Episode Description
This week, Dan Neumann is joined by three colleagues Alba Uribe, Quincy Jordan, and Justin Thatil, to have a second conversation about vulnerability, especially about the patterns Teams can fall into that are a threat to vulnerability and the overall safety of the work environment.
In this episode, they explore these dangerous antipatterns and how to prevent them.
Key Takeaways
Avoiding the Antipatterns:
If you “Bring your whole self to work,” you are able to be vulnerable and propose ideas
If you are making promises you can’t keep, people won’t feel trustful of the environment anymore. Trust and transparency need to be built into teams in order for them to be effective
Remote work presents challenges to building relationships that can foster vulnerability
How does a Scrum Master create an environment for people to allow themselves to be vulnerable?
A Scrum Master can show his/her own vulnerability in order to model the behavior to others (asking questions, making sure the camera is on in video calls)
Setting up a safe environment can require collaborating or setting expectations with those who are not on the team about the environment
Vulnerability requires a lot of emotion, allowing yourself to feel and connect with others
Assessing the root cause of a negative emotion that can arise as a result of the process is needed in order to prevent its repetition
Being neutral only exacerbates the problem instead of seeking a potential solution
Know the Team Agreements or Rules of Engagement: How are we going to interact? What are we going to do when we have differences?
Activities that numb vulnerability are a pattern to avoid
Highlighting weaknesses promote a sense of fear and unsafety
When some individuals disregard others’ ideas, vulnerability is at risk
All questions are good questions! Promoting open communication is the best way of encouraging vulnerability
A certain level of emotional intelligence is required to promote more human connection
Unhealthy comparisons are vulnerability destroyers
Don’t compare teams’ performance, it is just not effective
Looking back to a different team composition and comparing past results to today’s is not useful
Favoritism is also an antipattern
Mentioned in this Episode:
Transcript [This transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate in its depiction of the English language or rules of grammar.]
Intro: [00:03] Welcome to Agile Coaches’ Corner by AgileThought. The podcast for practitioners and leaders seeking advice to refine the way they work and pave the path to better outcomes. Now, here’s your host, coach, and agile expert, Dan Neumann.
Dan Neumann: [00:17] Welcome to this episode of the Agile Coaches’ Corner podcast. I’m your host Dan Neumann. And today I am again, joined by three colleagues. I have Justin Thatil, Quincy Jordan, and Alba Uribe here at AgileThought. Thank you folks for joining me today. Appreciate it.
Alba Uribe: [00:33] Hi, Dan.
Justin Thatil: [00:33] Thanks for having us again, Dan.
Quincy Jordan: [00:36] Yes, it’s always a pleasure. Thanks Dan.
Dan Neumann: [00:38] Happy to. And, for folks who listened to episode 171, it was the same three folks, and we were talking about the topic of vulnerability, what it is, why it matters on scrum teams, agile teams, and this will be the second installment of our exploration of vulnerability. And we’ll be talking about typical anti patterns in teams that destroy vulnerability, and then to borrow a term from Brene Brown’s work, we’ll talk about how to rumble with them. So Justin, would you like to kind of introduce us to some of the anti patterns here?
Justin Thatil: [01:15] Yeah. So we thought for all listeners out there that, you know, we talk about vulnerability, but what does it look like on agile teams and talking through some of it and rumbling is essentially getting into a cage match if you will, in a sense, and essentially exploring those feelings that are going through the team and, essentially potentially hindering the team’s ability to deliver. So one of the anti patterns we started talking about is, and Brene talks about this, where the whole notion of bringing your whole self to work, what does that really mean? and if that notion is present on a team, but in reality, it’s not there, you know, essentially we’re delivering or giving it lip service. Right. So what does that look like on an agile team? So, if you’re bringing your whole self to work to me that means, you’re able to be vulnerable and propose ideas, right? Challenging thoughts, concepts, new ideas, ways to do something different as opposed to what the team may be used to. The things of that sort. So if folks are feeling that, Hey, this is essentially just lip service, we’re not truly doing it. How do we tackle that? I like to hand the mic over to someone who’s experienced this on our call.
Dan Neumann: [02:41] Yeah. Alba or Quincy, have either of you experienced this lip service to the whole self at work?
