"The 'change management, early 2010s style'—how to sweeten the pill of downsizing with top-down communication—has proven its ability to create stress, frustration, and poor results in organizations. It has also permanently cooled work teams to view a 'modern-imposed' change positively and from consulting firms. At the same time, the managerial revolution driven by 'digital companies' has demonstrated its effectiveness in creating value and energizing organizations, thus generating a strong attraction towards digital transformation beyond IT sectors.
It is understandable that the software industry first embraced the concept of agility as a tool for managing complexity. This pioneering role is partly due to the technical specificity of software development, where needs, technologies, and value creation processes are constantly evolving and cannot objectively be part of a predictive workload plan.
The change in perspective brought by the promise of digital transformation is now gaining ground in the services sector. They are discovering, with varying degrees of ease, the joys and challenges of visual management, user-driven management, autonomous teams, and the managerial changes that come with it.
One of the highly praised aspects of digital transformation is the paradigm shifts involved in moving to a flatter organization, particularly in terms of empowering actors. This shift appears to be self-sustaining in transforming organizations and assigning a new role to managers. One could almost say that we live in exciting times!
The transition to an agile organization... truly painless?
However, there remains a true/false promise in digital transformation if presented (or understood) solely from the perspective of processes. As the Agile Manifesto reminds us (the only Agile thing to rightfully carry that name), transformation is a journey around people and their interactions before being a transformation of tools and processes, i.e., a question of collaboration before being a contractual exercise.
The fact that managers increasingly understand the nature of this transformation and are willing to invest time and resources in the transformation of individuals and teams is a recent and welcome development. Could the promise of unlocking creative energies through self-organization lead to a decline in beliefs in indicator-driven management? The suspense!
The tricky part comes when the 'prescribing' manager, the client if you will, realizes the impact the advocated transformation will have on teams and his own managerial representations. This point of friction is likely the cause of the explosion of posts, drawings, and diagrams on LinkedIn in the tone of 'Do as I say, not as I do' or 'What makes a good manager.'
This situation becomes even more complex when the transformation is managed within a limited scope of the company. While the manager himself inherits the expected posture, he is also often part of a system imposed on him and is miles away from the 'transformation' his department is undergoing and its impacts.
"Agile Coach": organizational coach or manager coach?
To deploy what is essentially a 'team story' in organizations larger than fledgling startups, the consulting market now calls on specific actors, often experienced scrum masters, to support the implementation of transformations in teams using various frameworks.
These frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe) are protected spaces for experimentation that shelter the cultural transitions of teams and allow the measurement of their beneficial effects. The new conductors of this operational and 'bottom-up' change management have inherited the term 'agile coach.'
It seems that the activity carried out by this new role of an agile coach, extending beyond the support of teams, naturally expands into supporting managers to help them exit their 'comfort zone.' This is because the implementation of the transformation constitutes a transition in which their reference points gradually fade to make way for a new mapping of their roles and responsibilities.
This is an unknown aspect of the implicit activity of the agile coach, which involves supporting the client to envision, integrate, and accept his own evolution in the changes he wants to apply to his teams.
This coaching activity proves essential for teams to truly and deeply transform their transactions, beyond the mere post-it effect of visual management evolution. It is also fascinating because it involves the evolution and learning of involved individuals.
However, it opens, from my point of view, a series of ethical questions that I would like to discuss with you.
Individual coaching responses: in phase or ahead of phase of agile coaching demands?
The first question concerns the scope of coaching.
Even when someone has experienced a paradigm shift themselves (and is thus open to continuing to be transformed), it is complicated to explain a priori to a manager, who may not have understood or desired it, that he will be personally included in the transformation he has called for; that the transformation will concern him personally. Change, like highways, is always better in the neighbor's garden.
Therefore, the question arises of whether agile coaching is not breaking the very first rule of coaching: not coaching someone 'against their will' and without an explicit request from them. The objectives of the coaching contract must be explicit and shared between the coach and the coachee.
