Drawing from Psychotherapy to enrich Agile Coaching
What does agile have to do with psychotherapy? It turns out quite a lot. If you think about it, ultimately agile is about working closely with people and working closely with people requires our understanding of each other. That's where psychotherapy comes in. Psychotherapy is the science and art of working well with each other, of understanding ourselves and the other person at a deeper level. I hold a masters in clinical psychotherapy (MSW) from New York University and have worked with 5000+ clients to provide coaching/advisory. As a startup founder, I also have hands on experience of applying agile methodologies at my startup. I combine all of that knowledge and experience in this interactive session to cover concepts such as empathy, self limiting beliefs and cognitive biases and how it impacts us and our teams.
Join me for a fun session that is designed by drawing from the latest brain science research to help you learn effectively through interactivity and activities.
By the end of the session, you'll have a clear picture of the importance of concepts like empathy, self-limiting beliefs, systems thinking and cognitive biases and their significance in individual and team performance.
And you won't just learn concepts, you'll take back concrete ideas to implement in your teams starting the next day!
Outline/Structure of the Workshop
- Welcome and introduction to the workshop – 2 minutes
- The 3 building blocks to enriching Agile Coaching - 1 minute
- We discuss the first one - Empathy –what it is and what it is not - 4-5 minutes
- Participants share why it is important in our teams - 3-5 minutes
- We discuss Cognitive Biases - what they are - 5 minutes
- We think of ways we can avoid cognitive biases in our teams – 3-5 minutes
- We discuss Psychological Safety - what it is and what it isn't - 5 minutes
- Participants discuss how we can create Psychological Safety in our teams – 3-5 minutes
- We discuss key takeaways for participants - 2 minutes
- Q&A – 5 minutes
- Conclusion – 1 minute
Total Session Time: 45 minutes
References:
1) The Empathy Effect by Dr. Helen Reiss, Professor at MIT
2) The Psychology of Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck
3) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) by Aaron Beck
4) Social Empathy by Elizabeth A. Segal
5) Empathy by Roman Krznaric
6) Fearless Organization by Amy Edmondson
A full references/resources handout will be shared with participants for their further reading.
Learning Outcome
At the end of this workshop as a participant you will be able to:
1) Explain concepts of Empathy, Cognitive Biases and Psychological Safety how it affects us and our teams
2) Understand the tremendous impact these concepts have on team performance
3) Take back solid ideas to improve upon each of these within your teams/organization
4) Engage in experiential learning through hands on activities that cement the concepts learned
Target Audience
Executives, Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters, Team Leads, PMO, Team Members
Prerequisites for Attendees
None! Bring an open mind and we'll go on a fun learning adventure together! Everything you need will be provided in the workshop.
Links
Links to prior talks:
1. Women In Agile @Agile Alliance Agile2019 Washington D.C, USA (audience size 300+)- Talk on Drawing from Psychotherapy to enrich Agile Coaching - http://bit.ly/WomenInAgileTalkWashingtonDC
2. Agile Leadership Summit, Bangalore, India July 2019 (audience size: 40+) - Talk on Agile Coaches as Engagers - https://youtu.be/ppa4FzHmCkU
3. Theme & Framework Agnostic Conference (TAFAC 2019) - (audience size 80+) July 2019 Bangalore, India - Drawing from Co-active Leadership, Psychotherapy and TBR to enrich Agile Coaching - https://youtu.be/qzT3v9uiAlw
4. Webinar host: Interview with Larry Apke (San Francisco) & Molood Ceccarelli (Stockholm): https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AOqsypl4H7XuFs9sO1e3tM6MXu8epnrp
5. RemoteForeverSummit, Nov 2019 - Audience Size 2000+ - Topic: Drawing from Psychotherapy to enrich Agile Coaching https://remoteforeversummit.com
Slides from TAFAC2019: http://bit.ly/TAFAC2019
Public Feedback