The Arrival, the Departure and the Journey

The Arrival, the Departure… and the Journey

I was fearful about how to approach this coaching engagement as it involved working with teams that use Scrum outside of Software – sales, marketing and other areas of the company.
I was intimidated by the fact that I would be expected to take forward the work started by Tobias, a mentor of mine and someone I deeply admired. I used to tell my wife that I haven’t yet found any fault with him (and I am good at finding fault with people!). How in the world could I live up to those expectations?
I was fearful whether I will be able to connect well with the team members who are from totally different background (marketing, sales, research etc.). Little did I remember that we are born human, and not into our roles and titles.
I was ashamed at the time of the fact that I used to do my company work when I was at the client location for coaching. I was fearful that it will lead to bad karma.
Once I got settled down in my role (it was always unsettling!), I didn’t want to let go of the benefits that came with working with the company, even though the travel was standing in the way of spending time with my family – especially the newest addition to the family, out little daughter, Thumbi.
Over and over, I was fearful of facilitating discussions all the way from Team Retrospectives, Senior Leadership meeting and internal meetings. I was pleasantly surprised that most of the meetings I facilitated turned out just fine.

PATIENCE

Others often mentioned that I was very patient during most of my coaching. Mostly importantly, I discovered that my impatience stems from my wanting things to go a certain way (MY way) instead of letting them evolve based on what everyone believes.
Birth of our daughter during this Coaching engagement, enhanced my patience level as I discovered that there are a lot of things you cannot control and just being patient means lesser stress.
I had to learn to be patient with the fact that even though I see clearly what is working and what is not working, the trick is to be patient and silent enough till others see it as clear as you see it. I used retrospective as a tool to make it happen.
I had to be at peace with the fact each person interprets the same information in a different way and it is pointless to argue over different perspectives of the same incident.

GROWTH / LEARNING

It was a great opportunity for me to work with people whom I admire and care for, and still be able to contribute and voice my opinions and have them heard.
This experience made me realize that it is okay to be fearful of things, just go ahead and treat it as a learning opportunity.
The work I did in the past 10 months made me realize that we need to be grateful to the companies that we work with, as they provide tons of opportunities for us to learn and grow, and still compensate for our efforts, unlike schools where we have to pay for learning.
It was a reassurance for me that the most important thing in life is to show up and the rest will happen. I would have imagined that I would be welcomed and invited to facilitate sessions, intended at aligning the leadership at the company.
I was reminded and learned again that if you want to be able to effect any change, talk to the people who can do it, instead of wasting time gossiping about it with people who cannot really make a difference.
I learned that genuinely practicing, “treat others the way you would like to treated” led to better conversation, compassion and helped dialogue to move forward to action.
I experienced that fact that behind our titles, position, wealth, power etc., we all are honest, innocent and pure human beings who want to do the best they can and make the people around us happy.

The Journey continues until I arrive again, and then depart for the next station !