I’ve been listening to many podcast episodes recently. One of the quotes I heard is “They know what their problems are. They just don’t want to change.”
“I want to be physically fit, but I’m old.” I’ve seen many twenty-ish and thirty-ish people react to my take on improving my physical fitness.
“Your approach to your team works very well, but mine is different from yours.” How different are we? Does my team consist of geniuses, whereas your team is full of preschool kids?
There are impediments in the organisation stopping its growth. People have suggested improvements, but the management is unwilling to pay attention to them. Instead, they hire external consultants to drive lots of changes. After the consultants leave the organisation, the organisation runs into some problems. The management alters the rules. Several years later, the same impediments are still here.
Stories like this happen every day. These show a lack of courage, openness, and trust.
Avoid saying “Yes, but…”. Perhaps it’s due to a failure in Hong Kong education. In my high school studies, my English teacher always told us to begin with “I agree with you, but…” to oppose the others during the discussion. We were told that such an objection phrase looks more polite, elegant, and wordy to attract examiners during public exams.
However, the “but” is often stressed during the conversation. This sounds more rude than simply saying “no”. This also shows a sign of procrastination to someone who offers you a suggestion. Saying “Yes”, adding more details and accepting the offer, or “No” and providing the reason creates transparency.
Be true to yourself. It is totally acceptable that you don’t want to solve the problem or improve something, as long as you don’t generate a false signal to someone that you might want to improve, but just because of some other reasons.
Sometimes the impediment is so significant and complex that you want to escape it. Don’t panic. You can decompose it into several smaller pieces. Using Scrum, Kanban, or a combination of the two may help. Treat solving the impediment as your Product Goal. Refine your assumptions into Product Backlog Items and work on them Sprint by Sprint. The complex impediment can be solved one day.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Solving the organisational impediment is no exception. Start by doing something small in individuals and then small groups. Show the results of the improvement day by day. Trust from management can be built one day.
If you think you can achieve the goal, you may have a chance to succeed. If you doubt your ability to achieve your goal, you will never be successful.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day.” – It really requires time and diligence