Cherie Silas

 TRANSCRIPT: 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 00:43

Who is Cherie Silas? How would you introduce yourself and describe yourself? 

Speaker: Cherie Silas 00:54

Yeah, well, I am a coaching advocate, I have a lot of passion around professional coaching, and bringing professional coaching into the Agile space for coaches, for masters, managers, whoever is in that space because I think the skills are really important. And I’m a certified enterprise coach, Master certified coach with ICF. And I lead a coach, an ICF Coach Training School, where I focus on agile coaches, Scrum masters and, you know, do a lot of executive coaching. So, kind of a wide range, everything coaching is what I love.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 01:40

So, what is coaching? You know, a lot of times I think people misunderstand what coaching is, how do you describe coaching?

Speaker: Cherie Silas 01:50

Coaching is a partnership. It’s being in a relationship with another person that helps you to see things from multiple perspectives, that challenges you, that ask you a lot of questions that make you really think. But it’s not just about questions. They give insights. And they give observations and challenge you a lot. And what it’s not, is an advisory role. So, if I’m actually serving in a coach role, I’m not being a consultant or a mentor. It’s actually different. With coaching, you rest on the client’s expertise and knowledge. So, if I’m coaching an organization, I have to look at those clients knowing that they are competent, they ran their business before I got there, I’m not here to fix them and tell them what to do. I’m here to partner with them to find out what changes they want to make, and to help them to accomplish those changes. And they are in control of the change and responsible for making the change in their own life or in their own company because I can’t change them, I can’t do that for them. I can partner with them.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 03:11

Right, yeah. And you know, another thing that maybe just before we dive into some of the more deeper topics, a lot of times people don’t fully understand what the difference is between coaching, professional coaching and agile coaching. How do you help people understand the difference between the two?

Speaker: Cherie Silas 03:29

For me, the model that Lisa Atkins and Michael Spade came up with years ago, it’s just perfect. Right? So, I guess agile coaching has a piece of it that’s professional coaching and it should be conducted from a coaching mindset. So, if you’re saying you’re a coach, you should behave like a coach and think like a coach and act like a coach. And there’s also an aspect of it, that is facilitation. So, those two things focus on using the client’s expertise. And then there’s another kind of side of the coin that uses the coach’s expertise. So, there’s a consulting space where I’m actually going to give you my professional opinion about you know, what’s going on, what your problem is, from my own experience. There’s a training aspect of it because we go into organizations and they need to learn. And then there’s also mentoring to raise up the talent in the client organization so that they can have a sustainable change in place. Then many agile coaches focus in specific areas. I think most people are more familiar with an agile coach that focuses on transformation, on adoption of agile. And then there’s others, I don’t think enough in the space that focus on business agility and product management and helping the company to think about the way they design and deliver products. And then there’s also technical coaching, which is focused more on technical craftsmanship and raising up that standard.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 05:14

Yeah, I think it’s a lot. I did a class recently and somebody said, well, you know, the scrum master and agile coach role looks like you know, you’re a jack of all trades and Master of Scrum. I kind of settled on that. In a way, like, you know, they’re right. But what I see also a lot of times is people and I listened to a podcast that you did with Alex and I believe that Suzy was on it, I’m not sure I’ve watched or listened to a couple of those. And you talked about differences between coaching, advising or consulting. And a lot of times, coaches, Scrum masters have a difficult time balancing those and understand fully those two stances. So, in what ways do you help people understand the differences between the coaching and advising consultant? And I call advising and consulting the same thing. It’s just some people know it more as advising, some of them it’s consulting, some it’s mentoring.

