Most of my communities feel as if the world is in disarray. The agile community wants to “go back” to when Scrum ruled the world. Too many politicians want to “go back” to a supposedly simpler time.
When I hear, “go back,” I am pretty sure we are in a time of cultural change. While cultural change is the most important kind of change, it is also the most difficult change to create and sustain.
“Go back” thinking denies our current realities.
While Scrum might still be useful for some teams and organizations, it no longer “rules” the agile community. As a result, some agilists feel lost and do not know what to do instead.
Scrum was sensible and popular. However, other approaches, especially approaches based on more lean thinking, work better for many more teams in the current chaotic environment. Lean thinking allows teams and organizations much more freedom to make better decisions and create better products.
It’s similar for the politicians. While politicians have power now, the simpler times they want to “go back” to no longer exist.
They think they can decree that we can go back to the 1950s and early 1960s where the trad wife stayed home and the trad husband went to work. That wishful thinking denies the current economic and cultural realities. Besides, those apparently simple times were only simple for the people who had the power. The powerful were mostly white Christian (Protestant) men. Not the vibrant, multi-cultural, multi-religion society of today, where women and people of color can thrive.
Denying reality never works. The Overton Window has shifted what many people believe is popular and sensible. And while some people with power will choose to exert that power, they cannot hold those existing and older systems in place forever.
The culture can and will change. Especially now because everyone feels the various pulls. That’s why we can nurture culture change.
How We Can Nurture Culture Change
In my experience, the best time to change is when everyone feels the pain of not changing. I am not sure if we are there yet in all my communities, but we are getting close. Culture changes require courage, adaptability, and resilience—from everyone. Even—and maybe especially—if we don’t agree on what we should do for these cultural changes.
Notice that I used the word, “nurture,” not any other verb in front of culture change. That’s because culture change, by definition, challenges everything we “know” or “believe” to be true. We will step forward, back, and sideways.
While there are many possibilities, I recommend we consider how to nurture culture change with these three ideas:
- Listen to other people’s stories. Then, tell your stories.
- Seek a common, overarching goal.
- Find and work with allies.
Those three ideas require another post, so I’ll write that next week in Part 2. In the meantime, remember that culture change requires that the people with “power over” have to change their minds—often to share their power. That’s just one of the reasons why culture change is so difficult.
Here’s the reality: We can’t go back because “going back” never works in the long term. Even if that threatens the powerful. We can only go forward.
Let’s find our communities and go forward together. That’s how to solve the real problems when the real issue is culture change.