How do you help your team members develop diversity and agility skills?
Diversity and agility are two essential skills for agile leaders and teams in today's complex and dynamic world. Diversity refers to the ability to appreciate and leverage different perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences, while agility refers to the ability to adapt and respond quickly to changing situations and opportunities. But how do you help your team members develop these skills and apply them in their work? Here are some tips and practices that can help you foster a culture of diversity and agility in your agile team.
One of the first steps to help your team members develop diversity and agility skills is to create a safe and inclusive environment where they can express themselves, share their ideas, and learn from each other. This means setting clear expectations, norms, and values for the team, as well as providing regular feedback, recognition, and support. It also means encouraging open communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution, as well as addressing any issues or biases that may hinder diversity and inclusion. A safe and inclusive environment can help your team members feel valued, respected, and empowered to contribute and grow.
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Psychological safety is the foundation of a thriving Agile Enterprise. It empowers teams to: - Take calculated risks - Communicate openly - Learn from experiences - Embrace diversity and - Minimise the fear of failure These are critical elements for adapting to change and thriving in an agile environment.
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An example, I could share on the Inclusive environment, as it is the key to foster in constructive challenges (on the product understandings & technical implementations) within the team. This is the area the senior members in the team would be dominant and will not allow recent team members and juniors to participate. Team coaches should involve every member in the team and make it as a flow rather than a compulsive participation.
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The leader must set expectations for respectful communication and considering diverse views so all feel comfortable sharing perspectives without judgment. Actively listening to understand others fully before responding also encourages the disclosure of different ideas. Should conflicts arise, addressing them respectfully through open mediation allows issues to be resolved constructively rather than avoided. Promoting psychological safety ensures people feel secure contributing new ideas and learning from mistakes supports evolving viewpoints. Building community among diverse members through informal social interactions strengthens understanding of varied experiences, which shapes more creative solutions when tackling challenges.
Another way to help your team members develop diversity and agility skills is to encourage experimentation and learning. This means creating opportunities for them to try new things, test new solutions, and learn from their successes and failures. It also means fostering a growth mindset, where they see challenges as opportunities to learn and improve, rather than as threats or obstacles. Experimentation and learning can help your team members develop new skills, discover new insights, and innovate faster and better.
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As an Agile Transformation expert, I learnt first hand how investing in learning new skills and experimenting can be a game-changer. - Teams that experiment can deal with change more easily. - Reframing problems as opportunities can set your team and organisation apart. - Teams that are invested in learning new skills and are not afraid to fail, become champions of innovation. Fail Fast, Learn Fast.
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The thing I found helpful with experimentation is, it brings in ownership within the team. While few members will have inquisitiveness for experimentation, it will not be a great success without the team buying-in that idea. The ideas need to be discussed and small portion of the teams capacity can be allocated for the experimentation giving more space for continuous delivery and continuous innovation
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Allowing flexibility in new approaches lets undiscovered options emerge. Seeing failures as learning, not weakness, debriefing freely, and praising uncovered knowledge over correctness defeats rigidness and advances understanding. Incorporating evolving views displays adaptability. Requesting commentary stimulates refining plans and presumptions through constant learning in a safe environment. This cultivates empowerment to flexibly engage an assortment of views in challenges.
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Você reamente quer ver a sua equipe arrasando em diversidade e agilidade? Bora lá! A chave é incentivar a experimentação e o aprendizado! Crie oportunidades para eles testarem coisas novas e aprenderem tanto com os acertos quanto com os erros. Isso é ter uma mentalidade de crescimento na veia! Encare os desafios como chances de evoluir, não como obstáculos. Assim, seu time vai desenvolver habilidades novas, descobrir insights poderosos e inovar na velocidade da luz. Transforme desafios em oportunidades! #Agilidade #Diversidade #TimeForte
A third way to help your team members develop diversity and agility skills is to expose them to different perspectives and experiences. This means providing them with diverse sources of information, inspiration, and feedback, as well as exposing them to different contexts, cultures, and customers. It also means creating cross-functional, cross-cultural, and cross-organizational teams, where they can interact with and learn from people with different backgrounds, roles, and expertise. Exposing them to different perspectives and experiences can help your team members broaden their horizons, challenge their assumptions, and empathize with others.
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Exposure to varied perspectives broadens skills. Leaders arrange cross-role meetings, mentors, projects touching diverse groups. Engaging beyond normal circles challenges embedded views and considers new tactics. Shared discussions internalize fresh aspects uncovered. Visiting offices or client locations immerses members in lives unlike their own, cultivating flexibility and skill synthesizing all sources into solutions. Diverse interaction trains agility if leaders both participate and allow lessons to feedback into workings.
