Bridging the Gap Between Agile Teams and Leadership | Josh Anderson

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches
Episode: Bridging the Gap Between Agile Teams and Leadership | Josh Anderson
Host: Pasco Duarte
Release Date: February 18, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Pasco Duarte welcomes Josh Anderson, a seasoned technology leader, podcaster, and author. Josh brings over two decades of experience in technology leadership, product innovation, and operational excellence. Together, they delve into the intricate dynamics between Agile teams and organizational leadership, uncovering the challenges and strategies for effective collaboration.

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The Core Challenge: Alignment Between Agile Teams and Leadership

Josh Anderson kicks off the discussion by highlighting a fundamental issue: the misalignment between leadership and Scrum leaders. He emphasizes that “the leadership and the scrum leaders are out of sync” (03:19). This misalignment often manifests when teams refer to "the business" as a separate entity, creating a disconnect. Josh asserts, “You are part of the business” (04:00), urging Agile leaders to bridge this divide by fostering a shared understanding of the business's core objectives.

Understanding the Business of the Business

Josh stresses the importance of Agile leaders and their teams fully comprehending how the business generates value. “How do we make money? How do our customers find the products that we build, ship, and sell?” (04:20) he asks, pointing out that an overemphasis on Agile processes can sometimes obscure the ultimate goal of delivering customer value. He advises Agile leaders to partner with the broader organization to deepen their understanding of what truly adds value for customers.

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Communication Barriers and Language Differences

Pasco Duarte brings up the critical role of language in bridging gaps, referencing Wheel’s Law: “All communication fails except by accident.” (08:20). Josh agrees, noting that “there's a lot of agile mumbo jumbo” (06:25) that may not resonate with executive teams. He recommends using common terminology that resonates across the organization to ensure clear and effective communication.

Strategies for Effective Communication

Josh offers practical advice for Agile leaders to enhance communication:

1. Simplify Language: Avoid jargon and speak in terms that leadership understands.
2. Clarify and Iterate: Be prepared to explain concepts multiple times. “Assume you need to say that thing seven times before it actually gets fully consumed” (09:41).
3. Experiment with Communication Methods: If standard meetings aren’t effective, consider informal settings like lunch discussions to convey messages differently (17:40).

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Cultivating Patience and Supporting Change

A significant portion of the conversation centers on the necessity of patience—both with oneself and others—during the Agile transformation process. Josh shares his personal journey of learning to be patient, recognizing that “humans don't work like that” (15:49) when it comes to changing habits and processes. He underscores the importance of supporting team members as they navigate the change curve, allowing them to shed old habits and embrace new ones at their own pace.

Leadership Laboratory: A Framework for Continuous Improvement

Pasco Duarte introduces the concept of a "Leadership Laboratory" from Josh's Substack post, which serves as a metaphor for treating leadership development as an ongoing experimental process. Josh explains, “Whenever you're trying to introduce something new to any group of people, you should assume you need to say that thing seven times before it actually gets fully consumed” (09:41). This approach encourages continuous experimentation and adaptation, fostering a culture where both product and process improvements are seamlessly integrated.

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Turning Negative Experiences into Growth Opportunities

Josh Anderson discusses his approach to handling less-than-ideal leadership experiences. Instead of succumbing to frustration, he advocates for “creating a database in my mind of things to never do” (18:20). This proactive strategy allows him to identify and eliminate counterproductive behaviors, paving the way for becoming the leader he aspires to be. He shares, “If you can prove something isn't true, then you kind of prove the other side that it is true” (18:20), highlighting how negative examples can inform positive leadership practices.

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Resource Highlight: "Turn the Ship Around"

When asked about impactful resources, Josh recommends 《Turn the Ship Around》 by L. David Marquet. He praises the book for its practical approach to leadership transformation, especially in transitioning from a rigid hierarchy to empowering leaders at all levels. Josh notes, “There were real world examples of how they address that problem” (32:24), making it a valuable tool for Agile leaders seeking actionable insights.

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Conclusion and Further Resources

As the episode wraps up, Josh encourages listeners to engage with his work through his newsletter, "Leadership Lighthouse," and his podcast, Metacast with Josh Anderson and Bob Galen. He emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and experimentation in both leadership and Agile practices.

Pasco Duarte closes the episode by inviting listeners to connect with Josh via his website kazi.io for coaching and consulting services, reinforcing the episode's theme of ongoing collaboration and growth.

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Notable Quotes

• Josh Anderson (03:19): “The leadership and the scrum leaders are out of sync.”
• Josh Anderson (04:00): “You are part of the business.”
• Josh Anderson (06:25): “There's a lot of agile mumbo jumbo.”
• Josh Anderson (09:41): “Assume you need to say that thing seven times before it actually gets fully consumed.”
• Josh Anderson (15:49): “Humans don't work like that.”
• Josh Anderson (18:20): “If you can prove something isn't true, then you kind of prove the other side that it is true.”
• Josh Anderson (32:24): “There were real world examples of how they address that problem.”

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Further Resources

• Josh Anderson's Newsletter: Leadership Lighthouse
• Podcast: Metacast with Josh Anderson and Bob Galen
• Book Recommendation: Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet

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This episode offers invaluable insights into the symbiotic relationship between Agile teams and leadership, emphasizing communication, patience, and continuous improvement. Whether you're a Scrum Master, Agile Coach, or organizational leader, Josh Anderson's experiences and strategies provide a roadmap for bridging gaps and fostering a cohesive, high-performing Agile environment.

Transcript

[Unknown Speaker]

Hi there.

[Pasco Duarte]

Pasco Duarte here, your host.

[Unknown Speaker]

I wanted to share a story with you. You know how sometimes Agile just feels like following another checklist when like processes and frameworks feel more important than what we are trying to achieve and sometimes even like handcuffs. I was talking to a customer of the Global Agile Summit and he used a term that kind of stuck in my he said, I have Agile fatigue. And I've heard that a lot from people since then. But here's the thing, it doesn't have.

[Pasco Duarte]

To be this way.

[Unknown Speaker]

So we started thinking and at the Global Agile Summit, which is happening this May, we're bringing together practitioners who've actually done that, who've broken free from this, you know, install the framework kind of mindset. We want to focus the summit on real life, first person stories of Agile all succeeding that inspire you to action. We're talking real experiences, practical solutions, and of course, amazing insights from leaders like Gojkoacic, who will be one of the keynote speakers, and Jurgen Apelo, who will be one of the keynote speakers as well.

[Pasco Duarte]

If you're ready to leave the Agile.

[Unknown Speaker]

Fatigue behind, just join us in Dalit. The Early Birth tickets are now available@the globalagilesummit.com and mark your calendar. We will have workshops on May 18th, that's a Sunday. And then the conference itself will happen on May 19th and 20th of 2025 in Tallinn, Estonia. So let's make Agile exciting again. And remember, go to agile globalagilesummit.com that is, and get your early Birth ticket. Now. It will only be available until early March, so grab it now. And now onto the episode.

[Pasco Duarte]

Hello everybody. Welcome to our very special Substack Week where we interview thought leaders who publish newsletters on Substack and we help you find inspiring voices that drive our community forward. And today we have with us Josh Anderson. Hey Josh, welcome to the show.

[Josh Anderson]

Hey, thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

[Pasco Duarte]

Absolutely. So for all of you who don't yet know Josh, Josh is also a fellow podcaster at the Metacast with Bob Galen, so be sure to check that out. So just look for the link in the show notes. That's the Metacast with Josh Anderson and Bob Galen. He also has over two decades of experience in technology leadership, product innovation and operational excellence. Josh has worked with many businesses and helped them transform into high value product driven organizations. And Josh is going to talk to us about a topic that many of us are already familiar with. So Josh, let's dive right into it. We're going to talk about Scrum Masters Agile coaches, what do you think is the biggest challenge scrum masters and agile coaches face when collaborating with their leaders?

