Today I share my deeply lovely conversation with the amazing Esther Derby, Author, Coach and author of, most recently, 7 Rules for Positive Product Change.

Esther started her career as a programmer, and has worn many hats, including business owner, internal consultant and manager. From all these perspectives, one thing became clear: our level of individual, team and company success was deeply impacted by our work environment and organizational dynamics. As a result, she has spent the last twenty-five years helping companies design their environment, culture, and human dynamics for optimum success.

She's a founder of the AYE Conference, and is serving her second term as a member of the Board of Directors for the Agile Alliance. She also was one of the three original founders of the Scrum Alliance.

Esther has an MA in Organizational Leadership and a certificate in Human System Dynamics.

We discuss Systems thinking in problem solving, Clock time vs Human time, the power of invitation, Ritual vs Ritualistic thinking and how forests are a better metaphor for change than installing a new OS.

Enjoy the conversation!

Show Links

Esther Derby on the web

https://www.estherderby.com/

7 Rules for Positive Productive Change: https://www.amazon.com/Rules-Positive-Productive-Change-Results/dp/1523085797

Back when it was 6 rules!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDyoUdVHwbg

Kairos vs Chronos: Clock time vs living time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairos

Forest Succession as a metaphor for change: https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/ecology/community-structure-and-diversity/a/ecological-succession

"People are easy to see. People are easy to blame. Systems are hard to see and you can't blame systems."

The Laws of Open Space:

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology

Ritual vs Ritualized: The Power of Ritual to create a safe container

Esther on Retrospectives:

https://www.estherderby.com/seven-ways-to-revitalize-your-sprint-retrospectives/

https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Retrospectives-Making-Teams-Great/dp/0977616649

How to facilitate Safety:

"I have people fill-in-the-blank in two different index cards. And the first index card says, "When I don't feel safe, I fill-in-the-blank," and then I collect all those, and I have them do another index card that says, "When I feel safe, I..." They fill-in-the-blank and I collect those, and I shuffle them all up, and then I read all the ones about, "When I don't feel safe, I..." Sometimes I hand them out to people in the room, just at random and they read them.

Then I have people read the ones about, "When I feel safe..."

Then I say, "What do we need to do at this time, in this meeting, so we can live into this?"

The Use of Self in Change: "The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor" – Bill O'Brien, former CEO of Hanover Insurance

Radical Participatory Democracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_democracy

Virginia Satir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Satir