Change is more than often met with resistance. Whether it’s a social networking app changing its layout, a brand refreshing its logo or a utility supplier moving to online payments. You can pretty much guarantee grumbles from users or some sort of discontent or unrest. And that’s because people are deeply attached to routine. We like the safety of routine, the known. We also like to be consulted before changes are made. Because we like to feel included and cared about. Because of the way we process change, the subsequent feelings of dealing with that logo or newsfeed change can be very real. It’s therefore no surprise that when organisations go through change it can be incredibly hard and painful.
The convergence of agile and the enterprise has been a relatively recent phenomenon. With agile ways of working becoming more and more mainstream, involving people in the wider organisation, a new field of enterprise agile coaching (EAC) has emerged to support the growing number of people, roles, departments and opinions that are dealing with the shift that happens when you move from “change as an exception” to “change as the norm” . What we are also seeing is that as demand for being more customer focused, more value driven grows then the mandate for change starts to come from the top, rather than the bottom.
We know top-down approaches don’t work on their own. Everyone MUST be included to shape and take ownership of the change and their future. What is needed is active participation and self-organisation in solving real business problems. To include everyone, we need facilitation techniques that allow everyone involved in the structure or process, to participate in its co-creation.
How do you handle this? Who do you speak to? What processes should you follow? How do you organise a meeting that includes everyone and ensure that meeting is successful. After all, a meeting with 200+ people is very expensive in both time and money.
This is the crux of the Coaching for Enterprise Agility class, the second EAC training course from AWA. I was fortunate enough to be one of the 18 participants on its first run last week.
I don’t want to spoil any surprises but I will share a few of my aha moments with you now:
- Enterprise Agile Coaching isn’t a single role – it’s much more than that. And you have to be incredibly humble, open and transparent to be successful.
- Helping people understand what their problems are is challenging . Throughout the course, Simon used coaching techniques to help us see how by building the blocks to awareness of the pain you can help people see what their problem is.
- To really understand what an organisation is from a cultural perspective you need to understand what its meaning is – which is very different to purpose!
- Just how complex group decision making really is! Simon does an excellent job in demonstrating the different examples and how you can facilitate good outcomes in large groups.
A great learning experience, not just a course! The breadth of content and methods used is fantastic and will help me be more confident as an Enterprise Agile Coach – Claire Donald – Director of Agile Delivery
By the end of day 1 we were all feeling rather challenged, afterall this is a pretty advanced course. As Simon guided us through this incredible learning experience we gradually started to connect the dots to create our own big picture and understanding of the field of enterprise coaching in agile environments.
Building upon your expertise in lean and agile, while leveraging pure coaching skills, this awesome course offers a full & practical as well as super applicable, selection of approaches and models for the A-Z of Enterprise Agile Coaching – Georg Fasching – Enterprise Coach
This course is a great complement to the Enterprise Agility Masterclass and also as a continuing development on from ICAgile Certified Agile Coaching course as it opens and expands the horizons for coaching and facilitating on a large scale.
Join our next course in a city near you… Places fill up fast– so you will need to secure your seat early if you want to attend on your chosen date.
So many “aha” moments during this course. Simon was truly wonderful in his delivery of the material and I am leaving feeling so much more enriched – Abisola Fatokun – Agile Coach