Tag Archive

psychology

Fairness

We have a biological need for fairness. If we perceive a situation that is unfair, even if that unfairness doesn’t directly affect us, the anterior insula is activated1. The insula is a key part of our brain, relating to empathy2.

  1. Psychological Safety: The key to happy, high-performing people and teams by Radecki and Hull, 2018 ↩

  2. Uddin LQ, Nomi JS, Hébert-Seropian B, Ghaziri J, Boucher O. Structure and Function of the Human Insula. J Clin Neurophysiol. 2017 Jul;34(4):300-306. doi: 10.1097/WNP.0000000000000377. PMID: 28644199; PMCID: PMC6032992. ↩

Perverse Incentives: Coffee Badging

I learned a new term today: “Coffee Badging”. This is when a company has mandated that people be in the office, so they travel in to the office, swipe their badges, grab a coffee and perhaps talk to someone, and then head home again, where they remain for the rest of their working day.

Playful learning with LEGO

Last week at Agile Open Canada, I brought out the LEGO again, to illustrate technical practices. While there is so much we can do effectively remotely, there are some things that really do benefit from being together in the same room, and this is one of them.

Dopamine and Learning

In order for us to learn something new, we need to store it in long term memory. If we’re unable to save it there, then we’ll immediately lose that learning the moment we focus our working memory on something new. Working memory is quite limited1 so we need to save those memories quickly if we’re going to.

  1. The research indicates that the typical person can hold 7±2 chunks of information in their working memory at once. There are reports of people who can store as many as 80 chunks of information but these people are extreme outliers. ↩

Inattentional blindness

Inattentional blindness is when we are so focused on some things that we completely miss other things that should be completely obvious. This can be used to hilarious effect, as you’ll see below, and at the same time is something we need to take into account in business.

Cognitive load

Cognitive load is an indication of how hard the brain works to perform specific actions. Although often used as just a conceptual model, cognitive load can be measured by watching cerebral blood flow while performing different tasks, and many formal studies of programming tasks do exactly this.

Polyvagal Theory: Understanding safety

Polyvagal Theory is the work of Dr Stephen Porges and describes what we know today about how our nervous system, and entire body, responds to how safe or threatening the world feels to us. This has significant implications for the behaviours we see in ourselves and in others. It’s important to note that we react based on our perception of how safe the world is, and not how safe it actually is.

Attribute substitution

Attribute substitution is a situation where, when we are faced with a computationally difficult decision, we will often substitute a more easily calculated decision in it’s place and answer that instead, without even realizing that we did this.

How We Think: Systems 1 and 2

In his seminal book Thinking Fast and Slow1, Nobel prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman talks about two very different kinds of thinking that we do. He refers to them as System 1 (fast, but often wrong) and System 2 (slower, more accurate).

  1. Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman ↩

Perils of Why

In a coaching context, asking “why” questions can be problematic. They can often give results that we did not intend and should be used carefully and sparingly.

Logical Levels

Robert Dilts’ Logical Levels Model (also called Neurological Levels), is a framework to analyze and understand human experiences, behaviours, and change. It provides a structured way of examining different levels of human experience and helps individuals identify and work with those levels to create effective change. It’s based on earlier work from anthropologist Gregory Bateson.

Motivation & Self-Determination Theory

We tend to over-simplify motivation into just two buckets: intrinsic and extrinsic. According to Self-Determination Theory (SDT)1, there are in fact six kinds of motivation2 and it’s worth considering the full range.

  1. Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness by Ryan & Deci, 2018 ↩

  2. SDT is a much larger model that encompasses more than just motivation. This chart is one part of the Organismic Integration Theory, that is is turn just one of six mini-theories contained within SDT. ↩

Pre-requisites for Continuous Improvement

Continuous improvement is a process of constantly seeking out ways to improve and optimize performance, processes, and overall organizational success. An agile environment hinges on this notion of continuous improvement. We don’t expect to be perfect today but we do expect to be improving over time.

Power of words

The words we use are far more important than most people realize. They have the ability to make deep changes in unconscious behaviour in ourselves and the people around us.

Neuroscience of psychological safety

I find that many of the conversations we have about psychological safety tend to devolve into platitudes: “It’s good and we should have more of it” or “managers should create safer spaces”. This doesn’t give anyone any context into why it’s actually important or how we can go about improving it.

Book recommendations for Agile Coaches

I talk a lot about neuroscience, psychology, hypnosis, body language, and other topics as they relate to Agile methods and I’m frequently asked: “What books do you recommend as an introduction?” There is no single best book to start with so I’m giving you a bunch of categories to pick from.

The millennial whoop and our brain as a prediction engine

Our brains are highly advanced prediction engines1. They are constantly trying to predict what will happen next so that we can be prepared for what’s coming. When our brain makes a successful prediction then we get rewarded with a tiny shot of dopamine that makes us feel good.