Speaker: Cherie Silas 06:20

Yeah, so I think what happens often is because humans are kind of programmed to solve everybody’s problems, people jump in too quickly with their own content, with their own information and so, holding back a bit can be really helpful, because then that gives your clients the ability to figure out what’s going on. Because the reality is as a coach, you’re not going to be there forever, you shouldn’t be. You should be creating sustainable change and then leaving them to do it. And so, this is where I think the coaching mindset comes into play. Because your role as an agile coach, it’s going to be just a little bit of it that is actual coaching conversations, maybe 10, 20%. And for the rest of the time, you’re really working from a coaching stance, not necessarily doing professional coaching but doing things the way a coach would do it. So, for example, if we’re doing this advising or consulting piece, rather than coming in, making an assessment and saying, okay, this is everything that’s wrong and this is how you fix it, that’s like a pure consulting stance. A coaching stance would be to come in and ask what’s happening? What is it that’s working and not working? What is it that you think would be the thing we need to focus on to change? Prioritizing those things with the client. And then partnering with them to help them change that, giving them your professional opinion along the way. And so, same skill set of consulting or same knowledge set of consultant just approached in a way that is more the way a coach would do it and it leaves the client in power, which creates more sustainable change. If they get used to you giving them [inaudible 08:18] answers to all the questions, they’ll never grow in their own abilities.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 08:24

I heard you talk about high performing coaches, that what you’re describing, is there a difference? Because I took a note, like, in one of those podcasts, you talked about high performing coach and the way that I understood it, the way that you were describing it, to me, it was like understanding that balance, but I don’t know. Could you recall that term, high performing coach?

Speaker: Cherie Silas 08:53

Yeah, I don’t remember using that term but I can talk about kind of the levels of how coaches grow in skill and competency because coaching is a competency-based profession. And so, I think in the Agile coaching space, we have a lot of Agile coaches who actually don’t understand coaching at all. They don’t even know what exists professional coaching. So, they’re doing consulting and mentoring, which is great. It’s just not coaching, it’s consulting. So, they’re agile consultants. And so, I think that’s kind of a base level of what agile coaches have. And then as they move up, if we compare that to ICF, there is an associate certified coach, which is like an entry level coach. People who understand coaching, they understand the coaching mindset, they know how to have a coaching conversation. And I think that’s the skill set that’s needed for Scrum masters and other agile professions. As you move higher in the organization as an agile coach and you’re working more with leaders and executives that may be working more with whole systems, you likely need to lift your skills to the next level. Someone who’s at the professional coach level is going to have a lot more insights and observations and intuitions and partnership, more partnership with the client. Someone who’s at the ACC level may stick to just simply asking questions. And so, there is this misconception that coaching equals asking questions, like powerful questions that’s coaching. I disagree. So yes, there is one skill set that is coaching, but there are many other competencies and skill sets that you need to be an effective coach. And then at the master certified coach level, there it’s very organic, very relationship based and a lot of challenge observations, things like that. 

Speaker: Miljan Silas 11:02

Yeah, I mean, like, you know, when you said, you know, a lot of people believe, you know, coaching is all about asking questions or you know, your listening skills, and those are two very important skills. But, you know, I think, something that comes to mind that most people don’t fully understand is that awareness, coaching awareness. Or just awareness of how, you know, you talked about coaching is a competency. I think most people don’t fully understand what we mean by when we say competency. So could you maybe describe you know, from your perspective, you know, what is competency? I can’t even pronounce it, but how’s that different than just knowledge and understanding?

Speaker: Cherie Silas 11:52

Yeah, what I’ve seen over and over again is that people who read by coaching books and videos, they may get a lot of knowledge, that when they go to actually do the coaching, there’s a big gap between what’s in their head and how they can describe what coaching is and actually doing the things. And so, because coaching is competency based, knowledge is one aspect of it but the only way you can actually build competency is through doing it and getting feedback from people who actually know what you should be doing so that they can help you make corrections along the way. So, simply experience doesn’t know competency. It’s experience with guidance from those who are ahead of you. So, that mentoring and that training aspect, so that you can grow in that competency.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic12:53

