Bob Galen

Transcript

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  0:48  

When I went to your website, I was really impressed with some of your principles, guiding principles and everything that you have about your page. And I was like, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this for a coach or for consultant in a while. So I do want to say that I do appreciate having done on the left side, but if you could summarize or maybe how would you describe or who is Bob Galen?

Speaker: Bob Galen  1:19  

So who is Bob Galen? Thank you for the kind sort of comments Miljan about my website, I try to be transparent, for good or bad. So one aspect of Buskerud is to and this isn’t always in my best interest from a consulting point of view but maybe I’m overly transparent, but I really try to share, I try to be genuine and I try to share my principles. And I won’t write it if I’m not willing to try to walk my talk. So Bob Galen is a farm boy who was born and raised in Amish country in Pennsylvania, was born on a farm. That which led to my work ethic in Lancaster County, which is close to Philadelphia, to west of Philadelphia. I grew up on a farm, working incredibly hard. So there’s a lot of work to do, and went into the army when I was 18, volunteered. I did a stint of duty in the Philippines in Thailand, right after Vietnam, and came back, went to school. So I used the GI Bill to go to school, to go to college. I went to college in Wiso, which is in in Lancaster County. So I stayed close to home and career wise development. So software development background, my first job out of school was at Sperry UNIVAC, which did IBM 360 compatible mainframes, did develop them. And so I was an assembler programmer. If you know what assembler is, I was.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  3:00  

I do. Yeah.

Speaker: Bob Galen  3:01  

I spent years, it’s not very sexy, but I spent years doing programming. And just became a leader and evolved like a lot of people, went from development to leadership. Leadership really resonated with me, I think I had a knack for it, or an empathy for it or connection for it. A lot of people who get promoted that way don’t. And they struggle with leadership. So I evolved myself into being an effective leader. I discovered agile very early in the late 90s as agile was becoming prevalent. I experimented as a leader with extreme programming and Scrum and Kanban very early on, and then gradually started changing my career to be more of an independent consultant. So my last full-time job as a leader inside leader was around 2012, 13. So I’ve almost have total independence for the last 10 years. Really, I’m a servant leader. The reason I write books, the reason I podcast, the reason I write so much, I always envisioned trying to help the community. I don’t know if I do that or not. So I’m not big headed about it. I have no idea. But my intent, the driving force for me is maybe to give to the community. Sometimes to my detriment, because I only get paid for the giving. So sometimes I give too much out probably but I guess I feel like I lucked out. I hit the lottery in the agile community and in the agile space. And I feel incredibly blessed to be part of knowing you and knowing everyone in the community. And there’s nothing more I can do than to give back as much as I can.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  4:56  

Yeah, and I think at least being part of that community, at least I appreciate what you do. And sometimes we don’t necessarily show that appreciation. But a lot of times in my head, I’m saying, kudos to Bob. 

Speaker: Bob Galen  5:14  

Thank you.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  5:17  

Either something that you say, or somebody said, hey, I worked with Bob, and he was really helpful. And this is what he did for me. Like all of these things that go unnoticed, I think are sometimes lost. But I do know many appreciate what you do, and I do appreciate what you do as well.

Speaker: Bob Galen  5:38  

Thank you. I learned some time ago that you don’t always hear back. So you know my metaphor? My metaphor is, I’m throwing helpful darts out into the universe. And every once in a while, I’ll get an acknowledgment. And it actually motivates me. So you know this, you don’t always hear back. So you give and every time I hear kind words like that, it really motivates me. So thank you for that.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  6:07  

Yeah. I can relate to that feeling because I don’t know maybe just to go a little bit back but to your farm days and to serving in the army. What is it that you learned from your childhood and being in the army that you’re applying today? Because I think a lot of stuff stays with us, lot of stuff also fades away. But in what ways did it shape you growing up in Pennsylvania, and as an 18-year-old boy going and enlisting?

