Collaboration vs Clobber-ation - Redux
A reader took me to task for "not being a team player" in my example of walking away from an opportunity to co-develop a training program with a difficult Agile coach. It was easy to set this criticism aside as the person offering it was in no position to be familiar with the context or full story. Nonetheless, the comment gave me pause to consider more deeply the rationale behind my decision. What experiential factors did I leverage when coming to this seemingly abrupt decision?
I can think of five context characteristics to consider when attempting to collaborate in an environment charged with conflict.
Is the disagreement over the details of the work to be done? My peer and I didn't have agreement on whether or not it was important or useful to include information on basic story sizing as part of the story splitting presentation. I wanted to include this information, my peer did not.
Is there a disagreement over how the work is to be done? I wanted to preface the story splitting section with a story sizing section whereas my peer was intent on eviscerating the story sizing section to such an extent as to make it meaningless.
Is there any type of struggle around status or who "should" be in charge? My peer demonstrated unambiguous behavior that she was "The Coach" for the company and that anything that may be presented to employees should be an expression of her authorship. When she instructed me to send my deck of slides to her for "revision" and I refused, she visibly bristled. By this point, I wasn't about to release my copyrighted material into her possession.
Are there corporate politics that promote - intentionally or unintentionally - silos and turf protection? My client's organization could be be held forth as a textbook example of Conway's Law. The product reflected an uncounted number of incomplete efforts and failed attempts at unifying the underlying architecture. The Agile Coach's behavior was just one more example of someone in the organization working to put their stamp of value on the ever-growing edifice of corporate blobness.
Is there a conflict of personalities or communication styles? Again, this was true in this case. I wanted to co-create whereas my peer wanted to commandeer and direct. I wanted to present, she wanted to interrupt.
No work environment is free of these characteristics and it may be they are all present in some degree or another. I expect these characteristics to be in place no matter where I work. However, in this case, it was clear to me we were not in alignment with any of these characteristics and each of them were present at very high levels. Sorting this out wasn't worth my time at just about any price. Certainly not at the price I was being paid. Walking away wasn't going to burn any bridges as no bridges had been built.