Should anyone be coaching teams?

And by anyone, in this case, I mean Scrum Masters and Agile Team Coaches—people whose lens is squarely focused on coaching their teams.

And my answer to the question is—No, well, not entirely.

What?

Well, if you spend all your time coaching team ward, you’re missing a significant bit.

Teams are part of larger systems. Often, I would estimate that 80% of the time, the challenges they encounter and the challenges you are trying to help them with are NOT part of the team but part of the overall system.

So, you can coach your butt off with the team, but nothing extraordinary will emerge because you’re coaching in the wrong direction.

Why?

Often, driving forces require you to focus your lens overly team ward. For example—

• My contract tells me to coach the team.

• My job description tells me to coach the team.

• My coaching skills are focused on the team.

• My overall experience is focused on team coaching.

• It’s not safe to coach the system.

• I just prefer coaching teams…it’s easier.

Is all this just avoidance?

I think there are a fair amount of that going on, perhaps taking the easier and safer path. And to be honest, in today’s challenging organizational cultures, I can’t blame folks for avoiding some things. But that said, we are in the business of serving the team.

What to do?

It’s simple. Don’t coach the team.

😉

Or whenever you feel the need to coach team ward, ask yourself—

Should I be looking at and coaching the system before I coach the team?

I think you’ll find that more times than not, the answer is yes.

So, now, what are you going to do to improve your system awareness? And who are you going to coach?

Stay agile and systems-aware, my friends,

Bob.