Mindful Agile Leadership – the pillars of success
What is Mindful Agile Leadership?
It’s the perfect balance of 3 essential elements:
- The agile mindset : the heart of agile - our attitude and approach to work that is collaborative, adaptable, open to change, value focused with continuous learning and growth.
- Mindfulness : the quality of awareness - non-judgmental, objective, deliberate observation and openness to whatever unfolds in the present.
- Servant leadership : being of service to others - focused on the growth and development of others, empowering teams to be high performing.
These 3 pillars of mindful agile leadership are equally important. Just like the legs of a stool, they provide a stable base encompassing the beneficial qualities of all 3 elements. This enables leaders to build a truly agile culture and positive team environment, and be a more effective and authentic agile leader. Mindfulness isn't just an optional extra; it is a necessary component without which the whole structure collapses. If you lose touch with what's happening in the moment, your emotions and habitual patterns of mind take over, and your ability to be open and authentic is diminished.
In this session, you will hear why mindfulness is the secret ingredient to develop effective agile leadership. Beyond simple awareness, you will learn how mindfulness help leaders to show up as the very best versions of themselves. Mindfulness helps you improve your focus, think more clearly and make better decisions that lead to more successful outcomes. Mindfulness gives you the ability to stay present and connected despite the stresses and challenges that leadership brings. You will learn techniques to apply mindfulness in everyday activities that enable you to become a more inspirational agile leader.
Outline/Structure of the Talk
This will be a interactive session with participation and practical examples explored throughout. This
has previously been delivered as a full day workshop, as well as a half day workshop. This shorter session format focuses on
introducing and reinforcing practical techniques, assuming the audience have already understands the agile mindset.
Session structure:
• Defining mindfulness and its scientifically proven benefits - explaining a little of the science behind it and presenting some research findings, as well as personal experience
• Mindfulness exercise and de-brief – the participants will be led through a mindfulness practice and asked to share their experiences
• A mindful approach to agile leadership - discussion of agile leadership principles and the meaning of mindful agile leadership
• Mindful Agile Leadership exercise – the participants will be introduced to leadership-focused mindfulness practices to try out in pairs/triads and invited to share their experiences
• Techniques for integrating mindfulness into agile leadership and day-to day work will be summarized
• Questions and answers with wrap up
Learning Outcome
- What mindfulness is and how it helps agile leaders become more effective
- How mindfulness can help increase your focus, enable clearer thinking and better decision making to
benefit you and your teams - How to practice mindfulness and practical ways to introduce and use it within your teams and wider
organisation - The Elements of Mindful Success - how mindfulness enables greater awareness and better leadership
Target Audience
Anyone interested in the agile leadership, Scrum Masters and agile coaches
Prerequisites for Attendees
None
Links
Previous conference sessions:
Business Analysis Conference Europe (IIBA - upcoming in London UK, September 2019) : The Mindful BA (workshop)
Agile2019 (Agile Alliance - upcoming in Washington D.C. USA, August 2019) : Mindful Agile Leadership (workshop)
BA & Beyond Conference (IIBA Belgium Chapter Brussels, March 2019) : Mindful Product Ownership (workshop), and Applying Mindfulness to Collaborate and Innovate (presentation).
