Living the Values
Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been 93 years old on January 15th. Imagine what would the world would be like if he were still alive. How would he have felt and what would he have done during the summer of civil unrest after the killing of George Floyd? How might his message be different with a seemingly similar American political landscape reemerging and familiar call to action that he experienced in the 1960s resurfacing?
The last book he published, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, in 1968 — after decades of enormous struggle and persistent advocacy — suggests that he would still be rallying the masses to unify so that we can effectively fight poverty and promote education. While he addresses a multitude of concerns from the time in his book that still resonates today, his take on eliminating poverty and utilizing education as a springboard for success stick with me most, as a someone who grew up in Appalachia and became a teacher to give back the opportunities that were given to me. In this blog post, I want to focus on education in tandem with agile values, although I recommend reading the book in full, as well as giving more consideration to his recommendation of a universal basic income. If you move beyond the most popular quotes, you’ll find that Martin Luther King Jr. embodied progressivism more than most folks realize, especially with regard to labor and the economy. I think bringing curiosity to the complexity of King’s legacy and the nuance of his efforts could serve us well today.
Openness and Adaptability
If you have little time for reading, I suggest reading the last chapter in Where Do We Go From Here, titled “The World House.” It’s this chapter that makes me believe King would still be advocating for unity and dispelling misinformation. It’s also here where King encourages us to inspect and adapt, writing
“..today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this worldwide neighborhood into a worldwide brotherhood. Together we must learn to live as brothers or together we will be forced to perish as fools” (p.181)
In whole, this passage touches on the resolve and openness required of everyone, regardless of whether or not you’re on a scrum team — you’re on a world team! I think King would have gotten along well with Adam Grant, as his book, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know proposes similar ideas around empiricism and adaptability. Whether as individuals striving to improve or as scrum teams managing the balance between changing priorities and rapidly delivering innovative products, openness is required to progress; we have to be willing to adjust to incoming information instead of unflinchingly clinging to old points of view. In that, there is also inherent respect and commitment to one another’s well being and success — our worldwide community. As the ever optimist, I believe living these values benefits everyone alike; rising tide floats all boats.
Speaking of agile and scrum values, if you would like an introduction or refresher…
Here is a two minute video on the five scrum values by the Scrum Alliance.
Here is a PDF on Core Scrum from the Scrum Alliance, which includes the five scrum values, as well as the Agile Manifesto.
💡 Think about your own personal values, as well as that of your school or company. How do they align with agile values?
Human Centered Approach
In his final publication, King explicitly speaks to a “revolution of values” that echoes the “individuals and interactions over processes and tools” component of the Agile Manifesto.
“The stability of the large world house which is ours will involve a revolution of values to accompany the scientific and freedom revolutions engulfing the earth. We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing’—oriented society to a ‘person’—oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. A civilization can flounder as readily in the face of moral and spiritual bankruptcy as it can through financial bankruptcy.” (p.196-197)
In my experience, this value of humans over everything else ranks among the most critical— in education and in business.
In Education
In guiding students through the heavy lift and initial hesitation around open-ended, long term projects, demonstrating that I care and understand not only the challenges they face, but how it uniquely impacts each student or group differently helps me more effectively reach them. Consequently, I am able to increase their likelihood of success— and even when student projects fall apart or straight up fail — it’s my compassion as an educator that creates the space needed to process their grows and glows so that the student can still progress and make meaning of the experience.
In Business
Likewise, the same human centered approach propels tech and product teams to success. I have witnessed firsthand the value of product owners and managers that prioritize the human needs of the team over company demands. For instance, when a manager tells a developer to take it easy this afternoon since the developer was up late last night for a production release or vulnerability issue, that leader sends a resounding message that individual well being is valued above all else. Similarly, when companies allow time for teams to focus on their process and human needs in meetings, like retrospectives, the company essentially states that well-being is valued. When there are initiatives, time, and action-oriented strategies for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging— again — folks realize that the company values it.
On the other hand, an absence of human-centered actions send the message that, to pull from King’s quote above, the company is more "‘thing’—oriented than ‘person’—oriented, which could lead to pervasive inequities and misunderstandings. Of course, this can lead folks to look for other, more inclusive and understanding roles. In the midst of “The Great Resignation” coupled with a highly competitive tech market, where people with tech talent can easily change roles to gain a better work-life balance, I believe this human centered approach reduces attrition. In fact, I think the presence of skilled scrum masters/agile leads, in general, reduces attrition — but that’s another post for another day!