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Aqui vai o pulo do gato: expor o pessoal a diferentes perspectivas e experiências. Traga informações variadas, inspiração de todo canto e feedback diverso. Misture a galera em equipes multifuncionais, multigeracionais e interculturais, onde cada um aprende com as diferentes histórias e habilidades dos colegas. Isso ajuda a galera a ampliar horizontes, desafiar ideias pré-concebidas e desenvolver empatia. #Diversidade #Agilidade #TimeIncrível #Sucesso
A fourth way to help your team members develop diversity and agility skills is to coach them to reflect and improve. This means helping them to assess their performance, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and set goals for improvement. It also means facilitating retrospectives, where they can review their work, share their learnings, and plan for action. Coaching them to reflect and improve can help your team members become more self-aware, self-regulated, and self-motivated to enhance their diversity and agility skills.
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Coaching and reflection aid growth. Leaders routinely obtain feedback and pinpoint improvement areas. Jointly reviewing experiences surfaces inherent leanings, reducing openness. Questioning presumptions humbly and admitting biases naturally propels progress. Private writing on diversifying encounters paired with collective examination cements insights. Together, set skills targets and check advancement, prioritizing widened viewpoints and reactive skills versus rotating duties like hosting various audiences. Coaching prompts constant self-assessment and change habits for boosted inclusion and agility.
A fifth way to help your team members develop diversity and agility skills is to model diversity and agility yourself. This means demonstrating the behaviors, attitudes, and values that you want to see in your team, as well as sharing your own experiences, challenges, and learnings. It also means being humble, curious, and open-minded, as well as being flexible, responsive, and proactive. Modeling diversity and agility yourself can help your team members learn from your example, trust your leadership, and emulate your style.
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This is more of the style I adopt - lead by example. It is necessary to understand that unless you display these behaviors yourself as what it takes to drive diversity of thoughts and actions, and imbibe an agile culture, once cannot expect the team and others in general to adopt a similar mindset I am transparent enough to show that I don’t have all the answers myself and ask for the team’s perspectives on specific contexts, especially where I need community driven decisions. Where decisions are to be made it is important that we don’t get into analysis-paralysis and start with the data and information we have on hand (compare also with the LRM - Last Responsible Moment) providing a fail fast environment.
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Team leaders should actively listen to diverse views, adapt opinions with new evidence, and show curiosity in perspectives unlike their own. Spread responsibilities and development chances equitably. Own mistakes and adjust approaches. Champion varied voices, make space for contributions, and bolster self-assurance in reticent members. Lead inclusively, with adaptability and eagerness to learn, establishing a culture where diversity and agility thrive.
A sixth way to help your team members develop diversity and agility skills is to celebrate diversity and agility. This means acknowledging and appreciating the contributions, achievements, and learnings of your team members, as well as highlighting the benefits and outcomes of diversity and agility for the team and the organization. It also means creating a fun and positive atmosphere, where your team members can enjoy their work, celebrate their successes, and support each other. Celebrating diversity and agility can help your team members feel proud, motivated, and engaged to continue developing their diversity and agility skills.
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When the team reaches a maturity to leverage diversity as an superpower & and is able to maintain its course of action or is able to adapt to ever changing VUCA world, then is the true time to celebrate diversity & agility. "Token of appreciation" format for retros or team meetings is a great way to celebrate diversity. It also helps strengthen the communication & team bonding. Another way of celebrating diversity & agility is to recognize the teams effort that achieved business outcomes by embracing diversity.
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When leaders notice team members considering various stances, willingly altering tactics, or expanding their networks, praise cultivates these behaviors. Publicly highlighting flexible thinking, new solutions from mixed viewpoints, and personnel broadening their spheres prompts emulation. Solicit suggestions respecting all backgrounds for meaningful celebrations acknowledging progress. Publicly laud rotated responsibilities handled with responsiveness to differring needs. Observance and rewards reinforce strengths while constructive feedback guides future improvement.
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The best agile teams I've ever worked with didn't call themselves agile. They didn't bother about agile skills. Yet, leadership trusted them with problems worth solving. Culture is key. No methodology will survive in a culture where politics define how you thrive. Agile is a means to and end, and its beauty of lies on a few items: . Collaboration . Curiosity . Embracing the unknown No matter the framework you use, agile is about using available knowledge to progress and uncover unknowns. In other words by Maarten Dalmjin, "Using what you know to uncover what you don't."
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Um tema que tem sido recorrente, no mundo todo, e é considerado um dos maiores erros das lideranças ágeis, é não saber gerir times multigeracionais. Há 4 gerações convivendo juntas, cada uma com suas especificidades. É normal que se formem Tribos nas empresas e projetos, compostas por pessoas de gerações e gostos semelhantes, mas é preciso estar atendo a isso, pois as gerações Y e a Z são ainda um pouco aversas a gerações anteriores. Isso despreza a experiência adquirida, que é a base do processo de empirismo do ágil. Por isso hpa tantas empresas resgatando lideres das gerações X e até boomers, pois são melhores nisso. É mais fácil e barato capacitar do quê permitir que um estrago seja feito. #TodosJuntos #Multigeracional #OMelhorDeCadaUm
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