The Wind and the Sail

"We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails!" - Dolly Parton

(This article is part of an on-going series dedicated to developing Agile mastery. Each post offers value to students on this journey, however, there is an advantage to those who start at the beginning.)

An early lesson in traditional Aikido training is that "finding your center" is a dynamic process. Your center exists in motion. Once found, success depends on your ability to move with it. On occasion, it will rest when and where you rest - usually during meditation or some similar mindfulness practice. When your mind drifts or you're distracted, your center has shifted. The more sustained the distraction, the further the drift from your center.

We wouldn't get very far in life if the only time we could act from our center is while consciously engaged in some mind-centering practice. Meditation won't cover the rent (let along create world peace) no matter how centered you feel or earnestly you sit. Life demands our action, focus, and attention across a wide spectrum of experiences that usually serve the immediate needs of others - parenting and meeting work deadlines, for example. We are social critters and it's important to attend to the needs of those we care for. If you easily lose your center while doing this or have to work constantly to find it, then you likely haven't developed the necessary skills that allow you to effortlessly stay on center. Studying mindfulness and practicing meditation are valuable endeavors. But if they aren't strengthening an intuitive sense of being on center and making small adjustment when small drifts occur, then perhaps it's time to find a different teacher or practice.

I remember one of Joshu Sasaki Roshi's teishos in which he lamented how some of his senior students had a particularly strong meditation practice in the zendo, but had trouble navigating the distractions in the city when sent on errands. Mindfulness on zafu, mindfulness on busy street corner...no difference! This is why during sesshin (an intensive Zen meditation retreat) sitting meditation is broken up with walking (kinhin) and working (soji) meditation practices. It was during numerous sesshin that I fully integrated the intellectual understanding of internal and external locus of control with an intuitive feel for flexibility using either point of reference.

Intellectually speaking...

"Locus of control refers to the degree to which an individual feels a sense of agency in regard to his or her life. Someone with an internal locus of control will believe that the things that happen to them are greatly influenced by their own abilities, actions, or mistakes. A person with an external locus of control will tend to feel that other forces—such as random chance, environmental factors, or the actions of others—are more responsible for the events that occur in the individual's life."

So says Psychology Today. Sounds easy, until it isn't. The same reference says "Most people have either an internal or external locus of control." Reading further into the research, it appears this isn't the innate either/or proposition suggested by Psychology Today. Our dominant locus of control can change with the situation and experience. We can also learn to control where our locus of control is from moment to moment, situation to situation. Mindfulness and meditation practices have shown this. The Stoics, too, were aware of the distinction between external and internal perspectives and advocated learning how to distinguish between the two.

What do we admire? Externals. What do we spend our energies on? Externals. Is it any wonder, then, that we are in fear and distress? - Epictetus, Discourses 2.16.11

If you gape after externals, you will inevitably be forced up and down according to the will of your master. And who is your master? Whoever has power over the things you are trying to gain or avoid. - Epictetus, Discourses 2.2.25

"When you are distressed by an external thing, it's not the thing itself that troubles you, but only your judgment of it. And you can wipe this out at a moment's notice." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.47

Both positions of agency have their value and their limits. The meta-skill is having the ability to move between perspectives with ease and at will. This skill allows for not only a more refined sense of empathy, but leveraging the optimal type of empathy called for by the situation. People who have to physically work together with others - dancers, musicians, martial artists, etc. - intuitively understand this. When a successful outcome depends on real-time coordinated or synchronized action with others, the ability to sense what's happening in the world around you and understand what actions to take in response is essential.

Keep reminding yourself of the way things are connected, of their relatedness. All things are implicated in one another and in sympathy with each other. This event is the consequence of some other one. Things push and pull on each other, and breathe together, and are one. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.38

Almost as a rule, technical types lack the skills for this (geeks and geekettes: I know, I've been there) and it complicates the challenges of organizing teams on technical projects. I've spent far more time sussing out the various personality quirks and weaknesses of technical talent and working out ways to fit them together than I've spent running the mechanics of any Agile methodology. Once formed, such teams are more than a bit brittle when disruptions impact the balance. It takes continuous monitoring to notice when any one team member's sense of agency is being upset by the unaware actions of someone else on the team or management. In my view, this is the end game for Scrum Masters. As the team becomes more comfortable with whatever Agile methodology is being implemented, the Scrum Master's presence becomes more background in terms of Agile practices and more focused on developing and maintaining a balance between internal and external locus of control within the team.

Beyond Internal/External Locus of Control

Developing flexibility with internal and external locus of control is challenge enough. Of course, this skill doesn't exist in isolation. It combines with all the other elements I've covered in this series and a lot that I have yet to cover. I found that two of the more useful pairings for internal/external locus of control are growth/fixed mindset and intrinsic/extrinsic motivation. Each of these pairings act as a lens that can reveal important insight into the quality of team dynamics.

Growth/Fixed Mindset

The most beneficial paring I've leveraged is combining an internal/external locus of control with a growth/fixed mindset. Consider the following 2X2 matrix: