Within the agile space we often hear: “don’t blame the person, blame the system”. And as a result, I often notice that many people stop thinking about how to make a change, since it is the system that should change. That is a pity, since I believe that change is something that we should pro-actively work on. And “work” is something where we as humans are quite often the initiating factor.
The most important question is to find out why we think change is needed. As discussed in earlier posts, it is not fully natural to the human nature to change (all the time), since we most times try to protect what we know and what we understand. In a complicated world, where reactions to events are kind of predictable, we can counter actions with other actions we already know, so a kind of recipe like fixed sequence of actions can be done in a shorter time, leading to an expected result. In a complex world however, many different responses can occur, which makes it much less predictable.
So change, doing something different, is a main driver to find out what works best. And in many cases we don’t know upfront if that change is leading to “better” or “worse” results. And in agile, embracing the attempt to change, in order to eventually finding better ways, is core.
Humans, as individuals, are complex. So groups of humans, like teams, departments, companies, are certainly complex as well. And that means that human behaviour is quite often driven by the context where it resides. Since the number of relationships between humans outnumbers the number of people, it is quite easy to understand that more often a mismatch will occur within a relationship. Basically, most people do not get up in the morning with the intent to break something down (unless demolishing is your job). So from each individual perspective we will do our best to do things that support the goals we are aiming for.
Most times we agree with the goals we have set for ourselves. That comes down to intrinsic motivation, which is a big driver for a lot of things we do. It is actually often accepted by others as well and it becomes a problem as soon as someone else decides not to agree with the (visible) action. That other person may have other goals, that may conflict. Or those goals are even influenced by previously defined expectations from others, e.g. because it is their job to verify that every action complies to the companies standard. This is where we talk about systems, the collection of norms and interactions between people.
In the given example, it is not always obvious if the action is wrong or right. We are in a complex situation, right?! So by simply blaming that person, you disqualify all other reasons why that particular choice of action has been taken. Both choices are driven by personal goals, which are influenced by the goals set, and which are influenced by many other agreements and norms within your context. And that is the reason that in many cases it is much more helpful to find out what happened in that system that has led to that choices being made.
Finding better ways require a lot of work. To enable that work, it is still up to us, humans, to take the initiative. So even if we would live in a blameless environment, so a safe environment to make (little) mistakes and to experiment, we are still responsible for making sure that we learn new things. And that is not only about technical skills, or sending people to courses. It is about creating awareness about our own systems, the beliefs, the norms, the interactions and how these influence our behaviour (and goals). That requires courage. Courage to make that visible, which can be felt as discomforting. Courage to make that change.
And just as stated in the Agile Manifesto: “We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it.”, we can uncover better ways of in our interactions as well by doing it and helping others do it as well. So I believe in that power to change…
Do you?!
