Ghost-busting for Agile Coaches

Have you ever noticed the excitement that comes with using something you have learned from a book or training course? It happened to me in two recent interactions with the teams I am coaching. Let me go back to the theory behind what I practised with the team and then I share the stories.

I came across a principle when reading the book, Creating Intelligent Teams by Marita Fridjohn. Principle no. 4 which is one of the five principles of intelligent teams says: "Relationship systems rely on roles for their organisation and execution of functions. Roles belong to the system, not to the individuals that inhabit the system." The book then expands on the types of roles you might come across in the context of an organisation or a team. And three role types are listed:

• Outer – securing the operative functioning of the team
• Inner – addressing the emotional needs of a team
• Ghost – hiding at a deeper level and impacting systems we interact with and are part of

The core idea is to separate the role and its function from the person performing the role. This will allow a systemic approach to deal with issues around people and their roles. For example, if a role is not performing as expected, the default mindset is that there might be a dysfunction in the system and you would try to solve the problem from that perspective, not just trying to address the person assigned to the role. You might end-up with a personnel performance issue after looking at the system but you wouldn't start from the person. I was particularly interested in the idea of a ghost role, maybe because it sounded cool?! So I dug a bit deeper and listened to a couple of podcasts and got a better understanding of the concept. "A ghost is something or someone that is impacting the team’s culture, interactions or standards. Ghosts may represent former leaders, deceased founders and so on. It can also be an event that continues to impact the team, such as the ghost of an acquisition" the book expands.

It wasn't long after reading the book that I came across a challenge which forced me to look at roles from a systems perspective. I was assigned to a project which was on the run for several months and was going through a transition after losing its project manager. When working with the team I could sense that the team still honoured the way the former leader used to run the project but something was nudging me to test the waters and check if they want to move on and explore a different culture. So in a macro retrospective session which was designed to review the project journey from the beginning to the current time, I shared the idea of a ghost role and invited the team to just observe if this ghost comes up in their interactions.

It wasn't long before I had multiple instances where the team expressed their willingness to acknowledge the ghost and the desire to move on and reassess their leadership style. You could hear them saying "the ghost is here again, shall we look at this differently?" In another instance, after having a deep conversation with a team member he opened up and shared that his association with an ex-colleague had caused him trouble. He shared that "people are still stuck in my past when I used to be Steve's right-hand man, he is gone but the perception is still there". I could hear him wanting to move forward but he needed to disassociate himself from that ghost. So I asked him “what could he do about it?” He wanted to start acknowledging and sharing his desire to move on with his teammates and taking it from there. Right after this conversation, I could sense the difference and the lightness that came with his refreshed engagement with the team.

When the needs and structures of team systems are recognised and revealed, teams become more healthy and resilient. Intelligent teams know that roles belong to the system, and separate the individual from the role.

Sometimes all we need to do is to educate the team about a concept and then find opportunities to surface the gap or dysfunction and invite them to think about what they need to do? what enables them to move forward? Do they need to do things differently? In this case, what new “ghost-busting” attitudes and behaviours do they need to align around?

Have you come across ghosts in your teams? What have you done to deal with them?

Reference: R?d, Anne; Fridjhon, Marita. Creating Intelligent Teams: Leading with Relationship Systems Intelligence. KR Publishing. Kindle Edition.