86 1/2 Nissan Pickup

Everyone wants a new car, right?

When I was just a few years out of school, young and near broke I eyed what I thought was the deal of the day.  A new 1986 1/2 Nissan Hard Body Pickup truck.

These things were selling stripped for like $4,900 NEW.  Stick shift, no a/c, no floor mats, manual windows, nothing.  So, with a bit of financial finagling I drove this beauty home.  ( well, not THIS beauty, as I just pulled this random image from the interweb)

After a few months of driving it developed this annoying squeak. Every bump in the road SQUEAK, a turn around a corner SQUEAK, and God forbid I go over a speed bump. So I decided since it was still under warranty I would take it back to the dealership and have them fix this squeak. ( after all, this was NEW vehicle)

At the dealership the mechanic came out to hear about the issues and then told me he needed to take it for a test drive. 15-20 minutes later he returned and told me he found the issue and would have it fixed right away.  With this news I found myself excited about finally being able to turn a corner in silence.  I pondered if he would be lubing something, or replacing some rubber cushiony type thing that magically would stop this noise intrusion.

Later, the mechanic came into the waiting room to tell me he fixed the issue, and for me to come into the back to get my truck.  I asked him what was the issue? What did he do? He looked me square in the face, and said in a calm, direct voice. " I installed you an old radio we had laying around the shop. Your problem is you bought a $4,900 truck and had nothing better to listen to. When you start hearing the squeak, just turn the radio up"


<Pause>


Here I sit, 30 yrs later and I can still hear his words. This mechanic understood me as his customer, and what my real needs might be.  He worked as my advocate, yet told me some direct news I needed to understand. ( you bought a really cheap truck buddy, suck it up, it's not a cadillac  ) He also found a solution that I could not possibly imagine.

Many times I find myself, as a consultant, having to play a similar role.  Clients think they know the problem, and think they know the solution. They approach the issue with you asking for a known solution to their known problem.  Often, it's my role to help them see what the real problem might be, and help them see a far different/creative solution.  Clients appreciate respectful honesty and integrity in work. Trust is built with each interaction.  Make no mistake, this is hard work.  The easy road is simply giving them what they are asking to buy.

It's not always this way, sometimes the client has a pretty clear image of the issues, and is on target for the solution-they just need your help in executing.  But often they are too close to the issue.  Like me with the truck all I could hear was the squeak, and all I could picture was some anti-squeak repair. I was myopically focused on only one thing, and only one solution.

Marshall ( the mechanic) became my go-to mechanic for the next 15 yrs until he retired.  He was right in looking at the whole system, the issue was really it was far too quiet in that small tin can of a truck.  It was never designed for silence in driving. It was built for economy and utility, and my mindset had it something far different.

Squeaks and all, my new truck grew to be be just at I wanted, once I saw it more clearly for what it was ( and could crank up the tunes)

More please

On a recent dive trip to Cozumel Mexico we spent our last day driving around the island in rented Jeeps. Crappy, broken, backfiring jeeps that were most likely barely rescued from a scrap yard.  At the far southeastern tip of Cozumel is a small rasta bar sitting in the middle of the sand.

Cool breezes, nice waves, hammocks, fish tacos and ice cold cervezas. This, was my view:

Yet, somehow I found myself searching for more.  And by more, I mean WIFI.





I found this sign tucked around
the corner of the bar that basically sums it up:




Why, After 6 days being at the beach, unlimited diving with great family and friends was I still not satisfied to just "be still" in paradise?



It's a crazy making part of myself that can't seem to unplug and relax.  Even unplugged I seem to always want to "do" and not just simply "be".  I've yet to be comfortable with myself enough to be content and bored.


I need more places like this in my life. Off the grid, and on a slower schedule where time is measured by the sun - not the second.   I know I don't need to travel all the way around the world to find those places, yet I seem to lack the discipline to disconnect.  

One day I may be content...

The Space Between

Recently I was at a conference and a presenter spoke briefly about the concept of "Liminal Space"


According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminality:

"In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning "a threshold"^[1]) is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. During a ritual's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold"^{[citation needed]} between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the ritual establishes."

The visual of standing on the threshold in a doorway is a powerful mental image for me.  Stuck in the in-between, comfortable with the safety and familiarity of what is behind, yet yearning for what is in front of you.  Without adequate inertia, the pull of past gravity makes stepping back such an easy decision, and makes the boldness of stepping forward into what's next even more difficult.  Many times, one can try to be in both places at once. 

