Implementing Agile Values and Principles: Chapter 2 (6th post)

A few years ago I wrote Understanding Agile Values and Principles (https://www.infoq.com/minibooks/agile-values-principles/). I’m working on a follow-up book about implementing them entitled Implementing Agile Values and Principles. I will post draft parts of the book on Medium.com as I finish them. I would certainly be interested in hearing people’s opinions about the draft material which I will certainly consider in making revisions as I work toward the final version.

This twelfth post is the draft of the Trust topic in the second chapter and completes that chapter.

Trust

Trust is the “state of readiness for unguarded interaction with someone or something.” It involves a belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of others without further evidence or investigation and having faith or confidence in them. Historically, the word “trust” derives from the Old Norse word traustr which means ‘strong’ and that’s exactly what we want trust between people to be.

It is said that trust is “earned in pennies but lost in dollars.” Losing trust is like crumpling a piece of paper then trying to smooth it out again; you never get it as smooth again as it once was.

Stephen Covey said, “You can’t talk yourself out of a problem you behaved yourself into.”

Developing Trust

I phrase often heard about trust is “Trust but verify.” Seek to trust but validate that trust by evidence which confirms the trust. Unfortunately, people won’t always tell you when they don’t trust you. But, to get trust from others, you also must give it to others.

Ernest Hemingway has said, “The best way to know if you can trust someone is to trust them and then see what happens.” People may seek somewhat earlier evidence that they can extend trust to others such as:

· Authenticity Are people willing to share who they are and not give the impression they are withholding something? This doesn’t mean people have to completely open themselves to everyone and everything. But we need to act in a congruent manner, i.e., what we say matches what we do.

· Competence — A person shows they have the ability and capability to know what they are doing and do it. However, because people may not always have time to learn someone’s actual competence, they accept confidence displayed by others in their own capability.

· Reliability — When you say you are going to do something, you do it. Consistency and predictability in another person’s behavior are usually accepted as evidence of reliability. Being consistent in many small ways is viewed as more impactful than a few big ones.

For teams there are practical actions that help develop trust with one another and others outside the team:

· One way is to display the team’s work in a way to make it transparent and visible. This can be through what Alistair Cockburn has called “information radiators” which may it easy for people to see such evidence and information.

· Another way is to conduct well-planned and effective meetings, e.g., daily stand-ups, prototype demos, reviews, inspections, and facilitated workshops. One crucial such event are regular retrospectives which show a team pursuing continual improvement.

Some general tips for building trust include:

· Keeping confidential or revealing information about others to yourself.

· Connect to understand other people’s backgrounds, interests, feelings, sorrows, joys, disappointments, and celebrations. Give them sincere compliments.

· Communicate and demonstrate shared values and priorities consistently.

· Admit your mistakes and apologize for them. Show your vulnerability and humanness. Be open about issues that do not require confidentiality. By sharing, you will also gain from others, building the basis for a trust.

For managers and leaders:

· Help people to trust each other. Improve communication among people by increasing the bandwidth and quality of their communication. See to it that commitments to act are collaboratively decided. Assist people to do what they promise to do, and, if they are unable to do this, help them communicate this early and honestly to the rest of the team.

· Trust people yourself. However, encourage and coach people, to find a way to solve problems themselves. Of course, if you have communicated a requirement, and the team hasn’t lived up to it, they need to repair that gap in trust. Remember “Trust but verify.” Verification is totally acceptable to expect and a good team (or individual) will want to make that verification as easy as possible.

Damaging Trust

In Patrick Lencioni’s book (The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable) his hierarchical illustration of dysfunctions shows absence of trust as the base of that hierarchy. Without some level of default trust, nothing will work. Unfortunately, despite our desire to trust, a lack of trust is the main underlying cause of dysfunction in teams.

Trust is partially about being honest about your weaknesses and mistakes. Without this trust can rarely happen.

Teams that agree on everything and never have conflict may not be truly harmonious. They may simply be avoiding serious discussion with one another. Without constructive conflict things are left unsaid. Willingness to have constructive debate about ideas is an indicator of a healthy team.

You can’t know that you truly trust someone if your interests never diverge. People can be honest and not do what you need. If our interests diverge, we should work to bring them into some compatible alignment. Healthy teams don’t avoid responsibility to make this happen.

However, holding others accountable can be uncomfortable and seem judgmental. Why would you think you have the expertise or authority to tell someone else what to do or how to do something? However, if we have shared commitment, we should speak up.

Failure to have shared goals leaves people no choice but to think selfishly. They will waste effort on self-protection, avoid responsibility and blame others instead of working together. There won’t be good information sharing, and prompt, optimal decisions won’t occur. Teams will debate endlessly without resolution.

The Impact of Safety on Trust

Psychological safety is broadly defined as a climate in which people are comfortable in expressing and being themselves. When people have psychological safety at work, they feel comfortable in sharing concerns and mistakes without fear of embarrassment or retribution. Psychological safety enables people on different sides of a conflict to speak candidly about what’s bothering them. People often hold back even when they believe they have something important because they fear being viewed negatively or fear damaging relationships.

Sandy Mamoli, an Agile coach from New Zealand, has said that a psychologically safe team addresses issues arising within the team. Such a high-performing team would have a “conversation with each other” rather than “escalating to my manager.” Mamoli listed the behaviors she’d expect from such a team. They would:

· enjoy working with each other, engaging in banter.

· bounce ideas off each other with constructive criticism.

· respect each other and want to work together to reach their goal together.

· be honest, frank, direct with each other, have clarity and a desire to overcome differences because their shared goal is more important.

Psychological safety “doesn’t mean we’re super nice to each other and feel comfortable all the time.” Teams “hold each other accountable” and can safely provide direct feedback. She said that “this is what we need to remember psychological safety really means.”

Mamoli was asked if a high-performing team could be achieved with only novice team members, lacking in skills but possessing the right behaviors. She said that if you have the right behavior, in time, “it will be possible to succeed.” In contrast, a team of highly skilled experts can become high-performing when they do not have appropriate team behaviors because “behaviour can be learned.”

People on teams need to speak without fear of reprisal. Personal safety is an early step toward trust because you are giving someone else some level of power over you. Some people want to and do trust by default. Others wait for evidence before they trust.

One Final Thought — Servant Leadership

In 1970 Robert Greenleaf published “The Servant as Leader” initiating the current view of Servant Leadership.

Though the terms “servant leader” and “servant leadership” have often been focused on managers and management behavior, anyone in an organization can be a servant leader. Any person can look at the people around them (i.e., that they work for, who work for them, or they work with) and ask, “What can I do to help the people around me be successful?”

If everyone adopted this thinking, the old phrase that “a rising tide lifts all boats” would become true as everyone would help one another become successful creating an organizational culture of servant leadership. However, servant leadership doesn’t have to be a direct act of help given to a specific person. It can be how a person creates, or helps create, an environment for a team to become successful.

Not everyone, however, believes the idea of servant leadership is a good one. Mary Poppendieck feels the term does not describe what she feels a successful manager does. Successful management, in her view, is about bringing out the best in people while guiding them to success and preventing any of them from impeding a team’s progress.

Mitch McCrimmon has suggested servant leadership sounds too paternalistic, going from what he says is a “critical parent to nurturing parent.” What he says we need is an “adult partnership” where the leader facilitates success in task completion.