Recently, I read an interview between Bernie DeKoven (who has aliases as varied as: Major Fun, The Shaman of Play, and more) and Barry Joseph (Associate Director For Digital Learning, Youth Initiatives, at the American Museum of Natural History). While the whole interview is delightful, and I recommend it, I was particularly struck by the game called “The Out Blessing Game” or “Endless Blessings.”
There’s this thing…as Jim (James Shore) and I have mentioned before, in the early days of Agile we would visit teams and hear, “This is the best job I’ve ever had. I love this work.” People who were doing Agile (usually Extreme Programming) were excited about it, they shared it with others, who did it, and got excited. But at some point, someone shared it with someone who got excited about it and shared it but didn’t DO it, so their sharing lost a bit of fidelity, like a copy of a copy.
How do you set conditions for organizations to become “learning organizations” and how do you support the self-organizing teams that emerge from this transformation?
Trying to save others from the discomfort we’ve experienced is a worthy impulse. When the pain we are trying to help them avoid is embarrassment, physical harm, disappointment or a lot of wasted effort, we mean well. However, too often we communicate the message in a way that is difficult to hear.
Today there are an almost overwhelming number of available choices for coaching. Not only are there many individuals coming from vastly different backgrounds who serve as coaches, there are multiple views and models of what coaching is and is not.
We take the stance that coaching needs to guide individuals towards enhanced work/job performance and the personal satisfaction that comes from making a positive difference in the success of the enterprise.
You might say that sounds simple. Well…yes. Simplistic? …not so much. Whether working with an individual or a team, we follow a process of assessment, analysis and planning, and small step...