Quincy Jordan: [02:48] Well, so when I think of lip service, I guess, to the whole self, and I guess what really comes to mind is when folks are maybe making promises, they can’t keep, putting people in a scenario where they don’t feel trustful of the environment anymore. And, but, you know, you want to be able to bring your whole self, you want to be able to be authentic. You want to be able to do those things. And that helps with the vulnerability. but I do think at times, you know, that’s a challenge, it’s a balance of how open, you know, should I be, how close should I be? you know, I think about it in terms of like what sometime is referred to as outer court, inner court and behind the veil, you know, type thing. And so you have to decide, you know, where, where that’s going to be for you within a team. But I do think it’s vitally important to bring those vulnerabilities into a team, especially agile teams, because you have to build some level of trust and transparency. And if you can’t do that, then the team is not going to be very effective.
Dan Neumann: [04:18] So I’m going to play a game of guess the reference, was that the Jerusalem temple that you were referring to there, outer court, inner court, behind the veil, is that what we got?
Quincy Jordan: [04:28] Yeah, it could be, could be
Dan Neumann: [04:29] I got it. OK. I just, it helps to have the right mental mindset cause I’m like, OK. I kind of see where Quincy’s going with this. Awesome. OK. So right. The things that are for more for public consumption, the things that are less so, and then the extremely, you know, private. And having appropriate ways to handle the whole self to work at that point. Okay.
Quincy Jordan: [04:52] Yeah. And, you know, if you think about sometimes in different teams, it’s you have things that you bring to the broader team, and then sometimes there’s like a smaller group that you don’t mind sharing things with. And then when there’s a situation where like, man, this is tough. Someone said something and it, it rubbed me the wrong way, and I’m not sure if I should take it that way, or I shouldn’t, and you don’t necessarily bring that to the entire team and you don’t necessarily bring that to the smaller group. It may be one person in that team or maybe even outside of that team, but it may be one person that you go to. So that’s kind of how I say it in terms of out of court, inner court, behind the veil type perspective.
Alba Uribe: [05:32] Yeah. Great point. Quincy and especially nowadays most of the scrum teams are working remote, it’s kind of difficult to build those relationships that will help with vulnerability. So what I have seen is a lot of people retracting, or for example in meetings not turning the video on, or just not speaking up. So those are the things that I have think I have seen that don’t help teams. And, for us as a scrum masters or agile coaches, how can we provide an environment that team members feel comfortable and safe to be vulnerable and share their ideas?
Quincy Jordan: [06:25] Yeah. And I think that particular point, it stands out to me a lot of how do you create an environment for people to feel vulnerable? So, you know, when I think about ways of doing that, if you are, let’s say you are the scrum master, okay. You’re not the leader within the scrum team, but people do sometimes see the role of a scrum master as a leader type role. So there is a certain level of empowerment to some degree that the team will give the scrum master and you can intentionally do things to show your own vulnerability that will help foster it, you know, for the team. So whether that is asking questions or making sure your video is on, your camera is on, or if there’s something is said, let’s say in the retrospective and you can tell, Hey, this is probably going to be a tough conversation. And, you know, maybe you lead the way to have that tough conversation. So those are, you know, very specific ways that you can really represent that.
Alba Uribe: [07:45] Exactly. Yeah.
Justin Thatil: [07:46] Yeah. One thought that comes to my mind is, you know, as a scrum master leads the way they’ve got the opportunity to be neutral in some sense from the work that essentially enables them to have those tough conversations started right. Posing those questions and eventually it’s uncomfortable topic that the scrum master is aware of that is happening or carrying that within the team. And it’s being presented in a way where it’s not rubbing anyone particular in the wrong way, but it’s a topic that’s being surfaced, right. You’re essentially ruffling up the feathers, if you will, as opposed to accepting the norm.
Quincy Jordan: [08:30] And one other thing I was going to add, about the environment is sometimes that may also require collaborating or setting expectations with those who are not in the team about the environment. You know, whether that means, Hey, we’re not trying to exclude you, but you know, this particular scrum event, it’s just for the team, it’s for the team to improve. and you know, or this particular scrum event is just for the team to collaborate, you know, for the day we don’t want stakeholders joining in the daily scrum. And so providing that level of protection helps to create that vulnerability. And someone has to have that conversation with those who are outside of the team. And so someone has to be able to do that.
