Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Personal Leadership and Our Ability to Influence Change

If you have burning questions about personal leadership and how to influence change, this session is for you!

In this live session of Ask a PST, Stephanie Ockerman tackles tough questions about personal leadership and our ability to influence change! She shares stories and experience to address listener questions about control, influencing change in organizational culture and more!

Transcript

Lindsay Velecina  0:00  
Music. Welcome to the scrum.org community podcast, a podcast from the home of Scrum. In this podcast, we feature professional scrum trainers and other scrum practitioners sharing their stories and experiences to help learn from the experience of others. We hope you enjoy this episode. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to today's Ask a professional scrum trainer. I'm Lindsay velocina. I'll be your host for today, and we are very lucky to have Stephanie Ockerman, one of our professional scrum trainers, here to answer your questions. And today's session is pretty exciting. I think it focuses on personal leadership and our ability to influence change. So a really big topic, and I'm really looking forward to see the types of questions you all brought with you today. And then just a little bit about Scrum. Dot work. We are the home of Scrum. We were founded by Ken Schwaber, one of the CO creators of Scrum back in 2009 and our mission is to help people and teams solve complex problems, and we do that through our professional scrum training. We have over 350 PSTs around the globe. We also offer our certifications, as well as a lot of ongoing learning opportunities such as such as this podcast, but also lots of free resources on the scrum.org website. So please check those out if you haven't already. There's a lot there that can help you on your learning journey. So with that, I'll hand it over to Stephanie to introduce herself and kind of set the stage here for today's Q and A

Stephanie Ockerman  1:42  
Thank you. Hi everyone. My name is Stephanie Ackerman. I am the founder of agile socks and agility and leadership training and enablement company. You might know me from the content that I publish on my website and on scrum.org website, which Lindsay was referencing, as well as the book that I co authored, mastering professional scrum in addition to professional scrum training, I offer a range of learning opportunities that help people grow the additional skills and capacities needed to truly be change agents. And one of the big areas I've been focusing on in my own growth journey the last several years, as well as beginning to integrate that the last few years into the work I create in the world is leadership. And so this is a topic I'm very passionate about, so I'm happy to be able to have the opportunity to answer questions about this topic today, as Lindsay referenced, it's a big, big topic, and I am very curious to see what types of questions you all have. And one of the kind of the things I've been talking about lately in the content I've been creating for my newsletter community, in the speaking engagements that I'm doing has been about this idea of learning to ride the waves instead of trying to control the ocean. And for me, that is, it's a metaphor, but it's also very literal. And, you know, I've done a lot of different leadership work in the last several years, engaging with different different institutions and bodies of work, and I kind of believe that they're all sort of pointing us towards the same things. And I think that's actually great. You know, we might use different language to talk about certain things and have different ways we frame things, but for me, a lot of my leadership practice like really sunk in for me through surfing, and it helped me see other things in my life, in my work, in terms of, like, oh, wow, like, I didn't see this as clearly before, and then, and then this has kind of evolved into this kind of the sketch phrase of learning to ride the waves instead of trying to control the ocean. And so that's, that's kind of my fun way to talk about, what is leadership about

Lindsay Velecina  4:23  
I love that metaphor, and you are so much cooler than me. So let's start getting into some questions. As I mentioned earlier, please utilize the Q and A box for questions, and then we'll kind of go from there. So to kick this off, Stephanie, I want to, I want to ask like a question to set the stage. And then we'll dive into listener questions. So how do we look at things that we feel are beyond our control and influence?

Stephanie Ockerman  4:57  
That is a big question, just to start as. Off and frame things right? So the reality is, much is out of our control. You know when we think about, when we think about, you know the work that we're doing in organizations. You know whether we are part of delivery teams, whether we are in management positions, working on enabling those teams, working on business strategy, there's a lot of variables that are beyond our control, and there's a lot of different people who have different opinions and different information, and there's not a lot of like, oh, this is a clear right answer, or this is a clear right path. And then also, things are always changing around us, and so we need to be much more adaptive. And so when I think about, like, control, I can control how I respond to things. I can control how I'm showing up. And so really, like, that's my take on control, and then that's a very, very small part, right, of what's happening, but I would say it's such an important part. It's like, it seems small what we can control, but it's actually big, big, big in terms of our ability to connect to our leadership is when we can let go of the need to control the things that are not within our control and focus more on how we're responding. But then also, there's you mentioned influence, right? This difference between control and influence, I think many things are within our influence, and so I think what has the greatest influence is when we are grounded, when we are open, when we are curious, when we are committed to learning and really trying to connect and understand others and see more perspectives. That's kind of the big picture answer to like, when we are approaching things from that place, we are more likely to have an influence. Now we might not see that influence in a timeline we want to see it, or we might not it might not play out the way we're wanting it to play out, but I think it's really important to think that to remember that we're always having an impact, right? And like, based on how we're showing up, how we're engaging in a conversation, how we're choosing not to maybe engage in a conversation, and action we're choosing not to take in this moment, maybe we're going to pause, right? And so there's many, many ways that's happening, but we are always having an impact as as as leaders, and that impact is what is overall, going to influence change over time. And so, you know, the idea of influence and control is often it's often associated with Stephen Covey's work. This idea of control and influence. It's been adapted by others to think about, you know, the, you know, the circles of influence, circles of control, and then what is kind of outside that. But I think it's, I like, the simpler take on, you know, control personally, right, like the personal response, and then you can take that to a greater level of, like, okay, as a team, right? How do we want to show up as a team? What action do we want to take that is within our control? And then how do we continue to work to have the influence that we want to have and changing things and a lot of time that requires patiently persisting, is what I like to say, but remembering that the way we're showing up, right? Are we reactive, right, or are we in a more creative state of being that is always having an impact, and ultimately that affects our influence?

