Politics: A Tale of Two Pattys

As a senior in college, I had my first brush with organizational politics.

 

As the newly elected President of the Campus Activities Board, I was excited to see how we could take this club to the next level. 🎉

After spending some time getting the lay of the land though, I noticed something “funny” was going on. A long time Executive Board member was doing something that, had this been a business and he was an employee, would have been grounds for automatic termination.

It was that serious. 😱

I brought this to the administration because I didn’t know what to do. I was told our club Board had to discuss it and vote whether this person should be kicked out. They didn’t want to be involved. 😳

We did put it to a vote, and would you believe that some people did not support it? My VP said it best- “If I vote to kick him out, then I have to run all his events. I don’t have the time.” (WHAT!?!?!? Et tu, Brute?)

That was truly it: We don’t have time to do his job. So we will look the other way. 

So what ended up happening? 

In the end, a one-person majority voted to keep him in. For me, the writing was on the wall. I was only a couple months away from graduation and frankly, no one was paying me to deal with this unethical bullshit. So I resigned.

Was that the right decision? I don’t know – it was the best I could do at the time, as a 21-yr-old kid who didn’t really understand the world. But it was a hard lesson for me. Doing the job you are tasked with doing is not always rewarded. Especially from those who feel they stand to lose from it. 

When it comes to being a Scrum Master, it often is asked: What do you even DO all day? One of my coaches said it best last week with “they are often asked to take a bullet for the team.” They stick their neck out and do what needs to be done to make sure Agile is implemented. 

You see, implementing Agile can stir up a lot of fear. It asks people to change; to really look at what is not working and improve. Some people will not be too happy about it. Sometimes they don’t see what’s in it for them. And the fear this creates will get in the way of things moving forward. 

While the details of what I experienced in college were different, the same scene will play out on a work team: The status-quo, even though everyone painfully knows it doesn’t work, is at least CERTAIN. Shifting things around, well, that is painful and UNCERTAIN. So let’s keep going with the CERTAIN pain.

So in implementing Agile, part of my job is to remove the obstacles to change.

People (inside or outside the team) may push back on me, argue with me, or try to undermine me. But my job is to take this “bullet” for the team, even if I know it may get me “in trouble.”

What I have found is that that Agilists (Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, and others) KNOW that this is par for the course. They know we are purposefully (and purposely) stirring up change. Our goal is not to run from the stuff that it bubbles up, but to work through it. To help others through to the other side. 

Because we can all agree that what we “have always done” is not working. And we know that we need to change. And we are.

So, with that in mind, last week, I took bullet for my team to help them change. They also continue to take one for me.

And we are still standing. Together. 

Quite different than my experience from 20 years ago.