I have a colleague, agile coach, change agent, and friend who recently shared a story with me. It got me thinking about his situation from multiple perspectives.
But before I get into that, let me share a little context first.
Paul, not his real name, was leading an agile transformation in a company. He didn’t have a lot of positional authority, but he felt he was integrated sufficiently with senior leadership in technology and product to make things work.
He was unexpectedly invited to a meeting with his boss last week and he was fired. It was a complete and utter surprise.
The party line was that his role was being made redundant because they were taking another approach to their agile transformation (another model, framework, philosophy). But the abruptness of the dismissal belied that claim.
Paul felt that, in hindsight, he hadn’t been meeting organizational expectations around the transformation, but at the same time, nobody had had the courage to give him any clear feedback to that effect. Nor any mentoring or coaching to help him better achieve the organization’s goals.
