At the Scrum Gathering San Diego 2017, found this session with Gez Smith to be incredibly interesting. He surfaced some interesting tools, such as the annoyance we have with people pointing out areas we ourselves need to work on. I want to explore more the idea I’ve run into over my career of ridding a team or company of someone whom people think are not performing and will never perform. The idea of “performance” as if the person was a machine is also of great interest of me. After all, that is the root of Taylorism, human as a flesh-and-blood actor in the machine-driven factory. Dispensable if replaced with robots. Coming out of this session, I read a lot more Servant Leadership books.
He traced the history of leadership thought in academia. Talked about John Kotter, J.K. Greenleaf.
Larry Spears, Ten characteristics list.
1. Listening
- Listening
- Empathy
- Healing
- Awareness
- Persuasion
- Conceptualization
- Foresight
- Stewardship
- Commitment to the growth of people
- Building community
Healing from previous projects is important.
Example of McKinsey looking for your next job.
Exercise: one thing to do to build more community – and what’s in your way?
Vocation: one wants to serve.
No Time to Lose, Pema Chodron
Used example of “trust them to get the job done” from Agile Manifesto and how trust works.
If badness can’t sit within you, then it is the system. Don’t waste your life staying in a broken system.
The thing that annoys you about someone else is the thing you dislike most about yourself.
What super power am I being trained in now? When someone annoys you, use it to work on yourself.
The value of compliments. If you compliment people, they’ll be more open. Ran a compliment exercise. Tested how it felt to compliment.
In traditional pyramid hierarchy causes energy to flow up.
“Great Man” theory
Work Different 
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