Lindsay Velecina  8:53  
That's really, really great advice, and it's and it's it's pertinent not only to us in our in a leadership perspective, but also like in our personal lives. And I think that's really important thing to remember. I am someone who is guilty of worrying about things that are beyond my control. So So I mean, it's, it's really great to put it into perspective. So this next question here, so comes from Helene, and it says I started my position as scrum master six months ago. I feel really disconnected from my team because they are all programmers, and I am not. I don't have a background in tech and don't understand their work. I'm wondering how I can be an effective scrum master when feeling so disconnected from them. There's also the issue that meetings take place in Spanish, and my. Spanish is only intermediate, so I miss a lot.

Stephanie Ockerman  10:04  
Wow, that's, that's a great question. And I I'm saying it that I'm saying it because it's a common question. Really, I've come across this a lot, this idea of, like, if I'm not technical, or I don't have the specific knowledge of how people are doing the work, whatever that type of work might be, right? Like not being able feeling that disconnection. So a couple of things that come to mind for me are, you know, one, remembering that leadership is a relational process, right? And so it's not so much just the structural aspects of that come that we often think about when it comes to leading, of like knowing how the work's getting done, being able to contribute to that conversation about how best to build this thing. It's a relational process. And so, you know, you know, you mentioned you're the scrum master. It's like really leaning into, what is my accountability as a scrum master? Right? How do I enable and support the rest of my team members? And so when we lean into that, we can start to find our purpose, right? Like our purpose and then, and that is, that's what we can lean into every day is, how am I showing up in alignment with that purpose? The other piece of this is, I think it's helpful to just really bring your curiosity as well. And not that your goal is to learn the technical side, but I think there's something to be said for showing an interest in what people do. You know, like, I have people kind of in my in my circle, that have a wide range of backgrounds, from like biology to like social justice. And you know, I'm not going to learn and understand at the level that they do, but I can, I can still approach with a genuine curiosity around like, you know, what? What do you what lights you up about this work? You know? What I'm interested in to know how you discovered this work, how did you get here, and where do you want to go with this, but then also that curiosity around you know how what is, what gets in your way? Like, what are, what are the things you do that are the the more frustrating parts of your job, right? And so that's how you can kind of both lean into the connection piece of like showing your interest and wanting to learn more about other people and what they're doing and why, why they're doing that work, but also in ways that give you information that help you start to sense and pick up on how do I contribute here, in in my accountability, another little like, kind of Small thing that I think is useful when I'm in because I don't have a super technical background. I've written code before, but you don't want me to be writing code, but I understand, like a tiny bit, but not the level of the deep technical discussions for many of the time, the teams that I've been a scrum master for, and I can still be in those meetings, and I can sense energy. Like, I can sense like, is something not being said. I can notice, like, what's the participation level? Like, does this feel like an inclusive discussion? Is there like a tension underlying this conversation? And then also, like, I can help create better understanding of a technical approach in terms of how I'm also facilitating, if I, you know, and that could be as simple as saying, you know, it sounds like, you know, we're coming to, you know, we've got a few ideas out here, and it's getting pretty complex, like, can, can, can we maybe draw that on a whiteboard and then one that is helping everybody better kind of align and understand what we're talking about. But it also helps me, you know, understand at a level I need to understand, not the deep dive technical things. So it kind of serves both purposes. So those are a few tips specific to that part of the question. The other piece about not speaking the language that they're using as fluently. I can really relate to this, not from like, a work perspective necessarily, but I am trying to become fluent in Spanish, and I spend a lot of time in Costa Rica, and, you know, thing, I do understand that, that feeling of, I don't, I don't know, for me, it's sometimes just like, a fear of like messing up, or just like I get nervous and I feel I just feel bad sometimes about it. And so part of my leadership around this. This is working on that, noticing when that fear comes up or that nervousness comes up, and and focusing on grounding myself and remembering, you know, I'm here to learn, you know. And if I need to ask somebody to speak a little slower or just say, you know, I I don't understand that, well, is there another way you can say it? But also, I really believe that just trying right, like trying to show up and speak in that language, goes a long way with building that connection and and showing that I care and that I'm working on it. And you know the not being afraid to get it wrong, not being afraid to make a mistake, and even if what you're working on is not around trying to become fluent in another language, I think that lesson applies for everything and in our leadership, right? Like we say things in the Agile space all the time about it's okay to make mistakes, you know, it's it. We're going to get things wrong. We're going to we're going to fail sometimes, but the reality is, we are often not living into that belief, right? And this is where leadership kind of comes into play, this idea of like we might hold certain beliefs, right? We might, we might believe these things. But the question is, are we really living into that belief and starting to kind of have that self reflection and noticing that in ourselves so that we can work on it.

