, so we do not choose to reveal our chaotic, ugly experience to the external bodies". This view leads us to miss many vital points that external entities can bring into the table. Especially the end-users, even though it is the internal departmental ways of working changes, involving an external party who is related with the department, should be involved. Most of the time we create transformation among ourselves which does not suit end-users. Have you come across such instances?

Transformation strategy is a 3-5 yrs road-map: It is an ancient school of thought. In today’s dynamic world strategy become obsolete in 6 months because of the new offering, the new tool, a new platform. So we need to be flexible to change the road-map. If any queries raised on the road-map should not follow kill the messenger approach, reduce the noise as early as we can or eliminate the person who is clamoring a lot. Have you come across such instances?

Fail fast mindset is costly and for safety-critical system, we should avoid in all possible ways not to fail: These thoughts from top create panic at the bottom layers. I have been hearing this message from the top saying we are safety-critical systems, human life involvement, experiment with care. They will share, please do experiment but with care. They will be ready with punishment with an insignificant mistake, nobody dares to explore and open their thought or a fresh experiment. The transformation strategy will break down when we do not know what we thought, if all our assumptions are not validated with experiments. There will not be any validated learning. Fail fast is a wallpaper picture on the office campus, but not in the culture.

Data-driven decision making: The transformation strategy need course correction based on the real-time live data collecting from the system. Data is broadly accessible, external, internal, needs to closely reflect the latest status and revise the strategy based on the data. In olden days data extraction was costly affairs. Nobody was cognizant of what is going on at ground level ( real-time) so data was not the no 1 component to be studied. If data appear after 2 months very less can be done, but with real-time data can leader can alter the strategic thinking considerably.

The plan is not relevant, Planning is significant: Transformation strategy plan is not recorded in the rock, and just execute brutally and reward the managers who do it better is not the way. The courage is to change the plan often, weekly and regularly. Most of the time, it has consistently been in theory, but the reality it has less practice. There are 1000 reasons not to modify the plan, as hurdles are remarkably many. Organization will be doomed when leaders have such a mindset.

Governance style: The way monthly executives governance meeting happened based on the strategic execution process, makes a lot of builds or break situation. The wrong questions has been asked, based on that action items rolled down to bottom level. If the thought process of the top is not agile, it will be military-style strategy implementation(Legacy old school of thoughts). Most of the time the discussions are around on time and on budget not on Value generation.

How can an coach alter that end to end transformation flow? Where can we start the coaching and our engagement?