Speaker: Bob Galen  6:44  

I think it’s the rock, right. Dwayne Johnson talks about. And here I am quoting the rock on your podcast. He talks about hard work. He outworks people. And that’s not, I grew up. So hard work is how I attack things. I am not the smartest coach in the planet. I was not the smartest student in college. But I tried to outwork everyone. So the work ethic. And I actually think that work ethic I see it, I try to inspire that in Agile teams. I try to personalize it. I try to lead by example with that, if anything I’m trying to bring more balance into the work so I don’t overwork. But I think from growing up in a farm it was that. I think in the military, I think discipline and these sounds a little odd in an agile context, right? Why am I bringing up hard work and discipline? And you would think more balanced but I think that personal discipline. For example, I journal every day, I do a lean coffee, something called the moose herd twice a week, and we were just talking about how to develop as a leader, one of the people who attended was talking about that, and I brought up journaling as a daily activity. And I think the discipline I bring to doing that, or even writing, I don’t know, the reason I started writing it is, my first book I published in2004, I started writing it around 2000. And the reason I started writing is because I sucked at business writing and I mean I was terrible. I read my stuff; I mean I would hand it to a CEO. And I was lucky they didn’t fire me on this for ripping up the English language. And so part of me is always if I have a weakness or something, I wanted to sort of attack it, even if it’s doggedly attack it with discipline and hard work. So I started writing. I still to this day do not think I and I know I’m not. I’m not the best writer but if you look at my origin, I’ve improved so much in 20 years. So I’m proud of how I’ve improved. But that gives you an indication of, I think those principles have really helped me and how I’ve evolved as like baseline principles.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  9:17  

Yeah, that’s really helpful. And I can relate to a lot of that, in a sense that I also grew up on a farm. I was in the war, but as a kid being part of a civil war. And when you say discipline and hard work. I think those are part of agile, right? Like in the context of, that we want to be disciplined about what we’re going to do. And I agree, I think discipline is also about commitment, and which is one of the values and I think from hard work. I mean, if you don’t like what you’re doing, you’re not putting in hard work. So it’s resonating with me. Something that’s related to this that you recently wrote about is that people wait too long to ask for help. And that’s something that we see. Could you maybe elaborate on that? We’ll get you thinking about that because it’s pretty, it’s right in front of us. People are waiting, our clients are waiting. But could you.

Speaker: Bob Galen  10:29  

Sure. I see it. And I’m sure you’ve seen this as well as a consultant and as a coach. But I can’t tell you how many times someone will pull me in. And you’re assessing a situation or you’re getting to know the situation. And I’m thinking to myself, my goodness, you waited to the last I mean, you have it. It’s like a thermonuclear explosion is going on and if you could have just caught it, if you could have just raised your hand and said, I don’t know, or get some help, it would have made your life so much easier. This is what I’m thinking. I’m not necessarily sharing this with a client. But I’ve seen a pattern. And it’s not just with clients, I’ve seen it with coaches, Miljan, as well, that coaches are out there. I think it’s hard for the people to show vulnerability. And to say, I don’t know and we talked about is it safe? Well, even in our Agile community, there’s safety amongst coaches. I see coaches who are struggling all the time but they’re not asking for help. Maybe self-awareness is part of it, maybe humility, Yooper’s, I don’t know. But I think there’s a general phenomenon in the world, at least in the Agile world, folks wait a little bit longer than they need to. And it would be so much easier on them if they just admitted and looked at it as a strength. It’s not even complaining. But look at saying I don’t know, and asking for help as a strength instead of a weakness. Look at it as a sign of maturity. And not being afraid to do that. And this point of view, right, it costs more depending on when you get engaged, it’s going to cost you a lot more if you get..

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  12:28  

And we know this and you know it, right?

Speaker: Bob Galen  12:32  

We know it. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  12:35  

How much is it? Yeah. But I feel you make me think of just how much is it culturally, because I was actually talking to Kira Harada from Japan. He’s one of the new CSTR’s. And he was saying we’ve been taught to do retrospectives in kindergarten. So on the teams a lot of times we forget what we did, but we’re being taught, it’s part of a culture, the Kaizen is part of culture. And I feel like a lot of times our culture is shaping us and this is like at least United States in the Balkans where I’m from, people ask always for directions. But here, it’s like don’t ask for directions. It’s kind of bad things, like don’t ask for help.

Speaker: Bob Galen  13:24  

Absolutely. I think it’s hierarchical to, I need to some degree, I think there’s a general pattern or phenomenon. But I find leaders, as you move up into higher grades, it’s harder and harder. For the very people that I wish they would please just ask for help, it’s in their best interest. And when it’s harder and harder for senior leaders to do that. I spend a lot of time coaching and consulting with senior leaders. And so I think the inspiration for that, and maybe was a bit of frustration in writing that blog post, it’s like, please, it’s going to cost me money, actually, right? But please cost me money. Ask for help earlier for your benefit.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  14:07  

Why do you think that is? I mean I see that same pattern. And it goes back to that vulnerability, goes back to the courage and unless the ship is on fire, don’t freak out.