Yeah. So, like, you know, I joke around but you know, I played soccer all my life. I played in Europe, before I came here, I played in United States. And my college buddies would kick my butt in FIFA, you know? They knew all the game, you know, like, they understood the game of soccer, right? But when it came to like playing, you know, they had no experience. So, I thought a lot of times, like the difference between the knowing the game and what to do and actually having the competency to play the game. And same thing goes with skiing. You know, I grew up with, you know, mentioned before we started recording in [unsure 13:33] and like skiing in [unsure 13:36] is different than skiing in New England, which is mostly like sliding down the bunny hills versus, you know, in a West in Utah, you know? So, by having coaches, you know, I had skiing coaches, I had soccer coaches, I had mentors right through this whole process, and experiencing different terrains or environments helped me get better in that competency there of soccer and skiing. And a lot of times people come to classes, will take a couple of classes and they think that okay, now, you know, I understand what agile is about or what Scrum is about. And sometimes people just want quick, you know, answers. You’re mentoring, coaching, probably more coaching than mentoring a lot of people. What do you see, what are some of the challenges that maybe on Scrum masters and coaches are facing that you see? Maybe there’s a pattern that you’re seeing yourself?

Speaker: Cherie Silas 14:40

Yeah, I think the number one question that people ask me is, how do you deal with resistance? And it may not always like my expertise, say stop creating it. So, people inherently, change is hard. Right? And because change is hard, we have to have patience and allow people to change at their own pace. Often what agile coaches will do is they’ll come in not looking at the client as competent, I’m here to fix you. I’m here to fix your agile, I’m here to show you how to change your company. And so, they push up against the people who aren’t ready for that change and the resistance grows. And so, people become number one resistance change, and number two resistant to you. And so often, the problem is you. So, stop creating resistance, treat people like they know what they’re doing, have respect for people, give them, look, fix their problems, focus on what they think needs to change not what you’ve looked around and said, these are the 10 things you need to do. Stop telling managers to sit down and be quiet, I’m going to do your job; you’re not supposed to tell people what to do. All those things create resistance. Instead, create an environment where people want to work with you. Focus on momentum. What you focus on will get the biggest attention and that’s where people will shift to. So, if you focus on resistance, you’re going to get more resistance. If you focus on momentum, you’re going to get more momentum. And remember that to you, as an agile coach, this is just one change, right? We’re just adopting agile, it’s one thing. To them, it’s hundreds and sometimes thousands of changes. And so, we have to understand change tolerance and allow people to change at their own pace and in their own direction. And we don’t want to get compliance. We can get this up and running in three months, that’s compliance. What you want is sustainable change and that takes time.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 16:56

And you know, creating that environment, a lot of times requires having that coach agreement, explicit coaching agreement. And a lot of coaches were people that do want to coach don’t fully understand the importance of coaching agreement. Could you maybe talk about that a little bit, from your perspective, how do you see coaching agreements?

Speaker: Cherie Silas 17:18

Yeah, that’s the second most high question that people ask is or they complain about is, they want me to be a consultant, they don’t want me to be a coach. And first that goes back to the original agreement. When you joined with this company, did you explain to them what coaching is and what it’s not? And in what kind of agreements did you make about the work you’re doing? Because that’s important. Often people just jump in, they’re like, yes, I’m an agile coach. And I want to do transformation. And they want to adopt agile or adopt Scrum or some other framework. So, there’s a mismatch. As you get into the organization, there is the making an agreement with the organization itself, the leadership, generally of the organization. But taking the pulse of the whole organization. And what is it we’re going to work on?  What’s the coaching plan? Here’s the four or five themes that we’re going to focus on. How do we measure success? How are we going to get to that change? What’s the current state? What’s the end state? And so, there’s that agreement at the organizational level and how often are we going to check in to make sure we’re on pace or we may need to shift? And then as you work with individuals, you should have a coaching agreement with them. What’s the work we’re going to do together? Why are we doing this work? Same thing with team. What is it that we’re trying to fix? What is it we’re trying to change? What is it we’re trying to grow? We need to know what that is, how we’re going to measure success so that we can be in alignment with where we’re going. And the answer to the, they want me to be a consultant, I think it’s an excuse. Your ability to be in a coaching stance is on you. It’s a matter of self-control and self-management. So, I’ve never had a problem with people telling me they want me to be a consultant or a coach. I’ve done consulting and I’ve approached it from a coaching stance and I’ve never had anyone tell me that I can’t do that. I think if that’s happening to you, either you need some more coaching competency or just some more self-management.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 19:48

And that self-control and self-management is all about awareness. Right? How well are you aware of what’s going on around yourself within you? Do you do any coaching or what is your perspective on how do we develop awareness or how do we help others develop awareness?

