Be water my friend

After watching the famous "BE WATER MY FRIEND" interview between Bruce Lee and Pierre Berton in 1971, I started to wonder how the agile coach, scrum coach and eduScrum coach are like organisational ninjas. They jump, flip and flow through their various industries affecting mindset change from the inside out, enabling teams to trust themselves, self direct and appreciate the power within their teams. They shift, assimilate and deliver solutions fast and effectively. Iterating naturally and organically towards the path their organisations are charting. KaPow! They deflect one-sided thinking and counter strike "the way its always been done" on the chin. Their motivation is intrinsic and their responses are agile.

Image below: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/kapow-comic-comic-book-fight-1601675/

Innovative companies, organisations and schools, whose coaches practise and live by agile principles will be their organisations ninjas of the 21st century.

Have a listen to Bruce Lee's interview below (Leo TV's Edit) and spot the connections between the agile principles and values. His wisdom, fighting style, methodology and philosophy were ahead of their time and the principles and values within the Agile manifesto, which too are ahead of their time, are becoming the chosen method for project management in the 21st century. Innovative companies, organisations and schools, whose coaches practise and live by agile principles will be their organisations ninjas of the 21st century.

I said, "Empty your mind. Be formless. Shapeless, like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend. Actually you see, I mean it’s a combination of both. I mean, here is the natural instinct and here is control. You are to combine the two in harmony, not if you have one to the extreme you would be very unscientific. If you have another to the extreme, you become all of a sudden a mechanical man. No longer a human being. So you, it is a successful combination of both … The word "super star" really turned me off, and I'll tell you why because the word "star" man, is an illusion. It's something what the public calls you. You should look at oneself as an actor. All type of knowledge ultimately means, self knowledge. So, therefore they are coming in to ask me to teach them. Not so much how to defend themselves or how to do somebody. Rather they want to learn to express themselves, through some movement. Be it anger, be it determination, or what so ever. To me, okay, to me ultimately marshal arts is honestly expressing yourself. It is very difficult to do. To express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, and to express myself honestly, that my friend is very hard to do. And you have to train, you have to keep your reflexes, so that when you want it, it's there. When you want to move you're moving and when you move you are determined to move. All the time you are keeping the continuity going. Bending. Stretching. Everything. Suppose, you know, you just keep it moving. I mean to them, you see, the idea is running water never grows stale, so you just got to just keep on flowing."

Bruce Lee trained hard and trusted in his martial arts training, the steps, routines and processes. He could access them in any moment of combat. However Bruce Lee didn't beat opponents with routines alone, he beat them with flow and by being like water- "Its a combination of both." In the office our agile coach, EduScrum facilitator-ninjas meet teams where they are at, they infiltrate project teams, connect, build trust, teams execute sprints and retrospectives to collectively achieve the product owner and teams desired results.

The Agile Manefesto was designed and created in 2001, by Software development Black Belt Ninjas, Kent Beck, Ward Cunningham, Arie van Bennekum, Alistair Cockburn, and other leading Black Belt software practitioners such as scrum process creators, Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber. Their short, clear, concise 'one-inch punch' Manefesto, is a genius one-pager. Their vision goes as follows:

Agile Manesfesto

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

Dots connecting? The below image highlights the connections I see between Bruce Lees interview and the Agile Manefesto. Can you see the connections between Martial artists (Bruce Lee) and agile coaches?

As a coach we are always looking for efficiencies, ways around the rigidity and ways of unlocking the agile mindset. Specifically in our calcified educational institutions and old business organisations, the opportunity for Ninjas to infiltrate is greatly needed.

So come join us at the Agile dojo my friend. Learn the way of the ninja-coach. Learn to infiltrate and guide teams to a position of fluidity, trust, self motivation and action. Discard those ass kicking humiliation motivation tactics. Invite dialogue, learn the difference between a coach and a mentor. Delegate towards project ownership, transparency and trust. Invite teams to build their own clear working agreements and team understandings of what "FUN" and "DONE" uniquely looks like to their team. Iron sharpens iron. If you are in an education facility feeling a little stuck, feeling a little caught between a rock and that hard place, stiff, calcified, and maybe stagnant- get in touch with us today. Come join the dojo my friend, be water my friend. Be agile.

As a design teacher I find ways for self directed students teams to build 21st century skills, so that students teams develop the intrinsic confidence for problem solving needed for the South Africa. I was first introduced to Agile and Scrum by Mr Brand Zietsman. His word, patience and guidance has eloquently brought me face to face to the mindset, principles and values that agile builds. Thank you Brand. He further connected me to Mr Willy Wijnands, Founder/Creator of EduScrum so that, now while under Willy's leadership, I can commit to the path of proposing this self-directed team, transparent, visual learning technique to South African Education system. Now in South Africa, over crowded classrooms don't have to be a problem anymore. Autonomous Self- Directed EduScrum teams will soon be the future of how South African classrooms work.

References:

Video source: Leo's TV https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmHmXqGxiQAeCz7gebQCaAg/featured

Cover image: https://brucelee.com/bruce-lee

https://agilemanifesto.org/

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/kapow-comic-comic-book-fight-1601675/