Speaker: Bob Galen  14:22  

I actually think even if the ship was on fire, then..

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  14:25  

Actually sinking. Yeah.

Speaker: Bob Galen  14:29  

It’s sinking. The water is up here. It’s your hope. I think it’s multifaceted. I think safety, psychological safety is a big factor. I think power and influence structures in organizations are a big factor. I think human nature and your self- awareness and your ability to ask for help, your approachability, your vulnerability, I think it’s easy to say I’m vulnerable. It’s much harder to show that vulnerability for folks. And I just think all of those factors come into play as to what’s going on. So I don’t know what the science is behind it, I know that it’s a pattern that I’ve seen. And I wish we would embrace it. I literally like to celebrate when I’ve been a leader. I mean, I’ll high five people Miljan, like to say, I don’t know, my friend, Josh Anderson, and I talked about how leaders can model behavior in context. And we talk about not just saying thank you to someone for showing vulnerability, but jumping out of our chair, flying across the room and high fiving. You don’t know, cool. You’ve failed? Give me five, give me a hug here. Come on, come over. We have a juicy failure that we can sort of learn from. And literally, I think so it’s not even just, it’s sort of asking for help but realizing as leaders, we’re setting the tone. Another part of it is,  how we show up is modeling what’s available in our culture in our ecosystem. So I’m not joking, it’s really sort of exaggerating to set the tone to give permission. So I think it’s a bigger thing than just about me or just about the consulting. It’s the culture that we’re modeling as a leader or as someone in a culture as any person in a culture.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  16:47  

Yeah, and I guess something that’s related to this is that critical feedback. And it’s so hard, a lot of time I remember I was teaching a class recently, CAL class, and I was saying how I sucked at getting people, I wanted feedback. So I knew the feedback was helpful, but then getting feedback, I was raging inside with the feedback I was getting, so it went back to my emotional intelligence, it went back to like, hey, how do I look at this feedback as information that I need to process and then decide, right, it’s perspective? But why do you think it’s so hard for many to get critical feedback?

Speaker: Bob Galen  17:39  

So I don’t know. One reaction that would have to answer the question is, I think it’s easier if you solve it, you see this in radical candor, if you read radical candor, and Kim has blogged on. When she wrote the book initially, it was almost like the floodgates opened up, and everyone was giving radical candor. And she’s like, timeout. It’s also about receiving it. And she said, actually, the first step should be can you receive radical candor before you give it? Really, I have to do that? But I’m really good at giving. So I think there’s that phenomenon of like, if you want to be a good leader, be a good follower, if you want to be sort of a good feedback receiver, or a good giver, be a good receiver and model that behavior. So how do you react if I come to you, Miljan and I say that CAL class suck. I’m just kidding. Right. Or do you get defensive? Do you start looking for data? I call it death by 1000 questions. Right, you start answering a thousand questions. But I’m just trying to get the data, Bob. No, you’re not. You don’t like what you heard so you’re looking for another answer. Because I think sort of the way the system is set up is part of that. I think, again, maybe there’s a common thread here of how we show up, how we receive it, how do we respond to feedback? Then says if we can take it and do something with it, then it makes it easier or I don’t know, if we’ve earned the right to give it and then people receive it as well. So I look at it as a system. It’s an ecosystem. And how are both sides of a feedback loops handling that dynamic? Right, and I don’t think we’re good at that. Right. I think safety again, safety comes as a part of that, psychological safety. Our dynamics are part of that, there’s a lot of factors. But the thing is, I’d say it’s just, she ever heard that feedback is the breakfast of champions and look at it as a gift. I think one of the first shifts I took tried, I talk a lot about giving and receiving feedback in my CAL class. So I don’t know if you do, but I spent, and we actually practice, we do some scenarios to practice giving feedback. That’s another thing. I don’t think folks have the skill and the comfort in how to have, we practice crucial conversations, if you will, in a dojo format, and really practice that I find in a short period of time, people really understand that you need some skill, you need some tools, you need some approaches and strategies in that and it’s not just saying, but it’s also listening, powerful listening and how you’re interacting in the system.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  20:44  

