Discover how recognizing and accommodating different collaboration styles can transform your Agile team dynamics. Join Brian Milner and Jessica Guistolise as they delve into the key to effective and inclusive collaboration.

Overview

In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian interviews Jessica Guistolise about the diverse collaboration styles that impact team dynamics. They explore the importance of recognizing and accommodating different collaboration styles—relational, expressive, and introspective—to create effective and inclusive collaborative environments.

Jessica provides practical tips for Scrum Masters and facilitators to cater to these styles during meetings and retrospectives. The discussion emphasizes the value of diversity in collaboration styles, which brings different perspectives and ideas to the table, fostering creativity and innovation.

References and resources mentioned in the show:

Jessica Guistolise

Lucid

The Collaboration Style Quiz & Report

The Global Scrum Gathering

Advanced Certified ScrumMaster®

Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification

Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner®

Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training

Join the Agile Mentors Community

Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule

Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast

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This episode’s presenters are:

Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work.

Jessica Guistolise is an Agile Evangelist and coach at Lucid who excels in helping organizations deliver continuous value to their customers. With a passion for people over process, she specializes in change adoption, gaining critical buy-in, and establishing trust in Agile methodologies across various industries.

Auto-generated Transcript:

Brian (00:00 )

Welcome in Agile Mentors. We are back for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have a special guest with us. have Jessica Gastolis with us. Did I say that correctly?

Jessica Guistolise (00:14 )

You did. Thank you so much. It's a mouthful. I am so happy to be here. Thank you so much for inviting

Brian (00:21 )

Absolutely, incredibly excited to have you here. For those who aren't familiar with Jessica, she is an evangelist at Lucid. So I'm sure we'll hear a little bit about that as we talk. She is an agile coach and she has the credentials to back that up. She has from the Coaches Training Institute, a professional coach certification and also she's an ORSC coach, if you are familiar with that. I'm familiar with that. I know there's a lot that goes into getting those. So it's not just, you know, filling out a, sending in some box stops and, you know, getting it back in the mail. and, so the reason I wanted to have Jessica on is because she was speaking at, or she did speak at the scrum gathering that just took place, back in May. And, she had a couple of talks actually that she did with, Brian Stallings there. but one of them really caught my And I thought it would be interesting here to the audience. And that's about collaboration styles. So let's dive into that topic. When we talk about collaboration styles, Jessica, don't we all collaborate the same?

Jessica Guistolise (01:33 )

You know, it's funny, we don't actually. Though, although there is a kind of a misconception that we do because we collaborate in the way that we collaborate, but not everybody collaborates in the same way. And so for us to create really amazing collaborative environments, it's helpful to have an awareness of those different styles. And if we facilitate in such a way that cares to each one of those styles, you're gonna get so much more in the room than you would if you only stick with, well, here's how I collaborate. So obviously this is the way to do it.

Brian (02:09 )

Right. Yeah, I think this is such an important topic because I know one of the questions I'll get a lot in classes or just even in Q &A sessions when we talk about retrospectives is, I'm having a hard time facilitating my retrospective and my team doesn't want to talk or my team's quiet and shy. And to me, this is all kind of indicative of this concept of you're probably not recognizing that they have different collaboration styles than you do.

Jessica Guistolise (02:41 )

Yeah, absolutely. And it's so amazing because I think as Scrum Masters, as Agile Coaches, this is a really important piece to recognize because as the facilitator, you're really building the container. think of these events as like the containers and the folks who are doing the work, they're all the content. But if you build a container that's going to allow for that content to emerge in a healthy way, you just, I mean, Anything's possible.

Brian (03:10 )

Right, right. And you know, one of the things I love to say in classes is just that, you know, that facilitation, that's the root goes back to this phrase, it means to make easy. And you know, that's our job is to make whatever that thing is easy. And if we are, if we're not aware of our own personal preference and style and how we collaborate, then it's harder for us to even be empathetic or recognize that other people have different styles and much less how to accommodate them and be inclusive of them in those environments. So I just think it's a really important

Jessica Guistolise (03:51 )

Well, and the interesting thing too, besides easy, there's also an element of safety. Because if you're asking me to collaborate in a way that makes me really uncomfortable, then I'm spending all of that time in my discomfort and trying to put forth ideas. Those two things are so, they clash. And so there's also an element of just creating an environment of not just easy because this is the way that I collaborate, but I feel safe in collaborating in a that make sense to me. In fact, there's some, there are a couple of styles that are almost opposites. So if you're asking me to collaborate in that way, ooh, I am not sharing anything with you.

Brian (04:31 )

Right, right, you have that amygdala hijack going on. You're kind of, you're in that fight or flight mode of just, my gosh, I'm panicked. I don't want to do this. I feel highly uncomfortable. you know, it's, can, you know, literally it's blocking those neural pathways of actually being able to collaborate and access, you know, the parts of your brain that would allow you to, to contribute in that kind of environment.

Jessica Guistolise (04:59 )

Yeah, it's fascinating actually, right before the study that was done came out, I was in a collaboration with a group of people who were collaborating in a way that was wildly uncomfortable. And I came out of that meeting feeling dumb. Like I really was like, wow, I didn't, I just gave nothing. But then, you know, a little while later I was like, well, but I have this idea and this idea and this, wait a minute. I was just stuck because this isn't a way that's very comfortable for me.

Brian (05:28 )

Yeah. Well, you know, I know you probably know this, but for anyone else listening out there as well, I have definitely felt that way as well in sessions that were kind of contrary to, you know, opposite of what I prefer. And, you know, the way I always describe it is I don't, I'm not a person who thinks out loud. I think internally, I think quietly and then express it later. I need time to process and work through things. But I recognize there are others who are verbal processors who need to speak out loud and and You know if you're in a meeting with a bunch of those Types of people who have that collaboration style and and yours is a quiet one Then you know I've walked out of those rooms before feeling like gosh I'm the dumb one in this meeting because I didn't have anything to contribute

Jessica Guistolise (06:12 )

Yeah, I didn't provide any value in that, but there is, there's so important to recognize that. And I think there's, there's, there are ways to create these containers and to create these collaboration sales that really