Agile Team Communication: The Power of Connection over Persuasion
Whenever you communicate with your team, while simultaneously thinking in terms of “they have to”
Do something, or
Do something in a certain way
You risk undermining the agile mindset necessary for maximizing value delivery.
The problem isn’t how you choose to phrase your demands. Adding “please”, or making sure to add a tone of sweetness to your voice will not address the core issue.
It doesn’t even matter if the way you are suggesting actually would be the most helpful one.
As long as you are in a mindset of “how do I get this person to do what I want”, You Will Be An Impediment to Value Delivery.
Why is this?
By trying to convince someone, you communicate to them – so be it subtly – that their views and/or needs are less important than yours.
You therefore risk acting as a gravitational force pulling towards a mindset of either (me)-or (you), right/wrong, thinkers/doers.
By that, transparency, speed, trust is decreased, while cost increases.
You see, everything people do, they do for a reason.
Everything.
This includes them wanting to do something else than what you prefer.
So if you want to support trust, motivation, agility, speed and delivery of value in your team, you never want to “convince” anyone. You want to connect with them, coach them, and process your matters together, making sure both the reasons behind their “no”, as well as the reasons behind what you are wanting them to do are included in the discussion.
At some point in our development of people skills, we may come to the realization that conversations aren’t just simple one-off exchanges or transactions meant to produce pre-determined results.
Instead, we increasingly see them as journeys, or even flows of mini developmental processes.
With this way of seeing, it becomes obvious that the quality of connection between you and others tightly correlates with the quality of real-world outcomes from your interactions.
Knowing this, you can effect servant leadership in a way which increases trust, speed, transparency and team cohesion, while lowering costs and maximizing value delivery.
Do you need help in developing these skills in your team? Schedule a free consultation below and we can process, together, how to do this in your particular case.