One Month to Live

My friend Brad asked a question last week that struck me so hard that I lost track of the conversation for a bit, lost in my thoughts. What if I only had 24 hours left on this earth? For most of us, it's fairly similar - going and letting all those we care about how much we love them, maybe forgiving some people or asking forgiveness. As powerful as that is, in my friend's opinion, how much more powerful if the question was "What if you had a month to live, or a year?" That question is richer, deeper, because you had time to do something, other than just communicate. You can change. And you can change lives.

Brielle Murray has changed a lot of lives. Barely 13 years old, she has touched many, many lives as she faced RMS cancer for the last three years. She passed away on Friday, February 17 at 9:45 A.M. In her room were still thank you cards and valentines that she was making for others. Brad's question had me going over and over Brielle's short life - here she was thinking of others while facing unbelievable challenges. Perhaps that question is part of the answer.

In our culture of Me First, we don't often think of what's left behind when the Me is gone. And yet, that's what's lasting. Recently, I was talking to a key person in one company's agile adoption and he kept referencing how one executive had made such a difference. When I went on LinkedIn to find out more, I saw that the executive had moved on to another opportunity years earlier. But you wouldn't know it from the way the agilist was talking - it was like the executive was still there. In some ways, he was. That exec was still making a difference through how he had impacted this agilist, and now how that agilist was coaching his ScrumMasters, QA folks, developers and others on the teams he was over.

You can make a difference. You can change lives - the way people view challenges, believe in themselves, respond to failure, treat others. But it doesn't start later. It starts now. It's starts with the focus, resolve and passion you would have if you were just told that you only have months or a year to live.

Below are some resources on how others responded to the same question -

• Tim McGraw - Live Like You Were Dying - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xSGLZd9Vg4
• The Fray - How To Save A Life - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjVQ36NhbMk
• Switchfoot - Dare You To Move  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOTcr9wKC-o
• One Month to Live: Thirty Days to a No-Regrets Life - http://amzn.to/hkiXzg
• Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson - http://amzn.to/fx1Xsy
• Death Be Not Proud - http://amzn.to/eYGti5
• Alicia's Story - http://www.sfgate.com/alicia/

Technorati Tags: agile, scrum, coaching, lifecoaching, ScrumMaster

ScrumMaster as Coach: Mentoring & Drawing Out

In my Implementing Agile Teams trainings and Certified ScrumMaster classes agile training classes we discuss the various roles that the ScrumMaster plays. One of those roles is Coach. Although we usually have a good discussion, there's been a nagging sense that it wasn't complete or as deep as should be. 

I had some insight today from Leadership Coaching. Essentially, you, the ScrumMaster/Coach, are tasked to impart, strengthen or correct certain skills and practices. For example, making sure teams have daily stand-ups, but also tweaking and optimizing how it's facilitated, or explaining to others why daily stands-up are powerful and effective tools for collaboration. Perhaps you're helping coach on test-driven development or continuous integration. All great, valuable skills and practices. I think this type of coaching is Mentoring.

But coaching is not just imparting skills and practices, coaching is helping people become someone they were not before. We want, no, expect those on teams to be Open, Courageous, Focussed, Respectful, Committed. We want team members to trust, have healthy conflict, hold each other accountable and attentive to results (to borrow from Patrick Lencioni). We want them to ask powerful questions, collaborate effectively, be servant leaders. But my experience has been that I can't just walk up to a hardcore power-ogre team lead and say "Go forth and be highly collaborative!" or go wave a wand over a 15 year command-and-control PM and say "I bless you with the gifts of Facilitation, Listening, and Service. Go and empower someone today!" These things are not that easy. These involve people changing, not just learning. So, how do you help people change?

It Starts with You

"Becoming a transformational coach starts with being transformed." There are disciplines, skills and heart involved in helping people change, but we'll focus on the heart. As Tony Stoltzfus writes, coaching begins with a heart that radically believes in people. For example, in my training classes, I talk about three levels of listening. Although those are good to know, if you as coach don't value people, it won't matter. It won't work for you. Per , "Coaches don't listen because listening is a good technique…A coach listens because to listen is to believe in you."  My sharing about listening skills will only help those who are becoming someone who cares about others. We can not treat coaching as a set of techniques over being - style over substance. If you are just after results, than "technique without heart is manipulation."

I'll share in a later post about some of my practices in trying to become more and more of someone who has this kind of heart. For now, let me encourage you that believe the change we want to see in others already resides in them in some for. The preferred way we'd like to see them collaborate on the team has happened somewhere before and we as coaches help draw out what's already in there. We don't need to prescribe solutions and advice in the area of personal growth. Keep that to the skills and practices. 

Mentor coaching is giving what we know. Transformational coaching is drawing out what's already inside.