Patrick Heller - The Art of Leading

Patrick Heller is an Agile Coach and a Scrum Master. He helps organizations to become swifter in a signature calm way by facilitating ways for teams, managers, and coaches to rise beyond their potential. He talks to us about learning to lead and why he wrote a book that addresses the many myths about psychology.

Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.

I'm an Agile Coach with more than a dozen years of experience as a Scrum Master and Agile Coach. I help organizations in a signature calm way by letting teams, managers, and coaches rise above themselves. I do that by incorporating proven practical psychology and years of real-life business-transformation experience.

My wife and I have two teenage sons and I'm pretty active in sports. I have more than thirty years of martial arts experience and a fourth-degree black belt in Taekwondo. I have trained people of all stripes and ages for almost thirty years, which taught me a thing or two about how humans cope with stress and challenges. I'm passionate about writing - I write a lot and there's more to come. I've written a book about practical psychology at the workplace and I regularly write articles on Medium - mostly about agile and psychology.

Can you describe the defining moment that your career took off?

I started my professional career as a software developer. When, back in 2008, I discovered this thing called Agile, it turned my ship around – I became a Scrum Master. Since that moment, my software development work became less and less, and I ramped up to become a full-time Agile Coach. So, my discovery of Agile is truly a defining moment for me – it changed my life.

What was being in your first leadership role like?

When I became the one and only Scrum Master of the company I was at in 2008, all eyes were on me. Nobody had any Agile knowledge and I was one step ahead of the rest all the time. That was both scary and exciting. Scary because I didn't have all the answers and exciting because I found out that it was okay to not have all the answers all of the time and to experiment and learn instead.

What do you think are the qualities of a great team?

I’ve seen a lot of teams at work – and also in sports as a soccer trainer the last four years – and the things that stand out in great teams are first and foremost acceptance and respect. When team members accept each other for who they are and respect each other for what they bring to the table, the best ideas come to the forefront – irrespective of the age, gender, rank, et cetera of the one who brings them. When there is openness among the team members, they are able to discuss and criticize ideas and experiment with the best. That works every time to lift the team to greatness.

What are your top 3 nuggets of wisdom for being a great leader?

I’ve worked with a lot of people in leadership positions, but not all are great leaders. Somehow, great leadership is not something easily learned. It seems to me that great leadership is – at least in part – in your veins, or not. We can all learn leadership skills, but showing leadership in daily life is more than doing a trick or following a template.

I’d say the number one aspect of great leadership is being able to create a safe environment for all to be able to bring ideas – no matter how outlandish – to the table. I’ve once asked the cleaning lady to judge business proposals, for instance. At first, she felt awkward (what do I know about business?), and the team members felt awkward (how do I explain it to her?), but after a few minutes, the team members started to explain their ideas in such a way that a lay person could understand the technicalities, and the cleaning lady started to understand enough to ask tough questions about the validity of the proposals. In the end, it was a great experience and it showed all that everybody was respected for their opinion.

Another important aspect of being a great leader is sharing a vision. What binds the people in your organization if not a common vision of where you want to go? Have a vision – know what that dot on the horizon is – and be able to share it in such a way that it invigorates everyone around you. That way, people are able to come up with ideas that contribute to and align with the greater vision.

Next to being able to speak clearly, I think it’s of the utmost importance for a leader to be able to listen. After you’ve shared your vision you want to hear back from the people. Listen to their comments, their contributions, and their critiques. Listen without judgment (think of the safe environment!); listen without feeling the need to counter with arguments; listen wholeheartedly – not just to the words, but also to the sentiments that are being conveyed – what are they not saying with words, but with body language or tone of voice. Being a great listener can make the difference between being in a leadership position and being a great leader.

What’s a favorite book you’re reading / podcast you’re listening to right now?

My favorite writer is Christopher Hitchens, of whom it was said he couldn’t write a dull sentence even if he tried. I just about finished reading his final book, Mortality, which he wrote when he was undergoing treatment for esophageal cancer (to no avail). As he put it bluntly, when talking about his stage four cancer, there is no stage five.

