Things have changed all around you.  No matter how young or old you are, you have experienced change.  Dial phones and Blockbuster have been replaced by cellphones and Hulu.  It’s not as obvious that our jobs and roles are also changing dramatically as well.  In every field, individuals must constantly evolve to stay on top of Now and the rate of change is increasing.   
 
Agile is a recent addition to traditional Fortune 500 companies.  Agile, when done well, drives value with quality and speed.  When done poorly, it confounds the delivery of value just like anything that’s done poorly.  There are various good and bad ways large organizations are leveraging this evolution and of course, struggle comes with any change.  Those that can work through it will see the most success. Some will not.  As businesses change, people cannot stay the same. 

There are types of people who can successfully navigate a Scrum session.  There are also types of people who cannot.  For example, a person who has always programmed alone will find Agile collaboration daunting. Collaborative work requires collaborative people and in business, we have traditional not encouraged collaborative behavior.   Control, competition and hierarchy are the blueprint in most traditional large companies. With Agile, collaboration has replaced control.   A dramatic culture change is occurring. 
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Jobs will continue to go away.  How can leaders be mindful of the impact business change has on the staff?  How can you ‘onboard’ the skills required for today, not ten years ago?   In this newsletter, I’ll share a model for evaluating and (when possible) growing these skills intentionally.   I’m leveraging a sophisticated assessment called Trimetrix EQ© to define the multiple parts that go into a person’s success in a collaborative, Agile environment.  

Look at any resume and you’ll find Job Competencies. You’re reading the Job Competencies the person is trying to get you to believe that they have – true or false.   Job Competencies can partially predict whether a person will fit into the job.   Here’s a list created by Target Training International representing the top competencies for working adults:

Resiliency
Flexibility
Personal Accountability
Teamwork
Decision Making
Self-Management
Problem Solving Ability
Goal Achievement
Futuristic Thinking
Conceptual Thinking
Interpersonal Skills
Planning & Organizing
Persuasion
Continuous Learning
Written Communication
Creativity
Customer Focus

​In the world of work that you lead in, what are the 10 competencies on this list that your top performers have?  In a work environment that requires collaboration and teams driven by Agile, you’d need all of these.  Depending on the specific job, the prioritization will be different but I wouldn’t remove any, would you? Look at your current staff. What is missing? What is it costing your business? What are you going to do to grow the competencies needed for the new world of work?   

Think of behaviors as strengths.  Each of us has strengths that are easy for us. We also have blindspots and weaknesses. Leveraging a DISC profile, behaviors are identified as a combination of the following four strengths:
                              Dominance
                              Influence
                              Steadiness
                              Compliance

​Most people have one or two strengths, although you can have more or less.  When you are working in your strengths, you work most effectively.  When you are not working in your strengths, you’ll find the work tiring and difficult.  Here are definitions for these four natural styles that focus on:
 
Dominance         getting tasks done quickly
Influence             influencing people to share your views and build your ego
Steadiness          connecting one on one with another to help them
Compliance        completing tasks but not until they are perfect
 
When working collaboratively, teams will thrive when they know each other’s strengths (and blind spots.  Not knowing these strengths can cause tension between members.  For example, if my strength is Dominance (check off tasks) and I’m working with someone who is Steadiness (one on one with another), we’re going to measure our work velocity by entirely different things.  This could create an invalid bias that the other person is rude or not working on what’s important.    When you share your strengths in a DISC Natural Team Model, you learn how to appreciate and leverage each other’s strengths.  This is an important aspect of Agile work.  I’ve marked the part of the wheel that would be most collaborative and focused on teamwork. 

​Under pressure, a person may pretend that he or she has different strengths.  This usually happens when someone is playing a role that doesn’t match their natural strengths.  This creates anxiety and often poor-quality work.  Leaders can use the DISC Adapted wheel to identify this problem to get them back to their strengths.  Usually, others know intuitively that this person is not doing well.  On this wheel, notice that the circles represent natural style and the stars represent adapting to something they are not.  

​It is a good practice to learn to adapt temporarily to people who are different than you are.  Keep in mind that people who are adapting, even temporarily, to be more collaborative are going to use more energy to join in the meetings.  The quick stand-up meetings popular in Agile are good for people who have difficulty working intensely with others. 

