The client was challenging…but I was sure I was up to the challenge.
They were of moderate scale.
Leadership wanted to “be Agile” but didn’t understand what that meant.
I engaged as part of a coaching team from organizations, perspectives, and experience levels.
We started with the teams—training, tooling, product alignment, and reorganization.
After 6-months, nothing from the leader’s perspective had changed—there were no significant productivity improvements.
This was ~ seven years ago. And I was fired, I failed. and I considered myself a…Failure.
I lamented—I could have done better, changed things. Why didn’t it work out?
Moving On
Of course, I’ve moved on from this client and those feelings. Since then, I’ve had my fair share of successes and a few more failures.
But I found something out last week. Several of that client’s divisions have used those initial agile efforts and continued their progress. To the point of gaining a solid semblance of business agility. Who would have thought…
And the story gets even more interesting.
Quite a few of the folks I coached in that organization have moved on to other organizations and roles or even become entrepreneurs. They took those lessons they learned to different (and potentially more fertile contexts) and have inspired agile ways of working.
MY POINT…
I’ve changed my perspective as an Agile Coach. I truly never fail—well, I mean fail-fail.
If I plant a seed and it grows 2, 3, 5, or more years later, it’s a success.
If I plant a seed in a group of individuals, and they move on to other organizations and agile grows, it’s a success.
Sure, I might have failed in that moment. However, time and human complexity make the binary determination of our success or failure impossible.
Wrapping up
Since we really don’t know the entire impact of our Agile Coaching, how can we ever claim it is a failure? I would argue that we can’t unless we stay in touch with everyone we touched (planted seeds) in our coaching for a very long time.
Continue to plant your acorns, and expect those mighty oak trees to grow. You may never see them yourself, but don’t doubt your seeds are growing and spreading, my friends. It’s the nature of what we do as agents of change.
Stay agile, my friends,
Bob.
Bob, so much of coaching outcomes and measures of success is dependent on the base capability of the organization and very often the timeframe we are expected to measure against is too short. What I read in your story above is an Agile coaching long game success. The organization was not ready for an immediate change in direction, but open to a slower pace of change. The coaching laid the foundation that enabled individuals and teams to adopt the methods that made sense to them, when their was an opportunity to make a change.
I found your story inspirational and a reminder that often you need to look back over a longer period to measure the true impact of coaching on individuals and organizations.