When To Stop Helping Agile Teams To Change—A Real Life Story | Tom Molenaar

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches

Tom Molenaar: When To Stop Helping Agile Teams To Change—A Real Life Story

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

"Instead of slowing down and meeting the team in their resistance, I started to try and drag them because I saw the vision of the possible improvement, but they did not see it."

Tom shares a powerful failure story about a team that didn't feel the urgency to improve their way of working. Despite management wanting the team to become more effective, Tom found himself pushing improvements that the team actively resisted. Instead of slowing down to understand their resistance, he tried to drag them forward, leading to exhaustion and ultimately his decision to leave the assignment. This episode explores the critical lesson that it's not our job to save teams that don't want to be saved, and the importance of recognizing when to step back.

Self-reflection Question: When you encounter team resistance to change, how do you distinguish between healthy skepticism that needs addressing and fundamental unwillingness to improve?

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About Tom Molenaar Tom is a team coach with a background in social psychology and behavioral influence. He is passionate about fostering collaboration, and helping teams flourish and achieve their potential. His approach blends insight, empathy, and strategy to cultivate lasting team success.

You can link with Tom Molenaar on LinkedIn.