Speaker: Cherie Silas 20:08

Yeah, so, coaching is actually all about helping others create awareness. It’s not about get to the end goal, let’s have a checkbox of things you’re going to walk away with and go do these tasks. Coaching is about helping people become more aware of what they don’t know or what they don’t know they know, I should say so that they can have a change of mindset and then have a change of behaviors. And so, yes, the coach needs to build awareness in themselves. The number one way to do that is through curiosity, developing curiosity. It’s not easy because our innate nature is to be self-centered, not to be other centered. And so, developing curiosity where we actually want to know things about other people, where we’re curious about what they can discover, what they can learn, will help us to become more aware of them. And it’s our own reflective practice. One of the best choices I’ve made in my life was to actually get professional coaching training. And the reason why is because I went in one person and I came out a completely different person. Because coaching builds a ton of awareness, it helps you to see who you are, and to become what you want to be. And so, I literally was like, a whole different human when I came up the other side. As coaches, even if we’ve been through coach training and we know all that stuff, I believe, and I practice coach supervision. And what that is, is a place where coaches, agile coaches, professional coaches, can go into a confidential space, like a coaching space and reflect on the work they’re doing with their clients so that they can figure out where they’re not managing themselves well and figure out how to change. Maybe the client’s stuck, maybe they’re stuck, maybe they keep getting triggered and going into a consulting stance. That’s the place for them to work through that, so that they can show up more powerfully with their clients. So, I guess long answer, there’s a lot. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 22:30

No, I mean, yeah. And that makes sense. And I was going to ask you about the supervision, I think you just answered in a way that you know, a lot of times we need help as coaches. We need help with awareness, we need you know, maybe just you know, somebody to help us through a difficult situation. And that is a powerful way to do that. And I think a lot of times people misunderstand, don’t fully understand what supervision is. Another thing that I wanted to get your thoughts on is pretty much like everybody that I’ve interviewed so far, that understand psychology and sociology says, you know, it’s key in Agile, it’s key in everything, right? Understanding the people and understanding the social aspect of that psychology. What is your thought on psychology and sociology, when it comes to agile, when it comes to coach? Understanding other people, understanding, you know, relationships. You said, coaching is all about relationships. So, if it’s about relationships and we don’t know anything about relationships, how good can we actually be able to do?

Speaker: Cherie Silas 23:38

Yeah, I would. Actually, I think it’s a little bit easier for people to swallow when you talk about emotional intelligence, which is that self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, social management. Yes, back in those psychology factors. It makes me a bit nervous when I hear coaches talking about psychology, especially when they are struggling with already is the client broken, am I going to fix them? Right? So, human psychology is important because you need to understand the way people think, the way people react. You don’t need a psychology degree to do coaching. And you need to make sure that I hear people say the scrum masters is the armchair psychologist or something like that. I don’t think that’s true. I think that because psychology is about fixing broken stuff. Yes, the same theories are underneath and the same understanding of human behavior is underneath. But as coaches, we are not fixing people. They are not broken. If they need to be fixed, they should be with a different helping profession.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 24:54

That’s a really good point because I think, I don’t know if we need a new term or the way they just describe it. We need to understand how people think, what motivates them, right? But you know, the aspect of psychology of like you said, fixing people and doing that is definitely not at least what I consider. But that importance of like, understanding, you know, the values, the principles, the beliefs that people have and trying to meet them where they are with those beliefs without judging, I think is what coaching is about. And so, what other coaching anti-patterns are you seeing out there that maybe you’ll help listeners understand, watch out for those or maybe work on those?

