“I wonder why I didn’t speak up.”
The other day, I found myself sitting in what was supposed to be a workshop, listening to a manager presenting what appeared to be utter nonsense. From now on, all Sprint Retrospectives ought to be based on the Scrum Teams’ Sprint velocity, and we Scrum Masters had to report reasons for deviations from the team’s average velocity, changes from the initial estimates, as well as the Sprint Retrospective’s outcome back to management.
Screaming, “NO! That’s sooooo wrong, stop it already!” on the inside, I quietly listened to the presented instructions, secretly rolling my twitching eyes. Had my thoughts taken control over my movements, I would have suffered a concussion from shaking my head so violently.
“He that is without sin among us let him cast the first stone at her!”
And let’s be honest, we all find ourselves in situations like this occasionally, don’t we? We have something to say, yet we don’t. We might not be sure if what we want to say is correct, might not want to disagree with a colleague, might be frustrated, or might fear our mother-in-law’s reaction if we tell her that her family recipe tastes like rotten shoes — there can be all sorts of reasons for not speaking up. And yes, sometimes silence is gold.
However, I kept thinking about my behavior at this moment and couldn’t help but wonder: Why did I not share my concerns? I am sure I could have come up with a plethora of counter-arguments in a heartbeat. A best-practice-one-size-fits-all approach in a complex environment? Come on! Ever heard of Sprint Retrospectives supposed to be a safe space for the Scrum Team? The purpose of the “Las Vegas”-rule, anyone? I could certainly have made a couple of bells ring!
Oh, and don’t even get me started on what the Scrum guide has to say about the purpose of Sprint Retrospectives or my special love for Velocity when being misused as “resource utilization rating” or… well, I guess you get my point.
Being hunted by the wrong kind of efficiency
It takes more than 100 muscles to speak, and I deliberately chose to use the six needed to roll my eyes. Seriously though, ‘maximize the amount of work not being done’ — isn’t that what we always preach? Couldn’t that also apply when it comes to muscle movement? Maybe I had just been incredibly efficient.
I tried to convince myself of this rather absurd idea, but the situation kept bugging me. I pictured myself presenting the velocity numbers to my teammates, questioning why estimations didn’t reflect the actual effort spent in the end so I could give proper justifications to my line manager in our weekly 1:1. Shivers ran down my spine.
By keeping my mouth shut, I had silently accepted such obvious anti-patterns, and I now felt as if I had betrayed my team. They trust me to support them to the best of my abilities in their growth toward becoming a self-managing, high-performing team. How does facilitating mandatory velocity-based retrospectives to please management play into this? It doesn’t.
It’s time to get the magnifying glasses out!
I decided it was time for some self-inspection around my -now frustrating me- silence! First of all, I had to figure out what my actual problem was: Why did the situation still bother me? The meeting’s over; the opportunity to speak up is gone anyway, so what?
While that’s certainly true, failing to use my voice gave me a great learning opportunity. There’s potential for growth and new learnings under every rock; let’s pick this one up!
I thought about the potential impact my silence had: Had I voiced my concerns about the changes being presented, it could have led to a fruitful discussion, potentially resulting in an improved way forward, including different points of view. It could have also been a valuable learning opportunity by falsifying my assumptions.
However, I had deprived myself of this opportunity at that time. To reduce the impact for myself, I reached out to a friend who’s a PST to discuss if my assumptions were correct, thus restoring my learning opportunity.
As a next step, I wanted to explore why I kept my mouth shut while screaming internally.
I asked myself: Why didn’t I speak up?
- I was the only person in the round who had asked clarification questions and commented before.
Why did that influence me in this moment?
- I felt it wasn’t wise to be the one speaking up yet again while my colleagues remained silent.
Why did I feel that speaking up again wasn’t wise?
- I was under the impression that the presenter had already gotten tired of my remarks. Considering that his presentation left no room for discussion, questioning the overall approach, which had been decided on already, might not be something he’d appreciate.
Why should questioning the approach be a problem for the presenter?
- Not only was this person higher in the hierarchy than me, but he and I had also been in a couple of arguments recently. We had settled our differences, but I knew about his potential temper, and I wasn’t exactly eager to bring it out again.
In a nutshell, I wanted to avoid the confrontation, especially since I assumed there was no support to be expected from my colleagues in case of a disagreement with our “flaming superior.”
Assumptions. Assumptions everywhere!
Suddenly, I had an epiphany: My behavior was entirely based on assumptions! I had calculated the risk I’d have to take (being the troublemaker once again) when speaking up and -based on my assumptions- figured it wasn’t worth it.
In her book “The Fearless Organization,” Harvard Business School Professor Amy C. Edmondson calls this behavior “Discounting the future”:
People tend to underweigh the more important issue, which would take a while to play out and overweigh the importance of the possible response towards a remark, which would happen immediately.
I had unconsciously concluded that avoiding the potential worsening of future Sprint Retrospectives was not worth taking the risk of speaking up and facing an unpleasant response from this person.
At this moment, I was anything but eager to speak up. I found myself in a work environment that lacked psychological safety (the belief that an environment is safe for interpersonal risk-taking). Had I felt more safe, I probably would have been able to focus on my role’s accountabilities rather than on self-protection.
Cassandra’s greeting
Alright, I get it; my fear of repercussions had gotten the best of me… But if I had actually spoken up, would my concerns have been considered? Or be brushed off again, as I had experienced in other situations before? I assumed the latter.
Edmondson calls this thought process a voice-inhibiting combination:
“We can be completely confident that we’ll be safe if we are silent, and we lack the confidence that our voices will really make a difference.”
Not only was I experiencing a lack of Psychological Safety, but I also had a “Cassandra”-moment. In Greek mythology, the Trojan priestess Cassandra was given the gift of prophecy but cursed never to be believed. “Cassandra” has become a rhetorical device to indicate that someone’s predictions (usually of impending disaster) are not considered.
While I didn’t exactly foresee utter disaster, but rather a step back in our agile maturity journey, having my concerns not taken seriously or ignored altogether is something I was way too familiar with already — why would it have been different this time?
“For voice to be effective, it requires a culture of listening” (Amy C. Edmondson).
A culture of silence not only inhibits speaking up, but it is also one in which people fail to listen — especially when someone’s bringing unpleasant news.
Having found myself in situations like this too many times before, there was no point in being the annoying troublemaker starting a discussion again or potentially negatively affecting the already somewhat difficult working relationship with the presenter.
So… now what?
Well, this will certainly not be the last time I’ll find myself internally screaming. Should I give in to my frustration and keep my mouth shut in the future as well? I mean no one has ever been fired for silence, right?
While that would definitely be the easiest option for me, it wouldn’t be the best. The Scrum guide is pretty straightforward when it comes to behavior for a reason:
“The Scrum Values give direction to work, actions, and behavior. By embodying these values, the empirical pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation can come to life, building trust.” (2020 Scrum Guide)
If I remained silent next time as well, would I demonstrate Openness? Definitely not! Courage? Nope. Commitment, Focus, or Respect? Nah…
I had found that my silence was based on assumptions by diving into the moment again. Quite frankly, I still don’t know what would have happened had I spoken up or if it would have made a difference. However, a little inspection led to me being aware that my unconscious thought process was based on underlying assumptions.
While I would love to promise that I will always be speaking up in the future, chances are high that there will be exceptions. For example, when it comes to my MIL’s rotten shoe family recipe… Other than that, I will definitely give openness a try!
And now, please excuse me because I have a velocity-free Sprint Retrospective to prepare for my team!
