The Rider the Horse and Transparency in Scrum
The brain is like a rider sitting astride of a horse. Our conscious being, the rider sits on top of a powerful horse which is our emotions our unconscious resides. The horse is more powerful than the rider and takes us on the journey. The rider and the horse work together and the combination of the two is our actions. Our consciousness is visible to us; however, the horse is much older, sitting lower down in our brain it is less visible and less known to us.
When the horse is startled, it overthrows the logical rider and our consciousness is left lying in the dust as the horse is in flight, fight freeze or fawn. When our horse is startled no amount of logic calms the horse. Only what we do, our actions, metaphors feeling can adjust how our horse acts until the rider can climb back on and we act like one again.
Scrum an empirical process, which requires transparency along with frequent inspection and adaption for teams to optimize predictability. Empiricism sits within the rider. When the values of courage, focus, commitment, respect, and openness which and lived and embodied by a team (the things of the horse) you would expect transparency to increase and more empirical working and a clearer understanding and Higher levels Situational Awareness?
Transparency is interesting, different folks respond differently when information is surface either in a team or individually. The limbic response every person has is different, it’s based on past experiences. Within a team environment, day to day, during reviews and especially retrospectives be aware of how people are when information is surfaced. Empiricism requires transparency, however when transparency triggers a limbic response to the logical part of our brain is no longer available to us, it is lying in the dust and the horse has taken over.
In these situations, no amount of logic or empirical thinking will soothe the horse. Our actions exploring metaphors and how we enable us…. with time… to be whole… so that we can once again be empirical and inspect and adapt with transparency.
