How to Coach and Lead with Agility: Lyssa Adkins

YC: All right. Well, thank you so much for being here with me, Lisa, today.

LK:  It is my pleasure. Let's go and see what happens, huh? 

YC: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm very honored to have you here because it's for my listeners who have, I have a series of episodes on agility, and I've always talked about different aspects of soft skills, aligning with agility, or so a lot of people have talked to me about your work, and since they mentioned your book, Coaching Agile Teams, they’re like, you need to read this book!
So I did that, of course, as I was entering into the journey of becoming myself an agile coach and working with teams. So it's great to finally being able to talk to you. So I have a lot of questions that I want to pick your brain on. So I want to know in terms of what, first of all, what made you, how do you ended up in the world of coaching in general?

LA:  I ended up in the world of coaching and even in the world of agile by mistake in both cases. I was escaping the pressure of being a project management office director when I went to go work in what I would consider to be like a stupid, boring project management job, but I'll get my kid to swim team on time. 
And when I did, I arrived there and they said, surprise, we're doing this thing called Scrum, which was the most happy accident of my life. And then not long after that, I started to realize all the places where I am not a match for the complexity that we are now allowing to be revealed to us when we have these people working together in a very intense and intimate way, day in, day out. 
They're collaborating with each other. I'm like, oh, wow, there are lots of skills that I don't have. And a dear friend of mine who later became my business partner said to me, you know, you call yourself an agile coach, but you didn't know the first thing about coaching. 
I was like, oh, yeah, you're right about that. And then lo and behold, found out that the world of professional coaching is, you know, 100% applicable to agile coaching and a really useful ingredient. 

YC: You touched upon the fact that you were a project manager, and you addressed that in the book, kind of like a, that transition from becoming a project manager to an agile coach. In the world of project management in general, sometimes they see kind of like, oh, they're all intertwined. Project manager is the same as a scrum master or something like that. I'm like, well, there's a difference. So how would you describe are those differences? 

LA: Well, I think the main difference is the structures that people are working in. If people are working in structures that keep them separated and each person does their piece and somehow it's supposed to all add up at the end to a product that we are then going to integrate and test, then the job of the project manager is to be the glue between all those pieces and to even make decisions on behalf of those people. 
And I think that that worked in a time when we were doing things that were more mechanical. If we were building physical products. And in the time where we're in more knowledge work, we're building things that have never been built before. It's not just a matter of one person doing their piece and the other person doing their piece and us putting them together. It's a matter of us all staring into the abyss of a problem and saying, okay, what ideas do you have? And figuring it out together. And so in that case, what becomes front and center is not so much coordinating the pieces, but helping those people increase their competencies in the really predictable things that come up like collaboration, creativity, change, decision making and conflict. Really predictable new skills that we need to hone when we put ourselves in the situation of working with the complex world as it is. I love that you mentioned a lot of the skills, the necessary skills that we need to have in terms of particularly conflict resolution. 

YC: So before going into those, how you've talked about coaching and the world of professional coaching, because there's agile coaching, professional coaching, what are what is coaching overall? And how does that professional coaching world intertwines with the agile or the team coaching? 

LA: You know, the term agile coach came up basically because people didn't want to commit to a framework. They didn't want to say these people are scrum masters or these people are XP coaches. They just said, they started to use the term Agile Coach to be sort of agnostic to whatever one of these new ways of working frameworks that they were going to pick up. And so the word coach just came along, sort of like the word coach was on the name tag of the person who checked me out at the HomeGood stores recently. This is like a home decorating shopping, you know, store. 

And it says coach on his back, I thought, oh, hey, what are you a coach of? And he's ringing me up and he says, oh, I teach people how to use the cash register. Okay, well, that is that organization's definition of coaching. 
So there's, it's hard to distinguish, does this person really have skills for coaching or is this just a common handle that people use? And people use the term Agile Coach in many ways as well.  In a nutshell, the world of professional coaching is about helping the coachee, the client, whoever that person is, achieve their potential to their own direction and guided by only their own agenda. So we can use the skills of professional coaching, but we actually, as agile coaches, do not stand up to that ethical norm, that point of ethics that were guided only by the client's agenda. In this case, we are guided by a team, an organization, who wants us to help them use agility to achieve their business outcomes. 
So that's primary. And what's secondary is the use of professional coaching skills to help people make all the changes they need to make because agility puts people at personal and professional edges. It requires them to change. 

YC: Could you describe agility? And why would an organization want to adopt agility or be agile? 

LA: So I'm thinking about agility these days, being basically a set of very simple processes for metabolizing constant change. 
And that's the one thing that every organization I know of has in common right now is that they are experiencing wave after wave of change, there is no break between the waves of change. There used to be. So this is a fairly new phenomenon for us and our ability to metabolize those changes, to like take it in as if it was good, yummy, nutritious food and get the energy from it. That's what agility gives an organization the ability to do. 
It does it through some pretty simple ways, but those simple ways also require us to really shift our absolute desire and almost will do that. Do anything to have this false sense of security. It asks us to shift where we find our security. And that's a hard change for a lot of people. 