Speaker: Cherie Silas 25:46

I think those are the biggest, most common ones are the ones I said. The working with resistance, the thinking that coaching is just asking question. Let’s see another one I think would be, it’s more about, it’s more in the Agile coaching space and it’s about change management. So, the piece that I think people don’t bring in as agile coaches is this piece about change manager. They may not understand it. And so, people have changed tolerance, organizations and systems have changed tolerance. And because people have different levels of change tolerance and they also need to understand the change that’s happening to them, so there’s a lot of we’re doing this, but not why. Right? They don’t understand the why we’re making these decisions, why we’re doing these things so that they can understand, then, well, what’s that mean for me? And then be able to make that change. So, as an agile coach, just because we know Scrum or we know agile, doesn’t mean we understand organizations, an organizational manager. So, I think people need to study more in that area. And they also need to be careful about thinking they’re experts in places they’re not. So, an example for me, that I’ve seen is coaches who have never, maybe they’ve been a scrum master, maybe they’ve been a product owner, but they’ve never managed people and they’ve never been in leadership or executive positions. And they want to tell managers and leaders how they should behave but they don’t understand what’s happening on the other side, right? There’s the here’s what it should be, here’s the book, this is how you should act. But what they don’t understand is all of the things that are systemic, that are coming up against those managers. And so, they’ve got to be able to understand the other side of it.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 28:22

Isn’t that empathy? So, what you’re saying is really, they’re not really good at empathizing and understanding the challenges that leaders and managers are facing. They don’t look into their eyes, is that?

Speaker: Cherie Silas 28:33

I think that’s a big part of it. It’s empathy. And it’s also, thinking they’re broken. Like, you’ve got to do this a different way. And it’s the coaching agreement too. You cannot coach someone who doesn’t want coaching. And so, when you’re trying to force people to accept the work with you, it just doesn’t work. And then I see people wanting to coach executives but they don’t understand the executive space. So, they’re trying to shove them into some agile thing that’s by the book the way it should be but they don’t even understand why it’s not the way it is. And so, we can’t go from zero to hundred. Sometimes we have to go from zero to one. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 29:28

Yeah, I think that’s a huge, you know, and what you also make me think is, like, people that not have the experience with it and might be going to space that they’re not familiar with but there’s also Daniel Mezick, I think wrote about it or like, there are a lot of coaches and I’ve been in this situation too. And this really comes down to integrity, right? Like you’re doing things that you know you shouldn’t be doing. And as coaches and I know I’ve struggled with that because sometimes it maybe the situation and like, you know, sticking to your integrity and your values is key as being coach. This goes back to like, you know, being non-judgmental, having that neutral stance, right? And we’re all humans, we all deal with the challenges that everybody else does but I think a lot of times what we do is not fully stick to our kind of like, hey, this client is, you know, paying me well, is keeping my family fed but I know deep down, I shouldn’t be doing this. What are your thoughts on that? 

Speaker: Cherie Silas 30:40

Yeah, that often it happens in [inaudible 30:43]. Yeah, that does happen. Right? And this is part of that, the ethics, the integrity, the neutrality.  So, the work can’t be about you, it’s got to be about the client. And if it’s time to disengage then it’s time to disengage. You will mostly disengage when the work is not done from your perspective. However, the client has reached the tolerance for we’re not going to do anything else. Here’s the ceiling, we’re done! And so, I think that coaches misunderstand what companies want. And some companies just wants Scrum adoption. It’s going to stop at that. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 30:29

Installation. 

