Trust
- Richard
- May 24, 2020
- 3 min read
Sometimes we lose sight of what's important. We try our best, but instead of paving the way, unknowingly we shackle ourselves and our companions.
Companies expand and grow, and with this growth come new challenges and opportunities. Every day we are faced with new issues, new failures and new successes. Often times, after a success, we take it for granted. Whereas when we fail, we figure out why and try to find a way where we won't fail again. Such is the way in both life and business. It fits perfectly in the agile mindset, you learn and adapt to face new challenges on a daily basis. But let's take a look back, are we still on track?
When you look at your organisation, how many teams are performing in a way you would want them to? Less then you hoped? I'm not surprised. Often times when a team fails, the organisation tries to help them from preventing the same failure again, and it sets up some rules. It writes some working instructions and comes up with definitions, roles and responsibilities. There, all set. This failure won't happen again.
The problem with this approach is that the team did not learn anything. They are not given a chance to adapt. Instead they are being shackled, maybe even without knowing why. And if you're not careful, you're going to cramp up trying to prevent each way a team can fail. Completely blocking any growth for the team, completely blocking them from innovation and creativity, completely holding them in a firm grip. But even though you are holding them so tight, even though you feel like you're in total control, the team will fail And this frustrates you, you lose trust in your team and feel an even bigger need for taking things into your own hands.
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This occurs even more in bigger companies, who are trying to set rules for each team to work in the same way. This won't work, every team is different and works better in a different way. Of course you will have to set some expectations, so it's not a wild west. But didn't you achieve that years ago? Aren't you just feeding your own mistrust by now?
So now you have a lot of control, but still not enough. Teams keep failing. Your distrust grows with each passing day, and with it, the team will stop trusting you. They will stop coming up with ideas, they will stop telling you about impediments, they will pretend everything is A-okay. You are now in a very bad place, and it's going to be hard to climb out of here.
Even though you're in this situation, you are still trying to be agile. But now you see flaws all over the place. Agile isn't working. We follow the rules, we try to grow towards the agile principles, we try to open discussions about the scrum values. Yet we are getting nowhere. It is just another myth that lied to us about being the best way to deliver our complex products.
This is because trust is the foundation upon which you build. All agile principles are based on the scrum values. All values are based upon trust. So if you lose trust, you are doomed to fail. And trust is a delicate thing. When it's broken, it'll never be fully restored. You can glue it together, but it'll be weaker then before.
Trust is a delicate thing. When it's broken, it'll never be fully restored. You can glue it together, but it'll be weaker then before.
This is why it is of the utmost importance you let the team fail. Then you let the team decide on what to do next time. All you do, is reduce the costs of each failure, and support the team in their learning process. If you can trust your team like this, your team will have a rough start, but it'll bloom above all expectations.
If you've gone down the path, and you now have trust issues. It's going to be a long and painful road. You need to start trusting your team, encourage them, empower them. Eventually they'll slowly start gaining some trust in you again. When that happens, and not a moment sooner, you can start succeeding in building your agile transformation.
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