And sympathizing, right? So you have to be able to empathize, you have to be able to control your emotions. And somebody might say something that, especially when you’re receiving feedback, but it could also be when you’re giving, because someone tells you to go. So it goes both ways and I think something that you mentioned earlier, it’s self-awareness and it’s a broader concept of self-awareness. But if we’re aware of how we’re providing that critical feedback, and if we’re aware of how that other person is receiving it, and then also how we will receive it. It helps with that. So yeah, another thing that’s tied to this, maybe that we can explore, which I really liked. You’ve wrote about the art of personal experiment.  And I think, when I reflect back on anything that I’ve done, I’ve always tried to, and maybe that’s my personality, just dive into it. Even with this podcast, I’m like, I don’t know anything about podcasting, or anything about video editing. But I’m just going to jump into it. It’s something that I want, something that maybe might be intimidating at the beginning. But I’m just going to dive into it. Because in a sense, this is what I feel is. So you talked about having a little bit more structured to personal experiments in your recent blog, could you maybe share with the audience like, their personal experiment and what you shared in that blog?

Speaker: Bob Galen  22:29  

I mean, we can talk about it, I think there’s something above that. I don’t even know if I said it in the blog. But there’s a pattern that I’ve seen whereas coaches, I’m going to pick on coaches, I’m going to pick on myself, and I’ll pick on you. I think we are very comfortable telling, but not doing ourselves. So whip is a common thing, right? Where it’s incredibly common for me as a coach to point out excessive whip in other contexts in classes, in coaching and consulting. But then when I look at my own personal whip management, my role modeling, my walking, my talk, I throw it out the window, right? And then experimentation is the same thing, right? We talked about lean agile, lean coffees, discovery, product evolution, innovation, the art of experimentation, we’ll say that 1000 times, but then when I look at myself, it’s like, am I challenging myself to experiment? Which you said, what is an experiment? It’s something that’s ambiguous. It’s something that’s unknown. I don’t know if I can do it. It’s taking a risk. When you did this podcast, it’s walking our talk, So I’m really bullish lately, self-care is something that I’m equally bullish about. We all talk a good game, self-servant leadership, right? Self-care then when you look at there’s these exhausted coaches who were scheduling 22 scrum master class, certification classes in a month. I’m kidding you, right?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  24:06  

No, you’re right. I know you’re joking but you’re also right. And I’ve been down that road to and then pull back in a sense of like you said, it’s..

Speaker: Bob Galen  24:21  

It’s are we walking our talk? So that’s what I was trying to get at with the art of experiment. And its sort of have we gotten a little bit lazy in some area. And it’s not just walking our talk, but it’s the epiphanies we can have, like self-care for me, if I invest in self-care, what I’ve found is I’m a better coach. Right? If I’m not exhausted, I have better observation. I have better questions. I have better sort of suggestions. I can show up and not take a nap in the middle of the day. So I’m showing up there. Experimentation, I try new things. Now, I think I’m like you. I’m a natural experimenter, one of the things I don’t do on the farm, it goes back to the farm. So I was very curious as a child, Miljan. So one of the experiments I ran as a child was a tractor, what would be the angle of a tractor before it was tipped over? My father didn’t really appreciate this experiment.  But we had some very hilly land. And I’m like, if I drive it, and at what point does it start getting unstable? And why didn’t want it to flop over, but I wanted to get it to that tipping point literally, right? And it tipped over and it almost killed me. Or I was on the farm, we had a dairy farm and we had compressors everywhere. And if you’ve ever seen air compressors and things, and it had a motor and two police with a belt that was moving back and forth, and I remember I was like six years old, seven years old. And I’m like, I wonder if my hand can stop that? And the answer is Miljan, guess what? No. And my brother is pulling me out of the air compressor. Or electric fences, we had a lot of electric fences. Yes. How does it react in the rain? I found out.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  26:21

So maybe a little more safely designed experiments.