Dan Neumann: [09:23] For sure. And, so maybe the call to action is being vigilant for only paying lip service to bringing your whole self to work. Like, if you’re going to say, bring your whole self to work, you better be ready for it. And, accepting when somebody does bring their whole self to work, whatever that might look like for your context, for their situation. okay, perfect.
Alba Uribe: [09:49] yeah, I wanted to add something quickly here. Like we have to be vigilant as Agilist, as scrum master, as agile coaches when we see these anti patterns, so we can protect the rest of the team and create a safe environment. And again, I think vulnerability requires a lot of emotion, so people opening to, you know, feeling vulnerable and just connecting with the other team members. So that for us practitioners, we need to be attentive to that and see how we can create that a container that allows people to speak up.
Dan Neumann: [10:31] No, that makes sense. Do we want to explore engineering the vulnerability out as a potential anti pattern?
Justin Thatil: [10:38] Yes, certainly. So this is a topic that comes to my mind very often on teams when there is an uncomfortable pattern happening within either the team members or the way things are being done. An easy way out is essentially is to pinpoint it to the process, right, rather than, pinpointing the root cause, what is the emotion that’s being triggered here within our team members and explore what is triggering that emotion and really going deep down to the root cause. And instead teams will essentially figure out a neutral way in a sense, without rumbling with those feelings to essentially assess the problem by introducing new process. And what what’ll end up happening in the long run it doesn’t bear fruit, the process did not solve the problem cause you never address the root cause. So that was, is one of the thoughts I had as, you know, one of the anti patterns there for intentionally engineering the vulnerability out with process.
Quincy Jordan: [11:50] And you mentioned about being neutral in that process. Can you elaborate on that for me?
Justin Thatil: [11:57] Yeah. So being neutral as in, it’s essentially not really touching to the true cause, right? What is the breakdown that’s happening between wherever it may be? So if it’s a product owner and a team member, for example, right. They’re continually butting heads and, okay, so now as a potential solution for this, we’re going to agree to introduce this process, whatever process it may be, in the part of refinement we’re going to say, as part of refinement, this person’s going to be responsible for this particular area of the refinement and this person’s not responsible for this. So just naturally just delineating responsibilities if there are times where it goes out line from that responsibility. Here’s another anti pattern that comes into fruition, right. As opposed to working together and addressing the problem type thing.
Dan Neumann: [13:03] Yeah. Sorry. I got excited there. Cause I think I’ve seen this in the wild, right. Well, okay. The product owner, you do the what and the development team does the how well, if you’ve got a product owner who has some thoughts about the, how maybe like bring them right. It’s oh, no, no. You stay in your lane. I’ll stay in my lane. Under these circumstances, it’s okay for you to weigh in, but not those, oh, I’ve lived this. Yeah. I know I’ve seen this. I never thought to attribute it to a vulnerability potentially, but I could see circumstances in which it could apply.
Alba Uribe: [13:34] Justin, and I think some of the things that help with that are knowing the rules of engagement and also like team agreements, like having that initial conversation as soon as a team is formed on how are we going to interact? What are we going to do when there are differences or issues or, there will be for sure situations that will be difficult. And how are we going to handle that as a team? So doing that upfront, I think it helps a lot.
Quincy Jordan: [14:12] I think that brings a different aspect of vulnerability as well to the team, because, so if you take the scenario that Justin took us through, and then if you combine that with what you just shared Alba, and you say, okay, well, we’re going to add that to the teamwork agreement. There’s a certain level of vulnerability that says, okay, wow, if we add this, now I can be held accountable to it. So now I have to expose myself to be vulnerable to this level of accountability. Do I really want to do that? Do we really want to do that as a team? and I think that’s a really good aspect or good point, that’s kind of embedded in what you just shared Alba.
Alba Uribe: [15:00] Yeah. And, I would say it’s part of also, are you really committed as a team to be successful, which is one of you know, commitment, one of this scrum values.
