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deep trust

Choosing Trust

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Choosing Trust

A colleague and friend of mine, Jamie Howard, wrote a short but interesting piece on trust. He called it Choosing Trust and you can find it here - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/choosing-trust-jamie-howard

What I found most interesting is the personal nature of it. Jamie was introspective, honest, and vulnerable all at the same time. I applaud him for the courage to share what many of us are feeling.

It’s a short read, so please take a look.

Extend Instead

But it also made me think about a different approach to it that I’ve used. I write about it in this blog post.

http://rgalen.com/agile-training-news/2014/7/17/what-comes-first-the-chicken-the-egg-or-trust

I personally think the key is EXTENDING trust. Unconditional trust. A good example of this is the film – Yes Man. And yes, I wrote about that one here.

http://rgalen.com/agile-training-news/2016/4/17/agile-leadersbe-a-yes-man

I’m not disagreeing with Jamie. I’m basically saying, Yes, And…and extending his thoughts ;-)

Wrapping Up

I want to thank Jamie for his courage in sharing. And for the inspiration! I also want to re-encourage all of us to aspire to the mindset of Yes, Man. Try it for a day, a week, or a month. It might be an interesting experiment for you to try…

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

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Why is “Trusting” So Hard?

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Why is “Trusting” So Hard?

I’ve been training and coaching agile teams for more than 15 years. While I’ve seen quite a lot of unique dysfunctions, one of the most prevalent is the overall lack of trust leadership trust in their teams.

There, I said it.

Quite often I use the term “little t” trust so that folks aren’t too offended, because really, nobody wants to admit that they don’t TRUST someone in today’s organizations. At least not out loud and visibly.

But the harsh reality is that most leaders do no trust their teams. And the other, even harsher reality, is that the teams know that they are untrusted.

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The Agile Project Manager—Do You TRUST Your Team?

As an agile coach, one of my favorite expressions in response to nearly any situation I encounter in an agile team is—“trust the team” or “trust the process”. So here are a few examples of what I mean:

If you think the team has underestimated their work and are leaving velocity on the table, “trust the team”…

- If they have underestimated they can always pull in more work. And you know, you could be wrong, so allow the team to sort through how they understand, size, and execute their work. They’ll appreciate the trust you’ve given them and will invest in doing good work.

- If you do see poor estimation or poor execution & adjustment, then bring this to the attention of the team within their retrospective. Give them examples, but allow them to explore the most effective way(s) to improve.