I shared a post a while ago focused on coaching alignment between coaches and not making assumptions that we’re aligned. It was a personal story where I assumed something when I should have checked in and aligned with my partner coach.
A friend and colleague of mine, Richard Khor made a nice comment to the post on LinkedIn that inspired this post/reaction. Here’s his comment…
Awesome post. Another assumption that is often missed is the direction or experiments that were done before. In other words, coming behind another coach and making the bad assumptions that what was there before was wrong.
And this resonated with me for a while. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve often been critical of what I’ve found going into a new coaching context. I don’t personalize it and start blaming my predecessor coaches, either internal or external, but I do point out what I perceive as mistakes.
Now there are some really awful agile coaches in the world who are doing far more damage than good.
But Richard’s comment made me think that I should be more thoughtful and careful in my future criticisms. It’s like applying the retrospective prime directive to our coaching journeys—
"Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand."
Wrapping Up
I want to thank Richard for making me reflect on my behavior and inspiring me to pivot a bit in the future. Sure, I’ll still be honest and open about what’s come before me in my agile coaching journey. But I will also start keeping the prime directive in the back of my mind. Taking the high road if you will…
Stay agile my friends,
Bob.