“The Faster You Go, The Bigger The Mess” was a very successful road safety campaign in New Zealand a while back; clear and simple message, backed up with some very high impact (ha!) advertising on TV. NZ has a habit of good road safety campaigns that enter the public consciousness, to the extent that references have slipped even slipped into Marvel movies via a certain Kiwi director….
From a Scrum Master perspective it also applies. There’s a tendency to go in all guns blazing trying to impose Scrum onto a team, act as the Scrum Police, and tell people they are “doing it wrong.” The faster you go, the bigger the mess.
The Manifesto for Agile Software Development points out that while processes and tools are important, individuals and interactions are more important. We can put a few different lenses over that.
Firstly, we have “coachability“; it’s easy to blame people for not being “coachable” and rejecting what we say. Sorry, but that’s all on us. Coaching relationships are trust based. Your advice is leading to conflict because the team do not trust you….. yet. Go to fast and you leave the team behind. You are only a leader if they choose to follow you.
Secondly we have David Rock’s SCARF model. This is a cognitive model of human instinctive and subconscious behaviours based on brain scanning. Rock identified five domains – Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness. We move towards things that increase these domains for us, and away from things that decrease them.
When you tell someone they are “doing Scrum wrong” then
– you reduce their Status
– you impact on how Certain they were about Scrum
– you reduce their Autonomy
– they will see you feedback as unFair
What about Relatedness?
Well, they don’t really have a relationship with you, not yet. That’s part of the issue. When we related to people, we process their ideas in the same circuits as our own thoughts. That means it’s much less likely to stimulate the feeling we are being attacked in some way.
As a newly minted Scrum Master, laying down the law, you don’t have a relationship with you yet. Your ideas get processed in a different set of circuits in the brain. Circuits that look for threats and protect us from harm.
So what builds trust? I think there’s three main things.
You are in the same “tribe”; that is to say you have some common ground or experience that people relate to. This is why technical professionals often say they want to be managed/led by people who are experts in the same field (even though this does not correlate at all with successful outcomes)
You might hate “small talk”, but this is the function it serves. The same as exchanging business cards and working out who you both might know. The same with talking about work history and the things you have done. There’s a team-building game based on this, called Tribes.
Exploring other ice-breakers is a good idea, especially in remote or hybrid settings. According to Nancy Kline and her work on thinking spaces, no one has “entered” a room until they have spoken. Going round the room/table/chat asking people a simple question (‘what made you smile this week?’ ‘what’s your favourite X,Y, Z?” etc) can support building relationships, as well as creating a “circuit breaker” from the previous meeting or stresses of the day.
You show vulnerability; when we trust people, we are prepared to make ourselves vulnerable. That’s what trust is, whether it is a 4-year old jumping off a climbing frame shouting “Catch Me!” or sharing private or confidential information. Mutual trust means mutual vulnerability. And leadership means going first. It’s easy to put on a “professional mask” and want to hide your imposters syndrome and doubts, but all of that status-based display will delay the building of trust.
You display empathy. Often in conflicts, we feel that we are not heard or understood. This escalates the conflict. Displaying empathy doesn’t mean agreeing with someone, just that you understand their position. People tends to see a lack of empathy when they feel you are “listening to respond” rather than “listening to understand.” Pausing before responding helps. So does reflecting back what you just understood from them, asking for confirmation if that is right. So does asking them if there’s more to add. Seek first to understand, then be understood.
TLDR;
– rushing to enforce the “rules of Scrum” or provide feedback creates a threat
– threatening a team makes it hard to bring about change
– building trust matters more than the processes or framework
– build trust through common ground, being vulnerable and displaying empathy
