Let’s escalate!
Today I want to talk about power relations.
Yes the one thing that always gnaws on our peaceful, calm world.
Especially in workplaces! You get up, brush your teeth. You drink your coffee and drive to work.
You greet your team, sit down on your desk. The person considered above you in the hierarchy comes by, you chit-chat, everything is fine.
Let’s go a level deeper. Let’s say, for example, you work in a company which has adopted an agile framework. Let’s say you are a Scrum Master.
Recently, the Sprints just don’t go as planned anymore, even though you solved every urgent impediment, your team is skilled and works in good collaboration. You come to the conclusion that at this point the reason isn’t the team but something else. Maybe you will take a look at the structures inside your company. Just as you are called to a meeting with your team and the CEO.
As the voice of the team that you are, you provide sprint figures and metrics with context. You raise some concerns that it might be something else that is standing in the way of the team’s productivity. In fact, in past retrospectives you and the team already analyzed some of the problems that might be solved from the top. Important changes that you and your team just can’t decide upon in the company’s current state. Things are getting more serious and in the end the CEO says: “I heard your concerns, I will do what I can.”
“Yes, victory! The higher ups heard my voice, surely they will do something about it now, since it’s somewhat their company and they want to be successful right? … Right?”
I mean, we are an agile company after all and every voice, every role has a voice right? — flat hierarchies right?
Some weeks pass, and well, some adjustments were made but still the same problems. Why? You dig deeper. You dig trough all the surface layers and start to look at the core. And as you study the core, you’re shocked. It’s rotten. The very fundamental structures are the problem. What now?
Everything makes sense. All those little problems that pile into failing sprints, bad mood in your team and meetings with no clear outcome, no real solutions come from there.
But why? Why wouldn’t the people in charge notice? Could it be that they didn’t notice yet? Or do they know but willingly choose to ignore it? Or are they unable to cope with it?
Well you decide to talk to your CEO or the person in charge about the issue. It’s hard to get a decent chance to talk to him or her since they’re always busy but as you make clear how urgent it is that this matter must be talked about you eventually get your shot.
“Yeah, well that sounds indeed like a serious problem, but at the moment we don’t have the XY to change the structures in such a way.” Something like that could come along as an answer.
You see the avalanche coming. You know that as time progresses those first aid actions you take won’t heal the ever-growing infection under the surface.
So if you’re in the position of a Scrum Master or some role similar you should consider yourself a servant leader. If you look at it from an external standpoint, you press forward the demands of your team and you try to provide as much functioning structure and process for the individuals you work with as possible. You can and you should warn, if you know something bigger than your team or framework attacks the health of the workflow and productivity.
If you warned the right people and still nothing of significance happens … well then what?
Let it escalate!
Yes, at first this sounds irresponsible, maybe even a bit masochistic.
But think about this way: How do we learn? I mean how do we really learn wether we want it or not?
Right: When sh*t hits the fan. When there are real and direct consequences to the actions we took — or we didn’t take.
So if you are in such a situation and took every action possible (within your range of authority and decision making) without a real result or change here is a somewhat radical approach: Stop the first aid actions, stop the talking with higher ups or persons responsible for implementing change (in a larger scale). Sit back, watch and document quietly what is happening. Be still there for your team as usual, but take a step back overall. Gather your data for the inevitable crash.
And then, when said day comes, let’s say for example a review of an important sprint that failed horribly, give report to your higher ups. Give them the numbers first, then give them context and then look at their faces go white.
Don’t get me wrong: it’s a risky gamble. You’re likely to get judged, maybe even yelled at.
But remember the motive: You want to prevent your team, or moreover, your company from getting worse. When you have the trust of your team they will back you.
And then something magical happens: Those higher ups you talked to over and over again start to give real thought about your warnings. And how the core issue could be solved. Why? Well it’s an unpleasant truth but it’s because they see their money going down the drain.
Seems like a very utopian and theoretical story I made up here right?
No. This is actually what has happened to me recently and it played out as I planned. We changed what the team had demanded for months and worked on consistently. We had the data and the plans. They were known. And then after months and months of fighting over nothing, of forecasting what will happen if we don’t fix our core structures it happened: The sprint failed spectacularly (one of the first for a large new project). It didn’t take a day and it was decided that the plan we figured out long time ago will be implemented asap.
I really (really) don’t recommend this course of (non-)action unless you find yourself in a dead end. But sometimes the power you have doesn’t show itself in the direct application of force but by letting reality do its work. The only thing you have to do is jump in at the right time and explain what exactly happened, give a why and present a solution (which you should have in the drawer). Because we are all part of reality.
Welcome to the wonderful world of power relations. Sometimes taking a risk and what you do seriously can help you become…
Agile enough.
