Hey friends! Welcome back to the channel. If you're new here my name is Vibhor. I am
an Agile Leadership and transformation coach based out of Toronto Canada, and this is going
to be a revival of the weekly tips for Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters where every week,
and hopefully I will commit to doing it every week I'm going to talk about
some of the interesting things that I have discovered throughout my adventurous journey
in Agile. In this video I'm going to be discussing three steps that I have seen successful Agile
Coaches and Scrum Masters take while telling an Executive or a Leader or anyone for that matter
that they are wrong, or if there is a better way of doing things without making them feel
Offended!
One of the most critical parts of our job as Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters is to
provide constructive feedback to people we have no authority over. So, it is super important for us to
provide feedback in a way that doesn't challenge their power position or offend them in any way. Now
I cannot emphasize this enough. The easiest way to alienate someone who holds a power position
is to challenge the authority, by adopting a one up, I am better than you, kind of a tone.
This tone, implies I know more, you know less; I am good, you are bad; and I am superior you
are subordinate. it implies a hierarchy, which essentially embeds a power struggle,
inside of what might otherwise be, a legitimate and constructive feedback. All right so let's analyze
what happens when we take this approach. Let's say your criticism is objective and factually valid.
If you bundle the legitimate criticism with a power challenge, or I'm right your wrong
approach then the person even if they are willing to, may have difficulty accepting your legitimate
criticism, because doing so would mean accepting the implied message that you are superior
and they're supporting it. This is enough to alienate not only the Executives or Leaders but
anyone for that matter. Now I'm not saying that you don't do your job!
As Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters it's our job to show them the mirror. And the mirror reflects
what it sees, so it is critical that we provide our honest opinion to people who are relying
on us for expertise. But we have to do it in a way that doesn't challenge their authority. So here are
three tips or steps that you can take to deliver constructive criticism in a non-threatening way.
First, don't say I'm right or you're wrong, or any other variation of this, but instead say,
"I hold a different point of view". You see the thing is, Point-of-Views or perspectives are
neither right nor wrong. These are just views which are different, plus it's neutral in tone
and does not imply a power attack. Second, Paraphrase.
This is the single most important skill, that I have learned during my career as an Agile Coach
Simply repeating and re-explaining their point of view in a better way if possible, before you
explain your own perspective, goes a long way. This does a few things. First it shows that
you heard the person. Second it allows the other person to see you received what they communicated,
to see if what you heard was the same as what they intended. And third, if you can clearly
explain the other person's point of view, they will automatically be more receptive to what
you have to say because then, they don't have to worry about whether you understood them
This is also the fifth habit, "Seek first to understand, before be understood", in the book "Seven
habits of highly effective people" by Stephen Covey. All right, with that out of the way it's now time
to make them look through your lenses. it's time for you to give your opinion. You could say something like,
"I have an alternative point of view that you might wish to consider". When you put your point across
like this, you leave the other person's power and authority intact. It doesn't confuse them
if you are trying to make a grab for power. And it allows the feedback to be received on its merits,
without getting complicated by power struggles or personal attacks. All right, so to summarize it all,
if all you want to do is tell someone off, just say harsh and possibly mean and nasty things
and that will get the job done but if you want to criticize someone who holds an authority over you
then there's a specific way of doing it effectively, that gets the message across
without potentially damaging your relationship with them. On the screen there is a simple
template that you can use. "I was thinking about what you said earlier this morning
blank, with your permission I would like to share a different point of view about blank,
About this topic you said A, B and C. In my experience or based upon my data
or these resources, an alternative point of view to consider is X, Y and Z. Now I
have used these three steps extensively in my career, both as a Coach and as a Scrum Master
I found it really works and it's something that you might, "Wish to Consider", adopting
in your work as well. So, there you have it. The next time you face a situation where you find
yourself tongue-tied because of someone's Elephant status, consider taking a step back
and think about all the value that you bring to your organization as an Agile coach and a Scrum
Master and remind yourself that there are ways of delivering what matters, without ruffling any
feathers. You can also check out my other video, "6 tips on communication skills for Scrum Masters". The
link of which is provided in the description below. Before you all go, I want to give a shout out to
Yajnik Mungur, who very graciously translated the subtitles of the last two videos into French, the
links to those videos are in the description box below along with the link to Yajnik's LinkedIn
profile. And I wanted to let you know, that this is something that you can contribute to as well
if you are interested in translating the subtitles of the videos into whatever language you speak,
you will get 100% credit in the description box of each video that you translate. And it would mean a
world to me to see these videos being watched by people in different languages around the
world. So, if you are interested in contributing, then please message me directly on LinkedIn
I think this is the wrap for today. I hope you enjoyed this video and I can't wait to see you in the next one
you