Awareness of Your Circle of Influence
In your Agile Coaching
I’m a regular reader of Gustavo Razzetti’s newsletters, and he wrote about the Circle of Influence the other day. Of course, I’m aware of that idea—I have been for decades—but I haven’t thought about it recently, so I appreciate Gustavo refreshing my thinking.
As I was reflecting, and this may come as a surprise, I began to think about the Circle of Influence from an Agile Coaching perspective. And how helpful it might be to think of it solely in those terms for a bit.
Think of it as a reflection tool for your coaching.
Strategies
Expanding on the article, I want to share some reflective strategies using the Circle of Influence—
Reflection – Understanding your Controls – first things first, assess the things you have control over. For example,
Me,
My skills, experience, and stories,
My mindset and how I show up,
My thoughts and reactions,
My self-care.
Reflection—Reducing your Concerns—Take inventory of your concerns. List all of them. Then, consider ways and actions you can take to release them. One example might be to write them all on a sheet of paper and then burn or destroy it, releasing your concerns with the paper.
The critical point I want to make is that I encounter many Agile Coaches trying to change things that are simply a concern and not in their influence purview. If you’re one of them, you must learn to release these things for your good.
Reflection—Expanding your Influence—The first two steps are simply precursors to this final, most powerful step: expanding your overall influence.
This is where you delve into strategies to enhance, broaden, increase, and strengthen your influence. It’s a long-game play, so you’ll want to activate your perseverance to see things emerge more slowly.
Activities you might explore here are—
Ensuring your communicating, demonstrating and validating your value proposition
Volunteering for opportunities in the Agile Community of Practice, LACE, and similar groups.
Getting involved in the external agile community and then sharing those learnings and activities internally.
Proactively building relationships with stakeholders within your organization and more broadly.
Seeking to help leaders achieve their (and your) business goals, objectives, OKRs, and outcomes.
Seeking feedback on how you are perceived (your Brand) and seek to reframe or change it to generate more influence opportunities.
Maintaining your self-care so that you bring optimism, energy, and positivity each day.
Measuring your influence by the number of inter and intra-departmental requests you get (pulls) for your expertise, opinions, and guidance.
Are just a few ideas that come to mind. Challenge yourself to create your own list of strategic opportunities.
Wrapping Up
As part of your Agile Coaching reflection practices, take some time this week to consider your Circle of Influence. Then, take some actions to release your concerns and build your influence.
I believe you’ll find it refreshing.
You might also find this article on Staying in your Lane helpful as it’s somewhat related to this one.
Stay agile, my friends,
Bob.
It’s a challenging time for Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters, and Change Agents. But the profession isn’t dying. It’s simply realigning around coaches with the chops, depth & breadth of experience, and skills to deliver value.
Please consider joining Peter Fischbach and me for our next Badass Agile Coaching Masterclass, beginning January 29th, 2025. Now is the time to raise your Agile Coaching competencies; there is no better way than our class.
We have significant DEI discounts available, so DM bob@rgalen.com for more info.