I get asked “how can i get teams to turn their cameras on and get engaged?”. Engagement is YOUR job. A great facilitator doesn’t need cameras, visuals, or physical presence to make unforgettable impact. Even if there was an advantage to having cameras on, I want you to be the kind of leader and facilitator that can operate in any condition and still grab that audience. Great communications have never been about the how; they’re about the ‘why?’. LISTEN TO THE BADASS AGILE PODCAST ON SHUFFLE! – G...
Jul 14, 2021•6 min
Creativity requires freedom. The ability to desire and dream with impunity. That doesn’t happen by accident. You have to enable and defend it. Remove the cost of failure Stand between your team (and their creativity) and danger (rejection, judgment) Once earned, make sure the brushstrokes are big and colourful, otherwise nothing changes Growth and development is done in consistent single-digit developments. Innovation is often done in grand moments that emerge from the daily disciplines Dream bi...
Jul 14, 2021•11 min
To grow yourself AND your team, develop your patience and persistence. Although the industry would like you to believe that great delivery and performance are days away, the really good stuff takes time. In the beginning, we all have to find our feet. At the bottom of the hill, everything is a climb. If you can’t push consistently upward, gravity will pull you right back down. A new team might even resist the ascent; scurrying back to their cubicles so they can stay out of sight and privately fa...
Jul 11, 2021•12 min
The biggest disruptor of productivity is distraction. No matter how small, distractions interrupt flow, engagement, and deep work. The biggest offender is usually electronics – smartphones, laptops, wearables – but really, its anywhere you choose to allow your focus to escape to. LISTEN TO THE BADASS AGILE PODCAST ON SHUFFLE! – Get it here for iOS – https://getshuffle.app/ ***JOIN THE FORGE*** Sign up for more info about our online leadership immersion experience. https://badassagile.com/the-for...
Jul 07, 2021•7 min
We must be careful to ensure that we own our time. We frequently complain that we are ‘overloaded’ Overwhelm is not something that is done TO YOU. It is something that you accept; or even welcome. The antidote is simple but hard: Say no all day every day Limit your participation in meetings Delegate, automate, eliminate, integrate Don’t seek perfection or any ‘100%’ measure (always on time, workout 7 days a week, always available) Never book meetings with more than 8 people for more than 20 minu...
Jun 28, 2021•15 min
Most of us (especially in the midst of global stay-at-home orders) experience our favourite brands digitally far more than we do physically. Great creative and experience design is fascinating; especially knowing it can make or break attraction and loyalty. Adam Smith, of Tension ( https://wearetension.com ) is in the business of partnering with firms along the entire strategy-to-build cycle. His fractional service offering is a great study in democratizing high-end services for all. In this epi...
Jun 22, 2021•48 min
If you’re struggling to get exceptional traction or results with your clients…try this. Set the bar to “Overdeliver”. This means declaring an intention of delivering exceptional, unexpected value. It means asking for feedback against that intention. “How can I overdeliver with an exceptional (experience today, outcome this week, etc)? And at every opportunity, ask…”did i/we overdeliver this week?” And if not ask why not. Creating this exception and superior bar of service excellence, and insisti...
Jun 16, 2021•7 min
Some people want direction. But for those that don’t, leading means helping them get where they want to go. That starts with great questions. When you lead, you can’t often push. You may know where you want to steer people, or you may want to leave that up to the individual or team. But part of coaching is bringing your expertise and certainty to the game…so how do you do that? Questions help people uncover where they want to go. They can also help create rails – freedom with safety. Examples of...
Jun 13, 2021•14 min
Seeking certainty costs you time and money. Think about how much. This topic isn’t new, but it is perhaps the most pervasive cause of failure and disappointment in teams of every kind. It is also the toughest problem to crack. Seeking certainty means placing a higher value on consensus or evidence BEFORE acting – building, releasing, etc. No one is immune to this problem. It’s everywhere We seek to avoid mistakes or conflict, which is impossible. The master skill here is the ‘courage to deal wit...
Jun 06, 2021•11 min
I was recently caught in an online conversation about how its inhumane to give teams stretch goals. We’ve been fooled into believing that this is how people are getting more and more stressed Stretch goals do not mean longer hours or added performance pressure. It means getting people to find ways to get better. To produce more with less effort. To be more effective. To bring more passion to their work, to take new things and make them habitual so they can focus on the stuff that matters. Here’s...
