The Agile Coach Mindset
Agile Coach Mindset is an orientation. A chosen path to accomplish definite goals. Mindsets are important to shape intent and generate a commitment to a given task. Mindsets enable clarity of thought and singularity of purpose. A coach should understand the importance of a mindset to govern his practice; this creates the impact and possibility to achieve the maximum from their services and from his/her team members. So what is the Coaching Mindset that a Coach needs to develop? How will that agile methodology facilitate the individual at work over time?
The Agile Approach and the Agile Coaching Mindset is a result of the following:
Building a Robust Relationship
The intent of Coaching and Agile Processes should be to build relationships that are strong and lasting. The endeavour is to be authentic in delivery with a commitment to stand for all that works and will not work, seeking continuous improvement and a robust relationship. Coaching is not a product that is transacted over a contract; it is a continuous relationship, a ‘work in progress’. A leader in a coaching role benefits the most when he/she is delivering value by establishing a support system for his coachee and thereafter stands behind him on a word of promise.
Developing an Attitude & Fixed Mindset
A coach should train him or herself with implementing an attitude of getting the best out of the coachee into the relationship. The onus of extracting the best from the coachee into the relationship is vested with the coach, and this is possible only when the coach reflects the right attitude in him. It is only the attitude one communicates to another which shapes the perception, and this is achieved by displaying empathy. Empathy establishes an intent of understanding, helpfulness and compassion which naturally pulls the other into the relationship. A good attitude shows that the coach has a genuine interest in the relationship and that both are there to gain from it. It also ensures both are investing their best into it.
Self Sustaining Interactions
A leader will not have the time to address the concerns of all his members. He might find it a challenge to coach everyone and anyone who approaches him with an issue. A good leader will develop his agile mindset and overall coaching skills in a manner that with each coaching session, his coaches get self-generated and with a growth mindset that can help them coach themselves out of situations. The skill of an effective leader is to create self-motivated teams. Hence, a coach should enable his coachees to be in a continuous mode of seeking and asking the right questions. This way, there will be fewer instances where the coach will need to intervene with the coachee leading to lesser but sustained and impactful interactions.
Agile Practices & Developing Specific Behavioural Skills
Whether in start ups or large international corporations, coaching skills are evolutionary in nature. They are skills that are not borne from our natural instincts of survival. One needs to have a mastery of listening, questioning, giving feedback, being non-judgmental and unbiased to all levels of staff, even up to department heads and stakeholders. One needs to be restrained and not prompted to give in to the natural psyche of human existence where one has to be competitive, self preserved, judgmental and emotional in order to survive as the fittest. Behaviour coaching is not about teaching the art of survival, it is to do with learning to live a life. Coaching is all about empathy, compassion and selflessness in order to be complete, authentic and informative to the needs of your client/member/coachee. These agile principles are skills that need practice and an immense amount of dedication to master.
Agile transformation and an agile mindset enables a coach to be aware that the focus of coaching is not a solution finding but relationship building. Building an effective and stable rapport is the bedrock of a successful coaching intervention. Agile enables you to realise and see in retrospectives that it is only under conditions of absolute trust that the true world view emerges from people, which are presented sans filters, fears and apprehensions. Agile helps you develop a coaching mindset and brings in occurrences which are more stable, workable and profitable. A few outcomes of an Agile Coach mindset are:
- Creation of a relationship of genuine trust and camaraderie within your working environment
- Replaces supervision with partnership as a starting point
- Turns silos of existence into a culture of sharing core values
- Transforms a frame of blame into that of cooperation and collaboration with self-organizing teams
- Achieves vision and goal attainment for the member, his organisation and the leader himself
- Helps organisation harness new-age skills thereby retaining the best and the brightest amongst them
The Agile Mindset offers a broad variety of coaching options that have been specifically designed to meet the ever-changing needs of the organisation. The Agile Mindset provides specific coaching in Scrum, Lean, Kanban, SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework), revising methods of project management and technical practices for Agile teams as well as coaching for full Agile adoptions that may use all, or a carefully selected sub-set, of these coaching services. Agile is all about people, and relationships are what binds them together. Hence, the key to the Agile way is not doing Agile.
Find out more with our training courses and classes at Leadership Tribe and contact us today to learn about the agile mindset and improving overall business agility for you and your team.