YC: It's interesting you mentioned it should be simple because what we find a lot right now, it's agile quote unquote organizations, but are implementing a lot of processes and rules that are, hey, we're being agile. But that doesn't necessarily address the simplicity of agility. 

LA: Yeah, and I would say look to your business results because if you're not getting the business results that you wanted to get by introducing agility to the organization, then something is off. 
It's actually not working. And it doesn't matter that you follow all the processes and it doesn't matter if you've instituted all of these roles. All you've done actually, if you're not getting the business results is create a whole new system that is continuing to oppress people and restrict their creativity and their collaboration. 
You've really got to look to like, are we getting the business results we thought? Are we able to metabolize constant change in a way that feels at least a little more easeful and a lot more innovative? 

YC: Yeah, and I also want to address what you mentioned earlier about being driven by the coachee, the aspect of the coachee determines the agenda. However, as we go into organizations, sometimes they're like, give me the solution now or here's, tell me what to do. That's what you're here for, right? That's why, that's what your role was created. How do we handle that as agile coaches? 

LA: Well, you gotta think about the mindset that's coming from. That's coming from the mindset where the project manager made stuff up on the fly to make it seem like everything was okay all the time and that there always was an answer. 
And we're in a different world now. We're in a different world where no one has the answer. We all need to figure it out together. Now, there are times because someone's expertise is in Agile, one of the reasons that they are doing Agile coaching. There comes a time when there is some answer or a pattern or something that's worked in the past that you can offer. And really skilled Agile coaches will be upfront with people about the range of skills they want to use and that sometimes there's an answer and I can see if it's useful to you. 
And sometimes I'm here to help you find your own answer because you're no more of a true situation than I ever was. And actually it might be even unethical for me to say, here's what you should do just because it worked in my last client. Not necessarily so in this current situation with these current people. When it comes to coaching, who are the coaches? Are we focusing more on the team? Are we focusing on the leaders? Who should be, what should be the focus of the coaching? 
So I think it depends on how serious the organization is about wanting to be able to be fit for the future. If the organization wants to be fit for the future, meaning that it can rapidly increase its ability to metabolize change, it can take advantage of disruption, then coaching would be all the way through the whole organization. So delivery team coaching, coaching for people who are people leaders, and definitely coaching for leaders and leadership teams. And that's where I'm doing most of my work these days, is with leaders and leadership teams. And what does that look like when in leadership coaching? It looks adjacent to Agile. but it's not about Agile. I would say that the work I do with leaders and leadership teams sort of clears the way for agility to flourish in an organization. But I'm not going in there to try to get leaders to use Agile frameworks or even really to understand business agility, although that is much more their language. My particular skill in the world is helping people change on the inside so that they can have better results on the outside. 
And so when I work with leadership teams, it's about helping them understand the patterns of interaction they have and how they're actually in their own way for the results that they want to see in the organization. How is, in an organization, what does it look like to have a, what are the main benefits of having coaches? Is it leadership coaches or Agile coaches or any sort of coaches? What, how does that benefit the organization as a whole? 
Well, we are, I keep referring to this age that we're in. So let me just say a little about this age. We are in an age of acceleration. Everything is accelerating. Every graph you look at these days looks like things are bumping along, bumping along, bumping along, and then all of a sudden, it just takes a sharp uptick high to the right. 

And so in that sort of world where things are constantly changing, where technology is advancing at an exponential rate, these are the situation, this creates the situations where people are needing to increase their inner complexity to be more of a match for the outer complexity that the daily challenges, opportunities, problems present them with. And so that's what coaching is good at. Coaching is actually a perfect fit for helping people see where their current way of making sense of the world needs to open. open up a little bit, or needs to have a little bit of a shift. 
You see, so let's say if I'm a manager in an organization that doesn't have, we don't have a coaches or any sort of coaches, is it possible for a person that occupies like either for a manager role or any role to be able to assume that become a coach? 
Oh, certainly the people in those roles can get coaching skills. And many do many, many managers and leaders are getting coaching skills right now. And that makes a lot of sense. Here's the thing, they they are bound by the what the organization will accept. 

So it's sort of like you can use coaching skills, yes, but you're going to be even more using it like a spice than even as coaches do. because your first loyalty or your first attention is on what the organization is trying to do. And if you're in a traditional organization in particular, you'll find very quickly as a manager that those coaching skills open up a whole world of potential for people that the organization might not be able to meet. 

YC: So therefore is a approach more than for a coach instead of organizational focus is more individual focus. Is that right?