Justin Thatil: [15:12] I had just a thought along the same lines as you did. And I was thinking, this is, you know, the team agreement is essentially an enabler for team members to essentially have that moment of vulnerability to say, Hey, this is something that we agreed upon as a team. And I see you, us breaking it here. Right? if that was not present there, you know, that that opportunity may have come and passed. And because that team agreement was not present, that person that did not have the courage to bring that up now has all of a sudden has that team agreement to use to enable that vulnerability. Right. So I’m glad you brought team agreement into our conversation.
Dan Neumann: [15:55] I do feel like it could also, the team agreement is the framework and it could be for good or for evil, right. If the team agreement is to engineer the vulnerability out that that’s kind of what we’re trying to avoid. But if the team agreement is like, look, here’s how we’re going to handle the messy gray area, or, you know, the vulnerability related items. This is how the team wants to handle those in a different way than engineering it out. So, yeah, for sure.
Alba Uribe: [16:23] Yeah. And that’s when we come and we say, Hey,
Dan Neumann: [16:28] So an Agile Coach might be helpful in that situation or even another, you know, another scrum master within the organization.
Alba Uribe: [16:35] Yeah. Or somebody within the team can say, Hey, this team agreement, and it’s a little love or something. So we can work better as we interact as human beings, because at the end of the day, everyone, you know, is a human being. So
Justin Thatil: [16:55] Yes, thanks again, Alba for, getting us to through thinking about team agreements there. Next, Anti patterns around explore together was activities that numb vulnerability on a team. So what do we mean by numb? So numbing vulnerability is essentially, I think we touched on it a little bit earlier. It’s things that we do that essentially is bringing lip service to being, you know, vulnerable and open to being able to propose challenging ideas, thoughts, in front of a team or with, you know, to a team member. So an example that comes to my mind, a numbing vulnerability activity that potentially happens within a team is, you know, moments where folks may be highlighting and an area of weakness within a particular team member. So you’re sitting in a retrospective developer and team lead interaction, essentially highlighting, Hey, this particular area of code that you did is, you know, not up to par, right. And I’m paraphrasing with nicer words than this particular team I was part of. And essentially the entire team’s observing this, and now there’s this sense of fear that’s essentially being built up. So who’s going to be, you know, next time, someone’s essentially has a question around the approach they’re taking for their code, essentially they’ve been numb now, right? There’s this negative emotion that’s been aired, we want to make sure that doesn’t happen again. So as a result, I’m not going to ask this question, right. So that’s one activity that comes to my mind. if anybody else want to share.
Quincy Jordan: [18:53] As you were saying that Justin, it, for some reason it triggered me going like all the way back to an experience that I remember in college. It was actually in Set Theory was the class and the professor asked the class if anyone had any questions. And so, you know, that particular professor was notoriously known for being very hard on people. And so, a young lady that was in the class asked a question and he said, I am so glad that she asked this question. No one else asked a question. It takes a lot of, you know, courage or something to that effect to ask the question. Now, it was the dumbest question that a person could have asked, but I’m so thankful that she asked it. And of course that numbed any level of vulnerability that would’ve existed. It was already almost shot from the beginning because of, you know, the reputation of that professor. But as you were sharing what you were sharing, Justin, it just kind of triggered that memory and us thinking. Yeah. That numb of all of the vulnerability in the room, for sure.
Alba Uribe: [20:16] Like, when some individuals disregard other ideas from, you know, coming from other team members and that I’ve seen that coming from developers that are more senior than just disregarding or from developers to QA. And, this will definitely numb people.
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Dan Neumann: [20:55] I’ll imagine if you are a scrum master or a facilitator of a conversation. You see one of these, you know, that’s not a dumb question. It’s just a dumb person asking a question or. How do you salvage a mess like that? What are your thoughts?
Dan Neumann: [21:16] Oh, I’m sorry. I just threw that chum right in the water in between you guys. I’m sorry. Alba, what do you think? Then we’ll go to Quincy.
Alba Uribe: [21:22] When people, yeah, when people say, Hey, I have a dumb question. And I always say, all questions are good questions. We want to create that set that from the beginning. And, I guess again, I go back to the team agreement, but again, I’m sure there are going to be situations where people still do that. So in my case, I will definitely, you know, to the person find out more why they’re doing that, what they’re disregarding ideas of others and try to explain what the effects of that are causing within the team.