  1. Professor Lisa Feldman Barrett explains how our brains evolved as a prediction engine in her excellent book Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain ↩

Google’s Project Aristotle

You may have already heard of Google’s Project Aristotle. Back in 2012, Google set out to identify what made their most effective teams so much better than others. They wanted to reproduce that magic that some teams had across the company and so they interviewed 180 teams and collected all kinds of data.

Code coverage is a perverse incentive

While code coverage can be a useful measurement for teams to improve their own results, the moment it’s tracked by people external to the team, particularly management, it becomes a perverse incentive.

Retrospective Magic

Are your retros running a bit flat? Need something to spice them up and make them more effective and also more interesting for your team? Join us as we walk through a collection of techniques from psychology and applied neuroscience to give your retros that edge you need.

Six Thinking Hats

Six Thinking Hats is a technique to improve creativity by focusing our attention on only one perspective at a time. Useful wherever we need creativity - from retrospectives to product planning to strategic visioning.

Exploring the Anti-Anxiety Toolkit

Stress and anxiety are widespread in our industry and you may have already noticed that it’s really hard to coach someone who is highly stressed or anxious. It’s also really hard for you to personally perform at your best when you’re in that state.

Brain Talk

Words direct attention. Some words will encourage superficial conversations while others will allow you to quickly get into deeper, more meaningful ones. Learn some of the language patterns used by hypnotists and other effective communicators.

Apex Problem

In hypnosis, the “Apex Problem” refers to a situation where the client is cured so effectively that they don’t remember ever having had that problem.

Teddy Bear Effect

As the story goes, the computer science lab at Reed College has a rule that before you can ask for help with the programming problem you’re working on, you have to first explain that problem out loud to the teddy bear in the corner.

Leveraging the Doorway Effect

Have you ever walked into the kitchen, only to realize that you’ve now forgotten why you walked into the kitchen?

Clean Language

Our brains process an incredible amount of information through the use of metaphor (comparing one thing against another). When you listen carefully to the words we use, you will begin to notice how often metaphor is used in conversation.

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neuroscience

Stages of competence

The conscious competence model describes four, or possibly five, different stages that we move through as we are learning a new skill.

Default Mode Network

For us to have those powerful insights or “aha” moments, we need to have a moment of brain pause. From a neuroscience perspective, that means that the Default Mode Network needs to be active.

Five chemicals (neurotransmitters) that drive behaviour

While science has identified hundreds of different neurotransmitters in our brains, there are five that are most commonly identified with behaviour. Each of these are part of our survival mechanism and will encourage or discourage specific behaviours with the goal of keeping us safe.

Neuroscience of psychological safety

I find that many of the conversations we have about psychological safety tend to devolve into platitudes: “It’s good and we should have more of it” or “managers should create safer spaces”. This doesn’t give anyone any context into why it’s actually important or how we can go about improving it.

Book recommendations for Agile Coaches

I talk a lot about neuroscience, psychology, hypnosis, body language, and other topics as they relate to Agile methods and I’m frequently asked: “What books do you recommend as an introduction?” There is no single best book to start with so I’m giving you a bunch of categories to pick from.

The millennial whoop and our brain as a prediction engine

Our brains are highly advanced prediction engines1. They are constantly trying to predict what will happen next so that we can be prepared for what’s coming. When our brain makes a successful prediction then we get rewarded with a tiny shot of dopamine that makes us feel good.

  1. Professor Lisa Feldman Barrett explains how our brains evolved as a prediction engine in her excellent book Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain ↩

Retrospective Magic

Are your retros running a bit flat? Need something to spice them up and make them more effective and also more interesting for your team? Join us as we walk through a collection of techniques from psychology and applied neuroscience to give your retros that edge you need.

Exploring the Anti-Anxiety Toolkit

Stress and anxiety are widespread in our industry and you may have already noticed that it’s really hard to coach someone who is highly stressed or anxious. It’s also really hard for you to personally perform at your best when you’re in that state.

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psychological_safety

“This is a safe space”

I’m seeing more and more situations where someone will say “this is a safe space” in a meeting invite or at the beginning of a session. While I appreciate that the person saying the words really wants that to be true, the fact they feel the need to say it, highlights the fact that it probably isn’t. If it really were safe, we would already know that.

Neuroscience of psychological safety

I find that many of the conversations we have about psychological safety tend to devolve into platitudes: “It’s good and we should have more of it” or “managers should create safer spaces”. This doesn’t give anyone any context into why it’s actually important or how we can go about improving it.

Google’s Project Aristotle

You may have already heard of Google’s Project Aristotle. Back in 2012, Google set out to identify what made their most effective teams so much better than others. They wanted to reproduce that magic that some teams had across the company and so they interviewed 180 teams and collected all kinds of data.