Speaker: Bob Galen  24:27  

Exactly. But the learning that goes on with the experiments, the failures, I think there’s a lot of interrelatedness of what we’re talking about, right? It’s the discovery, what may be successful, what may be a failure. What’s the learning? How do I discover the learning and that? So that’s what I was talking about. Now, I have a natural tendency to be curious, the writing, I mean, the podcasts, if you look at the things that I’ve done, I’ll do things that in the beginning are very uncomfortable for me, they’re out of my comfort zone, is another part of it. So driving myself from comfort zone to out of comfort zone, I think it makes me better.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  27:14

Yeah, this made me think of like I was going through and  I think I even listened to a couple of podcasts, from a while ago. And something that’s tied back to this, which you’re also very vocal about is diversity and equality. And I think we all tend to talk about diversity and equality, but it goes back to the experiment. What are you doing about it? And I think you did in one of the articles or you said how your daughter challenged you to think about the veracity quality, and what you really don’t about it. Bob and Miljan could say, yeah, I support Black Lives Matter, I support, what’s the right way to say it? I disapprove Asian pay, whatever it is, right? But what am I doing about it? How am I helping and creating awareness, and I think you’re talking about using your platform to do something about it, rather than so, is that also what we can experiment?

Speaker: Bob Galen  28:17

We’re doing it. Josh and I are doing it, we don’t know. But we’re leaning into action. The story I told is, my daughter and I were teaching CAL class, I co teach, I co taught CAL classes with my daughter, and with other people, I like to pair nowadays. So that’s another experiment that I try. I try incredibly hard to pair with people and pair with diversity, folks from diverse backgrounds. But we were teaching and I was whining in the class. First day, we got there early, where we said, this was an in-person class, and I was whining about the lack of diversity in the class. And she’s like, well, what did you do? And I’m like, I sent an email. I marketed it. And she’s like, what else did you do? I’m like, I sent another email. I said, I sent a follow up email. And she’s like, okay, what else did you do? And I’m like, well, that was it. And then it’s really hard, Miljan when your kids get on your case. So initially the feedback, I did not handle this feedback very well. And I got very defensive.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  29:21

You started asking questions.

Speaker: Bob Galen  29:23

No, and she was like, Dad, so the same old actions that you’ve taken will not get you. So if you’re talking about diversity, those same actions will not get you what to do, talking won’t do it. And she just ripped off, you’ll have to reach out to people individually. You may have to give discounts. You may have to work through impediments. You may have to ask someone to ask someone to ask someone. You have to work differently if you want diverse audience, if you want diverse attendees, and I didn’t need to leave you with her, I was like, I disagree. Right? It’s like I’ve done everything I could. And then a few days later, I was moaning on it. And I understood, it’s the support. And that was the trigger for me from realizing I was fully in support of Black Lives Matter, Stop Asian Hate and all of that. I was talking about it but I wasn’t doing enough about it. And then Josh and I, and I’m trying my best to become a doer, to take action and to inspire others to use our platform, to hopefully inspire others to take action. And it doesn’t have to be big action, just what to do. There’s a young lady in Dallas, a new goal pal, she’s the coach in the Dallas area, and I missed… 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  30:50

I know, I’m actually interviewing her this Friday.

Speaker: Bob Galen  30:56

Okay. She has helped me make inroads into [inaudible 31:02]. So I’ve given a special discount and she’s recommended my CAL class. So a newest probably connected me to 30 or 40 individuals as part of my Black Lives Matter diversity and inclusion efforts on that site. And so establishing that kind of connection, and she’s really helped me reach into and that’s the kind of action I think we have to take.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  31:26

Well, that’s in like, I give crap a little bit to Scrum Alliance for that too. And I’m going to ask and know how she feels about it. But a lot of times, it’s easier to just to say I support it but to go extra step like you’re saying and actually is harder, but that’s what’s going to make impact and it’s going to be easier if we all do a little bit of that rather than just, and if you look at our community, look at the diversity, and I’m specifically talking about Agile community. Scrum Alliance too but I don’t think Scrum Alliance is much different than any other Agile community. There is not a lot of diversity there, there’s mostly middle-aged men now that are getting maybe to your age. 

Speaker: Bob Galen  32:23

That’s true. I try to shine a light on this stuff sometimes too. I’ve written some things that may be slightly embarrassing to the Scrum Alliance and other organizations. So I counted, I had some free time one Saturday Miljan, and I went into the Scrum Alliance site and I counted, I looked at CTCs and CC’s. And I counted, I looked at diversity facts, men versus women. And I think I found in the general population, there was like 17%, or 20% coaches were women. And that disappointed me immensely or whatever the number is, I could go back to the blog post, and I can send you a link to it.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  33:04

I think I read it.