Respect and Courage
Respect is one of those values we so quickly dismiss. I think that’s because we think we already have it/do it. We think, “oh yeah, that’s so elementary. Of course, I have respect for my team members!” Because we gloss over it, I don’t think we have considered what respect really means. Furthermore, we haven’t graduated beyond that elementary, golden rule understanding of it; treat others as you want to be treated. As adults, we know there is complexity and nuance to that statement. As someone who has been trying to be more aware of my biases and blind spots, I know that I will never fully, truly know what life is like in the shoes of anyone who is not a white, able-bodied, middle-class, heterosexual, cisgender, woman. This notion of intersectionality, combined with how my identity interacts with systems and institutions around me in American society give me a splintered perspective, which ultimately impacts how I interact with other people, especially those who do not share the same identities.
In a symposium on intersectionality, Kimberlé Crenshaw said,
“Who you are is only a part of [the discussion]..The challenge around intersectionality is holding those things together — talking about identity versus structures — it’s about the intersection of the two; how can we change those structures so that the experience ist’t one of exclusion or unearned privilege?”
As workplaces grow to be more diverse, learning how intersectionality impacts our understanding of each other will grow to be more important. If we want to work effectively in teams, we have to have respect. To have full respect, we must work to fully know each other, which encompasses our whole selves — the intersections of our identities and systemic structures of power. To graduate to this level of understanding, I think we have to have courage. We must harness the courage to move past identity politics, stereotypical archetypes and tokenism, as well as the dismissive, childish mindset that respect is a thoughtless, simple gesture. Real respect takes reflective, deep work to know ourselves, as well as the complexity of others. With the consensus that we value respect and courage within our teams, I think we can cultivate that understanding in an explicit manner through reflective team activities and courageous conversations that expose our deep culture. Yet again, I have more to offer in the way of specific activities for teams to strengthen real respect, but alas, that will be another blog post for another day, too.
For the fellow humanities teachers out there as well as anyone seeking American progress, page 197 in Where Do We Go From Here is a must read and share:
This revolution of values must go beyond traditional capitalism and Communism.. [whole page of historical references that would fit perfectly in a Modern World History course].. Truth is found neither in traditional capitalism nor in classical Communism. Each represents a partial truth. Capitalism fails to see the truth in collectivism. Communism fails to see the truth in individualism. Capitalism fails to realize that life is social. Communism fails to realize that life is personal. The good and just society is neither the thesis of capitalism nor the antithesis of Communism, but a socially conscious democracy which reconciles the truths of individualism and collectivism.”
How about that for bursting the bubble of political polarization?! Nuances and context matters, folks! Can we add this to the our scrum values— acknowledge complexities?
Moving Forward - Commitment to Progress
One of the hallmarks of any good relationship or team is commitment. It’s one thing to agree to shared values. It’s another to live them. The values are pretty much meaningless if we don’t consistently act on them. How do we know if we’re committed, beyond simply saying that we are?
While reflections in the form of retrospectives and sprint reviews are helpful, metrics help keep us honest. Pulling data from Jira into a Tableau dashboard, my teams currently examine their “committed story percentage” at the end of each sprint. We ask ourselves: Are we delivering what we say we will in a sprint? What’s our committed story percentage? I think these are questions we can ask ourselves, too, even without fancy metrics dashboards. Simply list your primary commitments for the coming weeks. Then follow up with yourself. What’s your committed story percentage?
King wraps up his book with a call to action in that way of commitment. Among several other calls to action, he writes…
“The first step in the worldwide war against poverty is passionate commitment. All the wealthy nations — America, Britain, Russia, Canada, Australia, and those of Western Europe — must see it as a moral obligation to provide capital and technical assistance to underdeveloped areas.” (p. 188)
As we honor King’s legacy in 2022 on his birthday and beyond, and especially for the extraordinarily privileged folks like myself who have the luxury of time off from work to do so on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, let’s take action. Even in reading this blog post, I hope you have learned some new things or were able to refresh your perspective as an agile leader and educator. Here’s to keeping the momentum going!
Volunteer. Learn. Share. Commit. Move forward.
🎶 Celebrate. Sing. Dance. 🤸♀️
Directly Related — “Happy Birthday” Stevie Wonder in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Related to the Sentiment — “Reborn” Kids See Ghosts