Lindsay Velecina  16:28  
That's great advice. Thank you. I hope that helps. So this next question, the big one so So recently, a leader at a place I was coaching at, said to me, teach the team Scrum and meet these goals in six months. I looked at his lengthy list and remarked, this is a lot of change in a short time. Your he replied, Oh, we don't want any change. So what would you have done to move the coaching ball forward for him in this blind spot? Yeah,

Stephanie Ockerman  17:07  
well, it's interesting, right? So one thing that I'll point us to, and I'm always going to try to, because the topic is personal leadership here, I'm going to try to make sure we're weaving that into that conversation. So one of the things for me, like, I've been in similar situations where it's that might not be exactly what the leader said, but I've had that moment of, like, wait a second, like, I don't this doesn't make sense. I don't understand, like, how they can think this way or say these things or believe these things. And one of the things for me is like to really check my judgment, right? So like, what judgments Am I making about this person? And also, what am I assuming, right? And and we, we go around our lives making assumptions and judgments all day long. It's, literally how our brains are designed to work. And so one of the things we want to do is just to kind of, like have that, almost like it's a self awareness of, oh, wow, like I just had, like, a reaction to that. You know, it probably might have been something that, like showed up in my body, or a thought that I had, I'm noticing and so recognizing, you know, like, where am I making a judgment, and then, like, kind of walking myself back from that judgment and getting into a more open and curious state, and then, and then once I'm no longer in kind of, maybe that like little bit of reactivity State, and I can be more open and curious. I am likely to get curious about that. And it could be a conversation around like, you know, help me, like, help me understand what you mean by we don't want anything to change, or we're not expecting change. I don't remember the exact wording the question, but it's like, help me understand this, or tell me more about that, and then, or it could be looking at the checklist of things, right? And like, starting to have entry points into the conversation there. So the key thing here again, just coming back to checking our own judgments, right? Am I getting defensive, closed off, wanting to be right, wanting to argue, you know, my point and win this conversation, or get them to think that my way is the right way. Or am I open, curious, committed to learning, and am I willing to be in a collaborative relationship with this person and navigate right where it's there's going to be some form of co creative navigation, and I'm probably not solving it, by the way, in this one conversation, I might need to do a little bit exploratory, bring in that curiosity and openness, learn some more, get a better understanding of what is this person thinking? Where are they? Coming from, and then I might even need some time. It's a process to think about it also to observe. So a lot of times we're focused on, you know, an end goal, right? And it sounds like, in this situation, it's like six months, you know, teach them Scrum, and we need these things to happen in six months. And so there's there that can that alone brings up reactivity in many of us, right when we're given a deadline, when we're we're working in a complex, unpredictable space. We don't have all the answers. There's not a perfect roadmap. We're not robots. We are human beings. And so just noticing when that type of reactivity comes up and and getting yourself into a place where you're more open and curious and can get more information, right? So awareness is a big thing here, right? There's the self awareness of like, what's happening in me. There's the awareness of gathering more information, right? There's probably historical things that have happened in this organization that you might not know about because you weren't here. And so staying open and curious about, well, what is different about this organization, and what have people been through here? And then, so that's kind of like the one side of the answer, and then I will say the other side of the answer, moving us more towards like, a tangible action of, like, what do we do? When people are saying, hey, we need to do this. And by this date, and it involves change, and or maybe they're not uncomfortable with the change, I'm going to start having conversations about, what is our goal, right? Like, and so, you know, trying to get towards like, meaningful goals that have more of a value impact, right, versus a checklist of activities or outputs that we're saying need to be true of like, we need to train X number of people. We need to have transitioned all of our, you know, all of our, you know, product backlog items into a specific tool, maybe, or whatever it might be in the situation, I'm always trying to bring the conversation towards what value do we believe that's going to create, or what is the positive impact we're hoping to see? And so when we start trying to steer those conversations towards outcomes. What we're doing in our leadership, in that way, is we are creating transparency right to where we're actually headed, and we can have conversations, and that help create alignment towards that, because there, there might actually be different perspectives and opinions of what it will look like when we've achieved this text, this, like lit, this checklist of things, right? So a lot of this is around my leadership, and how I'm showing up is creating a space for more information, more awareness, not just for myself, but I'm doing that for others, and therefore I'm creating more transparency, and then I'm going to help create more alignment, right? Not that I'm directing and saying, Hey, this is what the alignment needs to be. I might be part of the conversation depending on my role, but it's that idea of moving people towards that alignment. And I'm also start having conversations around like, Okay, this is a lot, and we're not 100% sure what it has to look like. We have a rough idea. What's that first experiment? What's that first step? Right? How can we look at our progress in maybe a month? Right? What could we aim for in the next month? So ways that help remind people of what we often say. We believe that we cannot control all of the variables we're working in complex environments. We need to be responsive to change. We need to learn right and we need to incorporate feedback. Most people aren't going to argue with those things because they make sense. The challenge is, we've like been socialized into systems that just make our natural approach. Want to control, want to have answers, want to be able to guarantee outcomes. And so the approach you take to that is, is really just, is like this, open, curious, right? Look for opportunities to bring transparency to what's really happening and create that alignment. It's one of the reasons I really love the evidence based management framework. So like, a lot of times, like the like, any tool can be used well or poorly, I'll say. But one of the things I really like about evidence based management, especially when working with leaders, is that it helps us have the conversations we need to be having. We're having better conversations about what actually matters, and it naturally incorporates and helps people start acting their way into the belief that we need to work iteratively. We need to focus on value. We need to take an experimental approach. We need to learn. We need to pivot right so it gives. More tangible tools that help us do that.

Lindsay Velecina  25:03  
That's great. Thank you. Stephanie and I did just drop a link to a page with some resources about EBM that you all might find helpful. So this next question here. So in quotes, culture eats strategy for breakfast at this at this point, the roles of leaders and cultural change cannot be denied. Therefore, what do you think the duties of a servant leader should be? We would be happy if you could explain it with examples from your life. And a bonus question at the end of this is, if you have any suggestions about becoming a P It's PST, and its journey. This person would love to hear them, because they're currently preparing for it.

Stephanie Ockerman  25:48  
Alright, so culture eats strategy for breakfast, and I'm kind of like orienting my thoughts around a big question that could go in a lot of different directions. So culture eats strategy for breakfast, and what is our role as a servant leader? Yes. So samples, yeah. So, I mean, at the end of the day, like culture is how we do things, right? It's like, it's the way we show up, it's how, it's the norms and things that happen, right, and how we're doing things around here. And so, you know, I think a lot of times we, we can think of, and the reason I'm saying this out loud, and like thinking through this and out loud, is a lot of times we think of culture as this, like, big, formal thing that, like, you know, it's a list of formal, list of value, and it's, you know, the values, and then, like, here's, you know, the 10 point plan of what our culture looks like. And don't get me wrong, like, I think it's important to make it direct and clear and talk about, you know, what our culture really is and how it shows up. But I just want to name that, like, you know, culture is this big, big, big thing, but at the end of the day, it's how we do things around here. And I think that our role as a servant leader is to help create transparency to where we have, like a friction, right, where there's resistance, because what we're trying to do, a strategy we're trying to move far with, is not aligning to the culture we say we we want to continue to enable, or that we want to create, right? Or vice versa, right? So I think one of the biggest things that we can do as servant leaders is create transparency to what is really happening. And when I say create transparency, I don't say make judgments. And so this is where, like, we want to just surface. So like, one example to thinking through, like, some of the better examples is, you know, like a team that I worked with was struggling with, like, the idea of, like, a lot of different stakeholders, right, that many of us have experienced this so, Like a product, it was a scrum team. The product owner is dealing with a lot of different stakeholder requests and and in my kind of, my observation was that, you know, they were making value based decisions. You know, the team had struggled before to deliver and that's going to create strife among stakeholders. And so that was the that is a whole nother story behind that. But like, you know, they weren't able to deliver very well, and we kind of worked through those challenges, and now the team was delivering, and the product owner had a greater sense of their accountability and their their authority in terms of deciding right the order of the product backlog, setting a product vision and so, and setting a strategic goal. And so, what we still have, though happening, was a lot of strife amongst the stakeholders, right? A lot of, you know, kind of gossip, almost like, I mean, it was gossip. It was like, you know, it wouldn't necessarily come out a little bit in the meetings that they had, just kind of like a pushing and a, you know, kind of like a baiting almost, you know, in a, not a terribly disrespectful way. But we've all seen, we've all seen those energies showing up. But then there was a lot of conversation outside, and one of the key things was just like, not engaging in the gossip, right? Not engaging in the desire to, like, go build a coalition and get people on your side. It was really about like, here's how we're going to show up, here's how we're making decisions. And then. When there was a challenge to, kind of the choices being made, having an open and honest conversation about it, so it didn't happen in one meeting, that it sort of changed the dynamics, which I would say is the culture of, kind of this wider stakeholder group, but time after time after time, by continuing to be transparent about our progress and how we were making decisions, by continuing to show up in this open and curious way right versus getting defensive or, you know, just shutting down conversations right over Time, just less and less, you know, of that, you know, chatter, less and less kind of direct resistance showing up. Just the whole conversations. The energy of the conversations changed. And so I one thing I want to say is a lot of this is continuing to show up in your creative leadership, right? You're noticing I'm using this terminology, creative, reactive, right? So it's the idea of being open and curious and committed to learning, versus reactive, being closed, defensive and committed to being right? And it's there's there's, it's like a consistency that needs to happen. I'm not saying perfection needs to happen, because that's that's not realistic, but when I have an awareness of my level of reactivity versus creativity, you know, I can make choices about, should I be having this conversation right now, or do I need to get myself into a different state? And I also want to mention that, in addition, this person worked on their relationships one on one with those stakeholders, there were one on one on one conversations, because it's there's always going to be a different energy of being in a bigger group setting and having a meeting that has a specific purpose, versus a one on one conversation that you know, not saying, those don't always have a specific purpose, but sometimes the purpose can be to work on The relationship, right, growing trust, understanding each other better, you know. So, you know, there's multiple angles I just want to point out in this example of how you are showing up as a leader and how you're taking different actions to make shifts and influence that change over time. And so a lot of times we don't even have, we don't have, like, here's my checkpoint plan of how I'm going to change the culture. But it happens through like that, consistency, those small things, and maintaining an awareness of the situation. And then one day, you're kind of look around and you're like, oh, things are different. This feels different. So that's, that's one example that I want to share. And another example I'll share is around using evidence based management, like as a tool with a leadership team. And so, you know, a lot of times, as a servant leader, we use a range of skills, from teaching, coaching, facilitation to kind of help, you know, influence change and help unlock the potential, right and so, and like I always say, helping People have better conversations about what matters. And another situation comes to mind for me, of working with a leadership team we had, I think it was like a three hour working session, and I was using evidence based management. They didn't know I was using it. But beauty of evidence based management is it's really talking about goals and measures and experiments, which is common language that people can relate to, and I was really helping to my goal was to just create transparency to whether to like, how aligned they were on understanding the goal and how each person's department that they that they were the manager of was, Like, connected to that. And so that was like a specific working session where they had this big aha moment of somebody because of the design of the session, like, kind of leading up to creating information, creating transparency, taking them through process, realizing and being willing to say, like, I'm gonna admit, I don't understand how this goal, how I connect to this goal, and how my department connects to this goal. And it really shifted the conversation right there, that somebody was willing right, to have the courage to say it right. And then it shifted the whole dynamics in that room, and that session was pivotal for people to then, from then on, have the courage to say things like that in meetings with the leadership team, and for people to be willing to ask questions. When they didn't understand something and so like, that's just another example of like that shifted a piece of the culture of how that leadership team worked together.

Lindsay Velecina  35:16  
That's awesome. Thank you, Stephanie. I hope that helps, yeah, and

Stephanie Ockerman  35:21  
I will hold off on the PST question, just because it is kind of not in the range of the leadership conversation, I want to

Lindsay Velecina  35:29  
follow up with that one offline. Thank you for that question, though. All right, so this question, maybe you'll understand it. We might need a little more context. But how do you help control? Control? Do you use meditation, exercise? Okay, power with that. I understand visualization techniques.

Stephanie Ockerman  35:55  
So, yeah. So it's such a great question. I did need the follow up to understand what would mean. Yeah. So it's sort of like, how do I let go of control? Is kind of that way I word it. It's like, that makes sense, yeah? So like, the, but I do love the like, how do I control control? It's fun. It's fun. Way of putting it, so this, I want to just name that. Like, this is part of life. Like, I always talk about leadership as a journey, not a destination, and this is part of why, right, like, We're never getting to this, like destination, of I have officially let go of control, and part of that is simply because, like, we're not robots. You know, there's parts of our brain that are actually wired a certain way. And so there, there, there's that piece, but then there's also, like, our lives also change over time. We we confront new situations and different challenges, and things change around us, and so our own leadership capacity, we might be in a good place, and then something happens, and then all of a sudden, like we're back in that, like, oh my gosh, things are changing. And you know, I'm not, I'm not comfortable with this. I feel like the world is very uncertain. And you know, we're going to go back into some of those patterns of like, desire for control, and so I just want to normalize that like that is life, that is the journey of leadership, as I like to refer to it. And I think it's a matter of, I like that you brought in like practices, because I think I do something I call daily alignment practices. And you know, so I'm a person who like likes certain routines, and it doesn't have to look like that for everybody, but I do think it is helpful to have parts of your day that give you space to just check in with yourself and to just be and to slow down a little bit and recognize so I think the thing that happens is, you know, we're so busy, right? Like at work, we these meetings, meetings, meetings. I got to get this thing done. I got to send these emails. And then, you know, beyond work, we also have lots of things, lots of other responsibilities, and also just genuine generally, I think we live in a culture that, like, just treats busyness as a badge of honor. And so I think one of the key things is to sort of recognize, like, get making sure we are operating at a pace that gives us the space we need to be aware of ourselves. And so when we're aware of ourselves, we're going to start to learn things. Like, when I start to get I use the term for myself, I get a little grippy, grippy, like, I want to, like control, or, like, hold on to something, or, you know, like that. That's my phrase I use for myself. And I know how that shows up in my body. I know the patterns of thought that can happen. But I would say the big thing is, like, I notice it in my body, usually first, and then I then I start to notice, like, where my brain starts spinning on certain things. And so when we're when we have enough like spaciousness, and we also have kind of a a practice of intentional self awareness, you know, we grow that muscle, essentially, and we become more self aware, like throughout our day. And so you can build in like these moments to give yourself space to check in with yourself, but also get to know those embodied patterns that show up that are usually like that early warning sign and so. So, yeah, like, but I do want to say like, this is, you know, I actually was talking to my own coach about this yesterday, around like I thought I was past the. Like, why is you know? Why is this coming up again, right? And then reminding myself, like, okay, Stephanie, if you were coaching somebody, what would you say to yourself, right? And this is what I would say to myself. So I think it's the it's the journey. And I think there's a really important aspect of this, of like, accepting it, accepting yourself, there's nothing wrong with you, because the moment you start to judge yourself, right, you're just creating the reactivity. Like you're spinning in reactivity. You're recycling it. And so I think I will say, like, if this isn't work you've really, like done deeply before, like, I have benefited from working with coaches throughout my career. You know that help me process these things and help me be reflective and help me remember these things. So, you know, just, it's normal, it happens. Self acceptance is a part of it. And then just that deepening self awareness. I always talk about the importance of expanding our awareness. One of the things that I talk about a lot is growing our leadership capacity. And so, like, what I mean by that is this idea that, like, okay, yeah, we can know theories and tools and then a lot of that is what we're talking about here, theories, tools and practices. But what's going to have the biggest impact on our ability to effectively navigate complexity and respond to change? Which is, yes, what agility is about, but it's kind of what our whole lives are about. Is more about how we're showing up and making intentional choices, learning right from what we're noticing, taking responsibility for our impact, right, and then co creating, you know, our world together. And so this idea of leadership capacity is saying, instead of focusing on just static skills that we're like learning to use in specific situations, if we grow our leadership capacity, right? Like, that's what's helping us. Be with the complexity, be with change. Be with ambiguity. And it doesn't mean it's always going to feel great and that you're going to be like this, like fully enlightened human, but it's part, it's, it's a thing that is, like an ongoing journey that growing our capacity. And I would say that in my journey, like I, I think I discovered kind of this leadership idea a little more meaningfully by, like, reading some of Brene Brown's work, and then, like, got more curious, and was like, Oh yeah, there I get this, this makes sense. I'm going to change, and I'm going to be better. And then also, like, you run into like, we can, we can think ourselves into like, thinking we've, you know, reached this level of, you know, our leadership skills and capacity, and then something happens, and then, and then, you know, like, so to me, like, what's been really helpful has been working with coaches, but also going deeper, like doing immersive leadership programs, where I was in a container that we were all doing this work together, and It was intense, and it was very experiential, also super supportive. And it just really showed me a lot of like, where I was still kind of fooling myself, you know, like most of us are super smart and we, you know, we learn, we learn theories, we go learn practices and tools, and we try them and we talk about them, but there's just this, like deepening that's always happening for me is kind of how I think about it. It's like a deepening and an expansion. And so, you know, I'm I'm never going to reach like a destination around it. It's just like this is a journey, and it's how I want to show up in life, and I'm going to do the best I can, and I'm going to work on like, my resilience and my adaptiveness and like these qualities of leadership that really help me both navigate but also recover. You know, when I need to recover?

Lindsay Velecina  44:20  
Great advice. Thank you, awesome. So I just want to be mindful of our time. So we're getting some amazing advice here from Stephanie on these questions. We have a ton of questions we are not going to get to all of them, and I apologize for that, but I will share these questions with Stephanie, and we will figure out a way to get them addressed in some way, shape or form. So don't worry if we don't get to your question. So this next question, you touched on this like a little bit, but you probably have some more specific stories that you could share. So. What can you do to influence leadership who they themselves need coaching. Our internal agile coaches are not respected by the decision makers, and even when we got to the point of getting external consultants to come in and help coach them, they backed out at the last second because they did not have enough budget. In quotes. It feels like a total fear of accountability, but these are the leaders who are prohibiting us coaches from being able to make any meaningful changes.

Stephanie Ockerman  45:33  
Well, I can certainly relate to that. And you know, the the more enlightened version of myself. It's so much easier to talk about this when you're not in the situation, by the way, and also why it's helpful to have coaches who are not in your situation to talk to about these things and give you more perspective. So I think one of one of the things that comes to mind, I could take this question in a few different directions, but one thing I want to say is, it sounds like there's some judgments and assumptions wrapped up, you know, just in how we're talking about the situation. And I'm not saying those judgments and assumptions are wrong. They are representing, you know, certain perspectives. And so one of the things I like to do when I'm really struggling with, like, you know, how do I influence in a situation like this, when I don't feel like people are listening to me, or it feels like people are Avoiding accountability, is to try to think about, like, what, what other things could be at play, like, what other experiences could these leaders be having, right? Like, what other things could be taking their focus right and meaning they don't focus budget and time on, you know, this type of thing. So for me, like that's one thing I've realized I need to do to get out of judgment of those people. Because whenever I'm coming into a situation, if I'm going to have a conversation, or maybe it's like it's in a meeting, but just if I'm judging other people that are in that room, they're going to pick up on that, right? And they may not be able to name it as like, I think that person's over there judging me, but that energy has an impact, and it also, I believe that it is blocking me from seeing other possibilities, right? When I have kind of come in set with like, this is what's happening, and you know, I need to figure out how to change it. It's like, well, what if there's more happening, right? And so, like, once you start to open up that creativity, right of other potential pathways to influence the situation, right, you might realize that there's maybe one or two leaders that are actually you, you pick up on the fact that they're actually pretty open to doing it, and they're struggling for certain reasons, and then that may be a pathway like you can have one on one conversations with people that you're like, hey, like, I noticed this, and, you know, I'm curious, like, Is there something I can do to help in the situation, or or it might not be something I can do, but just trying to relate to them and understand where they're coming from, again, you're just getting more information about what's happening in the bigger system, like in the field, so that that will just then potentially give you new ideas, but not even Just new ideas. Just having that conversation might unlock something for that person. So like, these are all things that I've that have happened in different and similar but different, you know, situations, and so that's why I'm bringing them up as examples. So that's, that's one piece of it is in the leadership side of this conversation. It's, like, really checking in on, like, yeah, we are making, like, we observe things, we draw, you know, kind of we come up with, like, what do we think might be happening? But it's like, Am I coming at it with, like, this harsh judgment and like, this is what's happening, and I know what's happening. And, you know, then spinning a story around, they just don't care about they don't respect me, right? It's like, what if there's something else at play? And that just helps me not take it personally and be more open, like I've been talking about, and then I can see more creative ways forward. The other thing I like to bring in to the person to the leadership conversation, is this idea of timing, and so this is a difficult one for me, because I like to control and I like to plan. And so, you know, I I have to remember that like I'm always having an impact it might not happen on the timing that I'm wanting it to happen. And so that could also be true, especially when we're talking about these types of bigger things that happen in organizations that require leadership to kind of make investments and take and spend time in certain ways. Kind of anything we're doing in organizations like it takes time, and this idea of, you know, you're always having an impact, and you might not even be there to see your impact by the time you it finally, sort of like manifests into reality. And a simple example I'll share here, of like, what I'm talking about is, you know, I have taught, I don't even know how many professional scrum classes over several years, and, you know, I'll go into an organization, and I'll kind of pick up on, like, what's the actual culture here? Like, you know, and you know, I'm going to teach this class, but I can also pick up on, like, how resistant, like, how much struggle are they going to run into, maybe not from the people in the room, but from kind of the the challenges they're bringing up. And I have left classes, and you know, years later, run into somebody who said, you know, like that class you taught, like this thing you've said meant so much to me. And even though I really, like, couldn't make the changes I want, wanted to happen when I got my next job, it helped me make sure I was going to find the company that was the right fit for me, and that was going to give me a shot to work on the types of skills I wanted to grow and like, that's an example of like I could not have. I could not have known I even had that impact, had I not randomly run into this person. And so I've seen that in organizations as well. Give you like a much more like tactical example here, I worked with an organization that was talking about moving to a product funding model, right from project to product. And I was part of this group of people who was like, meeting with, you know, experts that you know about this idea, and looking at studies and trying to create the case for the organization to do a pilot with the team I was working with. And, you know, I think I worked on that for like, about a year of the my time in that organization. And, you know, I left and went to a new opportunity. And I don't even remember how long it was, later, several months, maybe a year, ran into an old team member, and they said we moved to the product funding model. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that's amazing, right? But had I just given up early? Had I come into it with this attitude of like, they're never going to change, or I'm judging them for like, oh, they just don't get it right, like my impact might have been different. And so this just kind of goes into the like, we can't control all the variables. We're never going to really understand all of the things that are happening when these when we're talking about systems, right? Complex Systems, organizations, teams, interrelationships between them, right? So like, trust like is one of the things that I talk about. It's like, trust in myself, trust in others, trust in the bigger things that might be unfolding in systems, just showing up, doing my best to influence from that place of kind of creative leadership and really caring about other people and getting to know them better and being aware of being more aware, self aware and aware of what's happening around me.