[Josh Anderson]

The most common situation that I see and something I want everybody to know is this is a two way street, is that the leadership and the scrum leaders are out of sync. And a common signal that you see or hear is this reference to this amoeba like thing of the business of, oh, the business wants that. And so that's, that's like symptom number one. So if you and your team are talking about the business wants this, the business wants that, stop, fix that, you are part of the business and often that using the term or you know, separating it out and saying, oh, that's over there, that's not us. No, that is us. We are part of the business. So one thing that, that again the two way street piece is that both the rest of the company and you as an agile leader have to really invest in making sure that the team fully understands the business of the business. How, how do we make money? How do our customers find the products that we build, ship and sell? How do we find that they change their lives? And so, so many folks just get focused on the process of we're doing agile, we're doing that. Cool, but great. How is that affecting the daily lives of the people that are choosing to part way with their own money and say we are giving you money to help us make our lives better. How are you doing that? And so one of the common questions that I ask of teams and you get some funny answers when I ask this question is why do we exist? Why do we as a product development organization exist? Why are we here? And you hear things like build great software, build features, you know, fix bugs, all those things. And ultimately there's a disconnect because what I coach teams on is you are here to deliver value to the customer and oftentimes there's a disconnect on what that value really means and you as the agile leader can go and find that out, but you need partnership from the rest of the company to help educate you and your team. So that is number one and it's a two way street because you have to have people that are willing to play play ball and share all that with you. There's sometimes they like to hold that close and you know, protect it. That's another troublesome sign. But reach out, educate yourselves and then you'd be amazed when everybody's pulling for this, the same goal, how things just kind of like fall in line and magic happens.

[Pasco Duarte]

Yeah, go figure. If everybody's aligned on the goal, amazing things can happen. Now, one of the challenges, of course, or one of the aspects of what you just said, which is like collaborate, find out why we exist, materialize or crystallize the reason why we're working on what we're working, one of the challenges with that is that we need to communicate somehow in a similar language, I guess we could call it, at least not in a completely different language, let's put it that way. So what have you found are some of the problems scrum masters and agile coaches face when communicating with their leaders.

[Josh Anderson]

Well, something again that both sides have. And this is where you really have to, you know, in this political time that we are here in the US you have to reach across the aisle, right? So there's, there's a lot of agile mumbo jumbo that people use. And your executive team, your leadership team, whatever it is, they don't speak that, that language. So speak in language that they understand. And of course the other side of the aisle has to understand that you may not understand all of the financial acumen or other things that they're throwing out. So you have to really hit the pause button and be willing to say, I don't understand what you mean. Or if you feel like you're introducing a term, make sure you make it clear on what this means and why it matters. So that's a big thing, is that there's just an assumption that everybody understands the words that are coming out of their mouths and they're landing in people's ears and then making in a brains and making it make sense so often again. That's why we go back to the beginning of let's understand how we as a business, what are the key pieces of value that we are delivering to our customers and then use that as the talking point. You and your teams can layer up the things that we do and the patterns and practices to support that, but when you're talking across the organization, try and use the common nomenclature that everybody's using. So that's, that's what happens is people start to compartmentalize and they expect, slash, want everybody to know what all of their words mean. And that's not fair because you just go across the rest of the organization and everybody's using their own words and they might mean the same thing. So that's where as an agile leader and as you look operationally, how do we optimize this? And number one is we just have to start saying the same words because words matter. And so getting those right is really important. So you're going to have to hit the pause button and just, like, get everybody in sync. And then consistency is key.

[Pasco Duarte]

Yeah. So this reminds me of a very famous. It's kind of a humorous take on communication. It's called Wheel's Laws. And there's one law that says all communication fails except by accident. And a corollary of that law is when communication seems to have been successful, there surely is a misunderstanding. And one of the things that that brings to me, of course, that's a humoristic take on communication, but one of the things that that brings to me is that we must never assume that what we want to communicate is understood the same way as we are trying to communicate it. And also, we must never assume that what others are trying to communicate we are understanding exactly in the way they want to communicate. So one of the things that you just said, hit the pause button and go back and explain things or clarify. That's a really important part in creating also a collaborative atmosphere. Right. Like, if I say, hey, Josh, wait a second, what do you really mean by it's a totally different thing than if I just jump into conclusions and start rebutting a point you never wanted to make?

[Josh Anderson]

Yeah, exactly. One of the tools that I provide people with is whenever you're trying to introduce something new to any group of people, you should assume you need to say that thing seven times before it actually gets fully consumed. Because you think about the first time you hear something new, you hear about something new, and it lands in your brain and you start questioning it and saying, well, wait a minute, would that work? Meanwhile, the person is explaining all those things, but in your brain, you're having this dialogue with yourself, and you're arguing with it or against it or like, oh, that might be a really great idea. But in the meantime, you're also not fully hearing everything that that person is trying to say. So every subsequent time that someone brings that same thing up, you. You get a little further along that. That. That change curve, and you start to hear all of the reasoning and all of the thought that they've put into it. And so usually by the seventh time that somebody says something, you've processed that yourself and you've been able to, like, fully hear it, fully understand. It's like, yes, that's it. Now, what's interesting is you say seven times, and this is a mistake that I've made, is that I think, okay, cool, I've said this to my team, like, seven times. Everybody gets it. They're all nodding. And then your team changes or you add some new people. And so now somebody that's heard it 14 times is sitting next to somebody that's heard it once. So now you feel like you're on repeat and you're just saying the same thing over and over again. I'm like, oh, my gosh, do I really need to do this? I started feeling bad for people that had been on my team for a long time. So I decided, wait a minute, let me explain to my team why I'm saying the same thing over and over again. Because it was my job. Is my job as a leader to create context and clarity for everybody. And you have to understand that not everybody's at the same point in their journey of learning who we are and how we're going to roll.

[Pasco Duarte]

So some of those people are leaders, meaning our leaders, right? Like CTO or VP or whatever?

[Josh Anderson]

Yep, exactly. You just never stop talking.

[Pasco Duarte]

Well, that too, of course. Because as it happens, in software, we work with concepts, and concepts are conveyed through language. There's no other way to do it, at least none that we know of yet. Maybe in the future. And language, therefore becomes quite a critical aspect of our work. It becomes a huge aspect of our toolbox, as the podcast is called. Right. Language becomes a critical toolbox for us. And when you think about this collaboration between those that are acting on the change, like Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches, and those that have hopefully been on board and asked for the change, the leaders we work with, what are some of the strategies that you recommend to Agile coaches, Scrum Masters, when they need to start up, when they need to foster that collaborative atmosphere with their leaders.

[Josh Anderson]

One of the biggest lessons that I learned was I didn't fully understand everything that I just explained about having to speak about something seven times. So I would go in, I would be in a meeting, I would introduce something, and I would put it on the table and in my mind again, because I had heard it a hundred times as I prepped for that, that discussion. And folks didn't get it right away. And so I was frustrated. Why don't they get it? They don't understand. And I just would give up. And I was like, wait a minute, it's not fair for me to expect them to be able to do 180 from the way that we've been doing things. And the argument I would give myself is like, well, but they're paying me to come in and make this change, so they're expecting me to drive change. Yes, they're expecting you to drive change, but they don't understand fully what change you're going to drive and what that really means. So really understanding on what is required for people to shed old habits and build new habits. Oh, sorry. Shed old habits and build new habits. I never say people have bad habits because nobody sets out to, you know, do things wrong or poorly. Everybody means well. So what I help people understand, especially in the technology space where you are used to being able to go in and you find some code and you fix it and boom, it's done and it's fixed. Humans don't work like that. So understanding the change curve and coaching people through the change curve and actually getting them to be patient with themselves, that this change is going to take time. It's going to take time for you to recognize that old habit, that the old habit's happening. Oh, shoot, I shouldn't be doing that. So you'll go through this process where you recognize, oh, I did a thing, dang it, I did the old way. Let me go back and do some cleanup. Then what happens is you start to do the old thing and you realize, oh, I'm doing it. Let me stop, and I'll go do the new thing. And then eventually, as people work through that entire process, they get to where the old habit is entirely gone and the new habit is here. They don't even think about it. But that's really hard work and requires intention. So being upfront with everybody involved, the leadership team, the engineers, your agile teams, whatever it is, everybody's going through a change. Everybody's going to progress through that life cycle of change at their own pace. So you have to honor and respect that and just know that there will be some people that in a week will go through all those phases. Everybody's going to go through those phases. Some just will accelerate through it, others will take longer. And just everybody has their. Their own pace with every change. So being appreciative, aware and supportive of people, because you'll find people that are on your team, high performers that are going to struggle with that change and they're going to be frustrated with themselves. So coaching them, supporting them, just saying, like, okay, it's okay. Like, let's not forget this is the thing I always say, there is no Vasco config file that you can go and change. And now all of a sudden, you operate in a completely different way. Like, humans don't work like that. But often in our space, the daily work that we do works like that. Where I go, I Fix the file, I change it, I check it in, deploy it, Boom. It was red, now it's blue. Humans don't work like that. So helping people that are used to a space where that is the truth, recognize that, okay, I've got to be patient with myself, and that's always the biggest hurdle.

[Pasco Duarte]

And I would, I would add to that that we are in the same boat. Like, meaning agile coaches, scrum masters. We are in the same boat. We are also shedding old habits and taking on new habits because it's a constant process of adaptation and change. And one of the things that I really like about your answer is we need to be patient with others. Okay, that's great, but you're never going to succeed at being patient with others if you're not patient with yourself. The frustration you were just talking about a moment ago, when you introduce things after reading them 100 times and people didn't get it, that frustration comes from not being patient with us. It's not the others that make us frustrated. It's our own experience of our lives that makes us frustrated. And I think that's really important to have that humbleness to say that, hey, a minute. I first need to learn to be patient with myself or to communicate better or to really dig into what their goal is or to understand what the business is. Right. Like, I need to be patient with myself so I can be patient with others.

[Josh Anderson]

Yes. The. The final piece that I would give you is anytime it feels like communication didn't work, think about how you can communicate it differently because the other person on the other side, they're trying to understand. So accept that. Okay, maybe, maybe I can do better next time. Maybe I can phrase it differently. Maybe I just need to keep trying or send the send same message, or maybe we just do it in a different setting. Maybe we go to lunch and we have a discussion that's just different. Who knows what it is, right? But just, just think about experiment and experiment and experiment and you'll find out the best way to work with your team, your leadership group, your agile coaches, whatever it is, nobody's the same. So you're going to have to experiment and find what works. So never keep trying different ways to get that message across.

[Pasco Duarte]

Yeah, absolutely. Coming to that. Keep trying different ways. In your substack, you have a post titled the Best Leadership Lessons that come from Terrible leaders. Now, I'm sure many of our listeners are familiar with some of the anti patterns at least, but you have found a way to turn those anti patterns into opportunities for Your own growth. So walk us through some of those examples and tell us stories so that we can learn to take on that habit that you have grown for yourself of going through bad experiences and using them as fuel for growth.

[Josh Anderson]

Sure. That realization of I can hope, I can dream, I can cross my fingers and hope I'm going to work for the best leader, the greatest mentor in the world, and then I'm going to just like overnight become this legendary leader that I aspire to be. I realized likelihood of that happening was pretty low. So I had a couple choices. I could get frustrated at the situation that I'm in and realize, oh man, the leaders I work with are just, they're not good. Like I'm never gonna, I'm never gonna become what I want. Or I could say, wait a minute, treat like a math problem. A good math proof is that if you can prove something isn't true, then you kind of prove the other side that it is true. It's like, wait a minute, there's all these examples of things I don't like. So I didn't like working with this person. It was frustrating. I didn't feel empowered, I didn't feel trusted. I couldn't run as fast as I wanted to because they were doing all of these things. Okay, let me create a database in my mind of things to never do. So I started to realize, okay, cool, that experimental database of things I need to try is getting actively shrunk. So I'm starting to just cross off things. Okay, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that. So that narrows. Okay, what should I do? Because we're all new leaders, at some point where you have an idea, you think you know what the answer is, but you've never done it. And maybe it's scary because you've never seen anybody else do it. It's like, wait a minute, like, should really give this a shot. And I've been there a couple times where I've wanted to try something and, and I look back on my history and realized nobody I ever worked for ever did this. But maybe that's a good thing because I hated working with them or I really disliked that time and I went and found another job because of them. So the unfortunate reality is not many of us are going to be surrounded by really great leaders and really great mentors. So like I said, you have two choices. One, you can wallow in self pity and just say, I'm not going to become the leader I want because somebody else isn't doing something for me. Or you can take what you have and use it and have that be the fuel for, like, this is who I'm going to be. I'm going to be. Not that. And then you just stack up a lot of knots, and then you start to get clarity on what you want to be. So things like that along the way, like, I learned very early that I didn't like to be micromanaged. And so I went through a lot of that, and I began to recognize the moments when I felt micromanaged, that I didn't feel trusted. So that shaped me in, okay, now, when I'm the leader, when I'm calling the shots, when I'm building a team, here are the things I'm not going to do that didn't mean it was any less scary. Letting go, taking my hands off the wheel and saying, okay, team, you got it. I'm here to support you and go get them. And, you know, they're like, oh, crap, that's scary. I hope it all works out. But it at least gave me fewer choices to make in those decisions of what should I do? I at least knew what I shouldn't do. So that increased the likelihood that the choices I did make would land more effectively.

[Pasco Duarte]

So. So what you're saying is, okay, we. We often, very often hear about this idea of modeling behavior, right? Like, you know, you need to show others the example of what you want to see them take as a behavior. So what you're saying is kind of, we are now the observers, and we're doing the. I guess we could call it the inverse of modeling, meaning that it's the other person that is modeling. And also they are modeling what we don't want to do and kind of be, I guess we could say, conscious of what is happening, maybe even have a reflection point at some point, conscious of what is happening, and then kind of translate it into, okay, what does that mean for me? And why is this bad? And what is exactly the thing I don't want to do? Like, you talked about micromanaging, but I bet that in those experiences for you, it was a lot more visceral, right? Like you were being said, hey, you need to work on this bug this morning. I want to see a status report before lunch, and so on like that, Right?

[Josh Anderson]

Yes. The term that I've used is anti mentors. Everybody wants to be surrounded by mentors that are really supportive. And unfortunately, and this is a huge reason why I write the substack. I do. Why the podcast that I do is centered on leadership because I don't believe there's enough really great mentors and leaders that are out there. So I'm trying to create as many opportunities for people to stumble onto something where they really do have some great guidance, because I didn't have that. So I'm trying to short sort short circuit that for everybody. Like, hey, here's, here's, here's the answers I've discovered in. As I realized, as I was prepping for this discussion, in my quarter of a century of being in technology leadership, I said that to myself, like, holy cow, that's a long time. But I decided, let me take all those lessons because, yes, there were anti mentors where I said, okay, I'm not going to do that. But along the way, there have been a handful of influential people that really accelerated me. So I'm just hopeful that some of the words that I write, some of the words that I say can land in somebody's ears or in their brain, however they read it or hear to see it. And it just helps them again, get to better answers sooner, faster, with fewer stumbling blocks. So that's why I do what I do. Because it's hard out there. It's hard to know what really great leadership looks like because usually it's good enough or sometimes it's bad. But there's, there's those very rare and few times where it's great. And I've had a couple of those. So I've tried to maximize those, but I've had my fair share of anti mentors where I'm just like, not going to be that person.

[Pasco Duarte]

And of course, one of the cool things about that article is that it kind of highlights how important it is to be aware at every moment of what is happening. And one of the things that you said is that you've had a few great mentors. But here's the thing. When we start our own leadership journey, we're talking about software leadership here, not necessarily political leadership, but when we start our own leadership journey, we have to have some sort of idea of how to develop ourselves. And I really like the leadership laboratory that you introduced in that post. Can you describe that a little bit more for our audience and kind of highlight for us why that was important in your own leadership journey?

[Josh Anderson]