Speaker: Bob Galen  33:05

And I copied folks on it. And I’m not trying to blame. I’m just trying to shine a light in our community. That’s not good enough from my point. That’s just simply not good enough. We can do better than that.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  33:20

Well, exactly. To give you an example to like when I started the blog post, sorry not blog post, the podcast, it rose out of like, who would I like to have a beer with? So that was assumption and it was mostly the people that I was thinking is guys, like, who would I want to sit down, either I have, I haven’t and then as I started doing, I realize, look at my first 20 interviews, right? It was pretty much like guys, right? And I’m like, well, this is interesting because how much, first of all, a lot of these people were part of the Agile community, they were the experts. So there’s not much diversity to pick from. And I just don’t want to always force it and say, I need to get this person or this person because they’ll add to my diversity, I still want to keep the bar high, in a sense of who I want to bring on the podcast, but do extra homework and discover people that I do want to talk to, that will add diversity to this. So it makes my job a little bit harder, and forces me to do more homework, but I think it’s adding richness to the podcast and what people have to say.

Speaker: Bob Galen  34:41

I’d say, I mean I can’t project onto you, Miljan, but I think we have a responsibility to use our platforms or to the degree that we can. The discipline that I have with the Agile and Scrum Alliance directly, Agile Alliance, a little bit less but still is there’s these wonderful platforms, it’s like, what are you doing it? You have this wonderful community. And I know they’re doing some things, but there’s so much more that they could do. And to your point, if we could inspire every individual to do what they can, you’re doing something. Anthony Messina was a coach in Chicago and he’s done some podcasts where he spotlights folks, he gives diverse voices, a unique opportunity to either present or to do something, people who haven’t had a voice, who haven’t had a stage. And I just admire what he’s doing there. Not a lot. He’s maybe had five or six or seven folks on. He asked me, he reached out to me and he asked me for a list of up and comers, diversity inclusion, do you have any up-and-coming voices that I can invite, and I send him a list and he invited a few folks on and just sort of keeping the ball rolling. And then some of those folks I know then submitted to conferences or writing and their role models, when they’re at a conference, their role model for other people. So it unfolds, it creates momentum.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  36:13

Well, that too. And something else that you just said, that remind me is, when I came to United States, I didn’t know English, the culture was, I was 13 years old. And as I went through pretty much seventh grade, eighth grade, when I went to high school, there are certain things that first of all from, I felt racism, I felt excluded, because I didn’t speak English or so like I felt probably too minimal to what some people experienced. But it was an experience that I can relate. The other thing is they think we don’t a lot of times know which I know now is, there are people outside of the Agile or mainstream, that would add so much value to the broader community, it’s just that they’re never exposed to it. Like there are some people that just, so we can take an extra step to pull those people in and get them involved in Agile, get them involved in whatever you’re doing in order to give them a chance to learn about this stuff. Because there are certain people and maybe this goes back to privileges or whatever it is, they’re naturally exposed to certain things. And some people that are almost not prohibited, but it’s not easy for them to say, hey, I could be a great scrum master. If I knew what’s great Scrum Master is or how I get to that on that path on that journey. 

Speaker: Bob Galen  37:54

I agree. One of the areas that I have a strong affinity and I’ve shared it with the Scrum Alliance back, I think Manny was the CEO or something. So this is a few years ago. But veterans, so there are because I was in the army. I have a strong affinity and respect and support for folks who defend our country. It’s just me. And I don’t think the government does enough when those folks are back.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  38:18

You’re breaking up. I don’t know if it’s on my end. Do you see it?

Speaker: Bob Galen  38:21

Yeah, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Okay? How am I doing now?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  38:25

I can hear you. 

Speaker: Bob Galen  38:28

Can you hear me now?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  38:29

Can you hear me, okay?

Speaker: Bob Galen  38:30

I can hear you. Yeah. How am I doing now? How am I doing now? 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  38:42

Okay, now it’s good. I think it may have been mine.

Speaker: Bob Galen  38:46

But veterans. And so that’s a community of helping other veterans who are coming back and leaving service. And what can we do to help them if they want to map from military service to scrum, to Agile, and again, I think there’s an advocacy aspect. I don’t think the scrum way. It sounds like I’m picking on them, I’m not. But I think the Scrum Alliance could do so much more there. I think the Agile Alliance could do so much more there of being advocates to broaden, I sound like a politician to broaden our Ted, I agree with you.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  39:28

Yeah, it’s something done. I guess, just thinking more about and thinking in the sense of what could I do to not just talking, verbally support but more support of my actions. Absolutely. I want to come back to another thing that you wrote, which I also found interesting. A metaphor that you use for coaching expanses of mirrors and windows and I think a lot of times as coaches, Scrum Masters we struggle with, when to tell people what to do, or maybe give them some insights and when to get them to figure things out. So really coaching versus consulting or mentoring. I think you mentioned that you guys were doing one of your most herds, or one of the Lean Coffee type of things. And could you share what happened there and how you came up with that metaphor? 