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CognitiveBias

Survivor Bias

“Survivor bias is the logical error of concentrating on entities that passed a selection process while overlooking those that did not. This can lead to incorrect conclusions because of incomplete data.”
— Wikipedia”

Cognitive Bias

It would be easy to think that all cognitive bias is a bad thing. When we hear people talking about it, it’s often in the context of the collection of biases that make up racism or sexism or other generally negative things. Yet, the truth is that cognitive bias is the way that our brain manages energy use and is overwhelmingly a positive thing for us.

Fixation errors

Back in the 1990’s, it wasn’t uncommon for people to check code into the repository that didn’t work. Sometimes it wouldn’t even compile.

Inattentional blindness

Inattentional blindness is when we are so focused on some things that we completely miss other things that should be completely obvious. This can be used to hilarious effect, as you’ll see below, and at the same time is something we need to take into account in business.

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workshop

Retrospective Magic

Are your retros running a bit flat? Need something to spice them up and make them more effective and also more interesting for your team? Join us as we walk through a collection of techniques from psychology and applied neuroscience to give your retros that edge you need.

Exploring the Anti-Anxiety Toolkit

Stress and anxiety are widespread in our industry and you may have already noticed that it’s really hard to coach someone who is highly stressed or anxious. It’s also really hard for you to personally perform at your best when you’re in that state.

Brain Talk

Words direct attention. Some words will encourage superficial conversations while others will allow you to quickly get into deeper, more meaningful ones. Learn some of the language patterns used by hypnotists and other effective communicators.

Clean Language

Our brains process an incredible amount of information through the use of metaphor (comparing one thing against another). When you listen carefully to the words we use, you will begin to notice how often metaphor is used in conversation.

Back to Top ↑

motivation

Not motivated to do anything

I occassionally hear from managers that their people just aren’t motivated to do anything. This is rarely the complete story as these people are clearly motivated to do many things, just perhaps not those things that the manager wants them to do.

Motivation & Self-Determination Theory

We tend to over-simplify motivation into just two buckets: intrinsic and extrinsic. According to Self-Determination Theory (SDT)1, there are in fact six kinds of motivation2 and it’s worth considering the full range.

  1. Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness by Ryan & Deci, 2018 ↩

  2. SDT is a much larger model that encompasses more than just motivation. This chart is one part of the Organismic Integration Theory, that is is turn just one of six mini-theories contained within SDT. ↩

Pre-requisites for Continuous Improvement

Continuous improvement is a process of constantly seeking out ways to improve and optimize performance, processes, and overall organizational success. An agile environment hinges on this notion of continuous improvement. We don’t expect to be perfect today but we do expect to be improving over time.

Back to Top ↑

retrospective

Six Thinking Hats Retrospective

Six Thinking Hats is an approach for creativity that was created by Edward DeBono. I use it as the basis for an agile retrospective, and find this approach to be particularly effective when the topic we’re discussing is expected to be controversial or heated.

Retrospective Magic

Are your retros running a bit flat? Need something to spice them up and make them more effective and also more interesting for your team? Join us as we walk through a collection of techniques from psychology and applied neuroscience to give your retros that edge you need.

Putting the Moose on the Table: A LEGO based retrospective

In order for teams to step into high performance. it’s critical that they develop the practice of having effective conversations about what is and isn’t working. Yet in practice, the retrospective meeting is often the least-valued of the agile events: team members feel that their retros are boring, repetitive, and superficial.

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coaching

Coaching to Logical Levels

In a previous article we discussed what the logical levels are. In this article, we’re going to show how we can assist someone at each level. If you haven’t read that article first then we suggest you do that now.

Clean Language

Our brains process an incredible amount of information through the use of metaphor (comparing one thing against another). When you listen carefully to the words we use, you will begin to notice how often metaphor is used in conversation.

Back to Top ↑

decisions

Attribute substitution

Attribute substitution is a situation where, when we are faced with a computationally difficult decision, we will often substitute a more easily calculated decision in it’s place and answer that instead, without even realizing that we did this.

Book recommendations for Agile Coaches

I talk a lot about neuroscience, psychology, hypnosis, body language, and other topics as they relate to Agile methods and I’m frequently asked: “What books do you recommend as an introduction?” There is no single best book to start with so I’m giving you a bunch of categories to pick from.

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hypnosis

World Hypnosis Day

Today, January 4, is World Hypnosis Day. If you’re like most people, all you know about hypnosis is what you’ve seen on TV or in movies, and while entertaining, that’s mostly wrong. You may have even seen a live hypnosis show, and while there will certainly be real hypnosis being done, most of what you’re going to notice is showmanship and entertainment.

Clean Language

Our brains process an incredible amount of information through the use of metaphor (comparing one thing against another). When you listen carefully to the words we use, you will begin to notice how often metaphor is used in conversation.