There is so much richness in words and wisdom in his writing that I take to heart every day. For instance, whenever I’m in doubt about being critical of a situation – whether at work or elsewhere – I always think of Hitchens’ words about discussion and confrontation (he happily identified as a contrarian): we should always speak up about nonsense. There are so many people who simply blurt out opinions that are not based on any evidence or science. Look at your social media – even relatively serious social media like LinkedIn – and see that there’s so much claptrap being posted. Also inside organizations, it’s important to address nonsensical statements that are made without negativity. Before you know it people are ready to accept total rubbish as truth – leading to a waste of time, money, and perhaps even business. This is the very reason I decided to write a book about psychology at work; to counter the many myths that are being shared daily about psychology. I thought it wise to share what is actually founded in science and what is not.

What single decision did you make that has most positively impacted your life in the last six months?

I recently decided to change my daily schedule. I have always been an evening or night person. It’s always been hard to get started and easy to keep going. At work, I’ve always planned meetings in the morning and time to get things done in the afternoon. At home, I’ve often worked late to get writing done, for instance. Over the years, I’ve found the late hours to be more of a struggle, leading to more difficulties doing what I perhaps love most – writing. So I decided to throw my daily schedule around. I start a bit earlier than before and I take to writing first. That gives me a daily feeling of having accomplished something that is valuable to me personally even before I start my coaching work of the day. I still prefer meetings in the morning and getting practical things done in the afternoon at work. In the evening I now read – instead of write – and more than ever before. I’ve had so many books picking up dust – too many to read in a lifetime – that it became frustrating. I still practice Tsundoku, the Japanese term for acquiring more books than you can read (which is supposedly a good thing), but at least the balance is back now.

What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made?

Not long after I became a Scrum Master by practice, I did the official two-day training and received my first Agile-related certificate. For years on end, I kept it to just that one certificate. When the popularity of Agile was picking up, I noticed that new Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches were doing more training and obtaining more certificates. It became a frustration in two ways. I’ll be the first to admit it pulled on my ego strings that lesser experienced and knowledgeable Agilists seemed to be higher qualified on paper. When that became a talking point in job interviews I decided enough was enough. From that point on, I’ve obtained many certificates in the fields of Agile, coaching, psychology, and even philosophy. Even though I haven’t had the need to add training to get the Agile certificates (since my experience and knowledge have served me well enough), doing the exams have cost a considerable amount. Studying psychology, philosophy, and coaching has certainly cost me more time than money can buy. But all in all, the investments in time and money have been worth it ten times over. Besides the obvious advantages of having a pimped-up curriculum vitae, I now have not just lived experience, but also proven knowledge that is up to par with the highest standards. That has been a confidence booster I did not expect beforehand. So, even if you read demeaning comments about certificate hunting (which I totally agreed with until a few years ago), I recommend considering obtaining certificates at the very least just for you; you don’t have to post your certificates on social media if that rubs you the wrong way, but the confidence boost will be there nonetheless.

If you could write something on a billboard or commercial for the world to read, what would it say?

If I could shout out to the world one single line to ponder, it would probably be what I wrote at the beginning of my book about psychology: “After everything is doubted, stand for what is left standing."

It’s an incentive to scrutinize everything that’s being uttered, discard what doesn’t hold true in the face of scientific inquiry, and defend what is left standing in spite of it. There’s too much nonsense going around in and outside business than is good for us and the health of our planet – which are closely intertwined as we’re experiencing in real life, every single day with the consequences of man-made climate changes striking at our lifestyles and livelihoods.

Somewhat related is what I carry as a personal motto as a coach: “If coaching means anything at all, it means being able to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

I must admit it’s a bit of a cheap knock-off of George Orwell’s, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” But I hope the gist of it rings true: if you want to change things for the better – as I’m paid to do as a coach – you have to tell some hard truths, also to people in higher places in the organization. If you can’t do that, your effect will be suboptimal at least.

What keeps you going?

What keeps me going in life is twofold. On the one hand, there are very selfish reasons: I like what I’m doing and it comes easy to me; it provides a healthy income to support my family and a safe haven for when I retire. But that by itself would not suffice. The combination of coaching in challenging yet evolving corporate environments and writing about that, and other topics dear to me, provide a continuous stimulus to reach higher and do better – I keep learning every day, and that is both fun and rewarding.

For more info about Patrick Heller or to connect with him, you can find him at https://www.patrickheller.nl/ or on LinkedIn: Patrick Heller