LA: I would say it's both and both are needed. And both are needed typically from a small group of coaches who would be working in an organization, which is like one of my engagements right now. There are three of us working in a small organization, an organization of 50 people. And what we're paying attention to is like, what are the acupressure points where we can provide just very specific, not only coaching, but information about how self -organization and self -organizing works so that we can increase the level of self -organization in the whole company. 
So again, and in that role, we're doing coaching of small groups, we're doing coaching of individuals, and we're doing accompaniment, coaching like we're accompanying the leadership team. 

YC: Wonderful. And so let's say, let's look them up, you've mentioned a few times about the skills for coaching. What are some of those skills that we need to be able to coach? And how do we start developing them? 

LA: Well, the skills for coaching are really well known. And you can go to any professional coaching certification or standards body and find out what they are. So International Coach Federation and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council, I think is the EMCC is that organization. So I think that it's really well known. What we're coaching for is dependent on the context, right? 
So right now I coach leaders to be more fit for the future, you know, help them make the shifts and the expansions in their own capabilities to be more fit for the situations that are coming down the pipe at them. 
You know, people apply those same coaching skills to delivery teams. People apply those same coaching skills to coaching families who've just, one of the family members has received an Alzheimer's diagnosis. I mean, there's just any number of contexts that the same skills can be applied to.

YC:  And how is that relationship established between a coach and a coachee? Because if it comes from an agenda, not having a specific agenda driven by you as a coach, what does that look like when it comes to like that contact with a coachee? 

LA: I think it's really well known. I think it's really well known. I presume there has to be some sort of receptiveness from the coaching. So how is that relationship built? Well, let's talk about when it's invited and when it's foisted upon someone. 
So when I'm invited in by the person or the part of the organization that wants coaching, the first thing I'm going to do is some systems entry work, just like organizational development people do. Finding out what are their goals. 
How would we know if the coaching's working? When do we know to stop the coaching? That's as an important question as any of the others. And then as we move along in the coaching, people are bringing their real life daily issues and we're moving towards solutions on those, but I'm always keeping those higher goals in mind. You know, those real shifts that they want to make in the way that they apprehend the world and the way that they solve problems together. And so I'm constantly remembering that and bringing that context in as well. 
So in that way, it is very much driven by their agenda because I'm doing coaching at the leadership level. The, when I'm doing agile coaching, it's just more about, and I haven't done that for a number of years now, but it's just more about how to help deliver things using agile frameworks.  And then you encounter these situations where coaching is super useful, right? Now, if the coaching is foisted upon someone or a team, the very first thing I'm gonna say is, yeah, I get it. You didn't want me to be here. That's okay. That is okay. And here's the reason why I'm here. There's obviously some dissatisfaction somewhere, you know, and so I just wanna be really upfront about that, you know, even better to have the person who's dissatisfied to say that to them. 
And then we do the same thing. You know, we design like, how could this be, how would this be a great experience for you? Even though you didn't want it, you know, and in in that conversation I'm typically bringing forward more of like so here are the different places that I can go with you Here are the areas where I have expertise here are the areas where I don't and I'll need to pair with someone else Here are the different skill sets. I'm going to be using with you. So all of that conversation up front creates a really strong and durable Relationship It's so funny people say that trust needs to be built over time. No trust gets created with a really strong and durable designed Alliance early and right up front That's been my experience.

YC:  Interesting and how how do you know that the coaching or the coaching  Relationship is going well, but for the leadership aspect leadership coaching and on agile coaching. How do we know it's going Well, and how do we know it's not going so well? 

YC: Well, you ask the people being coached very frequently, how is this going? Because it's actually their responsibility as much as the coaches to have it go well. See, now we're back in the old mindset of like a project manager is going to do something for me, right? If we're asking that question, how do we know if it's going well? It's like, oh, someone's going to do all these things and make it all great for me. Now, coaching is about people discovering and moving into their full potential. 
So they have, as the people being coached, have as much responsibility for how it's going as the coach does. And so the coach is constantly asking, Is this still worth your time, attention and money? 

Yeah, that's, and that's a good, clear question to establish, you know, and for, for, for all sides, and when it comes to the coaching relationship, but also the the aspect of, of what not to do as a coach, what are some of the known knows that you've seen that hey, people that are coaches are doing either leadership coaching or agile coaching that they should stay away from? 
Well, I think that if you have a certain system or process or philosophy about life or business that you're selling, and you're calling that coaching, That's a no, no, I'm fine if you want to call it consulting or teaching or anything else. But if, if at any point, selling that thing is more important than your clients, full and resonant choice about what they really want to do about how this perspective you're bringing is really matching or not matching their situation, then I think that we shouldn't be calling that coaching. 

