Reblogged with permission from Jem D'jelal, the original author of this content, as a contributor to blogagility.com. Originally published on LinkedIn October 3, 2016.
Jem D’jelal Coaching individuals & teams to find “better” ways of working.
For a community of people who help to create transparency in the work place, why are we; so bloody bad at it?
Are we worried that our perfect glossy agile change agent reputation will be harmed forever?
Will your day rate go down by 50 quid if you told people on LinkedIn that the last gig you had was actually a nightmare?
Might do!
And maybe I’m wrong about this – it might just be a perception thing but maybe you can tell me…
When was the last time you went to an agile meet up & heard someone talk about their failure?
I’m not talking about how they turned something round & created the perfect fairy tale ending.
If they did, then great!
Let’s celebrate that.
But what about hearing of something human, something where the agile coaches cape falls off & lands in dog poo.
Glamorous it is not.
But learning it is!
Continually just talking about our success is like a team turning up to a retrospective week in week out, pretending everything is perfect.
Continuous improvement stops.
The good stuff lives inside the failure.
And I can appreciate you may have a reputation to protect!
But we, as an agile community, must realise that even super heroes can get their knickers in a twist.
It makes me wonder.
If we were as obsessed with the old “agile” success recipes as we were with sharing our f*ck ups I actually think we might be in a better place!
And actually, the lack of failure sharing doesn’t just effect learning.
It also effects our mindset.
When you hear of or read about another human who does a similar job to yours, get something wrong – it’s reassuring.
Sh*t! They’re human to?
Hearing of others failures helps you realise that we’re all mere mortals trying our socks off (in some times impossible situations) to make the world a little bit better.
Ok Wonderman, Ok Batman…here’s an idea.
If you could share your failure with the community & stay anonymous, would that work for you?
I guess you could call it a confession.
This might be an opportunity for us to spread learning & in some cases humour to help us all remember that we to, even as agile coaches can get it wrong.
Submit your confession to agileconfessioncorner@gmail.com
http://www.agileconfessioncorner.com
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