LET’S BE FWENDS ISSUE #79:

ON CONVERSATIONS, PART 1

“Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses.”

~ Margaret Millar

Conversations are the most powerful tool we have at our disposal. It’s when we are communicating with each other that we are doing our finest work. And they can be all around us. Whatever we are creating - a report, a piece of code, a kanban board, a meeting agenda - it is more than the artefact itself. It’s an invitation to have a conversation about this thing and what it means.

It might be the thing, as well, but mostly, it should spark interest, and curiosity, and lead to an interesting conversation that moves the work forward.

Everything you do is an invitation for a conversation.

The Risks and Benefits of Agile Practices in Distributed Organisations

As with most things, we only notice conversations when they are gone. Teams that meet each other on a regular basis talk to each other, and there’s not much thought about it. It happens as if by accident. This changes when - deliberate or forced by circumstances - your team is distributed. When we’re all sitting on our own little island, connected by the weak links of video conferencing software, nothing happens by accident anymore. Instead, we need to be very, very deliberate about how we can make sure that those conversations happen. I’ve written up a couple of things that are necessary if you want to run an Agile organisation in a distributed setting.

Asking good Questions

George Bernard Shaw said:“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”. We might be talking to each other, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we are successfully communicating. We all seem to have a kind of sloppy relationship between what is going on, what we think is going on, and what we tell others about what is going on. When you notice that someone is making broad assumptions, mistakes interpretations for observations, or generalises wildly, it’s good to ask some clarifying questions to better understand what is happening. The language compass is a good tool for asking good, open-ended questions that allow you to learn more, and the person telling you something to get more clarity in their thinking.

Lazy Facilitation

When I facilitate a workshop or a meeting, I do what most facilitators do: I clarify a goal with the principal sponsor, check in with stakeholders for expectations, create a string of exercises and a timeline, and when the event comes, I guide the participants through that thing I have created, making sure that the group walks along the path, and reaches the pre-defined goal. This works well, typically makes sure the group reaches the goal, is effective and efficient. But it also robs the participants of the chance to learn from themselves. They are passengers, while the facilitator sits in the drivers seat, taking them on a sightseeing tour through the problem at hand. After reading Sharon Bowman’s “Training from the Back of the Room”, I re-thought my way of planning and facilitating workshops. It reinforced the believe that I am not responsible for the outcomes of a workshop. I am responsible for creating a room that allows the group to explore a situation, and come to their own conclusion. Learning from each other, not from me. Daniel Stillman has a great analogy from Origami workshops: Never touch their paper.

Tree.fm

Even the trees talk.You just have to listen.

That’s it from this edition of Let’s Be Fwends. I did a deep-dive into the idea of conversation lately, and I have so much material on the topic that I decided to split it into two parts (see? I remember that you told me you prefer shorter newsletters). So next time, we will again talk about conversations, in part two. 💬