In the agile space, we see this played out on a grand scale and in the granular. A few might be:

• Organizations moving from a traditional waterfall environment can lean on past planning a reporting structures while trying to release products incrementally and iteratively.  

• Individuals within teams want to believe what's to come, yet somehow don't fully trust the system in which they work to support a open and collaborative way of work. Therefore they do the motions of agility, while still holding back. 

• Leadership falls back to command and control style of leading, not yet trusting the empowerment that an agile leader must enable. 

As agile consultants, it becomes important to empathetically identify those items, practices, people in a liminal space, and to encourage them to step forward into what is to come.  We can be that inspiration for the inertia that can help people and companies work through the ambiguity and step across the threshold.  Our role becomes more than simply introducing the paradigm, but to assist in moving our clients from the space between. 

Does this concept resonate with you?  How can you see this in your work, your family, and you personally?

( Special thanks to Rebecca Yanez @bec4chen for seeding this idea at Keep Austin 2015)

Lens

It's interesting to hear someone else tell your story.

So I've always felt I had a pretty good grip on my story.  My life, my history - where I've been and what I've done. Some memories for me are painful, and there has been more joy than I can count, but each one helped to create the person that exists now.

As I've gotten older it seems with each new thing I learn, something else in my brain fades away. It may be a persons name or an event. Feels like my brain is only about the size of a small box, and as new things get added to that box, something falls out. Trouble is, I am in no way in control of what falls out.  What is lost may be something from deep in my past, or it could be the new persons name I heard just moments ago.  Mostly I can confirm that those items dark and somber in my past are still there - lurking in the synapses, unwilling to fade away. There is no ranking of significance for what decides to depart the box.

Recently my memory has been tested at a 30 yr class reunion, where I read peoples name on their shirts, smiled and nodded because the name was "familiar", then realized I could not place the person at all.  Many that were there I knew well and could have told you who they were without a name tag, but others were a vague blur.  After 30 yrs, many people remembered me, and others I could see the same eye glaze as they wondered if I actually attended the same school.  Gheez.

Last night, after 30 yrs, I finally reconnected with my best friend from high school. Combined we had 60 years of life between us neither had known. Kids, marriage, jobs, parents deaths, brothers and sisters, connections, health issues, you name it. Over a long dinner, and many drinks on the back patio we laughed and chatted. I think the most I learned though was about my life 30 yrs ago, through my friends eyes.

From his perspective, I lived a far different life.

He remembered almost fantastical stories that would best be immortalized in stylized comics. My life, through his lens, was something of a Andy Griffith Show meets 300 meets Ferris Bueller's Day Off.  When I heard how he told what he remembered, I was pretty convinced he had the wrong guy, because that guy sounded like someone I would have dreamt of being.  My friend though was pretty convinced my life was just that cool and great. My life was full and colorful, gregarious, and easily travelled. Evidently it was always sunny being me, I had tons of friends, and things just always came easy to me.  Either I was "that guy" and I have forgotten,  or I wasn't and my friends memory box is overfull, or, I was just pretty good at pretending. None of it was the mostly lonely kid I remember.

I think we all see each other in different ways. I saw my friend differently than he saw himself, and he saw me as someone I could not imagine.  The truth is somehow blended in the middle of our views, how we see ourselves, and how others see us.  The compilation of random glimpses and inferences, moments in time captured. Some may only see the exterior facade we allow, while others can see through that to the real you beneath. The lens that we each look through colors and twists our views to the perspective we want to see. It sharpens and yet many times blurs the lines between what is real and what is not.

One thing is for certain - the conversations last night have got me thinking really deeply about myself, and how I view others. If what I "think" about others are a skewed projection, or is it really the clear reality of the person.  It also has me thinking about how I am being perceived - and what you see when you see me.  This morning I am just hoping this memory is not one of those items that fall out of that small small box.

Elevate from the ignorance

I've been blessed to travel all over the United States and the World. I've seen some amazing places and more importantly met some fantastic people. Different cultures, traditions, foods, drinks & music make this world a very interesting place. It's hard to imagine how much I have learned from others... absorbing just a little bit of each persons background as I meet them and engage into what is really local.  The adventure of my eyes and heart seems to always hit a speed bump when  my new friends ask me this simple question: " So, where are you from?"

It seems simple enough and I have been very proud to answer that I am from Hot Springs, Arkansas.

The issues really come in when my new found friends find out where I live - it is how they respond.  Here is just a small sampling of what people have said directly to me.