Quincy Jordan: [22:06] Yeah. As soon as you ask that question Dan I was immediately thinking, well, in my case, I actually dropped that class. And I decided, you know what, at some point I’m going to really get into it with this guy, and this is probably not going to work out. So let me just go ahead and nip this in the bud now. but I say, I mean, I say that jokingly in a little tongue and cheek, but, but it’s also true. You know, sometimes you do have to evaluate, Hey, is this environment conducive for me to be in? And sometimes you do have to make that decision. Okay. It’s not conducive for me to be in, this is not a situation that is going to help me to grow, help me to help others to grow. This is not going to be a good match. So, sometimes it’s better to cut your losses, you know, sooner rather than later, in those cases.
Dan Neumann: [23:03] I had two job transitions that were catalyzed by fascinating experiences. One being told by a very senior person, I’m physically sick you guys miss the dates. Like we’ve been communicating that this has been off track for months. Sorry. Like now you’re going to have an emotional reaction that we were late. And then another similar one, right? Hey, we welcome all the questions. We welcome all the questions. No, they didn’t, no, actually they did not welcome questions, kind of what you were experiencing there, Quincy. So, yeah. yeah, you know, I think there is some responsibility for people to decide if they want to stay in the systems that are dysfunctional in a way that is misaligned with their personal values. Right. So, you know, vote with your feet kind of.
Quincy Jordan: [23:51] You can change it or you can leave it.
Justin Thatil: [23:54] So to me in that scenario where essentially there was a lack of rumbling with that emotion, right? the last, you essentially find out when the team member leaves from that team. Oh, what happened here? So as a coach or as a team observers or scrum master, you know, what’s the way we can rumble with this? And a situation that you observe like this. And it’s one of the approaches I’ve taken, so this particular situation I described actually had a one on one with the person that did that, that essentially shamed the particular new one on the team. Hey, did you realize, you know, what you did here type conversation, right? And well then you end up learning a little bit more about how this particular individual that shamed this other person operates and then their own vulnerabilities that are essentially the trigger for some of these behaviors within the team setting. So it’s a continual link that you have to continue to explore, asking questions and peel the onion, if you will, I guess, is one way to continue to rumble in a situation.
Alba Uribe: [25:07] Yeah. Asking questions, Justin is exactly, you know, I just want to bring a point here because sometimes people like I had experiences where an individual did that and then I had a one on one, and then I discovered like they were going through, I mean, that doesn’t mean that doesn’t justify the behavior, but they were going through very tough personal time. And so, but just understanding where they’re coming from and then indicating what that behavior, the bad impact that is causing in the team, and then the person recognizing that. So that conversation, that one on one or, yeah, and just let’s go like before the pandemic, let’s go for a coffee and have a very casual in a friendly manner.
Dan Neumann: [26:02] Yeah. As I listen to some of the different anecdotes here, I think one of the things that is you is in them, but we didn’t point out explicitly. Some of these dynamics are hear like, you know, they’re either peers or they’re sort of peers or they’re close to being peers. And then I think of the situation, in my mind, in the one Quincy described a very steep power dynamic. I mean, good luck going to your professor and pointing out that, you know, for decades he’s and kind of an arse about, you know, question asking or me going to the C guy who just, you know, told me he was going to confirm our new understanding of I was to ask questions with HR who, by the way, was the CEO’s wife. Like, I’m like, yep, Nope. Like not going to coach three layers up when I’m being written up by HR, you know? So, I think it’s that the dynamics of the organization, what you can control the team level or within your or of influence, you know, where you are. So C-suite folks can I think can do a lot about performing the environment they want for their companies. And team level folks can do a lot within their orbit and influence outside of it. So I guess, I don’t know, just a thought there is, I was listening to the different examples. So Justin, would you like to roll the dice and pick the next one we talk about?
Alba Uribe: [27:31] Well Justin does that. I wanted to add also it takes, it takes a little bit of a little bit now, but nowadays it takes a lot to have an emotional intelligence. It’s not just IQ but EQ.
