Why has the market rejected agile coaching?

This is one in a series of posts accompanying a recent discussion I had with Lyssa Adkins on her podcast, “The 5&5 with Lyssa Adkins”. Our theme was the present and future of Agile Coaching. In each of the five mini-episodes, we discussed one question. Because the format is time-limited and off-the-cuff, I wanted to offer some expanded and clarified thoughts here.

In Episode 2 of this series, Lyssa and I discussed the question “Why has the market rejected agile coaching?” Some miscellaneous additional thoughts and clarifications:

I talked about the view of coaching as overhead, and compared it to flossing and exercising. We humans are terrible at sticking to boring habits with a long-term ROI. I see this tendency plaguing organizations at many levels, in addition to the divestment from coaching and other organizational development functions that Lyssa and I covered. This tendency to cut perceived overhead also reminded me of a bias I wrote about years ago in The Teddy Bear and Shark. Namely, a mistaken view of agile values and principles as just touchy-feely luxury, despite the fact that they also offer a great path to mercenary efficiency.

Lyssa talked about orgs saying they are done with coaching. I’ve even heard people perplexingly mention being in a “post-Agile” world. I think this may owe something to the mistaken view of transformation as a simple process that one finishes and then leaves behind. Growth and the need to support organizational health continues after that transformational moment. It also resonates with my experience that non-coach colleagues think that my entire role as Agile Coach is to teach people how to do Scrum. If only it were that easy!

Lyssa also mentioned people not seeing ROI. For me, this goes back to the flossing/exercise argument. I agree that it is extremely difficult to measure the impact of coaching in an objectively quantifiable way. However, I also know that qualitative feedback from coaching clients reflects very strong return. In fact, I was experimenting before leaving Spotify with a new form of collecting quantitative “wrappers” around qualitative feedback after engagements with coaching clients. Though I no longer have access to the detailed data, one number I clearly remember: 100% of clients rated the coaching as very valuable. I encourage those of you coaching to adopt a similar model (I need to write a post about this to share it!) to put the messy qualitative data into a neater quantitative frame for easier sharing.

Lyssa and I both spoke about the pain of seeing agile implementations that bear little resemblance to our sense of what good agile practice should look like. I mentioned the danger of coaches like me seeming as though I am explaining away complaints with a dismissive “you’re doing it wrong”. We coaches should definitely avoid that ugly trap! Unfortunately, it is very, very common for people to talk about agile practices that are counter to agile values and principles and–bottom-line–seem deeply ineffective in helping people achieve what they want. I am not surprised when people say they hate agile given what some of what they have experienced. To take this to a positive place, I encourage people to take responsibility for their own practices. If an agile practice is not working for you, address it! First, ask yourself what you and your team believe it is intended to achieve. Then, work with each other, research options, and get advice from experts on how to tweak your practices to better achieve that end. Repeat and improve. Don’t adopt agile practices mindlessly, but also don’t reject them “Green Eggs and Ham” style; try to engage them in good faith. But do something; sitting back and carping about how agile sucks is not helping you or anyone else. Trust that coaches and others around you are trying to help you, know how to use that help, and be honest about where it is and isn’t actually helpful.

Lyssa opened a couple of slightly bigger cans of worms in mentioning the uncertainty and complexity of the world and the incidence of fear-based decision-making. The world has always been tricky, but it does seem right now that everything is faster and more chaotic than ever, with pressures and anxieties screaming from every angle. Lyssa added, “That’s where agilists thrive.” It’s a great point. When I speak to people unfamiliar with agile about what I do, I tend to lead with the point about the inherent unpredictability of the world. We humans don’t like that. We like to know, to have control, to be able to see a straight line from the present to a happy future. I’ll argue with Lyssa’s point that I thrive in such settings (uncertainty makes my anxiety spike 😜), but I will fully agree that my profession as agilist has helped me build skills for embracing and negotiating that uncertainty. We need people working that way, and we need people teaching each other how to work that way. This is what I really loved about Lyssa’s point in the context of the future of agile coaching. The world needs us!

Finally, I cited a number of layoffs: around 450,000 over the last two years. To be more precise: as of this posting, layoffs.fyi counts 479,307 people laid off in the industry from 2022-2024. Not exact, but close! And gut-wrenching to think of all those people dealing with such a difficult life experience.