The second question concerns the posture of the agile coach.
Originally positioned as a facilitator-accompanist of teams by participating in the implementation of ceremonies, creating continuous improvement workshops, and developing indicators co-constructed by teams, the agile coach simultaneously supports the questions, challenges, and shifts in management. This is done not only through various postures but also by relying on the progress made by teams. This positions the coach both as a prescriber and as an evaluator to his client, advocating his own cause. Being both judge and party inevitably poses challenges.
Finally, the third question concerns the qualification of the 'agile coach' to practice 'professional coaching.'
The profession of a professional coach has ultimately found internal self-regulation through certifications, and coaching federations agree to 'define' what the term professional coach encompasses. Three major points identify them today: undergoing psychotherapy, receiving certified training, and continuous application of supervision by a coach.
Can we say that we have reached this point in agile coaching? Not really, not yet... but is there a need?
Towards regulation or emergence of the 'profession' of agile coach?
There are, of course, painful stories, missed appointments, errors concerning individuals... But overall, 'agile' transformations produce value by bringing much-needed oxygen to the organizations where they are applied. They are part of the process of reinventing organizations, a crucial need as demonstrated by Reinventing Organizations.
These fundamental approaches permanently change power and identity relations at work within teams (thanks to Renaud Sainsaulieu for the Identity at Work) to provide 'real' tools for managers. Not to control team members, but to build and grow trust-based relationships that sustainably produce added value in teams.
It is clear that agile coaching—an intervention sociologically based on team work for continuous improvement—requires the involvement of seasoned yet humble practitioners to help managers move away from their classic control tools. This intervention on teams is coupled with an 'intervention,' which has not yet fully disclosed its name, on managers and leaders.
"The 'change management, early 2010s style'—how to sweeten the pill of downsizing with top-down communication—has proven its ability to create stress, frustration, and poor results in organizations. It has also permanently cooled work teams to view a 'modern-imposed' change positively and from consulting firms. At the same time, the managerial revolution driven by 'digital companies' has demonstrated its effectiveness in creating value and energizing organizations, thus generating a strong attraction towards digital transformation beyond IT sectors.
It is understandable that the software industry first embraced the concept of agility as a tool for managing complexity. This pioneering role is partly due to the technical specificity of software development, where needs, technologies, and value creation processes are constantly evolving and cannot objectively be part of a predictive workload plan.
The change in perspective brought by the promise of digital transformation is now gaining ground in the services sector. They are discovering, with varying degrees of ease, the joys and challenges of visual management, user-driven management, autonomous teams, and the managerial changes that come with it.
One of the highly praised aspects of digital transformation is the paradigm shifts involved in moving to a flatter organization, particularly in terms of empowering actors. This shift appears to be self-sustaining in transforming organizations and assigning a new role to managers. One could almost say that we live in exciting times!
The transition to an agile organization... truly painless?
However, there remains a true/false promise in digital transformation if presented (or understood) solely from the perspective of processes. As the Agile Manifesto reminds us (the only Agile thing to rightfully carry that name), transformation is a journey around people and their interactions before being a transformation of tools and processes, i.e., a question of collaboration before being a contractual exercise.
The fact that managers increasingly understand the nature of this transformation and are willing to invest time and resources in the transformation of individuals and teams is a recent and welcome development. Could the promise of unlocking creative energies through self-organization lead to a decline in beliefs in indicator-driven management? The suspense!
The tricky part comes when the 'prescribing' manager, the client if you will, realizes the impact the advocated transformation will have on teams and his own managerial representations. This point of friction is likely the cause of the explosion of posts, drawings, and diagrams on LinkedIn in the tone of 'Do as I say, not as I do' or 'What makes a good manager.'
This situation becomes even more complex when the transformation is managed within a limited scope of the company. While the manager himself inherits the expected posture, he is also often part of a system imposed on him and is miles away from the 'transformation' his department is undergoing and its impacts.
'Agile Coach': organizational coach or manager coach?