YC: Yeah,  that's great. Because in when it's usually and some I've seen agile coaches do is that it's it's all about the process or it's about coaching for a process and not coaching the people involved in the process so how do we stay away from those from those mistakes if we're either new to coaching or experienced coaches how do we try to stay away from those mistakes as we go into our day -to -day with the teams?

LA: So ask them to make good decisions for themselves so when when a team or an individual says ‘oh gosh Lisa that sounds like a good idea, yeah I think we should do that.’ My next question is okay great how is it a good idea where would it be when would it be a bad idea how do you know what your first steps might be I'm just what I'm doing is I'm testing like does this actually really fit because we have the history of people in roles of managers. And we have now translated that to coaches because we have that history of those people being one up and somehow I have to please them. Especially if they have some kind of expertise that I don't have. 

I'm always making sure that we can be at eye level together and that whatever Thing this person chooses to do is actually their authentic and resonant choice. So that they can actually be an ownership of the results as well Yeah, that's definitely important of making them part of creating their own solution It's it's a very powerful thing to do because it's that I guess the difference between consulting and coaching as well.

YC: Let's talk about soft skills in general. As you describe the world that we're in that the complex world for the leaders that you coach, what are those skills that you wish you would see more or that day, that we should take deliberate efforts to cultivate?

LA:  So I think that the thing I want to see more in leaders is that they just have more range for dealing with the situations that they're confronted with the leaders I work with at the beginning when I work with them. They tend to be operating from sort of the same playbook that they've been operating from for a long time. You know the same sort of solutions even though they don't necessarily match the challenges or opportunities we're currently in and so when I work with leaders if their response to a situation is to do… I'm always exposing them to what about that? Can we just expand your range? 

Could you have more choice here rather than less reaction? And so you know this comes into bringing in feminine leadership essence energies, you know, can we bring in some? Those, along with the masculine leadership and essence energies, can we bring in a perspective of humans with nature versus humans over nature? Can we bring in the perspective of expanding your own sensemaking? Can I challenge you? Can I challenge the way you're thinking about this right now? So those are the sorts of leaders who work really well with me. 
When they want to engage in those sorts of things in order to expand their own range so that they can have more possibilities, more options, more choice about the situations they're confronted with. Those are the types of leaders I love to work with, and I believe that that's what we need more right now, and we call it future fit, but let's get real. We need it right now. 

YC: Yes, definitely. Well, a couple more questions, because since reading your work, Coaching Agile Teams, when it comes to working with teams, what skill set, collective skill set do you think a team should develop in order to adapt to the current challenges in the world of tech, or just the overall complex challenges that are approaching? What are some of the key skills that as a team, any team should develop? 

LA: So I'm presuming that teams like that are going to be keeping up with technology, because as we said, technology is increasing at an exponential rate right now. So that's a given that has to be happening. The other thing I would say alongside that is expanding our capability for being in uncertainty, competing perspectives, basically not knowing. Because that that is really what we're in most of the time. And what I see most teams do it all at all levels of the organization is that they collapse to a very narrow known path when they are faced with uncertainty, and the anxiety that comes along with that. 
And so the skill that I'm working with most of the time with teams is the ability to be in the middle of the storm without freaking out. And stay there a little bit longer, a little bit longer until something truly innovative and novel emerges, because it will, it will, but we don't experience it very often. So we see a matter of the team staying in that level of uncertainty, just navigating through it, not necessarily trying to, you know, steer it away. Or is that what it takes to develop? And of course, there are a bunch of companion skills that go along with that. There's communication skills, there's conflict skills, you know, all of those things. are really useful. But more often than not, I'm working with individuals on the teams and the team as a unit to expand their capability to be with anxiety, because we are in an anxiety -producing age. And it doesn't seem to be going anywhere, so we might as well get good at it. 

YC: I like that. 

LA: A good way to kind of explore our level of comfort with anxiety. You know, eradicating it, but just, you know, living with it. 

YC: So that's great. Now, thank you so much for your time today. And what's the best way for people to get in touch with you for any questions that they may have?

LA:  The best way is through my website, and you can find me at lisaadkins .com. 

YC: Thank you so much. And one more thing, if there, now that people as they listen to the episode, one key thing that perhaps we should do as leaders or team members to practice as we've been trying to work this morning or tomorrow, what do you think it's the thing we should develop like or try to learn more about? 

LA: I want to tell you the simplest thing possible. When you are in the face of intensity today, and you undoubtedly will be, breathe all the way down to your belly and then breathe out and then do it again and do it again. 

By the fourth time you've done it, you've actually interrupted the production of stress hormones that are undoubtedly dumping into your body. And guess what? When that happens, it takes all of the higher level functions away like empathy and decision making and communication, all those things that we need in that very moment. So when you feel intensity, allow yourself to take full breaths.

YC:  That sounds wonderful. Definitely something we should try. I had all times every day. Thank you so much, Lisa, for being here with me today. 
My pleasure.