Dan Neumann: [27:47] Get the EQ part. Do you think that’s harder now with the remote work Alba?
Alba Uribe: [27:52] It is, it is harder, the human connections and definitely is not the same face to face.
Justin Thatil: [28:01] The camera, I mean, their body language is completely lost. The next topic, or the next anti pattern we want to explore, something that we had started talking about, are unhealthy comparisons. So comparing team members comparing inter teams, you know, across team comparisons, and past team composition came to mind as you were exploring this, right?
Quincy Jordan: [28:31] I’ll elaborate on some of these. So one of the things that I’ve definitely seen quite a bit has been where, yes, you know, people are different levels within a team, but also people bring different things, you know, to the team as well, they bring different gifts, different talents and so forth. But there are some instances where, you know, one particular skill is elevated over another and that comparison, you know, may start being made across the team, oh, Hey, this developer is super sharp, so just give it, just give it to him, you know, he’ll do it, just give it to her, she’ll knock it out. you know, that type of thing. And if it’s not balanced properly, it can cause others on the team to sometimes feel unjustly intimidated. There’s a certain level of, yes, you can sometimes use something like that to help elevate, you know, the entire team. But I think you have to be super skillful if you do that and you have to really, really, you know, do understand emotional intelligence and how to utilize and leverage many techniques, you know, to be able to do that. But so, you know, with the cross team members being compared to one, I’m sorry, not the cross team, but comparing team members, you know, to one another, and then cross team comparisons. Like we’ve all seen where, you know, someone’s like, oh, the velocity of this team is so much better than the velocity of that. That’s the better team. Really? Okay. Well maybe, maybe the other team is doing the hardest work, you know, I don’t know. but I do know you can’t just take that velocity and, you know, weaponize it and decide you’re going to now encourage and motivate the teams based on comparing them in a very un not only unjustly way, but it’s just not effective, you know, as well. And then the last thing I wanted to touch on before jumps to someone else, really quick is just about the past team composition. And so, where I’ve seen this has been where you take a team, let’s say that team has the team started six months ago, right? But over the course, maybe three or four months in, a team member was swapped out, another team member was swapped out. You’re now six months later, out of 18 members, you only have two of the original team members. And someone decides to look back and say, well, Hey, four or five months ago, you know, you all’s velocity was really great. And, but now you’re not doing, you’re not doing nearly as much as you were doing before. You’re not creating as much value as you were before. Okay. Well, the team name is the same, but is really a different team. It’s not actually the same team. You’re comparing two different teams, even though it’s the same name and they have the same agenda and objective to reach.
Dan Neumann: [32:02] That’s a good point. That’s a good point. So I’m keeping one eye on the clock here. And, so I guess if Alba or Justin, do you want to hop in here or we can shift to some of the closing thoughts.
Alba Uribe: [32:13] Yeah. So I wanted to add that another thing that I’ve seen kind of related with team comparison, but is about favoritism. So that also is an anti pattern’s, it’s not healthy.
Dan Neumann: [32:30] How so? What does that look like, to you? Or there keeping it anonymous enough. Is there an example you can share?
Alba Uribe: [32:37] Yeah. Within a team, let’s say the scrum master is a friend of a particular person and is in favor of just, I don’t know, just being with a person and giving most of the stuff that to push him on the team to this particular person, then the rest of the team feels excluded. This is not a good behavior. I’ve seen that in many organizations, not much within the scrum teams, but definitely within areas, you know, agile, excellent area, excellent areas in.
Dan Neumann: [33:25] Okay. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. So we, we explored some of the anti patterns with vulnerability. We talked about lip service. We talked about engineering vulnerability out, kind of numbing vulnerability and unhealthy team comparisons and individual to individual comparisons. So why don’t we get some closing thoughts here. Alba would you like to lead us off?
Alba Uribe: [33:48] Yeah, so definitely the anti patterns will be there. So, for us as scrum masters and agile coaches, it just to be vigilant and help the teams with different techniques on how we can minimize the impact of these particular anti patterns and work with the team to again, minimize it and if possible just eliminate them.
Quincy Jordan: [34:24] I’ll wait, I’ll let Justin go. If that’s all right.
