Book Notes from 'Coaching Agile Teams' By Lyssa Adkins
Coach as Conflict Navigator
- Patrick Lencioni - The Five
Dysfunctions of a Team - names fear of conflict as one of the five
dysfunctions.
- Citing is as the main reason
that teams struggle
- Highly collaborative teams
use conflict constructively.
- On an agile team - in our
pursuit of excellence we know that conflict arise and that we can expect
both harmony and disharmony
- Move from conflict to
constructive disagreement.
The Agile Coach's Role in
Conflict
- Coaching teams to navigate
conflict may feel unfamiliar or uncomfortable to you.
- With agile - team members
stay together longer - life of a project.
- They don’t move on - nor
does the conflict.
- As the agile coach you -
- Face the conflict squarely.
- Skillfully determine the
severity of it
- Mindfully decide whether to
intervene and how
- Generously teach the team to
navigate it.
- Courageously refuses to
settle for a team that shrinks from greatness by avoiding it.
Five Levels of Conflict
- Speed Leas offers a framework
we can use to determine the seriousness of the conflict
- Level 1 : Problem to Solve
- Every day frustrations and
aggravations make up this level
- When in level 1 - a team
will remain focused on determining what's awry and how to fix it.
- Use words that are clear,
specific and factual
- Team members seem
optimistic, moving through the conflict
- Level 1 as the level of
constructive disagreement.
- Level 2 : Disagreement
- Self-protection becomes as
important as solving problems
- Team members distance
themselves from one another.
- Good-natured joking moves
toward the half-joking barb
- Level 3 : Contest
- The aim is to win
- Multiple issues cluster
into larger issues or create a cause.
- Factions emerge -
misunderstandings and power politics arise.
- People begin to align
themselves with one side or the other.
- Team members pay attention
to building their cases.
- Discussion becomes
either/or and blaming flourishes
- People may not be ready to
move beyond blaming.
- Level 4 : Crusade
- Resolving the situation
isn't good enough. Team members believe the people on the other side of
the issue will not change.
- They may believe the only
option is to remove the others form the team or get removed from the
team themselves.
- Level 5 : World War
- Its not enough that one
wins - the others must lose.
- Only option at this level
is to separate the combatants.
What Level of Conflict Is
Present
- determine the level of conflict in a team
- an agile coach must spend solid time with team members.
- Observe what is going on before you draw conclusions
- Determining the level of
conflict -
- Observations
- Conversations
- Intuition
- Three things that help assess
the level of conflict
- Hear complaints
- Remember that you need not
act to resolve these complaints
- When people complain to us
- we think we need to solve it
- Feel the energy
- Notice how the team room
feels when you first walk in
- Is there a sense of purpose
and forward momentum.
- Pay attention when the
energy seems to become more positive or more negative
- Pay attention to whether
the team uses mostly positive, forward-moving energy or mostly negative,
stagnating energy.
- Focus on the language
- What people say and how
they say it is the main key for assessing the level of conflict on an
agile team.
- Hone in on the words people
use when they talk to one another while experiencing different levels of
conflict.
What Should You Do About It?
- The goal of navigating
conflict is to de-escalate
- The most important question
to answer is "Do I have to Respond?"
- First, Do Nothing
- Agile teams can often
navigate conflict by themselves, even conflict up to level 3.
- If team members navigate the
conflict well enough, leave them alone.
- Chris Corrigan - "The
Tao of Holding Space"
- "everything you do for
a group is one less thing they know they can do for themselves"
- If you decide to intervene
there are a few response modes you can employ
- Analyze and Respond
- The most comfortable
response mode an agile coach can use
- Consider these questions
- What is the level of
conflict
- What are the issues.
- How would I respond to A
- How would I respond to B
- What resolutions options
are open
- What should I do.
- Remember that no one has
the whole story
- Each person's perspective
is valid and needed.
- It is the weakest response
mode for building high-performance teams - it puts the coach in the
drivers seat.
- Use Structures
- Using the 'bones' of agile
to navigate conflict
- The bones are those
principles, values, roles that help the team understand how to get the
best from using agile.
- Task orientation - rather
than interpersonal orientation works best with a new team
- A coach should first
attempt to address conflict by addressing performance
- Agile coaches turn the
'bones' in order to address performance as the door to navigating
conflict.
- Devices that remind people
of their vision, goals or purpose, or the action they need to take
immediately.
- Context of getting better
at a particular bit of agile.
- You can find much
inspiration in the simplicity and depth of agile methods.
- You bring the conflict up
then address it in the context of teaching agile
- Practice, value,
mind-set, vision with the team.
- Reveal
- Reveal what you know
- Teach the team to
recognize their own responses and choose what response is best for the
team.
- You give the team a great
self-management tool.
- Get yourself out of the
loop remains the goal.
- You also may see the
conflict framework uses as a tool for recognizing and adjusting one's
own conflict level before it leaks into the team.
- Teams that actively
navigate conflict can learn to thrive in level 1 conflict.
- Use conflict to catapult
to high performance.