Tag Archives: positive psychology

Experimenting at work, the agile way.

13 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by in Agile Scrum

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As you know, I am fascinated by the impact of positivity on performance, productivity, employee loyalty and health. But now I want to transition from doing personal experiments to doing group experiments.

I have only been at my current job for just over 3 weeks, but I knew even before I joined that this was ‘fertile soil’. There is enormous potential in the people, the mindset and culture of the company, we will thrive continuously and as we go along, we will learn and form new ways of optimising.

Last Friday, I asked if they would be up for doing a little experiment. That one question grew into agreeing to do a company wide presentation on positive psychology, that same day in the afternoon.

As opportunities arise, you grab them, so that is what I did. Having no time to prepare, did make me slightly anxious, as I wasn’t sure on what approach to take, but 10 minutes of clearing my head made me realise I don’t need preparation, I know what, the how we will define together and most important, I knew WHY.

If you are familiar with leadership analysis, you know that ‘why’ is most important question, because people relate to the way, people get motivated by the why, not by the how or what. It’s the passion that speaks.

So I gave one of the most honest and open presentations, just me and a white board. I used mind mapping to create the flow and make sure I extracted everything I wanted to say. I showed them the why from a ‘professional’ point of view, leading to the conclusion that happiness = professional, happiness = a crucial part of economic progress. And then, with the help of a timeline with a drawing of me as a kid (little stick figure in a dress with ponytails) a few jokes and lots of interactivity, I explained why it was so important to me as a person.

Throughout every ones life there are challenges, of different magnitudes. You reach crossroads of decisions where you need to choose between finding solutions and carrying on or giving up. Positivity leads to thriving, leads to potential, leads to happiness, flow and growth. Negativity leads to exhaustion, giving away control, a dead end. My story just illustrated some of those crossroads and how strong I felt about staying in control of my choices in a world of change and unexpected challenges.

That is ultimately what it is about, if you choose positivity, you choose ownership of your destiny, if you choose negativity, you give up.

The outcome was great, after that presentation, people came up to me to express how much they loved it and how they really want to get involved. There is no better feeling than that, seeing that spark, that energy, that force!

So, how will we do it? We are working on the how of the project, but we know the framework. We will use scrum to finish this positivity product. Next week, we will start sprint 0, in which we will define the end goal and start building our product backlog, our definitions of done, team contracts,… so… stay tuned.

Yours truly,
Brigitte

win-win revolution that will see happiness and productivity soar, hand in hand

29 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by in Agile Scrum

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As Scrum masters, sometimes, you forget the depths of the impact we are making, not just for our direct teams and organisations, but for the future, we are shaping right now.

The Agile mindset is based on core values that we will need for the survival of humanity.
Sounds quite hefty doesn’t it? Well, it is, and I think it is important that we take the time to stand still and reflect on it.

I was asked this week, by one of my team members, if I saw a future for agile.
I replied by saying; when you look at what is happening, there is not only a future for agile, agile is going to be the future.

In economics, you can clearly see the trend of big companies finally jumping on the Agile train, as they are starting to realise that they need to shape up, or they will get left behind.
It’s like the titanic, they are big and powerful, but they also know that if an iceberg pops up, they will be too slow to turn and the damage will be done, the whole majestic empire will sink, leaving behind beautiful memories of what once was.

Bottom line, to be successful in business, they need agile, but most companies haven’t yet fully understood how big that impact is.
If they want to truly go Agile, it is fundamentally a cultural and organisational change and that can be hard for a company to come to grips with, so they will have a transition phase towards agile.

If they stick with it, they will soon see the benefits and if they see the bigger picture, they will make those fundamental changes.

The straight-forward economic advantages of delivering business values and gaining the trust of their customers back is only one of side of why agile is the way of the future.
Another one that seems to be overlooked, is the fact that human beings are the resources of a company.
And when you look at predictions about the biggest future disability for those resources, it’s depression.
As a company, you can again go two ways, keep things as they are and choose to force your employees into anti-depressives or you can go agile.

Agile creates a pure win-win. No false predictions, just reality, team work and continuous improvement.
In my personal style, I try to combine as much positive psychology in the way our team works as possible.
It is not for nothing that these last years psychology has explored the field of positivity more and more.
When people talk about bringing happiness to teams, it sometimes feels uneasy, as if you wont be taken seriously if you talk about happiness, it’s not seen as professional.

Just remember, happiness, goes hand in hand with professional, as that is the way forward. It brings more productivity, less disease, more creativity… ingredients companies need to be the best.

So have the courage to talk about happiness, as an agile member, you are on the forefront of this win-win revolution that will see happiness and productivity soar, hand in hand!

Yours truly,

Brigitte

PS: I would like to dedicate this post to Jem, I loved the time we had working together and sharing ideas, inspiring each other and awakening the courage to understand the depths of what we are doing, shaping the future, a win-win world! Thank you!