Overcoming Bad Coaching Experiences

I joined an organization that had a bad experience with a previous coach and did not see the value of coaching support. They felt as though an agile coach could not understand their industry and only had high level theoretical knowledge. The actual transformation was being pushed by the CIO, which was the only reason that I (the new coach) was on board. My challenge was to earn the opportunity to partner with this group of leaders and ultimately guide their transformation.

A brief statement of how I worked through it is captured below:

1. Understood the problem and created a transformation team
My first action was to interview and listen to the leadership (business and technology) and hear of the challenges and failures that these executives had experienced related to past transformation efforts. Next, I ask them to help me understand what success looks like or would have looked like related to a transformation. This allows us to gain some clarity and common understanding of what our future goals and objectives could be. I also asked for their partnership in future efforts to ensure that we seek success together. This created our Transformation Leadership Team.

2. Built a backlog and implemented checkpoints to measure progress and/or course corrections
Once I completed the interview sessions, I set up a working session with all leadership who agreed to join our Transformation Leadership Team. We then created a backlog of items that we would attack as a team to support a successful transformation. This backlog was prioritized by the group with the CIO being the tie breaker if necessary. Lastly, we created a bi-weekly transformation meeting to track or progress and handle any prioritization discussions.

3. Ensured that we were accountable to our goals
I facilitated the transformation meetings and also ensured that all of us were accountable to our transformation goals. I stressed the fact that leadership is the foundation of any successful transformation and that our common alignment was going to be the path. Ultimately, we were operating in a similar manner as our teams were expected to perform, embracing all of the good things an agile environment provides.

I had to keep in mind that the primary challenge is not the people, but the system in which the people reside. We focused on what roadblocks existed and what actually was in our control. Ultimately, I was able to gain insight into what success looked like to these leaders and they began to take ownership of our agile transformation.