Speaker: Bob Galen  40:41

To be honest, I forget the metaphor. I think the message, I think I forget the driver. I think the message though is, there’s a lot of singular stance focus. And I don’t know what you see in the coaching community, but what I see through my lens and my network, is that somewhere along the line over the years, we’ve really sort of we’ve promoted the coaching stance to be the predominant stance. In the coaching stances as you know, is a non-prescriptive, holding the client as all knowing, all seeing, powerful questions. And there’s nothing wrong with the coaching stance. It’s an incredibly valid stance. But a lot of Agile coaches, and I think the certifications actually emphasize coaching stances over other stances, and I keep trying, I’m on a soapbox, trying to say it’s not the only stance. And if there are some situations, Miljan, I don’t know about you. But the leaders that I typically am coaching, if I took 100% coaching stance into them, they’ll kick me out the window and I’m not exaggerating. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  42:06

No. It actually happened to me, where I was coaching a team, it was a government agency actually. And a manager comes to me and says, Miljan, you’re not helping out, the team is complaining, they’re saying, you’re just asking questions and not telling them what to do. And they really don’t see the value and they don’t think they need to help.

Speaker: Bob Galen  42:32

It’s exactly. So what I’m really trying to do, I have a platform and sometimes, remember I said I was trying to help the community, sometimes helping the community is being that thorn in the side that keeps saying something, or maybe raising something up that no one wants to talk about. So I’m trying to maybe make the case that I’m not anti-coaching stance, I’m pro balanced stances.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  43:03

Well, exactly. And I think it’s almost like, in that instance, they were absolutely right. They didn’t want to be coached. And I think one of the issues that we have as coaches is, we’re not clear about coaching agreements, and what does it mean to be an Agile coach, right? If they really are looking for the answers, they’re hiring me to do that. So meet them where they are. So typically, in that situation now, I would say, okay, I might mentor them there, I might teach them say, hey, Bob, can you come over here or even ask for the permission. Do you mind if I share something on a whiteboard and start teaching them? And then through that process, I might start asking the question and more of the coaching. So it’s balancing that, like you said, it’s more..

Speaker: Bob Galen  43:49

Exactly. I’m working on a coaching book now. I’m writing a coaching book and I have the first draft, I just got editor feedback, which now I’m sort of slogging through all of this wonderful feedback. But I talk about the coaching arc. So one metaphor, in it is having a coaching arc. And I talked about in the situations that we’ve written about, it’s switching stances. So how do you enter the ark? How do you navigate some things? How do you land the ark? Situational awareness, sensing, if you’re familiar with [inaudible 44:30] sort of sense and respond, I think that notion of sensing and responding as a coach to the client, I think that’s our responsibility. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  44:39

It is and this is a topic that I would love to talk to you more about but that is actually sensing and [inaudible 44:47] is just one of the sense making tools, right? So when I go into like, I’m also sensing what Bob’s values are, if I’m coaching you one on one. I need to understand your perspectives, your worldview so I understand what’s motivating you, what do you believe is true, and then I can adjust my approach to that.

Speaker: Bob Galen  45:08

Absolutely. Now, that being said, I don’t know if there are a lot of coaches in the world that can do that, Miljan. I think that’s a challenge. That would be extraordinary coaching, there’s a lot more staying in this stance, it’s easier to stay in a singular stance, than it is to have all of this nuanced awareness that you and I are talking about.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  45:33

Well, I think I call it the next wave of coaching. I’m actually talking to Michael Spade, who you probably know, and who’s contributed a lot to this agile coaching space along with Lisa and others. But I think the next five years will be about what you’re describing, and probably your book is going to be a one of the resources that we can use to help people truly understand what we’re talking about here. And I think it’s bringing psychology, it’s bringing more of systems, thinking and I’m using other frameworks that will help us be better coaches, better agile coaches, I guess, which is a broader umbrella than just professional coaches.

