The presumption of wanting ever higher performance, speed and betterment in Agile is a perfectionist’s dream. Not that being a perfectionist is a quality. Everything we ever do is to optimise for speed and -ideally client-driven quality-. Just look at the talk on VSM, Flow Engineering, and so much more. We want to make sure that not only are we exponentially faster and better than the non-Agile crowd, but that within our own corner we’re taking any blockers or delayers out and are moving as quick as humanly possible.
What sometimes bedazzles me is that while when we talk about tighter pipes or faster processes in any sense there’s little resistance – everyone agrees they want to be better-, when we talk about better human dynamics and the people work, the story is very different and there’s resistance galore.
What we tend to talk about here the most – how the organisation has oodles of HumanDebt and how they are drowning in lip service and are resisting the real human work and not providing enough organisational permission so they should audit themselves and do better, is entirely true and the greatest part of the resistance, but sadly, it isn’t the only kind there is and it is only the first layer.
Once you peel that off -IF you manage to peel that off which of course, is not a given and it’s a Sisyphean task for most of us- then you uncover what I call the team/individual resistance.
At PeopleNotTech we’ve worked with tens if not hundreds of organisations so far. Most of them have too great of organisation resistance for us to overcome. We try really hard, force their awareness curve towards the importance of the human work in general and Psychological Safety in particular as high up as we can, we empower their much-tried Superheroes, we give them a quick taste of what they could achieve but there comes a point where we have to decide if we ought to still invest or their HumanDebt is too great, the organisation too political, the learning curve too steep and the resilience of the Superheroes too fragile to keep trying.
So, much as it pains us, we take the difficult decision to ice them. We know we’ll work with each and every one of them eventually but for now, we write off our education and support efforts to charity and stop engaging. We have to so we can help the ones who are ready.
At times it’s really hard to cut them off from the lifeline of the teamwork on Psychological Safety because there are people counting on us. Superheroes that have seen the light and even teams that had super-extended-trials which meant they got to use our Dashboard as part of their every retro or team meeting and now they have to stop.
There is no team-resistance in these cases but too great of organisational-resistance for us to keep trying to help. We can only hope that the skills they took from using our software will carry them to the time when their organisation will wake up and want to help them. That they have now learned that if they hold the space and intentionally, regularly and courageously act together to change team behaviours that they can be psychologically safe and have higher performance. That they now know how to counteract impression management, that they remember a play or two to increase engagement or that they learned how to practice team empathy, how to hold their own version of a Team ReLaunch or a B!tch Fest and so on.
But realistically, we also know that in the absence of the software that was holding that space for them and offering the data to give them the guidance as to which of these things they know about is appropriate – that they will probably fall by the wayside eventually. They will become “too busy” for the people work. And eventually, revert back to their disconnected, closed off, unhappy and underperforming former selves.
In a handful of exceptions, we manage to overcome organisational-resistance (or encounter the rara avis of organisations with very little HumanDebt who “get it” and there not only there’s no resistance but they are high on the educational curve and all they need is the tooling to do the human work) and are taken aback to see that there’s that next layer of team-resistance to deal with as well. Even teams that on the surface seem excited to do the people work sometimes exhibit it when it becomes a day-to-day reality.
Then again we shouldn’t be shocked – after all we said it before that it’s entirely unsurprising people would resist the human work after they spent their entire formative and professional years being told it’s not what they get paid for. That emotions and relationships have no place at work. That they are to use their every hour to write code/find that drug/build that structure and not “navel-gaze about emotions”.
What are the odds that even if the organisation says “Listen here, we had a serious a-ha moment – we worked out that we have to change and do a lot more of this human work because the guys that do are infinitely more successful and we have to start with getting this complex team dynamic right and becoming fearless and happy” after aeons of saying “there’s no time for the fluffy stuff” that they will now trust it?
What are the odds they will “buy” that it’s not only ok but desirable and necessary? More so, how would they believe they’re “worth it”? Just like self-care seems a luxury they don’t deserve, working on the human relationships in the team feels “wrong” as compared to what they have been led to believe is asked of them. They are rightfully mistrusting and incredulous of anything that looks like it’s designed to make them feel better. After all, what’s the precedent for such decadence and why are they “the chosen ones”?
So just as there is “Organisational HumanDebt” and “Team HumanDebt”, there’s also “Organisational Resistance” and “Team/Individual Resistance” to the people work that will lower it but the good news is that neither are immutable or a life sentence, they can all be overcome hard as it may be. We’ll keep chipping at the organisational one but we need your help with looking in the mirror.
To start – ask yourself if you understand the need for the people work – the human work where you do introspection and talk about feelings and consider the emotions of others around you, start understanding the dynamic of the team, work intently to better interactions and relationships. Do you personally, irrespective of the team, irrespective of the organisation, in your heart of hearts, see that it’s the foundation of any other type of work? Are you guilty of using the urgency of operational day-to-day to run from it because it’s hard? Are you excusing your own inaction with the lack of organisational permission? Is it really that you’re too busy or that you don’t feel equipped or confident enough to do it? Are you waiting for someone else to prioritise it? Are you afraid you’d look “weak” or “unprofessional” if you talk about these topics and insist on the human work? And if you’re totally honest isn’t it that you ultimately don’t feel worthy of spending company resources on our own wellbeing?
If you recognise yourself in the above, start on the work of reframing.
Look up the facts that show why it matters. Read the studies, seek out the research. The science is plentiful, the evidence ever-mounting. The numbers don’t lie. Putting in the people work is necessary and more closely connected to higher performance than any process or piece of tech you can imagine.
Look around at the companies that DO put the people work first, where they are expected to first and foremost do the “fluffy” work and then the former day-to-day. Where how many lines of code they wrote is as important as how many hours they spent connecting. Where they learn and laugh and have fun and perform. That’s who’s winning. They’re out there and they dared to do away with all resistance.
So forget about “them” – what are YOU doing to challenge your own resistance to the people work?
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This Thursday on the Fundamentals of Psychological Safety Series: “Psychological Safety In Numbers” so be sure to subscribe so you have it in your inbox.
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The 3 “commandments of Psychological Safety” to build high performing teams are: Understand, Measure and Improve
Read more about our Team Dashboard that measures and improves Psychological Safety at www.peoplenottech.com or reach out at contact@peoplenottech.com and let’s help your teams become Psychologically Safe, healthy, happy and highly performant.
To order the “People Before Tech: The Importance of Psychological Safety and Teamwork in the Digital Age” book go to this Amazon link