Justin Thatil: [34:30] So one of, I was trying to think closing thought, one of the thoughts that Brene was sharing about, you know, emotions and vulnerability, if we put into perspective that we’re all, you know, humans with emotions, very emotional beings that think, right. So if we have that perspective in mind at all times, and, if we do anything that essentially brings up an that essentially causes us to react in a manner that is not that person’s best being, right. And it’s essentially what we kind of touched on is some of those ways that, so the negative ways of doing that is what we just touched on, earlier here. So, closing thought is, just keep that in mind, if we’re all beings that it react on our emotions and essentially each of us have different abilities on how we react. you know, what does that contribute to the way you approach a particular person or a team. Just remain cognizant on how you’re touching someone’s emotion.
Quincy Jordan: [35:57] All right. And so, I think the perspective that I would share is a closing statement around anti patterns and rumbling and the emotions and so forth is, you know, we work with technical teams where any technical space, many of us in the agile space, our prior, you know, developers, QA, you know, technical folks and so forth. And in that environment, we’re almost trained, taught, indoctrinated, not to be emotional, not to even acknowledge that we have emotions. And we have emotions for a reason, you know, they’re not something that’s just in the way, we do have them for a reason, and we should leverage those emotions to help bring about safe vulnerability, opportunities for us to encourage one another, support one another, and really bring out the best in each other as much as we can. There’s a responsibility that comes along with the emotions that you give out. And there’s a responsibility that comes along with the emotions that you attach to something that someone gives out, you know, as well. so I guess my closing thought would just be not to fall into the trap of, because I do see it as a trap, not to fall into the trap of emotions being something that should be ignored. They shouldn’t be ignored. They, should be leverage into bringing value and doing good things.
Dan Neumann: [37:52] Perfect. Well, thank you all for those thoughts and for joining to talk about some of the anti patterns with vulnerability and to rumble with those just a little bit, provide some techniques there. I want to ask you what’s on your continuous learning journey. And, I’ll share mine very briefly. I’ve mentioned being in this acting class. So anyway, so now we’re in rehearsals for a musical and the director his want changed something with what we were doing. And I had a question, I was like, well, like, how does it relate to what we were doing before? And he’s like, don’t worry about it. Just do the new way. I’m like, oh, it was like a profound insight. Like, I feel like I’ve seen this on teams too, where we want to understand the why and the where for, and, you know, here’s the new way. What about the, how does it compare? He’s like, don’t worry about the old way. We’re just doing the new way, worry about that one. I’m like, that was really profound. I will shut up. And, so I don’t know, what’s on little round on continuous learning journeys.
Justin Thatil: [38:55] Okay. So for me, it’s still the same one I shared last time that means, positive intelligence. We’re actively doing a little workshop, on this, and he has a book out there. But it’s essentially continuing to explore my own growth with EQ that I mentioned earlier. And, then as we explore, you know, being coaches for people out there in our lives, you know, regardless of team setting, technical setting, or even personal setting, right. It’s just remaining positive, and being able to control your emotions and just put your best self out there. So continuous learning path, different ways to learn it. This is like the next one that I’m exploring right now.
Alba Uribe: [39:48] Yeah. For me, it’s the same, we’re doing it actually as a group, positive intelligence and, it has pretty enlightening, I guess, and identifying your, what they call saboteurs or emotions that are not helping you instead more positively focusing more on positive emotions that will help you throughout your life.
Quincy Jordan: [40:18] All right. And so not to sound like a broken record here, but sharpening my coaching skills, my coaching EQ, maybe I should call it and going through that process and, and doing more are inner views, not interviews, but inner views, of myself and those types of things. So that’s part of my continuous learning journey at this time.
Dan Neumann: [40:50] Perfect. Well, again, thanks for joining. It’s great to be part of a group of coaches that are always learning something. So I appreciate you, sharing that with me and each other and with the listeners here. So, until next time. Thanks again.
Outro: [41:09] This has been the Agile Coaches’ Corner podcast brought to you by AgileThought. The views, opinions and information expressed in this podcast are solely those of the host and the guests, and do not necessarily represent those of AgileThought. Get the show notes and other helpful tips for this episode and other episodes at agilethought.com/podcast