Speaker: Cherie Silas 31:30

Installations. Some companies want agile adoption. Most companies want agile adoption, not agile transformation. And so, we’ve got to be able to understand where the ceiling is and stop. Yeah, I mean, you can’t just keep hanging out getting paid. I mean, I guess you can, but in my perspective…

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 31:52

It’s not fulfilling, right? At least it’s not for me. In some instances, where I’ve done it and, you know, I’ve realized, like, you know, it’s a mistake, it’s not fulfilling, right? You know, that you’re not doing yourself a justice, you’re not doing the company or the client, the justice. And at least for me, it was a learning experience because, you know, especially early on when you don’t know and I think also in today’s environment, where you have a lot of big consulting companies that are going out there and you know, the Agile coaching or coaching is so popular that the waters are getting diluted of what agile coaching is and what the professional is about. And, you know, integrity is one. The other thing that I wanted to explore with you is diversity. I mean, starting with then, you know, when I was looking at just people that I interviewed, right? When I look at the scrum Alliance, it’s mostly, you know, white, older men. And sometimes it’s just, you know, it’s right there in front of you but you don’t see it. Sometimes it’s just some other factor. But I think, you know, the organization that you and I are both part of or association or Alliance, Scrum Alliance, it’s gotten better and better, I think when it comes to diversity. But some of the things that I’m seeing is that only there’s a lot of room for improvement when it comes to diversity. And I think this goes, same way Scrum Alliance is not any different than most organizations. But what is your thought? And I know, I told you before we started recording too that I really respect you for embracing that diversity. What are your thoughts on that without getting yourself in trouble?

Speaker: Cherie Silas 33:52

I am not worried about getting in trouble. This is a very passionate space for me and thank you. Thank you for even telling me that you recognize that because I don’t like go out and make a lot of noise about it. Yes, I think people get tired of hearing you say look around and say wow, it’s mighty white in here. Because it is. And so people of color, there’s a lot of talent and what happens is it’s not, I don’t think it’s intentional, right? You attract people that look like you. And so, Scrum started with a roomful of old, white men, right? There were technology people and we already know technology doesn’t have, it didn’t start out with a lot of women or people of color, right? And so, that happens and you draw who you’re used to and that’s why diversity has to be intentional. Right? There are people who you can reach out to who have talent and you need to reach out to them. The thing that I’ve been seeing recently, and I praise companies for what they’re trying to do. So, for example, Scrum Alliance, they’re doing a lot to say the door is open, you are welcome here. And you are welcome here. People of color, women, men, white men, everybody. However, just saying you can come here isn’t enough. You have to go out and get them. So, if I invite you to my house for dinner and you don’t have a car and you don’t, you can’t afford a plane ticket, and you’re up in New England and I’m in Dallas, Miljan, you can come over anytime. You can spend the night at my house, you can hang out with my family, you can have dinner with us, the door is open. That doesn’t create diversity. I need to get you here. I need to go and get you and bring you here. Right? So, I’m going to say something that might be really surprising to people and it needs to be said. Right now, in the leadership, the CEC community, CTC community, yes, diversity is increasing, there are more people of color. I want to specifically talk about black people. There are six black people who have CEC or CTC credentials. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 36:42 

Out of what do we have maybe, is it 100s?

Speaker: Cherie Silas 36:46

Credentials, there’s about 150 CEC credentials floating out there and about 200 CTC and a lot of those people have both, right? So of that, only six are black. All this time. And so, I’ve been really passionate about this. There are three women and three men, which is really cool. I’ve actually worked with, I didn’t realize until the other day that I have mentored all three of those women who’ve been there. I’m not their only mentor, I didn’t put them out there. But it’s kind of an honor to have worked with the very first black female CEC in the world. That’s a big thing. Six, that’s a problem! And I’m not saying that Scrum Alliance is saying you can’t come here but the reality is, when you go to a conference and you look around and you’re like, wow, totally white in here, I’m not sure I belong here. Right? And you look around and you’re like, oh look, there’s a black person! That might sound weird to people who are white. My family is black with the exception of me. And that is a reality. When we travel for business and we go to conferences, they come with me and they’re like, are there any black people here? Can black people even come to this? It’s a reality.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 38:17