Each of us has an internal prioritization of what makes our heart sing.  Motivators help us capture and communicate what types of activity bring us the most joy:

Utilitarian            Seeks return on investment of time, talent, etc.
Theoretical          Learns new things for the sake of learning
Social                  Helps others because it’s the right thing to do
Regulatory          Follows a set process or rules
Individualistic     Aspires to power through politics
Aesthetic            Thrives in harmonious and beautiful surroundings
               
Motivators are more subconscious than conscious. When you are not working in your preferred motivators, you’ll feel anxious and stressed.  For example, I love teaching- the more people in the room the better.  Some would be paralyzed by this.  I do not like accounting or finance activities, and when I must do them, I feel anxious and incompetent. 

When profiled, individuals will usually have 2 – 3 top motivators, 2 – 3 low motivators, and 1-2 motivators in the middle.  The middle are called situational which means you are flexible about how you leverage these.  The Top motivators define your passion, the Bottom motivators are distasteful to you when observed in others and the Middle motivators are situational. 

Thinking of Agile work, which of these motivators might be valuable and which problematic? In general, each contributes a viewpoint that is valuable to collaboration.   Can you think of a Scrum session where two people disagree constantly?  Notice their words to help clarify where their motivators might be and if they are opposite.  Having all six perspectives creates the best Agile outcomes.
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You can’t adapt motivators, they’re much too deep inside.  You can be aware of them and choose your behaviors when you notice your stress increasing.  In the next session, you’ll learn how EQ (Emotional Intelligence) helps us manage our motivators and those of others who are not like us. 

Emotions are behind every choice we make every minute.  Given the different perspectives, competencies, behaviors and motivators on an Agile engagement, it is critical that team members learn to manage their own emotions. There are five components to leverage as you grow ‘the muscle’ of your emotional state:

• Self-Awareness
• Self-Regulation
• Motivation
• Social Skills
• Empathy​​

In Agile settings, I recommend that you focus on NOTICE and CHOOSE.  Start with these three:
 
Self-Awareness                 NOTICE when your mood is beginning to get more negative
Self-Regulations               CHOOSE how you will behave
Empathy                             NOTICE and CHOOSE how to see others
 
We all have biases in our thoughts that trigger negativity.  Every time you evaluate a situation, you are comparing what you see against what you think is right.  Think of the way mininterpret and judget each other.  When you view someone else, you use your judgement to evaluate the world outside.  The farther your judgement is from reality drives stress.  Increasing stress tells the brain your in danger.  Your brain responds by shutting down higher order thinking and memories.  You’re left with only FIGHT, FLIGHT or FREEZE.  As Dr. Izzy Justice shares, you are blind to everything else.  Our assessment provides practices that your staff can use to grow their own EQ.
 
“This week, as you face a challenge at work, a point in a meeting perhaps where you find yourself evaluating your risk/threat level to say/do something, consider what past memories are causing you to be so cautious. They are real of course but are they keeping you from being your best in the critical moments of your performance? For most people, the answer is a definitive “yes!” And if so, then you alone are your biggest threat to your performance.”  – Dr. Izzy Justice
 
How could you as a leader drive conversation about the biases (judgements) that are misinterpreting reality?  How can we stop and think about the other person’s issues? How does your own bias effect your leadership?  

The Trimetrix EQ assessment made up of Job Competencies, DISC, Motivators and EQ is an invaluable communication tool to drive collaboration in Agile teams.  Create a Team Insights report that allows each person to remember not only their own preferences but those of others. Have coaches available to facilitate the journey to go from hierarchical control to the new Agile approaches. Leverage all four of these sciences to create a strong, compliant model for communication.  Keep these important differentiations in mind as you move forward:

Job Competencies            Can be grown through training, coaching etc.
DISC                                  Natural Style doesn’t change quickly; Adapted Style can be changed
Motivators                         Motivators tend to stay constant
EQ                                      Emotions can be easily grown like a muscle
 
If you’d like to learn more about this approach to jumpstarting Agile teams, please contact Lou at lou.russell@moserit.com.