Lindsay Velecina  53:40  
That's awesome. Thank you. And you actually hit on a little bit on a question that came in about shifting from project funding, so that you hit a few questions with that answer. So we're really running, running close on time. Here we have about six minutes left, so we can maybe answer one more question, and then we'll have to wrap up. So let's end with this question. I thought this was interesting so and you probably have a story to relate to it, so I took over a team as a scrum master. The team is already working together for a long time, and my impression is they're already very matured, doing a great job in self organization, planning, review, doing retro, having their daily achieving sprinkles, etc. They're doing things good, just not the way I am used to. I struggle with finding my role in this team, and most of my usual assets don't seem to be needed. I'm currently feeling not really needed. Did you ever experience this? How do you navigate something like that? A big question to end. But yeah,

Stephanie Ockerman  55:01  
well, like, so knowing we're short on time, I just want to say, like, maybe your purpose here is to learn and to grow yourself from the rest of your team. Maybe that that's a piece of it. I think there's always kind of some piece of my job is to learn something here, and it's interesting too. Like this idea that it sounds like it's almost opening you up to, oh, they're doing it differently than I thought, and oh my gosh, it's working. That's kind of some magic right there, right that might start to help you, you know, develop that greater sense of openness and curiosity, and like how you will then approach everything going forward. So that's that sounds like a pretty cool thing to me. The other thing is, I think that I'd like, I've definitely understand what we mean by like, I have a comfort zone. I've learned these things. Here's the experience I've had, and then there's, there's a piece of leadership that's about expanding our range, right? And so there's probably opportunity here for you. I There's very few teams that I've ever seen that are like, they got everything covered, right? They may be, it may look good, right? Like, and we may be delivering, but, like, question things like, like, what data do we have around, you know, value, right? Like, the actual value we're delivering, like, how? How are we taking an experimental approach, right? Are we making assumptions about value? So there's one side there, there's also, like, maybe there's, there are process improvements that can be made even though we're delivering. There's friction, there's waste in the process, right? And maybe it's about organizational influence. Is really you now? Maybe you have space to also be looking at the organizational level and influencing agility in the organization there. So I think there's always going to be opportunities. And like, the challenge for you is like thinking about, okay, like this is an opportunity to expand my range, and so how do I want to do that? How do I be observant around where I can help, but also talking to people, right? Like things might be okay, but they could be better, right? Maybe there's still some frustrations. Also, like, where do your team members want to grow? That's another great conversation to have. So those are just some ideas that I'll leave it at that, but I think it's a really cool thing to be in that position and like, trust that you're still there for a reason. It's part of your journey, and this is that opportunity to expand your range.

Lindsay Velecina  57:31  
Awesome. Thank you so much, Stephanie. This has been really, really great. Thank you. Audience. For those who are here on the live call for the amazing questions, I'll connect with you, Stephanie, after this, and we can figure out a way to get those addressed. There's a ton of them, which is awesome. So thank you so much for your time today, Stephanie, and thank you audience. Is there any final words you want to leave the audience with in these last two minutes? Yeah, I

Stephanie Ockerman  57:59  
just want to say like, we need space for reflection and adaptation for ourselves. You know, we talk about this for our teams and our leaders and like, we need to give ourselves that space. And we also need to start recognizing like, where are like, these ingrained beliefs around perfectionism, comparison, competition, meeting, control, scarcity, thinking, connecting our worthiness to our productivity. Like, I didn't get too deep into those things, but there's a lot that's kind of under the surface that lives in that that space, like wrecking starting to really challenge, like, where these beliefs are showing up and affecting how we're leading. And so, you know, we want to get off that hamster wheel and give ourselves time to work on our leadership capacity. And if you want to go deeper, if this stuff resonates with you, I've got a lot of different things going on related to leadership, specifically, like free leadership alignment training coming up in October. I'll have an evidence based management class in November, and doing some inter leader tools workshops that have been really, really powerful. And so the best way, because there's always kind of new things happening, is to sign up for my newsletter, agile socks.com/newsletter, and then that way, you'll be getting any of the content I'm writing about surfing and leadership, or just learn about these different opportunities coming up.

Lindsay Velecina  59:29  
Awesome. Thank you so much Stephanie and thank you audience for your participation today. This has been a great interactive session, and stay tuned for more. This recording will be available within 24 hours on the scrum.org community podcast, and you will also be getting an email within 24 hours as well with a link. So thank you so much again, Stephanie for your time. And thank you everybody. Scrum on you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai