What are the real reasons behind a person’s reticence?
Found in Michele Sliger and Stacia Broderick’s book, The Software Project Manager’s Bridge to Agility, some “unspoken reasons” behind the spoken ones heard so many times…
- I’m afraid of change
- I’m afraid I will have nothing to do
- I’m afraid I will lose my job
- I’m afraid people will see how little actually I really do
- I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep up
- I’m afraid I won’t be able to learn the new software
- I’m afraid this will mean hard work
- I’m afraid I’ll be fired if the decisions we make don’t work out
- I’m afraid I won’t get raises or promotions anymore
- I’m afraid of conflict and trying to reach consensus
- Nuts! There go my three-hour lunches
- Nuts! That means I can’t mosey in at 10:30 anymore
- Nuts! That means I’ll have to really think now
- Nuts! That means I’ll actually have to talk to people now
- It’s just so much easier and safer when someone else tells me exactly what to do
- It’s just so much easier and safer when I can tell them exactly what I want them to do
Do you have more of them? What were yours the first time you heard about Agile?
What do you do when you know people have these reasons in mind?
At Pyxis, we at least make sure people feel secure to make errors and learn from them, and we try to reproduce it in our consulting mandates. That is necessary but not sufficient. I think the best thing to do is to make sure the motivation and the fun to work wins the battle against all these unspoken reasons…
At least, we can be sure that the real winners will be everyone else in the team and in the management, the moment these people either change their mind or leave!
