Episode Overview

Title: The Triangulation Technique—Coaching Agile Teams Through Challenges
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Bernie Maloney
Date: September 9, 2025

In this Team Tuesday episode, Vasco Duarte welcomes back veteran Agile coach Bernie Maloney for a deep dive into how Agile teams can self-destruct—and, more importantly, how Scrum Masters and coaches can intervene. Bernie introduces the powerful "Triangulation Technique" for coaching through team challenges, shares pivotal books that shaped his coaching style, and digs into practical strategies to nurture self-leadership and psychological safety.

1. Influential Books for Agile Practitioners & Coaches

Bernie discusses multiple books that profoundly shaped his approach to coaching Agile teams:

• Start With Why (Simon Sinek) & Drive (Dan Pink)

  • Widely referenced for understanding motivation and leadership through purpose.

• Change the Culture, Change the Game

  • Key Idea: Change requires leaders to demonstrate the new behaviors they're asking for.
  • "You actually need to get leaders to start demonstrating the change that they want." (03:16, C: Bernie)

• The Secret Language of Leadership (Steve Denning)

  • Neuro-linguistic programming and storytelling as a leadership tool.
  • "Sinek talks about storytelling as a leadership technique. And it's really powerful. He says compelling stories have a pattern of attention, emotion, and reason." (03:45, C: Bernie)

• Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders (Rajeev Peshawaria)

  • The most difficult management transition is moving from first to second-level, requiring letting go and enabling others.
  • "In Agile, by having self-directed teams, lots of line managers have to let go." (04:37, C: Bernie)

• The Geek Way (Andrew McAfee)

  • Four high-performance cultural norms: Science, Openness, Speed (of learning!), and Ownership.
  • "Speed of learning—most organizations get this wrong because they hear speed and they think speed of execution. It's actually speed of learning." (05:19, C: Bernie)

• Right Kind of Wrong (Amy Edmondson)

  • Differentiates between basic, complex, and intelligent mistakes; highlights the danger of chains of failure in over-constrained environments.

• Strategic Play: Creative Facilitator's Guide (Lego Serious Play)

  • Practical facilitation book—“great for facilitation… using an eight-brick LEGO kit with a technique called ‘what the duck.’” (06:13, C: Bernie)

2. Key Team Dysfunction: Lack of Clarity About Intention

[07:17] Bernie identifies a chief challenge—unclear intentions at all organizational levels, manifesting as:

• Unclear vision, strategy, goals, and opportunities
• Teams treated as task-executors with little autonomy
• Teams waiting for direction rather than acting proactively

"They're just giving teams a task list because the teams don't know what direction that they're going in. And so they can feel depressed, like cogs in a machine... human doings instead of human beings." (07:37, C: Bernie)

• Startups, by contrast, more often “beg forgiveness” rather than “seek permission,” embracing risk and self-direction.
• In large orgs, waiting for direction is a self-destructive behavior.

"That waiting for direction is a self-destructive behavior. And that's one of the things I try and coach out of them.” (09:36, C: Bernie)

Scrum Master’s Job:
Facilitate psychological safety—the environment in which teams can thrive, take risks, and attain high performance.

3. Coaching Teams into Self-Leadership

[10:18] Vasco asks how to help teams embrace self-leadership and seek clarity through dialogue.

The Triangulation Technique

• What is it?
  A coaching method that shifts focus from personal blame to shared problem-solving.

• Practical demonstration (audio-visual cue adapted):

  • When you say “We have a problem” while pointing at the person, it feels accusatory.
  • When you say “We have a problem” while pointing away from both of you (towards a shared space or whiteboard), it feels collaborative.

"You're taking the problem out from in between us to before us. So... just, I'm going to do it with you really quickly. Observe how you feel." (11:19, C: Bernie)

Vasco’s Reaction:

“When you point away, it feels more like solution. And when you point at me, it feels more like blame." (12:19, B: Vasco)

Bernie’s Explanation:

"You want to take a problem from being between us to being before us." (12:27, C: Bernie)

Tools:

• Collaborative online workspaces (Miro, Mural, etc.) allow distributed teams to “triangulate” on a problem together.

Notable Extension for Leaders

• If leaders ask, “What went wrong?”, follow immediately with “and where does the team need help?”
• This repositions the conversation around the situation, not the individual.

"The next words out of their mouth need to be 'and where does the team need help?' Because that simple phrase says, it's not about you, it's about the situation." (13:44, C: Bernie)

4. Memorable Quotes & Moments

• "Start with not being a human doing, but a human being." (07:38, C: Bernie)
• "That's part of the reason why my company is called Powered by Teams with a subtext of fueled by leaders thriving in change." (09:13, C: Bernie)
• "We have a problem." [points at person, feels like blame] / "We have a problem." [points outward, feels collaborative] (12:19, B: Vasco & C: Bernie)
• "You want to take a problem from being between us to being before us." (12:27, C: Bernie)
• "The next words out of their mouth need to be 'and where does the team need help?'" (13:44, C: Bernie)

5. Key Takeaways

• Clarity and Intent: Teams flourish when goals and intent are explicitly communicated and owned.
• Triangulation Technique: Effective coaches frame problems as external shared challenges—not interpersonal conflict.
• Psychological Safety: Scrum Masters must deliberately create conditions for teams to take risk and drive toward self-leadership.
• Leadership Language Matters: Leaders must be careful with framing—switch from blame to support and solution-focus.

6. Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:33] – Bernie’s Most Influential Books
• [07:17] – Common Team Dysfunctions (Clarity and Intent)
• [10:18] – Coaching Teams in Self-Leadership
• [11:19] – Triangulation Technique Explained
• [12:19] – Demonstration and Reaction
• [13:44] – Coaching Leaders: Blame vs. Support Language

Summary:
Bernie Maloney urges Scrum Masters to move past task management, actively foster clarity, and coach teams toward shared problem-solving using powerful techniques like triangulation. By focusing on psychological safety, storytelling, and collaborative framing, both teams and leaders can transcend self-destructive behaviors and thrive amidst constant change.