Jun 03, 2021•6 min
If you want to work for “the best companies to work for” – make it yourself. Great companies must model the ability to venture into the unknown and the uncommon in order to attain and sustain greatness. It is possible whether the organization is large or small, but large organizations carry an additional challenge of overcoming negative will – the tendency to push back against progress to keep the organism safe and comfortable You can still do it…but it requires much more effort and determinatio...
May 30, 2021•8 min
We don’t like to hear about it, but there’s a certain kind of practitioner who is certain and confident in every situation. Either they know what to do, or they’ll figure it out. They have no natural predators Nobody likes to hear it, but there is such a thing as the person who doesn’t need rules, instructions, or best practices. They don’t need permission to do anything. They can’t be bought or sold, or bullied. They have made their peace with their place in the world, their bigness and smallne...
May 27, 2021•6 min
Too many agilists seek out bank jobs and pretend they are going to innovate and advance the craft. When you go to banks, you ask questions like “what is the salary, comp, vacation: or “what do the opportunities for advancement look like:”. The right question is “what can I innovate, build or change”. That’s how you blow the roof off I say often – it’s possible people won’t get you, and that’s ok. You really want to focus on the places and the people that do. How ever, no matter where you seek wo...
May 23, 2021•11 min
When you measure the wrong things, you get the wrong results. What you incentivize has deep impact on behaviour. Can you help your organization realize that shaving the bottom line can kill the top line? LISTEN TO THE BADASS AGILE PODCAST ON SHUFFLE! – Get it here for iOS – https://getshuffle.app/ ***JOIN THE FORGE*** Sign up for more info about our online leadership immersion experience. https://badassagile.com/the-forge/ ****** Follow on CLUBHOUSE: https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/badass-agi...
May 19, 2021•9 min
LISTEN TO THE BADASS AGILE PODCAST ON SHUFFLE! – Get it here for iOS – https://getshuffle.app/ There is a tragic story arc that is becoming more common with Agile teams – start big, get hammered, lose confidence, lower the bar. You can imagine why this would be a problem…. We start with grand ambition and vision, which is great. We move into planning and execution Somewhere along the way we lose the plot Sometimes we just plain lose focus, we lose courage, we lose ambition, we lose grit Shrinkin...
May 16, 2021•8 min
It’s possible we all will have a lifelong relationship with your inner critic. It begins with acceptance that its there…something that guides your actions, and possibly limits your greatness. Oddly, it’s supposed to be your friend, protecting you from harm, but it doesn’t understand the modern context of danger and risk, so it often overshoots the mark. Once you understand that it exists, you’ll want to pay more attention to when it is working without your permission, or impeding your growth. Th...
May 12, 2021•7 min
LISTEN TO THE BADASS AGILE PODCAST ON SHUFFLE! – Get it here for iOS – https://getshuffle.app/ All agile failure is a failure of courage in action we’re reporting back that there is an increasing rate of failure in terms of transformation and investment. the problem is not your grasp of agile, nor your tools, nor your teams we need to demonstrate courage in conversations, being direct, saying what’s real, and what needs to be said Make strong, bold and fast decisions frequently Set bold ambitiou...
May 09, 2021•13 min
Ultimately, if Agile doesn’t make for happier customers, profits won’t flow; and history shows that rapid and certain decline will follow as the industry looks for something new to solve the problem. Does that mean Agile is flawed? Not at all…but it’s up to us as practitioners to make sure that we’re solving the problems that matter. ***JOIN THE FORGE*** Sign up for more info about our online leadership immersion experience. https://badassagile.com/the-forge/ ****** Follow on CLUBHOUSE: https://...
May 06, 2021•6 min
High Performing teams are not a secret, but we often fail to observe and apply the right principles Making people flow with productivity is easy to say, easy to teach, but hard to do WE fail to connect with the individual values; without this, team dynamics and agile processes won’t help Championship teams have the right individuals with the right reasons, motivations, training and mindset In big-box agile, you get what you get, which can be the single most important blocker to high performance ...
May 03, 2021•11 min
Books, social media, courses, video, blogs – there is so much content to help you grow, but how much of it is useful? When something becomes so widespread that it feels like everyone is talking about it, its time to walk away. ***JOIN THE FORGE*** Sign up for more info about our online leadership immersion experience. https://badassagile.com/the-forge/ ****** Follow on CLUBHOUSE: https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/badass-agile Don’t forget to join us in the Badass Agile Listener Lounge on Facebo...
Apr 28, 2021•5 min
Great leadership has no recipe no script no singular definition. Leadership must be balanced – a dynamic position between two opposite poles that can only be perfected in the moment as its being experienced. No book, no video, and no meme can provide the experience that is required to find the proper balance and fit, and to absorb the wisdom required to advance your practice. This is true when balancing strength and yielding, confidence and vulnerability, certainty and uncertainty, risk and safe...