To deploy what is essentially a 'team story' in organizations larger than fledgling startups, the consulting market now calls on specific actors, often experienced scrum masters, to support the implementation of transformations in teams using various frameworks.
These frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe) are protected spaces for experimentation that shelter the cultural transitions of teams and allow the measurement of their beneficial effects. The new conductors of this operational and 'bottom-up' change management have inherited the term 'agile coach.'
It seems that the activity carried out by this new role of an agile coach, extending beyond the support of teams, naturally expands into supporting managers to help them exit their 'comfort zone.' This is because the implementation of the transformation constitutes a transition in which their reference points gradually fade to make way for a new mapping of their roles and responsibilities.
This is an unknown aspect of the implicit activity of the agile coach, which involves supporting the client to envision, integrate, and accept his own evolution in the changes he wants to apply to his teams.
This coaching activity proves essential for teams to truly and deeply transform their transactions, beyond the mere post-it effect of visual management evolution. It is also fascinating because it involves the evolution and learning of involved individuals.
However, it opens, from my point of view, a series of ethical questions that I would like to discuss with you.
Individual coaching responses: in phase or ahead of phase of agile coaching demands?
The first question concerns the scope of coaching.
Even when someone has experienced a paradigm shift themselves (and is thus open to continuing to be transformed), it is complicated to explain a priori to a manager, who may not have understood or desired it, that he will be personally included in the transformation he has called for; that the transformation will concern him personally. Change, like highways, is always better in the neighbor's garden.
Therefore, the question arises of whether agile coaching is not breaking the very first rule of coaching: not coaching someone 'against their will' and without an explicit request from them. The objectives of the coaching contract must be explicit and shared between the coach and the coachee.
The second question concerns the posture of the agile coach.
Originally positioned as a facilitator-accompanist of teams by participating in the implementation of ceremonies, creating continuous improvement workshops, and developing indicators co-constructed by teams, the agile coach simultaneously supports the questions, challenges, and shifts in management. This is done not only through various postures but also by relying on the progress made by teams. This positions the coach both as a prescriber and as an evaluator to his client, advocating his own cause. Being both judge and party inevitably poses challenges.
Finally, the third question concerns the qualification of the 'agile coach' to practice 'professional coaching.'
The profession of a professional coach has ultimately found internal self-regulation through certifications, and coaching federations agree to 'define' what the term professional coach encompasses. Three major points identify them today: undergoing psychotherapy, receiving certified training, and continuous application of supervision by a coach.
Can we say that we have reached this point in agile coaching? Not really, not yet... but is there a need?
Towards regulation or emergence of the 'profession' of agile coach?
There are, of course, painful stories, missed appointments, errors concerning individuals... But overall, 'agile' transformations produce value by bringing much-needed oxygen to the organizations where they are applied. They are part of the process of reinventing organizations, a crucial need as demonstrated by 'Reinventing Organizations.'
These fundamental approaches permanently change power and identity relations at work within teams (thanks to Renaud Sainsaulieu for the 'Identity at Work') to provide 'real' tools for managers. Not to control team members, but to build and grow trust-based relationships that sustainably produce added value in teams.
It is clear that agile coaching—an intervention sociologically based on team work for continuous improvement—requires the involvement of seasoned yet humble practitioners to help managers move away from their classic control tools. This intervention on teams is coupled with an 'intervention,' which has not yet fully disclosed its name, on managers and leaders.
For these interventions to be conducted safely, the profession lacks, in my opinion, a form of contractual charter understandable by all and transparent, as agile values demand.
Similar to how the professional coaching field has united to provide a guarantee of intervention, the emerging profession of agile coaching would benefit from establishing a framework that is both simple and flexible. This framework should allow each practitioner to deploy their specific posture based on encountered environments and guarantee a minimal activity framework to protect organizations, managers, and agile coaches.
The Agile Manifesto (for Software Development) would, in my opinion, be a starting point, as well as the work already established by major coaching associations.
And what about you? What do you think?
