You Can’t Have the WoW Without PS

As you know, my main obsession is with finding ways to reduce the HumanDebt? and I believe Psychologically Safe, Agile teams are the key to that. Just as I have a suspicion that one day we will be able to conclusively prove the connection between Agile and higher levels of Psychological Safety, I am convinced the mindset alone accounts for a higher success rate in instilling the latter in teams in a blessed chain reaction of awesomeness. In other words, I strongly believe we will be able to prove that those who truly live and breathe the spirit of Agile -not just do it “by numbers or by PowerPoint”- have a healthier, happier, more open and risk-taking team dynamic than their counterparts. 

Returning to my lab coat as an “Agile anthropologist” I think this is chiefly because once people truly embrace Agile they open themselves up to a host of other possibilities where speed and betterment are no longer propaganda, but tangible realities and where changes, of course, are du jour and beneficial, and neither of those are possible without trust as a team dynamic implied in their interactions. So yes, Agile has to be firmly in the DNA of each team member and an entire Agile team made up of those with the heart in the right place, is a thing of beauty and a Psychologically Safe force of nature.

I spent years writing about the difference between Agile as a way of work or process, versus a way of thinking and how one “can’t have the WoW without the WoT” but maybe the most controversial of my articles on this, was the one in Forbes called “Agile by Heart Not by McKinsey PowerPoint” which remains highly read, controversial and misunderstood to this day. 

When writing it, I chose that specific name as a stand-in for the term “big consultancy”, no more specific or pointed than when I wrote “No One Gets Fired for Buying IBM, But They Should” - both names practically a universal business saying, not in the least a specific attack as they represented a whole category and exposed a general problem. 

I thought it was evident that I had nothing against either of those enterprises -which I incidentally knew first hand had pockets of excellence- but instead, I was pointing out in the first case, that Agile transformations should start in the minds and hearts of those who should undertake them, not in rigid, leafy, mandated strategy collaterals of a consultancy, and in the case of the second article, that innovation and progress can only happen outside of one’s comfort zone. 

Needless to say, not everyone read those as innocently as they were written and they caused a furore, but indignation aside, my only regret about them, is that neither also outlines the behaviour of teams in those environments.

This is because, at that time in my journey, I hadn’t yet seen the light of how, from an actionable, practical standpoint where we want to reduce the HumanDebt?, the organisation is a mythical and completely useless concept whereas the team is the only true unit of change. 

If I were to revisit that today, I would probably surmise that it is the team that has to rise against the mindlessness of big changes through decks or lack of courage to try new avenues and not “the organisation”, or even any of the individuals. I would have then, through that new lens, been able to trace that teams that have Psychological Safety already fare a lot better being able to make those intimate changes in their thinking patterns and to have the courage to experiment and allow for deep meaningful new ways of seeing their work lives, whereas those who don’t already have a strong level of PS will struggle even if there is a lot of change at an individual level should it miss the supporting ground of a team that can reinforce the big changes. 

What I mean is I now presume that just as establishing Psychological Safety is the answer to any kind of cultural change desiderata, that if we should want Agile from the heart, yes we need to reach each and every one of the members of a team to ensure years of sequential thinking can and will be replaced by the uncomfortable but ever so addictively effective reality of Agile, but if we want it to last and to succeed, we need to make sure they exist in teams that have enough Psychological Safety to let this new way of thinking become the norm. 

Then they won’t “rollback”, they won’t falter and slip in their leadership, they’ll keep lifting, they’ll keep making magic. 

Much as moving away from the term “Agile” and towards “a culture of DevOps” is probably beneficial, I still stand by how Agile isn’t “out” and if we don’t return to what it means for the mind, the heart *and the team*, we will be. 

————————————————————————————————————

Don't send your teams home with a laptop, a Jira and Slack account and a prayer!

Get in touch at www.psychologicalsafety.works or reach out at [email protected] and let's help your teams become Psychologically Safe, healthy, happy and highly performant.