No, I know and like, the thing is like, it goes back to that invitation or the dinner that you said. It’s not just that, but like feeling welcomed by others. And I think, you know, when we look at the community, online community, what’s being discussed, how people are being welcomed, when you look at the gatherings in person, gatherings before COVID, I mean, it’s the system, right? In the sense, it’s like how we treat each other. And this is I don’t think it’s just necessarily white or black, you know? Like, I’m white but I’m not, you know, I wasn’t born in United States, I come from a different country, different culture. Right? But and I could have all my life even here, you know, there is a mixed bag of experiences, right? So, I think it’s just like you said, most of it is, I think unintentional, right? I don’t think like, you know, 90% of people even know that are doing that intentionally. But it goes back to that awareness. If we don’t take a pause and think about like, hey, you know, how are we actually welcoming? And I mean if Cherie invited somebody, am I also making sure and going out of my way to say, hey, you know, welcome, whatever it is, right? Because it’s that type of feeling that’s going to or that type of gesture that’s going to help me feel more welcome rather than just one person in the community, where Scrum Alliance is saying the door is open. Right? I think it’s going a little extra step to do that.

Speaker: Cherie Silas 39:48

Yeah. And there’s also like you’re saying, it’s diversity in all ways. Women, men, people of color, people from different countries. What scrum alliance are doing right now are doing a really great job of opening up the CEC or the CTC applications so people can submit them in different languages. So, we’ve got several different languages that we’ve rolled out just recently because we need to increase diversity. And if Scrum Alliance is a worldwide organization, then they need to provide a space for the world to be there. So as more people come in who speak different languages, they’re trying to make that space for that to happen.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 40:36

And I wrote something else down that I think kind of ties all of this back. Coaching is all about action and accountability. Right? So, if we come back to this topic of action and accountability, it ties a lot of these things together as far as diversity with coaching, the awareness. Like ultimately, you know, what actions are we taking or helping? And then from a coaching perspective, what actions are we helping our clients take and how are we holding them accountable? But at the same time, what actions if we come back to diversity, what actions are we taking and how are we holding each other accountable?

Speaker: Cherie Silas 41:19

Yeah. I think that’s true. One way we can increase diversity is just to reach out. One of the things that I do is I watch people in the industry and I will personally say, hey, can we talk? I’d like to mentor you. I think you’ve got a lot of promise and I want you to be here, I want to see you successful. How many of us are doing that? If we just each mentor one person a year, it’s not a lot, it’s not a lot of effort, we can make a lot of impact.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 41:59

No, I agree. And as I said, like, you know, looking at the people that I’ve interviewed, I was like, holy crap. I have a lot of white man and no females. This started as almost like, you know, I was starting like, you know, who would I like to talk to and this goes back to, you know what you said also, like, you know, you relate to mostly people that, you know, you associate with but also like the Agile community is full of, you know… Infact, when I started looking at like, you know, I want to interview people that were part of creating Agile Manifesto or that started the Scrum Alliance, there is no diversity there. Maybe there is, like, at least there was one female and two guys. But it is, it takes that action and awareness. And you know, what I’m promising to myself and I started reaching out to do and identify list of how can I diversify? Not just from you know, it’s different topics that you know, people from different countries, different perspectives to add more diversity to my podcast and the topics that I discussed. Because I think that’s going to make the podcast richer in a sense from perspective that I’m just interviewing people with same mindset. That might not be the most valuable thing for everyone, might be for some people but I’m not sure how others could relate to it. What is something that I didn’t know to ask but you would ask yourself or something they would like to share that I didn’t know to ask, Cherie?

Speaker: Cherie Silas 43:44

I don’t know. Let me think about this for just a second. I should know this was coming, they ask it all the time.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 43:58

I’m sure I didn’t. Because a lot of times, you know, as much as like, you know, we’ve seen each other and interacted at conferences and retreats, but it’s in minimal capacity I would say. So I know that there are some things that you know that I don’t know.