Back to Top ↑

lego_serious_play

Team working agreements with LEGO

Team working agreements (sometimes called team norms) are all about how we are going to work together as a group of people. To do this effectively, we need fairly deep and honest conversations, and yet we see many working agreement sessions stay fairly superficial. The approach in this article uses LEGO® Serious Play® for the core discussions to get those more meaningful conversations.

Putting the Moose on the Table: A LEGO based retrospective

In order for teams to step into high performance. it’s critical that they develop the practice of having effective conversations about what is and isn’t working. Yet in practice, the retrospective meeting is often the least-valued of the agile events: team members feel that their retros are boring, repetitive, and superficial.

Back to Top ↑

logical_levels

Coaching to Logical Levels

In a previous article we discussed what the logical levels are. In this article, we’re going to show how we can assist someone at each level. If you haven’t read that article first then we suggest you do that now.

Logical Levels

Robert Dilts’ Logical Levels Model (also called Neurological Levels), is a framework to analyze and understand human experiences, behaviours, and change. It provides a structured way of examining different levels of human experience and helps individuals identify and work with those levels to create effective change. It’s based on earlier work from anthropologist Gregory Bateson.

Back to Top ↑

self_determination_theory

Not motivated to do anything

I occassionally hear from managers that their people just aren’t motivated to do anything. This is rarely the complete story as these people are clearly motivated to do many things, just perhaps not those things that the manager wants them to do.

Motivation & Self-Determination Theory

We tend to over-simplify motivation into just two buckets: intrinsic and extrinsic. According to Self-Determination Theory (SDT)1, there are in fact six kinds of motivation2 and it’s worth considering the full range.

  1. Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness by Ryan & Deci, 2018 ↩

  2. SDT is a much larger model that encompasses more than just motivation. This chart is one part of the Organismic Integration Theory, that is is turn just one of six mini-theories contained within SDT. ↩

Back to Top ↑

system1_system2

Attribute substitution

Attribute substitution is a situation where, when we are faced with a computationally difficult decision, we will often substitute a more easily calculated decision in it’s place and answer that instead, without even realizing that we did this.

How We Think: Systems 1 and 2

In his seminal book Thinking Fast and Slow1, Nobel prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman talks about two very different kinds of thinking that we do. He refers to them as System 1 (fast, but often wrong) and System 2 (slower, more accurate).

  1. Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman ↩

Back to Top ↑

anxiety

Exploring the Anti-Anxiety Toolkit

Stress and anxiety are widespread in our industry and you may have already noticed that it’s really hard to coach someone who is highly stressed or anxious. It’s also really hard for you to personally perform at your best when you’re in that state.

Back to Top ↑

autonomy

Pre-requisites for Continuous Improvement

Continuous improvement is a process of constantly seeking out ways to improve and optimize performance, processes, and overall organizational success. An agile environment hinges on this notion of continuous improvement. We don’t expect to be perfect today but we do expect to be improving over time.

Back to Top ↑

creativity

Six Thinking Hats

Six Thinking Hats is a technique to improve creativity by focusing our attention on only one perspective at a time. Useful wherever we need creativity - from retrospectives to product planning to strategic visioning.

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culture

Hero Culture

Hero culture is when we rely on individual heroics on a regular basis. Someone pulling an all-nighter to get one thing done, one time, may be ok. Relying on that on an ongoing basis is unsustainable and will destroy whatever teamwork and culture you used to have.

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ensemble

Mob mentality podcast

I was interviewed on the latest Mob Mentality Show, a podcast devoted to mob programming, also known as ensemble work or software teaming.

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meta_model

NLP Meta Model

Each of us has an inner map of the world with rich connections between all the pieces. When we attempt to communicate with others, we’re limited by the words we use, which can’t possibly capture the richness of our internal map. As a result, we lose significant information as we try to communicate.

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neurotransmitters

The millennial whoop and our brain as a prediction engine

Our brains are highly advanced prediction engines1. They are constantly trying to predict what will happen next so that we can be prepared for what’s coming. When our brain makes a successful prediction then we get rewarded with a tiny shot of dopamine that makes us feel good.

  1. Professor Lisa Feldman Barrett explains how our brains evolved as a prediction engine in her excellent book Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain ↩

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nlp

NLP Meta Model

Each of us has an inner map of the world with rich connections between all the pieces. When we attempt to communicate with others, we’re limited by the words we use, which can’t possibly capture the richness of our internal map. As a result, we lose significant information as we try to communicate.

Back to Top ↑

polyvagal_theory

Polyvagal Theory: Understanding safety

Polyvagal Theory is the work of Dr Stephen Porges and describes what we know today about how our nervous system, and entire body, responds to how safe or threatening the world feels to us. This has significant implications for the behaviours we see in ourselves and in others. It’s important to note that we react based on our perception of how safe the world is, and not how safe it actually is.

Back to Top ↑