Bringing Backbone and Heart to Work
Image by deanna.f
I started my career as a project manager, and I often found myself enforcing contracts—defined scope and budget—and having to say no to change requests unless an addendum was signed. My pre-agile days. I brought backbone to work, engaging in those conversations. Sometimes I was secretly miserable.
During that time, I typically went dancing once a week. One evening I would meet friends somewhere in Dallas where a live band would play, and we would dance swing and blues. I got to know the musicians over time. With them, I was friendly and happy. It gave me joy to know that there existed a group of people who only knew the kind and generous me.
That’s how I balanced my life early in my career.
This past weekend I attended the ORSC Path class—the fourth course in CRRGlobal’s Organization and Relationship Systems Coaching series. As I was leaving class on Sunday, I discovered that the Agile for Humans podcast I’d recorded with Ryan Ripley had been published. How amazing that a conversation on professional coaching was published as I’d just passed another milestone in my professional coaching journey!
I shared that amazingness on Facebook, and sure enough, my friends started responding to it. Family members, current and former colleagues, other coaches, and even friends from my dancing days saw it and liked it. Seeing one of the musicians reply, “GO Allison!” made me realize how far I’ve come in bringing backbone AND heart to work. Coaching enabled that for me.
In the podcast, I referenced a number of places to learn about coaching, and here they are:
- Agile Coaching Institute
- Agile for All
- It’s Understood
- Coaching Beyond the Team
- Coaches Training Institute
- CRRGlobal
There are also some great books on coaching available:
Getting work done can be difficult, but it is possible to address challenges head-on and care about people in the process. I've come to realize that relationships underscore everything in work (and in life). Thankfully I've found a way to navigate relationships better--coaching others, coaching myself, and receiving coaching.