Speaker: Cherie Silas 44:18

Yeah. I want to just hit on two pieces we talked about. One last thing on diversity that we didn’t really talk about is why is it so hard for people? And I think it goes back to that coaching competency or skill of curiosity and self-management. Being okay being uncomfortable and not knowing and being interested, being fascinated with other human beings. My client base is all over the world and I’ve worked with almost every country and I’m fascinated by people. And that’s what creates that invitation. The other thing, let’s go back to coaching that we didn’t talk about is confidentiality. So, one of the challenges I think agile coaches have is confidentiality, not realizing that coaching is a confidential space. So, we can’t run around talking about what happened with our clients, we can’t go grab other agile coaches and talk about it or go tell managers and things like that. And so we have to have those agreements and understanding about what is confidential, what is not confidential. And is the Agile coach or performance management person or are they something else? Because that’s often where that confidentiality breach comes in. We are not there for performance management. We’re there to help people and teams and organizations grow to higher performance. If there’s a performance issue, that is a manager’s job, not the coach’s job and we should not get in the middle of that. Because you lose all of the trust that you gain with the organization if what they do and what they’re struggling with is going to get reported to their manager and now it’s going to hit their paycheck. So, I think that that’s the big thing. Just being really understanding and having agreements. So, if the manager comes to me and asks what’s happening, I say you need to go talk to them, because it’s not my place to share it. We’ve got agreements about that.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 46:42

Yeah, I think something else that we didn’t talk about, that you just mentioned is trust. I think, you know, a lot of it is like and that trust and honoring that confidentiality, sorry, it’s too early here. Confidentiality and trust go hand in hand because without trust, it’s tough to coach, without trust it tough to help clients, right? So, like, if we don’t have that trust and sustain that trust, everything kind of crumbles underneath it. And I think a lot of us and I know I’ve been tempted in some ways to break that trust. And it goes back to like, how good of a person really, are you? Because like, how would you, like if you shared something with somebody and you know, you felt like, you know, I’m sharing this with you and I’m speaking my mind in that intent that it won’t be shared and then you go and share with somebody just so you can get, you know, a little bit of insight on something else. And I think that is something that I’ve seen, you know, happen in organizations where coach goes and runs to the managers and shares what’s happening without even thinking. Sometimes intentional, sometimes it’s unintentional. And that can create a ripple effect of all kinds of things.

Speaker: Cherie Silas 48:19

And this is where I think supervision is necessary because that’s a confidential space where, like, if you’re stuck, if you need help, if you’ve got challenges, supervision, someone who doesn’t work in that company and doesn’t know your clients, is the confidential space where you can dump all that stuff and talk about it and get insights and figure out what to do.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 48:44

Exactly. You think supervision almost like gives you opportunity to pause and say, you know, let me, you know, I’m not sure what I should be doing here, I have somebody that can help me with this or potentially help me figure things out. And sometimes all we need is that little space between, you know, our thought and our actions.

Speaker: Cherie Silas 49:11

Yeah, it’s a reflective space. And it can have a little bit of mentoring or just like, hey, we’re both professionals, let’s share experiences and see what comes out. And then there’s a bit of coaching, too. So, it’s different than coaching. But absolutely, that’s the intent. It’s that reflective space, where you can look at the work you’re doing and like, whoops, I broke confidentiality, what do I need to do? And so, we’re humans, we need to get stuff out and we need to think through it. And so, as coaches using a confidential space is most important. Doctors do it, psychologists do it, why wouldn’t coaches, agile coaches do it? It’s not I’m a bad boy, I need somebody to be my supervisor and be like, over me. It’s a peer. It’s not that. It’s about you and the impact you make on your clients.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic 50:07

And your growth too. I would argue that you know that space allows you to grow and reflect and that’s how you can get better as a coach. 

To wrap up here, what would be one advice that you would give inspiring coaches, agile coaches, professional coaches? Your biggest tip?

Speaker: Cherie Silas 50:29

Yeah, is to work with someone whose credential, knows what they’re doing, they get feedback to be able to move from that I know about coaching, to I have competency and coaching. Professional coaching is the number one skill that’s going to change as a scrum master and as an agile coach, that’s the thing that’s going to move you from okay to fabulous, so get in there and learn it.