Stay tuned for Episode 3 and companion notes to go with it!

Don’t Drive Behavior Change; Enable It

You’re about to meet with a colleague who is underperforming. Maybe failing to meet commitments. Or speaking to teammates in a counterproductive way. Or delivering poor quality. It’s been going on for a while.

It’s normal to think: “How do I get them to change their behavior?” Whether you are their manager or not, you probably have some desire for their behavior to change. When you do, it’s normal to come up with solutions (“if only they would do this”), and then to start thinking it’s futile (“well, if they haven’t changed yet, why would they change now?”) or painfully confrontational (“they’re going to be so upset when I say this to them!”). 

There is plenty out there about techniques for handling such moments (e.g., non-violent communication, crucial conversations, etc.), but a good start is a simple shift in mindset:

Instead of asking “How do I get them to change their behavior?”, ask “What do I need to do to enable them to change their behavior?” Slight change in words, big difference:

• Autonomy – In the “get them to” framing, you are trying to control their behavior. With “enable them to”, you are giving them what they need so that they can control their own behavior. This puts them in the driver’s seat.
• Ownership – Because “get them to” makes you take on the project of changing them, you also take on the stress of that responsibility. The “enable them to” approach keeps the ownership of behavior where it belongs: with them. You can let go of that stress and keep your focus on supporting them.
• Clarity – The “get them to” stance is likely to focus on specific desired behaviors, taking focus away from the impacts of those behaviors that are the underlying reasons a change is necessary in the first place. Part of “enable them to” is giving them clarity on these impacts so they know what problem they are trying to solve.
• Co-Creation – When you approach the conversation with a “get them to” mindset, you are likely to be the only one proposing ideas. This limits creativity and can feel like an attack. Because your focus is on giving them what they need in order to change, the “enable them to” mindset makes room for them to be part of creating a solution, even if you contribute some ideas.

So how do you go about enabling them to change behavior?

• Share Impact of Current Behavior – Just bringing the impact to their attention might lead them to change. Be careful to share this in non-judgmental, objective terms. It’s not a weapon to beat them with, but data to provide them in service to what is important to them. If someone is perpetually late, attacking them for it won’t get you far; but if you can help them see that they are having a negative effect on the team members that they care about, they might choose to change on their own. Instead of “You need to be on time because the team is sick of you being late”, you could say, “When anyone is late, it disrupts the conversation for the whole team and weakens our quality of communication. Do you agree that is a problem?”
• Clarify What is Expected of Them – The hottest conflicts I’ve worked on recently involved mismatched expectations: one person works diligently toward a goal, while another person expects them to go somewhere else. In its worst forms it gets nasty for a number of reasons: the person doing the work is hurt when their pride in accomplishment turns into being blamed for failure; the person asking for the work doesn’t get what they asked for; and trust between them is degraded for future interactions. Taking time to be extra clear up front is always valuable; but if you are already in a “behavior needs to change” moment, it’s even more critical that the person understand what is expected of them.
• Be a Sounding Board for Solutions – Invite them to share their ideas on next steps. Brainstorm together to help them shape those ideas into concrete actions. By doing this–instead of handing them a solution–you reinforce the idea that the problem is ultimately theirs to solve.
• Help Them Where They Are Unskilled – Sometimes, the person simply doesn’t know how to do what you are asking them. They’re not broken or incompetent; they just need to learn. Assuming that they have shown the will to change, offer (don’t force it!) to help them learn. Start with smaller opportunities to practice in lower stakes, less complicated settings. This naturally increases the frequency of check-ins without you hovering. Then gradually ramp up, removing yourself more and more until they are able to do it on their own.
• Generally Give Them the Support They Need – Not sure what they need? Ask them! For example, if they’ve said they want to change and maybe identified some next steps, ask, “Is there anything I can do to support you in making this change?”
• Stand in Their Shoes – To spark other ideas of how to help them, think back to a time you changed your behavior. What made it possible? Think internally and externally. Think in terms of forces, information, and resources.

Changing the other person’s behavior is not your job; it’s theirs. Whether you are their manager or not, you will likely help them get to a much better place if you let them take responsibility while you play a supporting role.