Apr 25, 2021•10 min
Do more for your clients, teams and customers. We’re used to thinking of incremental improvement as 1-2% improvement or delivery over time…but when it comes to innovation, you need to have ideas that are way bigger than that. Multiply your ambition. Don’t think 10% less waste reduction…think 80% 5 New Products this year instead of 1 Don’t just fix a problem for your team, fix it for the whole firm. Fix the impossible – do things that have never been done before. Eliminate all meetings Don’t crea...
Apr 18, 2021•10 min
The next turn of business requires bold thinking and decisive action. How can you have strong ideas? -Don’t wait for perfect ideas -Don’t worry about having – or conform to – popular ideas -Don’t ask for permission for your ideas -Don’t hedge your ideas with the word ‘maybe’ -Don’t have expensive ideas – make ’em cheap and easy to break -Don’t lean on or imitate other people’s ideas ***AGILE MASTERY SERIES*** Starting April 2021, you can be part of a weekly continuous learning tribe that goes wa...
Apr 14, 2021•10 min
Employee Thinking – allowing others (or the firm and its rules) to limit how far you can expand, what you can achieve, who you can talk to, what you can say, how fast you move, and what you do. Permission-based thinking. If you don’t have autonomy – the freedom to make decisions related to your job, including growth and passion – you’re not going to enjoy your job very much You can’t let clients or employers version of reality permeate yours Heroes – people who stretch beyond the usual, the expe...
Apr 05, 2021•11 min
Make a choice to be Comfortable with the Uncomfortable Fear impacts decisions, and decisions dictate results Its a huge mistake to avoid scary in order to feel safe Nothing happens until you choose the uncomfortable So ask tough questions Say controversial things Repeat until comfortable Then…stretch into the uncomfortable again I know I’m speaking to certain people…the 1% who are ready to explore, to push, to challenge…that’s exactly who you need to be to make impact ***JOIN THE FORGE*** Sign u...
Mar 31, 2021•9 min
The quality of your leadership, your ability to inspire others and your ability to make decisions is based entirely on what you let inside your head – your social circle, social media, the people you take counsel from, the books you read, your environment at work, at home and beyond. Read great books – not just those that agree with you, ,but also those that don’t. Read beyond agile books – philosophy, fiction, business books. Use a book summarization service to save time and find things that sp...
Mar 28, 2021•15 min
***JOIN THE FORGE*** STARTING APRIL 1 2021 – The next Cohort of the Forge begins! Sign up for an info session by clicking here: https://badassagile.com/the-forge/ ****** GET US ON CLUBHOUSE!! https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/badass-agile Don’t forget to join us in the Badass Agile Listener Lounge on Facebook for member exclusives, livestreams and previews! https://www.facebook.com/groups/badasslistenerlounge/ We’re also on YouTube! Follow the podcast, enjoy some panel/guest commentary, and get...
Mar 24, 2021•10 min
Too often, we’re looking for the easy answer; the quick fix. There’s no single thing you can do or say to make a team more successful. No two teams are alike. To build trust, energy, efficiency and flow, you’re going to have to earn it the hard way – by doing, failing, learning and repeating. There’s no single book you can read, podcast you can listen to or video you can watch to ‘do it right’. You find the truth by doing. ***JOIN THE FORGE*** STARTING APRIL 1 2021 – The next Cohort of the Forge...
Mar 22, 2021•12 min
Always a great conversation with Vasco Duarte! This time we discussed: -his new Scrum Master Summit – happening in may (don’t miss it!!!) – www.scrummastersummit.org -why Scrum Masters feel ‘ashamed’ of the Scrum Master role -how Scrum Masters are essential in helping teams take ownership and delivering value -what interviewers/companies should look for in a potential Scrum Master -the most important skills a Scrum Master must develop in order to ‘train up’ for the CEO role -why learning Scrum i...
Mar 15, 2021•41 min
My special guest this week is Johanna Rothman, renowned author, speaker and consultant. In this episode, we discuss her most recent release – “Modern Management Made Easy” includes three volumes – Practical Ways to Manage Yourself, Practical Ways to Lead and Serve Others, and Practical Ways to Lead an Innovative Organization. You can find Johanna online at https://www.jrothman.com/ ***JOIN THE FORGE*** Sign up for more info about our online leadership immersion experience. https://badassagile.co...
Mar 11, 2021•43 min