Yeah, when I get stuck and I'm unsure how to determine what the next move is? Again, we talk about the quarter century of Josh living in product development is, wait a minute. I've been building products for 25 years and I've been pretty successful and I've got a pattern and a practice of how I determine the long term strategy, the near term strategy and what I should do. So I just treat those moments like a product. And what do great products do? They have thoughts and ideas of where they're going, but they experiment constantly. So I would just start experimenting with, with various things and realize you have this fantastic opportunity to experiment and try things and get feedback from, from your team and there's things you need to do. You can't just be like experimenting and not tell anybody. You need to be intentional and say like, okay, cool, we're going to try this. Here's what I hope it can do. Here's the expected outcome. It might not land that way, so if it doesn't, that's okay, but at least you understand the intent is good and this is what I'm trying to do. And whenever anybody understands like okay, cool, we're going through something different and it's weird, but I understand what we hope it can do that puts them in the right mindset to be a part of that. Whereas if you just like spring it on them, they're going to be like, wait a minute, this is, this is very uncomfortable. I don't understand why this isn't working. This is failing. Oh my gosh, you're the worst leader ever when you're trying to do the right thing. So just constantly experiment with things but be super inclusive about those experiments that you're going to run and say, hey, this is who we want to be. It's going to take us a while to get there. We're going to have to make some changes. And here's the changes I like to try and make. Let's put these in practice. Let's try it for a month, two months, whatever it is, let's give it its fair shake. I know right out of the gate you're going to hate it, it's going to be frustrating, but let's give it a few laps around the track before we decide whether it was good or bad and then let's make changes iterate refine it.

[Pasco Duarte]

The tip that one of our previous guests mentioned is hey, let's give it three sprints. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, then we'll drop it just like any other thing. And I think that that is really cool because especially for scrum masters and agile coaches, it is a model, it is a behavior that we want to model. Right? Because the teams like product leaders and tech, they need to also Experiment in the product development space. Right. Like, you know, and of course, in a team, we also need to experiment in the process space because sometimes we need to change the process. Right. That's the outcome of a retrospective as an example. So that also becomes kind of a modeling behavior. And this modeling of the behavior is very important because it is both how to get better and also showing how others can also get better themselves without us always being there and trying to push things forward. Because if we are there trying to push things forward ourselves all the time, it's just a matter of time before it becomes our idea rather than their idea. And then their hands go up and say, hey, it's not my idea and nothing moves anymore.

[Josh Anderson]

Exactly. And I want to highlight what you said, is that when you take this approach, everybody gets better at everything they're doing. So that's what I realized. Like, wait a minute. Every day, every sprint, we're sprinting, we're refining a backlog, we're experimenting with new items in our product, we're getting the feedback, we're adjusting, we're refining. Why don't we just do that with how we organize or how our process is? And so then getting better at building software gets us better at building our process. The opposite of getting better at building our process also helps us get better at building our product. Because we're just, we're just doing the thing more. So we're doing the same thing over and over. And like anything, the more you practice, the better you get. And you get a little diversity of trying different things. And you have these discoveries over here and you realize, oh, wait a minute, we could put that in how we, like, do our scrum process. And that could change everything the way we do that. So just applying that same pattern is something that I found is, number one, comfortable. So it gets people comfortable with change because, oh, yeah, we're already doing this. This is what, like, it feels normal. So then you start to drive those changes and you get that experimenting, and then it compounds over time and then you just become this amazing organization that when anything troublesome lands in their lap, they have a toolkit, they have a framework. Okay, cool. Yeah. So we're stuck. We don't know what to do. Wait a minute. Yeah, we do. We'll just do the thing we do. We experiment, we try it, we refine it and we go, yeah, absolutely.

[Pasco Duarte]

And that becomes the core, the essential aspect of what Agile is all about.

[Josh Anderson]

Right.

[Pasco Duarte]

Like I very often say, Agile is all about just reducing the time it takes to go from idea to feedback, it's not the idea to delivery, it's idea to feedback. Because the feedback tells you what's the next thing to do and so on, and you eventually get faster to the delivery as well. But I really like this concept of the laboratory because it speaks to the idea that it's not just that we are experimenting. Yes, we are, but we are developing ourselves at the same time. Right. Like in the early days of scrum, we used to say there's two deliverables, the product and the team that delivers the product indefinitely. Right. Like the concept of sustainable pace and so on. And I think that one of the other deliverables we should be aware of is we're also delivering ourselves as better leaders as we go forward in the process. And I think that being mindful and conscious of that is very important because it enables us to then take that perspective, you know, that, you know, we want to get better. Let's try something. I don't need to be right. I just need to get people on board and do it together with them.