SDI19 (Service Desk Institute conference London, March 2019): Mindfulness at Work (presentation)
Agile India (Bangalore India, March 2019): Mindful Agile - The Heart of the Agile Mindset (presentation)
1stConf (Melbourne Australia Feb 2019): Mindful Agile - the Heart of the Agile Mindset (workshop)
Agile Business Consortium Member Day (Sydney Australia, November 2018): Mindful Agile Leadership - The Elements of Success (presentation)
Commonwealth Bank Australia Agility Day (Sydney Australia, November 2018): Mindful Agile - How Mindfulness Enables the Agile Mindset (presentation)
IIBA's Building Business Capability (San Antonio TX USA, November 2018): Mindful Agile - How Mindfulness Enables the Agile Mindset (workshop)
Agile Business Consortium's Agile Business Conference (London UK, September 2018, October 2017 and October 2016) : Mindful Agile and Mindful Agile Leadership (round-table discussions and half-day workshops)
Shine18 (Service Desk Institute's virtual online conference) : The Agile Mindset
Agilia (Olomouc Czech Republic, March 2017; and Budapest Hungary, October 2017) : Mindful Agile; and Mindful Product Ownership (presentations)
PM Summit/BA World (Boston USA, October 2016): Mindfulness - the most important tool for effective collaboration
Webinars:
The Mindful BA - Building Resilience through Mindfulness : https://www.blackmetric.com/2019/04/12/webinar-the-mindful-ba-building-resilience-through-mindfulness-with-kathy-berkidge/
Mindful Agile Leadership - How Mindfulness enables Success : https://www.agilebusiness.org/resources/webinars/agile-leadership-how-mindfulness-enables-success-with-kathy-berkidge
Articles:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6553873685357359104/
https://mindatworkconsulting.com.au/articles/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/individuals-interactions-mindful-agile-teams-kathy-berkidge/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mindful-agile-kathy-berkidge/
https://mindatworkconsulting.com.au/mindful-agile/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathy-berkidge-956b0216/detail/recent-activity/shares/ - many posts and quick reads
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathy-berkidge-956b0216/detail/recent-activity/posts/
schedule Submitted 10 months ago
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Public Feedback
Hi Kathy,
Thanks for your submission on mindfulness.
At the last Agile India conference, you delivered a session on "Mindful agile – The heart of the agile mindset". When I look at the outline of both these sessions, I see a good overlap between them.
I believe the focus of this proposal is more on: "How to practice mindfulness and practical ways to introduce and use it within your teams and wider organisation". Is that correct?
When I go through the provided slides, I see a couple of slides which highlights opportunities for practising mindfulness. But I don't see anything specific on how to practically get started. Looks like I'm missing something. Can you please clarify?
Hi Naresh,
Thank you for reviewing my submission and providing feedback.
The focus of the session is on leadership and how to be a mindful, agile leader. It is about what makes a good agile leader (i.e. Scrum Master / Coach / PM) and applying mindfulness to enhance those skills and be a more inspiring and authentic leader. There is little about introducing mindfulness in teams/organisations, but using mindfulness individually to be a better leader.
Approximately half of the session is on learning about mindfulness and how to practice it, as well as how to begin and integrate it into your day to day work. The slides I provided were only intended to be used as an example - I try not to use too many slides as I want the participants to be interactive and discuss.
The Mindful Agile session was a broader topic focused on how mindfulness relates to the agile mindset. This leadership session highlights specific mindfulness skills for leaders who must walk the walk of the agile mindset. There is a small overlap in the agile mindset aspect.
Per the outline, it will be a practical session where I'll be getting participants to do mindfulness exercises and discuss. It has been delivered over longer time frame (i.e. half day and full day), so it is cut down to the bare ones.
I do hope this helps.
Please let me know if you have any further queries.
Kind regards,
Kathy
Hi Kathy,
Thank you for your submission, I think mindfulness is an important topic in an Agile Mindset track.
Can you give an approximative timing of the different parts of your session?
Kind regards,
Oana
Hi Oana,
Thank you for reviewing the proposal. Here is the session outline with the approximate timings per your query:
• Defining mindfulness and its scientifically proven benefits - explaining a little of the science behind it and presenting some research findings, as well as personal experience - 5 minutes
• Mindfulness exercise and de-brief – the participants will be led through a mindfulness practice and asked to share their experiences - 10 minutes
• A mindful approach to agile leadership - discussion of agile leadership principles and the meaning of mindful agile leadership - 5 minutes
• Mindful Agile Leadership exercise – the participants will be introduced to leadership-focused mindfulness practices to try out in pairs/triads and invited to share their experiences - 15
• Techniques for integrating mindfulness into agile leadership and day-to day work will be summarized - 5 minutes
• Questions and answers with wrap up - 5 minutes
Please let me know if you have any comments or questions.
Also please note, this session works best as either a half day or full day workshop. Please consider whether it could be included on the workshop day, or perhaps as 2 sessions, as a part 1 and part 2. If it can be a longer workshop, then the timing includes longer practical excerices (approximately 20-30 minutes each), with an additional group activity (20 minutes) and additional agile leadership principles (approximately 20 minutes). TIming can be adjusted to fit in best with your schedule.
Many thanks and best regards,
Kathy