Speaker: Bob Galen  46:23

Absolutely. I think the other thing is even in the book, so I’ve anchored the book, there’s something called the Agile coaching Growth Wheel, which is a model that was developed out of some work in the UK, some Scrum Alliance retreats, coaching retreats created. And I liked the model, it’s a little bit more nuanced than the X Wing model. But in the book, I have a chapter on, what are some missing stances? And I talked about leadership being potentially a missing stance. Literally are we a leader and do we need to step into leadership at times? As scary as that might sound or championing stance where we’re literally, we’re sort of championing our team, rallying cry, providing momentum, providing positive energy. That might be a stance, a minor stance, but a stance that we need to adopt occasionally. So I’m interested in sort of stance variations, I’m not trying to create 1000 stances. But I think as coaches, it’s not just four things,  you train, you mentor, you facilitate, you coach and you buy everyone doughnuts.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  47:42

Or sushi. 

Speaker: Bob Galen  49:43

Or sushi. Alright. There’s nuance to it, a change agency or being a change artist is something that I think very often you and I, we’re the embodiment of change, we’re navigating, we’re in a river of change, and we’re trying to navigate that ourselves. So having some change models, and being aware of some change artistry techniques might be useful. It’s not just coaching stance, I think of agile coaching as being incredibly rich, incredibly deep, incredibly broad. Not scary. And something that I can keep learning for my lifetime. It’s a really rich landscape.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  48:30

Yeah, I’ve written a little bit about this, but I use the analogy of cooks and chefs. And if you look at culinary discipline, right? It’s so broad and it can be so creative, and encompasses so many other disciplines outside of just culinary. And I think agile coaches are on that spectrum from cooks to chefs, and we need all of those. But if you really want to be a good Agile coach, you’re like a really good chef, maybe James Beard type of Chef, maybe not, but you understand a lot of different things and you can put together good dishes from what you have.

Speaker: Bob Galen  49:14

I love that metaphor. I love that. And it takes what passion and perseverance, there’s a lot of learning in that. Right? Those chefs know how to grow, they can go out and talk to farmers, they can get locally sourced. I mean, they’re very adept.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  49:32

They grow other people, right? In the sense like, they’ll take somebody as an apprentice and help them develop into their own unique style, they’re not going to say you have to, so I see a lot of his resemblance and metaphors, as they can only go so far too, but those are some of the things that at least in my head are going through. Maybe as we’re wrapping up here and I can’t believe it’s already been an hour, but what would be your message? You’re doing a lot of work at least you’ve been doing CAL classes for I don’t know, since I think 2017. You were one of the first ones to start teaching those. What would be your message to aspiring leaders, Scrum Masters, agile coaches? What are some of the key messages from your class that you share whether you think would be helpful to share here?

Speaker: Bob Galen  50:30

I think we sort of touched on them is, ask for help. I think it’s still walk your talk, show vulnerability. Go to a CAL class, reach out to me, I do freebies or so, learned, leadership is a craft. Acknowledge that you know things and then you don’t. You and I are just talking about it from a coaching perspective, find a mentor, find a coach, go to some classes, look at yourself as continuously learning. Make sure that you’re passionate about what you do. It’s not just about getting funds,  I do what I do, yes, I drive revenue. Yes, I get paid. I do what I do, because I love what I do. I’ll never retire because I love what I do. This is the best thing since sliced bread for me. But find that baseline things. If it’s not like that for you, then maybe be fine where your passion is. One thing if you’re coaching leaders, empathy, we didn’t talk about it much but connect, walk in people’s shoes before you coach them, I wish for coaches, I wish all coaches would walk in the shoes of their clients before they open their mouth. And I know that sounds odd. But do that and do it in both directions. So mentor someone and be mentored, coach someone and be coached, right? I think that balance of continuous learning would, whether you’re a leader, a coach, a scrum master will really help you. So sort of what I’m circling is the topics we’ve talked about, really embody. Find what you love, embody it, discover that, right? How do you believe to say I know very little of this and then every day, learn something, every day reach out to someone, every day help someone and be helped? And become what was our metaphor, the chef, that James Beard Master Chef, that doesn’t know everything, it’s not expert in every school, culinary school, it has grassroots. So lots of tools, is continuously learning and trying things, even the experimentation that we talked about Miljan, dovetails into that metaphor, experimenting with new dishes, right? Experiment.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  53:11

And not being afraid.

Speaker: Bob Galen  53:15

So I don’t know, I think along this talk, there’ some things that I think would be useful for folks as guiding principles.