[Josh Anderson]

Yep. And when you have an amazing team and you provide that accelerant of we know how to just solve problems and they are comfortable with iterating, comfortable with being wrong, because they know they're not going to be that wrong. If they're wrong, they're going to detect, oh, we're off track and let's course correct and let's just do that. And then you again, that continuous feedback. So just keeping those feedback loops as short as possible, which these are, you know, as a SCRUM master, these are dream words. Right. You want all these teams that are thinking about that. So again, just provide your teams with more ways to get good at shortening the feedback loops and learning and adjusting and then just get out of the way. Like, that's the amazing part.

[Pasco Duarte]

Yeah. And going back to that part of the article, recognize that it starts with us. Right? Like, we need to be doing experiments as well. Like, for example, in relating to our leaders, we need to do experiments in relating to the team. We need to do experiments in helping the team find their goal, their direction. We need to do experiments. Right. And that's why I really like the leadership laboratory in the article. All right, Josh, we're getting close to the end, but I did have a question for those of us who are really interested in this topic and we want to drive it further. What is a resource? Could be a book, a video, a blog, and of course your substack newsletter will be in the resource list. The Link is in the show notes everybody. But if you have a resource that helps people learn more and kind of take up that perspective of learning to work with leaders and becoming a better leader themselves, what is something you can share with our audience?

[Josh Anderson]

The most impactful book for me has been Turn the Ship Around. And the reason why that book was so impactful was it it landed in my life at a time where I had scaled an organization and I had scaled it well enough where I could manage all the things. But we were just beginning to be that group where I needed leaders of leaders. And so how do I develop that? I had thoughts and ideas. But what I really appreciated about the book was it talked through the transition from what you would expect to be a very rigid, not non agile approach of the Navy and changing the way a submarine works against all of that. And in reality, the Navy is more agile than you think. But what I really appreciated about that was, wasn't all just theory. So at the end of each chapter would give me, hey, here's specific questions you need to ask of yourself and of your team of can your team do this? Are they shaped like this? Do they think like this? If not, here's how you should be thinking about it, here's actions. And there were real world examples of how they address that problem. So that gave me tools for my experiments as I figured that out. So that has always been a book that's very near and dear to me because it speaks to me and how I like to learn, and it gave me real world examples. And at the end of each chapter, there were tough questions that I would sit there and go like, oh boy, yeah, we don't do that. I better fix that. But again, at least I had an idea of what I should fix, which really helped me land in the spot where we scaled as a leader driven organization. And that leadership just again became a part of the culture and identity of who we are. And we had leaders across the entire organization, regardless of title, regardless of role. Everybody was just kind of leading. And that was driven by Turn the Ship around, which is a wonderful book.

[Pasco Duarte]

Yeah, absolutely. So, Josh, we're getting close to the end. Of course we want to know more about you, where we can find you and the work that you're doing. Again, Josh's newsletter, the Leadership Lighthouse, is linked in the show notes. So go ahead and check the newsletter. There's a lot of articles already there. I think it was like 70 some articles that you wrote last year, right?

[Josh Anderson]

Yeah, I, I just crossed my 52nd week of continuous publishing, which is a huge win for me. I just created an article about how big of a hurdle that was for me mentally, because I've tried to be a writer in the past. Wasn't successful, but I just had to figure it out, so I did. So, yeah, there my podcast, we've been doing that for 15 years. We were actually podcasting when people were listening to podcasts on ipods. If everybody knows what an ipod.

[Pasco Duarte]

Yeah, yeah. Downloading it on their laptops and then side loading them into the ipods. Oh my God, I remember those times.

[Josh Anderson]

Yep. The last piece that I'll give folks is my products and services. If you want to hire me to. To come out and help one of your teams or coach you personally, anything like that, you can find me on my website at kazi IO k a z I.IO that's. That's my business. Happy to help anybody however I can and look forward to hearing from you.

[Pasco Duarte]

Absolutely. We'll put the link to all of those in the show notes. So everybody do reach out, talk with Josh, check out his newsletter, contact him on his website, and of course, listen to the podcast. The podcast that was among my first agile podcasts when I started listening way back when. Josh, it's been a pleasure. So thank you very much for being with us and for being so generous with your time and your knowledge.

[Josh Anderson]

Same here. Thanks so much.

[Unknown Speaker]

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