Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success.
— Brian Adams
We had a team retrospective last week. In the “Giving Flowers” part of the retro i received some flowers from my team mates for my patience with them. It was a particularly difficult retro, and even some people decided to check-out. For me it took a lot of energy to facilitate and at the end i was very tired.
While i was recalibrating my energy i wondered to myself if perhaps my patience is too much of a good thing. the problem in this case was that certain members of the team had ended in a deadlock over a particular issue they were discussing, and neither side was prepared to budge. i exercised great patience at the time, mostly observing what was happening, occasionally telling them what i was observing, but not unfortunately guiding them out of the deadlock.
timid, less emotionally stable leaders who fear upsetting anyone will let the debate drag on for weeks or months before selecting a compromised Frankenstein solution that both sides can merely tolerate. At the end of the year, the team is moderately satisfied with their moderate impact on a smattering of moderately important objectives. The team successfully achieves mediocrity, which is then reflected in the leader’s mediocre performance ratings.
Source: https://hbr.org/2013/10/just-make-a-decision-already/
I realise now that i missed the opportunity to be decisive. To ask them to have the courage to actually face each other and talk about what wasn’t being talked about. I imagine they may have needed a push from me to do so. And that if in fact this had happened they may have been able to start seeing a way to work together.
Notes From An Agilist 