Understandably, some developers who come from a command and control environment are uncomfortable in a self-organizing team that empowers developers. In a recent post to the Scrum development newsgroup about coaching a developer away from being spoon-fed, an interesting discussion ensued about what it meant to be an empowered developer on a team.
empower - verb, to invest (someone) with the power and authority to do something.
Martine Devos questioned whether Scrum Masters sometimes just try too hard. Certainly pushing empowerment can generate resistance in the people we are trying to empower. It needs to happen naturally. But coaching can help. As Dave Bly said, if you have teenage children, you know that they don’t always listen to you or heed your advice, no matter how much you talk or shout. Sometimes it’s just better to let them ‘stub their toes’ a few times and learn for themselves. The trick is to find ways to help them learn from their failures in small and non-destructive ways.
Power can be ascribed by position. This type of power is given to you by being part of a self-organizing team. Is this power important? Yes it is. But Martine identifies an inner power that everyone has, regardless of position, and this is important too. She says nobody gives you inner power because someone tells you that you’re empowered. You get your inner power when you face your fears and act anyway. Personal power is fueled by your ability to perform and your insistence to communicate freely, even in a command and control environment. Having positional power isn’t worth much if you can’t bring your personal power to bear. In an empowered, self-organizing team you first need to recognize and embrace your inner power, using it to good effect, before you can use your positional power and operate and behave as an empowered member of the team.
Perhaps, as Scrum Masters, we should be more prepared to take a step back and give the team the space and time to unfold and learn to work as a team, while each team member finds their personal power and becomes empowered. The problem is, in the real world, in a commercial environment, you can’t wait forever.