• "So you drive a truck and gun rack and eat squirrels for breakfast" - London
• "Don't all people from Arkansas go barefoot and are pregnant? "- Arizona
• "Why would anyone live there? Isn't it all mobile homes and people with 19 kids?" - Sweden
• "I didn't know there was internet in Arkansas" - New York
• "You aren't married to your sister are you?" - California
• "That's where you can't float a river without the banjo playing Deliverance scene" - Germany
• " Wow, I've never met a hillbilly before! " -Amsterdam

There are many more - and it's a repeating pattern. Somehow, most people I meet know so little about Arkansas that they believe only the negative stereotype. Most have never been here - most never will. 

It is true that Arkansas has it's share of negative, some historical, some present. We need to own our past as history and work hard to change the baggage of today. But more than the negative, we really do have much to be proud of, yet how to overcome the negative stereotype in the world. 

Personally I struggle with just how to respond when someone so directly makes a disparaging remark about where I live.  My wife reminds me to take the high road and always remember that these people just have little awareness of anything more than a tabloid headline.  Many times, I just want to strike back, but I know that would get me nowhere. Rising above their ignorance has become a standard practice as I travel. 

I don't think that all people in Louisiana live like the Swamp People on TV, nor do I think everyone in Amsterdam is a hooker/drug addict, and not everyone in California a surfer or an actor.  It's pretty shallow to cast broad strokes about a city/state based on a very limited view.  Just imagine if people believed that everyone in New Jersey was like Snookie because of Jersey Shore.  Sad. 

Embrace places that are different from where you live. Learn about more than the surface headlines. Hear the hearts of the locals, and assume that there must be more to the area than what you saw on a reality TV show. 

Getting lost in an ideal

Agile. It's a good thing. Right?

At Agile2011 in Salt Lake City I was reminded of the roots of the Agile Manifesto during the park bench sessions, where most of the original signers showed up and answered questions. It was a really well done presentation with some nice banter, some light moments, and a few self realizations by the signers that was great to watch. What happened on stage was good, but what was troubling was many of the peoples reaction to being in the presence of the signatories.

I heard this very distinct quote from one man as he looked me wildly in the eyes "My life is complete now, I can die a happy man"  Echoes of similar sentiment were heard in the crowd as I exited the event.

Not all in attendance had that exact reaction, but more and more I am seeing people in a radical/religious persuit of this ideal to "be agile". For many, the ultimate goal is to reach some metaphysical zen like state of agility, and then and only then, will they be worthy.  I know some that have multiple coaches that speak into their lives helping to re-enforce the agility and remove anything waterfall-ish. Trouble is, many in this category seem to forget about getting things done.

Its about how we work, and how we deliver value. Getting product faster to market, being able to adapt to change faster, working in more collaborative way, delivering quality and enjoying what we do.

Agile coaches can strive to help a client become "agile" and miss the glaringly most important thing - getting stuff done/delivering value. Coaches should help clients/teams deliver value more quickly, and personally I feel agile is one of the best ways. It seems some of the messed up client expectations start with the coaches assessment where they give the client a ranking in agility. I've seen many different kinds of these and they all boil down to things like" B+ in ceremonies" " C- in product backlogs" " 75% in team velocity" Phrases like these can set a false sense of expectations in a client that the goal is to be an A or 100% in agile. In doing this we are focusing on the wrong thing, it's about results.

Agile is a tool. Don't be in love with the tool, be in love with what the tool can accomplish. No one makes a journey to see the men who created the pipe wrench, but they wouldn't think of tackling a sink repair without one.

Lift

On a recent plane trip, the Delta inflight entertainment had all the typical far off destinations, the reasons to love Delta, and a few re-runs of TV sitcoms. Peppered through this there was one line that struck me enough that I wrote it down. It was something like this: " Airplanes know they cannot run with the wind, they must face it head first. They have to run into the wind to take off"

What a good reminder.

All too often we as human beings take the easy way, the path of least resistance in our daily lives and then wonder why things are in a rut. In teams we hide behind process and titles, letting the elephants in the room rule and control our work, keeping us from reaching our potential. In a word we are "Sheep".
 
Change-agent. Thinker. Dreamer. Visionary. Leader.  People that fit those titles understand that you cannot always just go with the flow. Leaders step out and up. They step into the darkness of uncertainty, into the chaos, and become the change agents. They understand that to take off you must go into the wind.

Pick your time to fly. To be that element of change within your team, your marriage, that circle of friends. Go into the wind.

Lift.